CSPAN - Washington Journal 11/24/2025

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Nov. 24, 2025 06:59-10:05 - CSPAN

03:05:58

Washington Journal 11/24/2025

Participants

Main

adam brandon

30:50

ivan eland

29:03

mimi geerges

cspan 36:27

Appearances

brian lamb

cspan 01:17

donald j trump

admin 02:50

jd vance

admin 00:57

teresa leger fernandez

rep/d 02:04

Clips

laura ingraham

fox 00:08

lindsey graham

sen/r 00:03

michael mccaul

rep/r 00:27

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		UN Security Council meets to discuss Middle East issues, including the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and potential Palestinian statehood.
		This amid escalating tensions in the Gaza region following the October Israel and Hamas ceasefire.
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		Well, coming up this morning on Washington Journal, along with your calls and comments live, we'll talk about the role of independent voters in politics with the independent center's Adam Brandon and Taylor Populars of Spectrum News covers White House News of the Day and the week.
		And then the Independent Institute's Ivan Eland discusses the Trump administration's strengths and alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and U.S. tensions with Venezuela and Colombia.
		Washington Journal is next.
		Join the conversation.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		It's Monday, November 24th.
		Our first segment will focus on legal immigration into the United States.
		Earlier this month, President Trump sparked some controversy within his party when he said in a Fox News interview that Americans don't have, quote, certain talents to fill jobs.
		He was referring to visas for high-skilled workers known as H-1Bs.
		Also, the president set a cap that would allow the U.S. to admit no more than 7,500 refugees, the lowest number in history.
		And those admissions would be primarily for white South Africans.
unidentified		What do you think about legal immigration?
unidentified		Should the numbers be decreased, stay the same, increased?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Who would you prioritize for legal residency?
unidentified		Here's how to share your thoughts.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000, Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		You can also send a text to 202-748-8003.
		Include your first name in your city-state.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we're on facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X, it's C-SPANWJ.
unidentified		Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We'll start with that segment that I mentioned of President Trump on Fox News with Laura Ingram talking about the H-1Bs.
laura ingraham ▲ ● ▼		If you want to raise wages for American workers, you can't flood the country with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Also, do have to bring in talent when we have plenty of talented people.
		We don't have talented people.
		You don't have certain talents, and people have to learn.
		You can't take people off an unemployment, like an unemployment line, and say, I'm going to put you into a factory where we're going to make missiles, or I'm going to put you in the middle of the market.
laura ingraham ▲ ● ▼		How did we ever do it before?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, let me tell you, I'll give you an example.
		In Georgia, they raided because they wanted illegal immigrants.
		They had people from South Korea that made batteries all their lives.
		You know, making batteries are very complicated.
		It's not an easy thing and very dangerous, a lot of explosions, a lot of problems.
		They had like five or six hundred people, early stages, to make batteries and to teach people how to do it.
		Well, they wanted them to get out of the country.
		You're going to need that, Laura.
		I mean, I know you and I disagree on this.
		You can't just say a country's coming in, going to invest $10 billion to build a plant and going to take people off an unemployment line who haven't worked in five years, and they're going to start making missiles.
		It doesn't work that way.
unidentified		Let's take a look at this AP poll.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This is from September about legal immigration.
		And here is the result.
		So the question was, thinking about legal immigration, do you think the number of legal immigrants to the U.S. should be increased, remain the same, or reduced?
		And this said overall, not accounting for party, 46% of those asked said they would want it to remain the same.
		29% said increase it.
		23% said decrease it.
		Now, when you break it down by party, Republicans were at 20% increase, Democrats at 39% increase, and Independents kind of in the middle at 27% increase.
unidentified		You could see the results there.
unidentified		That's an AP poll.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's also the Center for American Progress held a panel on immigration, and that was earlier this year.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is Democratic Representative Teresa Lager Fernandez of New Mexico.
teresa leger fernandez ▲ ● ▼		The immigration policy pursued by the Trump administration has nothing to do with policy.
		If you were thinking about what is good for the economy, what is good for America, you would not do what they're doing right now, right?
		Because they are destroying many aspects of our economy.
		And that is from the farm workers up to the research scientists where we're saying don't come.
		But what we're seeing is as chair of the Democratic Women's Caucus, please do follow us.
		We are going to be issuing a letter at the end of this week that talks about the number of women that we are seeing that are leaving the workforce.
		And there's lots of reasons for that.
		But remember, women will become the caregivers for their family, the unpaid caregivers, when they cannot find other care.
		And the people who care for both our elderly and our children, the people we love the most, are often cared for by immigrant women.
		And so you're going to start seeing there's a cascading event.
		I represent one of the largest rural districts held by a Democrat.
		And when I go out into my Republican areas, which I love, we love each other, is that they're saying fix this.
		It is really hard in rural America right now because this issue of the need for increased visa caps, it goes to, you know, my colleague Gabe Vasquez has another piece of legislation where he says, let's look at these critical areas.
		And it includes farm workers.
		It includes research.
		It includes health care.
		I want us to see more health care providers come in because we have a shortage of health care providers who are willing to work in rural America.
		They are destroying rural America health care with Medicaid, but they're also, we have another obligation where we have to fix it.
unidentified		We have some great ideas of how to fix it.
teresa leger fernandez ▲ ● ▼		A Medicare for all approach.
teresa leger fernandez ▲ ● ▼		But we need to make sure that in the meantime, we also build up that workforce.
unidentified		And foreign labor, you know, and professionals is one way of doing it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We are asking you about your thoughts about legal immigration.
		Would you support or oppose restricting legal immigration?
		The numbers are Democrats 202, 748, 8,000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		You can also send us your thoughts on social media, facebook.com slash C-SPAN.
		And we're on X at C-SPAN WJ. Randall did send us this on Facebook.
		When asked about restricting legal immigration, he says strongly opposed.
		This is an immigrant nation, and immigrants are the engine of its innovation and entrepreneurship, social enrichment, and competition.
		They're some of the best Americans I know.
		And this is what Douglas said.
		Immigrants make this country great.
		People who are against it call themselves patriots.
		The more accurate term is fatriots.
		And Chris said there should be some sort of limit per year, especially if the people coming don't have a connection in the USA or a productive income source and can be a productive citizen of our country.
		They also must become wholeheartedly an American citizen.
unidentified		No double allegiance to their old country.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is more from that AP poll.
		So this is showing some trends between September of 2025 when this new poll was taken and their original poll of March of 2024 to show the difference.
		So the question is, do legal immigrants contribute to economic growth?
		In March, it was 42% said a major benefit.
		That increased to 58% in September.
		Do American companies can get the expertise of skilled workers in fields like science and technology?
		41% said that that was a major benefit in March.
		And that went up to 51% in September.
		And then finally, well, more than that, they said they enrich American culture and values.
		That went from 38% to 46%.
		And then finally, they take jobs Americans don't want.
		Again, this is legal immigrants.
		That was at 35% was a major benefit.
unidentified		That went up to 42%.
unidentified		So you see all those questions increased over that year and a half from March 2024 to September of 2025.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is President Trump was speaking at the U.S. Saudi Investment Forum Wednesday, and he talked about the criticism he was getting on the H-1B visa.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		You know, in some cases, you're building extremely complex plants.
		You're building plants to make computers and to make telephones, to make a lot of different things, missiles.
		But you're building plants that make things that are very detailed, and you have to have great knowledge.
		And you're coming here and you find if we don't have people that did that before, we are allowing you, and I may take a little heat.
		I always take a little heat from my people, the people that love me and the people that I love.
		They happen to be toward the right of center, toward the right, sometimes they're away right.
		But if you have to bring people to get those plants opened, we want you to do that, and we want those people to teach our people how to make computer chips and how to make other things.
		You can't come in, and I'm explaining, you can't come in, open up a massive computer chip factory for billions and billions of dollars like is being done in Arizona, and think you're going to hire people off an unemployment line to run it.
		They're going to have to bring thousands of people with them, and I'm going to welcome those people.
		I love my conservative friends.
		I love MAGA, but this is MAGA.
		And those people are going to teach our people how to make computer chips.
		And in a short period of time, our people are going to be doing great.
		And those people can go home where they probably always want to be.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was President Trump on Wednesday.
		Wonder what you think about what he just said and if you would be in favor of more legal immigration or less.
		And we'll talk to David in Abingdon, Maryland, Republican.
		Good morning, David.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I think that we certainly need to have American workers in American factories.
		But if a company is willing to spend all kinds of money and then they can bring in some talented people, at least those people are able to work.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		David, it sounds like we lost you.
		Can you call back?
		Because we didn't get the rest of your comment.
unidentified		Elderly.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		Sorry, David, your line's bad, but just give us a call back and we'll get you back on.
		Jim, Beverly Hills, California, Democrat.
		Good morning, Jim.
unidentified		Good morning.
		On the surface, I think this is an excellent, excellent question.
		But if we're to believe that many of our, you know, housekeeping and farming and all are full of illegal immigrants in some industries like farming, the majority of a lot of these companies that are agricultural companies in the South are full of illegal immigrants and none of the employers are ever fined.
		I don't know how the public, us, we can understand where the legal immigrants are.
		It's very foggy, confusing, inasmuch as I'm glad you have this question this morning.
		Thank you very much.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And regarding that, we got this from Sonia on X.
		I support comprehensive reform, including mandatory e-verify with massive fines for businesses.
		More immigration is beneficial.
		Rebecca Burlington, Vermont, Republican.
		Hi, Rebecca.
		You're on the air.
unidentified		Yes.
		Hi.
		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I feel that, you know, I don't know for certain how much we should have legal immigration, how many per year.
		I believe in it because we are a nation built on immigration.
		But we are getting so much of this crossing the borders illegally by the millions and millions.
		And really, our nation cannot afford that.
		We can't afford to take care of, you know, 15 million people coming in within, you know, a couple, two, three years' time.
		That's a lot of people.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Rebecca, my question would be: would you make it easier to get into the country legally?
		In other words, because so many people do want to come here and live here legally and they're not able to, they can't get in, they go the illegal route.
		Let's just say that that's the argument.
		What do you think of that?
unidentified		If it was, maybe if they did make it easier, so they didn't have to jump through a mountain of hoops, maybe perhaps that would help to stop them coming in illegally.
		So, yeah, you know, people want to come and better their life.
		I don't blame them.
		But, you know, when they come in illegally, and there are people that came in and they were abusive to people here of the United States, including, you know, rape and murder.
		So, but to have people come in by legal means and to, you know, make it a little easier for them to get in, yeah, I can agree with that.
		And I thank you so much for taking my call.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Rebecca, let's talk to John next in New Jersey Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm calling just to tell you my experience with immigrants.
