CSPAN - Washington Journal 11/21/2025

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Nov. 21, 2025 06:59-09:00 - CSPAN

02:00:54

Washington Journal 11/21/2025

Participants

Main

emily randall

rep/d 16:23

frederick hess

18:20

greta brawner

cspan 29:05

Appearances

chuck schumer

sen/d 02:02

elissa slotkin

sen/d 02:12

george w bush

r 01:28

jd vance

admin 02:23

karoline leavitt

admin 01:53

linda mcmahon

01:12

lindsey graham

sen/r 02:06

mike johnson

rep/r 00:38

sheila cherfilus-mccormick

rep/d 00:47

zohran mamdani

d 00:44

Clips

chris hayes

msnow 00:14

david rubenstein

00:06

willie nelson

00:04

Callers

dennis in north carolina

callers 00:03

william in arkansas

callers 00:04

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Today, on C-SPAN Ceasefire, Florida Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz and Tennessee Republican Congressman Tim Burchett come together for a bipartisan dialogue on the Epstein files, health care, and top issues facing the country.
		They join host Dasha Burns Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
		C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered.
		We're funded by these television companies and more, including Mediacom.
		Dear Future, we're on a mission to make small-town America bigger than anyone ever dreamed.
		That's why at MediaCom, we're always pushing the limits, increasing speeds, improving reliability, and we'll do whatever it takes to make it happen.
		MediaCom supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy.
		Coming up this morning on Washington Journal, along with your calls and comments live, we'll talk about the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle the Department of Education with Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute and newly appointed Washington Democratic Representative Emily Randall discusses the Epstein files and Congressional News of the Day.
		Washington Journal is next.
		join the conversation.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		It's Friday, November 21st.
		Welcome to the Washington Journal.
		We're going to begin this morning with President Trump calling for the arrest of Democratic lawmakers who appeared in a video calling for members of the U.S. military to disobey illegal orders.
		The president said it's seditious behavior at the highest level.
		Your reaction this morning, here's how you can join the conversation.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		You can text if you don't want to call at 202-748-8003, include your first name, city, and state, or post on facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X with the handle at C-SPANWJ.
		While you dial in or text, we'll begin with that video from a portion of the video showing Democratic lawmakers with military and intelligence background telling service members to disobey President Trump if his directives amount to illegal orders.
		It was posted on Facebook on Tuesday by Senator Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan.
elissa slotkin ▲ ● ▼		We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now.
unidentified		Americans trust their military.
		But that trust is at risk.
		This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens.
		Like us, you all swore an oath.
		To protect and defend this Constitution.
		Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren't just coming from abroad, but from right here at home.
		Our laws are clear.
		You can refuse illegal orders.
elissa slotkin ▲ ● ▼		You can refuse illegal orders.
elissa slotkin ▲ ● ▼		You must refuse illegal orders.
unidentified		No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.
		We know this is hard and that it's a difficult time to be a public servant.
		But whether you're serving in the CIA, the Army, or Navy, Air Force, your vigilance is critical.
elissa slotkin ▲ ● ▼		And know that we have your back.
unidentified		Because now, more than ever.
unidentified		The American people need you.
elissa slotkin ▲ ● ▼		We need you to stand up for our laws.
unidentified		Our Constitution and who we are as Americans.
		Don't give up.
		Don't give up the ship.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		An ad posted by Democratic lawmakers with military and intelligence background of the president responded on Truth Social, saying it's called seditious behavior at the highest level.
		Each one of these traitors to our country should be arrested and put on trial.
		Their words cannot be allowed to stand.
		We won't have a country anymore.
		An example must be set.
		He went on to also post this on Truth Social: seditious behavior punishable by death.
		Now, here's Democratic Senator Alyssa Slotkin, who began that video responding to President Trump's Truth Social post while speaking at a conference in DC yesterday.
elissa slotkin ▲ ● ▼		I think if you just take a step back, we have the President of the United States calling for a group of service and veteran lawmakers to be arrested, tried, and then hung.
		I mean, this is what he said.
		And because we made a video that he didn't like.
		And I think separate from any one of us who made the video, this is just for me about who we are as a country and whether we're going to accept that this is the new normal for how we treat people we disagree with.
		It's about the example we want to set for our kids and it's about whether we are going to accept that this is just how we're going to engage with each other.
		You know, I, in my previous life, swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.
		I took that same oath when I was sworn in as a senator 11 months ago.
		And that oath is to the Constitution, not to any one man, any one president.
		And I think, certainly for me, I refuse to be intimidated out of fighting for the country that I love.
		And I think, and you all know this, as state and local officials, fear can often be contagious.
		And when it's scary and people don't speak up, then it kind of spreads.
		But if fear is contagious, so is courage.
		And I think when a lion's share of Americans understand that it is in their own power to push back on this kind of rhetoric and this kind of threat, that's when we actually turn the tide.
		So I appreciate the support.
		I appreciate law enforcement.
		But this country has given me everything.
		I am here because I'm an American and it gave me everything.
		And I'm not going to shut up because Donald Trump is threatening me.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Democratic Senator Alyssa Slotkin, they're responding to the president's Truth Social post.
		Now, the Washington Post this morning says it's not clear what orders, those illegal orders, those Democrats are referring to, but they said they are hearing from some service members questioning the legality of strikes that have targeted people by targeting people in the narcotics organizations by sea.
		So related to that, Punch Bowl News has some news this morning.
		House Democrats plan to unveil a bill today that would cut off funding for U.S. operations in or against Venezuela.
		The legislation led by Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts would bar the Trump administration from spending money on military campaigns targeting Venezuela unless lawmakers approve an authorization for use of military force.
		Moulton plans to announce the push during a 9 a.m. news conference today alongside fellow Democrats.
		The legislation continues House Democrats' pushback against the Trump administration's strikes targeting alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.
		Half a dozen leading lawmakers earlier this week pitched a resolution seeking to prevent Trump from using U.S. forces against any group he's labeled as designated terrorist organizations within the Western Hemisphere.
		The Senate has blocked two similar resolutions in recent months.
		Let's get to your calls.
		The president accusing Democrats of seditious behavior, John in New York and Independent.
		Your reaction to this back and forth in Washington this week.
unidentified		My response is the tape that these Democratic congresspeople made was really shock.
		It was shocking.
		I've never heard of anything like this ever that I read in history or notice.
		I'm 72 years old, and I never saw any response like this from a Democratic or anything.
		And I do believe that this has to be truly investigated.
		Donald Trump's response was rational.
		I give him credit for that.
		That was very rational.
		But I don't believe that any of these senators should have any kind of contact with the Pentagon, our military forces, or anything until this is fully investigated.
		And that I do hope that the Washington Journal doesn't totally doesn't get complicit in this because I hope they don't defend the response that these Democratic senators made.
		This is very dangerous to.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		John, can I ask you to respond to the Wall Street Journal and how they frame the story?
		They say that the president asked his more than 11 million followers on Truth Social whether they should be jailed, saying that seditious behavior was punishable by death.
		You said his response was rational.
		What about the suggestion they're punishable by death?
unidentified		Do you think that the Democratic Congress people response was rational?
		How come you focus definitely on Donald Trump?
		And you know, that's what's wrong with this.
		The Washington Journal is complicit in all this mess.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		John, the host facilitate a conversation.
		You have a point of view.
		I'm asking you, based on what the Wall Street Journal, how they've framed it to respond to them.
		We'll do the same for the other side.
		Julian in Stanford, Connecticut, and Independent.
		Go ahead, Julian.
unidentified		I'm sending this response that the Congress people— We'll go to Julian.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Let's try Julian in Stanford, Connecticut, and Independent.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		You there, Julian?
unidentified		Yes.
		Yes, I'm here, Greg.
		All right, go ahead.
		The gentleman from New York asked you to be unbiased about this.
		It's a little too late for that.
		We know where you stand and everybody else on C-SPAN.
		But you know what?
		This is just another deranged thing that the Democrats are doing to undermine this president.
		And he's absolutely right.
		When you do that to the military, this country is finished.
		Finished.
		So I agree 100% with President Trump.
		Have a great day, Greta.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's listen to the White House.
		At the briefing yesterday, Press Secretary Caroline Lovitt was asked about the president's Truth Social post, and here's what he had to say.
unidentified		This morning, President Trump accused six Democratic lawmakers of seditious behavior punishable by death.
unidentified		Just to be clear, does the president want to execute members of Congress?
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		No.
		Let's be clear about what the president is responding to, because many in this room want to talk about the president's response, but not what brought the president to responding in this way.
		You have sitting members of the United States Congress who conspired together to orchestrate a video message to members of the United States military, to active duty service members, to members of the national security apparatus, encouraging them to defy the president's lawful orders.
		The sanctity of our military rests on the chain of command.
		And if that chain of command is broken, it can lead to people killed.
		It can lead to chaos.
		And that's what these members of Congress who swore an oath to abide by the Constitution are essentially encouraging.
		We have 1.3 active duty service members in this country.
		And if they hear this radical message from sitting members of Congress, that could inspire chaos and it could incite violence and it certainly could disrupt the chain of command.
		These three members of Congress, I will also add, knew exactly what they were doing.
		You look at Alyssa Slotkin.
		She's a former member of the CIA.
		Mark Kelly was a captain in the U.S. Navy.
		Maggie Goodlander was a naval officer.
		And notably, she was also, she is also the wife of Joe Biden's National Security former advisor, Jake Sullivan.
		And so these members knew what they were doing.
		They were leading into their credentials as former members of our military, as veterans, as former members of the national security apparatus to signal to people serving under this commander-in-chief, Donald Trump, that you can defy him and you can betray your oath of office.
		That is a very, very dangerous message, and it perhaps is punishable by law.
		I'm not a lawyer.
		I'll leave that to the Department of Justice and the Department of War to decide.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Caroline Lovitt at the White House podium yesterday, we want to get your reaction and your res and hear your response to her argument there about the President's Truth Social Post and this ad by Democratic lawmakers.
		The Washington Post reports this morning the Pentagon did not respond Thursday morning to questions about the president's post.
		Traditionally, the U.S. military adheres to the uniform code of military justice, which holds that service members must obey lawful orders.
		Whether they agree with them or not, they are obligated to not follow manifestly unlawful orders.
		But such situations are rare and legally fraught.
		Members of the military take an oath to the Constitution, not the president.
		The Washington Post this morning with their reporting.
		There are the lines on your screen.
		We want you to join us in this conversation this morning.
