| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
And online at c-span.org. | |
| C-SPAN, democracy unfiltered. | ||
| We're funded by these television companies and more, including WOW. | ||
| The world has changed. | ||
| Today, the fast, reliable internet connection is something no one can live without. | ||
| So, WOW is there for our customers with speed, reliability, value, and choice. | ||
| Now, more than ever, it all starts with great internet. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| WOW supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, we'll talk about the vote in the House to release the Epstein files and other congressional news of the day. | ||
| First, with Texas Republican Congressman Pete Sessions, then Brad Bowman with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies discusses the Trump administration's decision to sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia and how that could impact security and the balance of power in the Middle East. | ||
| And KFF Health News Chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner on the expiring enhanced ACA health insurance subsidies and possible ways to extend them. | ||
| And later, more on the Epstein files and Congress with Virginia Democratic Congressman Suha Subramania, a member of the Oversight Committee. | ||
| Washington Journal is next. | ||
| On this vote, the yays are 427, the nays are one. | ||
| Two-thirds being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended. | ||
| The bill is passed and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| It's Wednesday, November 19th. | ||
| In a near-unanimous vote, 427 to 1, the House yesterday passed a measure to force the Justice Department to release the remaining Epstein files. | ||
| The one no vote was Republican Clay Higgins of Louisiana. | ||
| The Senate agreed to pass it by unanimous consent and send it to the President's desk for signature. | ||
| This first half hour, we're getting your thoughts on those developments. | ||
| Here's how to reach us: Democrats, 202-748-8000, Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can text us on 202-748-8003. | ||
| Include your first name in your city-state. | ||
| We're also on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Welcome to today's Washington Journal. | ||
| Let's take a look at the front page of the Washington Post on this topic. | ||
| It says Congress is poised Tuesday to send a bill to President Donald Trump to force the Justice Department to release files related to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, overcoming a months-long impasse in the House and quickly dispatching with the issue in the Senate. | ||
| Hours after the bill passed the House, 427 to 1, the Senate agreed to deem the legislation passed as soon as it arrives from the House. | ||
| Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer offered a motion that received unanimous consent and will require no further action by the chamber. | ||
| Well, here is Senator Chuck Schumer on the House floor, sorry, on the Senate floor, asking for that. | ||
| The American people have waited long enough. | ||
| Jeffrey Epstein's victims have waited long enough. | ||
| Let the truth come out. | ||
| Let transparency reign. | ||
| And I urge my Republican colleagues, let the Senate act today. | ||
| And so, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate receives H.R. 4405, the Epstein Files Transparency Act from the House, the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. | ||
| The bill be considered, read three times, and passed with no intervening action or debate. | ||
| And the motion to reconsider be considered, made, and laid upon the table. | ||
| Is there an objection? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not objection, so order. | |
| Without objection, so ordered. | ||
| The Senate has now passed the Epstein bill as soon as it comes over from the House. | ||
| I yield the floor. | ||
| And here's what President Trump posted on True Social yesterday evening. | ||
| He says, I don't care when the Senate passes the House bill, whether tonight or at some other time in the near future. | ||
| I just don't want Republicans to take their eyes off all the victories that we've had. | ||
| He continues and ends this way: it says, having created the hottest country anywhere in the world and even delivering a huge defeat to the Democrats on the shutdown, Make America Great Again. | ||
| Well, the one no vote in the House was, as we mentioned, Clay Higgins of Louisiana. | ||
| This is Politico. | ||
| He explains: 216 Republicans voted in favor of the legislation on Tuesday, two days after President Donald Trump urged his party to support it on True Social. | ||
| It says the lone no vote in the near-unanimous House legislation said that he opposed it on privacy grounds. | ||
| Quote, this is what he wrote on X: it abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure in America. | ||
| As written, this bill reveals and injures thousands of innocent people, witnesses, people who provided alibis, family members, etc. | ||
| If enacted in its current form, this type of broad reveal of criminal investigative files released to a rabid media will absolutely result in innocent people getting hurt. | ||
| Well, let's hear from one of those survivors. | ||
| This is Jenna Lisa Jones. | ||
| This is before the House vote, and she has a message to the president. | ||
| The world should see the files to know who Jeffrey Epstein was and how the system catered to him and failed us. | ||
| Emotionally, this process has been distressing. | ||
| First, the administration said it would release everything and applauded President Trump for that. | ||
| Then it fought to release nothing. | ||
| Now that that checks and balances of our democracy have worked and the bill is getting passed to release the files, we are hearing the administration say they intend to investigate various Democrats who were friends with Epstein. | ||
| I beg you, President Trump, please stop making this political. | ||
| It is not about you, President Trump. | ||
| You are our president. | ||
| Please start acting like it. | ||
| Show some class. | ||
| Show some real leadership. | ||
| Show that you actually care about the people other than yourself. | ||
| I voted for you, but your behavior on this issue has been a national embarrassment. | ||
| It is time to take the honest moral ground and support the release of these files. | ||
| Not to weaponize pieces of the files against random political enemies that did nothing wrong, but to understand who Epstein's friends were, who covered for him, what financial institutions allowed his trafficking to continue. | ||
| Who knew what he was doing, but was too much of a coward to do anything about it. | ||
| Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were able to recruit and abuse young girls and women. | ||
| Then the country will learn nothing. | ||
| The country will learn nothing. | ||
| And has horrible history will repeat itself if we do not do something about this. | ||
| Thank you to the brave congressmen and women who have stood by us and recognize our side is the American side, and we should all be proud once again to be Americans. | ||
| Well, here's what the Epstein Files Transparency Act actually says. | ||
| So it would require the Department of Justice to release the files within 30 days all unclassified records related to the investigation and prosecution of Epstein. | ||
| Personal information of alleged victims or info that could jeopardize active federal investigations would be withheld. | ||
| The Department of Justice is required to justify to Congress any withheld information and redactions. | ||
| That's from USA Today. | ||
| And this also from USA Today, why all the Epstein files may not come out, even though Congress took action. | ||
| It says this two days before Trump changed his tune by calling for House Republicans to vote to release the Epstein files, the president ordered the Justice Department to investigate Democrats linked to Epstein, who died by suicide in a federal prison in 2019. | ||
| It says this under the Epstein files bill, the Justice Department would be able to withhold documents that, quote, would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, provided that such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary. | ||
| Ty Cobb, a former White House lawyer in the first term, Trump term, said he believes Trump's sudden turnabout in favor of releasing the Epstein files is a quote canard. | ||
| Cobb said he believes that Attorney General Bondi will cite the ongoing investigation as a reason not to release them. | ||
| Quote, I think he and Bondi have determined that they'll try to use Trump-ordered quote investigations of Democrats, but not Republicans, as he stated, as a bar to producing anything. | ||
| He said this in an interview on CNN, quote, I think it'll be a long time before we see anything, although there are certain documents that could be easily produced. | ||
| Taking your calls this first half hour on the release of the Epstein files. | ||
| Robert Chesterfield, Virginia, Line for Independence, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| You know, we'll be lucky if anything in this papers show that any black, you know, maybe Trump's name. | ||
| That's all you'll see. | ||
| You'll never see any information about what he's done. | ||
| And the Attorney General Bondi, she's just a mouthpiece for him. | ||
| And she's going to see that he's never accused. | ||
| Well, he's accused, but she'll make sure that he's never convicted of anything. | ||
| And so will the rest of them that he's got in his cabinet FM. | ||
| The one thing this country, the people have to look to, look to, is that he's made more enemies in the last year all over the world than any other human being has. | ||
| And he won't be in this world probably 10 years from now. | ||
| And hopefully none of these people that support him, especially the ones that wouldn't get behind this thing, they're probably just as guilty as him, this guy in Louisiana Higgins. | ||
| That's why he didn't vote. | ||
| He's guilty of probably the same crime that people are looking to find out. | ||
| They ought to give everybody in the government a lie detector test. | ||
| That would solve a lot. | ||
| All right, Robert. | ||
| Here's John, Esopus, New York, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, hi. | |
| This thing with the Epstein files, I'm glad it was released. | ||
| I think the American citizens deserve to see what actually occurred. | ||
| Well, we'll never know what actually occurred, but we'll get an idea of what occurred. | ||
| But the thing is, is that they had Schumer. | ||
| You highlighted him this morning. | ||
| Schumer has very little influence over Donald Trump. | ||
| He did have a ton of influence over Joe Biden, and I don't know why it took this long. | ||
| And I don't know if there was somebody prior to Biden. | ||
| They should have released this a long time ago, but I understand you don't want to injure people that are victims array and bring this. | ||
| And I understand that part of it. | ||
| But the other thing, too, is I really do hope the Washington Journal has become so far. | ||
| Don't grab for your computer laptop. | ||
| Don't grab for the New York Times. | ||
| Don't listen to the earplug that's in your editors are going to whisper in your ears. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thanks for your feedback, John. | ||
| This is what BC Venice says on X. Wait, release the Epstein. | ||
| The remaining Epstein files reeks of tampering. | ||
| We want the complete files before the Kash Patel and Pam Bondi removed all references to Trump. | ||
| The cover-up is getting worse. | ||
| And this is Rob in Fairfax, Virginia on text. | ||
| Why the outrage now? | ||
| The Biden administration could have released all of the Epstein files for four years and did nothing. | ||
| Where were all the people clamoring for their release then? | ||
| This is Louise in Ohio Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Louise. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Did those girls get $300? | ||
| It was on the end of a credenza if they wanted to go to the island. | ||
| So, and why didn't Biden do this for four years when he had it? | ||
| He could have pushed it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And here's President Trump. | ||
| He was in the Oval Office with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia yesterday responding to reporters' questions about this topic. | ||
| Mr. Brethren, why wait for Congress to release the Epstein files? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why not just do it now? | |
| No. | ||
| It's not the question that I mind. | ||
| It's your attitude. | ||
| I think you are a terrible reporter. | ||
| It's the way you ask these questions. | ||
| You start off with a man who's highly respected, asking him a horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question. | ||
| And you could even ask that same exact question nicely. | ||
| You're all psyched. | ||
| Somebody psyches you over at ABC. | ||
| You're going to psych. | ||
| You're a terrible person and a terrible reporter. | ||
| As far as the Epstein files is, I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert. | ||
| And I guess I turned out to be right. | ||
| But you know who does have? | ||
| Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, who ran Harvard, was with him every single night, every single weekend. | ||
| They lived together. | ||
| They went to his island many times. | ||
| I never did. | ||
| Andrew Weissman, I hear. | ||
| All these guys were friends of his. | ||
| You don't even talk about those people. | ||
| You just keep going on the Epstein files. | ||
| And what the Epstein is, is a Democrat hoax to try and get me not to be able to talk about the $21 trillion that I talked about today. | ||
| It's a hoax. | ||
| Now, I just got a little report, and I put it in my pocket. | ||
| Of all the money that he's given to Democrats, he gave me none, zero, no money to me. | ||
| But he gave money to Democrats. | ||
| And people are wise to your hoax. | ||
| And ABC is your company, your crappy company, is one of the perpetrators. | ||
| And I'll tell you something. | ||
| I'll tell you something. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So why not just hide it out? | |
| I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and it's so wrong. | ||
| And we have a great commissioner, the chairman, who should look at that because I think when you come in and when you're 97% negative to Trump and then Trump wins the election in a landslide, that means obviously your news is not credible and you're not credible as a reporter. | ||
| So I've answered your question. | ||
| You should go and look at the Democrats who received money from Epstein, who spent their time. | ||
| Larry Summers was with them all the time. | ||
| That creep of the fund guy was with him all the time. | ||
| What's his name? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Reed Hoffman. | |
| Reid Hoffman. | ||
| I don't know Reid Hoffman, but I know he spends a lot of money on the radical left. | ||
| Reid Hoffman, in my opinion, should be under investigation. | ||
| He's a sleazebag. | ||
| And those are the people, but they don't get any press. | ||
| They don't get any news. | ||
| And you're not after the radical left because you're a radical left network. | ||
| But I think the way you ask a question with the anger and the meanness is terrible. | ||
| You ought to go back and learn how to be a reporter. | ||
| No more questions from you. | ||
| And we are taking your calls for the next 15 minutes. | ||
| On the release of the Epstein files, there was a vote in the House, and that passed near unanimously. | ||
| The Senate agreed to pass it as soon as it gets there. | ||
| So it is just waiting for the president to sign, probably happening today. | ||
| Watch the C-SPAN networks. | ||
| If that's going to be on camera, we'll definitely show that to you. | ||
| This is Jersey Girl on X saying, well, it's been amusing to watch all the GOP congresspeople do a 180 and immediately vote to support this release. | ||
| I don't believe we can reasonably expect to see much from what is aired. | ||
| They've been working around the clock to redact any mention of Trump at all. | ||
| And this is Lynn who says, I want to know why C-SPAN did not cover the victims' presser yesterday. | ||
| The only two stations that didn't cover the presser were C-SPAN and Fox. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Well, Lynn, we did take that entire press conference live on C-SPAN 2. | ||
| It's also on our archive. | ||
| So do take a look at c-span.org. | ||
| You'll be able to watch the entire press conference there. | ||
| Elizabeth in Maryland, Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| The Epstein thing is very terrible what happened, but much forced to me is that he invites the Saudi Arabians that he has money coming from personally, thousands and thousands. | ||
| They are the ones, ten of them, who started began 9-11, where our people died. | ||
| This man was connected to that country, and that country is here in our country. | ||
| And he allowed 11, 10 Saudi Arabians to attack 9-11 and kill thousands of our own people. | ||
| That is much more important. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| And we will talk about the Saudi Crown Prince's visit during open forum. | ||
| We'll start that in about 10 minutes. | ||
| Take a look at Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar's explanation of what he calls the about face from the Republicans. | ||
| I mean, this is about them knowing that they're going to lose. | ||
| They're going to lose this vote. | ||
| They could not convince Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Bobert from the Situation Room. | ||
| They could not convince them to remove their signatures. | ||
| So they are shifting strategies. | ||
| Now they have to embrace it because they're going to lose this issue. | ||
| And they weren't going to lose by a little. | ||
| They were going to lose by a lot. | ||
| And I think the president clearly doesn't want to be viewed as a lame duck or on the losing side of an issue with the Republican Conference. | ||
| And Republicans are probably tired of having to defend the pedophilia that Jeffrey Epstein stood for. | ||
| And so I think it's clear that their only reason why they're doing this is because they were losing. | ||
| And so now they're going to try to project that they don't care or that they aren't pushing members. | ||
| They pushed members. | ||
| They sent us all home in September. | ||
| Those are just the facts. | ||
| They avoided this issue. | ||
| They avoided this vote for so long. | ||
| They can't suddenly turn the page and say, oh, we're fine with this. | ||
| We were just kidding. | ||
| And oh, by the way, let's make it about the policy. | ||
| And if the president wanted to put the Epstein files out, he could do that tomorrow. | ||
| He is choosing not to. | ||
| He is also choosing to have his Department of Justice not answer a lawful subpoena by Democrats and Republicans who voted in government oversight and reform to send documents to that committee. | ||
| So the president has made choices here. | ||
| No public statements, no tweets or anything is going to hide the fact that he himself actively does not want these files out. | ||
| And the American people are going to get to judge why that is. | ||
| And here's Mark, Rochester, New York, Independent Lion. | ||
| Good morning, Mark. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm 24 years old, and I live in a generation where, you know, we see on Instagram, you know, the evidence is just right in our faces, and we call it the Great Awakening. | ||
| You know, I'm very glad that people are starting to wake up and realize how corrupt Trump and the whole administration is. | ||
| I'm just hoping that they are actually released. | ||
| And like, it's a great time to be alive. | ||
| I feel like they're actually Thomas McCannic, Mechanicsville, Maryland, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, my comment is about the Epstein files and the comments that people are making of why Biden didn't release the files. | |
| Now, it's my understanding it could not be released because it was an investigation. | ||
| That's really my only comment. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Nate, a Republican in Franklin, Indiana, you're on the air, Nate. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but if something's still, if a case is still open or being appealed, I don't believe that you can make these files, like this Epstein file case. | ||
| I don't believe you can make those public if it's still under appeal. | ||
| And that was still under appeal until October of this year. | ||
| It was an open case during the Biden administration. | ||
| But that's not my main point. | ||
| The ultimate cruelty is for someone to use their influence, power, and money to abuse innocence. | ||
| That's the ultimate cruelty. | ||
| It's also cruel to assault a lady that's 51 years old to take advantage of her. | ||
| That's cruelty. | ||
| So we shouldn't be surprised to see cruelty. | ||
| But my question is: is this who we are? | ||
| Do we enjoy seeing people, families torn apart in such a brutal way? | ||
| Is this who we are? | ||
| And To blow boats out of the water without knowing who's on those boats. | ||
| If I remember right, one of those boats, the people were returned to their country. | ||
| If one boat, if we return people to their country on one boat, how many of the other boats have innocent people? | ||
| Most of these people on these boats, I would guess, are just being paid money. | ||