		I've worked at several national laboratories run by the Department of Energy.
		And I can tell you that I've worked with dozens of PhD physicists educated in China or Russia who came to the United States because they wanted to live in a democracy.
		And they have all been fantastic assets to the research capabilities of the United States and great people, too.
		They were really thankful to be here.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So here's the question, John.
		I would assume that they were on H-1B visa since they were working in a lab and there were PhDs.
		But the question is, would there have been Americans that could have taken those jobs?
unidentified		Not with the experience that they had.
unidentified		No.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Why?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Why is that?
unidentified		Because certain laboratories and universities in China and Russia invested heavily in a particular branch of physics basically in the physics involved in running particle accelerators.
unidentified		And there's a much smaller number of universities that turn out those PhDs in the U.S., where it was a much smaller number in the past.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And so do you think it would be to the benefit of the United States to expand the H-1B visa program, keep it the same, or I guess you wouldn't be able to do it?
unidentified		I can just tell you that from my experience, in a highly specialized area, there was a significant shortage of trained and experienced physicists and engineers.
		And they have been a benefit to the United States.
		It would have been very difficult to hire at that time to hire comparably experienced U.S. citizens.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, John, let's talk to Joni, a Republican in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		My thoughts are this.
		I remember when Trump said he would, for $5 million, he would let these rich people come over here to America for $5 million.
		It would have to be rich people who can afford $5 million to live here.
		I don't like that.
		I don't think our citizenship should be up for sale.
		I don't like that at all.
		And now he's saying about the HSB1, he needs like Amazon and all the Silicon Valley people must need people to work with their companies that they can't find good help.
		I don't believe that at all.
		I think they can pay them a lot cheaper.
		And then the people that went to college then can't get ahead.
		So I don't like that either.
		You can't have it both ways.
		One minute he's rounding up immigrants, and the next minute now he's changing his mind and then saying about letting the rich come in here.
		It would be all the obligators.
		It could be really bad people coming in for $5 million and not really producing anything, but just living off our land.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Joni, and a little bit more information for you on what Joni was talking about.
		This is the Trump gold card, and you can find information here.
		The website is trumpcard.gov, and that is an official website of the U.S. government, trumpcard.gov.
		And this is what it looks like.
		It says the Trump gold card is here.
		And it has his picture on it with the United States of America.
		And here are the two options.
		So the Trump gold card for a processing fee and after Department of Homeland Security vetting, a $1 million contribution.
		You receive U.S. residency in record time with the Trump gold card.
		And then you hit apply now.
		This is the Trump Platinum Card.
		It says sign up now, secure your place on the waiting list for the Trump Platinum Card.
		For processing fee and after DHS vetting, a $5 million contribution.
		You will have the ability to spend up to 270 days in the United States without being subject to U.S. taxes on non-U.S. income.
		That says coming soon, and that's just a reserve your spot.
		But here, the gold cards, you can apply.
		And this is what happens when you hit apply now.
		You put your first and last name, where you're from, so what region.
		And this is a dropdown of the continents, essentially, or the regions.
		I'm interested in the Trump gold card for myself or somebody else, my family, my spouse, other, and your email, and then you hit submit.
		So that's how you would apply for the Trump gold card.
unidentified		Edward, Jersey City, New Jersey, Democrat, good morning.
		Good morning.
		How are you this morning?
		And happy Thanksgiving to America.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		I have a question about the immigration thing that's going on.
		I feel that these people, 80%, maybe 90% of these people are coming in to get a better life.
		That's why they're leaving.
		And I feel maybe they should earn their citizenship.
		A lot of them don't speak English.
		And, you know, what we should do, I feel, is why don't we put them in the military for two years and let them earn their citizenship and everybody can live happily ever after.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So Edward, there are immigrants that join the military.
		That apparently doesn't give them any leg up on.
		So if you're undocumented, you can still, or maybe not.
		I would have to check that.
		But you would say that if, let's say, a green card holder did join the military, that they should immediately get citizenship?
unidentified		No.
		Oh, no, What they do is they come here, right?
		I don't know how the process works.
		They come to America, legally, they come in here illegally, and then they apply.
		And then the U.S. government says, okay, you want your citizenship?
		Well, go in the military.
		And then two years.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So that would be a requirement.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What if they're too old?
unidentified		You know, that's a very, you know, I've seen the people on TV.
		I don't see many old people going.
		I see children.
		I see mothers, and I see men.
		I don't really, that's a good question.
		I don't know about the seniors.
		The seniors, that's a good question, but I don't know if many seniors try to come to this country.
		They're so used to where they live, they don't want to come to America.
		But that's what I think.
		I really think that they should come here, honey, and just put them in the military for two years, teach him English, teach him our ways, and then, you know, it's a respectable, you know, respectable thing to do.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so Edward, I've got some information for you.
		This is from Reserve National Guard.
		It says foreign-born recruits fast-track U.S. citizenship through military service.
		So, apparently, there is some sort of a program.
		We're going to have to find out a little bit more about it.
		So, if we find out more, we'll share it.
		But there is something currently in place that would fast-track U.S. citizenship.
unidentified		Oh, that's great.
		It's a hidden truth.
		I haven't heard about it, but I don't know.
		I just think that most of them are coming here for a better life.
		And this is Marjorie.
		Sorry, did I just lose Marjorie?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to Jim in Kentucky, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Jim.
unidentified		Good morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go right ahead.
unidentified		I'd just like for people to look at how the American people have to obey the laws of the land, but they think these immigrants come in, they're free to do whatever they want to.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Jim, we're talking only about legal immigration now.
		What do you think of that?
		Not illegal.
unidentified		Legal immigration?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Oh, I think they come in here legal, they should be treated just like anybody else.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And would you want more legal immigrants the same or less?
unidentified		It depends on our population.
unidentified		I mean, our American people come first, and Trump's trying to show that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And Vice President JD Vance was on Fox News.
		He was talking about legal immigrants and foreign workers, and specifically with blue-collar workers.
		Here he is.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		There really are, I think, two different models of how you make people more productive, of how you create economic growth, of how you make people better off.
		The Democrat model was import low-wage immigrants.
		And I really do think that hurt the jobs of our construction workers.
		It hurt the wages of a lot of our blue-collar workers.
		But their idea was the way that we get more prosperity is that you import more and more low-wage servants.
		And that actually, I think, reduced prosperity because it meant that a lot of our blue-collar workers were struggling.
		But if you use technology and you empower the blue-collar workers rather than replace them with foreign labor, I think they're going to do way better.
		They're going to make higher wages and the whole country is going to be better off.
		In other words, do you depend on low-wage immigrants or do you depend on American citizens bolstered by technology and innovation?
		That's the Trump model, and I think that's the model that's going to deliver long-term prosperity for this country.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was the vice president on Fox News.
		A little bit more information for you about those in the military and legal immigration.
		So, here's what that article says: In 2022, the Army reinstated the opportunity for lawful permanent residents to apply for accelerated naturalization.
		So, that is a path to citizenship.
		It's a faster path to citizenship.
		Paperwork was processed while he was the application fee was waived.
		The U.S. Air Force has a similar expedited naturalization process.
		So, that's lawful permanent residents that join the Army and the Air Force.
		Here is Michael in Michigan, Democrat.
		Hi, Michael.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		First of all, I would like to address a concern that I've had for a while.
		The immigrants are here by invitation.
		And the American people either they want to be delusional or they're kept in the dark by the media.
		Trump has not come down on the companies that employ these immigrants.
		None of these companies have been busted.
		None of them have, you haven't seen no arrest of owners of companies or CEOs of companies that's hiring these immigrants.
		This country was built on slavery.
		It committed the greatest genocides in the world when they killed all of the Indians here and brought blacks over here to work for little enough.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Michael, bring us to legal immigration now.
unidentified		But legal immigration is okay, but the country hasn't got enough jobs for the people that's already here.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, you would want less legal immigration.
unidentified		There'd be way less immigration.
		When you got homeless, I lived in Colorado.
		I visited California.
		I've been in Portland and Seattle.
		The homelessness is terrible.
		So, why can't you find these people jobs?
		Why aren't you helping the citizens here?
		You bring in people.
		Let me just give you this analogy.
		I got a family.
		And I can't hear you.
		I got a family.
		If I got a family and I bring, I've been cheating on my wife.
		I bring in, tell my wife I'm going to be fair with her.
		But I got another family over here.
		And I'm going to bring this family in here to live in my household.
		And I didn't take care of my kids already here.
		This is what America is doing.
		It's not taking care of most of the blacks.
		It's giving them terrible neighborhoods, terrible schools.
		Yes, I live in a community in Michigan that's surrounded with people with work visas from India.
		They did it out in California to get lower wages for they didn't want to pay the people in Silicon Valley.
		They didn't want to pay them and they brought the Indians in here.
		They got to mess up when it comes to immigration.
		They're doing just like what Rome did.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Michael.
		And this is on X who agrees with you, who says, end H-1B programs.
		They are widely abused, and our Americans are being lied to.
		All the money wasted on locking up illegals and chain migrants they bring could be used to train millions of skilled USA workers.
		Other countries do it.
		They don't import cheap labor for donors.
		Here is Mahmoud in Woodbridge, Virginia, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I came here to U.S. when I was 16 years old.
		And I did two years of college, then joined the military.
		Well, I had green card.
		And I served in the military six years in Marine Corps and 26 years in the Army, served 32 years.
		When I joined as a green card holder, I was able to get my citizenship within three years instead of five years.
		And the military helped me to become a citizen.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so that was expedited by two years for you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Otherwise, you would have waited the five.
unidentified		Correct.
unidentified		Yes, ma'am.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And what do you think, Mahmoud, about bringing in more legal immigrants or less?
unidentified		More immigrants work hard.
		But I think it should be a requirement, a very strict requirement that they have to get GED or learn English.
		Without learning English, it's very difficult to be employed and be productive.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So let me ask you this, Mahmoud.
		Isn't that already a requirement?
		Because don't you have to take a test when you get your citizenship?
		And isn't that in English?
		I mean, wouldn't that be the requirement?
unidentified		No, some of the immigrants who come and pass the English test, they almost memorize the question and answers.
		There are a lot of training get done, and that's the only thing they learn.
		They cannot speak English, but they can pass a test.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So they don't necessarily test you on English.
unidentified		Is that right?
		No.
		I mean, they test your idea questions and answers.