		Eddie is in Ackworth, Georgia, Democratic caller.
		Morning, Eddie.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm going to say, it is very scary with Trump in this office.
		Man, I'll be glad when he's gone.
		These Republicans, boy, they is block-minded by everything this man done.
		This man trying to destroy United States.
		The whole world he's trying to destroy.
		And the Republic too blind and too stupid to see that he's trying to tear us down.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Eddie, what about the Democrats, though, and this ad that they produced?
		How do you respond to the White House press secretary when she says they're inviting chaos?
		They are inviting the military to disobey the commander-in-chief.
unidentified		They need to because he's unhinged.
		Donald Trump is unhinged.
		He doesn't know what he's doing in that office.
		He's only by Donald Trump.
		And they try to say the Democrat got Donald Trump syndrome.
		We know.
		We want to know what Donald Trump's doing.
		Republicans don't know.
		They're sleeping.
		They is sleeping this year.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Eddie.
		Marty in Pleasanton, California, Republican.
		Let's hear from you, Marty.
unidentified		Good morning.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Morning.
unidentified		First off, you know, bullies act like the biggest victims when somebody does something to them.
		So, first on the comments on the video, you're talking impressionable young people that joined the military, 18 to 22 year olds.
		Those are the ones that defend us, but they're the ones that are going to be swayed, especially if they have a background that's very liberal.
		So now you're telling them, go ahead and disobey.
		Now, They're talking about Trump saying that that's a hangable offense.
		But when they said that Trump committed treason, weren't they saying the same thing to him?
		Because if you commit treason, you can be hung as well.
		Now, for them to do what they did, that's what the CIA does in different countries.
		They sow chaos and they want the people to turn on the government.
		And that's exactly what they're asking them to do.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Marty, there.
		Go ahead, Marty.
		Finish your thought.
unidentified		Well, on another note, recently it came out that they're saying that the swash sticker was taken out as being a hate crime in the military.
		And everybody's in an uproar because of that.
		And I agree that the swastika is a hate crime.
		But the Democrats have been calling Trump and his cabinet Hitler and anybody that believes in Trump as Hitler's.
		So isn't that the same thing?
		They're just using their words.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Marty.
		We'll go back to the topic here this morning, the Democratic Act.
		Six lawmakers who have experience in the military and in national security calling on those in the military to disobey illegal orders.
		The president responding on Truth Social, calling it seditious behavior.
		Here's the definition of seditious behavior from newsweek.com.
		If two or more persons in any state or territory or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States conspire to overthrow, put down or to destroy by force the government of the United States or to levy war against them or to oppose by force the authority thereof or by force to prevent,
		hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years or both.
		That is what the law on sedition says.
		William and Ohio Independent.
		Hi, William.
unidentified		Hello.
		Hello.
		How are you today?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Morning.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead and share your thoughts with us.
unidentified		Well, I myself, you know, people swear to the Constitution not to a 10-played dictator who thinks he's lead off Hitler reincarnated.
		He's let all those people go that were in prison that were sedition for him, but now he wants to kill people that want to defend the Constitution.
		Hey, tell Maggie, please set up the independent line.
		They're getting old.
		And by the way.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, William, I'm going to go on to Chris, who's in Louisville, Kentucky.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Democratic caller.
unidentified		Good morning, Greta.
		How are you?
		And I had to respond to this subject because I was trying not to call too much.
		Well, I haven't called anyway.
		But anyway, what is happening to America?
		And what I mean by that is the congresspeople who put out the letter of the edict, they were all military veterans, if I'm correct, correct?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Military or experience in national security, intelligence circles.
unidentified		Exactly.
		And what I wish you would ask these callers, particularly these right-wing MAGA white guys that he talked about, he's 72 or whatever he is.
		I'm 74.
		I'm a Vietnam veteran.
		And I wish you'd ask them all that they are veterans or not.
		And why that's important is because anybody who goes in the military doing your basic training and your AIT, you have a class.
		And in that class, they give you certain basics of the UCMJ, the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
		By law, and I wish he would state it again, you are obligated to disobey an unlawful order.
		And one of the things that constitute an unlawful order is any order given to you has to be given in front of a witness.
		That's why when you see a captain ordering you something, he has a sergeant standing by.
		When a colonel gives you an order, he has a captain standing by.
		When a sergeant gives you an order, he has a private standing by.
		Because unless it's done in front of a witness, it's unlawful.
		You can cut them out if you want to.
		It's just you and the general.
		But as soon as he brings a colonel standing next to him, you jump to attention.
		Yes, sir.
		No, sir.
		You follow his orders.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Chris.
		All right.
		Barbara, Knoxville, Tennessee, Independent.
		Your turn, Barbara.
unidentified		Hi, how are you today?
		I hope well.
		I'm just wanting to say that President Trump really has done it this time.
		I mean, of all things to say, of all things to say, good gracious, I'm just living over it.
		I wanted a president who was proud, who we could be proud of, actually.
		He might be a little bit too proud of, I don't know what, but he has done it this time, buddy.
		I've turned against him, that's for sure.
		Nobody should do that to the ex-military who is serving the country on after their military service.
		Those people did that commercial, they did it right.
		People needed to know.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Barbara.
		Barbara in Tennessee, an independent caller, Wall Street Journal.
		He asked his more than 11 million followers on Truth Social whether they should be jailed, saying that seditious behavior was, quote, punishable by death.
		He reposted comments from Truth Social users saying that the Democrats should be charged with sedition and hanged.
		That's the Wall Street Journal this morning.
		Lou in Tampa, Florida, Republican.
		We want to hear from you, Lou.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Oh, good morning, Greta.
		Good morning, America.
		I'm really shocked when I turned on the TV today for Washington Journal.
		You know, more dysfunction in Washington, more not getting along.
		You know, I think this whole thing started with Venezuela maybe, and he needs an act of Congress to declare war and get this guy Maduro out.
		But, you know, America was sinking down during Biden, and her economy was a mess.
		And anything to take the focus off the issues in Washington, let's, you know, argue.
		Let's not talk about other issues and stuff like that.
		Yeah, we've got a lot to clean up in Washington.
		And I pray for this country.
		I want to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving.
		And we need to get along.
		We need to get along in America.
		And our leaders need to get along.
		And this is just total mud.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Lou there in Tampa, Florida.
		Lou, in case you missed it and others at the top, we told you news from Punch Bowl this morning that at 9 a.m., Representative Seth Moulton, the Democrat from Massachusetts, along with some other Democrats, are going to unveil legislation that would cut off funding for U.S. operations in or against Venezuela.
		They're going to announce this at a 9 a.m. news conference.
		The legislation continues House Democrats' pushback against the Trump administration strikes targeting alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.
		And this legislation would bar the Trump administration from spending money on military campaigns targeting Venezuela unless lawmakers approve an authorization for use of military force.
		So Punch Bowl News with that this morning.
		Matthew Crawley on Facebook has this to say.
		He's correct about the president.
		They are encouraging an insurrection.
		And Lucy Howard says one shouldn't follow an unlawful order.
		Military service members swear an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, not the president's desires.
		Back to your calls in just a couple minutes.
		Let's listen to the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York on the Senate floor yesterday on this.
chuck schumer ▲ ● ▼		Let's be crystal clear.
		The President of the United States is calling for the execution of elected officials.
		This is an outright threat, and it's deadly serious.
		We've already seen what happens when Donald Trump tells his followers that his political opponents are enemies of the state.
		Every time Donald Trump posts things like this, he makes political violence more likely.
		None of us should tolerate this kind of behavior.
		We all remember what January 6th was like.
		We lived through January 6th.
		We have lived through the assassination and attempted assassinations this year.
		We have members whose families have had to flee their homes.
		When Donald Trump uses the language of execution and treason, some of his supporters may very well listen.
		He is lighting a match in a country soaked with political gasoline.
		Every senator, every representative, every American, regardless of party, should condemn this immediately and without qualification.
		Because if we don't draw a line here, there is no line left to draw.
		Who would have thought the President of the United States saying his opponents should be hanged?
		It's outrageous.
		No president has ever stooped as low as Donald Trump.
		None.
		He has made political violence a feature of his politics.
		And if we don't draw a line here, there's no line left to draw.
		And yet today, he crossed yet another line that no democracy can afford to tolerate.
		He must be condemned forcefully, loudly, and without excuses before someone takes his words as permission to do the unthinkable.
		Anything less enables the flames of hatred to grow and spread.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		The Democratic leader Chuck Schumer on the floor yesterday responding to the President's Truth Social Post.
		Now, Speaker Mike Johnson initially defended Trump, saying it was the Democrats who were acting wildly inappropriate.
		He later conceded the words that the president chose are not the ones I would use.
		And Senate Majority Leader John Thune said of Trump's suggestion of executions, I don't agree with that.
		Let's listen to the Speaker Mike Johnson speaking with CNN's Manu Raju yesterday.
mike johnson ▲ ● ▼		I know the DOJ and the Pentagon are looking into the legality of all that, but what I can address is what everybody knows.
		That was wildly inappropriate.
		It is very dangerous.
		You have leading members of Congress telling troops to disobey orders.
		I think that's unprecedented in American history.
		And as the father of a young man who is at the Naval Academy, going to be joining the service, I know young soldiers, airmen, sailors, they don't need that kind of nonsense from people in Congress.
		It is very dangerous.
unidentified		It appears like that.
mike johnson ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to let others define what it is, but it's wildly inappropriate.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Speaker Mike Johnson talking to CNN's Manu Raju yesterday on Capitol Hill.
		Back to all of you.
		It's your turn to let lawmakers and the president know what you think of this back and forth.
		Ralph in Florida, Republican.
		Hi, Ralph.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		These so-called six despicable lawmakers are basically telling the Americ U.S. military to do an insurrection to the American people, to the United States of America.
		And I am appalled that these people are even a lawmaker.
		Thank you for the call.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Lenny, Edison, New Jersey, Democratic caller.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		It's your turn.
unidentified		Yes.
		Hi.
		Good morning, Greta.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		So, first of all, with these things by the Democrats, the hypocrisy is so great.
		They were so into the January 6th incident.
		I noticed in the definition, too, that you showed on TV.
		The very last sentence says, sedition includes acts of insurrection.
		So this is an act of insurrection.
		So the hypocrisy is so great.
		And then regarding Venezuela, I don't recall President Johnson, Lyndon Johnson, ever asking Congress to declare war on Vietnam because it was so-called a police action.
		So Congress has never approved that war, yet it still happens.
		So regarding Venezuela, really don't need Congress' action.