| They probably don't even know exactly what they're doing. | ||
| They're moving drugs from one country to another, probably not even the United States. | ||
| They can't reach the United States. | ||
| So when we see this cruelty, we should not be surprised. | ||
| But my main question is: is this who we are as Americans? | ||
| Are we okay with all of this? | ||
| All right, Nate. | ||
| Let's talk to Jane St. Paul, Minnesota. | ||
| Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Jane. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning to you. | |
| I am really disappointed in the way that our country has seemed to subside, or at least to accept the fact that we have a president and we have an administration that really is becoming more and more corrupt before our very eyes. | ||
| A friend said the other day, we're old enough to remember, he said, my God, where is Nixon? | ||
| We knew that he might have been a crook when he said he wasn't, but at least we now have someone who has the ability to fool everyone into thinking that he is not one. | ||
| I just really am so disappointed. | ||
| The ladies who were able to at least receive a degree of satisfaction, I hope, that their claims against Epstein will be brought forward and I hope will be brought forward. | ||
| But we know there will be some possibility that if the case is still pending or any cases are still pending, there will be no recognition of what has happened with these ladies. | ||
| I thank you very much. | ||
| I like the fact that that young man who said he was in his 20s is very happy. | ||
| He said, words the effect of being alive and well today. | ||
| That means he has optimism. | ||
| And I sure hope we have many more young people who have optimism. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mike in New Orleans, Independent Line. | ||
| Hello, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I appreciate you taking my time. | ||
| I have many questions regarding this Epstein situation and many regarding the victims. | ||
| So many of these victims were involved at the age of 14 and a little bit older. | ||
| So were this a situation where this was being traded sex for money favors because the girls were being compensated for it? | ||
| And where were the parents when all of this was going on for a 14, 15, and 16-year-old, you know, to be taking trips to these places and these events taking place where there's no supervision or accountability or protection for over a thousand young ladies? | ||
| So I have many questions here, and I hope by releasing these files they can be answered. | ||
| I appreciate it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Take a look at Speaker Mike Johnson. | ||
| He was on the floor of the House during debate before that vote talking about the release of the Epstein files. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Take a look. | |
| The Democrats had all the Epstein files in their possession for four long years under the Biden presidency. | ||
| The Biden Department of Justice had these files, and no one on this side who is breathless today about the urgency of this release ever said a word about it. | ||
| And it was the Democrats who could have urged President Biden's Department of Justice to go beyond prosecuting just Epstein and Jelaine Maxwell, but they didn't do it. | ||
| And so it's a fair question to ask today: why now? | ||
| Why the sudden, urgent interest in Jeffrey Epstein? | ||
| Look, we know why. | ||
| It's because the Democrats were never interested in transparency or executing justice or protecting the victims of this unspeakable tragedy. | ||
| Before, the simple truth is obvious for everybody to see. | ||
| This is a political exercise for Democrats. | ||
| And it pains me to say it. | ||
| I wish that was not the truth, but it is. | ||
| And it's undeniable. | ||
| This is as deceitful and dishonest as their pointless stunt was to shut the government down. | ||
| Democrats are using the Epstein tragedy, the unspeakable evils that this guy committed with his trafficking ring and all of the abuses that they made these young women go through. | ||
| They're using that as a political weapon to try to distract from their failures as a party and to try their best to try to tie President Trump somehow into this wretched scandal. | ||
| The president had nothing to do with it. | ||
| He's been very clear, and he has nothing to hide, and that's why he's endorsed the vote today. | ||
| I suspect this vote will be probably unanimous. | ||
| But here's the important point that everybody needs to understand. | ||
| We have been advocates of maximum transparency, but we have also insisted that the victims be carefully protected. | ||
| The Oversight Committee has been doing extraordinary work, and we've got some of the most vigorous advocates on the Republican and Democrat side on the Oversight Committee. | ||
| They've been working in earnest to deliver transparency for the American people and to do it in a responsible manner. | ||
| What do we mean by that? | ||
| The bipartisan effort over there is already producing all the results that the discharge petition seeks and much, much more. | ||
| Chairman Comer and all of these advocates over there have been releasing thousands of documents, for example, from the Epstein estate. | ||
| By the way, in my view, that's been the greatest treasure trove of information because it's yielded for us Epstein's own personal flight logs, his financial records, his daily calendars, and so much more. | ||
| But importantly, none of that was addressed or is addressed in the legislation that's being voted on today. | ||
| The estate files wouldn't even have been encompassed in that. | ||
| And so it goes to show that the Oversight Committee is doing it the right way. | ||
| From the very beginning, we've been insistent that this matter be handled carefully and with the utmost caution and care for the people who have been harmed. | ||
| They should not be made to suffer any longer. | ||
| That was the House Speaker yesterday on the floor of the House. | ||
| And this is James in Monterey, California, Republican. | ||
| Hi, James. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'm registered Republican. | |
| Go ahead, James. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
| James? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Do you have a comment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'm here. | |
| Okay, go ahead. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Huh? | |
| Reese in Baltimore, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Reese. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How is everybody today? | ||
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, here's my comment, and this is what I'd like to say. | |
| First of all, if you have nothing to hide, then just let it come out. | ||
| There should be no problem showing something if you are not guilty of anything. | ||
| Now, also, I just would like to also say this, also, that everybody is getting this thing twisted. | ||
| You're talking about what the Democrats, with the Republicans, or whoever didn't do. | ||
| But the bottom line to this issue is there are young, innocent girls who were abused by predators. | ||
| Let's stick to the subject and stop pointing the finger at each other and try to help those who were innocently abused. | ||
| That is my comment today. | ||
| And please, Americans, get yourself together and become united once again. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| On the line for Democrats in Lafayette, Louisiana, Tom, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, hi, Mimia. | |
| I really like when you host the program. | ||
| You do a great job. | ||
| Yeah, I'm in Latvia, Louisiana. | ||
| Higgins is my congressman, and I didn't vote for him. | ||
| I think he's a complete embarrassment. | ||
| But, you know, Bondi said back in April that there was nothing to see in the files. | ||
| And two days before they have a vote, Trump completely makes a devout face. | ||
| And now they're going to investigate all these Democrats. | ||
| But Bondi said, you know, in April, nothing there. | ||
| Okay, and callers keep saying, or Trump keeps saying it's a Democratic hoax. | ||
| Well, Bobart, Green, Mason, Massey are all Republicans. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And finally, I wanted to say about Saudi Arabia that Trump is building hotels over in Saudi Arabia. | |
| So he doesn't care about national security or honor or the American way. | ||
| He's thinking about enriching himself and his family, just like his sons with their Bitcoin ripoff. | ||
| And so, you know, Americans have to wake up and realize that we have a certified con man at the helm of our country. | ||
| And hopefully, you know, I'm just looking forward to three years being over. | ||
| We have somebody new. | ||
| All right, Tom. | ||
| And Tom did mention the visit of the Saudi Crown Prince. | ||
| This is the Associated Press with the headline, Trump dismisses U.S. intelligence that Saudi Prince was likely aware of the 2018 killing of journalists. | ||
| Of course, that's Jamal Khashoggi of the Washington Post, that the CIA during the Trump first administration said that he wasn't just aware of it, but ordered the killing. | ||
| This is a portion. | ||
| We're going to go to open forum right after this. | ||
| While you're dialing in on the lines, Democrats are on 202-748-8000, Republicans 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| While you're dialing in, we will show you a portion from yesterday from the Oval Office, President Trump responding to a question about that killing. | ||
| As far as this gentleman is concerned, he's done a phenomenal job. | ||
| You're mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. | ||
| A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about. | ||
| Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happened, but he knew nothing about it. | ||
| And we can leave it at that. | ||
| You don't have to embarrass our guests by asking a question like that. | ||
| Just yes, Mr. President, if you allow me to answer. | ||
| You know, I feel painful about families of 9-11 in America. | ||
| But we have to focus on reality. | ||
| Reality, based in Sierra documents and based on lots of documents, that Osama bin Laden used Saudi people in that event for one main purpose, is to destroy this relation, to destroy the American-Saudi relation. | ||
| That's the purpose of 9-1-1. | ||
| So whoever buying that, that means they are helping Osama bin Laden's purpose of destroying this relation. | ||
| He knows that's a strong relation between America and Saudi Arabia. | ||
| It's bad for extremism. | ||
| It's bad for tourism. | ||
| And we have to approve him wrong and to build our relation and continue the world of our relationship. | ||
| It's critical against extremism and terrorism. | ||
| About the journalists, it's really painful to hear anyone that's been losing his life for no real purpose or not in a legal way. | ||
| And it's been painful for us in Saudi Arabia. | ||
| We've did all the right steps of investigation, et cetera, in Saudi Arabia. | ||
| And we've improved our system to be sure that nothing happened like that. | ||
| And it's painful and it's a huge mistake. | ||
| And we are doing our best that this doesn't happen again. | ||
| It is open forum. | ||
| We are interested to hear what you think of that visit by the Crown Prince. | ||
| Other topics going on today. | ||
| If you'd like to continue to talk about the vote to release the Epstein files, you can. | ||
| We'll talk to Patricia in Statesville, North Carolina. | ||
| Looks like we lost her. | ||
| Michelle in Staten Island, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Michelle. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| As always, I'd like to say a shout out to your cameramen. | ||
| They're excellent. | ||
| And so I'd like to talk about Epstein files. | ||
| I think that it's a disgrace that the parents of these children are not involved in this. | ||
| Where were they when this was going on? | ||
| Were they getting any mental health? | ||
| Are they getting mental health today? | ||
| Hopefully they are. | ||
| And also, I think, can you lower the TV? | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| And also, Germalde, they killed him, and they have the Crown Prince in the White House. | ||
| How do you do that? | ||
| How do you do that? | ||
| That's terrible. | ||
| Well, of course, how you do it, you follow the money. | ||
| It's all about the money. | ||
| His family's making tons of money with these people. | ||
| And I just think it's a disgrace about the children that were molested by Epstein and their parents. | ||
| Where are the parents? | ||
| Yep, we got that, Michelle. | ||
| And some pictures for you. | ||
| This is the front page of the Washington Post of the two men shaking hands here in the Oval Office. | ||
| This is the front page of the New York Times with the arrival of the Crown Prince. | ||
| It says President Trump welcoming Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia for a visit to the White House. | ||
| This is his first visit to the United States since the killing of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. | ||
| Here is Frank, Walden, New York, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Frank. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| My question is the same as the caller before me, except a little bit different. | ||
| Where were the parents in all this when these children were prostituted to these Epstein and this woman? | ||
| I mean, were they prosecuted at all? | ||
| It could be a small percentage that were. | ||
| And if so, then of course we would be held accountable for statutory rape. | ||
| The other thing is, of all the thousands of young people that were abused back then, how many can come forward and actually identify the people that abused them? | ||
| Especially once the files do come out, because they are unnamed in any files, FBI are not. | ||
| So they really can't say, well, I definitely was abused. | ||
| I mean, we can't know that for sure. | ||
| And the other thing is, will there be prosecutions of those, especially those who are well-known, whether it be a prince or whether it be a congressman or anybody else a millionaire that has money? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Here's Lester, Louisiana, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Lester. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I've been wondering the same thing, but about what two of your previous callers asked, where were the parents of those kids? | ||
| You know, I'm sympathizing with these ladies for being in the position they were in, but where were the parents? | ||
| And I'm so sick tired of all the lies that Trump is telling us. | ||
| And how can anybody support this man? | ||
| We have corrupt politicians in Louisiana. | ||
| Scalese, Johnson, and Higgins are the three worst people to govern. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Here is Tim in South Carolina, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Tim. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I find it very strange that since 2016, all this knowledge was known by the Justice Department. | ||
| And if the Democrats had anything on Donald Trump, they could have brung it out at any time from that time to now if they wanted to hinder him from being elected. | ||
| So now all of a sudden, they're going to bring it out because they're running out of stuff to take and go after Donald Trump. | ||
| Now, for decades, people in Congress has been enriching themselves, and Donald Trump is cleaning it all up. | ||
| So the simple fact is, he's not a politician. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's a businessman. | |
| And he's not politically correct and all that kind of stuff. | ||
| But he's doing a wonderful thing for this country. | ||
| Thank you so much for taking my call. | ||
| And here's Howard in Baltimore, Independent. | ||
| Hi, Howard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, how are you today? | |
| Good. | ||
| First of all, I'd just like to comment as far as the Crown Prince who came to the White House. | ||
| I'm wondering why didn't anybody ask the Crown Prince why wasn't he wearing a suit like they did when Zelensky came? | ||
| That's number one. | ||
| Secondly, you know, for somebody to sit up here and say that this clown that's in the office is doing a wonderful job, I would honestly say that you have to really look at the economy. | ||
| Everybody is losing. | ||
| The only person that's benefiting is his family and him. | ||
| And if people are so buffoon that they allow somebody to enrich themselves while they are steadily being denied their benefits, I would say something is really wrong with you. | ||
| Wake up, smell the coffee, get rid of this fool out the office, and let's move on and become Americans again. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Here's Cal in New York City, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Cal. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| It's Cal. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Hello, C-SPAN. | ||
| I'm just watching you slug your way through these calls and more power to you. | ||
| I guess the last time I called in, it was on the 4th of July, and I was sleeping in the same tent that I am now. | ||
| I remember you, Cal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, how are you doing? | |
| Yeah, same tent, same city, same unpredictable state of flux that this country is in. | ||
| And I think I speak for a lot of people who are just, you know, jog-droppingly amazed and disgusted by, you know, the arguments that are coming from all sides that's just so petty and distracting and has absolutely nothing to do with the awful problems that we're facing as far as fixing this country. | ||
| You know, I wish I had seen the interview that you had with Ken Burns about the American Revolution. | ||
| And I was tuning into that on PBS, hoping to get, you know, that kind of warm, fuzzy feeling about our country and its origins and our traditions and our destiny in the world. | ||
| And, you know, and I was so overwhelmed in the first 10 minutes about the history that I didn't know. | ||
| And it seems that in so many ways, the country was as much a mess then in its creation as it is now. | ||
| It's just so bewildering. | ||
| I myself feel pretty good about my own life, but there becomes the question of just reaching out to your library and catching up with what's happening in Congress. | ||
| And it's just such a petty struggle for power. | ||
| So, Cal, let's talk about New York City because there was an election since the last time we talked. | ||
| Did you vote? | ||
| How are you feeling about your mayor-elect? | ||
| Are you hopeful? | ||
| Are you disappointed? | ||
| How are you feeling? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, because of the state of the rest of the country is in, it seems as if people are attracted to people like Mom Donnie simply by the tone and the optimism and the hope. | |
| It's very much of a flashback to the early days of Obama, you know, when he was rising and he entered office on this new sense of hope. | ||
| But there's just the overwhelming weight of the chaos that he's entering. | ||
| And I guess when he was elected, I had a very solemn conversation with myself. | ||
| You know, you just want that optimism, like, come on, get behind the guy, you know, you know, listen to him and ride along the wave of hope. | ||
| And I guess I had a very solemn conversation with myself, and I realized that in a very realistic way, I just don't have the energy for that kind of illusion, you know, that kind of to just pretend to be so desperate with the problems that are weighing down on the city and the country in general that there's this desire to just wish it all away somehow, | ||
| you know, with a fellow like Mandani, that he can just come in and smile and poo-poo Trump and everything else. | ||
| And you want to think that it's all like a bad dream that he could come along and wake us up and carry us away. | ||
| But, you know, these are very realistic problems that have to be handled in very realistic ways. | ||
| And well, I got to move on to other callers, but appreciate you checking in with us. | ||
| James in Clarksburg, West Virginia, Republican, you're on the air, James. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'd like to say people talking against Donald Trump and why he's doing that. | |
| They don't think he's right and all that. | ||
| I'd like for him to be in his spot being a president. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| Because they couldn't do his job. | ||
| They couldn't do his job. | ||
| It'd be too much of a pressure on those people that's talking against Donald Trump. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| All right. | ||
| And I think Donald Trump's doing a good job. | ||
| I know he's dealt with trying to get the shutdown opened, you know, how the country opened. | ||
| And I think he's doing a wonderful job. | ||
| And he put his fully on food stamps. | ||
| And I don't think it's right for people to down him when he's trying to do something good for the country. | ||
| All right, James. | ||
| Let's talk to Ray on the line for Democrats in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Go ahead, Ray. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I got a couple things. | |
| First of all, with this Epstein thing, you've got to be able to think ahead like the Republicans do with their lawyers. | ||
| And the one thing I thought of was what's going to happen when the bill gets to be able to take a handle. | ||
| The Republicans. | ||
| Okay, I'm sorry. | ||
