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Breaking Bread with Jewish Members
00:06:30
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unidentified
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Articles 90 and 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice make arrangements for military members to disobey unlawful orders. | |
| And an unlawful order is any law order that is not in line with the Constitution of the United States. | ||
| We swear an oath. | ||
| And that's all we have for Washington Journal today. | ||
| Another edition comes to you tomorrow at 7 a.m. | ||
| Stay tuned. | ||
| Ceasefire is next. | ||
| Welcome to Ceasefire, where we seek to bridge the divide in American politics. | ||
| I'm Dasha Burns, Politico White House Bureau Chief. | ||
| And joining me now on either side of the desk, two guests who have agreed to keep the conversation civil, even when they disagree. | ||
| Florida Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz and Tennessee Republican Congressman Tim Burchett. | ||
| Thank you both so much for joining me today. | ||
|
unidentified
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I didn't agree to that. | |
| You did. | ||
| He made some promises. | ||
| You didn't sign anything? | ||
| I got like a whole documentary. | ||
| I think I saw you guys pinky swear before that. | ||
| Ceasefire was written all by Trump, of course, in the ninth war that he settled this. | ||
| So let our viewers in on the behind the scenes here. | ||
| We've already had quite a rowdy, raucous introduction this morning. | ||
| I want to start with that. | ||
| You two have a friendship behind the scenes here. | ||
| How did this friendship come to be? | ||
| We're going public with it. | ||
|
unidentified
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I guess. | |
| Okay. | ||
| Tim and I met, you know, just on the floor through mutual friends. | ||
| And Tim's someone who, even when he disagrees, vehemently disagrees, Tim makes friends across the aisle with everyone. | ||
| Tim's got a lot of friends. | ||
| In fact, I would argue Tim probably has more friends across the aisle than anyone, anyone else. | ||
| Well, yeah, he's been here longer. | ||
| So because of longevity. | ||
| No, but I think that's the point, which is you can disagree without being disagreeable. | ||
| You could still ask, how's your family? | ||
| You could still ask, how are the kids? | ||
| You could still go up to a member who you know who's battling something and say, hey, how's it going? | ||
| And that's what Tim does. | ||
| And that's how we met. | ||
| Tim? | ||
| Just like Jared. | ||
| He's my guy. | ||
| We don't agree probably on anything much politically, but we were friends. | ||
| And, you know, I remember when that Jewish couple was assassinated, a young couple in Washington, that was a wake-up call. | ||
| And I went to our leadership and I said, we need to make sure that especially our Jewish members are protected. | ||
| And a lot of the Jewish members reached out to me across the aisle, but Jared and I had been buddies. | ||
| And after Charlie Kirk got shot, first person to say anything to me about it, Jared Moskles. | ||
| He asked me how I was doing and if I was being safe. | ||
| And, you know, he's my buddy. | ||
| We've been friends since he got to Congress. | ||
| And he actually took me to lunch one day. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Breaking bread with the other side. | ||
| You know, I'm from Tennessee. | ||
| Back when I was in the legislature, we always reached across the aisle. | ||
| I mean, it raised the speed limit with Steve Cohen. | ||
| And I dare say we probably don't agree on anything. | ||
| But, you know, he called my mama when my dad died. | ||
| So we've been friends ever since we were in the legislature. | ||
| And Jared's no different. | ||
| We talk, we call each other. | ||
| And, you know, he was my Santa Claus. | ||
| Yeah, I want to put a little something up on the screen and have you guys explain this to me. | ||
| By the way, that's, I'm not the baby. | ||
| That's not the baby, was that? | ||
|
unidentified
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Was that? | |
| Oh, that's Luna's. | ||
| Is that baby Andrew? | ||
| It's Luna's baby. | ||
| That's quite a beard you got there. | ||
| Yeah, and see, you got the, what are the candles called behind it? | ||
| That's a menorah table. | ||
| Menorah, yeah. | ||
| That's a menorah. | ||
| Yeah, I'm sorry. | ||
| There's only one way to spell it. | ||
| Yeah, but he, you know, and Jared is Jewish, and I've tried to be a Christian. | ||
| And I remember I was on some TV, national TV show. | ||
| It was CNN, actually. | ||
| Yeah, and they said, don't you realize that Jared is Jewish? | ||
| And I said, hey, my dadgum Savior is Jewish. | ||
| Why can't my Santa Claus be Jewish? | ||
| Yeah, I found out I was Santa Claus at Tim's 15-minute Christmas party through CNN. | ||
| That brings me to my next question. | ||
| He walked down the hall with two dadgum poodles like they were reindeer. | ||
| And they're not my poodles. | ||
| And they're not who's, what's his name? | ||
| Marcelo, Marcelo. | ||
|
unidentified
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Marcelo. | |
| Who's Beard? | ||
| There are a lot of questions. | ||
| Yes, ma'am. | ||
| But he went all out. | ||
| Poodles and beard in the same conversation. | ||
| He went all out, and it was, I have a 15-minute Christmas party. | ||
| Yeah, those are famous. | ||
| Tell us about those. | ||
| Well, you go to a Christmas party, and what happens? | ||
| You sit there for three hours, or maybe a Hanukkah party, I don't know. | ||
| And you're sitting there in the corner. | ||
| We have those, by the way. | ||
| I'm sure you do. | ||
| And so somebody corners you, somebody with wine breath, and you got to sit there and listen to them for 30 or 45 minutes. | ||
| And I'm thinking, you know, after 15 minutes, you've already got all the conversation needs. | ||
| So I said, we're going to do a dadgum 15-minute Christmas party. | ||
| And then, but last year, we would have 14 because we thought it dragged on too long. | ||
| 15 minutes. | ||
| It's like the old days of the day. | ||
| Did you wear this in a costume for 15 minutes? | ||
| 100%. | ||
| And I took it super seriously. | ||
| Oh, because he posed with pictures. | ||
| He sat down. | ||
| People sat on his lap. | ||
| I asked him what they wanted for Christmas. | ||
| Like, if you're going to come and make me Santa, like, I'm going to go all out. | ||
| That's a huge responsibility. | ||
|
unidentified
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100%. | |
| So Spiegelberg called me afterwards and said, Can we have the film rights? | ||
| And I said, That was your podiatrist Spielberg. | ||
| Different. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, anyway. | ||
| But no, no, like Tim had kids there. | ||
| So these kids are coming up and they're saying, you know, I want a train for Christmas. | ||
| And so then, like, I'm like, 100%. | ||
|
unidentified
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If you're a good boy, you know, you'll be Congressman Santa. | |
| You will. | ||
| And then I'm going, like, you know, secretly finding the parents, be like, you know, you know, he wants a train. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, so I think, look, I think a lot of Americans are watching this right now and are thinking, this is not the typical representation of Congress. | ||
| Most people look at Washington and see people fighting. | ||
| Do you think this kind of relationship across the aisle is rare or is it more common than people realize? | ||
| Well, I think there are a lot of relationships, not as many as there used to be. | ||
| But I still think there are a lot of relationships. | ||
| The problem is there's no incentive. | ||
|
Johnson Beats Thune
00:15:27
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| There are not shows like this, right, that are incentivizing that relationship. | ||
| The incentive on social media, the incentive on TV is only to fight. | ||
| It isn't to find common ground. | ||
| And by the way, you can fight and still be friendly, but that incentive system, you know, then you're not a fighter, then you're giving up your principles. | ||
| Remember, if you call the other side in the enemy or a traitor, how could you have friends? | ||
| And so, you know, look, we've done this to ourselves because we have played along with the negative incentive system. | ||
| He's an attorney, thinks he's getting paid by the word here, but I'll just make it a lot easier. | ||
| Everybody's just selling memberships, ma'am. | ||
| What do you mean by that? | ||
| If blacks and whites are fighting, Jews and Christians are fighting, and Muslims are all fighting, then it just keeps the whole leadership in power. | ||
| And they're all sitting there laughing at us, and they're still getting their checks. | ||
| And we're beating the crap out of each other. | ||
| For the record, that was as many words as I said. | ||
| Well, we'll do a count and fact check afterwards. | ||