		It's a police action.
		It's not a war.
		And then the third thing about political violence, the last time I checked, the people that are getting shot at and killed are conservatives.
		I don't recall any Democrat in the recent years being shot at or even killed.
		So the violence is on the left, not on the right.
		The political rhetoric is on the left.
		Calling people Hitler and stuff, it's on both sides.
		I'm not saying it's one side, not the other.
		It's on both sides.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Democrats would point to January 6th and what happened there.
unidentified		How do you respond to that?
		It happened, okay?
		I'm not sure what the question is.
		What are you asking?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		You said the violence should not have happened.
		Do you think it was a violent act?
		What happened on January 6th?
unidentified		Violent in regards to what?
		Like, people getting killed.
		The only person who got killed was an unarmed person.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		The rioting and the breaking into the Capitol, the destruction there.
unidentified		Yes.
		Did I say it's right?
		No.
		They should have never went inside.
		I agree.
		But I could say the same thing about Antifa, burning down cities that burnt down and caused seriously damage.
		So it goes on both sides.
		It's not one side, it's not the other.
		But you can't just say it's one side.
		It's both sides.
		Antifa rights called billions of dollars in damages.
		Okay?
		People were killed.
		Okay.
		So one person was killed on January 6th, and it was an unarmed woman.
		She couldn't even defend herself.
		So, you know, don't start saying, well, that's a violent act.
dennis in north carolina ▲ ● ▼		Antifa caused a lot more damage than January 6th.
unidentified		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Lenny's thoughts there in Edison, New Jersey.
		John is in Telford, Pennsylvania, Republican.
		Hi, John.
unidentified		Hey, hey, it's amazing.
		I'm on CNN2 this morning.
		You got the same talking points as the mainstream media.
		Why aren't you another thing?
		Chuck Schumer's a liar.
		He didn't say I want to hang my opponents.
		That's a flat-out lie.
		Okay?
		And why don't you turn around and talk about that loser, Johnson, that black mayor that let that guy out 40, 50 times and he lit the woman on fire.
		Isn't that good enough to talk about?
		You know, all you people want to do is try to do what the mainstream media is.
		It's your talking points and to try to frame Don Trump as some kind of Hitler or something.
		And you Democrats are the worst.
		And you're the worst, Gritta.
		You're one of the worst hosts ever.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So why do you watch?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Why do you watch the show if you feel this strongly about it?
unidentified		To hear the outright lies.
unidentified		See.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		John there in Pennsylvania, Republican caller.
		The House is gabbling in this morning at 9 a.m. Eastern Time for legislative business.
		When they do that, we will, of course, bring you gabble-to-gabble coverage here on C-SPAN.
		Because of a shorter program, we're going to turn our attention to open forum here for the next 30 minutes of today's Washington Journal because there is a lot of other news to share with you as well.
		You can keep talking about this Democratic ad and the president's response, as well as any other public policy or political issue that's on your mind.
		Democrats for open forum, same numbers, 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Before we get to Open Forum, though, let's begin with yesterday in Washington.
		Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who died earlier this month at the age of 84, was remembered at the National Cathedral in Washington.
		In his tribute, former President George W. Bush spoke about how he picked Mr. Cheney as his running mate.
george w bush ▲ ● ▼		25 years ago, I had a big choice to make, a big job to fill.
		I want to know all my options, so I enlisted the help of a distinguished former White House Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense to lead my search for running mate.
		Dick Cheney and I went through the files name by name.
		We talked over the various qualities I was looking for in a vice president: preparedness, mature judgment, rectitude, and loyalty.
		Above all, I wanted someone with the ability to step into the presidency without getting distracted by the ambition to seek it.
		After weeks of these meetings, I began to have a thought I could not shake.
		I realized the best choice for the vice president was the man sitting right in front of me, and I told him that.
		At such a moment, most in this position would have jumped at the chance, but Dick stayed detached and he analyzed it.
		Before I made my decision, he insisted on giving me a complete rundown of all the reasons I should not choose him.
		He also heard one of my top advisors was against the choice.
		So Dick invited him to make the case.
		As he did so, he sat there unfazed and expressionless.
		In the end, I trusted my judgment.
		I remember my dad's words when I told him what I was planning.
		He said, Son, you couldn't pick a better man.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Former President George W. Bush at the memorial service at the Washington Cathedral in Washington yesterday for the late Vice President Dick Cheney.
		We covered the memorial service, and you can find it on our website at c-span.org.
		We're in open forum here this morning until the top of the hour.
		Any public policy or political issue.
		Robert in Cincinnati, Democratic caller.
		Morning, Robert.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Donald Trump or President Trump.
		I'm afraid that I think he's losing it.
		He's going to put the military and say, hey, go and start killing and shooting up American citizens if they have a peaceful demonstration.
		Come on.
		Enough is enough.
		I mean, why haven't someone tried to have impeachment on him?
		This is the United States is getting to be a point where we're the laughing stock of the world.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Cheryl in Daytona Beach, Florida, Republican.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Cheryl.
unidentified		Hi, thanks for taking my call.
		Greta, I have to agree with that caller a couple times back that said C-SPAN is becoming a platform of pure hatred.
		And you all just gleefully let it happen against the Republicans, especially.
		You have attacked Trump every morning for 10 years now, it seems.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Cheryl, how is it attacked to, when there's a debate happening in Washington, an ad was put out by Democrats, we show you the ad, then we show you the president's response.
		We showed you the White House with their defense of the president and their argument laid out by Caroline Lovitt.
		We then showed you the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, and his argument against the president's response.
		And then we're letting you call up and tell Washington what you think of it and have a conversation.
unidentified		That's what I'm trying to do, and you are cutting me off.
		So I'm a veteran.
		I'm appalled at what those politicians did, injecting dangerous rhetoric into our military.
		A young soldier's life could be ruined by a dumb mistake based on what those people are doing.
		That's dangerous, and it cannot be allowed in our military politics.
		Come on, they're not disobeying.
		They're not obeying unlawful orders.
		There is plenty of evidence.
		There's plenty of intel that you and I are not privy to.
		So I'm sorry.
		Donald Trump was duly elected by millions of people to do a job, and he's being prevented by doing it every day by Democrats.
		This is an ugly scene, and we are so tired of the bickering and the nasty, nasty stuff that comes out of even a lot of your callers calling Trump filth aren't even true.
		You've got to be kidding.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Cheryl, Republican there in Daytona Beach, Florida.
		Desmond in the Bronx, an Independent.
		Morning, Desmond.
unidentified		Morning.
		Good morning.
		I am somewhat so puzzled here.
		People will hear what they want to hear.
		What those six said, they reminded people not to follow unlawful.
		And that's the big word that all those guys that are going off at them are missing.
		They did not say do not follow orders.
		They used the word unlawful.
		And if it's bad to remind people not to follow unlawful orders, I don't know what is right in this country.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Well, Desmond, did you hear what Caroline Levitt had to say, her argument that it invites chaos?
unidentified		Why is it inviting chaos to tell someone not to follow unlawful orders?
unidentified		If someone could let me know that, then, you know, just tell me where, how wrong is that to say to someone, hey, make sure you not follow unlawful orders.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, respond to this from the Washington Post.
		We showed this earlier.
		The Pentagon did not respond Thursday morning to questions about the President's post.
		Traditionally, the U.S. military adheres to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which holds that service members must obey lawful orders, whether they agree with them or not.
		They are obligated to not follow manifestly unlawful orders, but such situations are rare and legally fraught.
		Members of the military take an oath to the Constitution, not to the President.
		Respond to the part about situations like that being rare and legally fraught.
unidentified		Well, see, that's a reminder for them.
		If in case that comes up, remember, you took an oath to the Constitution.
		So it's a pure reminder to them to say, hey, with this individual who is unpredictable in the office, in case that appears, keep in mind what you took an oath to.
		That's how I read it.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Desmond there, an independent in the Bronx.
		Rudy in Ohio, Republican.
		Rudy, good morning to you.
unidentified		Yeah, I agree.
		Trump, 1,000%.
		These people are.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Rudy, the connection's not great.
		You're breaking up there.
		All right.
		Apologies, Rudy.
		You're going to have to call back, but on a better line.
		We are in open forum here this morning until the top of the hour.
		Any public policy or political issue, we want to hear about it and any debate that's happening in Washington.
		Craig Kaplan, who is C-SPAN's Capitol Hill producer, noting that the House today will vote on a resolution that denounces socialism and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States before members leave for their Thanksgiving holiday break.
		And later today, President Trump will meet in the Oval Office with New York City mayor-elect, Zo Ron Mamdani.
		That is taking place at around 3 p.m. Eastern Time when the mayor-elect will arrive.
		It is closed press right now.
		If it opens up, C-SPAN will cover it.
		Go to c-SPAN.org or C-SPANNOW, our free video mobile app, for updates on our coverage.
		In an interview on MSNOW on Wednesday night, New York City mayor-elect Momdani said he plans in his meeting with President Trump to talk about inflation and affordability.
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		We did reach out to the White House, and my team reached out because of a commitment that I made to New Yorkers that I would be willing to meet with anyone and everyone so long as it was to the benefit of the eight and a half million people who call the city home and their struggle to afford the most expensive city in the United States of America.
chris hayes ▲ ● ▼		Do you think a lot of people go into meetings with Donald Trump, I think, thinking they're going to be the one to get over on him?
chris hayes ▲ ● ▼		And I sometimes often think, I've watched this now for 10 years.
unidentified		They screw up because they think he's, they underestimate him.
chris hayes ▲ ● ▼		Like, what is your goal for a meeting with Donald Trump?
unidentified		What do you want to come out of a meeting with Donald Trump?
zohran mamdani ▲ ● ▼		I want to just speak plainly to the president about what it means to actually stand up for New Yorkers and the way in which New Yorkers are struggling to afford this city.
		And frankly, cost of living is something that I heard time and time again from New Yorkers about why they voted for Donald Trump.
		And this is something that has only continued in the last few months of this year where we're hearing about child care concerns, rent concerns, con ed concerns, even just getting on the bus just $2.90.
		And just to make it clear to the president that this is what we're talking about, these are the stakes for New Yorkers and their ability to keep calling the city their home.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		The mayor-elect of the Big Apple, Zohran Mamdani, he'll be at the White House at 3 p.m. Eastern Time today, and he wants to talk about affordability and inflation.
		Front page of the Wall Street Journal this morning, middle class is buckling under financial strain from inflation.
		For those of you that are interested in reading that front page of the Wall Street Journal.
		At an event hosted by Breitbart News yesterday, Vice President JD Vance issued a plea for Americans to be patient as the administration works to improve the high cost of living.
		This is what he had to say.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		I guess my message to the American people who are still feeling like things are unaffordable, who are still feeling like things are rough out there, is, look, we get it, and we hear you, and we know that there's a lot of work to do.