| I just had to mute the TV. | ||
| Anyway, there's one thing that Trump can do with the bill when it comes to his desk, and it's called a pocket veto. | ||
| I think you should look into that and explain to the people what that is. | ||
| Second, if he's going to do the oh, it's going to be a continuing investigation because now they're investigating Democrats. | ||
| It's just a matter of if Pam Bondi wants to fall on the sword again and take the heat for Trump and say she's going to not release anything. | ||
| But I think the pocket veto is the way they're going to go with this. | ||
| So maybe you should have your people look it up and, like I said, tell the people what that is. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| So here is Britannica. | ||
| It says pocket veto, the killing of legislation by a chief executive through a failure to act within a specified period following the adjournment of the legislature in the U.S. If the president does not sign a bill within 10 days of its passage by Congress, it automatically becomes law. | ||
| However, if Congress adjourns within the 10-day period and the president does not sign the bill, it is automatically vetoed, and the veto is absolute. | ||
| The latter action is referred to as a pocket veto. | ||
| Here is Dale in Taylorsville, North Carolina. | ||
| Republican, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| What people need to really remember about Epstein, Epstein was a loyal Democrat. | ||
| Majority of his friends, I'm certain, was Democrats. | ||
| And his clientele people he dealt with probably was mostly Democrats. | ||
| And I figure the one that snuffed him out of his life was probably a Democrat or Democrat ties. | ||
| They're looking for something to get Trump on. | ||
| They ain't looking for justice. | ||
| They're not looking to get all the big wigs that was involved. | ||
| They're looking to put got you moment, get Trump's name on something. | ||
| I tell you what, be careful what you look for. | ||
| I'm sure Slick Willie will be okay. | ||
| Hillary will be okay. | ||
| Certain ones up there will be fine. | ||
| Everything's kosher. | ||
| Patty, also in Pennsylvania, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, Patty. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I was calling about the Epstein pals. | ||
| I was thinking, you know, all these women standing up there, they know the names. | ||
| Why wouldn't they just give them they're not allowed? | ||
| I think they say who would raped them. | ||
| You know, I think there might be some legal concerns with that. | ||
| And also, I think they were saying that, you know, if you guys don't vote to put it out, we will start, you know, naming names or things like that. | ||
| But it's a good question, Patty. | ||
| I don't know the answer to that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Thank you, Mimi. | ||
| You have a good day. | ||
| You too. | ||
| This is House Oversight Chair Representative Jim Comer, Republican of Kentucky, talking from the House floor yesterday. | ||
| In their latest elective leak, Democrats released just three, three of the 23,000 pages of documents from the Epstein estate. | ||
| And they made redactions to two of those emails that changed both the context and the meaning of the three pages they released. | ||
| When CNN, CNN, called them out for their deceptive redactions, Representatives Stansbury and Crockett tried to blame Republicans for their own edits, for the Democrat Oversight Committee edits. | ||
| After Democrats released only three emails, Republicans released over 23,000 pages. | ||
| And what did Democrats say in response when we released every single document that we got? | ||
| They claimed full transparency was meant to, quote, disorient or distract from their manufactured narrative. | ||
| These are the same Democrats who chant, release the files every day until the files contradict the story they want to tell. | ||
| That is the definition of hypocrisy. | ||
| In contrast, full transparency exposed how Epstein appears to be TDS patient zero. | ||
| The emails reveal a journalist coached Epstein to blackmail then presidential candidate Donald Trump. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman's recognized. | |
| The files also show that a House Democrat colluded with Epstein during the 2019 oversight hearing to discredit witness with a vendetta against President Trump. | ||
| And unsurprisingly, Democrats have been silent about their colleagues' coordination with Epstein. | ||
| Another email shows Democrat fundraisers invited Epstein to an event or to meet privately with Hakeem Jeffries as part of their 2013 effort to win a majority. | ||
| So Hakeem Jeffries' campaign solicited money from Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| That's what we found in the last document batch. | ||
| The files underscore why former President Trump must appear for his deposition. | ||
| We've subpoenaed him. | ||
| To date, the Democrats have done nothing to help us secure his appearance. | ||
| I support full transparency. | ||
| The Oversight Committee will continue to work to get the truth to the American people and to get justice for the victims. | ||
| That's our goal of this investigation. | ||
| Back to the calls now to Henry in Alabama, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Go ahead, Henry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I don't think we should release our latest technician, technology, I meant to say, to Saudi Arabia. | |
| Saudi Arabia, years ago, never did get to the final outcome of the military, American military, that was killed in the barracks there. | ||
| And I don't think we should let go of our latest technology to these people. | ||
| I don't trust them, and I don't think the goat miss you. | ||
| And as for Epstein files, with the files in the Justice Department and the FBI, they're going to be edited to the till. | ||
| They're not going to tell us anything that we really need to know. | ||
| That's my state. | ||
| So, Henry, before you go, at 8:30 on the program, we're going to have a discussion about the sale of F-35s to Saudi Arabia and technology and what that means. | ||
| So be sure to stay with us for that. | ||
| Sean in Bicknell, Indiana, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Sean. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I was just wanting to comment on this Epstein thing and everything. | ||
| One lady had it right now. | ||
| I want to know what the parents, what they knew about this, if they had got any profits from it or anything like that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And another question, or I was just going to comment, that I just want to remind the news media and everything that Hunter Biden was trafficking in prostitutes from California to the East Coast, too. | |
| So why are they just all worried about Trump and the Epstein files when Hunter Biden was doing the same thing? | ||
| So, Sean, do you know about the, I was just going to ask you, do you know about the Netflix documentary about Epstein? | ||
| It's called Filthy Rich. | ||
| Have you taken a look at that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I don't watch much TV, ma'am. | |
| I usually stay away from it now listening to music in the yard. | ||
| And watching C-SPAN. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, yeah. | |
| Yeah, I started watching you guys and got away from MSNBC because I just don't like their way they are. | ||
| But C-SAN pretty well tells both people's parts of you. | ||
| And I just, I think everybody's looking at this with horseblinders on just to blame somebody political instead of looking at the whole deal, if the parents knew anything, if they was involved with anything like that. | ||
| Because I know from experience here in Indiana, usually that stuff, the parents might be pretty well involved with it. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, there is a, as I mentioned, there's a Netflix documentary called Filthy Rich. | ||
| It's about Epstein and his crimes in Palm Beach. | ||
| You can take a look at that. | ||
| That came out in 2020. | ||
| So that might give you an idea of kind of his methods and how he recruited his victims. | ||
| And if you have questions about that, Greg, Berea, Ohio, Democrat, good morning, Greg. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, America. | |
| 787 days, Republicans MAGA Constantly called this show and complained about gas prices, bread. | ||
| Oh, I don't have gas. | ||
| I can't afford to go to the supermarket. | ||
| But after January 20th, 2025, you're silent. | ||
| It evaporated. | ||
| And everything seems to orbit around illegal immigration. | ||
| Well, let me tell you something. | ||
| Illegal immigration has not caused my alleged bill to double for no reason. | ||
| And everything is higher, every single last thing. | ||
| And if he's doing such a wonderful job, why did he about base those tariffs and say that he wants to bring the grocery prices down? | ||
| To me, it's beyond human comprehension for a person to continue to support him. | ||
| As far as the Epstein is concerned, they cannot name Drop because that would be considered slander. | ||
| You accuse a person of rape without going through due process, you'll be sued. | ||
| That is why they cannot say it. | ||
| But the congresspeople can say it because they're immune from it. | ||
| And last thing, always deflecting on Democrats. | ||
| You have Joe Biden on the brain and Democratic disorder. | ||
| And I'll leave it with my famous Star Wars quote: who is worse, the fool or the fool who follows him? | ||
| Have a nice day, America. | ||
| Really quick in other news, Axios reporting, Republicans failed to oust Plaskett from House Intel and Shock vote. | ||
| And here's Representative Ana Paulina Luna on X about that. | ||
| It says the Plasket censor failed because House leadership exchanged the censure failure for the withdrawal of a vote to censor and refer Corey Mills to Health Ethics for investigation. | ||
| She says the swamp protects itself. | ||
| And with that, we will end today's open forum. | ||
| But we have much more on the program later on the Washington Journal closer look at U.S. plans to sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia and how it impacts the balance of power in the Middle East. | ||
| That's a conversation with Bradley Bowman from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. | ||
| But first, after the break, we're joined by Republican Congressman Pete Sessions of Texas, a top member of the House Oversight Committee. | ||
| We'll talk about yesterday's vote on the Epstein files and efforts to avoid yet another government shutdown at the end of January. | ||
| Stay with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Past president. | |
| Why? | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is a kandaroo car. | |
| 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 island to 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. | ||
| C-SPANshop.org is C-SPAN's online store. | ||
| Browse through our latest collection of C-SPAN products, apparel, books, home decor, and accessories. | ||
| There's something for every C-SPAN fan, and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations. | ||
| Shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. | ||
| Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series, Sunday with our guest-famed chef and global relief entrepreneur, Jose Andres. | ||
| His books on reimagining food include Feeding Dangerously, Change the Recipe, and We Fed an Island. | ||
| He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein. | ||
| Are people afraid of inviting you over to their house for dinner because they'd be afraid that the food wouldn't be good enough for you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
When people cook with love for you, it's great, but you know, you know, the dry turkey in Thanksgiving is unnegotiable. | |
| It's always dry. | ||
| But yeah, turkeys are so dry. | ||
| That's why gravy exists. | ||
| Watch America's Book Club with Jose Andres Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to the program. | ||
| We are joined by Congressman Pete Sessions. | ||
| He's a Republican of Texas and a member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Financial Services Committee. | ||
| Welcome to the program, Congressman. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| It's a beautiful morning, isn't it? | ||
| It's always a beautiful morning with Washington Journal. | ||
| You are on the Oversight Committee, as I mentioned, and you had been dealing with the release of the Epstein files. | ||
| Of course, the vote, most Republicans were opposed to the release until the president reversed his opinion on that. | ||
| And so can you tell us about kind of what was happening behind the scenes with your committee and with the vote for the release of the remaining Epstein files? | ||
| I'd be pleased to give some insight. | ||
| For many months, the committee has been working what we hope is on a bipartisan basis. | ||
| I serve as chairman of government operations subcommittee, and my Democrat lead is Mr. Mfume from Maryland. | ||
| And he and I have spoken a few times, not a lot because of the government shutdown, but we've spoken about the need to make sure that he is receiving as well anyone on a committee that's a Democrat or Republican receiving the information that they needed. | ||
| The information that we began our conversation with, as you'll recall, became a highlight when Attorney General Bond indicated she would be pleased to release the data and information to Congress. | ||
| Then, just within days, she found out that she did not have all of the data and information. | ||
| And this became an important point for us to make sure that we were understanding at the Government Reform and Oversight Committee that we would receive the entire package and what that would be. | ||
| As you know, there's a chain of custody. | ||
| This represents things that happened in 05, 06, 07, 08. | ||
| And there's a chain of custody. | ||
| There are foreign entities on this. | ||
| These were done in the islands. | ||
| These parties and occurrences were in Florida. | ||
| They were in New York. | ||
| And so a number of law enforcement agencies were surrounding that. | ||
| We believed from the very beginning that we needed to answer key questions. | ||
| How did this happen? | ||
| How was this sustained? | ||
| Did people pay money? | ||
| Did people pay money to come on the island? | ||
| How were these women selected? | ||
| What were the methods of operation between the videotapes and the pictures that were taken? | ||
| And who had that chain of custody? | ||
| One of the first persons that we had as a witness where he was on a bipartisan basis vetted was the U.S. attorney at the time. | ||
| And he spoke about why this was not prosecuted federally and why it was prosecuted and the level and the extent that was obtained in Florida. | ||
| So we have lots of questions and that's the pathway we were going down. | ||
| Well, all of a sudden it turned, no surprise, political. | ||
| And the word Donald J. Trump is what people were looking for. | ||
| And as best I can tell you, we were after the story, how it happened, why it happened, how we could avoid this happening next. | ||
| And we were looking at documents that we wanted that would be vetted by law enforcement with facts and factors to them. | ||
| This release of the files came as a result of a discharge petition, a discharge petition that was written but not inclusive of all the things to take into account the needs of the young people, photos, images, videos, data, ancillary information. | ||
| So all of this will be now gathered together and put out to the public. | ||
| And I just, that's why Republicans and maybe some Democrats who had reservations wanted to continue what we were doing, but it became too politically hot. | ||
| Congressman, why do you think President Trump changed his mind over the weekend after fighting it for so long and so vehemently against this discharge petition to then tell Republicans to go ahead and vote for it? | ||
| Well, these are very valid questions. | ||
| As you probably know, it came up to the Rules Committee that I used to be chairman of for six years. | ||
| It came to the Rules Committee, and the Rules Committee, some nine times, had dismissed this. | ||
| I cannot tell you why a bill presented by the Speaker or the Republicans did not come and straightforward talk about what we intended to do and to more fully authorize the committee and Democrats and Republicans for the American people to understand. | ||
| I do not know why we didn't do that, but this originally, in my opinion, and more than a year ago, became an issue on the campaign trail, mostly by women, Republican women, MAGA women is a term that's used often. | ||
| But it also included my wife and my whole staff who then said we need to get to the bottom of this. | ||
| And so that's what this committee was attempting to do. | ||
| The discharge petition did not go through a committee. | ||
| It was not vetted and there was no way to change it. | ||
| Once it was put into play, it gathered the fire that was necessary. | ||
| So Donald Trump, President Trump, understood very clearly that we, from a perspective of Republicans and certainly what might be called our base, expected us to deliver. | ||
| And because the House had failed to effectively sell what it was doing, it became a popular chant among Republicans and Democrats. | ||
| And so all of our offices were inundated. | ||
| So it just became a wave too big for anyone to negotiate. | ||
| That's why the president did what he did. | ||
| And that's why we had a near unanimous vote. | ||
| And I'll invite our audience to start calling in now. | ||
| If you'd like to talk to Congressman Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas, you can do so. | ||
| He'll be with us for about the next 20 minutes. | ||
| Our lines are biparty. | ||
| So Democrats are on 202748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202748-8002. | ||
| Congressman, are you confident that there are no other perpetrators of illegal activity, sexual abuse, sexual assault that will come out from these files? | ||
| Has, I mean, everybody that has committed a crime been prosecuted? | ||
| Well, we do know that what happened is that the principal in this case and Giselle, who was I would also call co-conspirator, pled guilty in state court in Florida. | ||
| There was a question after law enforcement looked at it, after the state of Florida looked at it, of what the offenses were and how things happened. | ||
| We are now looking at this literally 20 years later and looking at data and information. | ||
| As you know, there are people overseas and even in this country, including some that were carrying the title of ambassador, some that were carrying a royalty rank that have been outed over the last few years. | ||
| But yes, I would anticipate that this list, whether someone's actually guilty or not, their name will be associated with it. | ||
| And so it's these types of releases that make it very difficult. | ||
| I'm more concerned about the victims, the girls, the families, the photos, the videos that may fall into hands to be outed. | ||
| But yet, no, I have no reason to assume that names that have not been appeared would not now. | ||
| I think they will. | ||
| And I think that I don't know if there's a complete list, but this goes to numbers of incidents that happened in New York, that happened in Florida, that happened on the island. | ||
| And so I think as we learned yesterday about the emails that have become available about fundraisers that were held, contact with Mr. Epstein and others. | ||
| And so I think there's a lot left, a treasure trove of information that will be gone through. | ||
| And Congressman, you did mention Ghelane Maxwell, who's convicted sex trafficker and sex abuser. | ||
| The NBC is reporting that her prison emails show she is much, quote, happier at this minimum security Texas facility that she was moved to. | ||
| There are reports of special treatment at that. | ||
| She was moved after speaking with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. | ||
| Are you investigating that? | ||
| Does that concern you in any way? | ||
| Well, let me just say this straight up. | ||
| Anybody that's in Texas is happier. | ||
| But one would hope a sexual trafficker would not be treated that way, sir. | ||
| Well, she is at a minimum security prison, a federal prison. | ||
| Perhaps it does. | ||
| In fact, there are a number of circumstances that we are aware of, and that is her own safety, her own life, her own opportunity. | ||
| But does it appear as though there was a quid pro quo to unloosen some of the straints that would be on her as a normal prisoner? | ||
| Would not surprise me. | ||
| Is that something that we need to probably get in and vet? | ||
| Yes, but it falls well below the line of things that we're working on right now. | ||
| We've just come off of a government shutdown. | ||
| We have another government shutdown that looms ahead of us. | ||
| We've got a lot of work to do. | ||
| But that she became forthright and re-initiated things to put things in perspectives about what happened and stipulated the terms. | ||
| I think that does happen because you come to an agreement. | ||
| Would not surprise me. | ||
| Last week, the Washington Post reported that Democrats did release some emails from Jeffrey Epstein, including one that claimed that President Trump, quote, knew about the girls and, quote, spent hours at Epstein's house with one of his sex trafficking victims. | ||
| Your response to that. | ||
| Well, my response to that is that we have correspondingly emails with other co-conspirators who said they did not believe that he was a part of this at all. | ||