		A lot of companies collect all those questions and answers, and those immigrants, they memorize their question and answers, and they're really not fluent in English.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
		And here is Evan in Fairfield, Connecticut, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		I think that immigration is okay, but there should be some type of an assimilation program where English is taught and you have to learn English.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Who would pay for that?
unidentified		The government would be a public program.
		Taxpayers would pay for it.
		And it would be a requirement.
		And I think that would help a lot of people to assimilate and also to be more comfortable in the country.
		It would be really costly, but I think it would really help just make a more united nation.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's talk to Gail in Oceanside, New York, Republican.
		Hi, Gail.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I believe the word we should use is skilled labor, like Australia does, because that's where we're lacking.
		We have plenty of bricklayers.
		We have plenty of people that can fix your roofs.
		We have all of that.
		My husband was an electrical engineer for, oh, God, 50 years.
		He just retired.
		And when he would have to hire electrical engineers, only Asian and Indians would really apply.
		So we are lacking that in America.
		I would do like Australia, just have skilled labor come here until we get it at a good level.
		And then we can re-examine it.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is Carol in Massachusetts, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Carol.
unidentified		Good morning, and thanks for taking my call.
		I do believe in legal immigration.
		However, the legal immigration laws that we do have need to be reviewed and cleaned up.
		For instance, once a person gets here, there's such a thing as chain migration.
		So they can start bringing a whole bunch of family members into the country because they're already here and they're sponsoring a whole bunch of relatives.
		And I have seen this in the Indian community.
		Also.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, wait, Carol, before you move on, are you against that chain migration?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Are you against people being able to bring their family members?
unidentified		I'm supporting legal immigration, but what I'm saying, the rules that are on the book need to be reviewed and cleaned up.
		And I just gave you an example why.
		The other is I do agree with Trump as far as people flying into the country, having a baby here, and the baby is already an American citizen.
		That needs to be stopped.
		And they didn't let him go forward with that.
		So the rules on the book that have been there for years and years about legal immigration have all kinds of loopholes that people can get in here and claim that they are illegal simply because, like I said, chain migration, and I'm sure there's other loopholes that people have learned to get around.
		And I do agree with the man who was saying, or the lady who was saying, that these companies ought to be held responsible for the amount of illegals they bring in here because that's caused a labor problem also.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Carol.
		Let's talk to Louie in Deerfield, Illinois, Democrat.
		Go ahead, Louie.
unidentified		Good morning.
		You know, this country needs immigrants.
		In the area where I live, they cut the lawns, they trim the trees, and they climb up on the roofs to fix all the shingles.
		I don't see any Americans doing that.
		Secondly, we have to define what is a legal immigrant or what is an illegal immigrant.
		A woman escaping terrorism in Guatemala, for example, comes across the border and seeks asylum.
		To me, that's legal.
		We have laws that pertain to that, and it's human.
		We need to protect those people.
		And they come here because they want to work.
		They don't want to become problems for our society.
		These are not criminals.
		So I think the whole system has become topsy-turvy.
		And Trump going after all immigrants is just terrible.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let me ask you this, Louie, and this is a little bit off our topic, but when you talked about the asylum claims of, for instance, somebody from Guatemala, should those people, now that they're technically documented, you're absolutely right about that, should they be allowed to have things like Medicaid, SNAP benefits, et cetera?
unidentified		Well, look at it from an entire point of view of the country.
		We want people in this country to be healthy.
		You don't want to be near people who have, let's say, infectious diseases.
		Yes, give them medical care.
		That's very important.
		If you get on a bus, a subway, a train, you get in an airport, you want to be near healthy people.
		You don't have people coughing on you who have measles or mumps or anything or COVID.
		Just think of the whole country being healthy, not each individual being healthy.
		Yes, give them medical care.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And here is Richard, Minneapolis, Republican line.
		Good morning, Richard.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		You know, I heard a report that said that the price of a new house is up by 30% because they don't have qualified construction workers.
		Now, let me emphasize construction workers.
		Where there is a shortage of construction workers, but that doesn't mean they should come in here illegally.
		They should be, you know, vetted and more of them should be let in.
		But now getting back to the technical terms like the computers and Bill Gates is a crook because he is advocating for more H-1B visas, but the technical people, the programmers and people like that and computers were going without jobs while he's advocating for H-1B visas and taking jobs away from Americans.
		So there's a difference in what type of work that we need.
		We need the construction workers and maybe not so many computer people.
		So, yeah, Bill Gates is a crook.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And this is what Jeff in Dearborn, Michigan says.
		H-1B visas steal away good paying jobs from college-educated Americans, giving them away to foreigners for 30% less pay, punish those that hire these, quote, unnecessary foreigners.
		And Tony from Pottstown, Pennsylvania, as a grandchild of immigrants.
		I say, make it easier.
		Let everyone come here.
		And this is Kristen in Portland, Maine.
		Along with doing military service to fast-track immigration status, they should add working in health care.
		Older people and women might be more apt to take advantage of this.
unidentified		And we need more caregivers.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This is Michael in Connecticut, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Michael.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm a son of an immigrant.
		My father came here legally.
		He built this country.
		Look at all the immigrant team here who start business, pay taxes, who help this country grow.
		Then you got a convicted felon who's running the country.
		His wife is an immigrant.
		She came in and the back door and she's literally.
		Now, why are so many people coming from that Western hemisphere?
		America policy is causing those countries, little countries that try to deliver the economy.
		And then you overthrow Chile government.
		You overthrew the Haitian government.
		You overthrew the Panama causing havoc.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Michael, you would like to see more legal immigration, is that right?
unidentified		Yes.
		We have to secure that border.
		Every country has to secure their borders.
		But when you are a superpower and causing havoc, look at that South American country right now.
		We might be going to war soon.
		Because we don't like his government?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We are going to be talking about that in a later segment, Michael.
		But you did mention Melania Trump.
		This is the Associated Press.
		Melania Trump modeled in the U.S. prior to getting a work visa.
		It says questions arose about Melania Trump's immigration history.
		The AP contacted employers at the modeling firm where she worked.
		It says no office records from the time were found at first, but AP's questions were asked, and one ex-worker kept searching through storage.
		Finally, the documents turned up, and when the worker pointed AP to them, they became the basis of a story showing that the future wife of Donald Trump, who has taken strict stands on immigration enforcement, was paid for modeling jobs worth tens of thousands of dollars before she had permission to work in the U.S.
		This is Associated Press from November 11th, 2016.
		If you're interested in that, I believe she eventually got an H-1B visa, but I need to make sure of that.
		This is Curtis in Clearwater, Florida, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		I'm just calling in as a former Democrat who voted for Barack Obama because of his stance on illegal immigration.
		Now, the other day was November 20th, and 11 years ago, on the November 20th, 2014, November 20th, Barack Obama had an address to the nation, 14-minute on illegal immigration.
		I was going to ask the other day if you could show a clip to the citizens and remind them of Barack Obama's stance on illegal immigration.
		Why we don't hear anything about that, especially when he said that 2,000 illegal immigrants coming into the country per day would overwhelm the system.
		And I think it was something like 4,000 would be catastrophic.
		So I guess my question would be: what damage was done from 2021 to 2024 by letting 10,000 per day Regarding legal immigration.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of that?
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, legal immigration?
		Yes, of course.
		I mean, if I was a migrant, if I was coming from one of these other countries, I would definitely, you know, want to come to this country, you know, because whatever the reason is, they're having to leave their countries, you know, to come to our country, you know, of course.
		But we do have a system, and we are a country of laws.
		You have to have everybody needs to assimilate.
		Of course, you know, we're a country of immigrants, so we have to have some way to handle the volume of human beings.
		You have to take care of them.
		You have to feed them and house them.
		Can't just bust them all over and just let them live on the streets.
		So I don't know.
		I just would like to have somebody remind the citizens of Barack Obama's at some point.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This is another article of BBC.
		What is the Einstein visa and how did Melania Trump get one?
		This is from March of 2018.
		It says, Melania Trump obtained U.S. citizenship on a visa reserved for immigrants with, quote, extraordinary ability and, quote, sustained national, sorry, sustained national and international acclaim.
		It's nicknamed the Einstein Visa.
		It's the EB1.
		It's in theory reserved for people who are highly acclaimed in their field.
		The government cites Pulitzer, Oscar, and Olympic winners as examples, as well as respected academic researchers and multinational executives.
		Mrs. Trump began applying for the visa in 2000 when she was Melania Naus, a Slovenian model working in New York and dating Donald Trump.
		She was approved in 2001, one of just five people from Slovenia to win the coveted visa that year, according to the Washington Post.
		Here is Walter in Krivetz, Wisconsin, Democrat.
		Walter, go ahead.
unidentified		The whole deal with this illegal immigration.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		No, the deal is with legal immigration.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's what we're talking about.
unidentified		All right.
		So the Democrats open the borders.
		They want all these people and they give them cell phones, housing, medicals.
		They give them everything.
		All they want is to get them, the 95% of them, to be Democratic voters in the future so they can run the whole country.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		And here's Fred in Nebraska, Republican line.
		Good morning, Fred.
unidentified		Yeah, I don't oppose legal immigration.
		If they want to come here and do it the right way, that's fine.
		But as far as all these people calling in wanting illegal immigration, how about we do this?
		You go down to the.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Fred, when you said that you're not opposed to legal immigration, would you want it to be expanded, stay the same, decreased?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What are your thoughts on where the level is?
unidentified		Have it stay the same.
		If they come in and do everything by the book, that's more than fine.
		They can come in and do it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So who would you prioritize?
		Because a lot of people want to come in legally.
		Who would you choose?
unidentified		You prioritize anybody.
		Everybody, it's a fair way.
		Everybody can come in.
		If you do it the legal way, you can come in.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, everybody that wants to come?
unidentified		Hey, everybody wants to come, do it legal.
		That's fine.
		But how about all these people calling in wanting all these illegals in here?
		How about we do this?
		Why don't you step up?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So we're not talking about illegal immigration.
		Sorry about that.
		John in Durango, Colorado, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Go ahead, John.
		Thank you very much.
		Yes.
		I am not in favor of cutting down on legal immigration.
		However, I do I am against illegal immigration.
		My father was an immigrant, and so were his brothers and sisters, and they came over here and registered.
		You used to have to do that every January.
		If you were an alien in the country, you had to register in January.
		And as a result, how long ago was this, John?
		This would have been at the time of the Korean War.
		And they were all drafted into the Korean War, and that's how they obtained their citizenship.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, and so they were legal permanent residents and then got drafted, and then they were given citizenship as a result of the military service.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is that what you're saying?
