| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
We're funded by these television companies and more, including Buckeye Broadband. | |
| Buckeye Broadband supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| Today, President Trump joins the 72nd annual National Veterans Day Observance, delivering remarks and laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. | ||
| Watch live at 11 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org. | ||
| Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, we'll discuss issues affecting veterans on this Veterans Day, including the management of the Defense Department under the Trump administration. | ||
| First with Independent Veterans of America's Paul Rykoff, then with Concerned Veterans of America's John Vick, and historian Anne John Monski, creator and writer of the series American History Unbound, on how the nation has commemorated Veterans Day over time. | ||
| Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| This is the Washington Journal for November 11th. | ||
| It's Veterans Day. | ||
| And later in the program, we'll talk about the day and the issues facing veterans. | ||
| But first, we will start by taking your calls on the Senate passing legislation to reopen government last night with the help of many Democrats and what it faces as it goes to the House, which reportedly will vote on it as early as Wednesday. | ||
| Here's how you can make those calls: 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you want to text us, 202-748-8003 is that number. | ||
| You can use that same number if you're a federal worker and you want to call and give us your perspective. | ||
| And as always, you can post on our social media sites at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| As we start the program today, we'll talk about what happened in the Senate last night with Eric Wasson of Bloomberg. | ||
| He's their Capitol Hill reporter joining us right now via Zoom. | ||
| And Eric Wasson, thanks for your time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much for having me on. | |
| Let's start with how Leader Thun managed to pull this off politically. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, he was able to make this promise of a vote on the expiring Obamacare tax credits. | |
| He never had to promise an outcome, but he said, you know, we'll test your ideas with a test vote, which is a tried and true tradition in the Senate. | ||
| He made that offer several weeks ago, but this was before the off-year elections. | ||
| Democrats weren't really in the mood to talk about such a deal. | ||
| But, you know, in the end of the day, he got eight members of their conference to come along. | ||
| Now, there are also elements of the actual bill that Democrats are in favor of. | ||
| This funds the USDA, Department of Agriculture, for a full year. | ||
| That includes creating some stability for the food stamp program and the women, infant, and children feeding programs, both of which ended up becoming political footballs during this shutdown. | ||
| It also increases funding for lawmaker security, something that's been a real issue for lawmakers in the wake of the horrible assassination of Charlie Kirk. | ||
| So there are substantive wins for Democrats, a sense that the appropriations process will get underway, and that would limit the sort of ability of the Office of Management Budget, which has had a lot of attempts at circumventing Congress to really continue to do so. | ||
| And in addition, there's a freeze on all federal layoffs through January 30th, which is a win for Tim Kaine in particular, who was the 60th vote. | ||
| So I think it was able to pull this out of the hat. | ||
| And the other day, it only can be characterized as a cave by Democrats. | ||
| There remains to be seen if it really has lasting political impact for them. | ||
| If I'm one of those eight Democrats who supported it and will show the picture of the eight, how am I being viewed these days by other Democrats? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, these guys are being attacked. | |
| You know, they are being denounced. | ||
| Even some progressive groups like Move On are calling for Schumer to step aside for allowing these eight members to defect. | ||
| But at the end of the day, there are a certain number of people in the conference who did vote against this, but who privately acknowledged that the shutdown strategy historically just doesn't really work. | ||
| You know, the party that's looking for some policy concession doesn't really get it. | ||
| This was a bit of an exception because Democrats weren't outrightly being blamed. | ||
| It was really Trump, which was generally seen as having been responsible for this to a certain degree. | ||
| But at the end of the day, such as just rarely work. | ||
| And Schumer and others in past shutdowns have acknowledged that. | ||
| So I think these guys stuck their neck out. | ||
| The proof will be whether this vote on the Obamacare tax credit yields anything. | ||
| If it does, then I think they'll be at least partially forgiven. | ||
| Let's talk about as it goes to the House. | ||
| What does it face? | ||
| What does Speaker Johnson face as now it's his role? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, he had an extraordinary press conference where he ran away without taking questions. | |
| I ran up three flights of steps to ask him, do you have the votes? | ||
| He says he thinks so. | ||
| Since he made that comment yesterday morning, it's looking better for him. | ||
| Freedom Caucus members who have been sort of insisting on a flat line, you know, CR or stopgap bill through September 30th have come out in favor of it. | ||
| Andy Harris, he's one of the authors of a provision in this bill that would restrict intoxicating hemp products. | ||
| He's a longtime opponent of marijuana usage. | ||
| He's pretty happy and he's a leader of the Freedom Caucus. | ||
| He said he'll vote for it. | ||
| That was a big coup for Johnson. | ||
| Now, House Democratic leaders are whipping against it. | ||
| They're trying to get all their members to vote no. | ||
| But we've heard some noises from moderate members like Henry Queyar, who's in a very tough district, redistricting into a very tough district in South Texas, who might likely vote for this. | ||
| So, you know, Speaker Johnson may have a bit of a margin, but my sense is that it does pass. | ||
| And then the day, maybe some Freedom Caucus will vote no. | ||
| But if their vote is necessary, they'll come on board and this will squeak through the House and the government will be reopened by Thursday morning. | ||
| We've heard the minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, say several things about not only the legislation, the future of Obamacare subsidies. | ||
| What is his voice in the next day or so? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, he's been really, you know, he didn't denounce Schumer. | |
| That was a very interesting comment. | ||
| We asked him, should Schumer step aside? | ||
| And he's basically said no. | ||
| You know, they fought a valiant fight. | ||
| But he says the fight will go on. | ||
| They're going to take this to the midterms. | ||
| They're really, I think, at least glad that healthcare is back in the conversation. | ||
| That's a strong issue for them. | ||
| And they feel that if Republicans do vote down or block an attempt to extend these premium subsidies, which lower the cost of Obamacare for people, then they'll squarely be blamed for it. | ||
| And they think they can take that to voters next November. | ||
| He says he's confident that the House will flip to Democrats. | ||
| That's a bit more of a challenge given all the redistricting that's going on. | ||
| So this may end up actually helping them to take back the House in the end of the day. | ||
| And Eric Wasson, let's talk about those subsidies. | ||
| Posted a story about the future of those subsidies and the heavy lift that's involved in preserving them. | ||
| Tell us a little bit about that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, we talked to Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee. | |
| They had a meeting on this yesterday. | ||
| They don't have a concrete plan. | ||
| Chuck Grassley, the longtime member, a senior member of the House, I mean, Senate Republican conference, said, you know, we should have put a plan months ago. | ||
| You know, I often value Mr. Grassley's commentary. | ||
| I think that's spot on. | ||
| But, you know, Cassidy, who's the head of the health committee, and Mike Crapo, the head of the finance committee, are going to try to come up with something. | ||
| Their plan is basically to have these federally funded health savings accounts, but they don't really tend to help lower-income people and don't really help people with catastrophic high medical bills. | ||
| So this is probably a non-starter for Democrats, and that could lead to a stalemate where these subsidies are not extended and there's no real replacement found. | ||
| So I think it's very shaky ground. | ||
| This not only will hurt millions of people as far as their health care costs, but it'll also affect the bottom line of insurance companies. | ||
| And we've seen insurance company stocks being fluctuating or going down as a result of the shutdown. | ||
| Eric Wasson, you're a longtime watcher of Congress and reported on it. | ||
| Give your thought on shutdown politics and what this round is teaching us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, I just really laugh. | |
| I was joking with one aide, like, I'm looking forward in a few years for Republicans shutting down the government and then Democrats going out and lambasting them day after day. | ||
| You know, both parties have tried this tactic. | ||
| Both times it fails. | ||
| It always ends up leading to a cost to government. | ||
| You know, we're talking about billions of dollars that will be paid to federal workers who did not work for 42, 43 days, which is just pure waste. | ||
| So it's really no way to run a government. | ||
| You know, there are proposals out there to sort of like allow continuing resolutions to go into automatic effect if there's some kind of stalemate or to punish lawmakers. | ||
| John Kennedy of Louisiana has one to hold their pay in escrow if they do this shutdown tactics. | ||
| Those may get more currency as people realize that this has become more and more common and basically no real way to run a government. | ||
| Eric Wasson reports for Bloomberg and has been reporting on the process of the shutdown as it still plays out this week. | ||
| You can see his work at bloomberg.com. | ||
| Before we go, Eric Wasson, we've talked about a lot of things. | ||
| What should our viewers know? | ||
| Something we haven't talked about as they look to the next couple of days. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, I'm just really interested in how the rest of the appropriations bills are going to fold out. | |
| The Senate is going to turn after its recess to a defense, labor, health and human services combination bill. | ||
| Perhaps they add a few other things like transportation. | ||
| This is really the meat and heart of the government. | ||
| If they can pass that, you know, that'd be very interesting dynamic for the House to take up and could really put Congress back in the driver's seat for the power of the purse. | ||
| So I'll be following that pretty closely in the coming weeks. | ||
| And also, let me weave in the other thing about Adelita Grajalva. | ||
| Will we see her being sworn in this week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's right. | |
| This is the lawmaker from Arizona who's been denied her seat. | ||
| She will be sworn in before the vote. | ||
| Speaker Johnson has said that. | ||
| And that immediately allows her to sign this discharge petition forcing a vote on the release of the Epstein files. | ||
| Now, this doesn't necessarily actually force the administration because Trump would have to sign it, but it does symbolically put pressure on the Department of Justice to release more Epstein documents. | ||
| House Republican leaders say we're already seeing documents being released through the oversight committee process. | ||
| But that's somewhat selective. | ||
| And I think people who are very suspicious about the clients of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who basically was involved in human trafficking, want to see more full disclosure. | ||
| Democrats certainly want to see if Trump or his allies are implicated. | ||
| Eric Wasson of Bloomberg, thank you so much for your time this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| And to viewers, thank you for being patient. | ||
| Again, call in 202-748-8,000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents 202-748-8002 to talk about this vote last night in the Senate, moving legislation on reopening government. | ||
| Again, as you heard our guests say, the House expected to take it up as soon as Wednesday. | ||
| Teresa in Tennessee, Republican line, thank you for waiting. | ||
| Go ahead, you're first up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Mr. Watson is still there, right? | ||
| No, he's gone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, all right. | |
| Well, a pox on both of their houses is the way I feel. | ||
| I'm MAGA, voted for him three times. | ||
| This bill was never a clean CR bill because they added the language of paying $186 million for security for members of Congress. | ||
| And that was never, so that's not a clean CR. | ||
| And then there's one inclusion in here that nobody's talking about. | ||
| And that's where they give Democrats in Blue City, 30 of them, $500 million for infrastructure deals. | ||
| It's kickback. | ||
| It's a bribe. | ||
| You know, and nobody's mentioned that. | ||
| And I blame Republicans, and I blame Donald Trump specifically for that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, just driving these Democrats to open the government, they're being rewarded for shutting down the government. | |
| They admitted after it was all over with, after they got the vote, that they did shut down the government, you know, to get these bills passed through. | ||
| And Obamacare and subsidies and SNAP benefits have got to be reformed. | ||
| Joe Biden, when he was in office, he $300 billion for Obamacare subsidies. | ||
| Anybody was allowed to join. | ||
| He was using the SNAP program to buy votes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's hear from Darrell. | ||
| Daryl is in Maryland. | ||
| Democrats line on the passage of legislation in the Senate last night as it moves to the House. | ||
| Hello, Daryl. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Good morning, Pedro. | ||
| You're on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Hey, Pedro. | ||
| I just want to say that Chuck Schumer really didn't have a choice. | ||
| I think that he stood the course as far as saying no. | ||
| And I think Hakeem Jeffries, they do have a platform to stand on as far as the midterms elections. | ||
| I am a registered Democrat. | ||
| I think that the Democratic Party has gone too far to the left with these progressives, but I do think they do have something to stand for on the midterm election. | ||
| And I think that the Democratic Party will take control of Congress. | ||
| That's my statement. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal's analysis of the events of yesterday adds this, saying that the allies, Senator Schumer, say he did the best he could with that bad hand and pointed out that few Republicans had expected Senate Democrats to hold out as long as they did for about 40 days. | ||
| The story also adding that the minority leader of the Senate isn't expected to face a leadership vote until after next year's midterm elections, and he won't face New York voters until 2028. | ||
| Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democrat from New York, a progressive who hasn't ruled out a primary against Mr. Schumer, didn't respond to a request or comment on Monday. | ||
| Ron is next. | ||
| Ron in Florida, Republican line on the events of yesterday going into later this week. | ||
| Hello, Ron. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, Pedro. | |
| I just want to congratulate one man for solving this issue and getting the government open again. | ||
| And that man is Donald J. Trump. | ||
| And I'll tell you why. | ||
| Because the Democrats caved in for one reason and one reason only. | ||
| They saw Trump tell the Republican senators to dump the filibuster, and they were afraid that the Republicans would dump the filibuster if this progressed. | ||
| And they couldn't stand that. | ||
| Donald Trump wins again. | ||
| Thank God. | ||
| Christine. | ||
| I'm sorry, Christy. | ||
| Christy in Pennsylvania, Democrats line. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I wanted to say that I think the Democrats should have held out. | ||
| They were arguing from a position of strength and they shouldn't have caved. | ||
| Something needs to be done about health care. | ||
| It's going to balloon, and millions of people are going to lose their health care, and it's just unacceptable. | ||
| Health care needs to be addressed. | ||
| The insurance companies are making billions in profit. | ||
| They're upcharging. | ||
| They're denying care, you know, costing health and lives, all to make a buck. | ||
| And health care is never going to get solved until the profit and agreed are removed out of the equation. | ||
| If it's all about the bottom line or the profit margin, it's always going to, the health care consumers are always going to suffer. | ||
| The other thing about the SNAP, I think, should not be used like as a bargaining chip. | ||
| That's, you know, the workers, the middle class, and the people pay the tax dollars. | ||
| That's our money. | ||
| And companies, the big corporations and the billionaires aren't paying taxes. | ||
| They're paying their workers poverty wages. | ||
| So the U.S. tax dollars have to subsidize health care, child care, food. | ||
| And that's our tax dollars, and we should get that if we need it. | ||
| We shouldn't even need it. | ||
| Christy, if I can ask you a question, you said that the Democrats were operating from strength. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What did you mean by that? | |
| Well, they have, they just cleaned up on the elections Tuesday. | ||
| I mean, people are very upset, very angry, and they are willing to hold out. | ||
| I mean, everybody I've talked to and things I've heard, people are willing to hold out and fight for what's right. | ||
| And this is what's right. | ||
| The greed and the corruption and the lawlessness just can't stand anymore. | ||
| We're losing all of our what the USA stands for, our integrity, our Let me ask you also this before we move on. | ||
| What did you think about your senator, John Fetterman's role in all of this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm not happy with John Fetterman, and I'm sorry I voted for him. | |
| He's just totally there's something wrong with him bending over backwards for and going along with Trump. | ||
| It's just I'm not happy with what he's done. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Christy there in Pennsylvania in Kansas City, Republican line. | ||
| Marina, hello. | ||
| Or Mariana. | ||
| Mariana, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Hey. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I just wanted to comment. | ||
| I'm a Republican. | ||
| You know, I support a lot of things. | ||
| Republican. | ||
| Michael in Utah, Democrats line on the events of yesterday, the Senate vote as it goes to the House. | ||
| Michael in Utah, hello there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| First of all, to say happy Veterans Day. | ||
| And what do you mean by that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think with uh Republicans in power now, I think this next election in the House and Senate, I think the Democrats are gonna come into power. | |
| And I think the Republicans I think Donald Trump is a baby. | ||
| He he throws tantrums and okay, that's Michael there in Utah. | ||
| One of those Democrats closely watching the events of the Senate and what it means for the House is the House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries making statements before yesterday's vote and concerns about health care overall. | ||
| Here's Hakeem Jeffries from yesterday. | ||
| Well, I don't have much to say about those individuals, and they're going to have to explain themselves to their constituents and to the American people. | ||
| I certainly believe that Senate Democrats, the overwhelming majority of Senate Democrats led by Chuck Schumer, have waged a valiant fight over the last seven weeks, defeating the partisan Republican spending bill 14 or 15 different times, week after week after week, and continue to oppose this effort of passing legislation that does not address the Republican health care crisis by extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits. | ||
| But the fight is getting ready to shift back to the House, where we're going to work hard, hold the Republicans accountable. | ||
| All of these loudmouths on the House Republican conference side who's been saying for the last several weeks that we have to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, now is their chance. | ||
| This week, they have to come back from their seven-week prolonged taxpayer-funded Republican vacation. | ||
| They can no longer hide. | ||
| They can no longer hide. | ||
| Mike Johnson apparently still hiding, refused to even answer a single question today. | ||
| That's extraordinary. | ||
| But they're not going to be able to hide this week when they return from their vacation. | ||
| Hakeem Jeffries from yesterday, if you follow our C-SPAN producer on Capitol Hill, Craig Kaplan, he posted this as far as next steps, saying Senate passed funding bill to reopen the government is now headed for a House Rules Committee meeting to prepare for Wednesday's House floor debate and votes as early as 4 p.m. | ||
| The 394-page bill is posted on the Rules Committee website. | ||