| Please know this. | ||
| If this had been, it's not a new term that I'm using, but if this had been apparent to people, let's say during the Biden and Obama administration, which they had full custody of and others who were detractors, I'm sure we would have known it. | ||
| We have seen the context of it. | ||
| It did appear in the Epstein information, and I'm sure that there are plenty of people right now who are going through that. | ||
| I believe that the president, I hope he did, signed the bill last night. | ||
| We'll release the information and then let the occurrences with the entire file come out. | ||
| Let's go to calls to William in Rumsey, Kentucky, Republican line. | ||
| Good morning, William. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have a question for the representative about transparency. | ||
| You know, we see on TV all the time about the Democrats are saying that they want the Republicans to be more transparent. | ||
| Well, now all they're talking about is Republicans. | ||
| They won't see transparency yet. | ||
| The last year that Biden was in office, we very seldom saw him. | ||
| He answered possible any questions. | ||
| That's my representative opinion about that. | ||
| Did you catch that, Congressman? | ||
| I did, and I think the gentleman makes a point that could be just human nature, and that is when you're the person that's being talked about, you tend to be a little bit careful. | ||
| In this case, it's political parties, it's political ideology, it is people. | ||
| And it is true that when we sought data and information from the Biden Department of Justice or the agencies, they did not provide the information we needed. | ||
| It is true that when President Trump in his first term was indicted, I'm sorry, they had the impeachment trial. | ||
| The impeachment committee used the FBI to do their investigation to show up with people with a badge and a gun who took testimony from people, and if they perjure themselves, they could be held liable. | ||
| When in fact, the same circumstance that was reversed on President Biden and his son Hunter, we were completely precluded from using any investigative person within the federal government other than our own investigators who do not have these types of powers, nor are they granted to us. | ||
| And so there is a two-level circumstance that is very apparent that has gone on. | ||
| In this case, I think that the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, is going to not only comply with this, but feel strongly that she has a duty to do this. | ||
| And I think the President, once he focused on this, realized that the votes of Republicans were there for full disclosure, whether it was going to be in everyone's best interest or not. | ||
| So I think this gentleman makes a good point. | ||
| We need to go and treat each other the same way in federal matters. | ||
| Congressman, were you going to vote yes on this, even if the president was saying to vote no, had he not changed his mind over the weekend? | ||
| How would you have voted? | ||
| Well, I think it's important to note that a member like myself that's been around a long period of time has a better understanding about the types of circumstances, how you defend the hill you want to be on. | ||
| And I saw no defense materializing. | ||
| I saw no real answers coming out with legislation that we could counter and say, here's what our plan would be. | ||
| And so it became an overwhelming wave against not only our members, and as you know, it was touted on Wednesday or Thursday, there'd be over 100 members that were Republicans that were going to vote for full disclosure. | ||
| And then, of course, some personalities became engaged in that and drove the issue. | ||
| And I didn't get the answer. | ||
| So you would have voted yes or no? | ||
| No, no. | ||
| The answer is I was hoping that our team would put together a bill that we could forthrightly support, like in comparison to what we did not do with the nine times at the Rules Committee. | ||
| So it became apparent to me last week we were not going to put a fight up about this. | ||
| So I would vote the way I did. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| And here's Sharon in Minnesota, Democrat. | ||
| Go ahead, Sharon. | ||
| You're on with Congressman Pete Sessions. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks, Mimi. | |
| His response there is just all of it, isn't it? | ||
| That he can't think for himself. | ||
| He has to wait for Trump to help him make some decisions. | ||
| But however, yesterday during the hearing, I watched every second of it. | ||
| I heard the Trump derangement syndrome a whole bunch of times. | ||
| And so many of us out here are getting so sick and tired of it. | ||
| So I myself have decided to come up with a term for them as well. | ||
| Now, this is clean, just like Trump derangement syndrome. | ||
| Let me tell you, I wear that label extremely proud. | ||
| But I've come up with a couple of terms only because every time that we bring up Trump, they have to bring up Biden or Obama or Clinton. | ||
| So let's from now on, everybody out there in C-SPAN world, let's remember these terms. | ||
| Obsessive, compulsive, Biden disorder. | ||
| Obsessive, compulsive, Clinton disorder, obsessive, compulsive, Obama disorder. | ||
| Because that's what you all suffer. | ||
| I suffer from Trump derangement syndrome. | ||
| That is correct. | ||
| However, I do want to ask a question, because maybe you have insight, but I doubt it, because we will never, ever have all the information out there because Trump is so involved. | ||
| But now, Epstein told us that he himself is the one that brought the Trumps together, him and Melania together. | ||
| Now, I know all of you guys don't want to believe that, but there is many of us out here that do believe that. | ||
| And so I would really like to know: is that why Trump is being so shady about all of this? | ||
| Is that why he's backing away from everything? | ||
| Is because his wife would be implemented in all of this. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Sounds like a good one to me. | ||
| Go ahead, Congressman, any response? | ||
| Well, you're asking a question that I have not heard about, nor do I know the question or answer to. | ||
| I think that it's important to note that Mr. Epstein grew up in the way that he did a man who came around money and came around circumstances, wanted to make friends with people. | ||
| And perhaps that was a common way to do it. | ||
| It is illegal, it is wrong, and it dealt with things that people of good conscience should not be involved in. | ||
| That information will be out, so I'm sure as we look through all the pages, we will learn a lot. | ||
| But I will keep an open mind to what you said. | ||
| How did people come together? | ||
| We heard yesterday about a member of Congress. | ||
| We've heard of several things about fundraisers that were done with him, about how when he was giving testimony, that there were people who were asking him what questions to talk about, people who worked for the Department of Justice who had dealt with this issue. | ||
| So I'm simply going to let the facts and the case fall where it may. | ||
| All right, and here's going to be interesting. | ||
| Terry and Michigan, Independent, go ahead, Terry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, there's one item you have never brought up. | |
| Michigan State University, Nasser, University of Michigan, Anderson. | ||
| I live nearby. | ||
| They went through, the women went through the same thing that they're going through now. | ||
| I stand tall for women. | ||
| To the women who are abused now, stand up on your feet. | ||
| Look up and look out and read Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1. | ||
| Our government is corrupt all the way through. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And you, sir, listening to my voice, you are a part of it. | |
| You are a part of a corrupted government. | ||
| You know it, but you won't admit it. | ||
| We are lost. | ||
| We will face the music because it's going to happen. | ||
| I hope that these women will be, the story will be told. | ||
| My mother left me when I was eight years old. | ||
| My dad drove her out. | ||
| I'm married. | ||
| I was married to a woman for 63 years. | ||
| She died last year. | ||
| I have never had sex with any woman but her. | ||
| All right, Terry. | ||
| And Congressman, on a different topic, the federal court yesterday blocked Texas from using a new congressional redrawn map for 2026 elections. | ||
| Do you have a reaction to that? | ||
| Well, certainly we became aware of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal, this panel, made a determination on a two-to-one vote that the new lines violated on several constitutional grounds. | ||
| I've not read the entire brief yet, but I'll be a judgment, but I'll be glad to. | ||
| But I think that what will happen is immediately there will be an appeal to the Supreme Court, and there will be asked for a final decision on that. | ||
| And I expect that the Supreme Court will have that, and we'll leave that up to the justices. | ||
| And Congressman, your district is being redrawn. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| About 60% redrawal. | ||
| And how did you feel about that? | ||
| Do you welcome that? | ||
| Well, it's important to note, and you still know this, this is still engaged in the legal process, and I have no real opinion. | ||
| I had no opinion. | ||
| I was not sought after my opinion by anyone. | ||
| No one from the state of Texas or the federal government asked me what I thought, but it is about a 60% change and will reasonably change the district that I would represent. | ||
| You're Sal in Sewell, New Jersey, Republican. | ||
| Go ahead, Sal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How you going, Congressman? | |
| I'd just like to say President Trump's doing a hell of a job. | ||
| The Prince gave a trillion dollars and get all these jobs we're going to have from the Prince giving all that money to our country, buying all military, billion dollars in military spending. | ||
| And I'd like to say, it's a question of Mr. Sessions. | ||
| All the girls that were all taken advantage of with their molestation by this Epstein, if anything, why didn't any of the girls say anything about President Trump being implicated? | ||
| They could have opened their mouth and said any little thing. | ||
| None of them had anything to say bad about President Trump. | ||
| So why is this acting like President Trump is guilty of anything? | ||
| Any one of these women would have said something if they would have had it and if something would have happened between them and President Trump. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| It's a witch hunt to me. | ||
| All right, Sal. | ||
| Go ahead, Congressman. | ||
| Well, I would attend to, we've not gone through all the files, but I would assume that there have been enough public appearances by these women. | ||
| They could have named names. | ||
| They could have done these things. | ||
| I don't know enough about the testimony that they've given that allowed the first opportunity for the conviction, the plea. | ||
| But I will tell you that Jeffrey Epstein was an evil man who manipulated these women. | ||
| And we want to know, did people pay him for this? | ||
| How did he get his island? | ||
| What banks were doing these things? | ||
| We have a lot of history going back even to the former Attorney General of New York, Spitzer, who was caught by making financial transactions. | ||
| So I think that there's a lot yet for us to determine as to whether these girls would say something. | ||
| I assume that they would have let people know who, if Donald Trump were involved, and I think they would have done that. | ||
| So I agree with you. | ||
| Congressman, I want to ask you that now since the shutdown is over, how do you think Republicans should proceed on ACA subsidies and on health insurance in general? | ||
| The opportunity that Republicans had and still have is enormous, and that is to create a circumstance that I have been involved in for a number of years, and it's to push allowing people who do not receive employer-provided health care that came with the tax advantages. | ||
| If you work for a company, if you work for the government, you generally receive your health care on what's called a 70-30 basis, meaning that the company will pay 70% of your health care costs, and you will pay 30%, and both of those are deductible under tax code, meaning that if you are paying for that as the customer, you would receive that 30% on a pre-tax basis. | ||
| If you do not have employer-provided health care, receiving health care on an expensive basis means that a lot of people go without health care. | ||
| So I believe that my party and the president well understand that we should extend to any person that would choose that is not on employer provided health care to be able to receive their tax credit. | ||
| And that tax credit is $4,000 for an adult, $2,000 for a child. | ||
| The most expensive health care several years ago was in California, Kaiser Permanente. | ||
| That ran for a family of $424,000. | ||
| Under this scenario, it would allow the federal government to pay $12,000, which would be commensurate with what they're allowing for any single person that's on employer-provided health care, in essence, to be able to receive the same amount or approximate amount of help. | ||
| This encourages people to get health care. | ||
| It encourages people to have their own health care that they can control. | ||
| But more importantly, it changes the paradigm about people showing up without health care, the expenses that come into the administrative costs, and to the federal government. | ||
| So it would literally be awash if we would do this. | ||
| It would not add additional expense because the federal government today is paying an incredible amount of money for subsidies. | ||
| Last point. | ||
| I was on Obamacare for seven years. | ||
| During the seven years, my amount that I had to pay more than doubled. | ||
| And where I was required to pay my deductible went from $2,000 to $7,000. | ||
| I never used my insurance. | ||
| I only used my deductible. | ||
| And so that other money, the $28,000 that I was paying in, went to some insurance to support something, but not for myself. | ||
| And so we're trying to move this closer to where the American people where individuals that do not have a health care plan would get one on a pre-tax basis, just like other people who work for an employer. | ||
| All right, that's what we're trying to do. | ||
| That's Congressman Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas. | ||
| Thanks so much for joining us today, sir. | ||
| In about 30 minutes, we'll turn our focus to those expiring ACA subsidies and what's happening here in Washington to address the rising health care costs. | ||
| We'll talk to Julie Rovner, Chief Washington correspondent for KFF Health News. | ||
| But first, after the break, Bradley Bowman from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies joins us for a closer look at U.S. plans to sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia and the balance of power in the Middle East. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series. | |
| Sunday with our guest-famed chef and global relief entrepreneur, Jose Andres. | ||
| His books on reimagining food include Eating Dangerously, Change the Recipe, and We Fed an Island. | ||
| He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein. | ||
| Are people afraid of inviting you over to their house for dinner because they'd be afraid that the food wouldn't be good enough for you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
When people cook with love for you, it's great, but you know, you know, the dry turk in Thanksgiving is unnegotiable. | |
| It's always dry. | ||
| But yeah, turk is hard so dry. | ||
| That's why gravy exists. | ||
| Watch America's Book Club with Jose Andres Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific. | ||
| Only on C-SPAN. | ||
| America marks 250 years, and C-SPAN is there to commemorate every moment. | ||
| From the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the voices shaping our nation's future, we bring you unprecedented all-platform coverage, exploring the stories, 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. | ||
| c-span official media partner of america 250. middle and high school students join c-span as we celebrate america's 250th anniversary during our 2026 c-span student cam video documentary competition This year's theme is exploring the American story through the Declaration of Independence. | ||
| We're asking students to create a five to six minute documentary that answers one of two questions. | ||
| What's the Declaration's influence on a key moment from America's 250-year history? | ||
| Or how have its values touched on a contemporary issue that's impacting you or your community? | ||
| We encourage all students to participate, regardless of prior filmmaking experience. | ||
| Consider interviewing topical experts and explore a variety of viewpoints around your chosen issue. | ||
| Students should also include clips of related C-SPAN footage, which are easy to download on our website, studentcam.org. | ||
| C-SPAN Student Cam Competition awards $100,000 in total cash prizes to students and teachers and $5,000 for the grand prize winner. | ||
| Entries must be received before January 20th, 2026. | ||
| For competition rules, tips, or just how to get started, visit our website at studentcab.org. | ||
| As unbiased as you can get. | ||
| You are so fair. | ||
| I don't know how anybody can say otherwise. | ||
| You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country. | ||
| I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices. | ||
| You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds. | ||
| I absolutely love C-SPAN. | ||
| I love to hear both sides. | ||
| I've watch C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased and you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments. | ||
| This is probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country. | ||
| You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions. | ||
| Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to talk about the U.S. sale of F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia is Bradley Bowman. | ||
| He is at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. | ||
| He's the senior director for the Center on Military and Political Power there. | ||
| Brad, welcome back to the program. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| The Crown Prince was in Washington, D.C., meeting with the president. | ||
| What was he looking for? | ||
| You know, thank you again for the opportunity to join you. | ||
| The Crown Prince came to Washington with a wish list, and darn near the top of that wish list was the ability to acquire up to 48 of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. | ||
| For those of your viewers and listeners who don't do this on a regular basis, that is our nation's most advanced fighter jet, one of the most advanced in the world. | ||
| It is currently employed by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Marine Corps. | ||
| U.S. service members will be flying this aircraft in combat for decades to come. | ||
| And roughly other 19 other nations either already have the aircraft or are procuring it. | ||
| So it's very, very important that we protect the technology associated with that aircraft so that our service members can accomplish the missions they're given and return home to their families. | ||
| Why does Saudi Arabia want these? | ||
| Because they've got F-15s. | ||
| Is that not enough? | ||
| It's a great question. | ||
| Saudi Arabia has a very impressive existing fleet. | ||
| They have European aircraft. | ||
| They have American F-15s. | ||
| They have some of the most advanced F-15s in the world. | ||
| You're correct. | ||
| They have a very impressive fleet. | ||
| But the F-35 is much more advanced than what they already have. | ||
| So if they were to acquire the F-35, it would significantly increase the capabilities of the Saudi Air Force. | ||
| What would it provide? | ||
| Just at a summary level, the F-35 is what we call a fifth-generation fighter. | ||
| The Saudis don't have any fifth-generation fighters. | ||
| What distinguishes a fifth-generation fighter? | ||
| A fifth-generation fighter is harder for radar to detect. | ||
| It's harder for our enemies to see it. | ||
| And if you can't see it or it's difficult to see it, you have a harder time shooting it down, obviously. | ||
| It also has incredible sensors and incredible networking capabilities. | ||
| And so if you combine the F-35 with their F-15s, they already have, that's a formidable combination. | ||
| And you don't have to take my word for it. | ||
| If you look at the 12-day war, the Israeli Air Force did just that. | ||
| They combined F-15s and F-35s. | ||
| The F-15s can carry a lot more munitions. | ||
| The F-35s, as I said, are harder to detect. | ||
| They can go in deeper where there's advanced enemy air defenses. | ||
| And that combination is very formidable. | ||
| So Saudi Arabia would be the first country in the Middle East, other than Israel, to get this F-35. | ||
| And that's one of the reasons why there are concerns about Israel's qualitative military edge, which is required by U.S. law. | ||
| We will talk about, but I wanted to stick with why the Saudis would need this. | ||
| In other words, who are their adversaries, that they are building this, this fleet, against? | ||
| It's a good question. | ||