unidentified		Yes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And would you want more legal immigration or less or about the same?
unidentified		Well, somebody was talking about before how you prioritize stuff.
		Now, I thought that they had quotas for different areas that were shuffled around from year to year.
		Like in the past, it favored Europe, but then they expanded it to be more inclusive with Africa and Asia, I believe.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I'm not sure about that, but what do you think if that is the case?
unidentified		Oh, well, I don't prioritize anything.
		I believe if they do have a revolving system, that would be good.
		And I have no problem at all with legal immigrants.
		If they want to expand it, that would be fine with me.
		But at the same time, I do have a problem with illegal immigration.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And this is Robert Bowman, Texas Republican.
		You're on the air, Robert.
unidentified		Hey, yeah, I'm all for legal immigration.
		I think, you know, the process usually takes between four to ten years to get assimilated to learn the language and everything.
		And then as long as I think if you're sponsored by a company, you should be able to get free medical care for one year only.
		After that, you need to be able to pay for your own insurance instead of having us, the Americans foot the bill for that.
		But as long as they're being sponsored by a good company, reputable company, not just any fly-by-night company, I'm all for that.
		Now, that was being done over in Wyoming back in 2002 when I moved over there.
		They gave me free medical insurance for one year, and then it dropped off after that.
		So I have no problem with that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So you only want highly skilled workers that already have a job here?
unidentified		No, no.
unidentified		As long as they're sponsored and they're trained in whatever job that they can do, they don't, I mean, sure, we all want some, we don't want somebody who just doesn't know anything, but we're all going to have to be trained to do whatever type of job that we're given.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, Robert, here is what people are saying is, why don't you have an American citizen do that?
		Why would you bring in an immigrant to do that job?
		There's Americans that are looking for jobs here.
unidentified		Okay, there was here just about a year or two ago when I kept hearing this, wow, we need 10 million workers, and no Americans were filling those positions.
		Now, when it gets to that point, sure, we need legal people to get in here.
		And if they have to crank it up from over a million to a million five, whatever, to fill those positions, because people need to work, business owners need to fill those positions.
		And if nobody wants to get out there and go to work to fill those positions, then we've got to figure out another way to doing it.
		And I think that legally, that's the best way to do it.
		But they need to assimilate and they need to get on their own after one year as far as medical goes.
		As long as they're sponsored by somebody, we're good.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got that, Robert.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is Maritza in New Rochelle, New York, Independent.
unidentified		Yes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, go right ahead.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You're on the air.
unidentified		Well, I'm calling about.
		I'm sick and I have A.
		And I have immigrants.
		Most of them are good.
		But the ones I know, I love them, Tesla.
		They come from their country with three or four kids, and they get the program, and then they quit the job because they want to get free health care.
		They want to get all the benefit, like welfare, they want to get food set, and they sell like those food, that Donald Trump opened up the country and closed the country.
		They selling the tickets to other people.
		They go to the supermarket.
		I pay for your grocery, you give me cash.
		You know, I'm sick.
		And they tell me all these things.
		And I get furious.
		I get aggravated.
		They come to this country.
		We give them a chance.
		And they're ready to open.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Kathleen in Los Angeles, Republican Lion.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Kathleen.
unidentified		Hi, it's a shame.
		Listen, I just participated in a discussion about black conservative women versus white liberal women on the DAF show.
		And the main issue that I discussed was immigration.
		And it's a shame how most black Americans who call in, they don't know the history of immigration.
		A year after the Civil Rights Act in 1965, the Immigration Act was enacted.
		And that is what precluded black Americans.
		I'm out of breath because I was up walking.
		Sorry.
		That's what I'm trying to catch my breath.
		That is what precluded black Americans from gaining economic stability in America.
		That Immigration Act of 1965, a year after the Civil Rights Act, in the late 1800s, mass in the late 1800s, I didn't say early, late 1800s, black Americans argued, Frederick Douglass, W. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, they argued that mass immigration impeded, precluded black Americans from having jobs.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Kathleen, do you believe that it's the immigrants who are taking the jobs away from African Americans?
unidentified		From black Americans.
		And in fact, in Los Angeles, I'm in Los Angeles, and the DAS show is in Los Angeles.
		Black Americans are 40% of the homeless.
		So you're trying to tell, you know, and when black Americans call in, so many of them are angry with Trump.
		He is trying to make it economically feasible and economically possible for black Americans to gain work, to get on the economic ladder so they're no longer homeless.
		Black Americans can no longer afford homes in Los Angeles.
		This is, you know, and it's amazing how black Americans don't know this history.
		They need to know this history.
		They need to know this data.
		And they need to be, there should be a moratorium on legal immigration for 50 years until black Americans can get on the economic ladder and no longer be homeless.
		You know, and it amazes me how many people call in, how many black Americans call in hating Trump.
		How many black American Democrats call in hating Trump, going along with black American Democrats, what they say, they don't know their history, and yet they're always talking about his slavery and Jim Crow.
		They never talk about immigration.
		Immigration is the economic issue that is why that's why black Americans are begging for reparations because they don't have any money.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And they're holding.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You're saying that they don't have any money in their homeless because immigrants are taking jobs that they would have taken.
unidentified		Exactly.
		Black American, you don't think black American men can work construction jobs?
		They need those construction jobs.
		You don't think black American men can work as a commercial trucker?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And they can't get that job because the employers are paying less because they're immigrants as opposed to Americans.
unidentified		You see, you know who has the commercial jobs in California?
		They were giving commercial truck driving jobs to illegal aliens.
		Okay.
		All the jobs in Los Angeles, all the construction jobs in Los Angeles are Hispanic.
		Where did black American men go?
		You need to see my discussion on this on the dash show.
		White liberals have been arguing that we need more immigrants.
		We don't need more immigrants.
		We need black Americans with jobs.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Christopher in Maryland, Independent.
		Go ahead, Christopher.
		You're on the air.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		I would like to say thank you for your form, first and foremost, first and foremost.
		A lot of times we look at the country, look at, when you say immigrants, we look at people from below the equator and south of the equator, different types of Caribbean, South America, and below.
		But we have a lot of illegal immigrants that are coming from Europe, and that's a topic I very seldom hear.
		These people come in, we never hear about the illegal Asians, the illegal Europeans.
		And look, even on my job, we have, I don't know if they're illegal or not, but they're training us for this new technology.
		And half the time when we go to their training class, we can't understand what they're saying.
		We got a gentleman that's he's um France and some other country.
		You say, man, how are we going to learn this technology?
		We got these Europeans.
		We can have Americans.
		Look, that's why we have MIT, you got Harvard, you have all these wonderful colleges and institutions of learning.
		Why aren't we taking them and putting them in place?
		Because they're here, they're Americans.
		Let's put, look, MPJ said, make put America first.
		We're not.
		And then with some of the H-1B visas, they used to charge, I think, about $1,000.
		Now, they want to charge them $100,000 just for that visa.
		I don't understand why they're doing this.
		And we're supposed to make America great again.
		I don't know about all that.
		I think we're becoming, we're selling out to everybody that got big pockets.
		That's all I want to say.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Line for Democrats, is it Cloter?
		Clotaire?
unidentified		Clotaire.
		Clotaire.
		Yes, good morning.
		I am a first-time caller, and I've been watching the show for many, many years.
		So now, this morning, I heard the segment that you brought up about immigration.
		I myself am an immigrant.
		So then I have heard a lot of people talking about immigrants, immigrants, immigrants, immigrants, including Donald Trump, but they have no idea about the immigration work, including the president.
		So now, when they said illegal immigrants have received benefits, I would like anybody to explain to me, if, let's say I am illegal, how would I get benefits?
		How?
		You don't have any idea who I am.
		No information about me, benefits from government.
		How is that happening?
		With no papers, no numbers, no name, no nothing, I receive.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So I get your point, Clotair, about the undocumented not being able to get government services, and that is true.
		The question, I want you to respond to Kathleen in California who said that immigrants are taking black jobs.
		What do you think of that?
unidentified		When you go to an apartment office or a job site, you ask for the job.
		They don't know whether you immigrate or you not immigrants.
		They do not know that.
		That's a fair day they use.
		People don't know about anything.
		So when they use that, when you get hired and then you get to the job site, then that's when they know who you are, where you're coming from, inside your information that you're giving.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, but the concept of employers feeling like they can pay immigrants much less than they would pay an American.
unidentified		That is not true.
unidentified		That is not true at all.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		They pay the same?
unidentified		Once you get that, yes.
		Once you get to that job site, they said, okay, they're going to pay you, let's say, $5, $10, or however, $20 an hour.
		You sign a document, people that they have in the files.
		How do they know you immigrant to pay you less money?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And with that, we will end this segment.
		But coming up later, we've got the Independent Institute's Ivan Eland discussing the Trump administration's strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific.
		But up next, the Independent Center's Adam Brandon discusses the role of independent voters in today's political climate.
		We'll be right back.
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		Watch the America 250 Thanksgiving all-day marathon on Thursday on C-SPAN.
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		You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country.
		I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices.
		You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds.
		I absolutely love C-SPAN.
		I love to hear both sides.
		I've watched every morning and it is unbiased.
		And you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments.
		It's probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country.
		You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions.
		Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark.
		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		Joining us to talk about the role of independence in politics is Adam Brandon.
		He is senior advisor at the Independent Center.
		Adam, welcome to the program.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Thanks very much for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, so tell us about the Independent Center, your mission, and how you're funded.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Great.
		So the first thing I'll just start by saying is that we're, in one sentence, we're trying to build a home for the politically homeless.
		Whether it's Gallup or Pew or whoever's looking at this data right now, says that about 25% of the American population, give or take, is a Republican.
		The voters, about 25%, Democrat.
		Somewhere between 40 and 50% of the population is independent, is unaffiliated.
		And so traditionally, when you have a two-party system, most of the time it's that people make up, they join in one of those two parties.
		But we're entering into a new era in American politics where there's three trends coming together right now.
		Number one is the decline of people signing up for the parties.
		People just, they don't feel the need to join a party anymore.
		The second thing that we're seeing, and this is tremendous, particularly amongst millennial voters, voters under age 45, which is now going to be the largest part of the electorate going on for the next 20 years, the next two decades are going to be driven by millennials, and they're politically overwhelmingly independent.