		There's a lot of wood to chop because the Biden administration put us in such a very, very tough spot.
		And the way that I think about this is it's always helpful to take this from the abstractions to the actual real things that people are worried about.
		So, take, for example, a dozen eggs.
		I'll never forget this.
		It was one of the very first, maybe the single first press conference that the president had done since he had been the, since he had started his second term.
		And some reporter, probably from ABC, yells at him and says, What have you done about the price of eggs?
		The price of eggs are up 300% over the past three years.
		And it's like it was January the 23rd.
		Like, what do you mean, what have we done in two days?
		It's going to take a little bit of time to fix that problem.
		And so, if you're an American who's just struggling to get by, you work hard, you pay your taxes, you want your kids to have good opportunities, and the price of eggs goes from $2 a dozen to $8 a dozen under the Biden administration, and then under the Trump administration, it goes from $8 a dozen to maybe $6.50 a dozen.
		Well, to you, that is still a major problem.
		And even though we've made incredible progress, we understand that there's a lot more work to do.
		And the thing that I'd ask for the American people is a little bit of patience.
		This economy was not harmed in 10 months.
		It took a deliberate four-year administration that was making life harder for everyday Americans, that was importing foreign workers instead of giving jobs to American workers, that was over-regulating, over-taxing, overspending.
		They were doing everything wrong.
		And as much progress as we've made, it's going to take a little bit of time for every American to feel that economic boom, which we really do believe is coming.
		We believe that we're on the front end of it, but we also recognize that we've got a lot of work to do to undo the damage that Joe Biden did to the American economy.
		And the last one I'll say, Matt, is it's, let's be honest, it's not just Joe Biden.
		As much as I think Joe Biden was one of the most disastrous presidents of American history, we had a policy in this country for 40 years of shipping American jobs overseas and hiring foreign workers instead of American workers.
		That has caused the economic stagnation of the American middle class.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		JD Vance at an event with Breitbart News yesterday talking about affordability and the U.S. economy.
		We're an open forum.
		You can call in and tell Washington what you think about affordability and what you would like lawmakers and the president to do.
		There are the lines on your screen.
		We'll hear from Chris, who's in Lexington, Kentucky, Democratic caller.
		Chris, what's on your mind?
unidentified		Yes, thank you, Greta.
		And Greta, you do a great job.
		Every time I turn on to C-SPAN, any of the hosts, including yourself, you do a great job.
		And I don't know why that guy yelled at you.
		That was so disrespectful.
		I don't know.
		I think they're losing it or something.
		But to my point, I think we have to reel it back a little bit and go back to why this is all the conversation that everyone's so mad about.
		It's all because of the Epstein files.
		The Senate numbers just speak for themselves.
		What was it, 427 yays and then one no or something like that?
		It's wild.
		And if you want to really hear some credible intelligence in the background right now, there is some really damning evidence.
		I don't even have to say towards who.
		It's real pictures and people are sick of it.
		And I think behind the scenes, there are discussions of impeachment.
		And the president, he knows that he has the power to pull in the military.
		And so if the military doesn't listen to him, then he has no choice.
		So that's what's going on behind the scenes.
		This is all a war behind, I guess, behind the scenes.
		I keep saying it.
		The intelligence community is wild.
		They said it to Congress.
		They showed them what's really going on.
		And both Republican senators and Democrat and Independent, they saw it.
		It's happening.
		So that's some real intelligence for you.
		And you did a great job.
		Thank you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Chris.
		James, Hamburg, New York, Independent.
		James.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yeah, I can't go down the hole of that last colour.
		But I think this is a good thing.
		Now, I'm MAGA.
		I support the president, the sports red men, or what.
		But what they said is not untrue.
		I guess we can hint at what they're getting at.
		But I wish these Democrats would do this more.
		And I wish that you would ask the next Democrat that comes in there says, so when a judge gives you an unconstitutional order, you're not supposed to follow it.
		Like these injunctions and stuff, they get overturned.
		I think it's great.
		Yes, every time a judge rules, it gets a second.
		In New York, we all need to oppose it.
		We all need to go after that person.
		So I think they're right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Dennis, Fayetteville, North Carolina, Independent.
		Dennis.
unidentified		Good morning, Greta.
		No, I'm not independent.
		I'm a Democrat.
		I call on the Democratic line.
		Okay.
		I want to apologize to you for the rude comments made by some callers, especially the one from New York and Pennsylvania.
		You do a great job, and please hold the line.
		With respect to JD Vance, that he's calling on the American people to be a little patient.
		Well, they have been almost a year into their administration, and things haven't gotten better.
		They have gotten worse.
		Maybe he needs to know that.
		Secondly, to be a little patient.
		Mr. Vance, while we're waiting for the grass to grow, the horse is starving.
		Please take note of that.
		And with respect to the six senators, they are just using their First Amendment rights.
		They're taking a quote out of the military code.
		They are not lying.
		The Speaker of the House refused to use the word unlawful.
		He said they are refusing orders.
		No.
		The senators are reminding the military that according to the military code, they can refuse an unlawful order.
		They have done nothing wrong.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Dennis's thoughts there in North Carolina.
		A couple more headlines to share with you.
		This is from Axios this morning.
		President Trump peace plan for Ukraine includes NATO-style security guarantee.
		Axios reports that from the White House on this deal, get to it here in just a minute.
		This is what they report, that President Trump's peace plan for Ukraine includes a security guaranteed modeled on NATO's Article 5, which would commit the U.S. and European allies to treat an attack on Ukraine as an attack on the entire transatlantic community.
		Why it matters, Trump's plan demands painful concessions from Ukraine, but it also includes an unprecedented promise.
		President Zelensky's top objective in peace talks is to obtain a robust U.S. and European security guarantee.
		And this is the first time President Trump has been willing to put one on the table.
		It says that in states that future significant deliberate and sustained armed attack by Russia on Ukraine shall be regarded as an attack threatening the peace and security of the transatlantic community.
		That is some of the language from this proposed peace deal.
		And there's also this from the Wall Street Journal on the situation in the Middle East.
		First, this headline at the top of the page, Mideast truce looks like war elsewhere.
		Israel is carrying out strikes as it loses patience with Hezbollah and Hamas.
		I want to show you below that headline is this picture.
		At least 33 killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
		A pair of Israeli attacks in Gaza's southern city on Thursday killed five people, bringing the death toll from airstrikes in the Palestinian territory during a roughly 12-hour period to 33.
		So those are some of the headlines for you this morning on the international front.
		Jim in Hudson, Florida, Republican.
		Hi, Jim.
unidentified		Comment to make on these people that's telling somebody in service not to do anything illegal, they know that Trump's not going to order anybody to like a sniper to take somebody out.
		What they're saying is somebody in service do one small thing.
		Like you've got some new recruits.
		The sergeant comes in and says, we're taking the 10-mile hike today.
		One of the recruits stands up and says, I don't feel like taking a 10-mile hike.
		That's what they want.
		They want somebody, one person, to do something small that naturally is going to be overturned by the sergeant.
		That's why when one thing leads to two, two leads to four.
		And that's what they're looking for.
		And thanks for taking my call.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Renee in Atlanta, an independent.
		What do you say?
		Renee, what's on your mind?
unidentified		Good morning.
		First of all, I want to applaud you for being measured and listening to the callers, even if their content is less favorable for you personally versus your role.
		Regarding the situation in Venezuela, my challenge with this is the key word in every tag I see, alleged.
		Alleged.
		I have not heard anything concrete from this administration that can affirmatively say that those individuals in those boats are trafficking drugs.
		I am appalled.
		I mean, I lost my breath when I first heard that, when I first read it.
		So where is the intel?
		We may not see it all, but the word alleged is disturbing.
		It should disturb anyone for loss of life.
		There's a difference in lethality and an investigation and then an adequate response to the outcome of the investigation.
		But to say that they are taking down votes from U.S. forces in that with lethality for an alleged crime is disturbing.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Renee.
		Jay is a Republican, Edgewater, Florida.
		Hi, Jay.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		I want to take it back a little bit.
		Let me go back to your video of Chuck Schumer on the floor and his comments.
		It seems a little righteous for Chuck Schumer to be saying what he said after he specifically, before Trump was shot, said that Trump was a threat to democracy and on our way of life.
		I don't get how Democrats even justify saying anything when it comes to this violence because they know darn well that there aren't Democrats being shot or attempted to be shot or attempted to be murdered.
		It's all coming off the left side.
		There's a lot of evidence for that, so we don't need to discuss that.
		But what I want to talk about, of course, is what they said to three senators or three congresspeople.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it was six Democratic lawmakers.
		And what, go ahead, Jay.
		What they said in the ad?
unidentified		Yes.
		Soldiers don't need a reminder.
		That's ingrained in them in boot camp.
		I mean, you have to understand.
		Everybody learns the UCMJ.
		That's part of what's on the walls in every single boot camp.
		It doesn't matter what branch of service it is.
		And I'm a Navy veteran.
		I remember that.
		Everybody knows that.
		They don't need to be reminded by somebody in an advertisement.
		So what I'd like to hear from you to direct this conversation is, let's take it to what was the motive behind the advertisement.
		Let's get to that.
		Let's find out what was that about.
		Why was that brought up?
		And you want to say it was the Venezuela.
		Some people want to say, well, it's the Venezuela thing.
willie nelson ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's not an unlawful order, first off.
unidentified		They didn't direct it towards that, and they didn't even mention that.
		So what was their motivation for this?
		Let's just discover that.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Jay.
		Jay's thoughts there, Republican in Edgewater, Florida.
		Another headline to share with you from the New York Times: House voted to kill the bill allowing senators to sue the government.
		The measure has prompted a backlash, but the top Senate Republicans appeared inclined to preserve it, arguing that it would protect the body against investigatory overreach.
		Listen to Senator Lindsey Graham on the Senate floor speaking about why he rejected efforts to repeal this new provision that would allow him and other senators to sue over phone record seizures.
lindsey graham ▲ ● ▼		All of us who were wronged need to have a remedy to that wrong.
		And we're creating a chance to go to court for what happened to us in a fashion to make sure it never happens again.
		This was coordinated with people in the Senate in power.
		This wasn't an attempt to enrich anybody.
		It was an attempt to deter what was wrong, in my view, never happened again.
		But I'm willing to work with my colleagues about the $500,000.
		I'm going to sue.
		I want to let you know, I'm going to sue Biden's DOJ and Jack Smith.
		I'm going to sue Verizon.
		It's going to be a hell of a lot more than $500,000.
		This is twice this has happened to me.
		I was hauled into court in Atlanta for no good reason, spent a million dollars, and the crime is being friends of Trump, being supporters of Trump.
		This was an abuse of the law.
		This was weaponization of the law.
		It's just not me.
		I'm going to open up the ability to other people who had their phone records subpoena, I think, unfairly, at least a chance to make that case.
		There's 197 subpoenas with 400 groups.
		I'm going to create a statute.
		Anybody that was in this situation could make a claim, they'll have to prove the claim.