| The Saudis, like many governments, want weapon systems for a variety of reasons, but the number one threat from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the Islamic Republic of Iran. | ||
| This goes back many, many decades, to 1979, when you had the Iranian revolution. | ||
| They are adversaries. | ||
| They have made kind of a. | ||
| They had some sort of cold peace a few years ago, if you will, but they see Iran with a clear-eyed view, as should most Americans. | ||
| Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism, is the leading source of instability in the Middle East, and Saudi Arabia wants an aircraft and an air force that can deter and defeat aggression from the Islamic Republic Of Iran and some of its terror proxies, including the Houthis in Yemen. | ||
| Let's hear from the president. | ||
| He was in the Oval Office. | ||
| He was asked about the F-35s and if it's the same that are being sold to Israel. | ||
| When you look at the F-35 and you're asking me, is it the same? | ||
| I think it's going to be pretty similar. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, how will that be? | |
| This is a great ally and Israel's a great ally and I know they'd like you to get planes of reduced caliber. | ||
| I don't think that makes you too happy. | ||
| They've been a great ally, Israel's been a great ally, and we're looking at that exactly right now, but as far as I'm concerned, I think they are both at a level where they should get top of the line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, please now explain what you were talking about. | |
| As far as comparative advantage or qualitative advantage yeah, there's. | ||
| There's something called qualitative military edge, and this is not someone's opinion or something that I'm making up. | ||
| This is the U.S. Law. | ||
| So section 36H of the Arms Export Control Act also 22 U.S. Code 2776 viewers can look it up requires the United States to maintain Israel's qualitative military edge. | ||
| This is a relative comparison and some would say, well, you know why would we be concerned about Saudi Arabia? | ||
| Saudi Arabia is not going to attack Israel anytime soon. | ||
| I think that's probably right, but it's irrelevant. | ||
| The law makes no distinction between, regarding the, the recipient nation's political disposition disposition or its policy. | ||
| It focuses on military hardware and I think that's why is because, if you look at history and Middle East politics, governments can change quickly and policies can change quickly, so you focus on military hardware and there is no way you can give Saudi Arabia America's most advanced fighter jet and not erode Israel's qualitative military edge. | ||
| That doesn't mean necessarily you don't give it to Saudi Arabia, but you would have to take additional steps to maintain Israel's relative qualitative military edge according to the law, which means more F-35s. | ||
| It could. | ||
| They have a lot already. | ||
| It could mean other things. | ||
| This isn't. | ||
| It isn't about the aircraft, it's about the capabilities. | ||
| So it could be air defense systems. | ||
| It could be other things. | ||
| It's the ability of Israel to defend itself as the lost states, not just against one state, a coalition of states. | ||
| That's explicit in the law. | ||
| It's focused on the Middle Middle East, the statute is, but we have to look at Turkey, for example. | ||
| You know, Turkey has had very problematic policies toward Israel. | ||
| President Erdogan met with members of Hamas after October 7th when Israel brought justice to leaders of Hamas. | ||
| He lowered the flags to half staff in Israel mourning the loss of this terrorist. | ||
| Turkey did this at their diplomatic facility in Israel. | ||
| I mean, quite a message to Israel mourning the death of a Hamas leader. | ||
| And they're taking some concerning actions in Syria, for example. | ||
| So the law requires us to not just look at one country, look at a coalition of countries. | ||
| Yes, the law is focused on Middle East, but Americans who understand the value of Israel to our interests and want to follow the law have to be paying attention to these things. | ||
| If you'd like to join the conversation, if you've got a question for Bradley Bowman of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, start calling in now. | ||
| Democrats are in 20248-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| You wrote a piece with the headline, What Washington Should Demand from Riyadh before Providing the F-35s? | ||
| What should those demands be? | ||
| Yeah, no, there's three. | ||
| We just talked about CUME. | ||
| I think we should follow the law and maintain Israel's qualitative military edge. | ||
| We also need to ask Riyadh some tough questions about China. | ||
| You know, I started with the point is my number one focus here is making sure that our number one adversary doesn't get technology related to our F-35 that will allow them to shoot down our aircraft and kill our service, our pilots. | ||
| I mean, it's that simple. | ||
| And, you know, anyone from Saudi Arabia listening to say, oh, come on, what are you talking about? | ||
| We have advanced technology already. | ||
| protect it, we're good. | ||
| It's good. | ||
| Don't worry about it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Well, Riyadh, why did you conduct naval exercises with China in October? | ||
| Would you give them valuable intelligence? | ||
| Maybe. | ||
| I mean, but why would someone who wants the F-35 be doing military exercises with China? | ||
| I don't understand that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why would they? | |
| They're trying to have it both ways a little bit, I think. | ||
| If we're being money. | ||
| They're hedging their bets. | ||
| They're hedging their bets a little bit now. | ||
| They say, America, no one can replace you. | ||
| Your weapons are best. | ||
| No one has the political will and military capability. | ||
| Don't worry about it. | ||
| We're just going to do a little over here. | ||
| We just want the economics. | ||
| We just want the investment. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Then why are you doing a naval exercise? | ||
| And then why is the Saudi press agency issuing a statement that reads, look it up, the goal of the exercise was to strengthen military cooperation between the two sides and exchange expertise to raise combat readiness. | ||
| That's Saudi Arabia talking about an exercise with China. | ||
| Hello, really? | ||
| And you want the F-35? | ||
| And also, according to the New York Times reporting, on November 13th, Pentagon officials are expressing concerns that Chinese espionage or via Chinese security partnership, which I just started to describe, that they could require some of these technologies. | ||
| And there's also in that same report a discussion of how China and Saudi Arabia have worked together on Saudi Arabia's ballistic missile program. | ||
| So, you know, I think it's reasonable for Americans to say, you want our best fighter? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Hey, Saudi Arabia, you're an important security partner. | ||
| You're a flawed partner, but you're an important security partner. | ||
| We have common interests. | ||
| We have a common adversary. | ||
| We want you to be capable. | ||
| We want to work toward a regional security architecture. | ||
| That means you need to have advanced capabilities. | ||
| But there's some reasonable things we should expect. | ||
| And one of them is you don't do military exercises with China. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Do we have any assurance that that even came up with the principle? | ||
| I don't. | ||
| And honestly, I wish President Trump had mentioned a few things in the Oval Office, and I think there's a missed opportunity. | ||
| And that gets to, I just talked about the second, that gets to my third point. | ||
| I think it would be a mistake. | ||
| I think it was a mistake for President Trump to not mention the Oval Office. | ||
| Hey, you know, I've decided to sell the F-35. | ||
| Obviously, it has to go through a congressional approval process we could talk about. | ||
| But let me be very clear, Your Majesty, Crown Prince. | ||
| The first F-35 will not be delivered until you normalize relations with Israel. | ||
| We will not. | ||
| That's a big ask. | ||
| That's a big ask. | ||
| That's a huge ask. | ||
| I recognize it. | ||
| And that came up in the meeting, as you know. | ||
| And he has concerns about Gaza. | ||
| Trump's trying to 20-point plan. | ||
| Hamas has refused to disarm. | ||
| I'm not saying the F-35 is going to provide pivotal leverage. | ||
| But Trump, the dealmaker, just forfeited a whole lot of leverage by simply not saying that. | ||
| We're willing to give you the aircraft. | ||
| We've got to follow the law. | ||
| We've got to talk about what you're doing with China. | ||
| And let's be clear, you're not going to get the first F-35 until you normalize with Israel. | ||
| And by the way, that's going to take several years. | ||
| If you look at the backlog in F-35s, and if you look at the nations already in the queue, unless they're going to bump Saudi Arabia up the queue, these aircraft aren't going to be delivered for several years. | ||
| So I agree with you. | ||
| It's a big ask. | ||
| But, you know, we're not talking about next month. | ||
| We're talking about several years from now. | ||
| But by not saying that, the president, the dealmaker, forfeited leverage. | ||
| Let's talk to Marty in Louisville, Kentucky. | ||
| Democrat, good morning, Marty. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mimi. | |
| I'm using my nickname now. | ||
| Mr. Bowman, sir, I called in once before when you were on this show. | ||
| I'd like to make a quick comment about Saudi Arabia and also one about Israel, and then I'll listen to your response. | ||
| Saudi Arabia is a very large country that's owned by a few rich families. | ||
| And the United States has made it a point to keep those families in power so we can use that space for our air bases and keep another government from taking over and getting control of those airfields. | ||
| But you might want to think of changing the name of your organization to Defense for Democracies and also Saudi Arabia. | ||
| Now, switching to Israel, Netanyahu said from the beginning, we are going to destroy Hamas. | ||
| That's what this operation will do. | ||
| And he kept saying for two years, we are not going to stop this operation until we destroy Hamas. | ||
| And they did not destroy Hamas. | ||
| In the meantime, they've killed in excess of about 50,000 Palestinians. | ||
| Let me know if you disagree with that figure and destroyed almost all the property in that country. | ||
| And I'm failing to see how anybody in their right mind could say that was a successful operation when they did not destroy. | ||
| They did not achieve their objective. | ||
| They killed all those people. | ||
| And the bottom line is the problem is the hatred that Muslims and Palestinians have toward the Jews. | ||
| I'm finding it hard to believe anybody would think that hatred is going to go away because Israel killed 50,000 Palestinians. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| Thank you for the call. | ||
| You raised many important issues there. | ||
| You're right, the Saud family, hence the name, Saudi Arabia. | ||
| Going back to FDR, we have a long relationship with the regime there that is based around that family and their descendants. | ||
| Our research institute does not take any money from foreign governments. | ||
| It's as a matter of pride and principles. | ||
| So let me say that. | ||
| I said in the days and weeks after October 7th, after that horrific attack, the worst single-day murder of Jews since the Holocaust, that it was going to be easier said than done to destroy Hamas. | ||
| Unfortunately, I was right. | ||
| Hamas still refuses to disarm, as I said earlier. | ||
| They're not going to be like the British at Yorktown and file out and put their weapons in neat piles. | ||
| Someone's going to have to go and do that. | ||
| There's a tension here between the worthy goal of trying to get Saudi Arabia and Israel to normalize, which would be good for America, good for Israel, good for Saudi Arabia, good for the region, and a nightmare for the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was why I love it. | ||
| There's a tension between that, that goal of normalization and making progress in Gaza, and as the Crown Prince said in the Oval Office yesterday, a path, a path, I think is the word he said, toward a two-state solution. | ||
| Of course, many Israelis don't look favorably on a two-state solution after October 7th, and it's less politically popular now. | ||
| But there is a tension between what Saudi Arabia wants in Gaza and normalization, no doubt about it. | ||
| But this is what the Trump administration is trying to work on. | ||
| Rosemary in New Jersey, Independent Line, you're on with Brad Bowman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, Rosemary, did you say? | |
| Yes, you're on. | ||
| Go ahead, Rosemary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, well I was just wondering why are we selling Israel F-35s when they turned around and sold them to China and yet now you're saying Saudi Arabia can't do the same. | |
| You're worried about Saudi Arabia. | ||
| That was my question. | ||
| Sure, thanks for the call. | ||
| Unfortunately, ma'am, the premise of your question is false. | ||
| Israel is our best, most capable, most reliable ally in the Middle East, and they have not sold the F-35 to China. | ||
| Where did you get that, Rosemary? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I believe they were. | |
| They were caught selling F-16s to China. | ||
| That I know. | ||
| F-16s? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What do you mean? | |
| Did they sell anything? | ||
| Unfortunately, that's incorrect as well, ma'am. | ||
| When the United States government sells a major weapon system to a foreign country, there are laws and regulations associated with that about what that country can do with it in terms of protecting any sort of further sales. | ||
| And it is inaccurate to say that Israel has sold F-35 or F-16 to China. | ||
| That obviously would be a problem, and it has not happened. | ||
| How much does an F-35 cost? | ||
| Yes, I knew you were going to ask that. | ||
| There's different ways to measure cost. | ||
| There is the flyaway cost and there are program acquisition costs. | ||
| So flyaway costs, this is from 2023 data, is somewhere between $62 and $77 million. | ||
| So that's like buying a car, you know, out the gate flyway costs, a little bit more expensive than a Chevy, of course. | ||
| And then you have program acquisition unit costs, which takes those flyaway costs and adds R D, and it's roughly double that per aircraft. | ||
| So these are not cheap. | ||
| These are very expensive. | ||
| And then you have sustainment costs, just like a car, right? | ||
| Once you buy the car, you have to maintain it and you have to take it to the shop. | ||
| The same thing with the F-35. | ||
| And according to April 2024 GAO report, it was $1.1 trillion in 2018. | ||
| That increased to $1.6 trillion in 2023. | ||
| And so, you know, I'm talking about how advanced F-35 is. | ||
| Let's be clear. | ||
| This program has had significant problems with cost overruns and delivery delays. | ||
| Lockheed Martin delivered 110 of these aircraft in 2024. | ||
| All were late by an average of 238 days, up from 61 average days in 2023, that according to a September 2025 GAO report. | ||
| So amazing aircraft helping to secure our country. | ||
| 19 nations are participating. | ||
| More countries, including Saudi Arabia, want it, and also significant delays and cost overruns that are a growing problem. | ||
| And why is there a backlog? | ||
| I mean, why can't they be produced quicker? | ||
| There's a backlog, one, because a lot of people want it. | ||
| There's a backlog because, you know, and I worked in the U.S. Senate for nine years, so I had a second row seat to a lot of these issues back in the day. | ||
| We were trying to develop, test, and build this aircraft at the same time. | ||
| That's kind of a formula for all kinds of problems. | ||
| If you're literally trying to produce something while you're still developing it, it also is incredibly ambitious, right? | ||
| We were building an aircraft that was going to serve the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marine Corps, and have all these advanced technologies, stealth coding, stealth forms on these things, very complex. | ||
| That's not to excuse Lockheed at all, but this is a challenging, ambitious program. | ||
| Sam in Washington, D.C., Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, Sam. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning to you and your guests. | |
| I have a question for your guest. | ||
| He draws such a rosy picture of Saudi Arabia. | ||
| I don't know if the gentleman is old enough to know the 17 of the 19 hijackers from the Saudi Arabia for 9-11. | ||
| And also, Mr. Khashoggi was basically butchered in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul. | ||
| So, and then your guest has the audacity or selective ignorance to call Iran The problem maker. | ||
| What it is, he needs to do his homework before he comes to spew this nonsense. | ||
| And I'm just so disappointed that you have this AIPEC lobbyist to come and do that. | ||
| Tim, well, let's get a response. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Some strong words there, sir. | ||
| I'd love to grab coffee with you and have a deeper chat if you wanted to. | ||
| Let's get your facts right. | ||
| It was 15 of 19 hijackers, not 17. | ||
| So get your facts right before you start coming on a show like this, I would recommend. | ||
| And I had a particular experience on 9-11, sir. | ||
| I could tell you about that. | ||
| I have no illusions about the horrors of that day. | ||
| And so let's be clear on that. | ||
| Rosie, I said flawed. | ||
| Saudi Arabia is not a democracy, not even close. | ||
| Serious human rights concerns there. | ||
| Look up Freedom House. | ||
| And Jamal Khashoggi was a journalist who was murdered. | ||
| And according to some reports, they took a bone saw to him after they murdered him. | ||
| Okay, how's that for candor? | ||
| And you can also look it up the 2023 report that I published in Saudi Arabia. | ||
| They had a section on human rights. | ||
| So, you know, so there's that. | ||
| And, you know, and I think unfortunately the comments in the Oval Office yesterday were a little bit disappointing. | ||
| You know, the reporter from ABC asked the president about that. | ||
| And the president's response was, you know, that referring to Jamal Khashoggi, he's controversial. | ||
| Some people liked him, some people didn't like him. | ||
| I think that was very disappointing. | ||
| And things happened. | ||
| And things happen. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's really not what you want to hear the president of the United States say in the Oval Office. | ||
| I would have preferred something like, Jamal Khashoggi was murdered. | ||
| He's a human being. | ||
| That was wrong. | ||
| And by the way, the U.S. intelligence community did say that the Crown Prince ordered that. | ||
| He's denied that. | ||
| Okay, so how's that for Kandor, sir? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| We've got a question for you from Joseph in Fayetteville, North Carolina, asking if you believe that the U.S. will give Israel advanced drone and artificial intelligence technology. | ||
| Yeah, so the United States and Israel have a deep military cooperation going back many years that is good for the United States and good for Israel. | ||
| And we have the U.S.-Israel Operations Technology Working Group that has six sub-working groups that focuses on things like artificial intelligence, autonomy, directed energy, and the list goes on and on. | ||
| We benefit from Israelis' ability to go from requirement, hey, what do you need to fielded combat capability? | ||
| They benefit from our economy of scale. | ||
| We benefit from each other's innovation. | ||
| They might use that capability in Iran. | ||
| We might use it in the Baltics or the Taiwan Strait. | ||
| Doesn't matter. | ||
| In many cases, it's the same technology, and we benefit in a big way from that cooperation with Israel. | ||
| Here is CJ in Virginia, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, CJ. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning to you both. | |
| Mr. Bowman, great conversation. | ||
| I'd like your opinion on the European whatever conglomerate, EADS, European air defense systems. | ||
| How do they play into your analysis about what they can and should be doing in their own backyard more effectively and what their products are like vis-à-vis the U.S.'s like, you know, in this case, F-35s? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because for me, you know, the closer the problem is to Europe, I would hope the Europeans would have a solution that would keep us from shedding our blood. | |
| And thank you, Oats. | ||
| Yeah, I think the question there is essentially on burden sharing, if I heard it right. | ||
| You know, the way I think about it, thanks for the thoughtful question. | ||
| The way I think about it is America has interests around the world, and we have finite resources. | ||
| So many of those interests we have to protect directly ourselves. | ||
| Some of them, we need the help of partners. | ||
| And so, you know, if you want to do less in the Middle East, then we need to empower our partners there so that we can defend common interests and counter common adversaries. | ||