		The majority of millennials are independent.
		So you're seeing the decline of the party, then the rise of this independent ID, but something else is happening right now, and that is the rise of artificial intelligence.
		And for people like me who are trying to work on giving people other options besides just Republican and Democrat, AI is the great leveler.
		We've never had technology like this, and we're able to do things right now in politics.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We do what in politics?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Just looking at data, being able to identify voters, being able to talk directly to voters.
		So we talk about money in politics all the time.
		Money is actually collapsing in value.
		It doesn't make sense when you see all the billions of dollars going into politics.
		But no one's watching TV ads anymore.
		Everyone throws that mail away.
		What we're looking for is someone who's authentic.
		And the parties craft their images and they overproduce this or that.
		And so there's an opportunity by using some of this new technology to directly talk to the voters.
		And I think what you're going to see in 2026, in this midterm, the biggest story in this midterm is going to be you've got people running for independent as governor in Michigan, in California, in Maine.
		You've got people on the ballot already running as independent, like Hot Achilles out in Idaho.
		I know of multiple people running as independent for Congress.
		So for the first time, people are actually going to have independent choices.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so we'll talk about that, but how are you funded first?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		How are we funded right now?
		I've got a small group of donors who are kind of my angel investors that came on that I've met along the way.
		These tend to be more, I guess you'd say, from the politically libertarian or classical liberal side of things.
		That's where I personally find my politics, but I used to at least have a home somewhat in the Republican Party.
		At least they pretended to care about spending.
		But what I find right now is in the recent years, I became politically homeless as well.
		And so I've become part of this group in the middle.
		And one of the lessons I've learned after 20 years of working here in Washington is that our biggest challenges, you were just talking about immigration, whether it's health care, whether it's affordability.
		There is not a Republican or Democratic solution to these problems.
		You actually need to get both parties together to actually come together and find some consensus.
		And it's only independents who are going to be able to force that change.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Adam, how do you define an independent voter?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Great question.
		So we've spent a couple of years digging into this because traditionally an independent is just, oh, a Republican who may not feel like a Republican today, but will come home or a Democrat who will come home.
		But what we're seeing is that's not actually true.
		What was holding a lot of these independents together, things like social issues, they're very live and let live.
		What you do in your bedroom as consenting adults is none of my business.
		So they tend to take on a social issues kind of a live and let live.
		I'm going to stay out of your business approach.
		And then on the economic issues, so you can say that's more of a Democrat kind of approach.
		And then on the economic issues, they're actually concerned about spending.
		They look at this.
		We have a growing economy, but still two, two and a half trillion dollars in debt.
		They know this bill is coming due.
		And so they want some adults in the room to finally deal with these issues.
		And it doesn't fit in either party right now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But how do you know that?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		How do you know that independents are fiscal conservatives and they're social liberals?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's one way to put it.
		Just a lot of research.
		And remember, I mentioned about AI.
		One thing we're able to, I work with some pollsters.
		I work with a lot of people who are in emerging technology right now.
		And what they're able to show is when you start talking to the people, you can take a survey and see what they're saying, but then you follow them also on social media to see what they're posting.
		And what we find is if you have a candidate who's coming out with a message like that, that I'm going to stay out of your personal business, but I'm also going to make sure we're taking care of our fiscal house to make sure that a national fiscal collapse doesn't come home to collapse your home finances.
		That's what people are looking for.
		They're looking for some sanity and some normality right now.
		And it's only independents who I think will be able to deliver it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned some independent candidates that are running.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Does your organization support candidates directly?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		So I represent a 501c3, which is a foundation, a 501c4, which allows us to get more involved in policy.
		And then this is just amazing to me when we started this project.
		Joe Smith for Senate 2050 has been registered.
		No one registered the Independent PAC.
		I literally just filled out the paperwork and registered it.
unidentified		It's just called The Independent PAC.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		And so we have it.
		And we're going to be using that to support candidates.
		And I'll just tell you, our direct strategy this election is that normally when I came up in politics, the Republican or Democrat majority was 30 or 40 seats.
		Now it's two, three seats.
		And so what our theory is, is that of the 435 congressional seats, only 10% of those, less than 40, are actually competitive.
		And the reason that these seats are competitive is the plurality or majority of voters in those districts are independents.
		So in 40 congressional districts in this country, only in 40, they would actually support an independent independent.
		So our plan is to run and get about five independents elected so neither party can form a majority.
		Neither party.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, that would be interesting.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		It would be change all the incentives in Washington.
unidentified		Right.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		So that's what we're looking at.
		It only takes, so everyone's looking at these grand schemes to reach.
		No, independents go get five seats.
		They control the direction of the agenda of Washington, and that's when the adults come back in the room.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		If you'd like to join our conversation, talk to Adam Brandon about independence in politics.
		You can do so.
		You can start calling in now.
		Democrats are on 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202748, 8001.
		And independents, we want to hear from you as well.
		202748-8002.
		You wrote an opinion piece for Real Clear Politics, and the headline is this.
		In the shutdown, blame game, independents are the real winners.
		How did you come to that?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		It's just absurd to me.
		I turn on the news, and it's like, well, Republicans are winning this debate.
		Democrats are winning this debate.
		Yet I'm stuck in an airport for six hours because there's no airport, you know, air traffic control.
		There's someone who's trying to get a small business loan that was processed that all of a sudden isn't there.
		Someone's trying to go to a wedding and they can't get their passport processed.
		It's really Americans who are paying the price for all this while the political class is just fighting over who wins.
		It doesn't matter who wins or loses.
		It's the American people who are losing.
		And this is just further evidence that the system that we have right now, this death match, existential death war between these two parties is not serving this country anymore.
		And so the only way that I see that you shake that up is you have to, again, not a party.
		It's a movement.
		Movements change politics.
		The civil rights movement, the suffragette movement, movements.
		What we're trying to do is support a movement, a political movement, and that is based on getting these independents involved in politics.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, how is that different than a third party, right?
		Because you hear a lot about, oh, we're forming this third party, we're forming this whatever, or the Libertarian Party.
		How is this different?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		So again, my main issue that I came to Washington was debt and deficits.
		And when I came to Washington, I think the debt was about like $5 trillion.
		So how am I doing in my 20-year career?
unidentified		Not well.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Not so well, right?
		So when you take a step back and you look at what the incentives, the system has these incentives that got us to where we are right now.
		And unfortunately, those incentives all benefit the parties.
		And so the only way that I see you're actually going to change something is that you have to change the incentives to go around what incentivizes the two parties right now.
		And so if voters actually start saying enough, then they can actually come together.
		But that doesn't need to be a party.
		A party has party platforms.
		A party says we're this, we're not that.
		A movement, when I think about the suffragette movement, the civil rights movement, they changed both parties.
		And that's what I want to do.
		I want to see change not just through a new party, but changing how both parties actually act together.
		So therefore, a movement that we could build support to help these people get elected, but it's going to be a big tent.
		As the parties become narrower tense, we're going to be the new big tent in American politics.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask you about the two independents in the Senate, Senator Sanders, Bernie Sanders, and Angus King of Maine.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you consider them independents?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		No, because they caucus with the Democratic Party.
		When I'm talking about independents, I'm talking about people who are going to come to Washington and are not beholden to either party.
		That's the kicker.
		That's the party.
unidentified		See, they will tell you they're not beholden, that they choose to caucus with 97, 98% with the party.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Come on.
		It's like this is one thing that nauseates me when I hear people say, I am so bipartisan.
		You vote with your party 98% of the time.
		I mean, bipartisan is going to be you're going to vote here and you're going to vote there.
		But again, the incentives, because as much as I said, the money is in decline in Washington.
		The people here, the politicians, haven't realized that yet.
		And they need that money because they're trying to use that money to talk to voters because voters aren't listening to them because they've lost the faith of the voters.
		That's what an independent has the ability to do, is to come to Washington and be like, I am not with Team Red or Team Blue.
		I'm actually with you and representing your issues.
		And I think that change, when it hits politics this year, I'm not talking in two years or 10 years.
		That is happening this cycle.
		And it's going to fund.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So you're talking about the midterms, 2026.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		A year from now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You think that we could have five seats in the House to go to true independence.
unidentified		Absolutely.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Do not caucus with either party.
		That is the kicker.
		They caucus together.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What states are those in?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you say off the top of your head?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		So I could say, like, there's Ethan Penner, who's running for governor in California.
		Mike Dugan, who's running for governor in Michigan.
		So, and I mentioned Todd Achilles running for Senate.
		Now the House races, I'm going to have to keep those a little quiet right now.
		And the reason is that our advantage is we don't have to run through a primary.
		We don't have to go through all that process.
		So our disadvantage is going to be we are not going to have a lot of money.
		I estimate that each one of our candidates will have about $2 million, which is a lot of money.
		But given that each opponent will probably have 20 or 30, our advantage is going to be the sneak attack coming down from the hill late in the game.
		So some people are starting to already say they're running.
		There's going to be some announcements soon of different candidates in certain states, places like Alaska and places like that, that there will be independents on the ballot, that by the way the ballot works, they're going to have to say what they're doing earlier.
		But everybody else I'm counseling, let's stay quiet for as long as possible.
		But it is Pennsylvania, Virginia, Colorado, Arizona, California.
		And remember, I said it's about 40 seats.
		These tend to be your swing districts.
		They tend to be more suburban districts.
		They tend to be districts that millennials are overrepresented in.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And do you worry about being a spoiler in those elections?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		So this spoiler is a fascinating concept because what I'm saying is we're giving Americans choice.
		Choice.
		You have one choice and two choices.
		And I'm saying here's a third choice.
		And I'm the spoiler.
		I think the spoiler are the two people who are trying to lock in the system for themselves.
		The only people who are coming at me and saying you're a spoiler are the people who are invested in the current system.