| One kind of rare moment of bipartisanship did happen this week over the Epstein files, almost unanimous in the House sale through the Senate. | ||
| President Trump did give it his blessing after months of trying to quash the whole thing. | ||
| My colleagues at Politico are writing about this sort of disagreement between Thune and Johnson on this because Johnson wanted some amendments to this bill. | ||
| But Thune said Tuesday evening that while he talked with the speaker about the bill, he and the Senate GOP Council decided the legislation was sufficient. | ||
| Here is Thune earlier this week. | ||
|
unidentified
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Any reaction to Leader Thune seeing the bill without adding amendments or changing it? | |
| I am deeply disappointed in this outcome. | ||
|
unidentified
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I think I'm told, I've been at the state dinner. | |
| I don't know. | ||
| I was just told that Chuck Schumer rushed it to the floor and put it out there preemptively. | ||
| It needed amendments. | ||
| I just spoke to the president about that. | ||
| We'll see what happens. | ||
| That was Speaker Johnson there, of course. | ||
| Why this reaction from Johnson, do you think? | ||
| He's a constitutional lawyer, and they don't always speak the common man's language, and I'm the common man. | ||
| And I think we've had plenty of time to deal with this, and the time to deal with it was before yesterday. | ||
| And now where we're at. | ||
| It needs to get to the president, and they need to release the files. | ||
| Do you think the speaker mishandled this? | ||
| I think the speaker did it as he is constitutionally bound to do. | ||
| As I said, he's a constitutional attorney. | ||
| And again, attorneys tend to explain things a little bit too much. | ||
| And I think that's what's happened here. | ||
| And I just think we're where we need to be on it, though. | ||
| The conclusion is there, and America needs to see what's in those files. | ||
| Some lawmakers are concerned that the files aren't actually going to be released. | ||
| I want you to take a listen to Senator Coons. | ||
| My gut hunch is that Attorney General Bondi, having just been ordered on social media by the president to open an investigation into a series of high-profile Democrats, will promptly say, oh, no, no, there's an ongoing investigation. | ||
| We can't disclose any of this. | ||
| And the president will back that up. | ||
| Do you agree? | ||
| Well, first let me say, and I'm not going to beat Tim up too much, because he's been saying what he just said for a while, that we should have gotten this chapter over sooner. | ||
| I mean, let's reverse for a second, right? | ||
| We started with handing out the binders, you know, to Republican influencers, phase one that Pam Bondi did. | ||
| Then it was the list is on my desk. | ||
| Then DOJ said there is no list. | ||
| And then, you know, the president came out and said it was a hoax, went after his own base on that, had a split in MAGA. | ||
| I mean, remember, the people he appointed to, the FBI, both Bongino and Patel, were people who were talking about the Epstein files in the lead up to the election. | ||
| And MAGA is the one who brought this to the forefront. | ||
| We should say that. | ||
| They were the ones pounding the table. | ||
| I mean, is there no bigger example of the deep state other than this Epstein thing? | ||
| And so, look, they mishandled it. | ||
| I mean, the Speaker said this is not a reversal. | ||
| He's reversed, okay, when he got approval from the president. | ||
| Republicans should have gotten this over with sooner. | ||
| I think the fact that they dragged it out brought more attention to it. | ||
| People started asking why. | ||
| When you drag things out like this in Washington, people smell a cover-up. | ||
| And so I think Leader Thune actually did the right thing. | ||
| The idea that Johnson wants us to bounce back and forth the chambers like we're negotiating some complicated piece of legislation, I think Thune did it right. | ||
| It came over, get it out, get it done, get it to the president, release the files, get this out to the American people, get this out to the, you know, justice for the victims, and that way we can move forward here in Washington. | ||
| What do you think about what your friend is saying here about sort of the months-long sockets? | ||
| Every time you delay, the public perceives it to be a cover-up. | ||
| Case in point, John F. Kennedy assassination. | ||
| I'm 61 years old. | ||
| It happened before I was born. | ||
| We had a hearing a couple of weeks ago, a few weeks back, I should say, and information came out that solidified the point that there were two shooters, and yet no one covered it 62 years later. | ||
| And that's exactly anytime you delay, there is a cover-up. | ||
| And that's in that, and perceived or not. There's been a pretty public breakup between the president and some members of Congress over Epstein and her name is Marjorie Taylor Greene. | ||
| Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. | ||
| Take a listen to what she had to say earlier this week. | ||
| I was called a traitor by a man that I fought for five, no, actually six years for. | ||
| And I gave him my loyalty for free. | ||
| I won my first election without his endorsement, beating eight men in a primary. | ||
| And I've never owed him anything, but I fought for him for the policies and for America first. | ||
| And he called me a traitor for standing with these women and refusing to take my name off the discharge petition. | ||
| Let me tell you what a traitor is. | ||
| A traitor is an American that serves foreign countries and themselves. | ||
| A patriot is an American that serves the United States of America and Americans like the women standing behind me. | ||
| Congressman Burchett, what do you think about this breakup? | ||
| What's going on here? | ||
| You see that a lot in politics. | ||
| You also see people kissing makeup. | ||
| I don't know that those two will ever. | ||
| But Marjorie, she's been an independent person since she got here, and President Trump obviously speaks his mind. | ||
| And they're in a complete disagreement right now. | ||
| Is this about Epstein or is there something broader about this relationship that's in the world? | ||
| This stand is never about what's current. | ||
| So what do you think is this about? | ||
| It's a personality difference that's come a long way. | ||
| She's upset about the perceived control of Israel. | ||
| She's in Trump's embracing of Israel. | ||
| And she's upset over several other things. | ||
| But again, she's independent. | ||
| I mean, do you think it's important to have people like MTG speaking out and speaking there at their own? | ||
| I'm a big believer in the First Amendment until you say something I don't like, ma'am. | ||
| And then I think we need to readdress it. | ||
| No. | ||
| Yeah, she can do whatever she wants to. | ||
| She's independent. | ||
| She has to stand. | ||
| That's the thing people don't understand in this business. | ||
| I hear people say, we need to get somebody up there and beat AOC. | ||
| Well, Dad Gummit, you're not going to beat her up there. | ||
| And she's not going to come down here and beat, come down to Knoxville or East Tennessee and beat me. | ||
| It's just people elect people for their abilities and their beliefs. | ||
| And if they don't like them, then they send them to the retirement line. | ||
| Congressman Oscar is what do you think is going on? | ||
| Well, I mean, I'll just take the president at his word. | ||
| She wanted an endorsement for Senate to run for Senate in Georgia. | ||
| The president refused to endorse her because her poll numbers are abysmal, because she's the most divisive person in Congress. | ||
| She is one of those people who's been lighting the flame, lighting the flame, lighting the flame of division and partisanship. | ||
| She called for a national divorce, a civil war, right? | ||
| And now she's like, oh, how are things so bitter? | ||
| I mean, when I hear her, like, she's shocked that things have gotten so partisan. | ||
| It's like Jeffrey Dahmer telling people to be a vegetarian. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| You know, like it, like, at the end of the day, no, no, she's a big part of why we are where we are. | ||
| Well, apology accepted, but the damage, okay, the damage that she has caused is significant. | ||
| And was she acting then or is she acting now? | ||
| I mean, which one is the real deal? | ||
| Because the idea that all of a sudden she doesn't get an endorsement for Senate and now she has independence from the president and feels like being the number of attack dog. | ||
| And look, Democrats, we're happy to take the in-kind contribution from Marjorie in the fight, but this is not a genuine thing from someone who I think really wants to heal the nation. | ||
| Beyond MTG, are you seeing because I feel like I'm witnessing this as I'm following both the MAGA sort of online ecosystem, but also some of the voters that I met on the campaign trail that I'm talking to. | ||
| There seems to be a bit more dissent within the Republican Party on some of the things that the president is doing. | ||