| And if you want those partners to do more alongside us, then they need to be empowered with arms sales. | ||
| So some people get really fixated on this or that defense company's revenue. | ||
| I really don't care about the defense company's revenue. | ||
| I'm a proponent of American arms sales because it strengthens our defense industrial base. | ||
| It strengthens our research and development. | ||
| It shifts balances of power around the world in positive ways. | ||
| It allows us to operate with our partners and allies more effectively. | ||
| And it also sustains demand for our defense industrial base when Pentagon demand wanes so that when Pentagon demand returns in a few years, those production lines, those supply networks are still there so that we don't have to take the time and pay the money to restart them. | ||
| And we've seen that, for example, with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system that Saudi Arabia is buying. | ||
| U.S. Army demand kind of went down a little bit. | ||
| Saudi Arabia is buying a lot. | ||
| We've benefited from those Saudi purchases in a selfish way for Americans. | ||
| And that's one of many reasons why, setting aside the revenue of some defense company, I'm a proponent of U.S. military arms sales. | ||
| I just want to ask you while you're here about the military buildup in the Caribbean. | ||
| There's a carrier strike group. | ||
| There are F-35s there. | ||
| Do you think that that's there for deterrence, or is that a buildup for war with Venezuela? | ||
| Only the president knows, and I'm not sure he knows. | ||
| It may change in an hour. | ||
| But what would that buildup? | ||
| This is the most extraordinary buildup of combat power and American combat power in Latin America in years, maybe decades. | ||
| This is far more than you need to take out some drug boats or do one or two strikes. | ||
| I mean, by far, this is a force that could conduct a major, comprehensive, weeks-long assault on Venezuela. | ||
| So the president, at a minimum, is clearly trying to cast a shadow of power over the negotiating table as he deals with Maduro. | ||
| And he may be preparing for strikes inside Venezuela, which from a policy standpoint and potentially from a legal standpoint is a whole nother thing. | ||
| We've got a question for you on text about advancements in AI-controlled drones that would make even the cutting-edge technology in the F-35 obsolete. | ||
| What are your thoughts on that? | ||
| Yeah, AI is a big deal in the defense space because it affects the kill chain. | ||
| The kill chain is the ability to detect an adversary threat, aircraft, missile, whatever it is, decide what to do, and then deliver the effect that you want. | ||
| Detect, decide, deliver. | ||
| AI is going to allow any military around the world to go through that kill chain more effectively and more quickly. | ||
| And whoever does that more quickly is going to win that engagement. | ||
| That's going to affect the battle and maybe even the war. | ||
| And our adversaries in China, they're not carrying, they don't have any sort of moral issues here about taking human beings out of the loop. | ||
| And so that's a real challenge for us. | ||
| So AI is central to American national security, both from an economic standpoint and a military standpoint. | ||
| And we're in a race with China. | ||
| We need to win that race, but there's also some other considerations about the role of human beings being in or on or off that loop. | ||
| All right, that's Bradley Bowman. | ||
| He is a senior director at the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. | ||
| There at FDD.org. | ||
| Thanks so much, Bradley, for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| In about 30 minutes on the Washington Journal, we'll speak with Democratic Congressman Suhas Subramanian, who sits on the oversight committee. | ||
| We'll talk about yesterday's Epstein files vote and what that committee's doing in the ongoing investigation. | ||
| But first, after the break, Julie Rauvner, Chief Washington correspondent for KFF Health News, joins us to talk about expiring ACA subsidies and what, if anything, the parties are doing to address rising healthcare costs. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
| And pass precedent. | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is a kangaroo quarter. | |
| 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 signs. | ||
| Fridays at 7 and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPANshop.org is C-SPAN's online store. | ||
| Browse through our latest collection of C-SPAN products, apparel, books, home decor, and accessories. | ||
| There's something for every C-SPAN fan, and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations. | ||
| Shop now or anytime at cspanshop.org. | ||
| Get C-SPAN wherever you are with C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app that puts you at the center of democracy, live and on demand. | ||
| Keep up with the day's biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearings from the U.S. Congress, White House events, the courts, campaigns, and more from the world of politics, all at your fingertips. | ||
| Catch the latest episodes of Washington Journal. | ||
| Find scheduling information for C-SPAN's TV and radio networks, plus a variety of compelling podcasts. | ||
| The C-SPAN Now app is available at the Apple Store and Google Play. | ||
| Download it for free today. | ||
| c-span democracy unfiltered 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. | ||
| C-SPAN, official media partner of America 250. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| Joining us to talk about the future of ACA subsidies is Julie Ravener, Chief Washington correspondent for KFF Health News. | ||
| Julie, welcome to the program. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| The government did reopen after the extension of the enhanced ACA subsidies became the central issue. | ||
| That did not happen. | ||
| We've heard many things about different levels of those premium increases as to how much they would increase without the enhanced subsidies. | ||
| Can you give us a definitive answer about how much those premiums go up? | ||
| Well, according to my colleagues at KFF, the average premium is going to go up by 114%. | ||
| So it will double, if not more. | ||
| We've seen anecdotal information. | ||
| You know, it obviously depends where you live, what kind of insurance you want to buy, how old you are, what it is, how much you will pay, and how much of an increase you'll see. | ||
| But we are seeing people whose increases are in the thousands of dollars. | ||
| And that's per month, not just per year. | ||
| And who gets that extra money? | ||
| There's been, you know, we've been hearing about that all going into the profits of the insurance companies. | ||
| Does that go straight to insurance companies? | ||
| How does that work? | ||
| It does go straight to insurance companies. | ||
| However, the insurance companies are limited in how much they get to keep as profit. | ||
| They have to turn back a certain percentage to pay for medical care for people. | ||
| So, you know, it's just it seemed easier when they were writing the Affordable Care Act back in 2010 to just have this tax subsidies go directly to the insurers so people wouldn't have to then pay and get the money back on their taxes or get the money and transfer it to a third party. | ||
| It was just mostly for efficiency's sake. | ||
| And President Trump has suggested direct health care payments going directly to the insured, so it wouldn't go to the insurance company. | ||
| Can you explain how that would work and where that proposal is? | ||
| Well, I'm not sure how it would really work. | ||
| I know that basically what the Republican position is, is that the insurance companies are making too much money, excuse the dog, and that they would like the money to go directly to people, individuals who could then theoretically negotiate the prices of health care services, which is, you know, available in some circumstances, but obviously not in all circumstances. | ||
| You know, if you're having an emergency, you can't say, gee, could I go down the street and maybe get this cheaper? | ||
| It's going to be easier if we have some kind of elective surgery with some time to get it. | ||
| But the Republicans have various plans. | ||
| The president has basically now said he's not going to endorse anything that doesn't give the money directly to individuals. | ||
| How much money the individuals would get, how they would be able to use it. | ||
| Would it only last for a year and go away if they didn't spend it? | ||
| That's how flexible spending accounts work now. | ||
| Or would it be like a health savings account where the money can accumulate over time? | ||
| This is all completely unclear. | ||
| I'd like to invite our audience to go ahead and start calling. | ||
| And now, if you've got a question for Julie Rovner of KFF Health News about the ACA, if you've got questions about health insurance coverage and premium increases, you can give us a call now. | ||
| Democrats are on 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you are insured on the ACA, or if you're thinking about going on the ACA, you can give us a call on a separate line. | ||
| That number is 202-748-8003. | ||
| That's the same line you can use to text us as well. | ||
| Julie, Senator Bill Cassidy, who is also a medical doctor, has a proposal on the Senate floor about what you were talking about, which is a health savings account. | ||
| Can you explain his proposal? | ||
| I'm not sure. | ||
| I have looked at his proposal. | ||
| I believe that he would like, he would, he's one of the people who's proposing a kind of health savings account that would go away at the end of the year if people didn't use it on the theory that then people wouldn't be encouraged to use money that they didn't need. | ||
| There are variations of these plans, as I said. | ||
| They all involve giving money directly to individuals rather than helping them buy insurance. | ||
| In some cases, you're not allowed to use this money to pay your premiums. | ||
| So some people would get a chunk of money, but they still wouldn't be able to afford insurance. | ||
| So it's not entirely clear, and there's a lot of scrambling right now because, of course, these expanded subsidies expire on December 31st. | ||
| People are signing up now. | ||
| Republicans are trying sort of desperately to come up with a single plan that they can all get behind, but we obviously haven't seen that yet. | ||
| I was going to ask you about that. | ||
| House Republicans are working on a plan. | ||
| House Democrats introduced a discharge petition to get around the Speaker of the House and force a vote on a three-year extension. | ||
| Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that there would be promised as part of reopening the government a vote in December next month on an extension. | ||
| Where does all this stand? | ||
| Given, as you said, we don't have a whole lot of time before the end of the year. | ||
| We don't. | ||
| And at this point, it doesn't look like there are enough Republican votes in the Senate for that vote to succeed, to expand, to continue the subsidies. | ||
| But there are a lot of Republicans who are worried about this. | ||
| A lot of the people who are seeing these big increases are Republican voters in Republican states. | ||
| And there are Republicans, particularly in swing districts in the House and in some swing states in the Senate, who are concerned that their constituents are going to blame them for not expanding these subsidies. | ||
| So there are a lot of ideas of let's expand the subsidies for a year while we work on something. | ||
| But of course, that would have them expire right at the midterms, which I think a lot of people don't think is a great idea. | ||
| All right, let's talk to callers and start with Jay Republican, Raleigh, North Carolina. | ||
| Good morning, Jay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'd just like to make a comment. | ||
| My daughter's a single parent, two kids. | ||
| Her health insurance is going to go up over $1,000 a month, which is going to be extremely hard for her to fund. | ||
| But I also wanted to throw in also, I just turned 65, got on Medicare, whatever it is here in October. | ||
| My insurance, just for me and my wife, and I like to throw it out that it is Blue Cross Blue Shield who we had, was over $3,100 a month. | ||
| That is obscene. | ||
| I mean, I just, I was embarrassed to even tell people how much that cost. | ||
| And on the other side of the coin, we have $37 trillion worth of debt. | ||
| And at some point in time in the future, that bill is going to come due. | ||
| And that will affect all of us well beyond health care. | ||
| So we have to do something about the health care, but we also have to do something about spending more money than we bring in. | ||
| We cannot run a household like that. | ||
| And the government cannot sustain that entirely. | ||
| Just like to hear you comment on that. | ||
| Go ahead, Julie. | ||
| Well, obviously, you know, health care is a big part of the deficit problem. | ||
| Both Democrats and Republicans have not really been able to come up with a great way to slow the increase in health care spending. | ||
| We keep, I mean, innovation is a good thing. | ||
| We keep inventing new things. | ||
| You know, these GLP-1 drugs that are helping people lose weight are great for people's health, but they're, at least at the moment, very expensive. | ||
| We can do surgeries that we didn't used to be able to do before. | ||
| People can be basically cured of cancer. | ||
| I mean, there are amazing things that we can do now with modern medicine, but the cost is expensive. | ||
| And as a country, we do not regulate the price of health care the way most other developed nations do. | ||
| And that's one of the reasons our prices are spiraling so with control. | ||
| Talk a little bit more about that, Julie, as far as regulating the prices, because we do pay a lot more for health care and health insurance in this country. | ||
| We do. | ||
| The late Uwe Reinhart, famous health economist from Princeton, wrote a rather seminal paper probably 20-some years ago called It's the Prices Stupid, and it really is. | ||
| It's not even that we consume that much more health care. | ||
| It's that we pay that much more for it. | ||
| And it's because Congress has been loath to regulate the prices of health care. | ||
| The healthcare industry in this country is very politically powerful. | ||
| And we're now seeing Entities like private equity get into health care that don't actually deliver health care. | ||
| They're just basically in it for the money. | ||
| And so prices are going up faster. | ||
| We also have an aging baby boom generation. | ||
| So we're using more health care because older people use more health care. | ||
| It's not hard to figure out what the problem is. | ||
| It's just hard to figure out how to solve it. | ||
| Here's Tom in Virginia, who is on the ACA. | ||
| Good morning, Tom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yeah, I just have one question. | ||
| On this insurance, all the companies that I ever worked for always had group insurance. | ||
| And you had a choice on that insurance to pick from. | ||
| Why can't the government just have large groups of people and mix them up? | ||
| They can't just have one group here and one group here, but mix the group and let them do their own insurance. | ||
| I just had that question to see if that would work. | ||
| And Tom, before you go, you are on the ACA. | ||
| What are you seeing as far as your premiums? | ||
| And have you been happy with your health coverage? | ||
| Well, I'm retired now, but the health coverage that I had like that is well affordable. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Julia, a response? | ||
| Oh, we're going to. | ||
| Sorry, I missed that. | ||
| The dog got stuck. | ||
| All right, no problem. | ||
| But he's asking about as far as his insurance and if the government can give more options and any comments on that once you get the dog situated there. | ||
| Yes, let me get the dog unstuck. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| You know, there are a lot of options in the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| There are different levels of insurance. | ||
| There's different types of insurance. | ||
| So obviously, you know, there are choices that people can make. | ||
| But there is one of the big fights that we're having right now is whether people should be able to buy sort of lesser insurance, insurance that would be much cheaper, but wouldn't cover nearly as many things. | ||
| And that's something that has gone back and forth in the years since the Affordable Care Act passed. | ||
| The Trump administration and most Republicans would like to make that more available. | ||
| There's concern that if that happens, people who are healthy and think they won't use very much health care will buy these cheaper, you know, less generous plans, and only the people who really need health care will remain in the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| And that's when you get what's called the insurance death spiral, where premiums just keep going up and up and up until no one can afford them. | ||
| Here's Mary in Rhode Island, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, Mary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I'm on Medicare and I have a supplemental. | ||
| And I have to tell you that I have to ask you why you don't conduct more accurate polls on whether or not Americans would like to be, all Americans be on Medicare. | ||
| Because I can tell you it's a much more efficient system and it pays the providers much more, much faster, and it doesn't burden the patient, not the consumer, the patient with bills for care that they need when they're sick or they're disabled or they need to have the medical care that they have been expecting. | ||
| So can you just answer me? | ||
| And I think Medicare for all would actually pull very, very well if you conducted one and people understood what an efficient system it is. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, we at KFF have been polling on Medicare for All for as long as I can remember, many, many, many years. | ||
| It is popular. | ||
| It just doesn't have a majority. | ||
| That's been the case since I started covering this in the early 1990s. | ||
| There is a significant minority of the population that would love to have Medicare for all. | ||
| There are a lot of doctors who would love to have Medicare for all. | ||
| They're tired of dealing with so many different insurance companies. | ||
| But what we're seeing right now is that Republicans who control Congress and the presidency don't even want the Affordable Care Act, which isn't anything like Medicare for All. | ||
| There simply is not the votes, and there is not the majority support for Medicare for All, at least right now. | ||
| Will there be at some point in the future? | ||
| Possibly. | ||
| Depends how bad things get. | ||
| And Renee and Marietta, Georgia, on that same topic, says this on text. | ||
| My cancer surgery and treatments cost over half a million dollars total that my insurance thankfully covered after deductions. | ||
| How are folks supposed to save or pay for that? | ||
| Single-payer Medicare is the only answer. | ||
| It's been great. | ||
| And here. | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| Did you have a comment on this? | ||
| This is the big concern about giving money to individuals. | ||
| You know, they want to give that basically the subsidies that people are getting could be at the most a couple of thousand dollars, which is great if you only have routine care for the year. | ||
| But, you know, I fell and broke my wrist this summer. | ||
| It cost $30,000. | ||
| I needed surgery. | ||
| That's not something that if I'd had an HSA or a couple of thousand dollars in my FSA would have covered. | ||
| So basically what this does is it, you know, it's good insurance if you don't get sick. | ||
| And if you do get sick, you may have a serious problem. | ||
| Here's Lauren in St. Gabriel, Louisiana, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Lauren. | ||
| Lauren, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Anything like Medicare for All. | |
| Debbie in California, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Debbie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| You mentioned that the cost may go up 114% for people. | ||
| My question is, when the original subsidy was enacted, did it go down 114%? | ||
| And why does there seem to be such a big gap between the amount it went down and now the amount it's going to go up? | ||
| Well, obviously, you know, in the, I guess it's now 11 years since we had the first sort of big, since the Affordable Care Act actually went into effect, premiums have gone up. | ||
| And the subsidies have gone up with them. | ||
| The way it basically works is that originally the subsidies were for people up to who they would get subsidized up to 8.5% of their income if they had to spend more than 8.5% of their income. | ||
| I'm sorry, up to more than 10% of their income were the original subsidies, up to 400% of poverty after which they ended, which is the problem. | ||
| A lot of people who would be just over $100,000, sort of a little bit over that 400%, would suddenly get no subsidies at all and have to pay the full premiums. | ||
| When they expanded the premiums, they basically went from zero to eight and a half percent. | ||
| So it's the difference between having to pay eight and a half percent of your income on your premiums or 10 percent of your income on your premiums. | ||