| It includes the link that if you want to read through the bill and what it contains, we've been showing you the last couple of days some summary of what it is. | ||
| We'll put that up in a little bit as we take your calls on the latest events concerning the possible reopening of government later this week. | ||
| Glenn in Texas, Independent Line, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Pedro Hobbs, thank you to Washington. | ||
| Looks like Democrats are in a real big band for getting notoriety from the shutdown. | ||
| And all the callers say that the Democrats are going to come back in power in 26. | ||
| I do not agree with them because all of the Democrats have shut the country down. | ||
| Everybody has lost their paycheck in the federal government. | ||
| And Hakeem Jeffers in the House, he needs to be censored and expelled in his next upcoming Congress session. | ||
| So you don't think, overall, you don't think the events of the last 40-plus days, that won't affect Republicans going forward politically? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, it hurts the Democrats because they were the one that shut the government down. | |
| And oh, Chuck Coomer, he's on his way out to be retired. | ||
| He's lost his grip on the government. | ||
| I said that back in October. | ||
| He has lost everything he has worked for for 40 years. | ||
| He's a dead chicken. | ||
| Okay, Greg is next. | ||
| Greg in Connecticut, another Independent Line caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Good morning, Pedro. | ||
| This is exactly why I resigned from the Democratic Party this year. | ||
| I am 64 years old, lifelong Democrat, until this year. | ||
| I can't take it anymore. | ||
| I mean, they were winning the battle of public opinion. | ||
| The Democrats were. | ||
| And what's on the table was what they accepted was exactly what was offered 40 days ago. | ||
| And to accept that when everything, they were blaming Trump, they were blaming the Republicans for this entire shutdown. | ||
| And after the election, to immediately capitulate, as they have done, I just, this is exactly why I left the Democratic Party. | ||
| I can't take it anymore. | ||
| I'm telling you. | ||
| There's a trillion dollars in the military budget. | ||
| And have they controlled health care costs? | ||
| Absolutely not. | ||
| They've done nothing to control costs. | ||
| And if you're a health care company, if you're a hospital or a drug company or an insurance company, you are laughing to the bank because of the Democrats, because of Obama's health care plan. | ||
| So you get what you deserve from my perspective. | ||
| So I've left the Democratic Party and I am done. | ||
| Okay, Greg there in Connecticut. | ||
| It was in an interview on CNN that Speaker Mike Johnson not only spoke about next steps in passing legislation, but the larger issues of health care. | ||
| Here's a portion from yesterday. | ||
| Congressman Don Bacon, who's retiring of Nebraska, he's been working with Congressman Tom Swasey, a moderate Democrat from New York, about this exact issue, about reforms on these subsidies, means testing, having the payments directly go to the insurance companies instead of to the businesses and the insurance companies. | ||
| Is that something you're willing to let come up for a vote? | ||
| That's one of many ideas that are on the table. | ||
| The problem is when you're subsidizing insurance companies, they just jack the rates up even higher. | ||
| I mean, we've been seeing this over and over and over. | ||
| So the solution is to get, again, to get at the root causes. | ||
| I'll give you an example. | ||
| In the Big Beautiful bill, the Working Families Tax Cut, we had the Medicaid reforms. | ||
| So as we've discussed many times, what we did was we went in to eliminate the fraud, waste, and abuse and drive down the cost. | ||
| The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, evaluated that and said, you know what, that's right. | ||
| It will achieve that. | ||
| It'll save $185 billion for taxpayers because you got ineligible enrollees off the system. | ||
| We need to do that same thing across the board through health care. | ||
| We tried that in the Big Beautiful Bill when it went over to the Senate in the House version. | ||
| We included a cost-sharing reduction program that would have reduced premiums 12.7% overall on average nationwide. | ||
| The Democrats fought in the Senate to take it out of the bill. | ||
| So there are a lot of ideas that we'd like to bring back to the table because that will actually solve the problem and not just subsidize insurance companies. | ||
| So you're not committing to bringing up a bill that deals with the Obamacare subsidies before they expire? | ||
| I'm not committing to it or not committing to it. | ||
| What I'm saying is that we do a deliberative process. | ||
| That's the way this always works, and we have to have time to do that. | ||
| And we will in a bipartisan fashion. | ||
| If something passes the Senate, it would only pass on a bipartisan basis. | ||
| Would you bring it up? | ||
| Well, the bill that's going to pass to extend the subsidies, that later vote. | ||
| I can't commit to anything that hasn't even passed through the Senate yet. | ||
| I mean, I've never done that. | ||
| I'm very consistent. | ||
| I've been speaker for over two years, and one of the reasons I've held the caval is because I don't go out and predetermine outcomes. | ||
| It's a member-driven institution, as it should be, and I'm really insistent about that. | ||
| We've got to get back to regular order, and that's what we're doing here. | ||
| Let's hear from Curtis in Texas, Democrats line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning to you. | |
| You know, I'll tell you what's wrong with Federman. | ||
| He's a Joe Manchin. | ||
| Have you forgot? | ||
| He's just an undercover Republican. | ||
| When they needed Joe Manchin, what did he do? | ||
| He let the party down. | ||
| Federman, New York, please don't send him back to office. | ||
| You know, how easy do we forget what Dr. King taught us and John Lewis taught us? | ||
| If it's worth fighting for, it's worth dying for. | ||
| How many people had to walk to work during the Montgomery boycott? | ||
| How many people got bit by dogs and holy down? | ||
| These eight people that gave in, they are a joke. | ||
| But when it comes to the legislation, six other Democrats and an independent joined Senator Fetterman. | ||
| What would you say about those overall that eight of them going on with Republicans in order to pass this legislation? | ||
|
unidentified
|
All eight of them is a joke. | |
| And it's really time for them to go. | ||
| Listen, the party of the Republicans make no doubt about it. | ||
| They are racist. | ||
| Their leader is a liar. | ||
| His first turn, he told over 40,000 lives. | ||
| Okay, okay. | ||
| Okay, let's go to Mark. | ||
| Mark in California, Republican line on the events of yesterday with the Senate passing this legislation to reopen government. | ||
| Again, the House expected to take it up this week. | ||
| Mark in California, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, sir. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| The Democrats got everything they deserved. | ||
| You know, they passed Obamacare was a joke. | ||
| Nancy Pelosi said it. | ||
| We got to pass it to see what's in it. | ||
| And now they want subsidies to pay for it because it's unaffordable. | ||
| Democrats, you own this. | ||
| And I'm embarrassed because Democrats and crazies on the left, I'm a combat veteran and a retired fireman. | ||
| They are spewing hate on the left, and they're going to drag us into a civil war. | ||
| I'm almost regretting my service on how bad they are on the left. | ||
| You know what? | ||
| So, Mark, part of this legislation would rehire 4,000 federal workers. | ||
| What did you think about that addition to the legislation? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, I have no problem with that. | |
| What I'm saying is Obamacare as a whole is a joke. | ||
| I was going to have to pay a tax of $800 additional month as a fireman because of the individual mandate. | ||
| Teachers got an exemption. | ||
| Firefighters didn't get that. | ||
| This whole thing is a joke. | ||
| Okay, Mark there in California. | ||
| You can add your thoughts to the mix as well. | ||
| 202-748-8,000 for Democrats, Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you want to join in the conversation concerning the events of the Senate, you can still see all the speeches that were made last night in the lead up of the passage of this legislation in the Senate. | ||
| You can go to our website at c-span.org, our app at C-SPAN now. | ||
| Pay close attention to this channel, C-SPAN, as the House expected back on Wednesday to take up these considerations. | ||
| So follow along on any one of those platforms. | ||
| That bill that passed last night funding government until the 30th of January, 2026, it would fund appropriations bills concerning military construction, Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture and legislative branch that through September 30th of next year. | ||
| Like I told the viewer, it would reinstate 4,000 federal workers laid off during the shutdown. | ||
| It would prevent the Trump administration from firing additional federal workers. | ||
| The reductions enforced that through January 30th. | ||
| And as many of you, some of you mentioned and legislators have mentioned, including that promise of a December vote in the Senate when it comes to extending ACA-enhanced subsidies. | ||
| Carson in Maryland, Democrats line. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| I just wanted to say the only consistent message from the Democrats during the shutdown was we will not come to the table unless we get these ACA subsidies extended. | ||
| And caving on that is a complete failure of leadership on Chuck Schumer's part. | ||
| He absolutely needs to step down from leadership. | ||
| Elaborate on that. | ||
| Why put the focus on Senator Schumer? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You have two options. | |
| Either Chuck Schumer has no control of his caucus and lost eight votes when we were very strong early on, or he orchestrated it and told eight people who are not up for reelection or retiring to take the fall for this one. | ||
| It's a complete, it all comes back to him. | ||
| That's Carson in Maryland. | ||
| If you go to Axios, a story they posted yesterday, here's the headline. | ||
| Schumer privately fought to extend government shutdown by Stephen Newcomb Hans Nichols saying as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer publicly battled Republicans over the shutdown, he was privately cajoling a group of moderates not to fold before November. | ||
| Democrats are blaming Schumer for not prolonging the shutdown. | ||
| In reality, it could have been much shorter. | ||
| Two weeks into the shutdown, a group of moderates told Senator Schumer they were ready to vote to open the government, according to three sources familiar with the conversation. | ||
| It's unclear if that group was big enough to end the shutdown, but Schumer persuaded the moderates to hold out at least until the beginning of November when open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act began. | ||
| The story also adding that in mid-October, he made it clear to his entire caucus that he was likely to come out against the emerging bipartisan deal that a group of moderate senators were pushing. | ||
| There's more there. | ||
| Axios is the website if you want to read that story. | ||
| Let's hear from Bill. | ||
| Bill in Jacksonville, Florida, Republican line. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, how are you today? | |
| What I don't understand is, didn't the Democrats vote eight times not to extend the Obama Care Act? | ||
|
unidentified
|
And then when it came down to it, they shut down the government over the same exact thing. | |
| I don't understand what the Democrats stand for anymore. | ||
| They're so backwards. | ||
| They're just interested in power and making money and keeping people poor and taxing us. | ||
| I mean, it's a shame that we should have a fair two-party system in this country. | ||
| But I really don't know what the Democrats stand for anymore. | ||
| They vote one way, and you see it constantly. | ||
| Their speeches, you know, we won't shut down the government. | ||
| We will do this. | ||
| We'll do that. | ||
| And they never follow through with anything. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Why are they like this? | ||
| Are they American? | ||
| Because it doesn't sound like they're even American anymore. | ||
| They're just interested in lining their own pockets, keeping people poor, keeping people on social programs. | ||
| I mean, before COVID, there's only 17 million people on subsidies. | ||
| Now there's 42 million people on subsidies. | ||
| And that all happened during the Biden administration. | ||
| Why are people even thinking to vote for Democrats is what I don't understand. | ||
| Larry joins us next. | ||
| He's in Georgia. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| I have something to say about President Bush, President Obama, and President Trump. | ||
| Well, Trump have done the SNAP program. | ||
| He have took it to court so that people, millions and millions of people, cannot get SNAP programs. | ||
| This is something y'all need to watch. | ||
| But get about all the other stuff. | ||
| Right now, Donald Trump has taken it to the Supreme Court that millions of people on SNAP program will not receive their SNAP. | ||
| That's what he is doing. | ||
| And another thing, Donald Trump also. | ||
| Well, what do you think about the passage of the legislation specifically in the Senate? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the passage of the legislation in the Senate, it was half and half. | |
| They had to do something because the thing about that was he couldn't keep that, keep the people from out of money all this time. | ||
| He had to go ahead on, and Chuck Tuma did the right thing, but the Democrats also did the right thing by opening it up now. | ||
| Because what they're talking about, about the Obamacare, it's been talked about for years and years and years, the same thing over and over. | ||
| And what has happened, the private insurance company is the one who called the Obamacare to be so unkind to all the people. | ||
| Okay, that's Larry in Georgia. | ||
| He mentioning the president returning to the Supreme Court in the latest battle over the SNAP program as it's known. | ||
| This is the headline that we'll show you from the New York Times about that return to the court. | ||
| The Trump administration returns the subhead, but the administration indicated it might not be necessary as government moved toward a deal to fund the government. | ||
| That's where you can read that. | ||
| Other publications reporting that too. | ||
| Dale, up next, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi, good morning. | ||
| I just wanted to say that number one, retired military, spent 39 years in the federal government. | ||
| Really disappointed in Congress. | ||
| It's job one to pass the budget. | ||
| They failed to do so several years, several administrations in a row, and I watched it throughout my career. | ||
| One of the main problems I see in regards to the budget and the health care is we're going after the wrong thing. | ||
| We shouldn't be going after subsidies. | ||
| We should be going after the insurance companies and the medical community to lower prices. | ||
| Because as the speaker has already said, even if they pay the companies directly, they're just going to increase the pricing. | ||
| So regulators are what we should have in this regard to the insurance companies and to the medical community. | ||
| The medical community provides a great service. | ||
| Assuming the insurance companies as middlemen provide a service, the services is unaffordable. | ||
| And I've heard on C-SPAN people's prices of premiums going up anywhere from 100 to 300%, which is not affordable for Native Americans. | ||
| So happy Veterans Day. | ||
| Really disappointed in the way Congress has conducted itself in regards to job one, it's job one, and really disappointed in both the Republicans and the Democrats, but especially the administration. | ||
| It was in the lead up to yesterday's vote last evening that President Trump in an event in the White House talked about what he saw as the status of the vote and thoughts about the Senate process. | ||
| Here's the president from yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, do you personally approve of the deal that's happening right now, Cabot Alexander? | |
| Well, it depends what deal we're talking about. | ||
| But if it's a deal I heard about, that's certainly, you know, they want to change the deal a little bit, but I would say so. | ||
| I think based on everything I'm hearing, they haven't changed anything. | ||
| And we have support from enough Democrats, and we're going to be opening up our country. | ||
| It's too bad it was closed, but we'll be opening up our country very quickly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, that deal does reverse the mass firings your administration put through during the shutdown. | |
| Did you sign off on that and you will abide by that if this passes? | ||
| Well, I will be. | ||
| I abide by the deal. | ||
| The deal is very good. | ||
| We're not going to be giving one and a half trillion dollars to people that came in from jails and from the gangs and drug dealers and all of these others that they wanted to be given health care, which would have hurt our health care system. | ||
| I hope that we're going to be able to have a health care where Lindsay and I were discussing it. | ||
| Jim and I were discussing it. | ||
| And Katie, we discussed it. | ||
| We want a healthcare system where we pay the money to the people instead of the insurance companies. | ||
| And I tell you, we're going to be working on that very hard over the next short period of time where the people get the money. | ||
| We're talking about trillions and trillions of dollars where the people get the money. | ||
| Republican line from Pennsylvania, this is Mel. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning. | |
| You're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Oh, I just want to say I think this insurance, when they passed the ACA, they made a cost spike, you know, from my own company. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And it was really wrong. | |
| Anytime you subsidize stuff, it keeps going up. | ||
| It's just like the colleges. | ||
| They're making a fortune. | ||
| And they pay for kids to go to school. | ||
| They give them their loans, and then they forgive them for it. | ||
| So, Mel, what do you think about this vote yesterday and the possibility of government reopening? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's great. | |
| It would be good. | ||
| Why is that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because there's no reason for everything to be shut down the way it is. | |
| And people got to work. | ||
| We got too many people that ain't working that are just getting paid. | ||
| Paul joins us from Georgia. | ||
| Democrats lying. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning, everyone. | ||
| I honor the veterans for today. | ||
| I'm a little disappointed in my party enough to even consider changing. | ||
| We're always talking about health care, healthcare, but we never talk about healthier people. | ||
| We never talk about becoming healthier. | ||
| We argue about the junk food that they throw in everything and all this stuff they put in our food, and yet still we continue to consume it. | ||
| It seems like we're one of the fattest countries in the world, and fat is not healthy. | ||
| We fight for people to be in that position, and yet those who are out there working hard, busting their butts, staying healthy. | ||
| I'm 67 years old. | ||
| I don't take no drugs at all. | ||
| I don't have no high blood pressure or any potential or anything like that. | ||
| And I don't really work out every day all day. | ||
| I just stay healthy and stop eating the crap. | ||
| So, Paul, you said you were disappointed in your party. | ||
| Are you disappointed in the party, particularly as what you saw in the last couple of days with those Democrats giving support to what happened in the Senate? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm disappointed in the entire factor. | |
| We held more Americans hostage for fighting for a program that seemed to not work. | ||
| I was a small business owner, and I had to close my business because of Obamacare. | ||
| It kept going up and up and up and up. | ||
| And I'm like, wait a minute. | ||
| My people are healthy. | ||
| They're not going to the doctors as much as other people. | ||
| They're not doing the other things. | ||
| And yet it's costing me. | ||
| I think they need to revamp that and take another look at it. | ||
| I know there are people out there who need health care. | ||
| I realize that. | ||
| Some people have fallen into that trap a long time ago. | ||
| But we need to do something about it as far as what it costs and when it costs. | ||
| You know, we're on doctors' cases and nurses' cases and all these people's cases because they perform the health care for us. | ||
| And yet it costs them millions to become that person. | ||
| And then when they get that person, people are looking for the lawyer lottery in order to sue them. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's Paul there in Georgia. | ||
| The editorial from the Washington Post this morning. | ||
| The shutdown was always going to end like this is the headline. | ||
| And just to read you a little bit from it, saying that a cursory tour through the United States history, which shut down brinkmanship shows that the party takes the government hostage to advance its policy goals almost never succeeds. | ||
| Republicans failed to defund Obamacare in 2013, and President Donald Trump in 2019 failed to secure funding for his border wall. | ||