| You mentioned Israel. | ||
| There's the H-1B visa issue. | ||
| There's obviously Epstein. | ||
| How are you seeing this and navigating it? | ||
| I don't see it as a problem, man. | ||
| I just stay in my lane and I do what I'm supposed to do. | ||
| And I get re-elected. | ||
| Honestly, it's what happens. | ||
| Actually, I've said that's one of the strengths of the Republican Party that I don't see a lot of times. | ||
| The Democrat Party votes in unison. | ||
| And I'll tell you why. | ||
| Because they use the carrot and the stick. | ||
| They reward you with the carrot or they beat you over the head with a stick. | ||
| I would say the president uses some sticks. | ||
| I know that. | ||
| I'm just saying, but you don't see Democrats breaking rank very much. | ||
| You see Republicans because there's an independent vein to it. | ||
| Let's talk about foreign policy, which is an area that the president has spent a lot of time on this week. | ||
| We saw the president hosting Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman at the White House. | ||
| There are a lot of Americans that were upset about this, both because of Jamal Khashoggi, some 9-11 families weren't happy here, especially given the red carpet that was rolled out for him. | ||
| Have you two talked about this meeting and the significance that you're both on the Foreign Affairs Committee? | ||
| Well, yeah, Tim and I go out and have tea and talk about Saudi Arabia. | ||
| Right? | ||
| We both own a minor ownership in an oil well. | ||
| He likes those little sandwiches, you know, on the tea. | ||
| The high tea. | ||
| Yeah, the high tea. | ||
| No, but seriously, I know you will, Tim. | ||
| You know, the president's approach to foreign policy is: I will talk to everyone. | ||
| I will roll out the red carpet for everyone, even if it offends some people. | ||
| Listen, I think what the president is trying to do with Saudi Arabia is a good thing. | ||
| That doesn't erase 9-11. | ||
| It doesn't erase what happened to the journalist. | ||
| And those things should be recognized. | ||
| I think the president minimizing that, I disagree with him on that, which did in the Oval Office. | ||
| But that doesn't mean we shouldn't move forward, right? | ||
| China is a major threat. | ||
| And what we have to talk about in the world, and this is why, you know, on foreign policy, I think pulling back to this isolationist position is very dangerous. | ||
| Because, you know, you could do that if there wasn't another player out there willing to come into the vacuum. | ||
| But everywhere we withdraw, China is coming in, and they're coming in with money and military support. | ||
| And so we have a choice with Saudi Arabia. | ||
| They can be our ally or they're going to go to China. | ||
| And so I think what the president is trying to do there is good. | ||
| I also think the president trying to reshape the Middle East so that it is not a hotbed, trying to have allies trying to isolate Iran, who is making drones for the Russians in the Ukrainian war. | ||
| I mean, there's a lot that runs through the Middle East right now, right? | ||
| And that Saudi Arabia is a huge player with. | ||
| Getting them into the Abraham Accords is a reset for the whole Middle East. | ||
| This is why this show is so special because here you have a Democrat praising Trump's foreign policy and you're sitting here nodding along. | ||
| What do you think about what he's saying? | ||
| Well, let me put it so 95% of the population can understand what Jared just said. | ||
| You're the translator. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Bob Dylan had a song. | ||
| I think he became a Christian for about a week one time. | ||
| And so he sold a lot to us good Christians. | ||
| But he had a song called You Got to Serve Somebody. | ||
| And I think that's the title of it. | ||
| And what he said was, you got to serve somebody. | ||
| It may be the devil or it may be the Lord. | ||
| If you're not serving the Lord, the devil's going to fill that vacuum. | ||
| That's exactly what Jared was saying. | ||
| We have got to be careful about where China and their outreach. | ||
| We've seen them in Central America. | ||
| I mean, they're in Washington, D.C., for goodness sakes. | ||
| They own a lot of things that they shouldn't. | ||
| And so we've got to make sure enemy of my enemy is my friend. | ||
| And in this case, and Aram Accords is a perfect example of that. | ||
| We've got to fill that void because if we don't, China will. | ||
| And they are a willing partner in anybody they think they can put the squeeze on this country. | ||
| The thorn in the president's side has less so been the Middle East. | ||
| More so, it has been Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| He said he would solve that war on day one. | ||
| It's proven to be a huge challenge. | ||
| There is reporting now this week from Axios. | ||
| I have some reporting on this as well, that some momentum, there's momentum in the talks. | ||
| Steve Wickoff, the president's special envoy for peace, has been working with the Russians to craft a deal. | ||
| They're now working on selling that to the Ukrainians. | ||
| A source told me that they're expecting some sort of framework of an agreement as soon as this next couple of weeks here. | ||
| How are you seeing from where you sit this process going? | ||
|
Discussions On Health Care Subsidies
00:15:26
|
||
| Is it appropriate the way that the administration is handling it? | ||
| Do you have concerns? | ||
| First of all, it's not our war. | ||
| Second of all, the president understands the most second powerful thing we have outside of our military is our economic might. | ||
| And I believe that's how we deal with Russia and Ukraine through whatever pressure we have to apply to countries that are wanting to do business with Russia. | ||
| We need to apply that pressure accordingly. | ||
| And I think the president understands that probably better than a lot of people. | ||
| And I think that's the avenues he's going. | ||
| And yeah, it's taken longer than we thought, but I think we're going to get there. | ||
| We used to have a saying in the state legislature: go a little slower, you get there a little faster. | ||
| And I think that's what we're seeing right now. | ||
| It's taken longer than we wanted, but I think we'll get there. | ||
| There's been concern about this idea of rewarding the aggressor, rewarding Russia in this case, given the administration has done a lot of work to get them comfortable with a proposed peace deal and then taking it to Ukraine. | ||
| At the same time, they're trying to get this thing over with, and they feel that this is the best way forward. | ||
| Well, again, that's because it goes back to China, right? | ||
| Because whatever happens here, China's going to take lessons away with Taiwan. | ||
| I mean, we think in terms of quarters, you know, and China thinks in terms of 100 years. | ||
| And so, you know, look, you had a UN Security Council member in Russia go invade a sovereign nation. | ||
| In fact, that's why the UN Security Council set up to try to prevent these sort of things, right? | ||
| So you have another UN Security Council member in China, you know, looking at Taiwan. | ||
| And so this is a world proxy war that's going on in Ukraine. | ||
| It may not have started that way, but it is that way now between China, Russia, Iran, the North Koreans. | ||
| And then obviously you have the U.S. and European nations with Ukraine. | ||
| And so I would love for the war to get over. | ||
| No one believed Trump was going to solve it on day one, just like he hasn't gotten prices down on day one, right? | ||
| But I would love for the war to get over. | ||
| I think, you know, we've got to make sure Ukraine's happy with the solution. | ||
| You know, negotiating first with the Russians and then going to the Ukrainians. | ||
| Usually you get a deal with your allies first, and then you, but let's see what happens. | ||
| I mean, I think the Ukrainians are going to want an Article V-like protection. | ||
| Even if they're not in NATO, they're going to want an Article V-like protection because whatever they agree to, they're going to want to know, like, that's it, right? | ||
| We're not going to wind up in this situation again. | ||
| You're concerned about the way that this administration is going about it, though, or do you think at this point we got to get this thing done with so however they get there is fine? | ||
| Listen, I'm an end result guy, right? | ||
| How the sausage is made is less important to me. | ||
| If Ukraine agrees and Russia agrees, how we got there to me is less important. | ||
| And Trump does stuff, you know, in ways that are not the typical way you do it. | ||
| But some of the results of that have been good. | ||
| No one thought going back to the Abraham Accords, no one thought the way to solve the Middle East would be through economic partnerships. | ||
| That was never tried before. | ||
| And as it turned out, that was the avenue. | ||
| And so, listen, I'm a complete supporter of the Ukrainian people. | ||
| I have voted for all the Ukrainian supplements that have come through Congress. | ||