| So that's why there's this huge gap that's going to happen. | ||
| People are going to be exposed to much more of the premiums, which as I say have gone up. | ||
| But unlike what some people are saying, they haven't gone up that much faster than employer or other premiums. | ||
| It's just that for the variety of reasons I talked about earlier, people getting older, using more health care, more kinds of health care that are available for us to use, the costs of medical care have gone up. | ||
| And so with them have the cost of health insurance premiums. | ||
| Critics of the subsidies, Julie, say that the subsidies are actually causing the rising cost of health insurance. | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
| I've not seen anything to indicate that that is the case. | ||
| One of the there is in this year's increase, part of the increase in the Affordable Care Act are from insurers who are worried that because these extra subsidies are expiring, that people who think they're going to be healthy and can't afford it will drop their coverage and therefore their risk pool will be sicker. | ||
| They'll have more sicker people and fewer healthier people to spread the costs. | ||
| So some of this year's increase in the ACA plans is due to that. | ||
| But in general, that's not really why premiums have been going up. | ||
| Franklin in Washington, D.C., Independent, you're on with Julie Rovner. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, it just strikes me this is an incredibly serious issue. | |
| And I just want to ask a couple questions that cut right to the heart of it. | ||
| What is the dog's name? | ||
| What breed is the dog? | ||
| And what is its favorite snack? | ||
| The dog is a corgi. | ||
| Her name is Aspen, and she usually behaves herself when I'm on live TV. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Here is Rob in Colorado, Independent Line. | ||
| Go ahead, Rob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, Jude. | |
| It's always wonderful. | ||
| You're one of the few people that I call in whenever you're on. | ||
| Great timing having you on the program today. | ||
| Wonderful article on the public health part of the Orange County Register today about the increase in costs having to do with the increased mergers of medical plans, doctors groups, and hospitals. | ||
| That one person, expert in the industry, said we're getting to have more monopolies with less health care options. | ||
| We know that when two hospitals merge, their costs go up 12.9% over a six-year period and more than multiple ones goes up 16.4%. | ||
| And the problem that we're facing right now is we have an administration. | ||
| The last administration was looking into this and trying to get the monopolistic practices out of medical care, but this administration isn't doing anything. | ||
| Will the ACA subsidies, if they are increased, will they even make any difference when they're having this huge increase in costs due to less health options? | ||
| Thank you for your time. | ||
| Yeah, healthcare consolidation is a huge problem and one of the drivers of increased health care costs. | ||
| And, you know, there are arguments that, well, the insurance industry is consolidated, so the health care industry has to consolidate so they can sort of compete with them on more equal footing. | ||
| But basically, this ends up driving up prices. | ||
| It's one of the main drivers of increased costs. | ||
| And one of the reasons why, you know, in the United States, we pay more than so many other countries because we don't regulate a lot of these things the way many other countries do. | ||
| In the Biden administration, Lena Kahn at the Federal Trade Commission was working very hard on this. | ||
| And then, of course, they, you know, were voted out. | ||
| And the FTC has basically abandoned this whole line of, you know, pursuing ways to make health care less expensive. | ||
| It really is a trade issue and a sort of antitrust consolidation issue that I think a lot of people are ignoring when they're looking at the problems of the health care system. | ||
| This is Jerry in Shelby, North Carolina on text. | ||
| Your guest said businesses have just gotten into the health care business to make money. | ||
| What kind of companies are in that category and how do they make money without providing services that are needed for health care? | ||
| This is about what you said on private equity. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And this goes right along with the consolidation: is that we have these private equity firms who are coming in who are buying up doctor practices and buying up hospital chains, basically, you know, in some cases, so they can just sort of take the profits out. | ||
| We've seen in a number of cases with hospitals that these private equity firms have come in and sold the real estate out from underneath of the hospital and then made the hospital pay rent. | ||
| And then the hospital ends up going under because they can't afford to do all of this. | ||
| And so we've seen a lot of hospital closures because of some of these private equity acquisitions. | ||
| There have been a number of hearings on Capitol Hill. | ||
| There's a lot of concern, but nothing's really been done about this yet. | ||
| There's a lot of people who are looking at sort of the role of private equity, which is not to say that private equity can't be a value add in healthcare. | ||
| There's obviously, you know, parts of the healthcare system that can use an infusion of money to better do what it's doing. | ||
| It's not 100% bad, but there have been a lot of cases where things have not gone well with private equity's entrance into the healthcare system writ large. | ||
| Stan in Massachusetts, line for Republicans, you're on the air, Stan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| What I would like to ask is, is there more people collecting this AACA or whatever in health insurance than there is paying for it? | ||
| Are you talking about fraud, Stan? | ||
| Or are you not? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, not just fraud. | |
| Just more people that can't afford to pay for it. | ||
| And the people that are paying for it are subsidizing those. | ||
| Julie? | ||
| I'm not exactly sure what the question is. | ||
| I imagine you're talking about people who are getting the zero-dollar plant, of which there are a couple of million because their incomes are low enough. | ||
| They're getting zero-dollar premiums. | ||
| Some of them are getting help paying their deductibles. | ||
| There is some concern about fraud about because these people can be signed up. | ||
| There's been some unscrupulous brokers who have moved people into other plants so they can collect commissions and people who might not know they have insurance. | ||
| And I think there is some agreement, actually, bipartisan agreement on Capitol Hill that they could probably solve that problem by adding on sort of a minimal premium for some of those people of maybe $5 or $10 a month. | ||
| So people would know that they have insurance and know what they're enrolled in. | ||
| I think I've seen a number of Democrats who've said that would be fine to address this fraud problem. | ||
| But I don't know that there's more people who are sort of getting no-cost insurance than are paying in. | ||
| Here's Kelly in LaGrange, Illinois. | ||
| Democrat, good morning, Kelly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| My question is: I see a lot of politicians saying that a free market where people are able to go out and shop for procedures or whatever would drive the cost of medical care down. | ||
| And I was wondering if there's any data to support that, because I look at like elective surgery, like plastic surgery. | ||
| I don't see the prices of those things coming down. | ||
| So is there anything, any studies to prove that going out and shopping and comparison shopping for medicine would help drive prices down? | ||
| Well, the argument is that things like cosmetic surgery and LASIC surgery, things that are not covered generally by health insurance, that there is a competitive market. | ||
| But you're right, it's still expensive. | ||
| And individuals don't have a lot of bargaining power on their own. | ||
| That's kind of why we have insurance, as insurance is supposed to do the bargaining for them. | ||
| We've got some, you know, particularly in prescription drugs, we've now have this whole system where not everybody has the incentive to bring the price down for the consumers. | ||
| And that is something actually that the Trump administration is working on and that Congress has been working on. | ||
| But it is unclear because we've never really had a case other than, as I say, things that are not covered by insurance where people have had a chance to bargain. | ||
| We do know sort of individually sometimes, you know, if there's more transparency in prices, you can, and you're having, you know, an elective MRI for something, you can call around. | ||
| But even now, sometimes you can't get a price of how much things will cost. | ||
| And Julie, do we have any idea of the numbers of how many people are planning to opt out of the ACA if those subsidies expire or after they expire? | ||
| Yeah, we have the CBO estimates. | ||
| I think it's about 4 million people. | ||
| There's about 24 million people in the ACA exchanges. | ||
| 90% of those get some kind of subsidy. | ||
| And the CBO estimates that about 4 million of those will drop out if the subsidies, the additional subsidies, are not extended. | ||
| And assuming those four million would then just avail themselves of emergency care when they needed it, and that would be covered, but I guess by the, how does that work? | ||
| Does Medicaid cover that or? | ||
| Well, these people would not necessarily be eligible for Medicaid. | ||
| There are rules about hospitals have to serve people who present with emergencies, but they can bill them. | ||
| So that care is not free. | ||
| The problem is if they bill them and they don't have insurance and they don't have the money, then it becomes uncompensated care. | ||
| And that's what ends up getting passed along to everybody else who does have insurance. | ||
| Here's Teresa, Middletown, New Jersey Independent. | ||
| Go ahead, Teresa. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, Julie. | |
| Yes. | ||
| I was wondering where, in our senator's plans, which were very broad brush when they were presented, that where are there so-called carrots and sticks in the plan for people to benefit from preventive care or to choose to give out elective surgery or emergency care? | ||
| How to leverage those three kinds of medical care at this point, the stratification of health care, to have carrots and sticks in the plans to give people an advantage to try for the preventive care, which would be beneficial. | ||
| And so the care, the elective surgery, which would be sort of the plus grade. | ||
| And then emergency care, which we don't want people to have to use. | ||
| In any case, most people don't want to have to get to the emergency room. | ||
| So can I have your thoughts on that? | ||
| Yeah, you know, there's been a lot of discussion about incentives and incentivizing people to use preventive care. | ||
| A lot of, you know, the way the health savings accounts were originally going to work is that they're coupled with a catastrophic health plan. | ||
| So with a very high deductible health plan. | ||
| And everybody says, well, if people want to save their money, they won't get preventive care. | ||
| So sometimes they'll get preventive care with no deductible. | ||
| That's fairly common because you do want to incentivize people to get that preventive care. | ||
| There are obviously rules in the Affordable Care Act about offering preventive care with no deductible. | ||
| So there is encouragement in a lot of these various plans, but it's a lot of moving parts. | ||
| And as you said at the beginning, a lot of these plans that the Republicans are kind of scrambling to put together right now are not sort of fully fleshed out yet. | ||
| So we don't really know what the incentives are going to be and how exactly they're going to work. | ||
| And as we say, we've seen a number of different ideas. | ||
| It's what, you know, almost the end of November. | ||
| They've got basically 40 days to come up with something or else these expanded subsidies are going to expire. | ||
| And a lot of people are going to be left with either unaffordable health care premiums or no insurance at all. | ||
| Here's Steve. | ||
| He is on the ACA in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. | ||
| Good morning, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| Go ahead, Steve. | ||
| We're listening. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yeah, I just wanted to say that I'm on the ACA for several years and that I hear the Republican leader say multiple times that the ACA doesn't work. | ||
| And I'm here to say for a fact that it works for a lot of people. | ||
| And when they make that statement, it's not a complete statement. | ||
| And maybe it doesn't work so good for some people, but it does work for others. | ||
| So I don't know why they can make a half statement, half truth like that. | ||
| And what are your thoughts on that? | ||
| Steve, can you also tell us about your premiums and what you had been paying and what you're looking at without the subsidies? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Yeah, my payment, you know, premium is going to go up about $3,000 to $4,000 now without subsidy, excess subsidies, for a year, not for a month. | ||
| So it's going to go up, which I think even without the Affordable Care Act, everybody's, I mean, insurance goes up anyhow. | ||
| So when they make a statement that the ACA doesn't work because the prices have gone up, well, how much would they have gone up without the ACA? | ||
| They don't state that. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Julie, your comments. | ||
| Yeah, that's, you know, insurance does go up. | ||
| We're seeing insurance go up faster right now than we have, I think, since the early 2000s for a variety of reasons, some of which is just sort of leftover demand from the pandemic, where nobody went to the doctor unless they absolutely had to. | ||
| As I said, you know, the continual aging of the giant baby boom generation who are now getting into their late 70s and early 80s and consuming more health care. | ||
| So we're seeing more in the way of people using medical care, more health expenses, more expensive health care. | ||
| Things, you know, it does go up. | ||
| No one has figured out how to make it not go up. | ||
| Although I will say under the first decade or so of the Affordable Care Act, prices for insurance and for medical care in general went up more slowly than they did in the decade before. | ||
| All right. | ||
| That's Julie Rovner, Chief Washington correspondent for KFF Health News. | ||
| You can find her work at kff.org. | ||
| Julie, thanks so much for joining us. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Coming up next, Democratic Congressman Suhas Subramanyam, who sits on the Oversight Committee, will talk about yesterday's House vote on the Epstein files and that committee's ongoing investigation. | ||
| Stay with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series, Sunday with our guest-famed chef and global relief entrepreneur, Jose Andres. | |
| His books on reimagining food include Feeding Dangerously, Change the Recipe, and We Fed an Island. | ||
| He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader, David Rubinstein. | ||
| Are people afraid of inviting you over to their house for dinner because they'd be afraid that the food wouldn't be good enough for you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
When people cook with love for you, it's great, but you know, you know, the dry turkey in Thanksgiving is unnegotiable. | |
| It's always dry. | ||
| But yeah, turkeys are so dry. | ||
| That's why gravy exists. | ||
| watch america's book club with jose andres sunday at 6 p.m and 9 p.m eastern and pacific only on c-span america marks 250 years and c-span is there to commemorate every moment from the signing of the declaration of independence to the voices shaping our nation's future | ||
| We bring you unprecedented all-platform coverage, exploring the stories, 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. | ||
| c-span official media partner of america 250. c-span shop.org is c-span's online store Browse through our latest collection of C-SPAN products, apparel, books, home decor, and accessories. | ||
| There's something for every C-SPAN fan, and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations. | ||
| Shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| We're joined now by Representative Suhas Subaramanium. | ||
| He's a Democrat of Virginia. | ||
| He sits on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. | ||
| Congressman, welcome to the program. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| Just start with the Epstein file since you're on the oversight committee that oversees that. | ||
| Republicans had always argued that this discharge petition was not necessary, that the committee was doing its job and was investigating the Epstein files. | ||
| What was your response to that? | ||
| Well, I think they're right that the discharge petition wasn't necessary because we already have a subpoena to the Justice Department and the Trump administration asking them to release the files. | ||
| So it makes no sense to me that Trump would actually advocate for this vote when the very vote is all about him taking an action to release the files. | ||
| So I think he advocated for the vote because he didn't have the votes to oppose it anyway. | ||
| But I know last week he was trying to prevent people from going forward with the discharge petition and he failed. | ||
| And then he decided if you can't beat him, join him. | ||
| But all he has to do is release the files and then this whole thing goes away, at least in terms of the transparency part of it. | ||
| Are you concerned at all about any obstruction or any partial release of the files? | ||
| Yeah, absolutely. | ||
| I mean, we saw a tweet from Jeffrey Epstein's brother, it seems, basically saying that they're destroying files in Winchester, Virginia, which is close to my district. | ||
| And we're trying to find out exactly where that is and what's going on there. | ||
| We're also, you know, just concerned generally about tampering with this administration. | ||
| This whole thing is not just about the crimes that Epstein and Maxwell committed, it's also about the cover-up, the cover-up that happened in law enforcement and prosecutors everywhere across the board, all around the world. | ||
| And so if there's more cover-up from this administration, which it appears like there is, we should be concerned and we should continue to be vigilant about getting the documents as soon as we can. | ||
| And I know you're relatively new to the House, but the argument that always comes up is why didn't the Biden Justice Department release all these files when they had them? | ||
| Well, if you recall, first of all, there are many Democrats calling for more transparency back in 2019, including my colleague Debbie Wasserman Schultz. | ||
| But throughout the Biden administration, for most of it, they were going after Glay Maxwell, right? | ||
| And so it was difficult to release all the files if you're tipping her off or tipping her legal team off. | ||
| And she was in appeals all the way until Trump came into office. | ||
| But I do have questions for the DOJ why they weren't more transparent. | ||
| I think this has banned multiple presidents and multiple administrations. | ||
| And the obstruction and the lack of transparency and the cover-up, a lot of people are responsible for this, not just Donald Trump. | ||
| So what happens next in the House Oversight Committee? | ||
| What are you guys going to be doing? | ||
| So we were able to push the chairman to issue a subpoena that he'd promised us to the banks. | ||
| The victims had told us that we should follow the money and we should try to get documents from the banks. | ||
| So Chairman Comer did a narrow subpoena of JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank, but there are 30 financial institutions that have the information that we need on Epstein and his financial dealings. | ||
| That will tell a story because his financial dealings were very related to his crimes and his social circles. | ||
| And then, of course, we're going to continue to push for the Justice Department to release the files. | ||
| I think they're going to continue to come up with excuses or obstruct or cover up, but we're going to continue to be vigilant. | ||
| One of the victims told me that they didn't think this would get this far. | ||
| A lot of people didn't think it would get this far. | ||
| But because of the bravery and the courage of the victims, we are here, and now they feel like they can do anything and they feel empowered. | ||
| And so it's our job as an oversight committee to continue to empower the victims and make sure this type of cover-up and these types of crimes never happen again. | ||
| If you'd like to join a conversation with Representative Suhasubramanium, a Democrat of Virginia, you can start calling in now. | ||
| He'll be with us until the House gavels in at 10 a.m. | ||
| The lines are Democrats 202-748-8000, Republicans 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Congressman, you also sent with fellow Democrats. | ||
| You sent a letter to Andrew Windsor-Mountbatten. | ||
| He used to be referred to as Prince Andrew. | ||
| He lost his title over his connections with Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| What were you looking for in that letter, and have you received a response? | ||