| That's because even partial shutdowns eventually become too politically painful to maintain, as Democrats who watched airlines cancel thousands of flights over the past few days can attest. | ||
| It's also because for many politicians, the theater of obstructionism is more important than policy. | ||
| The editor is going on to say a deal like this could not happen without minority leaders' tacit support. | ||
| Yet Senator Charles Schumer of New York voted against reopening the government. | ||
| The price of being in leadership is taking tough votes. | ||
| But Schumer, petrified of a 2028 primary challenge, it left other members to face the wrath of his party's base. | ||
| It was also particularly disappointing that Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, who is up for re-election next year, lacked the courage to vote for the deal. | ||
| Again, there's more there from the Washington Post. | ||
| One of those Democrats who supported the bill and its passage, Dick Durbin, a retiring senator, he, a Democrat of Illinois, minority whip. | ||
| Here's some of his comments from yesterday. | ||
| Leader Thune has also promised the Democrats an opportunity before mid-December to present a Democratic bill on the floor with proposals to change the law and protect American families from dramatic health care premium increases. | ||
| It is my fervent hope that this ends up being a bipartisan effort. | ||
| It would be such an achievement of the Senate to finally return to that status. | ||
| I've served in the Senate for 29 years, and I've never seen that kind of offer from a Senate majority. | ||
| During the historic roll call last night, I walked across the aisle and met with Senator John Thune, the Republican leader. | ||
| I told him that I was counting on him to keep his word on this agreement. | ||
| He assured me he would. | ||
| The fate of this effort depends on both the Senate and the House of Representatives. | ||
| After a seven-week absence, the Speaker Johnson needs to call his members back and join us in the hard work that lies ahead. | ||
| Many of my friends are unhappy. | ||
| They think we should have kept our government closed indefinitely to protest the policies of the Trump administration. | ||
| I share their opinions of this administration, but cannot accept a strategy which wages political battle at the expense of my neighbor's paycheck or the food for his children. | ||
| Senator Derber, one of those 60 votes that got the legislation passed in the Senate yesterday, moves to the House. | ||
| Again, as you heard our guests talk about this morning and others saying that possibly as soon as Wednesday, efforts to work on this legislation, pass this legislation that was brought over from the Senate. | ||
| Stay close to C-SPAN for the latest on that. | ||
| Art is in Chicago. | ||
| Art Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| I'm well, thank you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have two ways that you can let the government know how you feel this season. | |
| Two very simple ways. | ||
| Make it a no-turkey Thanksgiving and a no-tree Christmas. | ||
| Believe me, they'll get the message. | ||
| Don't have to stay on streets. | ||
| Don't have this stand out there in the cold. | ||
| That silent, the silent report that you would be giving them would make them stand up and take notice. | ||
| Can you elaborate on that, how turkeys and Christmas trees send a message exactly? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because our traditions, there's never been a vaccine without turkey. | |
| Take the turkey out of your Thanksgiving, and that will make an amazing impact. | ||
| Kick the tree out of Christmas. | ||
| You don't need either one. | ||
| You don't have to eat turkey and Thanksgiving. | ||
| You don't have a tab of tree to show your Christian faith. | ||
| Just those two symbols taken out of these next two holidays will make such an impact on how you feel about what's going on in this government that they will stand up and take notice and realize the silent majority. | ||
| Remember those words. | ||
| That's all it will take. | ||
| These two symbols being removed from our most pressured holidays. | ||
| It's about time that we don't have to stay in the streets. | ||
| We don't have to stand out there in the cold or be a, you can do it from your home. | ||
| Two symbols of our country. | ||
| Okay, Sean in Washington State Democrats line. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you doing, Pedro? | |
| Fine, thank you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
My issue is everybody's looking at this wrong. | |
| Everybody from the left is looking at this incorrectly. | ||
| The Democrats offered the Republicans on a silver platter a way to get out of these premium health care premiums going up. | ||
| People always think that America is divided and it's not one unit. | ||
| Republicans are going to be Republicans who are on the ACA. | ||
| Their premiums are going to go up just like Democrats. | ||
| And I think it was a strategic pullback by the Democrats to gain the messaging and to let the Republicans have what they wanted to have. | ||
| They could have voted for the extension of the ACA premiums, but they didn't. | ||
| And you were wrong when you said that the person who's doing the shutdown never prospered or whatever. | ||
| In the 1990s, the Republicans did the same thing, and they were in power for 10 years until 2006. | ||
| So then you go on to, I have one other issue about the cspan.org. | ||
| And I went to cspan.org to look at January 6th and to see what was happening then just to get just to refresh myself. | ||
| And on that day, John was on, and then you popped up. | ||
| And then the first thing that you said was, and Chief, you gave aid and comfort to the insurrectionists. | ||
| You said that this could be in Tifa. | ||
| You should go back and watch it. | ||
| Oh, everybody. | ||
| Oh, I absolutely deny that I said that or any of my colleagues said that, but we'll let it stand it there. | ||
| Let's go to Rob, Rob, and Michigan, Independent Line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Comment on the Senate voting to pass the bill. | ||
| You know, the Democrats talk about the threat to democracy. | ||
| And yet, when the House with its duly elected leaders voted in a majority to pass a bill, and the Senate with its duly elected leaders voted to pass the bill, it was held up through parlor tricks. | ||
| I guess they filibustering the Senate until they finally decided that, well, let's go ahead and let democracy, the majority, go ahead and rule on this. | ||
| And now they can go on to a completed vote here. | ||
| Next vote. | ||
| The connected actions of SNAP benefits and ACA. | ||
| Media is going to need to get better poster children for this. | ||
| On SNAP, they showed two women on various articles. | ||
| One of them said she could not afford to feed her children without the SNAP program. | ||
| Yet she could afford to have her hair dyed orange. | ||
| The other one made the same statement, yet she could afford to have tattoos all up and down her arms and her neck. | ||
| And in ACA, they featured a ABC featured a woman saying, I've got a family of four here. | ||
| We pay $300 a month on Obamacare, and it's going to go up to $1,000 without the subsidies. | ||
| And we're going to have to dip into our savings. | ||
| Well, right now, though, the gap is being filled by my wife and myself, who pay $1,000 a month for our health care, and we're expected to subsidize her health care. | ||
| They need a little bit better poster children if they're going to try and sell that message. | ||
| Okay, Rob, there in Michigan, one of the storylines that emerged from yesterday's vote was one between a mother and daughter. | ||
| The mother, Senator Gene Shaheen, one of those who was active in helping the legislation pass, the daughter Stephanie Shaheen. | ||
| And this is the headline from the Hill, Stephanie Shaheen blast shutdown deal backed by her mother. | ||
| The story adding that Thanksgiving dinner in the Shaheen household might be a little awkward. | ||
| Stephanie Shaheen, a Democratic candidate for Congress from New Hampshire, said she, quote, cannot support a deal to end the government shutdown on which the Senate is voting or voted at that point, voting Monday evening. | ||
| Complicating things is the fact that her mother, Democratic Senator Gene Shaheen, supports the proposal. | ||
| The younger Shaheen, in a Monday post on the social platform X, said she would only support a deal to end the record-breaking shutdown if it includes an extension of subsidies offered under the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| The measure, the measure, which the elder Shaheen, seven other Democratic conference members, and 52 Republicans voted to advance on Sunday, did not include such a provision. | ||
| This goes on and says, quote, we need to both end the shutdown and extend the ACA tax credits. | ||
| That's Stephanie Shaheen saying that, adding, otherwise, no deal. | ||
| It's essential to ensure people have access to health care, and it's past time to put paychecks back on people's pockets and food back on families' tables. | ||
| Sandra in Waynesboro, Virginia, Democrats lying. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| When things like this happen, I find it helpful to think, instead of thinking, did my senator vote to send this back to work? | ||
| I have always admired Senator Kane. | ||
| I think he's a very great man of integrity. | ||
| I know him. | ||
| And so it wouldn't be hard for me just to lean back and say, oh, I'll go along with Senator Kane. | ||
| But what I find helpful to say is, would I vote to be sure that there's going to be food in the belly of little hungry children? | ||
| Would I vote so that traffic controllers would be back at work as formal force as they can have and not having to work stretched so thin that they're about to have a nervous breakdown trying to keep us from all crashing together in disguise? | ||
| Would I vote so the people trying to go possibly to the funeral of a loved one or a wedding of a beloved child? | ||
| Would I vote so that they could get there or tell them too bad you're not going to make it? | ||
| You'll have to go the day after the wedding. | ||
| There are so many things that go through my mind like this. | ||
| And I just think people calling in and railing against the Democrats who voted to go ahead and end the shutdown and go ahead and take what they could get and get back to work at trying to govern. | ||
| I think people are forgetting, you know, just what it means to govern, how hard it is in a country as huge as this is and with so many disparate interests. | ||
| It's just not possible to just simply say, okay, we'll do everything everybody wants. | ||
| We'll be beloved by everyone. | ||
| Vote for us. | ||
| We're going to fight for you. | ||
| Fight for who? | ||
| I just believe that we have a duty in governing this country, that they have a duty to try and do what is best for those who are the least among us. | ||
| And certainly little children and people who are struggling at the lowest end of the totem pole, they have a voice too, and they have a right to be heard. | ||
| And so I'll take a party that might not look like it's got a great big forceful bully boy at the head of it. | ||
| The face of the Democratic Party might be some who vote to say let's go back to governing and some who are angry about it. | ||
| But I'll take that in place and go to bed happy tonight, knowing somewhere there's some people who have got their job back who thought that they were without a job when all the firings and laying offs were happening on the federal force. | ||
| I'll take that, Pedro. | ||
| I think that's worth a lot. | ||
| And I'm glad I was born in the United States of America. | ||
| I wake up every day thanking God that I'm an American. | ||
| And I just hope that people will take a second, a pause, and be thankful and grateful for what we have here and stop tearing each other to shreds. | ||
| Okay, that's Sandra there in Virginia adding her thoughts. | ||
| Let's hear from Jerry. | ||
| Jerry's in Arkansas, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just want to say that this last weekend, I went up to Brampton for a weekend and we watched the Fashion Pray up there at Sides and Sound Theater. | |
| And we went to the big, there's a big outlet mall. | ||
| I mean, it's huge, like a big horseshoe. | ||
| And it was the outlet mall was, every parking part was full. | ||
| We stayed there about an hour and bought what we wanted to buy. | ||
| But when we went off, all three roads was lined up with cars trying to get into that mall that was already full. | ||
| And that's how many people was out chopping Sunday. | ||
| And right here where I live at, it's just like businesses usually. | ||
| The shutdown don't affect us whatsoever that I know of. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Jerry there in Arkansas. | ||
| Jim joins us. | ||
| He's in Missouri. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
| Hi, Jim. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Honey, the Democrats for holding out for trying to limit the increase in insurance premiums for the people on the ACA. | ||
| It became pretty apparent that the Republicans were not moving on this issue. | ||
| Got to reopen the government, air traffic controllers, paychecks for people going to work, that kind of stuff. | ||
| You mentioned rehiring 4,000 people that were laid off. | ||
| That's a good thing. | ||
| I understand they're going to get their back pay, too. | ||
| That's a good thing. | ||
| Increase and extension of SNAP benefits. | ||
| That's a good thing. | ||
| All these things the Democrats got. | ||
| On the other hand, they also kicked the ACA subsidies back to the Republican Party. | ||
| Let them vote it down. | ||
| Let them vote to raise your premiums. | ||
| And they'll find out what we think in 26. | ||
| That's Jim there in Missouri. | ||
| He mentioned flights. | ||
| USA Today has a story there taking a look at delays due to the shutdown. | ||
| This story adding that by 9.30 yesterday, more than 8,700 flights within, into, or out of the United States have been delayed, according to Flight Aware. | ||
| Over 2,300 flights were canceled for the day. | ||
| About 5.5% of flights are affected. | ||
| More than 4% of cuts presently ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration to offset an air traffic controller shortage. | ||
| Cuts are scheduled to increase to 10% by Friday, but it's unclear whether a resolution to end the shutdown, which is expected this week, will make a difference. | ||
| There's more there. | ||
| The website is USA Today if you want to see it. | ||
| One more call on the events of the Senate and going into the House. | ||
| This is from Austin in Maryland. | ||
| Republican line. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I just wanted to state the Democrats have pretty well obviously showed their hand. | |
| They utilized this just to prove their messaging was good and win elections. | ||
| And they used their Democrat voters basically as just fodder. | ||
| I mean, pretty obvious at this point. | ||
| If they cared about something that was worth standing up for, why did none of the Democrat senators even come up with, say, universal health care provided by the American taxpayer system? | ||
| It's just blatantly obvious. | ||
| I mean, the Republicans eventually called them out, which is why they had to back down that most of their backers think of Bernie Sanders. | ||
| He receives over half a million dollars a year from Kaiser Permanente. | ||
| They all just want the money to go directly to the companies that then pay them back. | ||
| Now, there's probably Republicans that receive it too, which is why they don't want a single-payer health care system either. | ||
| Okay, Austin in Maryland, finishing off this hour of calls. | ||
| Thanks to all of you who participated. | ||
| It is Veterans Day, and during the course of the program, several segments taking a look at veterans' issues. | ||
| Later on, we'll hear from concerned Veterans of America's John Vick on those issues facing vets. | ||
| A similar conversation with Independent Veterans of America CEO and Iraq War veteran Paul Rykoff, who joins us next when Washington Journal continues. | ||
|
unidentified
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Later this morning, a Veterans Day tribute to those who served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II, featuring the United States Army Brass Quintet. | |
| Watch at 10 a.m. Eastern, live from the National World War II Memorial on the National Mall on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org. | ||
| Today, President Trump joins the 72nd annual National Veterans Day Observance, delivering remarks and laying a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. | ||
| Watch live at 11 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org. | ||
| And past president nomination. | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
|
unidentified
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This is a Kennaroot class. | |
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Our C-SPAN crews at the World War II Memorial, where an event will take place later today, which you can see on C-SPAN. | ||
| You'll see that during the course of the morning and as we talk with Paul Rykoff. | ||
| He's the CEO and founder of Independent Veterans of America. | ||
| He's joining us now. | ||
| Mr. Rykoff, thanks for your time. | ||
| Good morning, Pedro. | ||
| Happy Veterans Day to you and to everyone watching and listening around the country and around the globe. | ||
| I was going to ask you to start off, how does this Veterans Day, if there are any differences this Veterans Day that you've seen than the past? | ||
| I think every Veterans Day is different, so I'm glad you asked that. | ||
| I mean, first of all, I just want to start by saying it's a celebratory day. | ||
| It's a day where we can all come together as Americans and recognize all the great men and women who stepped up for every generation. | ||
| It's a little cold here in New York. | ||
| I'm in a remote TV truck, but I know it's a lot easier than being in a cold Humvee overseas or being in the hot desert like so many of our men and women have been doing for decades and generations. | ||
| And I think, you know, this year especially, that celebratory feeling, I always describe it, Pedro, kind of as a combination between homecoming, July 4th, and a birthday party, but it's really about community and connection. | ||
| It's about bringing together all our veterans and their families and the people who care about them really as one country. | ||
| And I think that's especially important now because in my life at least, I've never seen our country more divided. | ||
| There aren't too many commonplaces and common ways we all come together as Americans. | ||
| And Veterans Day should be a day where that is really prioritized, where it's sacred, where maybe we can put the political guns aside, our political differences to the wayside, and we could come together and honor these men and women and honor each other and the spirit of America and the values that those veterans all represent. | ||
| And especially right now, I think, you know, so many folks are divided between Republicans and Democrats. | ||
| And the truth is, most veterans are independent and somewhere in the middle. | ||
| And maybe we can be a connective tissue or at least a pause on this one day to bring this great country together, no matter what your political background or who you voted for. | ||
| And does that even take place as things that we've been talking about, the shutdown, particularly as it does impact veterans and other related issues? | ||
| Can veterans, do you think, still rise above that, at least those you represent? | ||
| They can. | ||
| They're going to do it, you know, in Veterans Day parades and at elementary schools and at breakfasts all around the country today. | ||
| I think you're going to see them as an example. | ||
| And that's really what I'd encourage folks to think about, especially if you are a veteran. | ||
| Today's a day to kind of wear your veteran status with pride and also to be a teacher, to explain to people what it's like to put your country over your party, to put your own personal well-being to the side in support of a mission. | ||
| And when you see those veterans walking around or you see them on television or you see them online, I think they can be a true north, an inspiration, and a powerful reminder that veterans are really not just at the tip of the spear in our wars, but also in our policy and in our politics. | ||
| When the shutdown happened, as it continues, roughly 40, 45 percent of federal workers are veterans. | ||
| So that includes all the civilian workers at the Pentagon who were standing guard for our national security, who served in uniform and wanted to continue to serve. | ||
| Those folks have been really hard hit. | ||
| Air traffic controllers, they're folks that often learn those skills in the military. | ||
| So many folks all across our federal government and through its programs have been dramatically impacted, but veterans are especially hard hit. | ||
| And I think that should be kind of a mirror into our society. | ||
| When you think about what the Republicans or the Democrats are saying, I think what you should be listening to, maybe most of all, is what are the veterans saying? | ||
| Because they're more than a canary in the coal mine. | ||
| They're kind of the soul of our country and they represent our values. | ||
| And if veterans are being left out hungry, if veterans are being cut from their jobs, if veterans don't have the benefits they need, then I think that should be a wake-up call for all Americans about how our priorities might be out of whack. | ||
| Mr. Rykoff, one of the things we saw emerge from the Senate yesterday was this appropriations bill that specifically dealt with military issues, $153 billion plus for discretionary funding for the VA, defense programs, $263 billion for veterans benefits. | ||
| When you see figures like that, put that in perspective to those that you represent. | ||
| How does that type of money help those you represent? | ||