		We're not going to shut this down.
		We're not going to act like it's okay when it's not.
		We're not going to say it's legal because you're a Democrat and I'm a Republican.
		We're going to have a judge determine whether or not it was legal.
		I don't think it was illegal at all because I know I've done nothing wrong here.
		I wasn't conspiring with anybody to overturn the election.
		I did my part to make sure 2020 ended the way it should have.
		And so to my majority leader, thank you for working with Senator Schumer and to Senator Schumer.
		Thanks for trying to work together to protect the body.
		We'll be working together to find a resolution that may be more accommodating.
		But the idea that I'm backing off and that I'm going to let this go, you can forget that.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Senator Lindsey Graham on the Senate floor yesterday, also on Capitol Hill, the Wall Street Journal with two headlines, indicted congresswom loses her leadership spot.
		Representative Sheila Scherfilis-McCormick was indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday.
		She gave up a leadership spot on a committee after the Democratic leadership asked her on these charges to do so.
		Then there's this headline: Mills avoids censure vote as ethic probes advances.
		The Secretive Ethics Committee said the inquiry would consider whether Corey Mills violated House rules or federal laws, including claims that he improperly disclosed or failed to disclose information on official filings, misused congressional resources or campaign finances, received gifts or favors inappropriately, and engaged in sexual misconduct or dating violence.
		So the Ethics Committee is looking into Congressman Corey Mills.
		Congress this week has made several efforts to discipline members from across the aisle.
		Back to the story about Congresswoman Sheila Schifferless-McCormick.
		The indictment alleges that she funneled the funds from disaster relief to family and friends who in turn contributed to her campaign as straw donors.
		It also alleges she conspired to file false federal tax return, claiming political spending and other personal expenses as business deductions.
		The House Ethics Committee has said it was investigating similar allegations against her.
		The congresswoman spoke to reporters outside of her office yesterday.
		This is what she had to say.
sheila cherfilus-mccormick ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's an unjust indictment, and it seems like his intimidation tactics have been pervasive.
		We spent all weeks seeing different members getting censured, all in hopes of intimidating and kind of distracting from the Epstein files.
		And I look forward to my day in court so I can prove myself and actually state the truth.
		But if this is what Congress is becoming, where they're always trying to intimidate you, scare tactics, especially attacking minorities, black, and brown people, then we're going to have to keep fighting for the district.
		And everybody has been giving me so much support that we're going to keep fighting until the district gets what it needs, which is fair prices, housing, and fair representation of Congress.
		Did you think you improperly responded to that?
		They didn't elect me.
		It was my district.
		And so we'll keep fighting for the people and keep working like we're doing now until they get what they need.
		So we're here for the people.
		So the only people who elected me should make that decision.
		Thank you so much.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		From Capitol Hill yesterday, we are in open forum here for just about 30 seconds or more.
		Janice in Plainville, New Jersey, Democratic caller.
		Janice, go ahead, share your thoughts with us.
unidentified		About this unlawful, following unlawful acts or orders.
		What if Trump tells them to go down when people are protesting and just shoot up a bunch of people?
		I don't want this.
		Just shoot them up.
		That would be an unlawful order.
		So that's all I have to say.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Janice in Plainfield, New Jersey, Democratic caller.
		We'll leave it there for now.
		We're going to take a break.
		When we come back, we'll pivot and turn our attention to education.
		Joining us for that conversation.
		Well, later on in the program, we're going to be talking to Washington State Democrat Emily Randall about news of the day.
		Before that, though, when we come back, American Enterprise Institute's Rick Hess on plans by the Trump administration to dismantle the Education Department.
		Stay with us.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		Friday, on C-SPAN's ceasefire.
		At a time when finding common ground matters most in Washington, Florida Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz and Tennessee Republican Congressman Tim Burchett come together for a bipartisan dialogue on the Epstein files, health care, and top issues facing the country.
		They join host Dasha Burns.
		Bridging the Divide in American Politics.
		Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
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		Washington Journal continues.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We are back this morning with Senior Fellow and Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, Rick Hess, joining us to talk about the Education Department.
		Mr. Hess, thanks for joining us this morning.
		I want to begin with yesterday at the very top of the White House briefing.
		We heard from the Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
		I want to show our viewers what she had to say.
		Come back and get your response.
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		The Democrats' government shutdown proved that without a doubt, now I'll reiterate what you said, that the Department of Education was not necessary during the shutdown.
		Now, this is what I've seen already on my 50-state tour that I've embarked on.
		Educators are innovating in their schools.
		States are customizing their budgets and standards, and post-secondary institutions are planning for the economy of the future.
unidentified		But we're not leading them.
unidentified		They are informing us.
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		That's why our final mission as a department is to fully empower states to carry the torch of our educational renaissance.
unidentified		Education is local.
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		It should be overseen locally by those who best know local needs.
		We're not ending federal support for education.
		We are ending federal micromanagement and paving the way for education renewal through state reforms like school choice, the science of reading, and restoring the right priorities in higher education.
		President Trump promised to send education back to the states, and we're keeping that promise.
		America's Next Generation will look back on the work we've carried out, thankful for an education system that prioritizes students over bureaucracy.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Rick Hess, your response, reaction to the Education Secretary there, and what do you know about what has been done so far?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		You're obviously following this from your perch at AEI.
frederick hess ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so what happened this week was the department signed what they call interagency agreements to move a number of programs to four other cabinet agencies, Health and Human Services, Department of Labor, Interior, and State.
		Interagency agreements are a standard feature of Washington.
		There's lots of these.
		What's different about what the department did was instead of using them to do small portions of a job, it's used them to move over whole programs.
		How big a deal is this?
		Depends how you look at it.
		At one level, if you're a student, if you're a teacher, if you're a professor, there's really no impact.
		This doesn't change any of the money that Congress has appropriated.
		This doesn't change or end any of the programs.
		It really just changes who's managing that in Washington.
		It is, though, a big deal in the sense that it fundamentally changes the role of the Department of Education.
		It's moving all these programs over to the other agencies.
		The theory here is that this could be good.
		It could make services more seamless.
		For instance, if the Department of Labor is also handling career and technical education, it certainly reduces the footprint of the Department of Education.
		But the ways in which it's important is really more of an inside-the-beltway conversation rather than one that's likely to have a significant impact on Americans when they think about schools or college.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		I want to note from USA today the Education Department and the moves that have been made under the Trump administration so far.
		Labor Department will administer programs for colleges, universities, and K-12 schools, Office of Elementary, Secondary Education, and Office of Post-Secondary Education.
		The Interior Department will oversee responsibilities related to Indigenous education.
		HHS will manage grants for parenting college students and assessing accreditation standards for foreign medical students.
		And the State Department will do more work related to foreign language studies and international education.
		Rickes, is that what you're talking about here?
frederick hess ▲ ● ▼		Yes, that's exactly right.
		Most of the hyperbole about this, the folks who are cheering it or the folks who are worried about it, are overstating how this matters.
		Again, these programs aren't going away.
		So the Title I program for low-income students, every dollar Congress had appropriated earlier in the year is still going out the door.
		Pell Grants for higher ed, unchanged.
		Workforce workforce support programs, unchanged.
		What's not changing is whether the money is getting spent.
		What is changing is where it's getting spent in Washington.
		Again, the way to understand why this might be good is if it simplifies things for states or colleges to manage these grants, that could be helpful.
		If you think the Department of Education has been bureaucratic and often frustratingly slow, as I do, this is a chance to potentially speed those things up.
		Critics also, though, have fair questions to ask.
		Are we actually going to make things simpler on states and colleges, or is this going to actually make things more confusing?
		Should we be confident that moving these programs out of the Department of Ed to these other agencies will make them operate smoother?
		Are these other agencies less bureaucratic or less frustrating?
		You know, it's not obviously clear how this is going to play out, and it's really incumbent on Secretary McMahon's department both to execute on this, to explain how this is working, and to anticipate and address any problems that might arise.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		The U.S. Education Department began operating in 1980.
		It employs 4,400 people.
		The 2024 budget was $238 billion.
		So, Rick Hess, do you expect that the number of employees goes way down and that that money that is given to the education department is significantly less?
frederick hess ▲ ● ▼		So, the number of employees is already well down, in fact.
		Doge earlier in the year, the Department of Education was one of Doge's big targets.
		After several rounds of cuts, it's now under 2,000 employees, so less than half of what it was nominally in January.
		What's going to happen is whole units of the department are now being moved over to these other agencies, or the functions are being moved, and some of the employees are going to be let go.
		So, absolutely, the department is now much smaller than it was 10 months ago, and is going to be smaller still.
		But none of that money actually changes.
		I mean, here's where it's uniquely Washington.
		The way to think about this is if like if you get a letter, if you get a letter or an email that tells you your insurance company is reducing its workforce by 50%, that might have an impact on your actual insurance.
		It certainly might have an impact on customer service, but it doesn't necessarily change the insurance you have.
		That's what we're talking about here.
		Congress decides how much money to spend on education, educational programs.
		Congress has made its decision.
		It's in the midst, obviously, of making decisions for next year.
		However much Congress decides to spend is going to flow.
		What we're talking about here is whether those resources are going to flow through the department or through another agency.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Rick Hess is here.
		He is the Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
		He'll take your questions and your comments about how education works in this country.
		Start dialing in now.
		If you're a parent or a student, 202-748-8000.
		Educators and administrators, your line this morning is 202-748-8001.
		All others can call in at 202-748-8002.
		And of course, you can text if you don't want to call, include your first name, city, and state at 202-748-8003.
		Rick Hess, is Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Education and the President, moving to completely abolish the Education Department, or would that take an act of Congress?
frederick hess ▲ ● ▼		To abolish it would take an act of Congress.
		Congress created the Department of Education under President Jimmy Carter in 79.
		As you noted, it opened in 1980.
		Only Congress can dismantle an agency that Congress has created.