		Everyone else is like, amen, have at it.
		Give me another choice.
		I would love to have another choice on the ballot.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, let's talk to an independent.
		This is Sue in Alpena, Michigan, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I had to call in when your guest was describing an independent.
		I go, that is me.
		I am socially liberal and very fiscally conservative.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Amen.
unidentified		And I've never been representative.
		I live in a conservative area.
		And it's so frustrating because, you know, we're electing people that don't have my values.
		And there's so many of us.
		And we are not represented.
		We are not.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Sue, that is the most important thing is what I've learned in this project is that you're not alone.
		You're actually about half the population.
		And I know when you talk to your friends and family, and particularly younger people, they're all like, that's exactly how I feel.
		But you don't have a political voice.
		And what really drives me nuts is that every year you're expected to go vote for Tweedle D or Tweedle Dumb.
		And you're expected that these are really good choices.
		No, they're not good choices.
		And if people like you say, you know what, I want something else, you're going to get it.
		And I believe in 2026 and you in Michigan, you're actually going to have the choice to vote for an independent this cycle.
		And so I hope you do.
unidentified		Yes, I will.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And here's Tony, Washington, D.C., Democrat.
		Go ahead, Tony.
unidentified		Hi, yes.
		I wanted to ask, why is it that you don't have one vote and it counts whether you vote Democratic, Republican, Independent?
		I think when you're locked in a box, I don't understand.
		This is not a true democracy because you're forced to, you should have people running.
		They state their platform and you vote.
		You shouldn't be divided.
		This gerrymandering and this is Democrat, Republican.
		I think you should have the people running should go out, state their policy or their platform, and then people should freely vote.
		You shouldn't be boxed into a box.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Ma'am, I couldn't agree with you more.
		I couldn't agree with you more.
		And I think that's part of the problem.
		Right now, about 7% of Americans participate in the primary process.
		So 7% of Americans choose the candidates that we get.
		That's not, that to me is like anti-democratic.
		And I also think about this.
		The Republican and the Democratic Party, they're both private institutions that we're using taxpayer dollars to pay for their primaries.
		That to me is like, so if the taxpayer is paying for a Republican or Democratic primary, everyone should be allowed to vote.
		If the parties want to keep people out of their primaries, they should pay for their own party primaries.
		They should pay for it themselves and not use taxpayer dollars.
		I just think this is a basic fairness that is kind of almost like a modern civil rights movement where you're denying 93% of the Americans the right to vote and who they choose against against these elections.
		So I think, again, this is another reason why if you want to break this box, you want to break out of these choices, this is why it's time for you to declare your independence.
		And what a better year than the 250th anniversary of our declaration that Americans to come out and say, I'm done with this two-party BS.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		She did mention redistricting and gerrymandering.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Are you watching that process?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Absolutely, because it's also a real challenge when you're trying to recruit people in places like California and Texas, and you don't even know the map.
		But what we're seeing is that the parties have already pushed the limit as far as they can go with gerrymandering.
		So what's actually happening is they're weakening districts by kind of moving independents around, which we're seeing our opportunities are actually growing.
		And then another opportunity we may have in this cycle, let's see what the courts say about the Texas gerrymander and the California gerrymander.
		We could actually get in there and build a list of, let's say, 10% of the voters or, you know, a few, like 20, 30,000 voters in a district.
		And we could start working with them and actually encourage them to vote the other way than the intended gerrymander and kind of start messing around with this.
		So I think the parties, this is a sign of desperation that they can't win on their own merits.
		They can't win on their arguments.
		So we're just going to cook the books and try and move the crayons around to make the electorate fit into our little boxes.
		And the American people are done with it.
		Again, I come back to this age of technology and the age of AI.
		It's going to be this great, just this great opportunity to disrupt the system.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Tom Independent in Crozette, Virginia.
unidentified		Crozett?
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Hey, Tom.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Tom.
unidentified		My question is this.
		I hope you do well with your effort.
		I think that anybody who votes for an incumbent at this point has got a real problem after the fiasco that's going on in Washington.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Amen.
unidentified		But the problem I see you're going to have is the same problem that no labels ran into when they couldn't come up with a candidate for the president of the United States.
unidentified		And that's the problem I think you're going to have.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		So I can't, like, I got a lot of problems.
		Getting into this, I always joke when I hire new people.
		It's like, chances are we're going to fail.
		This has never been done before.
		And you're probably going to blow your career up.
		And everyone is like, where do I sign up?
		This is an actual chance to serve the country and actually put issues before partisanship.
		Sign me up.
		So I understand the enthusiasm.
		The challenge that you mentioned about the presidency is when I've got a little fortune cookie I was eating one, you know, got carry out when I'm like, this isn't going to work one day.
		I opened the cookie and the cookie said, choose battles small enough to work but large enough to matter.
		And so that's why our strategy is not looking at the presidency because that is very daunting, very difficult.
		But we're looking at these congressional races.
		Number one, ballot access is not easy, but it's a lot more achievable.
		And number two, we can find these people that kind of can match the district.
		And as we were talking about earlier, this is a movement, not a party.
		Too often, when say a Ross Perrot is running for president, he becomes the face.
		I don't want to be the face of this.
		I'm just part of what's trying to build up to help this thing.
		But say we have five, six, seven, ten candidates.
		They will be the face of this movement, but they're going to represent these districts.
		So the problem if you shoot for the presidency is it's just, I think, very difficult to pull that off.
		Taking five seats in Congress, while difficult, is manageable and doable, and we intend to do that this cycle.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask you about this text that we got from Terry in the Plains, Virginia.
		The reason independents caucus with the parties is to get a seat on the committees.
		If they don't, they have only their vote to express themselves and no say as to what the committees are up to.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		That's a great point, and I think there is some truth, but also that's buying into what the two parties want you to believe.
		What my concern is that when I've met so many congressmen, Republican, Democrat, when they come to this town, they want to do the right thing.
		They want to be good.
		And what happens?
		It's almost like being rushed to fraternity as you're a new congressman.
		And they will tell this to you.
		This is the multiple congressmen, Ken Buck, Thomas Massey, have gone on the record on this system works.
		You're handed a menu when you arrive in town before you're even sworn in.
		And the committees are for sale.
		There's price tags next to them.
		Now they're not actual prices.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Like who gets that money?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		The parties.
		So this is how you get on a committee.
		You have to raise money to get on that committee.
		They don't give you the committee because you're smart.
		They give you the committee because you raise money to kick back to the party.
		And that's what I mean, how the incentives are so broken here.
		And so to get on a committee, you're already selling your soul.
		And that's what I look at the problem with the swamp is it gets you before you're even sworn in because now you got to go raise all this money to go get on this committee.
		The challenge I would tell this person is that people we're recruiting are going to have such a high moral authority putting them, you know, putting the country before partisan politics that they're going to have what we call the bully pulpit.
		And when you have this nonsense of in the shutdown where people are just talking about who wins and not talking about the actual issues, that creates an opportunity for our folks to actually go in and talk about the issues.
		And the people we're recruiting, we're recruiting people whose lives are better outside of Congress than inside.
		So it's kind of like term limits.
		We're kind of telling them we want you to come in for one or two terms and get out.
		So a whole committee assignment is about getting money back to the party.
		And then the committee assignment is about stay quiet, don't do anything, don't rock the boat.
		And maybe 10 or 15 years, you too can be the committee chairman and part of the problem.
		What we want is our people out of here before they become tainted.
		So the idea is you come in, you don't need to be on a committee.
		You could use the bullet pulpit.
		You have your vote, and you can start showing model legislation on things like how we actually fundamentally redo health care, how we get ahead of our debt and deficits and actually reform entitlements.
		I mean, the biggest serious issues, that's what these folks can dedicate themselves to.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Claudell, Jersey City, New Jersey, Independent.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Hi, I want to know how, as an independent person, how are you determining that you're truly getting an independent thinker that is going to maintain their integrity once they come in?
		Because it seems like you're about to set up the very thing that is currently in existence.
		So how are you letting the public know that you really have somebody that's going to maintain their integrity and actually do a job of an independent thinker?
		So that means your vote is going to swing from whether it's now Democrat, Republican, or whatever, but you're going to vote based on the integrity, the issue, and not worry about a blue or red.
		You understand?
		Yeah, I do.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		And, man, I think the first thing is like how they're going to get elected.
		And they're going to get elected without going through either party.
		So by doing that, they're going to kind of prove to the point that like, okay, by the way I got elected by talking directly to my voters and in a three-way race, we're talking about 100,000 votes.
		So it's not an absurd amount of votes.
		Like you can go and get 100,000 votes.
		So by having those communications directly with the voter, again, I talked about how technology is lowering these barriers.
		So that's step one.
		Step two, and maybe actually, this is actually the step one part, is that the people we're recruiting, these are great people.
		Like I am, the people, I have the best job in the world right now.
		I get to talk with people from California to Maine who are serious about running as an independent and the reasons why when I hear, and then you look at their backgrounds, they usually have done something of service, whether they've been in the CIA, the FBI, they've been in school teachers, they've been in the Army, they've done service jobs before and kind of proven with their life's work.
		And again, when I go through the interview process, not everyone I come up with is like, okay, this is someone who sees that there may be an opportunity and independence or the next big thing.
		But you get in the room and you just kind of build up this trust.
		And ultimately, it's going to be up to the voter to decide.
		But then how they act when they get into office.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But that's the big question: is how do you know their true independence without a platform?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Because this isn't a party that has a platform like you said.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		But there's guidelines.
		Remember, I kind of said on the social issues, we're a big tent.
		We're not trying to find like a, you know, you have to agree with us 100% on all of these things.
		I mentioned, I'll give you an example on debt and entitlements.
		We all talk about how spending is a problem in this country.
		But what we don't talk about is the fact of what actually drives our spending.
		And what is driving our spending right now is not a Republican problem or a Democrat problem.
		It's a demographic problem.
		Our system is designed with a lot of workers and not a lot of retirees, and we've inverted that.
		We have a lot of retirees and not as many workers.
		So we need to have an intergenerational conversation between older Americans and younger Americans, between Republicans and Democrats, between independents.
		And how are we going to do this?
		So we take care of the promises we made our older Americans, but we're not just telling younger Americans, we're going to jack your taxes up to take care of the older folks, and then you're going to be left with nothing.
		We need to have a whole conversation.
