Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
Source
Participants
Main
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bradley bowman
18:00
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julie rovner
16:48
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mimi geerges
cspan32:43
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pete sessions
rep/r19:38
suhas subramanyam
rep/d15:28
Appearances
chuck schumer
sen/d00:53
donald j trump
admin03:32
james comer
rep/r02:18
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jena-lisa jones
01:50
mike johnson
rep/r02:45
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mohammed bin salman
sau01:28
pete aguilar
rep/d01:46
Clips
david rubenstein
00:18
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jim marrs
00:14
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john curtis
sen/r00:03
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marty schachter
00:04
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wayne paul
00:13
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william binney
00:05
Callers
blake in colorado
callers00:23
doug in south carolina
callers00:07
errol darts in unknown
callers00:07
terry in texas
callers00:11
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Voice
Speaker
Time
Text
Schumer's Objection00:15:06
unidentified
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Solemn Conversation on Hope00:03:58
unidentified
Wake up, smell the coffee, get rid of this fool out the office, and let's move on and become Americans again.
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.
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,
Pocket Veto Politics00:13:24
unidentified
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Fridays, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity: Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins.
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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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Concerns About Health Savings Accounts00:15:23
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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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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It's always dry.
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Epstein File Oversight00:15:48
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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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Congratulating The Victims00:00:29
unidentified
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.