| Well, for some of them, it's life and death. | ||
| You know, that can be, you know, disability benefits. | ||
| It can be a housing allowance if you're in the military. | ||
| I think it's important to take a step back and understand dining facilities on military basis have been closed during the shutdown. | ||
| They were not able to feed our troops in the same way we normally did. | ||
| So that should be kind of a clarifying moment for folks. | ||
| If there's a trickle-down effect across the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, especially, and those are kind of the two prongs that impact veterans most directly. | ||
| But I think if you think about it, we have veterans who are on food stamps, who are dependent on food stamps, they've been adversely affected. | ||
| You have veterans who are standing guard at the Pentagon who haven't gotten paid for a month, and their active duty military compatriots right next to them have been getting paid. | ||
| So I think that that's a good thing to prioritize. | ||
| But I also think this shutdown was different because there wasn't an exception created for military folks. | ||
| Usually, the parties come together and say, you know what, we're going to continue this shutdown. | ||
| We may disagree, but let's make sure our troops get paid. | ||
| That didn't happen this time. | ||
| And I think that's a real insight into how our politics have gotten even more toxic, even more damaging. | ||
| And most directly, take a big step back. | ||
| It impacts our national security. | ||
| When our troops don't know if they're getting paid, if our military families don't have stability, that weakens morale and that has our enemies celebrating. | ||
| So I think we've gotten caught in a lot of infighting over the last couple weeks around the shutdown, and we forget to step back and think, how would Vladimir Putin look at this? | ||
| And I think Vladimir Putin and our enemies around the globe would be happy to see our military and our veterans community especially hard hit, weakened, and the morale damage. | ||
| They're going to step up. | ||
| They always do. | ||
| And maybe that's another example for this country, especially on today. | ||
| But they shouldn't have to, especially in times like this when we really need unity, we really need to find ways to come together and move forward. | ||
| I think veterans can be kind of a north star for our country. | ||
| They always are, but especially on a day like today, a week after an election, and as we're coming out of this, hopefully out of the shutdown. | ||
| Paul Rykoff joining us. | ||
| And if you want to ask questions, Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| And if you are active or former military and you want to hear from Paul Rykoff, call that line 202-748-8003. | ||
| And you can also use that same line to, if you want to text us your thoughts this morning. | ||
| Again, another shot of the World War II Memorial there in Washington, D.C. Mr. Rykoff, about your organization. | ||
|
unidentified
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What's the central goal? | |
| To try to provide leadership for America that everybody's looking for. | ||
| You know, most of America is politically homeless. | ||
| Almost 50% of Americans now are unaffiliated or politically independent. | ||
| That's how it started. | ||
| George Washington was our last independent president, and he warned us against the dangers of the party. | ||
| And if there's ever been a time that's a more glaring example of how damaging the parties can be, it's the last couple of weeks. | ||
| And we've found that a lot of veterans want to serve. | ||
| They want to run for office. | ||
| They want to give back to their community, but they don't want to take a partisan path. | ||
| And the truth is, the Republican Party has gone very far to the right. | ||
| The Democratic Party has gone very far to the left. | ||
| And most veterans, especially, are caught in the middle. | ||
| So we created Independent Veterans of America with a great group of advisors, former military, independent folks, who want to create the infrastructure, the support to recruit, support, and elect veterans for public office from U.S. Senate all the way down to school board. | ||
| We had two guys elected last week in Connecticut as an example. | ||
| Granby, Connecticut, a young man who stepped up to serve his community on the school board. | ||
| He's a veteran. | ||
| He'd never been in politics before. | ||
| He had a very partisan school board, but he wanted to step forward and provide his leadership. | ||
| He didn't want to get into politics, but he felt like this moment required it. | ||
| And we're seeing thousands of veterans like that all across the country who want to run for office but don't want to pick a partisan side. | ||
| They want to put country first. | ||
| But the truth is it's hard to run as an independent. | ||
| So we want to give them the ammunition, the backup, the training, the support from all Americans to get in there and try to fix things, move things forward, take a practical approach, a more moderate approach, and put country first rather than a political party. | ||
| How does your organization field candidates? | ||
| We got a website with an open call. | ||
| We say, look, if you want to serve your country and continue to serve, we want you. | ||
| You can go to independentveteransofamerica.org. | ||
| You can fill out the intake form. | ||
| We'll verify your status. | ||
| If you don't know what you're eligible to run for, we can help you. | ||
| And it's really important to emphasize, Pedro, we're starting local. | ||
| We need people for county seats, for city seats, for school boards. | ||
| If you've never run before, your local school board might be the place to start. | ||
| But we're also supporting candidates all the way up to the Senate. | ||
| There are so far four independent veterans who declared that they're running for the U.S. Senate next year, led by Dan Osborne in Nebraska, Ty Pickens in Kentucky, Todd Achilles in Idaho, Brian Bangs in South Dakota. | ||
| This is just the start. | ||
| These are the four that have put their hands up for this coming year who want to be the first true independents elected to the Senate because we believe if you have especially an independent veteran in the Senate, it can be a fulcrum. | ||
| It can show that success is possible and they can be a true moderating force to hopefully be a bridge between Republicans and Democrats and hold them all accountable. | ||
| Veterans have been doing that for decades and generations. | ||
| You know, George Washington was the first politician who put down his uniform and continued to serve. | ||
| And that's really what it's all about. | ||
| We're looking for servant leaders who are willing to step up and answer this call, especially in this moment, who care about national security, who want to take care of our veterans, but most of all, can be role models and leaders with integrity and values that is what our country is looking for. | ||
| They're looking for leaders and they're looking for fighters. | ||
| And we're trying to recruit them and get them elected, Pedro. | ||
| Again, 202748-8003. | ||
| If you are active or former military, retired military is Andrew Status. | ||
| He's in Virginia. | ||
| You're on with Paul Rykoff of Independent Veterans of America. | ||
| Andrew, go ahead. | ||
| Andrew, are you there? | ||
| Okay, Mr. Rykoff, I think we're having a bit of a connection problem with Andrew, so we're going to give him another chance. | ||
| If I'm an MP. | ||
| It feels like being deployed in the Army when you get a signal like that coming in. | ||
| I've been there. | ||
| Remind people of your, what branch did you serve and how long and what did you do? | ||
| I was Army. | ||
| I started out and enlisted as a military police soldier, then went through officer candidate school, became an infantry officer, served overseas for a tour in Iraq and here stateside. | ||
| I'm actually coming to you today a couple of blocks from Ground Zero, where the 9-11 Memorial is. | ||
| I'll be there later today for some events. | ||
| And then we've got the biggest parade in America here in New York City. | ||
| But I also served at Ground Zero, and I always use this opportunity to try to remind folks that we've got patriots who stepped up on that day too, who are still suffering from 9-11 related health issues, and they need to be remembered as well. | ||
| Many of them are also combat veterans, folks who answered the call on 9-11 and are still suffering with toxin exposure issues. | ||
| But I'm proud of my service, and it's something that has really guided me in everything ever since. | ||
| I just said goodbye to my two little boys who are six and ten, and I'm trying to do my best to teach them what Veterans Day is all about. | ||
| It's not just a day off of school, it's a day to remember all those folks across our community who often, Pedro, I think it's important, don't really wear their veteran status on their sleeve. | ||
| Today is kind of a day where you might see that guy who works at your job or that bus driver or that person in your community. | ||
| You can recognize it. | ||
| Today, they're veterans, and you might not have known it before, but they've been quietly serving. | ||
| And maybe that's what I learned most of all: it's not about me, it's about all of us collectively, and today's a good day to recognize all of them. | ||
| And I suppose that some of the issues that you listed for people dealing with, they would go to Veterans Administration. | ||
| What do you think of its management under Doug Collins so far? | ||
| Well, it's been tumult, I think, is true across the federal government. | ||
| I think that's undeniable. | ||
| You know, President Trump has come in with a very aggressive agenda, one that I think is out of the mainstream. | ||
| That's my personal opinion. | ||
| And Doug Collins, most of all, has been a really disruptive force. | ||
| Now, he says that's for the best in the end. | ||
| But the reality is that thousands of veterans have been laid off from the Department of Veterans Affairs. | ||
| Many of them across the federal government feel uncertain. | ||
| And I think that's maybe the overwhelming concern that I have about the state of affairs across the federal government. | ||
| The VA is full of great people. | ||
| There's generally high quality of care. | ||
| Access to care can be a problem. | ||
| But the folks who work at VA are heroes and they need to be treated as such, not demonized as lazy federal workers. | ||
| So many veterans want to continue to serve, and they do so at the Veterans Affairs Department. | ||
| I think it's really important that we hold them up, we protect them, and we understand that a lot of them have been waiting for a Doge guillotine to come by and fire them. | ||
| That's been a really uncertain environment for them for the last 10, 11 months. | ||
| I think that's really hurting retention. | ||
| We're losing good people, and it's definitely hurting recruiting. | ||
| That should be a concern for all Americans. | ||
| When folks are banging on the federal government, you've got to remember that includes the Department of Veterans Affairs. | ||
| We need good people to serve. | ||
| We need them to continue to serve in the Department of Veterans Affairs. | ||
| And right now, unfortunately, it's just too difficult for them to do it. | ||
| The Secretary contends that even if layoffs are happening and even disruptions over the shutdown, direct health care is not being affected to veterans. | ||
| Is that the case you're seeing? | ||
| We'll see. | ||
| I'm sure you'll hear from your callers if that's not the case. | ||
| I mean, it's easy to say that now, but as you know, covering these issues is usually a bit of a lag. | ||
| But veterans will speak up if that's the case. | ||
| I know there's definitely concern. | ||
| There have been disruptions. | ||
| You know, some of the tertiary benefits around the GI Bill are an example. | ||
| And folks don't have certainty. | ||
| And I think you can't underestimate how destabilizing that is for especially the veterans community. | ||
| I mean, you're coming out of a toxic election, you're coming out of COVID. | ||
| We're trying to deal with folks who are facing financial stress, family issues, and of course, mental health issues are always front and center. | ||
| So we're still battling the monster that is suicide that takes too many of our brothers and sisters every single day, more than we lose to combat right now. | ||
| And we need a unified, strong response that doesn't have disruption. | ||
| So I think the VA should be a place where politics is off limits. | ||
| I've come on this show for years and talked about the House Veterans Affairs Committee and the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. | ||
| They used to be oasises where the Republicans and Democrats got along. | ||
| Not anymore. | ||
| Now it's as partisan as anywhere else in Washington, and that's really bad for veterans. | ||
| It's bad for our national security, and it's bad for America. | ||
| Let's try Andrew again in Virginia. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hello, can you hear me now? | |
| Yes, you're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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I was saying, sorry about that before. | |
| First, hey, happy Veterans Day to all the veterans, Mr. Rykoff, there. | ||
| Thank you for what you do. | ||
| Just real quick, so just find the phone on the radar a little bit. | ||
| I'm Fire Service Army and the U.S. Public Health Service retired after 25 total years and literally missed a pension payment on the first because of the shutdown. | ||
| Now, we all know how sacred pensions are, right? | ||
| They're held up as really sort of bulletproof. | ||
| You'll never not miss a pension, right? | ||
| Well, turns out that the U.S. Public Health Service and NOAA seek the pension through separate appropriations, not through the Military Retirement Fund, which is, you know, the MRF covers the armed forces. | ||
| And so they're never going to miss the payment, essentially. | ||
| Meanwhile, the U.S. Public Health Service and NOAA, even a guy like me that was Army, you know, prior to that, and many, there are many inter-service transfers from the Armed Forces to the U.S. Public Health Service. | ||
| Well, those folks missed a pension payment. | ||
| And never in my career have I ever heard of a pension payment being missed for anyone that's ever worn the uniform. | ||
| Over? | ||
| That's Andrew there, Mr. Reykjavik. | ||
| That's where the rubber meets the road. | ||
| Like, congratulations, America. | ||
| This is where we are, where, you know, folks are not getting their pension payments. | ||
| I talked to a number of folks who were in the reserve, the Army Reserve this weekend who had their trainings canceled. | ||
| I mean, the deep cuts that we're making into our national structure of security, but also into people. | ||
| These are real people's lives, and they are the collateral damage of this shutdown. | ||
| And I think, look, POCs on all houses here. | ||
| I mean, I think that the President and Congress and the Democrats should have come to an agreement. | ||
| But the truth is that the Democrats, you know, did hold out here, and I hoped that they would come to the table and find a way to move it forward, and they didn't. | ||
| And I think that there is a high political price to be paid, especially around our national security and our veterans. | ||
| I have been a critic of any shutdown. | ||
| I was vocal when the Republicans shut down the government. | ||
| I stood outside the World War II Memorial with other veterans service groups, and I'm doing the same now when Democrats shut down the government. | ||
| Shutdowns hurt everyone. | ||
| And there are a lot of folks who want to shut down, but our pensioners don't want to shut down. | ||
| Our reservists don't want to shut down. | ||
| And our civilian veterans, especially, don't want to shut down. | ||
| It's just so stupid and unnecessary. | ||
| It's a self-inflicted gunshot wound on our democracy that we don't need, especially right now when our enemies are happy to see us tear each other apart. | ||
| Homer joins us from Louisiana, Vietnam veteran. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hello. | |
| Yes, I just want to express my opinion about, I think that we ought to, I ain't somebody bringing back no drought or nothing like that, but discipline-wise, I think there'll be an average boy 13th grade. | ||
| And because we don't have enough S3 Corps anymore. | ||
| And so, thank you for letting me Homer in Louisiana. | ||
| Mr. Rykoff. | ||
| Yeah, thank you, Homer. | ||
| I think he's getting to a core point. | ||
| I mean, a lot of the connective tissue that has existed for generations across this country is gone. | ||
| More Americans feel isolated, feel lonely, feel disconnected. | ||
| Folks aren't, especially young men and young women, aren't going to religious services as much. | ||
| They're not playing sports as much. | ||
| They're not involved in clubs and groups. | ||
| And the military and military service was a connective tissue that forced everybody to figure out a way to work together. | ||
| I don't support a draft unless there's a war. | ||
| I think that's an important question to ask everyone who's banging on the drums right now, for example, for more war with Venezuela. | ||
| Are they willing to ask people to serve? | ||
| Or is it going to be the rise of a new generation of chicken hawks who are happy to send other people's kids to fight and die? | ||
| I think national service would be a good thing. | ||
| The all-volunteer military has been tremendous for our fighting force. | ||
| We have the greatest military the world has ever seen. | ||
| But it might not be the best thing for our democracy because you've got a small percentage of people, less than one half of 1%, who continue to serve over and over again. | ||
| And the rest of the country largely lives life uninterrupted when it comes to public service. | ||
| So I'm all for efforts to create national public service. | ||
| It doesn't have to just be the military. | ||
| It can be City Corps, Peace Corps, Marine Corps. | ||
| It can be all of them together. | ||
| I think some brave politicians have started to float this issue. | ||
| But I think we're ultimately going to need presidential leadership. | ||
| We're going to need Congress to take it on and recognize it's not just about creating soldiers and Marines and service members. | ||
| It's about creating a stronger America, a place where we all have shared values, we all have a common experience, and we have friendships. | ||
| Everybody who's watching today who's a veteran or knows a veteran knows that you come out of the military with friendships with people from all different backgrounds all across this great country. | ||
| I have friends in almost 50 states that I've met in the military. | ||
| And that's been missing, especially in this latest generation. | ||
| And I think we need brave politicians and more Americans to step forward and say they want something different. | ||
| Let's hear from Earl. | ||
| Earl in Georgia, a veteran. | ||
| Earl, good morning. | ||
| Happy Veterans Day. | ||
| You're on with our guests. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| How are you doing, my brother? | ||
| You know, I said something. | ||
| You know, it's one thing that I really, really, when I came back from older Saudi Arabia, you know, people looked at soldiers as, you know, like they was nothing. | ||
| You know, people don't realize that when you are a soldier, you're out there on that front line. | ||
| You're back in rest then. | ||
| And I think that the soldiers should be better taken care of, you know, because we the one that's out there on that front line, allowing them to rest at night, allowing them to sleep at nighttime. | ||
| And there's so many calling in and talking about the military and all the right here. | ||
| Why don't they just see what you and I have seen? | ||
| And they will understand how we feel and what we feel. | ||
| Okay, Leslie, I want to say, as it is today, you know, I got to go to work on resting days. | ||
| I was about to talk to kids and stuff, let them know, hey, I was glad to serve. | ||
| And I will serve again right now. | ||
| I'm six to eight years old. | ||
| And if I get called to go, my rub site, my pack is ready to go right now. | ||
| Thank you, my brother. | ||
| God bless you. | ||
| I love you. | ||
| And I feel your pain. | ||
| That is Earl in Georgia. | ||
| Thank you, Earl. | ||
| I think you're what it's all about. | ||
| You're the kind of leader that we need now more than ever. | ||
| And I think you touched on something that is really, really important. | ||
| I want to encourage veterans, especially who are watching to come on out today. | ||
| Come on out of your house or your job. | ||
| You might have to come out after a double shift. | ||
| But today is the day to remember you're not alone. | ||
| There is a community out there that understands you, that respects you, that loves you, and that needs you, especially to our older veterans that sometimes feel forgotten. | ||
| We need you to mentor and support the next generation, not just of veterans, but also young people. | ||
| They need your example. | ||
| And there's been a lot of reason to pull back from getting out in the streets or coming out in your community. | ||
| There's been so much politics everywhere, and people feel like they sometimes need to pull back and just watch another football game. | ||
| And I understand that. | ||
| I feel the same way oftentimes. | ||
| But Veterans Day is a day to come home to your community. | ||
| And if you can't do it in person in your town or in your city, you can do it online. | ||
| There's a lot of virtual town halls and virtual veterans meetings that are happening. | ||
| Or you can go to any one of the very high number of places that has free food today, and you can go in and get a free meal, and you'll run into other veterans. | ||
| But today, especially, come on out. | ||
| It's not just about you, it's about continuing to serve. | ||