| Most of that money comes back to the United States anyways because they're buying our weapons. | ||
| But getting the war to an end would be good for the world. | ||
| It would be good for the Ukrainian people and would be good for the United States so long as this is a deal that the Ukrainian people accept. | ||
| There has been some frustration among Republicans, though, that the president has been spending too much time on foreign policy and not enough time on domestic issues like cost of living, like health care, the stuff that arguably helped Democrats win with such large margins in this past off-year election. | ||
| What's your take on that? | ||
| I don't buy that. | ||
| He doesn't sleep. | ||
| He'll call you at 4 o'clock in the morning. | ||
| He'll see me on something and I'll get a message. | ||
| I just don't buy that. | ||
| That's why there's a telephone anywhere he's at. | ||
| He's on the golf course, whatever. | ||
| He's got somebody's ear. | ||
| Somebody's got his ear. | ||
| I just don't buy that argument. | ||
| That's what, you know, we said the same thing about Biden laying on the beach, you know, underneath an umbrella. | ||
| There's somebody there all the time. | ||
| They're talking about world issues, what's going on. | ||
| I've been with the president, walked right through into the Oval Office. | ||
| There's TV screens up on the left, and there's stacks of paper under each one. | ||
| He's reading, he's checking, he's doing everything. | ||
| He can multitask. | ||
| I just don't buy that argument at all. | ||
| Then on health care, I mean. | ||
| Okay, yeah. | ||
| Well, Obamacare. | ||
| You know, yeah. | ||
| You were ready to go with that. | ||
| Oh, my God. | ||
| I didn't even have to ask a question. | ||
| I was just going to say, we've been talking about it, and I'll play with you on your all's thing. | ||
| We've been talking about it. | ||
| Have you two talk? | ||
| Have there been cross-the-aisle conversations? | ||
| We've been talking about health care for 20 years. | ||
| 20 years. | ||
| Ma'am. | ||
| And it's not, you know, here's my argument all along. | ||
| I say, cut the insurance companies out, billion-dollar profits. | ||
| What's wrong with getting the patients and the doctors in the room and letting them talk? | ||
| That's the problem. | ||
| Because Washington, D.C. is greedy. | ||
| You run a $100 bill down the aisle of Congress on a fishing line. | ||
| Half of Congress is going to break their neck trying to get it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What do you think? | |
| Is there hope for bipartisan agreement? | ||
| Back on the economy real quick. | ||
| Let me say, what's weird is Trump is trying to do what we did that failed, which was we were telling everyone the economy was great, by Nomics, the stock market. | ||
| We were telling people that. | ||
| And there's no partisanship at the grocery store. | ||
| They were going in and they were seeing prices at the grocery store up. | ||
| That's one of the biggest problems for Biden. | ||
| Their rent was up. | ||
| And so they weren't buying what we were telling them. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And if you look at the polling, still the only group that thinks the economy is going in the right direction are people that are heavily invested in the stock market. | ||
| And so Trump's out there telling everybody, prices are low, this is low. | ||
| And look, gas is lower. | ||
| He's right on that. | ||
| You'll see it's incredibly low. | ||
| Yeah, gas is lower. | ||
| But in all the other, all the other food, rent, cost of living, power, all up. | ||
| And so telling people it's lower doesn't work. | ||
| We tried that. | ||
| It failed. | ||
| And so if people don't get relief, you know, Republicans will see that at the ballot box. | ||
| You know, on health care, you know, what I would say is I'm not saying Democrats have all the ideas, right? | ||
| And that we know how to solve the problem. | ||
| But I will say to my colleagues across the aisle, they have not put forward a plan in two decades. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And I want to talk about that, too. | ||
| We've got, I mean, Gary Palmer out of Alabama's got a plan. | ||
| The president put something forward. | ||
| The problem is. | ||
| I think he's still in drafts, Tim. | ||
| I'm not arguing with you on that. | ||
| I agree with you. | ||
| Because Washington is gutless, ma'am. | ||
| The K-Street lobbyists come waving the dollars, both parties. | ||
| It's right back in the sewer. | ||
| It's not the swamp. | ||
| It's the sewer. | ||
| And that's the problem. | ||
| But I don't think we're going to get a deal on the subsidies. | ||
| I mean, I think we're going to get through December. | ||
| We're going to go to Christmas. | ||
| And I don't think you're going to see a deal on subsidies. | ||
| What's that going to mean for American people? | ||
| The COVID subsidies, yeah. | ||
| Well, I mean, look, in my district, I got 125,000 people on ACA. | ||
| Florida is one of the largest states for the ACA. | ||
| So for those 125,000 people, whether you like the subsidies, you don't like the subsidies, for those people, their insurance is going up. | ||
| What's it going to mean for people in Tennessee? | ||
| It could go up again, but that makes the case that we need to go back to the table. | ||
| We need to fix it. | ||
| And we need a plan. | ||
| And I'm tired of hearing leadership in both parties say, you know, we don't have a plan. | ||
| Everything goes in committee. | ||
| Ma'am, the committee system is crooked, okay? | ||
| Let me explain something really fast, and this is why. | ||
| Well, Tim and I are friends because he's an optimist. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And I'm not. | ||
| This is not all very popular. | ||
| And I'm not suicidal. | ||
| I don't stand near cliffs. | ||
| And if you find me the 14 bullet holes in the back of my head, I did not commit suicide. | ||
| But the committee system is crooked. | ||
| And the way it's crooked is you look at every bill that's passed, Democrats or Republicans. | ||
| It always has a glowing name, you know, feed the hungry children or whatever. | ||
| But then you look, it's a study committee. | ||
| It's always a study committee. | ||
| So what happens? | ||
| Some bright-eyed legislator comes in and says, I want to pass this bill. | ||
| I want to change the system. | ||
| And probably a good piece of legislation, possibly. | ||
| The staffer that's assigned to it, and committees have up to 50 staffers, okay? | ||
| Or maybe more. | ||
| And that staffer who's been winding and dying, maybe going on a trip, maybe illegal, I don't know, with a lobbyist, whatever. | ||
| They bought him a drink somewhere. | ||
| That's whose committee it goes through. | ||
| And what a chairman do when they get over a committee, they don't fire their entire staff. | ||
| They bring most of them along. | ||
| And that staffer puts it in that person's ear and they say, oh, hey, man, this is a great piece of legislation. | ||
| But we're not going to go pass it like this. | ||
| Oh, but let me give you something you can pass. | ||
| And it's always a study. | ||
| Ma'am, you know that ending scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where they go into that warehouse and they're looking for the ark is in there. | ||
| I don't know if you've seen Raiders of the Lost Ark. | ||
| Okay, at the end. | ||
| That is where all those studies go. | ||
| I've been in Congress eight years. | ||
| I've never seen a dadgum study. | ||
| But every legislative day we pass something, it's always in, if you read deep enough, it's a study because we're not passing anything because the K-Street lobbyists own this town, Democrats and Republicans. | ||
| Yeah, you said just this week. | ||
| I know you got worked up. | ||
| You said just earlier this week, you said this place is crooked as a dog's leg when you were talking about a bipartisan group of lawmakers discussing a bill that would ban members of Congress from engaging in insider trading. | ||
| And everybody wants Nock Pelosi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| I mean, she's made, what is it, an incredible return on her investments, obviously, but she's like number 11 in the top 10. | ||
| It seems like a rule that people should get on. | ||
| You know, that's right. | ||
| It seems like maybe Congress would do what's right, but they're not going to. | ||
| Why not? | ||
| Because they're greedy, and you all let us do it. | ||
| 12% of the population goes to the dadgum polls, and they get re-elected every dadgum time. | ||
| It's crooked. | ||
| Go to the Unusual Wells website, read the top 100. | ||
| I'm not in it. | ||
| I think we're doing some insider trading. | ||
| I think some people have some genuine knowledge and grasp of the economic system. | ||
| Case in point, Jared Moskowitz, he was successful before he got to Congress. | ||
| But these guys get in Congress not worth anything, and they leave worth multi-million dollars. | ||
| Ma'am, we're briefed on stuff before you get it. | ||
| We have people's ears. | ||
| People are doing six, seven hundred trades a year. | ||
| That's not right. | ||