		But what we're seeing here is something that I think even many of us who have been highly critical of the Department of Ed and who have hoped to see it downsize, this is much further than I think we thought they would be able to go without congressional action.
		It's important to understand Republicans have been trying to eliminate or radically downsize the Department of Education for 45 years, partly because there's concerns that it tends to create bloat, that it has generated lots of red tape for schools and for colleges.
		And there's a real frustration that it has often seemed to serve as a one-stop shop for Democratic interest groups, particularly the teacher unions.
		But you'll notice from 1980 through President Trump's first term, there was never any real movement on trying to shut down the department.
		So a lot of folks are wondering: well, what's different this time?
		Why, after 40 plus years, are they suddenly so intent on it?
		And I think one way to understand this is that the experience over the last four years under President Biden and during the pandemic, in many ways, was a breaking point for a lot of Republicans.
		The Department of Education played a role in helping the National School Board Association sick the FBI on parents who were worried about school curricula.
		It offered, it turned out, backdoor access to the teacher unions to delay school reopening.
		There was a highly controversial effort to spend a half trillion dollars on loan forgiveness, transferring money from taxpayers to borrowers.
		One way to understand a lot of what this is about is it's really an effort to make the department so small and so weak that it can no longer serve as a source of that kind of mischief.
		And so if you're trying to say, what are the Republicans really doing?
		That's a lot of it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Rachel Goodeman, who is the head of a union representing Education Department Workers, said this in USA Today, breaking apart the Department of Education and moving its responsibilities elsewhere will only create more confusion for schools and colleges, deepen public distrust, and ultimately harm students and families.
		Let's get to calls.
		Nick in Michigan, an educator.
		Morning, Nick.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hi, Greta.
		Thanks.
		I have 65 years of experience in education, 10 as a student in K-12, and another five in college, and five as a research assistant in graduate school, 40 as a professor in the nation's top public university, and five as a retired professor.
		And the Department of Education did not exist before 1975.
		So for 200 years, the U.S. worked without the Department of Education.
		And after it became a department, and we spend all these billions, do you think students that graduate from our schools are better today than they were before the department?
		Ask that question to yourself.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Nick, I'm going to jump in.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Rick has, how do the U.S. students compare to other countries?
frederick hess ▲ ● ▼		Middling.
		There's two major international assessments, the PISA and the TIMS.
		We tend to score fair to middling on both.
		You know, the question arranges a terrific issue.
		For folks to understand, if the department were abolished, those federal programs, federal student loans, Pell Grants, money for special education, would not go away.
		Most of these programs predated the Department of Education.
		Washington has had an office of education since the 1800s.
		What really changed in 1980 was President Carter moved a lot of these educational programs into one building, and we named it the Department of Education.
		So when we're talking about whether or not you abolish the department, that's actually a different conversation from which educational programs should Washington be involved in or not involved in.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Rhonda, Jersey Shore, a parent, good morning to you.
unidentified		Hi, good morning, Greta.
		You know, I don't understand how the United States Congress is allowing Donald Trump to divert all of our treasury to his personal desires.
		This is all Project 2025.
		They want to take our money, divert it to these private Christian schools and these Catholic schools, which black and brown people aren't being allowed to go.
		They took away food, lunch.
		I don't understand.
		Where is the oversight?
		Where is the oversight over the treasury?
		First of all, Donald Trump should be impeached.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Ron, I'm going to jump in on the education part of this.
		Rick Hess, is their money going to these Christian charter schools that she was talking about?
		And what about her argument here?
unidentified		Sure.
frederick hess ▲ ● ▼		So there's a couple things.
		The school lunch program, as far as I know, has not been affected.
		That's actually run out of the Department of Agriculture.
		So if listeners are wondering, what does this mean for school lunch?
		That's actually not affected by what we're talking about.
		There's no such thing as a Christian charter school.
		There's charter schools in the United States.
		There was a Supreme Court case which ended 4-4.
		Right now, states write laws which require that charter schools be non-sectarian.
		Charter schools are not allowed to have a religious component at this point in time that may change going forward.
		There are obviously voucher and education savings accounts programs in which states allow parents, kind of like you would with a Pell Grant voucher or a Section 8 housing voucher, to use state funds to attend private schools of their choice.
		That's not really implicated in anything that we're talking about about this week's news.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Stephanie in Brooklyn, a parent, welcome to the conversation.
unidentified		Yes, yes.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Morning.
unidentified		I'm sorry, concerned because Planck 2025 and part of it is to target minorities and mostly women.
		They're stopping them from getting degrees.
		They're taking away their degrees.
		They don't want us to prosper in America.
		They want us to be subservant to the man.
		They do not want us to work anymore, especially minority black ladies.
		They're taking everything away from us as part of Project 2025.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, that's two calls in a row.
		Rick Hess, that's two calls in a row saying that this move, these moves at the Education Department is outlined in Project 2025.
		Can you respond to that?
frederick hess ▲ ● ▼		Sure, yeah, that's absolutely true.
		Project 2025, for folks who've maybe seen the clickbait and understand exactly what it is, there's a think tank in Washington, D.C. called the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing conservative foundation, excuse me, think tank, that has, you know, was established in the early 1970s.
		Every year since 1980, Heritage has published what they call a mandate for change.
		In 1980, it was hugely influential in shaping the Reagan administration agenda.
		Project Heritage, excuse me, Heritage's 2024 version of this was called Project 2025.
		And it's a collection of a lot of ideas promoted both by conservative scholars at Heritage and elsewhere.
		And one of those objectives, like we've mentioned, has been to do away with the U.S. Department of Education.
		That's been true for 45 years.
		It was true again.
		And so, sure.
		But it's not so much, I would suggest, that there's anything conspiratorial about Project 2025 being responsible.
		Project 2025 was kind of like a group chat of a whole bunch of what a bunch of conservative advocates had been hoping to see on education.
		And because of the nature of this administration and because of what unfolded the last four years, efforts to dismantle the department have moved in a way that simply never happened before.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Elijah is an Upper Marlborough, Maryland Democratic parent.
		Excuse me.
		Parent, Elijah.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		And first and foremost, just to comment on the notion that Project 2025 with some sort of group chat is just patently irresponsible to say.
		We know that there was actual documentation and that the administration has shown in very clear ways that they intend on carrying out a large portion of that policy or that documentation that's been put in place.
		But let me just pivot real quick to the education department.
		You sound like a very rational person.
		Disassembling the education department and placing it throughout different bodies of the government, or let's just say within the executive branch, to me sounds insane, right?
		I mean, that is going to cause more confusion than what it's already causing right now.
		You don't go into a department and just simply do away with it because you don't like how it's functioning.
		Go in, reform it, and, you know, kind of move forward that way.
		But to go in to wholesale, change it and take pieces out and put it in different areas is going to cause way more confusion than it's already causing right now.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Let's take your point.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Rick Hess.
frederick hess ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so first off, if I misspoke, when I said group chat, I meant kind of crowdsourced the Project Fund Cover.
		It's absolutely a real document.
		It's hundreds of pages long, and it absolutely does have a blueprint on a whole series of policy areas, including education.
		What I meant by group chat was that it's, you know, it's essentially a compilation of what a lot of different right-leaning advocates have urged on education.
		I mean, I think the caller's question is a good one about if your concern is that the federal government creates issues with the amount of red tape that surrounds these federal grants, that it has all kinds of really frustrating reporting requirements for school district colleges, things like time and effort reporting requirements and supplement,
		not supplant strictures that if you spend time with superintendents or college presidents can make their lives difficult when it comes to spending federal funds.
		These are real things.
		And it's absolutely a fair question to say, should we address these more effectively by scraping the rules, by taking a hard look at what's not working, by reforming these programs?
		Is that a better strategy than moving them to other agencies?
		Hopefully they will do both.
		I think there is a plausible argument for moving them to these other agencies.
		When you're dealing with workforce issues, for instance, it's good to have both workforce support and career and technical education potentially handled by the same folks.
		But at the same time, the caller's not wrong that this can actually start to create confusion or headaches of its own.
		Either way, though, all of those rules and regulations that Secretary McMahon alluded to in your clip, they don't go away just because this stuff moves from the Department of Education somewhere else.
		There is still a need for this administration or any future administration to take a hard look at how all these rules and requirements may be making it harder for educators in K-12 or higher ed to spend money effectively to run programs effectively.
		And that work needs to be done wherever at whatever agency these programs sit.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Laura, Cleveland, Ohio, good morning to you, Laura.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		I have a question about how would moving the Department of Education to the labor department will affect the curriculum of our children.
		You know, what they will be taught, what the teachers will be able to teach about history.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Laura, we'll take your question and your concern.
frederick hess ▲ ● ▼		It's a great question.
		And here's where a lot of this, again, on both sides, are responsible for sowing a lot of confusion.
		Gret, as you mentioned, in January, when it was at full, the Department of Ed had 4,000 employees.
		None of those 4,000 are teachers.
		None of those 4,000 are professors.
		None of them are superintendents or curriculum developers.
		The Department of Education is mostly in charge of moving money around.
		Student loans, Pell Grants, money for children with special needs, and so forth.
		So there is actually federal law that says the Department of Education is not allowed to write a curriculum or require school districts or colleges to use particular curriculum.
		That's actually been an issue earlier in the year with some of the administration's efforts around higher education reform.
		So nothing should change in terms of your children's curriculum.
		The questioner does raise an issue.
		For instance, one of the programs getting moved to the Department of Labor is the federal charter schools program.
		It is very fair to ask, as some of the questioners have, why we suspect that the charter schools program is going to be better supported and better run at the Department of Labor than it was at the Department of Education.
		This is not a question of curriculum, but it is a question of, you know, Secretary McMahon's team is a job to do of making sure that these things work as promised and of explaining to American voters and taxpayers how they can be confident this is working like the way they've promised.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Susan Gaithersberg, Marilyn.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Sue.
unidentified		Hi.
		I wanted to make a point about: does your guest remember we used to have a department of HEW, Health, Education, and Welfare?