| We need you now, especially in these divisive times in America, where a lot of folks are frankly scared. | ||
| They're worried. | ||
| They don't know what's next. | ||
| They need your leadership. | ||
| They need your strength. | ||
| And maybe most of all, they need your example. | ||
| Mr. Rykoff, you are more than aware probably of that recent speech by the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseff, to generals, where he said that, talked about this issue of a, quote, woke military, decried, quote, fat generals, according to this write-up from NPR, ordered women in the military to meet highest male standards, all under the umbrella of something called warrior ethos tasking. | ||
| I want to ask you about the message that he's sending, and did you think it was a wrong one? | ||
| Yes, I thought it was the wrong one, because I think everything has gotten overtly political. | ||
| And this has been, in my view, the most overtly political and politically extreme Defense Secretary we've ever seen. | ||
| This is not a moderate guy cut from the mold of previous defense secretaries. | ||
| This is a hyper-political leader who is, in my view, kind of waged a culture war against the Pentagon. | ||
| Now, yes, we need high standards. | ||
| Yes, we want people to be fit. | ||
| But it's also about tone and respect. | ||
| And I think the way that he brought those generals in on short notice and gave them kind of his personal political TED Talk was not respectful, was not honorable, was not necessary. | ||
| And I think we really also need to understand that a high number of very senior people who are not partisan have been purged by this Secretary and this administration over the last couple of months. | ||
| That should not be a partisan issue. | ||
| It should be an alarm bell for everyone. | ||
| When you see the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and dozens of senior generals who are not partisan people who have left, and now more that are continuing to leave and be driven out, including the head of vital positions like Cyber Command, there's been a hollowing out, especially in the senior leadership of our military, and it's been with a political angle. | ||
| And I think that is bad. | ||
| I've never seen folks in the Pentagon and across the military more concerned about the politicization of what's happening around our military. | ||
| And look, some folks like it, right? | ||
| Some folks are all in on that. | ||
| I get it. | ||
| But I don't think that's the majority. | ||
| I think the majority generally view the Pentagon, especially as a place where politics is supposed to be off limits, and it feels like there's politics every day. | ||
| And there's a lack of accountability. | ||
| I don't think we can have this conversation today without recognizing that there are more strikes on boats off the coast of Venezuela almost on a daily basis. | ||
| There's talk of bombing Venezuela. | ||
| There's talks of troops on the ground. | ||
| The president has said he would be open to that. | ||
| And there's been no oversight or accountability from Congress. | ||
| Congress has a sacred obligation to declare war. | ||
| And I know we haven't done it since World War II, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't. | ||
| There should be consultation with Congress and both parties. | ||
| There should be, I think, approval from Congress and both parties. | ||
| And there should be a real conversation with the American people about why the President thinks this is necessary, what the cost could be, and to brace America. | ||
| Because it's real easy to start wars, and as our veterans especially know, it's really hard to end them. | ||
| And I think anytime we're having a discussion about killing bad guys, we also have to understand we're having a discussion about creating more veterans. | ||
| Because every time you launch a missile or you fire a strike, you're putting men and women in harm's way. | ||
| And we have to ask the president or anyone else who wants to do that, how many Americans are you willing to lose? | ||
| Are you willing to send your own kids? | ||
| That's a question I think we should be asking the president and anyone who wants to send young men and women to die. | ||
| Are you willing to send your own kids or grandkids for this cause? | ||
| And if not, why not? | ||
| That's a question I think we need to push in front of more of them, especially in the next couple of weeks. | ||
| One more call, and this will be from Clarence in Long Island, a Vietnam veteran. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning, Mr. Rykoff. | |
| Welcome home. | ||
| I'm with the Vietnam Veterans of America out here in Suffolk County, Long Island. | ||
| And I speak to a lot of incarcerated veterans, a lot of veterans in vets caught, and a lot of veterans on the street. | ||
| These young veterans need the Independent Veterans of America. | ||
| We need you to set tables up at the VA. | ||
| We need you to recruit these kids because we're aging out. | ||
| We're definitely aging out. | ||
| These young kids got to get into different VSOs. | ||
| They got to keep the VA open because once we age out with these community outreach centers, I'll tell you, once we age out, the VAs are going to shut down. | ||
| They'll probably privatize. | ||
| And these young kids are going to be out there without a paddle. | ||
| So what I suggest to you is, you know, if you can get these kids, get your membership. | ||
| You got to increase your membership, like the VFW, the American Legion, the AMVETS. | ||
| You got to get these kids out there so they can get the information and keep the V. | ||
| We came home and we fought. | ||
| We had nothing. | ||
| You know the history of Vietnam veterans. | ||
| But these kids, I mean, the way that things are going nowadays, the way they're cutting back, the way the VA has dropped 30,000 and they're saying maybe 80,000. | ||
| We got to do something about this. | ||
| We got to get these young kids into a VSO, into an organization. | ||
| Okay, Clarence, thank you. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| We'll let our guests respond to that. | ||
| Clarence, thank you for your leadership. | ||
| My wife's from Long Island, so I know the good work you guys do out there. | ||
| I think it's important for folks to remember that, for example, the Veterans Day parade happening here in New York City started out as a march because Vietnam veterans were not welcomed in this city. | ||
| They had to come across the Brooklyn Bridge and they went past City Hall because they were not welcomed by the mayor and by the establishment. | ||
| And that was true in large parts of this country. | ||
| So there's a very important activist component to veterans all the way back to George Washington, the bonus march. | ||
| If you want to understand the activism and the history of almost every step toward justice in this country, veterans have been the backbone of that. | ||
| And what's happening now that I think the caller touches on, it's very important, is we're having a seismic demographic shift. | ||
| We've lost almost all the World War II veterans and the Korean War veterans are right behind them. | ||
| And the Vietnam veterans are in their 60s and 70s and they're aging out and they're passing as well. | ||
| So we're going to go from roughly what is a high of about 19 million veterans in this country over the next decade or two down to about half of that. | ||
| So it's a tectonic shift in the demographic numbers, the sheer numbers of veterans in this country. | ||
| And that's going to impact our political power. | ||
| That's going to impact our popularity. | ||
| That's also going to impact our narrative, how people understand veterans and even how they understand history. | ||
| So I echo your call, sir, like young veterans especially. | ||
| We need you to get involved. | ||
| We need you to join any kind of veterans group. | ||
| And the older veterans, we need you to come back. | ||
| We know that oftentimes you weren't treated well, but we need you now to perform that connective tissue, that family, that extended family that we need. | ||
| That America also needs right now to be kind of a backbone about our values and what this country stands for right now, especially. | ||
| And it should be anticipated that cuts will come to veterans' benefits in the future because they will say there are less veterans. | ||
| So there's less need for support and services. | ||
| And that's not necessarily true, especially given the complexity of some of the modern injuries from the battlefield, like a traumatic brain injury, like severe amputations. | ||
| Veterans are surviving now when they would have died in past generations. | ||
| And that's more expensive. | ||
| But it should have no price ceiling when it comes to taking care of a man or woman who served for this country. | ||
| And that's an investment that this country had made and needs to continue to make for the rest of their life because we still need you. | ||
| That's what I'll say to all veterans, sir, is, you know, look, you served before. | ||
| We need you to serve again. | ||
| And your country needs you and wants you and loves you and does appreciate you. | ||
| Even if you didn't feel appreciated before, you haven't felt appreciated in the last couple months. | ||
| The veterans community especially needs you and we're recruiting. | ||
| Independent Veteransofamerica.org is the website if you want to check out our guest organization. | ||
| Paul Rykoff serves as the founder and CEO. | ||
| Happy Veterans Day to you, sir. | ||
| Thank you, Pedro. | ||
| Appreciate you always having this space of respectful conversation to all the callers. | ||
| It's a public forum that this country needs. | ||
| And happy Veterans Day to everybody out there. | ||
| I hope I see you out there in real life or online. | ||
| We'll continue on with our Veterans Day segments later on in the program, a historical perspective on how the United States has recognized veterans on Veterans Day. | ||
| That conversation with American History Unbounds John Monsky. | ||
| But next, we're going to continue the conversation with Concerned Veterans for America's John Vick, who joins us on Washington Journal when we return. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Later this morning, a Veterans Day tribute to those who served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II, featuring the United States Army Brass Quintet. | |
| Watch at 10 a.m. Eastern, live from the National World War II Memorial on the National Mall on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| Today, President Trump joins the 72nd annual National Veterans Day Observance, delivering remarks and laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. | ||
| Watch live at 11 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org. | ||
| Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold, original series. | ||
| Sunday, best-selling biographer Walter Isaacson, who chronicles history's most remarkable lives. | ||
| His books include Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs, and Einstein. | ||
| He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein. | ||
| What attracted you to these people? | ||
| Was it because they were geniuses or you just happened to like them? | ||
| Smart people are a dime a dozen. | ||
| In order to be a genius, you have to be creative. | ||
| You have to think out of the box. | ||
| And one of the things that struck me when I wrote about Benjamin Franklin early on was what a great scientist and technologist he was. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Watch America's Book Club with Walter Isaacson, Sundays at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | |
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| Catch the latest episodes of Washington Journal. | ||
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| The C-SPAN Now app is available at the Apple Store and Google Play. | ||
| Download it for free today. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Our C-SPAN cameras out at the World War II Memorial. | ||
| Special events going on there later today, and you can see that on C-SPAN as we continue our discussion on veterans issues on this Veterans Day with John Vick. | ||
| He's with Concerned Veterans for America. | ||
| He serves as their executive director. | ||
| Welcome to the program. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| Appreciate it. | ||
| Before we talk about your organization specifically, outline your military career and how it informs what you do today. | ||
| Yeah, it's been a long and weird one. | ||
| I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2003, which doesn't feel that long ago. | ||
| Became a field radio operator, put off college for a little bit, ended up serving in Iraq. | ||
| After Iraq, got pretty much bounced directly into the Naval Academy system, ended up commissioning as a Navy officer, and that coincided with the 2011 budget sequestration and a big reduction in force. | ||
| So I was going to go fly planes, ended up never getting to even sit in a Cessna, ended up moving up to Washington, D.C. I'm still in the Navy Reserve now as an intelligence officer, but that's how I ended up in D.C. working for the House Veterans Affairs Committee and 10 years later doing this. | ||
| Politically, because your organization does deal with politics, what do you think is of most importance to veterans these days? | ||
| And particularly with the shutdown going on. | ||
| Well, I say first, for a day like Veterans Day, reach out to the veterans that you know. | ||
| If you're a veteran, reach out to your friends. | ||
| If you know a veteran, reach out. | ||
| Not everybody has the same support system, so I think that's really, really critical. | ||
| I think, too, especially given the shutdown and sort of the politics of chaos, I think it's important to take a day like today and view veterans, view the military as something that we can unify around. | ||
| Elaborate on that. | ||
| Yeah, so, you know, regardless of your politics, regardless of your background, right, veterans are united, bound by service and fraternity. | ||
| So I think that focusing on that on a day like today helps us maybe put some of the bitterness of politics aside. | ||
| Given the organization that you're with, how do you think the shutdown has treated veterans, particularly with the aspect of pay or the question there, with the aspect of service at the VA? | ||
| How do you think that has been covered during this past 40 days or so? | ||
| Well, so, you know, some things, fortunately, were not impacted by the shutdown, like disability payments, things like that. | ||
| But the VA is enormous. | ||
| It's a leviathan organization, and stuff just breaks all the time, right? | ||
| One of the examples that a friend of mine told me about was related to receiving GI Bill benefits for school. | ||
| The housing allowance that comes with that that enables you to live, you know, in that college town. | ||
| There was some glitch. | ||
| They didn't get their payments, and the people that would solve the glitch were furloughed by the shutdown. | ||
| So even when the resources are technically there, when you have this enormous bureaucratic entity, going two, three, four weeks without having everybody on board working manifests itself in a lot of different ways. | ||
| Do you think with the shutdown seemingly resolving itself, what's your hope as far as veterans are concerned when it comes to how they've been affected? | ||
| Well, foremost, you know, if whoever was impacted by a glitch here or there or missed a payment or missed counseling, right? | ||
| Making sure that we backtrack and take care of those folks that were impacted in any number of ways. | ||
| Talk about your organization. | ||
| Specifically, what is it designed for? | ||
| What does it do? | ||
| Yeah, so CVA, Concerned Veterans for America, very unique. | ||
| We're the only national grassroots organization that is custom-built to amplify veterans' voices across every aspect of American governance. | ||
| So we're not a VSO, like VFW or the American Legion. | ||
| And a VSO is? | ||
| A veteran service organization. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So, and specifically, we're Concerned Veterans for America because we talk about everything, right? | ||
| So whenever I'm talking to a group of vets or a group of legislators, I always say, I never went overseas to fight for like a disability benefit. or a veteran benefit. | ||
| You go overseas, you join the military to fight for the American way of life. | ||
| You care about your country. | ||
| And so when veterans come home from their service, they quite literally have skin in the game. | ||
| They've sacrificed. | ||
| Their family have sacrificed. | ||
| So whether it's veterans issues or the economy or foreign policy, we believe that veterans have a unique and compelling voice on all issues that matter to all Americans. | ||
| Your organization used to be headed by Pete Hegseth. | ||
| True, yes. | ||
| Do you have sway with him now or at least at the DOD because of your affiliation? | ||
| No, no, absolutely not. | ||
| But he's welcome to call me anytime. | ||
| When it comes to point of view, political point of view, what political point of view would your organization take? | ||
| I'd say we're center-right. | ||
| We're generally conservative, especially on things like economic issues, foreign policy. | ||
| We're very focused on things like realism and restraint in the way that we conduct American policy overseas, the way that we use our military. | ||
| We believe very strongly in, and it's, you know, I think people get it even if you're not a veteran, even if you're not in the military, but like, what's your favorite kind of mission? | ||
| It's one where there's a clear end state, a clear objective. | ||
| You know what you need to do. | ||
| You want to go do it. | ||
| You want to be successful, and then you want to come home. | ||
| So very much trying to, you know, especially those of us that fought in Iraq, deployed to Afghanistan or Africa. | ||
| I've been to Africa twice too. | ||
| You know, it's very demoralizing to not know what your end state is on that mission, to have open-ended obligations overseas. | ||
| So the crux of when we talk about things like realism and restraint and how we use our military, focusing on it as one lever of national power, right? | ||
| We should be great at diplomacy too, or informational, or military, of course, and then economic. | ||
| And in the war college, we call this dime, DIME. | ||
| And so if you're the greatest, most powerful country in the world, you should be able to leverage your economy, leverage your diplomacy, and then, of course, your military also when you have to, but not going to the most immediate point and shoot off. | ||
| This is John Vick of Concerned Veterans for America joining us. | ||
| And if you have questions for him on this Veterans Day on veterans issues, 2027 88000 for Democrats, Republicans, 2028-8001 and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| And if you are a veteran, active, or former military, and you want to give us your thoughts too, you can call us at 202-748-8003. | ||
| To that last point, John Vick, there is a current debate on Capitol Hill and elsewhere about efforts in the Caribbean dealing with specific ships suspect of narco-terrorism, exploding them, blowing them up. | ||
| What do you think about that overall as a mission? | ||
| And does it fall into your concerns that you just listed? | ||
| Sure, yeah. | ||
| Well, I mean, foremost, I think that it's critical to get Congress in the conversation about how we use our military. | ||
| One of the most encouraging things that's currently, as part of the 2026 NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, is repealing outdated war powers from like 1991 and 2002 to take on Saddam Hussein. | ||
| Those war powers just staying on the books, you end up having sort of a legal trickle-down effects where you can use the military in ways that really Congress should be more a part of. | ||
| It's one of the reasons why we're so vocal about we need to get this shutdown over, right? | ||
| Because until the shutdown's over, nothing that Congress would normally be able to attack on and to engage on is going to happen. | ||
| So I do think it's concerning anytime you have plans for things we've heard about with Venezuela, with Mexico. | ||
| But it's also, this is also a function of diplomacy, too. | ||
| We've seen President Trump do this in a number of different ways. | ||
| Looking at Mexico, for instance, more than half of overdose deaths in the United States come from Mexican fentanyl. | ||
| But we've also seen the Mexican government engage on using its military to take down fentanyl-producing facilities, not slowing down, or I should say, increasing the pace of extradition for U.S. prosecution for fentanyl dealers. | ||
| So that's also one response to some of the tough rhetoric I think we've seen out of the administration. | ||
| When it comes then to your philosophy and your organization's philosophy of restraint, how does that fit the picture then, how the administration tackles these things? | ||
| Yeah, well, I think that, you know, I wouldn't call it saber-rattling necessarily, but I think having that tough rhetoric on how the United States can use its military gets results as well. | ||
| We saw this earlier this year, early in the first part of the second Trump administration, where there was tough talk about how we engage with NATO, right? | ||
| And almost immediately you saw European allies that have always been capable of being capable responding with, I think it was an 800 billion Euro rearm Europe investment. | ||
| So, you know, at the end of the day, I don't think that the United States wants to leave NATO. | ||
| We just want a more equitable partnership with our NATO allies. | ||
| And we've seen results on that as well. | ||
| Let's hear from Frank. | ||
| This is Frank in Los Angeles, a veteran. | ||
| You're on with John Vick of Concerned Veterans for America. | ||
| Frank, good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, hi. | |
| Good morning, Frank. | ||