| Do you agree that this should be a common sense piece of legislation? | ||
| So I'm on the legislation, right? | ||
| I currently have a stock portfolio. | ||
| My stock portfolio is managed by an outside company. | ||
| They make trades. | ||
| But I'm happy to comply, right? | ||
| So like in the event this is where the House is going to go, if the Speaker puts it on the floor, I will vote for it and I will divest that of all of my stocks. | ||
| But ma'am, it's not going to happen. | ||
| And I'm going to tell you, it will be. | ||
| Do you think he's right? | ||
| Do you think it's not going to happen? | ||
| I think Tim's right. | ||
| The idea of us getting this past the House, the Senate, and to the President. | ||
| Now, I will agree with Tim that it's not going to happen, but I'll agree for a broader reason, which he said, which is we just don't pass anything. | ||
| So this is just another thing that gets cogged in the wheel, right? | ||
| We are no longer the greatest legislative body in America. | ||
| I mean, we're a wonderful communications body. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't even know about that at the moment, but Tim does, I think, pretty well on communications. | |
| I mean, he's not holding back how he feels. | ||
| Well, and ma'am, that's true. | ||
| I don't. | ||
| But the bill will go to, if it passes, ma'am, it'll be some glowing piece of legislation. | ||
| Go to the Senate. | ||
| And guess what? | ||
| They'll amend it to something else, something a little bigger, a little better that we cannot agree on. | ||
| And then it will die. | ||
| And both sides of the House will say, those old hundred-year-old guys over in the Senate aren't doing anything. | ||
| Then they'll say, those young punks in the House aren't doing anything. | ||
| Because it's a game. | ||
| It's a game. | ||
| And we got to wake up. | ||
| Well, listen, gentlemen, you two have been incredibly candid and civil with me. | ||
| Are you coming to my Christmas party? | ||
| Do I have the invite? | ||
| 15 minutes, right? | ||
| I think I can do it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Don't be late. | |
| I'll be there. | ||
| Virginia Fox was there at like 20 afternoon. | ||
| I'll be there. | ||
| Oh, I pulled the Kmart trick. | ||
| I'm going to be there. | ||
| I'm standing by the menorah. | ||
| I'll be there. | ||
| With the beard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I expect. | |
| I was a one and done thing. | ||
| I'm not one and done. | ||
| One and done. | ||
| We are all out of time. | ||
| We could do this for a lot longer, though. | ||
| Thank you both so much. | ||
| We got a fist bump. | ||
| I think this is the first ceasefire fist bump. | ||
| I appreciate that. | ||
| Well, I created the fist bump. | ||
| He's my attorney. | ||
| He copyrighted it for me. | ||
| Gentlemen, thank you both so much for joining me. | ||
| Really appreciate it. | ||
| Let's turn now to this week's C-SPAN Flashback, where we dig deep into the video archives to show you a moment in political history that's eerily similar to what's happening today. | ||
| In 1993, House Republicans called for the immediate release of documents from an internal probe into the former postmaster's charges of conspiracy and embezzlement and criticized the House Democratic leadership for failing to provide all disclosure. | ||
| Here's then Ohio House member John Boehner leading the effort. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We called it a whitewash and we demanded again at that time that Congress fully disclose what was happening in the House Post Office and all of those records ought to be turned over for public inspection. | |
| I believe that it was a cover-up and a whitewash of what the task force did. | ||
| There are discussions going on the floor today that would indicate some type of deal trying to be made to turn over some of this information. | ||
| Partial disclosure. | ||
| A sanitized version of that testimony. | ||
| And we stand here today and say, no, it's time to tell the American people the whole truth, all of the truth, warts and all. | ||
| The House can't endure another House bank episode. | ||
| Our version of Chinese water torture. | ||
| Drip, drip, drip. | ||
| Partial disclosure, a little more disclosure, a little more disclosure. | ||
| An episode that went on for over nine months when in fact it could have been handled in one week if Congress would have been willing to lay the cards on the table for the American people. | ||
| Hmm, sound a little familiar. | ||
| In the days following, the congressional postmaster pled guilty to three criminal charges, and the House ultimately voted 399 to 2 to make the congressional investigation records public. | ||
| To discuss the Epstein vote and other top political news of this week, we've got two political pros from both sides of the aisle joining us, Democratic strategist Mo Alathe and Republican strategist Mark Lauder. | ||
| Thank you both so much for joining me. | ||
| And just a reminder, I know you've both done the sort of surrogate version of this. | ||
| Today you are strategists wearing that hat trying to help us and our viewers understand why each of your parties is approaching the politics of today in the way that they are. | ||
| So we just heard from Boehner there. | ||
| A little deja vu, maybe, Mark? | ||
| A little bit of deja vu, yes. | ||
| See the later speaker there with that dark hair. | ||
| What a head of hair. | ||
| Well, look, the big headline of the week, the House and Senate voted to release the Epstein files that President signed that bill after months of campaigning by Democrats and some Republicans. | ||
| Thomas Massey and Marjorie Taylor Greene were particularly passionate about this effort. | ||
| And here's Massey explaining why he thinks the president changed his tune on this. | ||
|
Joe Biden's Messaging Dilemma
00:15:16
|
||
| Listen. | ||
| Well, he got tired of me winning, so he joined our side. | ||
| I have no animosity toward him. | ||
| I regret that it got personal for some folks, but it never has for me. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's always been about the survivors. | |
| The speaker, the attorney general, the FBI director, the president, and the vice president could have saved us all this time and embarrassment, frankly, for our own party if they'd just done the right thing four months ago. | ||
| I mean, Mark, I had so many Republicans close to the president telling me behind the scenes for months that the White House was not strategic about this. | ||
| What do you think happened and why do you think the president ultimately did pivot in the way that he did? | ||
| Well, I think probably, and I'm assuming here, that he thought that any kind of release of all of the documents, A, any mention of the president's name himself, and he did know Jeffrey Epstein, you know, years prior, he kicked him out of his club. | ||
| That's all well documented. | ||
| But when we live in a media environment that we currently do, every mention of his name will be used to tarnish him. | ||
| The facts be darned, and they will come out. | ||
| And so he's like, if we can keep this from all coming out, let the process work itself through, that it would probably lead to more of a responsible reporting on it. | ||
| And all it did was feed upon itself. | ||
| Do you think the fact that he had to be sort of dragged to this conclusion harmed him politically? | ||
| I'm not sure if it's harming him politically, except it's distracting. | ||
| And I think he is correct in that respect, is that we have been consumed in this city and in the media market broadly by this topic for so long, it does take away from the other victories that he would claim. | ||
| And so I think part of that also was going into his strategy to say, look, let's talk about the economy. | ||
| Let's talk about ending the wars. | ||
| Let's talk about immigration. | ||
| And yet, when you turn on, especially in cable news, a lot of times, it's consumed by the Epstein files. | ||
| If I was writing a textbook for future campaign political communications directors, when I got to the chapter on what not to do, this is the case study. | ||
| The way this White House has handled this from day one is the case study of how to mismanage a politically sensitive issue. | ||
| He fed this beast for years. | ||
| He talked about this for years. | ||
| He elevated it. | ||
| The people around him elevated it. | ||
| And then, when the opportunity came to release it, he gave the appearance of a cover-up. | ||
| As you said, right, like truth be damned, we don't know if there's a problem there or not. | ||
| He says there's not, but he sure made it look like there was one. | ||
| And for the first time in a decade, he did not have his party in lockstep behind him. | ||
| There were cracks in the dam. | ||
| Water was seeping through. | ||
| More and more Republicans were saying, on this one, we can't stand with you, buddy. | ||
| And you're right. | ||
| He did have to get dragged into it. | ||
| So I understand the strategy on the back end. | ||
| I understand the strategy behind the pivot, but for the life of me, really can't understand the strategy. | ||
| What about the Democratic strategy here? | ||