		And as a campaign promise by Jimmy Carter to the teachers union, the NEA, which stands for the National Extortion Agency, he promised to move the education over because the Teachers Union had supported his campaign.
		It was a campaign promise.
		And since then, education quality has gone way down.
		And if you don't believe me, go to any high school that is graduating students with a high school diploma, and then they go to a junior college and have to take remedial English, remedial math, remedial reading.
		So what we need to do is end the Department of Education, get rid of the influence of the NEA, and then maybe kids can start learning again and not be beholden to a private political organization that only supports Democrats.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Ricketts?
frederick hess ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, the caller makes it.
		So it is absolutely true that what happened was when President Carter was running for president in 1976, in order to get the first ever endorsement from the teachers union, the National Education Association, he said, I'm going to create you a Department of Education.
		There was a lot of opposition, a lot of questions about how this would work, but Congress passed it in 79.
		And the caller's exactly right.
		What had been the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, education programs, some of them were left behind, like Head Start.
		Some of them were moved over.
		Some other programs were pulled over from random other parts of the government, like State Department and Interior.
		So, in some ways, what you're doing is you're reassembling agencies the way they used to run.
		And there's reasonable arguments about whether it makes more sense for, say, education for Native American students on reservations to be handled at the Department of Interior by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
		These are reasonable questions.
		You know, if this were a commercial era, we'd probably be talking about this with less vitriol.
		As far as American student achievement, I would say the caller's got it part right and part wrong.
		If you look at academic achievement today in the U.S., it is a debacle.
		Our students have been losing ground for over a decade, well before the pandemic.
		If you look at the National Assessment of Educational Progress in Reading and Math, it's absolutely true.
		There's just horror stories when you look at what's going on in college in terms of declining expectations, falling workloads, real questions about student preparation and performance.
		But you will hear folks tell simple stories about the role of the Department of Ed.
		The truth is, we saw remarkable gains in this country from 1992 to 2012.
		20 years of gains in which our students, especially low-income and low-performing students, had outsized gains.
		And since 2012, we have seen across Democratic and Republican presidential administrations, a 12-13-year steady decline.
		This does not map onto the history of the Department of Education.
		It maps onto some other trends we could might want to talk about, like social media and cell phones.
		But I think it's important that we not romanticize the Department of Education, either the notion that it's really important for us to serve kids well, or to imagine that, well, I think the Department of Education is problematic and has generated too much red tape and has too often been too political, especially the last four years.
		I think it's a big mistake to imagine that just getting rid of the Department of Ed is going to make a big difference in the lives of children or families.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Rick Hess, we are all out of time.
		The Director and Senior Fellow for Education Policy at the American Enterprise Institute.
		Thank you for the conversation.
frederick hess ▲ ● ▼		Good to be with you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll take a break.
		When we come back, we'll be joined by Washington State Democrat Emily Randall to discuss congressional news of the day.
		Stay with us.
unidentified		Friday, on C-SPAN's Ceasefire, at a time when finding common ground matters most in Washington, Florida Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz and Tennessee Republican Congressman Tim Burchett come together for a bipartisan dialogue on the Epstein files, healthcare, and top issues facing the country.
		They join host Dasha Burns.
		Bridging the Divide in American Politics.
		Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
		Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold, 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.
david rubenstein ▲ ● ▼		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 is great, but you know, you know, the dry turque in Thanksgiving is unnegotiable.
		It's always dry.
		But yeah, turk is hard so dry.
		That's why gravy exists.
		Watch America's Book Club with Jose Andres Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
		Washington Journal continues.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Joining us from Capitol Hill this morning, Congresswoman Emily Randall, Democrat of Washington State, serves as a member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee as well as on the Natural Resources Committee.
		Congresswoman, let's begin with that first committee assignment, oversight and government reform.
		This is the committee that has been overseeing the investigation into the Epstein files.
		You voted for the release of those files.
		President Trump has signed it into law.
		Calls on the Justice Department to release the files within 30 days.
		What do you expect to happen next?
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		Well, the one thing that you didn't mention was that the President and the Justice Department have also opened a new investigation, which per the language in the Massey Cana bill that was just signed, allows some redaction and withholding of documents that are related and that are in the Epstein files.
		Importantly, the subpoena that was issued by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, spearheaded by Summer Lee, doesn't include that same language.
		So the Justice Department and the Trump administration are obligated to release the full set of files to the committee.
		Now, they have been since we issued that subpoena, and they have not released the full set of files.
		So they are in violation of the subpoena, the subpoena that Chair Comer is not enforcing currently.
		So I guess I'll say we're taking a few steps forward, but it doesn't yet feel like the Trump administration is participating and fulfilling the requirements of the subpoena and this bill in the way that they're meant to.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		You referenced Republican James Comer, the chair of the oversight committee.
		Walk our viewers through the investigation thus far by the panel.
		What has been happening?
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		So, Representative Summer Lee, a Democrat on the committee, introduced a subpoena in the subcommittee on law enforcement right before the government shut down.
		After we had voted on the continuing resolution when Republicans had, many of them had gone home.
		They had the votes in that subcommittee to pass her subpoena.
		I think it came as a surprise to the Republicans on the committee.
		And so we have begun to see a release of files.
		The first release of files from the Justice Department were files that had already been disclosed to the public.
		We've seen subsequent releases of files from the Epstein estate of previously unseen information.
		But the Justice Department does owe the committee further files that they have not yet released.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Up until the Congresswoman's subpoena, what had the committee done and seen of the Epstein files?
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		During this Congress, you know, I was sworn in in January.
		It hadn't been a big subject of the committee in bipartisan committee investigation.
		I will say the Democrats had been pushing and the Republican, the majority of the Republicans were not interested in engaging.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What documents have you been able to see and how as a member of Congress on this committee do you go about reading?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		I imagine it's thousands of pages.
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes.
		It's a significant tranche of documents that we receive at a time.
		The committee staff begins the review and I'll point out that Republican staff and Democratic staff are allowed access to it as our members, but the Republicans have double the number of staff as Democrats do because they're in the majority.
		So our staff is working diligently and overtime to ensure that they read through all the documents, each one piece by piece.
		And because Democrats made this promise to the survivors, we are redacting information before we release to the public.
		The Republicans haven't done the same thing.
		They have been releasing completely unredacted documents.
		But it was a promise that we made to the survivors at their request that we redact particular names before releasing files.
		Now, because of a courier tool, most of these documents are also available to the public since the Republicans released from the committee released them all to the public.
		But they didn't do that until the Democrats released three emails at the beginning of the week.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And those emails were about the president?
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		Yes, those emails included references to President Trump, references to him being on the plane, references to him not yet disclosing information about Jeffrey Epstein's activities, emails between Epstein and Ghillen Maxwell.
		You know, it opened the floodgates.
		And at that point, President Trump had been bringing in Republican members who had signed the discharge petition to release all the documents to the public.
		He had been bringing them into the White House, Lauren Boebert, other women, Nancy Mace, Marjorie Taylor Greene, to try and pressure them to remove their names from the discharge petition before Adelita Grajalva was sworn in and signed and signed the discharge petition to allow this full release of the files.
		At that point, the president changed his tune.
		He said, oh, he told the Republicans to vote for it.
		He told the Republicans to release it.
		I think the writing was on the wall that the public would no longer be behind him in withholding this information from the public.
		So now it's our job to make sure, to make sure that the DOJ complies with our subpoena and the committee and complies with the language in this bill, bipartisan, unanimous bill, to release all the files to the public.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		When did Democrats discover those three emails that reference President Trump?
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		So we had gotten the release of a huge document dump like three or four days before those three emails were released.
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		I don't know if it was morning or the day before that those documents were uncovered, but within those four days.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And what was the strategy behind releasing those three specific emails and not emails about Democrats, Larry Summers, for example, or others?
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think the strategy was to inspire the Republicans to release all of the documents and to change their tune and to ensure that we were able to get the support of, you know, the entire chamber but one member to fully release these files.
		You know, the Republicans didn't release information before that.
		They were withholding the information.
		You know, I'd say the subpoena language only required the documents to be released to the committee.
		And without Democrats taking the first step, I don't know that we would have seen the same release and the same change of tune from the White House.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We are talking with Congresswoman Emily Randall, Democrat of Washington State.
		She is here to take your comments and your questions about the latest from Capitol Hill.
		Democrats dial in at 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Congresswoman, we'll go to Mason first, who's in Dayton, Ohio.
		Democratic caller.
		Good morning, Mason.
unidentified		Thank you so much for taking my call.
		Let me applaud you and your efforts in getting these released, supporting the women who have gone through such horrific things.
		My concern is this.
		I saw a video yesterday and it was of a DOJ official who didn't know he was being recorded.
		And he was saying that in the effort to keep Republicans out of harm's way, they were going to ensure that anybody's name that was a Republican or Republican donor would be redacted and they would leave only the Democrats' names available.
		I don't care who you are, whether it's Democrat or Republican.
		We need to know who these folks are.
		And we need to take accountability, have them take accountability, meaning through the law, through getting them in prison, because that's where they belong for sex trafficking these little girls.
		It's disappointing that the one person that's been named and held accountable is in England.
		And the only thing that happened to him is he's no longer called Prince.
		That's ridiculous.
		Like women deserve better than that.
		And they deserve better than Trump because Trump could have released these on day one like he did with the JFK and MLK records.