| I'm 100% disabled here. | ||
| And I've been trying to get my stuff done at the VA. | ||
| It's impossible. | ||
| Absolutely impossible. | ||
| I'm homebound. | ||
| I'm in pain all the time. | ||
| And I got somebody to take me up to get an exam. | ||
| And they examined me and they did everything and they put my whole condition in there and everything like that. | ||
| And what? | ||
| Go ahead, Frank. | ||
| Go ahead and finish your thought. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, and then they call you and they want me to go to the clinic. | |
| And I stopped going to one of their clinics. | ||
| I don't have any trust or confidence in the VA clin. | ||
| They give you stuff like that. | ||
| And they don't want to write and write to take care. | ||
| I can't stay on the phone. | ||
| I can't get out of bed. | ||
| I'm all by myself. | ||
| So that's my problem there. | ||
| And if I can get off the line and talk to somebody there, I can give them my address and everything, and they can see what they can do. | ||
| Frank, we'll let our guests respond to what you brought to the table. | ||
| Yeah, well, so I think that this is one of the things that the CVA cares a lot about, too, which is how you choose to take care of yourself. | ||
| I would say to Frank specifically, if you're not getting good results from the VA, reach out to one of those local VSOs like American Legion, like VFW. | ||
| They oftentimes have folks that can help navigate the VA, which is a leviathan bureaucracy. | ||
| But beyond just that, one of the pieces of legislation that I feel very strongly about that is currently making its way through Congress is called the Veterans Access Act, which basically seeks to codify community care access standards, which is to say, you know, if you're not, if the VA is not working for you as a veteran for your mental health, physical health, whatever, you should be able to go down the street to that clinic that your spouse uses, your family uses. | ||
| Fundamentally, I think that how you choose to take care of yourself, your ability to choose how you take care of yourself, is a function of human dignity. | ||
| And so when we see things like the Veterans Access Act, which is not full choice, but does have pilot programs for things like mental health or substance abuse, shortening the distance between a healthcare crisis and treatment is a critical piece of that. | ||
| What do you think of the management of the VA under Doug Collins so far? | ||
| Yeah, no, I've gotten to meet Secretary Collins before. | ||
| I think that a lot of the changes that we've seen in the federal government that are based around sort of shaking things up, I think is very important. | ||
| Certainly, my heart goes out for some of the VA staff that have lost their jobs. | ||
| But also, I mean, I think it's critical to take, it's very important to take sort of a critical examination of what the VA looks like and what it's looked like historically. | ||
| You know, massive increases in budgets without a discernible difference in healthcare outcomes for veterans. | ||
| As a country, we've always said we're willing to spend the dollars. | ||
| The VA is the second biggest pot of money after defense, right? | ||
| But skyrocketing costs for things like overhead, throwing more money at problems when, I mean, just like talking to Frank, it doesn't always necessarily equate to better health care outcomes. | ||
| I think we need to be more creative about how we think about getting services to veterans, whether it's health care, whether it's especially mental health care, where they get it, how they get it, streamlining that service delivery, I think, is critical. | ||
| And so it's encouraging to see VA trying new things. | ||
| The Secretary has talked about cuts and staffing and various parts of the VA. | ||
| To what degree do you think that affects the end user? | ||
| It depends on where you cut, right? | ||
| I mean, if you're talking about overhead, general administration, things like that, redundancies on redundancies for different ways to push paper in different directions, I don't think that does anything for veterans. | ||
| I think that finding, you know, again, understanding that we're willing to spend the dollars to take care of vets, finding the best way to streamline those dollars to veterans getting the things they need. | ||
| Again, I think especially as a post-9-11 veteran, when we talk about mental health care, and even if you've never been in the military, everybody knows someone that's dealt with mental health or substance abuse. | ||
| Oftentimes the window to get help for things like that is maybe a weekend, maybe a day or two. | ||
| Some VA hospitals, it takes two months to get an appointment for mental health care. | ||
| That's why there's been so much suicide. | ||
| I mean, I think we're at 7,000 killed in action deaths in the post-9-11 wars. | ||
| But we've lost 10 times that number to suicide, sometimes in a VA parking lot. | ||
| So things like that, we're talking about just because we've done things a certain way to take care of vets in the past, especially big VA hospitals, doesn't necessarily mean that's the best thing for veterans now. | ||
| Democrats line, this is from New York. | ||
| Margarita, for our guest, John Vick, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I'm very, it's very special today because I'm off today. | ||
| I just want to make a comment. | ||
| I really, I'm listening to the gentleman that spoke before. | ||
| My son is in the Coast Guard. | ||
| He's been in the Coast Guard over 20 years. | ||
| I have a grandson in the Marines living in New York City, seeing the veterans, just people in general. | ||
| Right now with the crisis with the SNAP program, I live in a community of the 55 and older where some of my neighbors right now don't know where they're getting their next meal. | ||
| I think the Democrats and the Republicans and whoever else have to get their act together because this is a real bad crisis and it's affecting everybody. | ||
| I work with children in schools also. | ||
| Their parents are trying to figure out where they're going to get their next meal. | ||
| They need to stop, get the program together so people could get back to their jobs and just stop what's going on. | ||
| Democrat, Republicans, the SNAP program doesn't say this is just for Republicans or this is just for Democrats. | ||
| This is for everybody. | ||
| The veterans, I see them. | ||
| My daughter works in the city. | ||
| We see people in the streets all over. | ||
| It's very, very sad. | ||
| And I hope that the government will get their act together. | ||
| Republicans, I don't care who you are. | ||
| When you go to the SNAP program, it doesn't say, I'm a Democrat, so I'm not going to feed my children, or I'm a Republican. | ||
| Everybody's the same. | ||
| So please, if you can, very strong. | ||
| My son, like I said, he's in the military, Coast Guard, KPI. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thank you, Margarita. | ||
| We'll let our guests respond. | ||
| Well, Margarita, thank you for your family service foremost. | ||
| And, you know, regarding SNAP and stuff like that, I would just say the shutdown has impacted a lot of families in a lot of different ways. | ||
| We've also seen this impact the military, the DOD school system. | ||
| Military bases have childcare, right? | ||
| And just like most Americans, I think almost half of military families live paycheck to paycheck. | ||
| Critical difference being that when you're moving every two years, you're probably not living near family. | ||
| So when stuff like this happens and your child care situation is impacted or your food security situation is impacted, you know, missing paychecks, it's not just the military folks that we're worried about. | ||
| It's also all of the DOD civilians that let this machine run, right? | ||
| And so especially if you're a single parent in the military wondering, you know, what's going to happen when your kids' aftercare program gets shut down, something like that. | ||
| There's countless ways that shutdowns impacted folks. | ||
| The next pay period for the military, I believe, is the 15th of this month. | ||
| What's your level of confidence? | ||
| Is that going to be met? | ||
| I am cautiously optimistic. | ||
| But this is already the longest shutdown in our country's history. | ||
| I would also say the only shutdown in living memory that's impacted the military like this. | ||
| If we look at the previous record, I think it was 2018 to 19, the military was funded separately, so you didn't have to go through this. | ||
| It was very discouraging when the military appropriations bill went up, I think, a week and a half ago, and that was shut down as well. | ||
| You know, could have taken this off the table. | ||
| But it's hard, I think, very hard for military people not to feel like pawns when that specific vote happens, and that also fails. | ||
| Why do you think the carve-out for them didn't happen this time around? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I mean, I'm pretty shocked. | ||
| If I'm being cynical about it, I think it made it more painful. | ||
| It made the shutdown more painful. | ||
| And so you basically, this is the politics of chaos. | ||
| I don't think it came down to necessarily just SNAP benefits or Obamacare credits or whatever you want to say. | ||
| But I think that there was people politically invested in making the shutdown hurt. | ||
| Is that a political party like a Democrat-Republican? | ||
| Is that the president himself? | ||
| Blame all the way around? | ||
| Who would you cast that on? | ||
| I think I would cast it on Democrats in the Senate. | ||
| Why is that? | ||
| Well, I mean, one of the things that strikes me is all of the talk of a clean CR, a clean continuing resolution. | ||
| This is literally the Biden budget. | ||
| It's the same kind of CR that both parties voted on, I think, back in March and agreed to. | ||
| When it comes down to just continuing the status quo, it's not even like a Republican thing. | ||
| But specifically, Democrats pump the brakes on this. | ||
| I think that they do that because they're trying to create a pain point. | ||
| And the military got caught up in that as well. | ||
| Doyle is next, and Doyle is from Chattanooga, Tennessee, former military. | ||
| Hello, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you doing? | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| Believe me. | ||
| I'm talking about misuse of the military. | ||
| Supposed to be making us look strong, but making us look weak. | ||
| We have never been. | ||
| I'm a Vietnam era that I was in the Navy, and I was going to destroy you. | ||
| You don't need an aircraft carrier, a submarine, three destroyers to take care of them as well. | ||
| You could set one destroyer out there. | ||
| And I was on a destroyer in NATO, a U.S. destroyer in NATO in 64. | ||
| That's been a long time. | ||
| And I know how powerful we are. | ||
| I always have been powerful every year to now. | ||
| We look weak. | ||
| We don't look stronger than that. | ||
| We still. | ||
| Frank, why do you think, Doyle, why do you think the military looks weak now? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You don't need to sit an aircraft carrier, three destroyers, a helicopter to demonstrate them. | |
| If you had, you could set one destroyer out there and do anything they want to do. | ||
| They can capture them both easy. | ||
| They got machine guns, they got payloads, they got missiles, and Demon Flavians don't have that kind of weapon. | ||
| Period. | ||
| Okay, Doyle in Chattanooga. | ||
| He goes back to Venezuela. | ||
| He says all that projection makes the military look weak. | ||
| I don't think it makes us look weak. | ||
| I think certainly, you know, one of the perks of having the world's strongest Navy is force projection, right? | ||
| And sometimes just parking ships out there can make a statement. | ||
| George is in Kentucky, and George joins us on our line for veterans. | ||
| George, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, I'm 100% full and permanent veteran. | ||
| I served six years in the Air Force, 30 years I've been on full and permanent disability. | ||
| I have two questions. | ||
| All us veterans want to know. | ||
| Question number one: why is our veteran disability counted as compensation? | ||
| Our compensation is counted as income. | ||
| It disqualifies us from all kinds of help and aid that we could receive if it was set back to compensation. | ||
| Question number two: why is the VA more worried about liability than the care of veterans? | ||
| They get to certain levels of care where it requires certain pain medications or certain nerve medications, and it's no, no, more worried about the liability than actually helping the veteran. | ||
| That's what we would really like to know. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Well, I'm not an expert on the compensation piece. | ||
| I would direct him to one of the VSOs that specialize in that stuff and getting things through the disability pipeline. | ||
| Regarding his other question, though, again, I think it comes down to choosing how to take care of yourself. | ||
| That's one of the reasons why we feel so strongly about community care and access to, you know, if you like your doctor down the street, you ought to be able to use that one. | ||
| You shouldn't have your choices limited just because you earned your health care with blood and sweat and time away from your family. | ||
| So, when the VA takes on programs like extending health care to private practice and offshooting it to them, that's something that you could support? | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| So, community care is what we call it, right? | ||
| And so, the original idea behind community care was because you had these tremendous wait times at VA. | ||
| And so, it said, okay, well, if the wait time is X or greater, then you should be able to go down the street to a community care provider, a private doctor in your community. | ||
| That choice has been very popular for veterans, especially rural veterans, right? | ||
| I mean, going up to Montana, we've had stories about veterans driving four hours just to go see their doctor. | ||
| And that's not just a lack of choice or these onerous pathways to get care. | ||
| It's not just bad for that one appointment, right? | ||
| It also has a depressing effect on preventative care, right? | ||
| If you have to go four hours each way, you're really going to go get your blood work done every year. | ||
| If you don't feel actively sick, then you end up going to the doctor when you're very, very ill. | ||
| So, not just from a human dignity is right perspective, but also from a fiscal perspective, too, having access to community care. | ||
| Local doctors can often do it quicker and more efficiently. | ||
| We've set aside a line, like we've been telling you all morning, about former inactive military. | ||
| A former military member from Kentucky joins us. | ||
| This is Jerry. | ||
| Jerry, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| My dad didn't make Korean boy. | ||
| He'd been in an accident. | ||
| I mean, World War II, but he'd been in an accident. | ||
| But I had a brother in Korea. | ||
| I had another brother served in somewhere in the mid-60s, mid-50s, and then I was in the 60s, 70s. | ||
| But that's not the reason I'm calling. | ||
| I don't want no thanks or praise. | ||
| The reason I'm calling is because I'm a 43-year volunteer at the fire department. | ||
| And we coast train on any in a rural part, the rural department. | ||
| So we have training on pretty much any situation because we're going to be the first on the scene. | ||
| And as far as take the paramedics, if you're a paramedic out there in the military, you are used to walking up on that scene and you automatically know what to do. | ||
| But for us, I was a jet engine specialist. | ||
| I mean, I was a doctor, forget engineer. | ||
| I don't have much experience there. | ||
| So anything that I see, I had to run through all my training to figure out what to do. | ||
| Now, the first four or five minutes, first four or five minutes on the scene is the most important time. | ||
| But not just paramedics, any kind of military. | ||
| If you're looking for something to help your community, think about your rural departments because I think all you fire departments, because I think they would love to have you. | ||
| Thank you for my time. | ||
| Hope everyone have a blessed day. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Jerry in Kentucky. | ||
| You as well, Jerry. | ||
| Thank you for your service. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| No, I mean, I think, gosh, it's one-third roughly of the federal workforce are veterans. | ||
| You also see veterans oversampled in police departments and fire departments. | ||
| It's because fundamentally, when you start off your adult life with service, it really is hard to put that down. | ||
| I mentioned earlier when I left active duty because of the reduction in force, that was 2011, 2012, Grew Freedom Beard did not think I was going to be back in the military again. | ||
| They gave me eight years of inactive reserve. | ||
| Within four, I was back on the active reserve list, had to shave the beard. | ||
| Once you get a taste for service, it's hard to stop doing that. | ||
| Let's hear from Bob. | ||
| Bob is our last call. | ||
| He's in Virginia, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
| Hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I was listening to the veteran who called who served on the destroyer earlier. | |
| And I think he misses the point entirely of the large amount of American force that is being projected in the region. | ||
| The point is to overthrow the government of Venezuela. | ||
| There is a bounty on Maduro. | ||
| We have already announced that Machado is our pick for the new ruler of Venezuela. | ||
| Trump has made numerous public statements saying that Maduro has to go and he will go. | ||
| He's said that the CIA is on the ground. | ||
| That's obvious. | ||
| He's following the playbook of George H.W. Bush when he invaded Panama to get rid of a so-called narco-terrorist by the name of Noriega. | ||
| He's doing exactly the same thing that Bush is doing. | ||
| He's going to overthrow the government of Venezuela. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Bob, thanks. | ||
| Well, we don't know for sure that the CIA is on the ground yet, but would we? | ||
| Right? | ||
| Yeah, no, it's Maduro is a bad guy. | ||
| I think that, you know, one of the troubling things in Venezuela right now is the fact that you do have drug cartels overlaid within their military, within their government. | ||
| And so it's very blurry lines in terms of who's exactly doing what. | ||
| But going back to the earlier part about realism and restraint involving Congress, I think it's just critical that we move past the shutdown business so that Congress can start having these conversations. | ||
| I love the direction we're going with the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, removing outdated war powers. | ||
| It's long overdue. | ||
| We still have more work to do there, but I think the direction that Congress is going, reclaiming some of their responsibility to talk about matters of war and peace, that's encouraging. | ||
| I think it's a critical direction. | ||
| CV4A.org is the website for Concerned Veterans for America. | ||
| John Vick serves as the executive director here on this Veterans Day talking about veterans issues. | ||
| Happy Veterans Day to you. | ||
| Thanks for your time. | ||
| Thank you, sir. | ||
| You can talk about Veterans Day. | ||
| You can talk about other things on our open forum if you want to participate. | ||
| It's 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| And Independence 202-748-8002 will take those calls when Washington Journal continues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Later this morning, a Veterans Day tribute to those who served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II, featuring the United States Army Brass Quintet. | |
| Watch at 10 a.m. Eastern, live from the National World War II Memorial on the National Mall on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| Today, President Trump joins the 72nd annual National Veterans Day Observance, delivering remarks and laying a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. | ||
| Watch live at 11 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app and online at c-span.org. | ||
| 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. | ||
| If you ever miss any of C-SPAN's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. | ||
| Videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. | ||
| These points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. | ||
| This timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in Washington. | ||
| Scroll through and spend a few minutes on C-SPAN's point of interest. | ||
| On Wednesday, cast members from the comedy series VEEP will discuss political satire and share memorable moments from the show. | ||
| Hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School, you can see it live at 7:30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Our C-SPAN crews braving the cold at various points in Washington, D.C. to show you sights and sounds on this Veterans Day, what you're seeing now, the World War II Memorial in Washington. | ||
| Again, at 10 o'clock, just an hour from now, special events there that you can see on this network on C-SPAN. | ||
| And stay close to that for there. | ||
| Also, cameras out and about at the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial. | ||
| They're a familiar site for especially if you've come to Washington, D.C., to see that wall and the names that are etched on it there. | ||
| That's there. | ||
| And then at Arlington's National Cemetery at the Tomb of the Unknowns, there is preparation for again other events that take place on this Veterans Day. | ||
| You can call about Veterans Day. | ||
| You can talk about the shutdown. | ||