		So when we start to engage with this, what people want to see is a process.
		More than the solution is like, how are you going to arrive at that solution?
		And so an independent has that opportunity to be like, look, these are our basic values.
		We all can kind of agree on more or less on the social side, more or less on the goals on the fiscal.
		But what's going to require is us getting in a room for a couple years and doing that hard legislative work, which doesn't happen today.
		When you govern by omnibuses, and we're going to throw it all into one bill at the end of the year, you can't think long term.
		And a problem like our entitlements and debt and deficit, it requires years of thinking and work.
		And so that's why we think you get these independents in there who are going to be dedicated to that process and who do not care about their re-election.
		That's the other thing.
		They're getting in here knowing they're only going to be here for a very short period of time.
		That frees them up to do that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But you can't assure that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You can't make somebody not run for re-election.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		So here's our ultimate challenge with these folks.
		And this is when I get into the conversation with them.
		We're changing all the incentives because normally if you're a Republican or a Democrat and you recruit someone, what is the first question you ask them?
		How much money can you raise?
		Money, That's the most important thing.
		Your values are okay.
		Oh, but you can raise that money.
		You're on the ticket.
		We don't have to do that because we need about $2 million for race.
		We're going to raise that primarily, hopefully through listeners and through smaller dollars to fund these candidates.
		And we're going to talk directly to the voters.
		So that's where we get to this $2 million number.
		And so what our hope would be is that when that person gets elected, they know that if they turn on those 100,000 independent voters that got them elected, they're as good as gone.
		And so they have to keep their word with these people.
		It's going to be more important than, say, a normal politician.
		So that is the challenge.
		And this is also why I want to get 5'67, because someone's always going to break my heart.
		But the question also is, it's not who's going to break my heart.
		It's going to be how many of these will not break my heart.
		How many of these people have done incredible things in their lives and service and wanted just one more opportunity to come to this country and solve a big problem?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is Matthew in Silva, North Carolina, independent line.
unidentified		Hi, thank you for having me.
		First off, an independent is a person who thinks for themselves.
		We don't categorize ourselves by a title.
		We don't go to a certain camp.
		We fall between party lines.
		If we can agree with Democrats on certain things, and we can agree with Republicans on other things.
		Now, when I hear from you, this just sounds like another camp and one that you get to cherry pick.
		You talk about candidates.
		You're talking about using AI.
		You're talking about selecting people that might fall into a line of that one Democratic lady who says, well, I don't feel like I have anybody that represents me.
		Well, I'm sorry, man, but to find your exact clone who's going to run for office, that's a very rare thing.
		So I think this is very disingenuous.
		And what I like from independents, and I would have to hope is that somebody runs independently for themselves, that they don't get found, that they don't get picked, that they have a goal and they find a way to reach that goal.
		Thank you for that.
		So Matthew, can I ask you, what are you, who did you vote for?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Matthew's gone.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Never mind.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Well, what I would just say is I understand what he's saying, but the point, there is an infrastructure.
		And if there's something that I've learned in 20 years working here in Washington is how deep and how strong that infrastructure is.
		And no one is going to get elected without it.
		I keep coming back to these incentives.
		The reason that we keep getting is that Einstein quote, you try and do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.
		Well, that's American politics.
		We keep electing these same people who are going to come to Washington and change things, but the incentives don't allow that to happen.
		So to be an independent, you do have to have some sort of infrastructure that is going to help you with fundraising.
		It's going to help you with policy support.
		It's going to help you organize and be able to communicate back to your district.
		And so that's what we're trying to build.
		And what's fun about this project is in most of my career, I never once ever reached over to talk to anyone on the other side of the aisle.
		I was stuck on my little team.
		And that was the part I disliked about my job the most is I never ever really spent time hearing what those strange people over there were saying.
		And I think what happens is you're creating a system right now that is going to incentivize that to actually happen where people have to start talking to the other sides.
		But you still have to have an infrastructure that allows that person to communicate and to be effective.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that currently voters reward compromise?
		You know, you talked about you were on your side and you didn't really reach out to the others.
		It's because voters don't like it.
		Isn't that true?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		But it's also, if you go back to this, if you remember we were talking a little bit about gerrymandering, these districts are designed with the primary that that is the incentive.
		So there is no, it's a closed loop.
		There is no incentive to change.
		But that's when we saw these 40 districts.
		It was just like, you know, the light shined out of the bucket when you're looking down in and you see these numbers, like, oh my goodness, what is going on here?
		Because those are the only districts in the country that we feel would actually support an independent.
		That's why this isn't a scatter shot.
		This isn't trying to run for president.
		What I am talking about only works in a few places.
		But where it works, it has the power to change everything.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to play for you a portion of Vice President Cheney's, former Vice President Cheney's funeral.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This is his daughter, Liz Cheney, talking about him and his relationship to his party.
unidentified		Though he was inspired to service by President Kennedy, Dick Cheney became a Republican.
		But he knew that bonds of party must always yield to the single bond we share as Americans.
		For him, a choice between defense of the Constitution and defense of your political party was no choice at all.
		When he was vice president, he wrote in this letter to all of his grandchildren, as you grow, you will come to understand the sacrifices that each generation makes to preserve freedom and democracy for future generations.
		And you will assume the important responsibilities of citizens in our society.
		I ask of you as my grandchildren what I asked of my daughters, that you always strive in your lives to do what is right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		You know, eulogies are always really nice, and everyone always sounds really bipartisan in their eulogies, I notice.
		I also, I just look at governing, and I remember when he was an elected person, yeah, he was a Republican.
		He was a good Republican.
		That's fine.
		I don't care if you're a good Republican.
		I don't care if you're a good Democrat.
		What I'm just trying to talk about is those people, those 50% in the middle that aren't represented.
		And what I would like to do, rather than talk about later on how this person was a really good, you know, they put party or they put their country first, I want people to actually govern that way.
		I want people to help people get elected who actually are putting those values into practice right now.
		And that was very nice, but I don't think either party is going to be able to deliver on those words right now.
		Only independents are going to be able to deliver on those words.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, Liz Cheney, I mean, arguably not an independent, very conservative, but she did go against her party.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Correct.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And lost her seat.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		And correct.
		And she's out.
		So what I'm looking at, I spent years, 20 years of my life trying to change a party from the inside.
		And I have seen that, but because of the incentives, it's just not possible.
		And so to me, I came to this conclusion that I have more in common with people who are not politically tied to either party.
		And that's what kind of helped me come into this party in this independent space in the middle.
		And so I believe that's what, I mean, just such beautiful sentiment.
		But we need that sentiment in Washington right now of people actually getting up every day.
		How are we going to fix health care?
		How are we going to fix entitlements?
		How are we going to fix the affordability crisis?
		How are we going to fix immigration?
		We need those people in Washington right now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Roberto in Houston, Texas, Independent.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		This is Roberto from Houston, Texas.
		Mimi, I want to support you completely.
		And Adam, you must listen to Mimi and listen to me.
		I'm independent.
		I'm a fiscal conservative and social liberal.
		But here's the problem.
		I'm going to try to run as an independent here in Houston.
		I cannot find out how to actually sign up for it.
		So can you provide a phone number for that?
		Can you provide a phone number, Adam, for your center?
		Not a website.
		And second, don't dismiss this idea.
		You're definitely going to need financing.
		Elon Musk has his faults, but he was talking about independent party.
		I think you should get with him because he has some money.
		And that's what it's going to come down to.
		Money and what Mimi said, have a more specific platform because right now you're all over the place.
		All right.
		Thank you.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		So, you know, money, we're going to need about $40 million to pull this off.
		That's a lot of money.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Would you take it from Elon Musk?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		You know, I'd take it from just about anyone who signs up for the mission.
		We're not hiding what we're doing.
		We're hiding this in the public.
		So just about everyone, and like right now who we're starting to talk to, there's, remember I said we have a 501c3, a 501 in politics.
		So there's a wide variety of people we're talking to.
		But I am talking to a lot of people who used to be Republicans, people who used to be Democrats, a lot of foundations that used to support a more left-wing causes.
		They're kind of giving.
		So there's what we're seeing just by the funding that we're getting, it is people from all over the place.
		And, you know, Mr. Musk has talked about a similar strategy.
		He's also talked about campaigning just against Republicans.
		We're going to campaign against Republicans and Democrats.
		So I will talk to anyone.
		But what the gentleman did say, I think, is one of the big problems.
		It shouldn't be so hard to run for office in America to find any information on it.
		The most popular thing on our website right now, since we began a year ago, is people coming to theindependentcenter.org to find out how do I become and register as an independent.
		And so for that gentleman who wants to run in a local office, we don't have those resources yet.
		We're trying to help people run for Congress right now.
		But in the long run, we want to help people run for any office, whether it's dog catcher all the way to president.
		But you got to walk before you run.
		And so our goal in 2016 is just punch in a few of these independents so you can show going into the presidential race that it is possible to actually go beyond the dysfunction of the current two-party system.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And that website for Roberto and anybody else looking is independentcenter.org.
unidentified		Correct.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You can go find information there.
		I want to show you some results from an NPR Maris poll that was taken last week about congressional district races in 2026.
		So not the state level.
		It says this.
		So 55% of those asked would support the Democratic candidate.
		41% would support the Republican candidate.
		Now, among independents, 61% said they would support the Democrat.
		28% would support a Republican.
		What do you make of those numbers?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		So independents decide elections.
		Period.
		Tell me who the independents support for president, and I'll tell you who wins.
		Tell me who the independents support for Congress, and I'll tell you who will win.
		It's not, politics is not that confusing.
		So we've seen these independents, but what they do is because they can't find the candidate they're looking for, they just go back and forth.
		So candidates swung for Trump in 16, then they swung for Biden in 20, then they swung back for Trump, and they vote congressionally.
		They go back and forth because they're like, I don't like the Republican, I'm going to vote for the Democrat.
		And then they get the Democrat, and I don't like them either, so I'm going to vote for the Republican.
		So what we're saying is when they finally have a choice of like, here is an independent that best reflects you and your values, that's what we think will be the game changer.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And you think if we have more of those independent candidates, you'll have more people participating in the voting process.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		I have little children at home, and one of the most powerful children's rhymes that I've ever read them is the emperor has no clothes.