| How have Dems approached this? | ||
| Are they sort of in control of the narrative in the way that you think that they should be? | ||
| And where do they take it from here? | ||
| You know, for Dems, I think there are a couple of points. | ||
| Number one, along with a few brave Republicans, be seen as standing on the side of the victims. | ||
| If Democrats were seen as standing on the side of the victims, that is always the right place to be politically and more important, morally. | ||
| So that, I think, drove them first and foremost, especially the more resistance they saw coming from the White House, the more opportunity there was. | ||
| And I understand a lot of people say, well, why didn't you show that same compassion when Joe Biden was in the White House? | ||
| And I think that's what I think. | ||
| The opportunism that people are criticizing Democrats about is a potential danger. | ||
| Look, in this day and age, I have no idea what's dangerous or not anymore, right? | ||
| Voters kind of have very different ideas sometimes than Mark and I do. | ||
| But I do think when you look at the polling that shows on the Epstein case, an overwhelming majority of Americans, including Republican voters, including MAGA voters, say the president has mishandled this situation. | ||
| I'm not too worried about blowback on the Democrats on this one. | ||
| The president eventually had to turn because Republicans who are up for reelection next year were about to face some angry voters. | ||
| Democrats, I think, have managed not to screw it up so far. | ||
| And that's about as good as I've seen on a lot of issues these days. | ||
| Well, I think one of the reasons this story is so sticky is because of what it says more broadly about the president's base. | ||
| I mean, take a look at this headline from The Hill this week. | ||
| The memo. | ||
| MAGA tensions are backdrop for Trump's surprise Epstein U-turn. | ||
| The Epstein Matter, they write, is just one of several issues that have caused discontent among Trump's Make America Great Again base in recent months, feeding questions about whether the president's coalition of support may be more brittle than it appeared in the initial months of his second term. | ||
| Mark, does the president have an issue with his base right now? | ||
| No, I don't think so. | ||
| There was a disagreement on this, I think, on how it was handled. | ||
| And I think as soon as this gets pushed into the kind of the recycled bin of news that we're no longer talking about, which will happen here over the course, probably through the end of the year, it will go away. | ||
| It will focus back again on the economy, on immigration, the things that the president wants to do. | ||
| Well, but even on immigration, there's a H-1B visa debate. | ||
| There's frustration about the president's more interventionist inclinations on foreign policy that the base didn't necessarily expect in this term. | ||
| Does the president need to be thinking about how some of his policy moves are maybe surprising the MAGA base? | ||
| The H-1B visa issue is a little bit more challenging because it's literally not America first in the literal term. | ||
| It's bringing foreigners in and giving them access to jobs. | ||
| The economic reason behind it is because all the corporate Titans and everyone are saying, we need these workers. | ||
| We don't have enough of them here in the United States. | ||
| And you can't just snap your fingers and get yourself a computer scientist or a highly trained engineer. | ||
| So that one is going to have to be nuanced. | ||
| And there's probably going to be some tension on that one. | ||
| But I think when it comes to some of the foreign interventions, I think there's a big difference between blowing drug boats out of the water or even getting tough with dictators and putting American boots on the ground long term, like we saw in previous administrations, especially in the Middle East, nation building, those kinds of things. | ||
| So I think he can win on that one, but ultimately it comes down to one thing that I always does. | ||
| I think Mo would even maybe agree. | ||
| It's always the economy, stupid. | ||
| If people are happy about the economy, they will swallow a lot of it, everything else. | ||
| But his problem is, and where Democrats have a huge opportunity politically, is people are not happy right now with the state of the economy. | ||
| For the first time since he first came down the escalator, you know, 10 and a half years ago, for the first time, his job approval numbers on the economy are upside down. | ||
| Even when he lost re-election in 2020, and his overall job approval was net negative, not on the economy. | ||
| For the first time, it is. | ||
| People think life is too expensive. | ||
| And that's where things like he's been distracting himself. | ||
| He's been distracting himself from a message that was a core reason he won re-election in 2024. | ||
| It's because people believed that he would do something to make their lives less expensive. | ||
| They're not. | ||
| He's not right now. | ||
| And so Democrats have a real opportunity. | ||
| You want to talk about Epstein? | ||
| Great. | ||
| Why is he focusing on protecting the rich and the powerful rather than bringing your costs down? | ||
| You want to talk about Venezuela? | ||
| Great. | ||
| Let's talk about Venezuela. | ||
| Why is he going and picking this fight over there when he said he wasn't going to instead of bringing down the cost? | ||
| Do you think Democrats are delivering that message? | ||
| Not as effectively as I hope they will heading into the midterm. | ||
| And one thing we shouldn't forget, and I don't disagree with you, Mo, is that Republicans have an inherent advantage on all economic messaging at almost all times. | ||
| Except cost of living. | ||
| Except for, well, since the days of Clinton, the Republican Party is generally viewed more positively on handling economic issues. | ||
| So he has that built-in base. | ||
| I think when you start to see things like the stock market, gas prices will come down eventually. | ||
| He has time to flip this around. | ||
| I remember the economic messaging and polling was not good in December of 2017 before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed. | ||
| And then next thing you know, it's passed, tax cuts come, and we're off to the races on the economy. | ||
| So he's got some leeway there. | ||
| Right, and I don't think that's a good idea. | ||
| But he needs to focus on that. | ||
| On the messaging front, I interviewed his deputy chief of staff, James Blair, a couple of weeks ago after that election that showed these big margins for Democrats, largely because of the affordability issue. | ||
| And he told me, look, you are going to see the president start to really hammer cost of living and affordability. | ||
| And he has just about every public appearance he's had since then. | ||
| Men managed to inject that messaging in. | ||
| I want you to take a listen at his speech at the McDonald's Impact Summit. | ||
| The word is affordable. | ||
| And affordable should be our word, not theirs, because the Democrats got up and started affordability, affordability. | ||
| And they don't say that they had the worst inflation in history, the highest energy prices in history. | ||
| Everything was the worst. | ||
| What they're great at is lying. | ||
| They say, affordability. | ||
| This stuff was all much more expensive. | ||
| Mark, what do you want to see from the president on this? | ||
| What's your advice to the White House? | ||
| Well, twofold. | ||
| Number one, I want to see him do more of that because we have to remind people that the reason why things aren't affordable is because of Democrats and Joe Biden. | ||
| And this has worked throughout history. | ||
| I mean, remember, Barack Obama, who had a very sluggish recovery from the Great Recession, always remembered, and the people remembered it happened under George W. Bush. | ||
| And so he didn't have all of the penalty in terms of public perception on the economy because people thought, well, it happened under Bush. | ||
| It was Bush's fault. | ||
| So he needs to remind people what was the problem and that he's working on it. | ||
| And it's and then highlighting where it's getting better. | ||
| And I think to our earlier point, whether it's on Epstein, whether it's even on H-1B visas and other things, this White House has not been as focused delivering that message as you could have to make sure that it's resonating in the minds of the American people. | ||
| How do Democrats respond? | ||
| Here's some bipartisan strategic agreement. | ||
| Mark wants to see him do more of that. | ||
| I want to see him do more of that. | ||
| I think if the president is out there doing exactly what Joe Biden did in terms of messaging, right, he's going to struggle just as Joe Biden did. | ||
| Because what I heard there, right, Joe Biden spent all of his time talking about how much stronger the macroeconomic landscape was under his presidency than it was under Donald Trump's presidency. | ||
| And people were saying, well, I don't know what you're talking about because I am not feeling it in my wallet at my kitchen table when I'm walking through the aisles of the grocery store. | ||