		And he chose not to.
		So in my mind, they've got something going on in the background that's going to ensure that they cover, let me say, CYA, if I don't put it any other way.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Mason.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman.
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, thank you.
		I mean, this is, I hadn't seen that video yet, but this is exactly what I was mentioning the committee was fearing.
		I feared that they would use tools to redact and withhold information from the public, whether it's an investigation, whether it's choosing whose names to blackout, and in our case being survivors, in their case being Democrats.
		I think Larry Summers deserved to have accountability.
		I think the former Prince Andrews deserve to have accountability.
		I think anyone who participated in these horrific crimes, anyone who participated in the trafficking and abuse of girls and women deserves to be held accountable.
		I don't care what your partisan ideology is.
		And the people deserve to know what happened.
		I hear this from the survivors of the Epstein trafficking ring, but I also hear it from survivors of trafficking and sexual assault across the country from other means.
		All survivors are watching and all survivors are taking a message from how Congress deal, Congress and the president deals with this particular case of trafficking and assault.
		Are they hiding behind their power or are they taking accountability?
		And that will be a message that America learns from how we deal with this situation.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman, you've read these documents, so how would you characterize the people, the names that folks might recognize that you've seen in these documents?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		How would you characterize them?
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think there are a lot of people in power or close to power involved in these crimes who are in relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
		And what I see is that powerful people have continued to act with impunity.
		They have considered themselves above the law.
		They have done whatever they wanted and used girls and women as collateral.
		And it's appalling.
		It's disgusting.
		It's horrifying.
		I don't know, fill in the blank.
		I, as a woman who listens to the stories of survivors, who listens to the stories of my friends who have been mistreated at the very low end of the spectrum by powerful men in their lives, by powerful people in their lives.
		We need to see accountability.
		We need to hold these people to account.
		Otherwise, we will continue to see power corrupt and we will continue to see the exploitation of girls and women.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Do you think the investigation by the committee or the release by the Justice Department will unveil all the names that you are alluding to?
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		I mean, that is the committee's charge.
		We are continuing to strategize as Democratic members of the committee.
		We are continuing to work across the aisle wherever possible.
		You know, unlikely partners have arisen.
		Just a few days ago, the Democratic Women's Caucus met with many of their survivors.
		And while a change in schedule didn't allow the Republican Women's Caucus to meet with the survivors as they had planned, many of the Republican women joined our meeting.
		We are standing together to bring these perpetrators, these crimes to light.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Tom in El Paso, Texas, a Republican.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Tom, good morning to you.
unidentified		Hi.
		I have a question.
		I have three points.
		It's the parents.
		What parent would let their daughter get on an airplane to go to an island with a 50-year-old man?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Tom, in your next comment?
unidentified		What about LULAC?
		There's a thing called LULAC.
		It's the League of Latin American Citizens.
		Why in the world did they pass a law here in El Paso where it's illegal for the administrators of the school to ask the kids if they're citizens?
		All our schools, all they want is the free lunch.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Tom, I'll jump in because we've got more calls waiting.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman?
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		You know, certainly in some cases, parents may have known what was happening.
		But I want to underscore the fact that not every young girl or woman has parents involved in their life.
		Not every young girl or woman has a healthy and stable family.
		Not every young girl, and I will say also, there were also boys involved in this.
		It's not just girls and women, though we often are talking about them.
		Not every child has a supportive family to go to to tell about what is happening in their life.
unidentified		And that is sad.
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		It's very, very sad that these girls were put in the position to be taken advantage of in this way, to be assaulted in this way, to be trafficked in this way.
		Absolutely.
		And I don't know what to say except for I agree with you that that is heartbreaking and not every parent knew.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Chris next.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Baltimore, Democratic caller.
unidentified		LeClaw.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Chris in Baltimore.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Good morning to you.
unidentified		Hi, good morning, guys.
		Thank you so much for taking my call.
		My thing is, did the Republicans need Democrats to pass the big ugly bill?
		I don't recall that because the government was shut down.
		They're on vacation on Al Dam and Tan, taxpayers, because they needed five Democrats in order to open up the government again.
		I don't know how they're able to get away with this.
		So my question is, did they need the Democrats to pass the big ugly bill or did they just pass it?
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		In the House, we didn't need to have Democratic votes for HR1.
unidentified		In the Senate.
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		It was the reconciliation process.
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		So they did not need the same threshold.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Mary, Palm Desert, California, Republican.
unidentified		Oh, good morning.
		Thank you for having my call.
		So I lived in Washington State for 30 years.
		My three children, all girls, were born there.
		And I worked there as a registered nurse for 30 of my 40 years.
		Daughter was assaulted, one, by her boyfriend, had to move her home, take care of her, get her a new job.
		So I get it.
		I got two points to make.
		Jeffrey Epstein casted a wide net up in Upper Manhattan.
		He knew all kinds of Democrats, especially he funded all kinds of buildings, hospital wings, etc.
		So I see Gloria Allred this week with one of the victims.
		She went to shutters to go meet with him in a hotel room for a lingerie shooting for Playboy or Victoria's Secret.
		And by the way, I'd like to know what Mr. Wexman has to do with all this files.
		And, you know, when Crockett from Texas comes out and starts naming people who knew some Jeffrey Epstein, you don't think this is going to cause so much trouble when all these people are being accused of just knowing this man.
sheila cherfilus-mccormick ▲ ● ▼		Okay?
unidentified		So please understand what you're doing right now.
unidentified		You're opening up a huge hornet's nest.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's talk about that, Mary.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Emily Randall, Congresswoman, how are, if at all, Democrats being careful about what names are released?
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		You know, we, I believe, and I believe that my constituents believe that everyone who was involved in this behavior, in this trafficking, in these crimes, in the assault of girls and women needs to be held accountable.
		Now, do people deserve due process?
		Absolutely.
		Absolutely, people deserve due process.
		And it's not our job to continue to hide the names of people because they're powerful.
		It's not our job to shelter people from the impact of their behavior and their participation.
		I think the files need to be disclosed.
		And then folks who participated in criminal activity, who are responsible for criminal activity, will have their day in court.
		But it is because we have kept this information quiet.
		It is because people in power have been sheltered from accountability that this kind of behavior was allowed to continue for so long.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman, on another topic, President Trump's called six Democratic lawmakers' behavior seditious when they released an ad saying that military officials can refuse illegal orders.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What do you make of the argument that those six Democratic lawmakers caused, are soliciting chaos by telling them they don't have to listen to the commander-in-chief?
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		You know what I think is encouraging chaos and violence is the commander-in-chief sharing tweets about requesting that these lawmakers be hung and put to death.
		It is not sedition to say that you should uphold the oath that you made to our Constitution.
		It is not sedition to remind our troops that they owe their loyalty to the Constitution of the United States.
		And in fact, as I've talked to many veterans and many active duty troops, they say we have regular training about the importance of our duty to uphold the Constitution.
		What my colleagues, veterans and former security officers have said is the truth.
		It is the truth that our military owes their loyalty to the Constitution of the United States.
		So too did Donald Trump swear an oath to the Constitution, just like all of us swore an oath to the Constitution.
		And what we have seen is our separation of powers be dissolved.
		What we have seen is over and over challenges to our Constitution and our democracy.
		And none of my colleagues were calling for anything other than our troops to remember the integrity of their oath and to uphold the oath that they swore to protect and defend our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Timbo next in Mountain Home, Arkansas.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Democratic caller.
unidentified		Thank you for your service, Ms. Randall.
unidentified		I just want to ask you a question.
william in arkansas ▲ ● ▼		I've heard Trump's name mentioned a thousand times in the Epstein files.
unidentified		Is that true or is that fake news?
unidentified		And by the way, F. Trump.
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		The president's name comes up many, times in the Epstein files.
		That's true.
		It's not fake news.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		You're basing that off of the documents that you have read, Congresswoman.
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		That we have received so far, yeah.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And are those many, many times released to the public?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Can the public find those times?
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		You can go onto the tool.
		I think it's Courier that has the searchable tool and Control-F and see.
		I don't know if it's exactly a thousand, but it's there.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Cheryl's in Pleasant Plain, Ohio, Republican caller.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I have one question and one statement.
		My first question is, why was there no effort made to disclose all of this information during the Biden administration?
		My statement is I do not think our military servicemen and women need an infomarsha remind them of their oaths.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Cheryl, we'll take those two points.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman.
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		Well, let me start by saying I've seen a lot of infomarshals from the Trump administration and Secretary Christine Noam over this first year in Congress.
		So I think it's our job to be messengers for the rule of law, for the will of the people, and for our Constitution.
		And that's what I think my colleagues were doing.
		As to why there were no efforts to disclose the files in previous administrations, I've only been in Congress since January, so I can't speak from active experience here in this body, but I can say that Ghelane Maxwell had an ongoing appeal during the Biden administration.
		But I do think that there are real questions to be leveled against both the former Trump administration and the Biden administration Department of Justice as to why they did not release any of the files sooner.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Why do you base that last, what do you base that last statement on?
emily randall ▲ ● ▼		I mean, look, we have seen in the first few names, we mentioned Larry Summers earlier, there are Democrats who were included.
		I'm sure that there are other former elected officials who will come to light, other people in power that have written campaign checks to both sides.
		I think it's a fair question that many of my constituents, Democrat, Republican, Independent, have asked.
		Why didn't we do this sooner?

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