| You can talk about other issues as well on this open forum. | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats. | ||
| 202-748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| And 202-748-8002 for Independents. | ||
| You can text us thoughts too at 202-748-8003. | ||
| And as always, you can post on our social media sites. | ||
| That's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| The Hill announcing that another retirement from Congress, House Budget Committee Chairman Jody Arrington, Republican of Texas, announcing today that he will not seek re-election in 2026. | ||
| Quote, I have a firm conviction, much like our founders did, that public service is a lifetime commitment, but public office is and should be a temporary stint in stewardship, not a career. | ||
| Telling Fox News. | ||
| The story from the Hill adding that Arrington played a key role in helping craft and usher through the House the one big beautiful bill of President Trump's tax cuts and spending priorities. | ||
| Mr. Arrington adding it was a very unique generational impact opportunity to almost be almost 10 years into this and have the budget chairmanship and to lead the charge to successfully pass that and to help this president fulfill his mandate from the people. | ||
| It just seems like a good and right place to leave it. | ||
| Again, that's coming out this morning, this day after the Senate passing that legislation. | ||
| The house when it comes to reopening the government, the House expecting, expected reportedly to take it up tomorrow. | ||
| Stay close to C-SPAN for that. | ||
| Edie is first up on this open forum from New York, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| You're on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| Well, first, I wanted to clarify that they were saying that the Democrats are the ones that did the shutdown. | ||
| And it's the Republicans that shut it down because they wanted to cover Trump from that Epstein file. | ||
| But then they told the Democrats that they would open up if they would cut health care. | ||
| And the Democrats said, no, they're not going to sign up to open the government because they don't want to cut to health care. | ||
| So now and then also they didn't want to appoint Helita so that she doesn't sign up to Epstein. | ||
| So it's all the Republicans, not the Democrats. | ||
| And also I wanted to find out why is Trump talking about the veterans on TV when he knows that he hates veterans. | ||
| He calls them suckers and losers and that they're weak. | ||
| And he himself dodged the draft. | ||
| So he shouldn't be talking about the veterans. | ||
| He has no say in that. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's go to James in Florida. | ||
| James in Florida, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yes, good morning. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Listen, I'm a Korean vet. | ||
| I'm in my mid-90s. | ||
| The reason I mentioned my age is because I want to talk about this health situation. | ||
| It's been on the TV for the longest time. | ||
| They don't look at the people, don't look at the whole picture. | ||
| I go back to the 30s, 40s, and 50s. | ||
| In them days, all the kids went out and they played all day. | ||
| They ran, jumped, climbed, and everything else. | ||
| Then when they came home, they got a farm-fresh meal of vegetables. | ||
| We had a fruit bowl. | ||
| I lived in a poor neighborhood, but we had all those things, and all my friends were healthy. | ||
| I don't remember anybody ever going to the doctor. | ||
| I don't even know if we had a doctor in the neighborhood. | ||
| This is in South Brooklyn on the waterfront where the cargo ships are. | ||
| And if somebody broke a leg, then we went to the emergency ward, and a lot of times there's no waiting. | ||
| And the people didn't get sick in them days. | ||
| So what happened now in this country, these big corporations, I think one is Monasanto or something, and they took over the whole food situation. | ||
| The people have been eating crappy food that's loaded with insecticides, chemicals, preservatives, and everything else, all these TV dinners or whatever. | ||
| They're unhealthy. | ||
| All these fast foods, they're not healthy. | ||
| So now the people eat all, they drink all this sugar with their soda and everything, and they get diabetes, then they got need insulin, then they need help. | ||
| The body, the immune system goes to hell. | ||
| They don't look at it. | ||
| You got to look at the whole picture. | ||
| The food is no good in this country. | ||
| Other countries have much, not all of them, but some of them got much better food than we got, and they're a lot healthier. | ||
| So take a look at the other countries, see what they eat, see what they do on their health plan. | ||
| They seem to do a lot better than us, and then copy what they do. | ||
| Okay, okay. | ||
| Let's go to Tyler. | ||
| Tyler in Maryland, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, I just want to give a shout out out there for the federal firemen that are working through this lockdown. | |
| A lot of them are veterans, and they're doing what they need to do. | ||
| And that's the only opinion I had right now. | ||
| And thank you guys for working and keeping up the fight and serving our community. | ||
| Some of that workforce for C-SPAN you're seeing play out on the screen there, our camera crews in and around Washington on this Veterans Day, a very chilly day, making sure that you have the chance to see some of these sights and sounds as we go throughout the course of the morning. | ||
| The Washington Post reporting on the Supreme Court this morning saying that the Supreme Court's announced yesterday it would decide whether laws that allow states to count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day are constitutional. | ||
| A major case that could upend how elections are run in dozens of states before the midterm elections next year. | ||
| The state of Mississippi has a law that allows mail-in votes to be counted up to five days after polls close as long as the ballots are postmarked by Election Day. | ||
| The Conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit invalidated that law, finding the federal law requires all ballots to be received by Election Day. | ||
| Mississippi officials want the Supreme Court to reverse that ruling. | ||
| This adding that the court has yet to schedule arguments in the case, but any ruling could come by June or July. | ||
| And that's enough time to influence the midterm elections next November and perhaps other contests as well. | ||
| Stanley joins us from Arkansas. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi. | ||
| You're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, I'm a Vietnam convent suffering from PTSD with headaches. | |
| I've been dealing with it for over 50 years now. | ||
| I was discharged in 1971, and as I stated, I was an active combat member of Vietnam. | ||
| One problem I have is I hate to see the military be criticized. | ||
| And I also hate the care the VA have given me because it took so long for me to be diagnosed and recognized. | ||
| Okay, let's hear from another Stanley. | ||
| This one in Georgia, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hey. | ||
| This is Stanley Dixon. | ||
| And I want to talk to some of my folks who I haven't seen since Vietnam. | ||
| I retired as a first sergeant, but back in Vietnam, I was a squad leader in the 919th Armored Combat Engineer Company attached to the 11th Armored CAV. | ||
| I left Vietnam in July of 1967. | ||
| Have not been able to contact, and I've tried and tried, have not been able to contact any of my squad members or platoon members since that day. | ||
| Sure would love to hear from any of you folks. | ||
| Stanley, when you talk about the people you served with, what kind of things did you do over there? | ||
| Talk about those experiences. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I said we were attached to the 11th Armored CAV, 1st Squadron, and we did what cavalry and engineers do or did, probably still do. | |
| We rode in a track, and I usually took, every time we went out, which was often, I usually took about half of my squad of nine or ten out. | ||
| And we searched for mines. | ||
| We searched for Charlie. | ||
| Didn't find too many of them, but we did every now and again. | ||
| We got the cavalry over water, small lakes, etc., etc. | ||
| We built bridges. | ||
| Whatever a combat engineer normally does is what we did. | ||
| And the best thing that happened to us was the good Lord allowed every one of the people in my squad return home. | ||
| Five of us got hurt. | ||
| One of us got put in hospital. | ||
| So a few of us have purple hearts. | ||
| And I would like, I really would like to see some of my folks. | ||
| That's the main reason I called. | ||
| Stanley. | ||
| Stanley, what are, if you don't mind sharing and if you don't think inappropriate, what are some of the names of the folks you served with that you'd like to hear from? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's been so long. | |
| I started to write some of them down. | ||
| I wish I had. | ||
| I thought you didn't think you would ask. | ||
| But let me see. | ||
| One of them's name, easy name. | ||
| His last name is Fish, F-I-S-H. | ||
| Another one is Larry Moore. | ||
| Now, these two guys were specialist fours. | ||
| We had some specialist fives in two specialist fives in the squad. | ||
| But since Larry Moore was such a great person and knew so much, even though he was young, he kind of filled in as my assistant everywhere we went. | ||
| I trusted him. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And Stanley, and George, we got to get on to some other calls, but best of luck in finding some of these old mates of yours on this Veterans Day. | ||
| Omar is from Brooklyn, New York, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi, good morning, America. | ||
| Most importantly to me, good morning, Foundational Black America. | ||
| I want to thank the veterans for your service, my family. | ||
| I have too many family members, but my last, my cousin, Doug, thank you for your service. | ||
| I want to shout you out. | ||
| Really quickly, I want to remind somebody of a veteran that was executed today in 1831. | ||
| Just really quickly, I want to just remind y'all of something. | ||
| Today, someone was murdered or executed because he was fighting for justice and equality. | ||
| And that person's name was Nate Nat Turner. | ||
| Nat Turner was fighting for the freedom and justice and equality for black people in this country. | ||
| And I don't want y'all to forget him. | ||
| He's a veteran for justice and equality. | ||
| And all the veterans that picked up the gun to fight for our country, I hope y'all remembering to fight for justice and equality. | ||
| Because all across this country, what I'm noticing is that black people are in a horrible position. | ||
| We're in between a rock and a hard place for years, forever in this country, 400 years counted. | ||
| But the problem is we always got to pick the worst between the worst to the worst. | ||
| And my problem is this. | ||
| I'm in New York City. | ||
| Madani just got picked. | ||
| Whatever reason, the first thing in 24 hours, the first thing he's talking about is talking to the Jewish people. | ||
| I know that the Jewish people did not vote for him to put him in office. | ||
| The foundational Black Americans in this city put him in office, and he hasn't even said a word to them yet. | ||
| My point being is this. | ||
| Let's just take a step back, Black America, and let's just see foundational Black America. | ||
| Let's just take a step back and focus on us. | ||
| Because if you look, the Democrats and the Republicans, they're not talking about nothing that we need. | ||
| We need reparations for our people that fought for us, that built this country, and we need an anti-hate crime bill to stop these people from killing us and hanging us and murdering us and getting away with it. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's go to Bob, Bob in Tennessee, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yes, I want to give thanks to all the veterans and my brother. | ||
| He served in the Air Force and my dad in the Army back in the 40s, early 40s. | ||
| And I also like to tell you the answer to our food problem is eat more Indian food. | ||
| And I'm not just kidding, Pedro. | ||
| It's a treat to me every time I get to go in Chattanooga to a place. | ||
| But my favorite place had closed down. | ||
| But I believe if we could eat more of that type of food, we would be more healthy. | ||
| And I appreciate you too. | ||
| That's Bob there in Tennessee. | ||
| The Vietnam Veterans War Memorial is what you're seeing. | ||
| C-SPAN cameras out to grab several on this Veterans Day, and we will show you those as the morning goes on. | ||
| As by now, you've probably heard that Representative-elect from Arizona, Adelita Grijalva, is expected to be sworn in this week when the House of Representatives reconvenes as part of an effort to reopen government. | ||
| She herself going to X, posting a video about that. | ||
| Here it is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I told you if I had an update, I would let you know. | |
| So it looks like I'm going to get sworn in this week. | ||
| After seven weeks of waiting, I almost can't believe it's true. | ||
| I am really upset that one of the first votes that I will take is on a bill that does nothing for affordable health care for the American people. | ||
| And I also have to say that we have to do something to make sure that one person can't silence the voices of 813,000 people. | ||
| This can never happen again to another member elect that is waiting in the wings because someone doesn't want to do their job or because they're playing politics. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'll keep you posted on any details. | |
| From Alicia in Florida, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, yeah. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I just want to acknowledge and send love to all the veterans, the ones that sacrificed and gave the ultimate, and the ones that are with us struggling through, you know, I heard earlier PTSD. | ||
| But I offer some hope because the Democrats there in the Senate stood their ground and basically obtained some retractions that the Republicans had placed there in that H.R. 5371 that removed a lot from the veterans. | ||
| I mean a lot. | ||
| If you go through that bill, you're going to be grateful this morning that the Democrats stood their ground for 41 days or 40 days because now the veterans can have things like simple things that you're used to, like transportation to and from medical appointments. | ||
| Trump had removed that from you guys. | ||
| So I'm really, really grateful to them for that. | ||
| And then also, looking into the future, it looks like the reason why Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, has put today on hold not opened up the House is because he's saying that he needs to have the congressman from Guam there. | ||
| Well, we know that the congressman from Guam does not vote. | ||
| So there's no reason for the House to be closed today. | ||
| He said he was closing the House again today because that particular congressman has to travel from Guam to the United States. | ||
| But that person is not, that congressman is not eligible to vote. | ||
| So once again, Mike Johnson has some deceptive agendas that we have to acknowledge too. | ||
| Okay, let's go to John. | ||
| John in Florida, Republican line. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| I just wanted to say thank you to all the veterans who sacrificed the ultimate and just my total appreciation for their work. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Clifford, Clifford in Alabama, Democrats line. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| Thanks to the veterans. | ||
| I thank all the veterans as well. | ||
| I'm a veteran myself. | ||
| And I appreciate all the work that the sacrifice that was going before. | ||
| But I look at this right now, and I can understand just why we would, I'm not me personally, but why some people would be supporting a man who was a draft dodger. | ||
| But Mr. Bonespur, money kept him from going. | ||
| Call the people that went who served suckers and losers. | ||
| Call John McCain, put him down saying that he wanted heroes that didn't get captured. | ||
| And people are following this coward who's in the White House now. | ||
|
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I can't understand it, but then that's just what his country is. | |
| This draft dodger is sending the military everywhere like he's a king, tell him to go here and there. | ||
| But when it was his time to serve, he ran. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Clifford there in Alabama. | ||
| There's two perspectives from yesterday when it comes to air traffic controllers. | ||
| This first one from the president himself putting this on his truth social site, it's partial of the partial post of what he did yesterday. | ||
| It reads in part: all air traffic controllers must get back to work now. | ||
| Anyone who doesn't will be substantially docked. | ||
| For those air traffic controllers who were great patriots and didn't take any time off for the Democratic shutdown hoax, I'll be recommending a bonus of $10,000 per person for distinguished service to our country. | ||
| For those that did nothing but complain and took time off, even though everyone knew they'd be paid in full shortly into the future, I am not happy with you. | ||
| Again, that's just a partial what the president posted on his truth social site. | ||
| Another perspective. | ||
| This was from the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. | ||
| He talked about the shutdown, its impact on air traffic controllers, and what his concerns were. | ||
| A portion of this from yesterday. | ||
| For decades, air traffic controllers have held the line through staffing shortages, outdated equipment, hiring freezes, terrorist attacks on September 11th, pandemics, and every crisis that this country has lived through. | ||
| They have kept their focus, their composure, and their commitment to safety. | ||
| But now they must focus on childcare instead of traffic flows, food for their families instead of runway separation. | ||
| This is not politics. | ||
| This is not ideology. | ||
| This is the erosion of the safety margin the flying public never sees, but America relies on every single day. | ||
| The added stress leads to fatigue. | ||
| The fatigue has led to the erosion of safety and the increased risk every day that this shutdown drags on. | ||
| If you want to know what the real fallout of this shutdown is, it's not a budget line. | ||
| It is the smallest and the most dangerous shift of all. | ||
| When the most disciplined safety workforce in America is forced to think about survival instead of public safety, this is the cost. | ||
| This is not theoretical. | ||
|
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It is happening now. | |
| Again, those from yesterday, you can always see them on our website at cspan.org and our app at c-span now. | ||
| On this Veterans Day, you'll get a historical perspective on how the United States has treated and recognized veterans over the years. | ||
| With John Monski, he's with PBS, a program that is set to air American Heart in World War II. | ||
| He's also the head of something called the American History Unbound. | ||
| that conversation when Washington Journal continues. | ||
|
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Later this morning, a Veterans Day tribute to those who served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II, featuring the United States Army Brass Quintet. | |
| Watch at 10 a.m. Eastern, live from the National World War II Memorial on the National Mall on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org. | ||
| Today, President Trump joins the 72nd annual National Veterans Day Observance, delivering remarks and laying a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. | ||
| Watch live at 11 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org. | ||
| And past precedent nominal. | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
|
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This is a Kennaroot Corps. | |
| Fridays, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity: Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| Politico Playbook chief correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns is host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue. | ||
| Ceasefire on the network that doesn't take sides. | ||
| Fridays at 7 and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series. | ||
| Sunday, best-selling biographer Walter Isaacson, who chronicles history's most remarkable lives. | ||
| His books include Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs, and Einstein. | ||
| He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein. | ||
| What attracted you to these people? | ||
| Was it because they were geniuses, or you just happened to like them? | ||
| Smart people are a dime a dozen. | ||
| In order to be a genius, you have to be creative. | ||
| You have to think out of the box. | ||
| And one of the things that struck me when I wrote about Benjamin Franklin early on was what a great scientist and technologist he was. | ||
|
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Watch America's Book Club with Walter Isaacson. | |
| Sundays at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific. | ||
| Only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Another view of the World War II Memorial on this Veterans Day, several segments throughout the program taking a look at veterans, one more taking a look at the history of how we recognize veterans. | ||
| John Monski, the historian, creator, writer of American History Unbound. | ||
| He's also behind the PBS American Heart in World War I, a Carnegie Hall tribute. | ||
| Mr. Monski, good morning. | ||
|
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Good morning. | |
| Thanks for having me on. | ||