| That's exactly what Donald Trump is doing right now. | ||
| He's saying, look at the macroeconomic landscape and it's so much better than it was under Joe Biden. | ||
| People are tired of hearing who's at fault. | ||
| They want to say, they want to know, what are you doing to make sure I keep a few bucks left in my wallet after a trip to the grocery store? | ||
| Because right now I can't. | ||
| And he's not doing that. | ||
| When he says affordability is a hoax, when he says that what people are feeling isn't real, Democrats have a huge, huge opportunity if they know how to seize it. | ||
| And that's the part that I always get nervous about. | ||
| What do you think about that? | ||
| I don't disagree with him in part of that. | ||
| Although I do think one of the reasons why it didn't work with Joe Biden when he was doing it was because people remembered COVID and they were blaming COVID for a lot of the temporary problems. | ||
| I would say to the president, to my friends at the White House, if you want to do one thing to shift the numbers more than that, or anything other, get gasoline back below $250 a gallon on average nationally. | ||
| Every gas station, every corner, whether you're in an Uber, whether you're driving your own car, whether you're walking or biking, you see it, you know what it says, and it's a billboard for a strong economy. | ||
| It also helps small business people because whether it's the plumbers, the produce, all of that, those gas prices go into everything. | ||
| And you can actually start to get control of prices by lowering the price of oil. | ||
| Voters' feelings on the economy aren't always tied directly to the data. | ||
| You can say all you want, the stock market's great, and there are all these indicators, GDP growth, whatever. | ||
| If people aren't feeling it, it is a problem for whoever is sitting in the Oval Office. | ||
| You have until my personal thought is, and I said this back in 2024, when we get to April or May, when we got to April, May, 2024, inflation, people weren't feeling good about the Biden economy. | ||
| I'm like, this election is done. | ||
| And so if they are able to start to change that perception by April or May of next year, then it will show up in the polls in the midterms for Republicans. | ||
| If they don't, then it's going to be big for Democrats. | ||
| We'll see, right? | ||
| Because we just saw the first test case in the off-year elections of 2025, where you had three very different candidates, right? | ||
| Mamdani, who's far left, Spamberger, and Cheryl, who are more center-left. | ||
| All three focus like a laser on the issue of affordability. | ||
| Different policy solutions, but they focused on the issue and drowned out all the other noise. | ||
| And no matter what their Republican opponents threw at them, the Democrats won and won by bigger margins than people expected. | ||
| People do vote on whether or not they feel like their lives are easier or not. | ||
| Where I think Democrats have another opportunity on this issue is I'm a little surprised that Donald Trump, who does such a good job typically of connecting with sort of the average person, particularly in the parts of the country that he does well in. | ||
| And I think back to, was it a week or two ago when he floated this idea of 50-year mortgages instead of 30-year mortgages and saying, what's the big deal? | ||
| Most people are just going to bring down their costs. | ||
| Huge backlash to that. | ||
| Right? | ||
| Huge backlash to it because what he didn't talk about was how everyone's interest payments were going to double. | ||
| Doing that at the same time, Democrats are pushing hard on trying to prevent insurance rates from doubling. | ||
| And on that same day, he's giving another journalist a tour of all the gold that he's put up in the Oval Office, right? | ||
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Venezuela's Complex Crisis
00:05:49
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| Like the imagery just screamed elitist versus being deaf to sort of what the average person is. | ||
| And are Democrats effective enough at connecting those dots for voters? | ||
| And so far, I think the three who just won elections were effective. | ||
| I'm not seeing it with the same discipline coming out of Capitol Hill yet. | ||
| They're about to ramp up their campaigns. | ||
| And so between now and March is when we'll see how effective they are. | ||
| I do want to briefly talk about foreign policy because the president has been so involved around the world. | ||
| One of the hot topics right now is Venezuela. | ||
| You mentioned it earlier, Mark. | ||
| I want you to take a listen to President Trump this week about what he's considering there. | ||
| You suggested you've made a decision about what you want to do next Venezuela. | ||
| I understand you don't want to tip your hand, but is there anything you're ready to rule out at this point? | ||
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Are you ruling out U.S. troops on the ground? | |
| I don't rule out that. | ||
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unidentified
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I don't rule out anything. | |
| We just have to take care of Venezuela. | ||
| They don't. | ||
| You suggested Maduro wants to talk. | ||
| Are you prepared to speak with him directly? | ||
| Would you commit to doing that before your words, right? | ||
| Yeah, I probably would talk to him. | ||
| I talk to every president. | ||
| The idea of U.S. boots on the ground, Mark, is that a risky path for the president to go down politically with the base? | ||
| Well, not removing it from the negotiating table is not a threat to the base. | ||
| I think they understand what he's doing. | ||
| He's negotiating. | ||
| He's not taking anything off the table. | ||
| Actually deploying boots on the ground, I think, would be a different story because the America first principles, it's not America alone, but there has to be an American interest in it. | ||
| Stopping drugs, stopping drug cartels, or even immigration, I don't think would be enough to justify it. | ||
| It's one thing to send some B2s in there or send the stealth in there and to take certain actions. | ||
| I think it's a different thing to put actual boots on the ground. | ||
| And I think the president knows that. | ||
| But right now, he's trying to put maximum pressure on Maduro to either come to the table and negotiate or so he knows that we know where you live and your time in power is at our discretion. | ||
| But where are Democrats on this? | ||
| Where I hope they are politically is pushing back hard on the notion of boots on the ground because nobody wants that. | ||
| The MAGA base doesn't want it. | ||
| The Democratic base doesn't want it. | ||
| So pushing back hard on that. | ||
| But again, I want to hear every Democrat, no matter what issue we're talking about, bring it back to the cost of living. | ||
| And when the president is threatening and doing this and blowing up boats in the water, regardless of whether or not there are bad guys on it, right? | ||
| I mean, we've seen now, there's evidence of people who were innocent, fishermen who were killed in some of these, in some of this military action. | ||
| And the president not sharing any information about it while not focusing on reducing the cost of living, there's the connection Democrats need to keep coming back to politically heading into the midterms. | ||
| I mean, I do think one of the more effective Republican talking points I've heard about this is tying it back to the fentanyl crisis and kids, American kids and just people across this country and rural areas and urban areas dying from this Really awful drug, this disease. | ||
| Are Republicans talking about that aspect of Venezuela enough? | ||
| Probably not enough. | ||
| I think they are talking about it. | ||
| I think it's widely known that's what he's doing. | ||
| And look, this is not the first time we've done it. | ||
| I remember, I'm old enough, you are too, Mo, to remember when Reagan invaded Panama and took out Manuel Noriega because he was a drug lord. | ||
| He now was sitting in a prison in the U.S. | ||
| So we've done these kinds of things in the past. | ||
| I think we have to continue to focus on A, the drug cartels, but also remember that Venezuela is a huge driver of illegal immigration in our country, whether it's Venezuelans themselves or people fleeing the region because of everything that's going on. | ||
| And so I think he's got two areas where he's very strong, very trusted by the American people. | ||
| Make the case to continue doing this while you try to find a way to get Venezuela back on the right path. | ||
| And you could even go as far if you wanted to try it to the economy. | ||
| Venezuela is a massive oil producer. | ||
| And if we could bring that oil back into a good global environment and not being sanctioned, again, lowering energy prices, lowering costs of war. | ||
| That sounds a lot like some of the rationale when we went into Iraq, right? | ||
| Particularly on the oil thing. | ||