| Yeah, basically, he keeps coming up in all the documents that we find. | ||
| His name comes up over and over again, almost as much as Trump. | ||
| And so I really want to know what he knows about Epstein's criminal enterprise. | ||
| He's been very, very quiet about this whole thing. | ||
| And I think one way that he can help both clear his name, if that's what he's trying to do, and to help aid in our investigation, is to come forward and tell us what he knows. | ||
| And so certainly he knew Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| He shows up on the flight logs quite a bit. | ||
| Seems he was quite close with him and Maxwell, and they met through Maxwell. | ||
| And so, you know, a lot of the one interview that people know of that he did in 2019, a lot of the things he said have been contradicted by the evidence. | ||
| And so I'd want him to talk to us, and I'd want him to be under oath or at least in some sort of setting where we know that he's being truthful. | ||
| But in the end, I think the best way to understand Epstein's criminal enterprise is to talk to people who are intimately aware of it. | ||
| And you did mention that President Trump is mentioned in the Epstein files. | ||
| Do you believe that he is implicated in any illegal behavior? | ||
| I mean, I have no idea. | ||
| I want the evidence to do the talking. | ||
| I'll say that he was clearly very close with Jeffrey Epstein and clearly had information about Epstein's, you know, certainly his business dealings. | ||
| President Trump claims that he didn't have any information or any sort of knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, but it seems like many of the documents, including some of the ones released recently, contradict that. | ||
| And so, again, you know, we've got people saying things and then the documents are contradicting what they're saying. | ||
| And so that's why I'm trying to find more documents with my colleagues is because in the end the evidence can do the most talking and give us the most accurate picture of what has happened and what how we can prevent this in the future. | ||
| All right, let's talk to callers. | ||
| We'll start with Richard, who's in Montreal, Canada, Independent. | ||
| Go ahead, Richard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Hakeem Jeffries in 2013 sent out an email inviting Jeffrey Epstein to a campaign event with Obama in New York to raise money. | ||
| So why was he invited after he was convicted of a sex crime? | ||
| How come Democrats are not outraged over that? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, absolutely. | ||
| I mean, it's a good question. | ||
| I don't actually know about that email. | ||
| I'm not sure about the validity of that, but I'll say that generally there have been many stories of people inviting Epstein and Maxwell to events or pallying around with them or visiting their home after 2010, including the president. | ||
| And I'll say that what we need to do moving forward is when someone is convicted of these types of crimes, they not only need to be accountable in the courts, but they also need to be accountable in the court of public opinion. | ||
| And in this case, I think, you know, we're seeing way too many concerning stories about how Epstein was able to live a very not only normal life but continue his crimes after this sweetheart deal was reached. | ||
| And so we need to prevent the sweetheart deals, but we also need to find a way as a society to come together and really make sure that the court of public opinion does its job too. | ||
| Maya in East Hartford, Connecticut, Democrat, good morning, Maya. | ||
| I'll say that. | ||
| Maya, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Go right ahead. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I would like to ask if any investigation is done in regards to the parents of these minors, which were abused by the Epstein. | |
| A 14-year-old girl, if it's abused and it's coming home with lots of money and gifts, did the parents ask where they have them from? | ||
| I would like to know what the parents did over all these years of abuse. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| You know, I'll say that there were over a thousand victims. | ||
| And I have trouble blaming the parents necessarily because, you know, every situation was different. | ||
| But in many cases, though, what Epstein and Maxwell did was they targeted girls who were in tough home situations or who had parents who were very in tough situations themselves. | ||
| And so being able to be understanding of that. | ||
| And I think them targeting those girls is part of the issue. | ||
| Is we need as a society protect girls in that situation and have more social services and things in place so that this can never happen again. | ||
| But certainly Epstein and Maxwell, they looked at which girls were in tough situations. | ||
| There was one victim who told people about how her mom had cancer and Epstein sort of came in and said, I will make sure that she gets treatment. | ||
| And if you don't do what I say and if you don't comply with my sort of crimes, I will cut off her treatment. | ||
| She won't be able to get treatment anywhere. | ||
| So that's one example of sort of the games that Maxwell and Epstein played. | ||
| And so it's very difficult if you put yourself in the shoes of these families. | ||
| Here's Roger in Nebraska Independent Line. | ||
| Go ahead, Roger. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Hey, it seems like that you folks on the left are really interested in Donald Trump trying to get something against him. | ||
| You know, if you want to know the information about Epstein, why don't you subpoena Bill Clinton or Larry Summers? | ||
| You know, how many flights did Bill Clinton take with Epstein? | ||
| How many times was he on the island? | ||
| Let's go to the source and get the most information. | ||
| It seemed like that, I don't know, you're just making excuses. | ||
| So anyway, that's my question. | ||
| All right, Roger. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Yeah, I'm not making excuses. | ||
| I think Bill Clinton is on the subpoena list. | ||
| I think Larry Summers is certainly someone who's come up in documents. | ||
| It looks like he just lost his board seat at OpenAI, for example. | ||
| Again, if we're not going to be able to judge these folks in the courts, then we should judge everyone who is engaged or covered up for Epstein in the court of public opinion. | ||
| And so certainly, this is not, to me, about finding just Republicans. | ||
| I know for Donald Trump, it's about just finding Democrats. | ||
| But for me, it's about finding who helped cover up these crimes, who aided and abetted them, and how do we prevent this from happening again? | ||
| And certainly, if it was a Democrat who helped, then they should also be held accountable. | ||
| Chris in San Antonio, a Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Chris. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, hi. | |
| I just think this Democrat's being dishonest because he says that they didn't investigate Trump on this when the Democrats were in power because of Maxwell. | ||
| I just don't believe that. | ||
| I mean, any way they could have got Trump, they would have done it. | ||
| And obviously, on both sides of the aisle, there's guilty people. | ||
| But everybody knows it's not Trump. | ||
| I mean, everybody knows it's not. | ||
| But, you know, can anybody just be honest in D.C. for a change? | ||
| I mean, how do we know it wasn't Trump? | ||
| But in any case, I'll just say this, that I have questions for the Biden DOJ as well. | ||
| I have questions about what their thinking was when it comes to releasing the files and not releasing them. | ||
| This is the explanation I was given: that they were investigating Ghelaine Maxwell and didn't want to compromise that investigation. | ||
| But certainly, I would have wanted more transparency as well. | ||
| But I wasn't here, but I'll say that I think certainly moving forward, there will also be questions about what the Biden administration did too. | ||
| And Congressman, will you be also continuing the investigation into Ghelene Maxwell's transfer to a less secure facility in Texas and reports of her favorable treatment there? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| I will say this: that it's pretty clear. | ||
| I mean, you don't have to do much investigating to understand what happened. | ||
| She went from a maximum security prison to then Trump sending someone on his team over to talk to her for many hours. | ||
| And then all of a sudden, she is sent to a minimum security prison where she is bragging about how luxurious her new lifestyle is, and then talking to friends privately about how she may get a pardon eventually. | ||
| And so I would just say that it's pretty clear what happened there. | ||
| And then she's saying nice things about Trump. | ||
| I mean, it doesn't take a rocket science to put two and two together and understand that, you know, she is being treated well because she is promising to say nice things about the president. | ||
| Jeff in Mill Valley, California, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Jeff. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Congressman. | |
| I was going to also ask about Ms. Maxwell, but I have a different question, which is with Marjorie Taylor Greene sort of coming over and being more, it seems like open to working with the Democrats, does that give you hope for bipartisanship in the future? | ||
| And do you think that things may be cracking with the MAGA base? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, it's a good question. | ||
| I think it's a little bit of both. | ||
| Again, you know, Donald Trump was able to grow this MAGA movement because part of the MA movement is about getting at the, you know, the richest and wealthiest and most powerful people in this deep state that are running this deep state that don't care about the average person. | ||
| And so Donald Trump comes in and says he's going to release the Epstein files because those people covered up for Epstein and he's going to lower costs for everyday Americans because only the wealthiest are benefiting right now. | ||
| And so he's done the exact opposite, right? | ||
| He's cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans and for the rich and powerful. | ||
| And he's also covered up for their crimes in a few cases like in the Epstein-Maxwell case. | ||
| And so I think that's where the crack is happening, is that, you know, he's not keeping his promise to his own base. | ||
| And certainly that's why you see people on Capitol Hill who have always been strong supporters of the president now criticizing him openly. | ||
| Here's Will in Big Piney, Wyoming, a Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Will. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Sir, I got a question. | ||
| Will Congress be subpeting Secret Service agents? | ||
| Oh, about Epstein? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| Secret Service agents, Congressman? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, like who were detailed with former President Clinton. | |
| And also, will they also be looking into Epstein's ranch in New Mexico? | ||
| Congressman? | ||
| Everything's fair game. | ||
| I don't know exactly what a Secret Service agent would know. | ||
| I don't know if they have, if you have any information, please let us know about the Secret Service agents. | ||
| But I will just say generally that everything is fair game. | ||
| What's really helpful is if we get the documents, because that can tell us a story, and that can also point us to who we need to bring in. | ||
| So, you know, certainly when people come up in the documents, then we want to know more. | ||
| Like, for instance, in the case of former Prince Andrew, we kept hearing about him from victims and we kept seeing him in the documents. | ||
| And so that's why we sent a letter to him and we're hoping that he'll come and at least tell us what he knows and then lead us more information. | ||
| Oliver in St. Louis, Missouri, Democrat, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you doing, Congressman? | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
My question is, what safeguards are in place to make sure that Congress has access to all of the documents, that fire files aren't eliminated, or things aren't trimmed down? | |
| Because besides redactions, I mean, this administration has shown they're willing to break the law. | ||
| So what stops them from just turning over what they want? | ||
| That's a really good question, and it seriously concerns me. | ||
| I mean, we were already hearing rumors about them messing with the documents. | ||
| It really concerns me about this idea that they would tamper with the documents to put the president in the best light or withhold documents or shred documents, for instance. | ||
| So, you know, the best answer I have for you, the only optimism I have, is that there are a lot of people who worked on this investigation, and certainly the victims have a lot of information as well. | ||
| So if we see inconsistencies in the documents or we see that things are missing, then we know that we have people who have intimate knowledge of everything that happened that maybe can't come forward for one reason or another publicly, but they can at least help us behind the scenes make sure that we're getting all the information we need and that it's accurate. | ||
| Vaughn in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, Independent Outline, you're on with Congressman Subramanian. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Good morning, Congressman. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I've been watching this for a long time. | ||
| I am an independent. | ||
| Both parties are guilty of covering up for this man and his circle of criminals. | ||
| Not just Donald Trump's involvement, which there's no proof of anything. | ||
| His name ended up in an email. | ||
| I want everybody investigated whose name came up in emails. | ||
| If you're going to go after one, you go after them all. | ||
| Now, as I recall, a couple years ago, Biden and the Democrats controlled all the levers of power. | ||
| I'm sure a lot of other people brought this up. | ||
| Where were you all then? | ||
| Why now? | ||
| This continues to fester. | ||
| All right, go ahead, sir. | ||
| Yeah, you know, where was I? | ||
| I was not in Congress. | ||
| But I would just say that you're right that I think everyone who was involved in the cover-up and everyone who aided and abetted Maxwell and Epstein should be investigated, whether they're a Democrat or a Republican. | ||
| It doesn't matter. | ||
| And so I agree with you that everyone who had the opportunity to prosecute him, like Alex Ocasa, who served under the Trump administration, or anyone who was associated with him closely, like Larry Summers, they should all be held accountable. | ||
| And certainly, you know, the Court of Public Opinion should at least understand all the information and have all the information. | ||
| I'll say that Donald Trump shows up almost as much, if not more, than anyone else besides Epstein and Maxwell in these documents. | ||
| And he is the one that is blocking the release of the Justice Department files. | ||
| So that's why we keep talking about him. | ||
| If he released all the files, we wouldn't be talking about him. | ||
| But he's the president of the United States, and he was close friends with the person we're investigating, and he won't release information about him. | ||
| So it's pretty obvious why we're talking about Donald Trump. | ||
| Here's Ronnie, a Republican in Cheshire, Connecticut. | ||
| Good morning, Ronnie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I agree with everything that the two last gentlemen said. | |
| And also, I noticed that if it's Jeffrey Epstein, then the next thing is Donald Trump. | ||
| Or it's Donald Trump and Epstein. | ||
| There are many people involved here for years and years and years, and nobody did anything about it. | ||
| And it's kind of suspicious that they are doing it now, okay? | ||
| I think it should be looked at. | ||
| I think everyone should be looked at. | ||
| What about Clinton with the young girl in the Oval Office, okay, in the closet? | ||
| Nobody talked about anything about things that went on with the Democrats or the Republicans back then. | ||
| So I think it should all be looked at honestly. | ||
| And that's all I have to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Any comment? | ||
| I think we have some consensus on Washington Journal this morning. | ||
| Yes, I agree with everyone that both parties and everyone should be looked at. | ||
| Chris and Atlanta, Line for Democrats, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm calling me, College. | |
| People failed to realize that Donald Trump had always been a Democrat. | ||
| So naturally, all his friends would be Democrats, not Republican. | ||
| He became a Republican due to the fact he said they were just dumb and stupid, and he could take advantage of the Republican. | ||
| That's the main reason. | ||
| Sure, everybody in his club was Democrat, like he is. | ||
| He is still a Democrat, not a Republican. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And here's Velma Ashland, Kentucky, Republican. | ||
| Go ahead, Velma. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sir, I would like to ask you, over the years, how much concern and interest have you had when it comes to sexual abuse towards women and children in your area over the years? | |
| How much concern and interest have you shown there, if any? | ||
| And I would say that to anyone sitting in your place today, whether they were Democrat or Republican. | ||
| So, and I'll wait for his response, please. | ||
| Yeah, I think it was one of my top issues. | ||
| I was only in public office around 2020 in the state house, but I introduced legislation related to that. | ||
| We passed legislation. | ||
| Even now, I've introduced legislation on this topic on sexual assault and sexual abuse. | ||
| One of the things I'm concerned about is the statute of limitations for a lot of young girls and women tolls, and they don't have any right of action against their abusers at a certain point. | ||
| And I think that should change across the country. | ||
| And so I'm trying to get more states to get rid of or expand those statute of limitations. | ||
| I know it seems like a minor issue, but it's a huge issue. | ||
| A lot of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein could not sue him at a certain point or sue as a state because of these statute of limitations. | ||
| And so they're taking to the court of public opinion instead. | ||
| But certainly it's been a top issue for me. | ||
| I'm new to Congress, but I've been working on it most of my career. | ||
| Rich in Kingsport, Tennessee asks just how credible you think Jeffrey Epstein's emails are given his character. | ||
| Also, ask him about Stacey Plaskett's involvement with Epstein during a congressional hearing. | ||
| Yeah, as far as the credibility of Epstein and Maxwell, I mean, they're pathological liars. | ||
| You know, Maxwell in particular has perjured herself over and over again. | ||
| So you can't really trust what they say. | ||
| But it's a little different when they have private emails on their private email servers talking to each other about strategy and how they're going to approach certain things or certain people, right? | ||
| I think I find those more credible because they had no reason to lie to each other on an email where they're privately scheming and coordinating. | ||
| And so I actually find his emails more credible than anything he even said, and certainly anything Maxwell ever said, because she, I think, is a liar. | ||
| As far as Plaskett, you know, I'm looking more into that. | ||
| I think everyone, again, like I said, everyone should be looked into. | ||
| Anyone that was involved with Jeffrey Epstein or Glenn Maxwell, I don't know, I haven't talked to her, so I don't know the extent to which she was involved. | ||
| But like I've said to everyone else before, Democrats and Republicans, anyone who is engaged or involved with them, we want information. | ||
| And so certainly I hope that the Oversight Committee can look into that. | ||
| And, you know, we tried to make a motion to send Plaskett's case in particular to the Ethics Committee where I also serve. | ||
| But Republicans voted that down. | ||
| But I hope at some point we'll at least be able to get some more information about that. | ||
| Margot in Highland, Indiana. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, Congressman, congratulations for bringing out the truth and pushing things forward. | |
| So whatever redactions and all that they're going to continue to try to do with these files and saying they're releasing, there's one thing they can't redact, and that's the experiences that those women have had. | ||
| And they are determined they'll be coming forth and saying what's actually on those docs. | ||
| So you can't redact their brains, but you can do all the redacting and hand those papers in with everything blacked out except two or three words. | ||
| But the fact of the matter is, they say it. | ||
| If they're not coming right, they'll come forth. | ||
| Congressman. | ||
| Yeah, absolutely. | ||
| First, thank you for the congratulations, but we should really be congratulating the victims. | ||
| They've been so brave. | ||
| They've been let down so many times. | ||
| 1996 was the first time one of the victims. | ||
| Congressman, we'll have to end it right there. | ||
| Sorry about that. |