| A little bit about America, History Unbound. | ||
| What is it? | ||
| And particularly, how do you take a look at things like veterans' issues and how they've served over the years? | ||
|
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It's really core to what we do. | |
| I do a series of productions at Carnegie Hall once a year. | ||
| The current one, which you'll see tonight on PBS, brings you to World War I, but it's really the story of Veterans Day. | ||
| The arc of the story brings you to the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the largest battle in American history. | ||
| And out of that comes Armistice Day and Veterans Day. | ||
| And there's these four riveting veterans that you hear about in the story, particularly James Reese Europe, who led the Harlem Hellfighters, Charles Whittlesey, who led a battalion of immigrants from New York City. | ||
| Was from Wisconsin and Massachusetts, surrounded in the Argonne Forest. | ||
| And that wonderful figure, 19-year-old Quentin Roosevelt, who gives his life as an airplane pilot fighting for this country, for freedom, and everything that mattered at this pivotal moment in our history when America became a world power. | ||
| But this, when it comes together and you see all this in Carnegie Hall, we have a 70-piece orchestra, amazing pictures from the National Archives, five Broadway singers. | ||
| I narrate the story humbly because it's such an incredible story of these figures. | ||
| And you see our veterans up close through their stories. | ||
| And along the way, we pick up Harry Truman and Patton and MacArthur. | ||
| They were all there. | ||
| They had to go back and fight the war again in World War II, but they were all there in World War I. | ||
| And this story I call emotional history because we wind into it the music from that period, some of which you've heard, like over there, and some of it which you haven't heard, like the music that the soldiers sang in the trenches, I'll never tell them, meaning I'll never be able to talk about the war and their songs that have been lost to history, but they all come together. | ||
| The highlight of the show, though, is: well, there's a lot of highlight music, but you're going to see Diego Rodriguez, great Broadway star, do God bless America, like a way you've never seen it sung before. | ||
| It's beautiful. | ||
| And then the last thing I would just mention: full tribute to our veterans. | ||
| At the end, we come to a long, long trail, and we have this incredible footage that I didn't even know existed of essentially the First Veterans Day, 1921, when they take the unknown soldier from the Capitol Rotunda and march to Arlington Cemetery. | ||
| And you watch that footage, it'll tear your heart out. | ||
| You see the Army, you see the Navy, you see Congress, you see the Supreme Court, but in the middle of it all, you see the Gold Star mothers. | ||
| And it just rips your heart out to watch that. | ||
| Again, our guest is going to be with us to talk about the special about how we memorialize Veterans Day and how we recognize it: 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202748-8001 for Republicans and Independents, 202-748-8002 for those former and active military. | ||
| Call us at 202-748-8003 if you have questions. | ||
| Mr. Monski, of the four soldiers that you highlight, is there something in each of them that kind of drew them together for you? | ||
|
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A lot. | |
| There's historical overlap. | ||
| James Rees Europe, who led the Harlem Hellfighters, is in the trenches. | ||
| And right alongside with them in the Argonne Forest is Charles Whittlesey, and he gets surrounded in the lost battalion. | ||
| So, and Quentin Roosevelt is right around the corner. | ||
| But there's another through line, and I think this is really important. | ||
| Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald, wrote about America, and he said, France was a land, England was a people, but America, being the quality of an idea, was still harder to utter. | ||
| It was a willingness of the heart. | ||
| And in the story that you're going to see tonight of Charles Whittlesey leading these men surrounded in the Argonne Forest, you feel that willingness of the heart. | ||
| You see the same thing with James Rhys Europe as he leads this jazz band, but then is also in the trenches. | ||
| He brings jazz to Europe and then Quentin. | ||
| And there's a wonderful love story in here too between Quinton Roosevelt and Flora Payne Whitney. | ||
| And that willingness of the heart comes through all the way. | ||
| And I hope the audiences see this in a bipartisan way. | ||
| Because there is this common thread, not just this fight for democracy, but this common thread, I think, in all Americans, whether you're on the left or the right, this willingness to do better and bring better to the world. | ||
| So that's a thread that came through. | ||
| It takes me a couple of years to write these productions, and I focus on the people and their stories, but that thread came out. | ||
| Let's show our folks at home a little bit of this. | ||
| This is an excerpt from tonight's performance, American Heart in World War I, a Carnegie Hall tribute. | ||
|
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Over there, send the word, send the word over there that the Yanks are coming. | |
| The Yanks are coming. | ||
| The drums rum tummy everywhere. | ||
| So prepare. | ||
| Say prayer. | ||
| Send the word, send the word to beware. | ||
| The first United States troops arrive in Paris on July 3rd and have a parade on the 4th. | ||
| With thousands of Parisians cheering them on, an American battalion marches to the tomb of Lafayette and declares, Lafayette, we are here. | ||
| Tonight, on this stage, we have two flags carried by the 1st Division, 16th Infantry, 2nd Battalion of the United States Army in Paris. | ||
| Just a little bit from what you'll see tonight. | ||
| Mr. Monski put that in perspective, the song and how it fits into the overall picture. | ||
|
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First of all, I'd like to tell you that those flags were framed, but before they were framed, I brought them back to Paris one last time. | |
| My son and I went to Paris and we found, and it's not easy to find, but in Paris you will find the tomb of Lafayette. | ||
| A lot of the images are the same. | ||
| We found this incredible footage of that parade. | ||
| And there was a flagpole there where Lafayette's grave is. | ||
| And I raised the flag on that pole. | ||
| Very moving. | ||
| And I felt something to be done. | ||
| I don't know how many French laws I broke by putting that flag up, but nobody was paying any attention. | ||
| And we went into the trenches, and you can go to those trenches still. | ||
| You know, at Omaha Beach, we have 10,000 Americans buried. | ||
| The Muse are gone. | ||
| There's 14,000. | ||
| And that cemetery will bring you to your knees as well. | ||
| So all of this is capturing a moment that our veterans did for our country. | ||
| This is when we became a world power. | ||
| But I would emphasize this. | ||
| At the end of World War I, the United States did not take one ounce of territory. | ||
| All it took was leases for nine cemeteries. | ||
| And if you've never been there, watch the film tonight. | ||
| You'll see some incredible pictures of those cemeteries. | ||
| And you'll hear the story of Whittlesey and James Free Shirup and Quentin Roosevelt and what these veterans did over there as the song describes. | ||
| Great song. | ||
| George M. Cohen wrote it on the way to work. | ||
| He went home and acted it out for his kids with a tin pan on his head and a broom for a gun, scared the heck out of the kids, but it became one of the great songs of the United States history. | ||
| And you're going to hear some other songs that we don't always hear. | ||
| A lot of Irving Berlin. | ||
| I hate to get up in the morning and, you know, send a jazz band over there. | ||
| But when you get to the end, when we get to the tomb of the unknown soldier and they do a long, long trail, I think your heart will flutter in memory of our veterans. | ||
| And this piece is really to honor them. | ||
| Okay. | ||
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And there's another piece streaming on PBS.org about World War II and the story of Hemingway and World War II and our veterans. | |
| So together, they're a set. | ||
| But today's, you know, the day, very special day for me. | ||
| My father served in the Air Force. | ||
| My great uncle received a Silver Star in World War I. My father's sort of brother, first cousin, served under Patton. | ||
| And your audience was listening today, they all have family that are connected to service to this country. | ||
| And I hope this piece honors them. | ||
| We have many in the audience want to ask you questions as well about an electa in Indiana. | ||
| Democrats line, you're on with John Monski. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
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Good morning. | |
| I want to say that my uncle John was a B-17 pilot, European theater. | ||
| My Uncle Franklin was in the Pacific Theater, captured by the Japanese. | ||
| And my mother was a nurse corps. | ||
| My dad was in the Navy and the Pacific Theater. | ||
| Uncle John didn't make it home. | ||
| Uncle Franklin didn't make it home. | ||
| So we have, our family has served the United States well. | ||
| And Uncle John and Uncle Franklin were in the Army Air Corps before it was Air Force. | ||
| Thank you for having this program. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That's Electa in Indiana. | ||
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Thank you for sharing that. | |
| And when I go around the country and do these, what you're seeing tonight is a gorgeous film footage. | ||
| And it has its own special magic. | ||
| But when I go around the country doing this, I've done Jacksonville, New Orleans, I hear from families like yours, and it makes me so proud to be an American. | ||
| I brought something for your viewers today. | ||
| Because it's Veterans Day, this is my great uncle's Silver Star, and I thought I'd share that, carry it to honor him on Veterans Day. | ||
| Tell us a little bit about him. | ||
|
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Well, when I started to make this production, I didn't want to make it about me or my family, and it's not. | |
| It's about Whittlesey and James Reeshirp and Quentin Roosevelt. | ||
| But when I went to Quentin Rose Hill in France, where Quentin Roosevelt's plane crashed, it's a muddy hill. | ||
| You slog up through the mud. | ||
| Nobody really goes there anymore, but there's a marker for where he crashed. | ||
| And it's very moving, because I know that Eleanor, that his mother came there right after the war, kneeled down in the mud and said the Lord's Prayer. | ||
| This was where her son died. | ||
| She got there in 1919. | ||
| But as I went down the bottom of the hill, I realized my great uncle was there right around the corner. | ||
| It was if he found me. | ||
| I wasn't looking for him. | ||
| He was in the 42nd Division, the Rainbow Division, and he took charge on that field. | ||
| And I was standing there with my son, you know, 100 years later, and they're on standing in that spot. | ||
| I wasn't even looking for it. | ||
| And that was the Ork River and the Croix Farm. | ||
| The Americans took incredible losses there. | ||
| And I went back through the papers and looked, and this is in the show, but one of the officers there wrote what that battlefield looked like at the end of the day. | ||
| And he described the blood red sun as it was setting and bathing this field in a rich glow. | ||
| And he said it was like a Remington painting. | ||
| And then he said, pitifully strewn about in attitudes of supplication, some pitched forward, some on their faces, some crumpling to their knees as if trying to rise, some still in repose, as if asleep, lifeless fingers clutching lifeless cigarettes. | ||
| And that said it all. | ||
| That was the battlefield my great uncle saw, saw, saw, and that's why he never talked about the war. | ||
| He saw too much. | ||
| Let's go to Robert. | ||
| Robert is a former military Connecticut. | ||
| You're on with our guest. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Yeah, my name is Robert. | ||
| I served a year and a half in Vietnam as a Marine. | ||
| I have a purple heart. | ||
| My uncle is in the Battle of the Bulge, took a bullet in the helmet. | ||
| My mother said he came home for the war, went upstairs for six months, while he never came out. | ||
| So I guess, John, what I would like to emphasize is the psychological impact of war on veterans. | ||
| And my other question would be: do you really think our country, especially young people, know what it needs to be a veteran? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Robert? | ||
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I'm glad you asked both those things. | |
| So in this production, and I don't want to spoil it for you, spoil it's the long word, reveal it for you. | ||
| But you're going to follow what happens to exactly to your point on the psychological damage, PTSD, all of these things that we've only come recently to recognize. | ||
| And the story of Charles Whittlesey at the end of this will, I think, resonate with you and your point. | ||
| Charles Whittlesey today would be known as one of our greatest war heroes. | ||
| In fact, he was at the time. | ||
| Fitzgerald modeled Gatsby after him. | ||
| And the great Gatsby, I use that as a way to introduce people to World War I. | ||
| It's woven throughout this production. | ||
| I think, you know, Gatsby is a great love story. | ||
| It's a great jazz story. | ||
| It's also a story based on World War I. | ||
| And you have to know the history of World War I to see that. | ||
| And I think after people watch this show, they'll read Gatsby differently. | ||
| So that was that your point there is incredibly powerful and meaningful. | ||
| And that's part of what is in this production. | ||
| From Queens, New York, Democrats Lying, John. | ||
| Hello. | ||
| You're on with our guest, John Monski. | ||
|
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Hi, John. | |
| I'm a retired history teacher. | ||
| And World War I is, you know, so many people don't know really a lot about World War I. | ||
| So this could be a good introduction from any of them. | ||
| I'm just wondering, you know, You had a clip with Over There, which was a song I would play to my students and we would discuss. | ||
| But it was also in context of the song called I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier, which was a song, which was the most popular song in America in 1915. | ||
| And then it was overtaken by Over There, which is a very catchy uppy tune, you know, meant by to promote the war. | ||
| George Creel was, you know, the propaganda. | ||
| Do you have anything in the show like to show? | ||
| I mean, Michael Kazin's book, The War Against the War, really documents also. | ||
| There was a lot of opposition to this war. | ||
| And I know it's Veterans Day and we're thanking our veterans, but do you have any of that involved in this show? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Look, that's a really important song. | ||
| And it came back again after the war because people, the devastation and destruction, and many Americans wanted, you know, the war to end all wars. | ||
| And that's an incredibly important song. | ||
| We go right into the war, and a lot of it comes from the soldiers themselves. | ||
| This is Veterans Day, after all. | ||
| So there were songs that a lot of people are completely lost to history that they sang in ironic ways. | ||
| You know, I'll never tell them is one that is really all about I'll never be able to talk about it. | ||
| And that's in the show, what happened, and a whole series of songs along that line, Here Comes a Whiz Bang. | ||
| And these were sung by the soldiers. | ||
| There's one song, very famous, you know, Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag, completely ironic. | ||
| And, you know, smile, smile, smile. | ||
| So I think you're right on that's an important undercurrent of this about loss. | ||
| And if we're going to commit ourselves to an action, let's make sure before we put our veterans in harm's way, we know what we're doing. | ||
| But those songs we tease out, these songs of great irony, as well as, you know, the more patriotic songs like Over There and Follow On. | ||
| So there they are. | ||
| And I think your point is right on, and you're going to hear some that you haven't heard and you'll really appreciate. | ||
| We found over 10,000 songs flooding into the National Archives of the Library of Congress where you got a copyright in 1917. | ||
| We forget there's no TikTok, there's no internet, there's no TV. | ||
| There were pianos in people's homes, and they expressed themselves about what they were thinking and told the world about what they were thinking by writing the sheet music, 10,000 songs, and we mined those to find the heart of America in this production. | ||
| Mr. Monski, because you take a look at a historical aspect, how do you think the United States has done over the years in remembering Veterans Day? | ||
| What's changed about how we recognize it? | ||
|
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Well, it started, look, it came from a lot of people talk about the United States and the government doing this. | |
| My perspective on the history is it came from us. | ||
| 1919, Armistice Day, everybody was out there remembering it. | ||
| And the government came to the people that were remembering it. | ||
| 1921, The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where we have this footage, and Charles Whittlesey, now a Medal of Honor winner, shows up there. | ||
| Again, I don't want to reveal the whole story of Charles Whittlesey. | ||
| It's incredibly meaningful, what happens to him and what happens at that ceremony. | ||
| That's a national holiday. | ||
| We finally become an official national holiday Armistice Day around 38, and then 54 after the Korean War, it becomes Veterans Day. | ||
| So I think we as a people have done a great job. | ||
| And the government followed us with making these national holidays. | ||
| And I'm, you know, proud of the fact that the country remembers its veterans and the government follows us along with that. | ||
| Let's hear from Donald. | ||
| Donald joins us from Honolulu, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hello. | |
| Yes, good morning. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| John, I'm a son of a 442nd Regiment Combat Team, the Audise Japanese soldiers. | ||
| My dad was a tech sergeant 3, 3rd Battalion M Company. | ||
| He did the motors. | ||
| He went to World War II. | ||
| He fought in Italy. | ||
| He fought in France, got injured, and he was taking care of German soldiers. | ||
| And then it was a very horrific battle, but he was a lucky one, came back. | ||
| But I was able to go 2002 on a tour with the veterans of the 100th Battalion and 447 Regiment Combat Team. | ||
| Actually, got the veterans there to talk about their stories better than a book. | ||
| But I just want to let you know that when my dad came back, he started his family. | ||
| I was born and everything. | ||
| And then he was at a reunion in 2000. | ||
| And unfortunately, when he was in the parking lot with his friend, he got run over by a fellow veteran and passed away. | ||
| And we forgave the veteran because it was an accident. | ||
| And he's buried in the state cemetery in Kanioya of Hawaii, Honolulu. | ||
| And I always go to his grave and pay tribute to him because it was a different type of war then because they were segregated as a Japanese soldier. | ||
| But thank you for allowing me to speak. | ||
| And I look forward for your documentary today. | ||
| Donald and Hololu. | ||
|
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Yeah, we do pick up on PBS.org, the production Eyes of the World, Italy, as well as France. | |
| And I really thank you for sharing that because every time I hear another one of these stories, it kind of galvanizes my work as a historian because this is not dry. | ||
| This is emotional history and all of us share it. | ||
| And I imagine that emotional history helps shape the final product. | ||
|
unidentified
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Absolutely. | |
| Something different happens when you put an 80-piece orchestra on stage with the singers. | ||
| We don't use a screen drop down over the orchestra. | ||
| There's hundreds of photographs and films that appear on the wall behind the orchestra. | ||
| So it's like the orchestra is sitting on the stage. | ||
| On this production, some of the flags drop from the balcony. | ||
| There's a chorus there. | ||
| It's the only way I feel like we can fully capture the emotion of the moment. | ||
| And I hope your viewers see that. | ||
| It weaves together. | ||
| There are also things that happen, even when we're rehearsing, that drive the emotion. | ||
| The conductor Ian Weinberger, who conducted Hamilton for 10 years now doing chess on Broadway, we're working on this piece for the World War II production. | ||
| It turns out his grandfather lost his leg in the Hurtkin Forest, and we're writing a piece about the Hurtkin Forest. | ||
| The same thing with World War I. | ||
| The music that came out through the creative process just became riveting. | ||
| The final, a long, long trail, it just comes together in ways that you wouldn't expect. | ||
| So it is emotional history. | ||
| And even when I'm on stage and it finally comes together, because we have to build this, it's like a Saturn V rocket. | ||
| You got to build it in pieces. | ||
| And then we finally get it on the stage in Carnegie Hall and it's like, wow, is this happening? | ||
| I feel it. | ||
| I feel like I'm right back there in the museum. | ||
| Mr. Monski, we have about a minute or so. | ||
| Tell us a little bit about the platforms where people can find it. | ||
|
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So this is all a non-profit activity. |