| And that was not a popular position politically. | ||
| If he wants to make that immigration case, his numbers have been slipping. | ||
| They're not as strong as they were when he first took office on immigration. | ||
| Are people really willing to put American boots on the ground when it comes to immigration? | ||
| Because the weakest of those arguments, in reality, is the drug one, because so little of the illegal drugs that are coming into America pass through Venezuela. | ||
| They're coming in from Mexico. | ||
| They're coming in from other places that we're not threatening to invade. | ||
| So that's where I think it gets a little muddled. | ||
| Too muddled for a political campaign argument, though. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me for digging through this really wild week in the news, as all of them tend to be now. | ||
| All right, Democratic strategist Mo Alethey and Mark Lauder, host of Wake Up America on NewsNext, Republican strategist, both of you. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
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Thank you. | |
| Thanks. | ||
| And we'll close this week's program with our ceasefire moment of the week, highlighting what's possible when politicians come together as Americans, not just partisans. | ||
| A food drive in Montgomery County, Ohio is bringing people from across the aisle together to help Americans in time for the holiday season. | ||
|
Watch America's Book Club
00:05:02
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| Take a look. | ||
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unidentified
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Had a short time to do this because I figured, you know, hopefully the government shutdown would come soon, and it finally did, but people are still without their snap benefits. | |
| People need help right now with groceries. | ||
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Hopefully, they can have a good Thanksgiving with their family and enjoy time with their family, and we can help defray some of those costs. | |
| Food is going to the AFL-CIO food pantry, helping working-class folks and those folks who work really hard in our community. | ||
| We're spending so much time and so much energy fighting with each other. | ||
| We're not spending any time and energy talking to each other, figuring out how we can come up with solutions. | ||
| We're all Ohioans, we're all Daytonians, we're all Americans. | ||
| So, you know, let's pull our assets, our resources together, challenge each other for some positive outcomes. | ||
| A bipartisan effort to help the community moments we love to showcase here on Ceasefire. | ||
| That's all the time we have for this episode. | ||
| Join us next time as I sit down with former independent presidential candidate Cornell West and conservative legal scholar Robert George. | ||
| Ceasefire is also available as a podcast. | ||
| Find us in all of the usual places. | ||
| I'm Dasha Burns, and remember, whether or not you agree, keep talking and keep listening. | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
|
unidentified
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This is outrageous. | |
| This is a kangaroo quarter. | ||
| Fridays, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity: Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| Politico Playbook chief correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns is host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue, ceasefire, on the network that doesn't take sides, Fridays at 7 and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Join Book TV this weekend for the 2025 Miami Book Fair at Miami-Dade College. | ||
| Highlights include discussions with historian Pamela Nadel with her book Antisemitism, an American Tradition, an investigation into the depths of anti-Semitism's history and its recent manifestations. | ||
| Cartoonist Art Spiegelman revisits his Pulitzer Prize-winning series Mouse in his book Meta Mouse. | ||
| The president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, Jeffrey Rosen, with his book, The Pursuit of Liberty, which explores clashing visions of Hamilton and Jefferson and the lasting effects on the power dynamics in America. | ||
| And CNN's Abby Phillip with her book A Dream Deferred, Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power. | ||
| Book TV will also feature author interviews with viewer Collins, with MSNBC's Jonathan Cape Part, and his memoir, Yet Here I Am, Lessons from a Black Man's Search for Home. | ||
| Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vinman and his book, The Folly of Realism, How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine. | ||
| Journalist Fez Siddiqui with Hubris Maximus, The Shattering of Elon Musk. | ||
| Biographer Sam Tannenhaus and his book, Buckley, capturing the facets and phases of writer and intellectual William F. Buckley Jr. and documentary filmmaker Laurie Gwen Shapiro on her book, The Aviator and the Showman, The Untold Story of Amelia Earhart's decade-long marriage to publisher and explorer George Putnam. | ||
| Watch the Miami Book Fair this weekend on C-SPAN 2's Book TV. | ||
| Also, be sure to get the full festival schedule online at booktv.org. | ||
| Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series, Sunday with our guest-famed chef and global relief entrepreneur, Jose Andres. | ||
| His books on reimagining food include Feeding Dangerously, Change the Recipe, and We Fed an Island. | ||
| He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein. | ||
| Are people afraid of inviting you over to their house for dinner because they'd be afraid that the food wouldn't be good enough for you? | ||
|
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When people cook with love for you, it's great, but you know, you know, the dry turkey in Thanksgiving is unnegotiable. | |
| It's always dry. | ||
| But yeah, turkeys are so dry. | ||
| That's why gravy exists. | ||
| Watch America's Book Club with Jose Andres Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific. | ||
| Only on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN. | ||
| Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| We're funded by these television companies and more, including Comcast. | ||
|
Food Insecurity in the U.S.
00:02:46
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|
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The flag replacement program got started by a good friend of mine, a Navy vet, who saw the flag at the office that needed to be replaced. | |
| Said, wouldn't this be great if this can be something that we did for anyone? | ||
| Comcast has always been a community-driven company. | ||
| This is one of those great examples of the way we're getting out there. | ||
| Comcast supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss food insecurity in the U.S. and the future of federal nutrition programs is Eric Mitchell, president of the Alliance to End Hunger. | ||
| Eric, thank you so much for being with us this morning. | ||
| I want to just start off for those who are not aware of what your group does. | ||
| Can you explain to us what your group is and what the mission is? | ||
| Well, Jasmine, thank you for having me. | ||
| And I really appreciate being able to have these conversations with you this morning. | ||
| So the Alliance in Hunger, we are a coalition of over 100 national organizations focused on food security and nutrition, both in the U.S. and around the world. | ||
| We do advocacy, we do thought leadership and convening. | ||
| And a lot of our members range from national, multinational corporations to some of our largest nonprofit organizations, both here in the U.S. and also globally, faith-based institutions and academic institutions who are all committed to creating the public and political will to end hunger and malnutrition, not only in the United States, but globally. | ||
| Can you define for us what food insecurity is? | ||
| How many Americans are food insecure? | ||
| And who is the most at risk? | ||
| Yeah, so there is an actual technical definition of what food insecurity. | ||
| And here in the United States, food insecurity essentially is when there's any household where a member of that household has to figure out how to make ends meet to be able to put food on the table. | ||
| That's a very just quite simple way of just defining what food insecurity is. | ||
| And so there could be times where family members may be, well, moms and dads may be having to figure out, okay, how do we make the dollar stretch to be able to buy our groceries? | ||
| If there are times where you have to decide on whether you're going to be able to pay your medical bills or your rent or your car note so you can be able to buy food, or if you've had to sacrifice the types of food that you can purchase because of affordability, that is an example of what food insecurity looks like in this country. | ||
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47 Million Food Insecure
00:00:07
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| And so here in the United States, we have over 47 million people who are considered food insecure in this country. | ||