		And I believe the two parties are the emperors walking around in their blue and red finery.
		And it's my little kid is finally saying, Dad, those guys are actually naked.
		And so what I think happens is as we prove that there is life beyond these two parties, that all of a sudden it's just going to, those edifices are going to collapse, and people are going to be like, you know what, we can actually get real Americans who are normal, who can compromise, who have values and principles, who actually can see that there are two sides to an issue and figure out what the way path forward is.
		And when Americans have that choice, I think they're going to take it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Dave in Lynchburg, Virginia, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Dave.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just wonder what you think about Joe Manchin as a candidate, as an independent candidate after being a Democrat for so long.
		And the other thing is George Washington, I don't believe, was very fond of parties.
		And I think he was anti-party.
		And I kind of feel the same way.
		People get into their own camps and they can't see beyond their base.
		And I think they're all tend to be for themselves, to better themselves and not be patriots like the founders were that were actually only looking out for the good of the country.
		There's not a lot of that that I see anymore.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		So to sort of look, we have the 250th anniversary of the Declaration coming up, and I think it's really important to go back and understand what the founders were warning us about.
		When Benjamin Franklin, when he said it's a republic if you can keep it, I think it's this moment he was worrying about.
		And you're absolutely right.
		The founders warned of partisanship.
		They really did.
		They thought that this would be what would tear the Republic apart because they also went back to ancient Rome, to ancient Greece, to Florence, to all these republics through history.
		And that's what killed them was the hyper-partisanship.
		And so we are at the precipice of that edge where we're going to start putting our parties ahead of our country.
		And so we need to dial that back.
		So Joe Manchin, I mentioned I spent 20 years more on the conservative side.
		Joe Manchin came out and saved the filibuster, but I couldn't come out and say something nice about him.
		And the reason I couldn't say that, because I do look at what cinema did and what Manchin did in saving the filibuster, was probably the most important piece of legislation in my entire career.
		The most important thing that has passed in the last not passed in the last 20 years.
		But because I was stuck on Team Red, I couldn't say something nice about someone on Team Blue, and I deeply regretted that all my life.
		And so I've gotten to know Joe Manchin recently, and he is everything that I want to see in a politician.
		And so one thing I will just say, and I've told him this personally, and he's laughed at my face.
		But when you get these five people elected, it is interesting that you do not have to actually be an elected member of Congress to be the speaker.
		So part of our deal that we would strike with these five is you go out and find a General Petraeus, you go out and find a Joe Manchin, and you say, sir, would you please serve or ma'am for two years and just be a speaker for the American people and just make sure this body works and things are done on time and govern honestly.
		The independents have the power, just five, to put someone like that in a position where they can actually manage the body the way it was intended to.
		So I hope that we could be successful so that we could actually drag someone like Joe Manchin back into public life for just one more round to just help us fix a few things.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, this is what Mike in Santa Fe, New Mexico says.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This gentleman has a noble idea that I agree with in principle.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		However, I love the however.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Sorry, this is like talking to this is like families talking to me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		However, once these virgin candidates make it through the immaculate election and drink the sweet wine of corruption, they will just pivot or transition to corrupt money to maintain their power and status.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		So this is, again, when we designed this, we tried to put the whole thing upside down so the candidates, their number one job is not fundraising.
		We will do some of this, we're going to try and do all the fundraising for them.
		And the idea would be is that they could then be independent.
		So and the people that we're going to try and fundraise from, as I mentioned, a lot of this money that we're looking to raise, we're going to try and do it in small dollars, $10, $15, $20.
		And the idea would be that we're going to put them up on a pedestal.
		So if they don't actually meet those demands, the voters will wash them out.
		Because they're going to run as independents.
		They're going to win as independents.
		And if they're not independent and truly in their hearts, the voters will see it very quickly.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Corey in Toledo, Ohio.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Democrat, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hi.
		I have a question.
		Your idea sounded very, very lovely.
		There's only one problem.
		What do we do with the Electoral College?
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Great, ma'am, but this gets back to, I'm not looking at the presidency yet.
		I'm looking at the House of Representatives, baby steps.
		And I grew up in Cleveland just down the road from you.
		So, you know, when you grow up in Northeast Ohio, right, you know, you can't solve all your problems overnight.
		You got to take some baby steps.
		So we think that if our goal, if we can actually rock this thing to a point where you get a few handful of independents elected in Congress, and God forbid we actually pull this off and we can get five or six elected so neither party can actually choose the speaker, you just changed American political rules, which would then mean what happens upticket for, and like say running for president, all of a sudden people start to believe, hey, the system can actually work again.
		And hopefully you'd start to see change up there.
		So we got one problem to solve right now is trying to get Congress to actually function because to another part of my biggest concerns, I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican, I have always been concerned with centralizing power in the White House.
		That is the road to dictatorship when you start centralizing power in the White House.
		And for a long time, when Democrats were in office, Republicans would complain about power centralizing in the White House.
		When Republicans are centralizing power, Democrats complain.
		We need both Republicans and Democrats to say we need Congress to function.
		And Congress needs to pull its power back from the White House.
		And Congress needs to do its oversight.
		It needs to do a freaking budget.
		That's what it's put by the Congress to do.
		That's what it's supposed to do.
		And it doesn't even do that.
		We can make that that happens again, which then pulls that power back from the White House, which then maybe we're not as concerned about who wins and loses the White House anymore because they're going to have some constraints on what they can and can't do governance-wise.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's Adam Brandon, senior advisor at the Independent Center.
		They're at independentcenter.org.
		Adam, thanks so much for joining us.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		I'm just getting fired up and I got to go.
		Like, I'm going to get my seatbelt on and go.
		I'm like, I'm loving these calls.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We shouldn't have given you so much coffee.
adam brandon ▲ ● ▼		Oh, come on.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Coming up later, Independent Institutes, Ivan Elin discusses the U.S. tensions with Venezuela and Colombia amid the Trump administration strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.
unidentified		But first, it's open forum.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You can start calling in now.
unidentified		202748-8000 for Democrats, 202748-8001 for independence, and 202748-8002.
		Sorry, 8,002 for independence.
		That's unbiased as you can get.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You are so fair.
unidentified		I don't know how anybody can say otherwise.
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		I've watch C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased.
		And you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments.
		It's probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country.
		You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions.
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mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We're in Open Forum and looking forward to hearing your thoughts and your calls.
		Real quick, an update on Ukraine.
		This is the Washington Post, the front page.
		U.S. set to alter peace plan.
		This has worked with Kiev to update the deal.
		And Rubio, the Secretary of State, downplays claims that Russia wrote the first draft.
		And we will keep an eye on that if anything new happens with that.
		This is Vicki in Nebraska, Line for Democrats.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		I just wanted to say how very thankful I am for C-SPAN.
		And I just wanted to touch on with Thanksgiving coming this week.
		Everybody should just write down all the things they're thankful for.
		Hello?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, we're listening.
unidentified		Okay, okay.
		Anyway, I just think, you know, if we write down the things we're grateful for, everything else doesn't look quite as bad.
		And I have to admit, I got really sad during this administration because I don't agree with most of it.
		But then I started talking with people in the grocery store and becoming closer to strangers that I don't even know.
		And it just makes me feel really good.
		And I hope your Thanksgiving is so special.
		And have a great day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.
		Here's Tom Elkhart, Indiana Independent Line.
unidentified		Hello.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Tom.
unidentified		Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a very good program.
		Watch it every day.
		And to the previous leader, she's exactly right.
		We need to be thankful for a lot of things.
		But my main interest here is Adam Brandon, your previous guest.
		He appears to be like he wants independent thinkers in politics or voters.
		But I found that when the 2025 presidential transition project was launched, Adam Brandon, as president of Freedom Works, stated, Freedom Works is proud to join this broad coalition from across the conservative spectrum, and we look forward to working together to bring the best policies, personnel, and leadership to the nation's capital.
		Well, this is right out of Project 2025.
		He was, Freedom Works, of course, was on that board as advisors.
		So, yeah, he's got a lot of connections with 2025.
		I just want to make note of that.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Tom, since you're an independent, I wanted to ask you how you define an independent voter.
unidentified		All right.
		Well, I go to, of course, we have a two-party system.
		And I live in an area where, yeah, I have to vote either Republican sometimes or a Democrat.
		It depends on the person and their policy and how well he sticks to it.
		So trust is a big part of it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And you voted first for sometimes Democrats.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You've voted sometimes Republican.
unidentified		Our mayor changes every four years.
		We flip-flop all the time.
		And for good reason, it's because the previous guy didn't do what he should have done.
		And we will change our vote.
		Yes.
		Either way, I will vote.
		But Project 25 wants to run the government.
		We know who's running Washington.
		And it upsets me to know the incompetency and the runaway way in which they're running our government.
		And that's all I got to say.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Tom.
		Rita in Brookhaven, Pennsylvania.
		Democrat, good morning, Rita.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just wanted to say, like, they were talking about the Democrats video.
		I think that they did the right thing because Trump is telling these military guys to do illegal stuff that could ruin their careers or probably even get them killed.
		And all because he wants to be a dictator, like all these war criminals that are sucking up to that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Rita, when you say that he's asking people to, the military to do illegal things, like what?
unidentified		I mean, like just bombing, you know, people, these boats and everything without even like going to Congress and things like that.
		And like I said, he's been sucking up to these guys that he's been bringing to the White House, you know, that guy from Saudi Arabia.
		And like, there have been a lot of people calling this complaining about this station.
		And I say, like, see, if you don't want to hear what they're saying, then don't watch.
		They should stay focused on Fox News, which is their favorite station, because they can hear all the Trump buttons that they want to hear.
		And as far as Trump talks about.
		All right, Trump.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Rita.
		And let's play actually that video that Rita referred to.
		Here it is.
unidentified		We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now.
		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.
		You can refuse illegal orders.
		You must refuse illegal orders.
		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, the Air Force, your vigilance is critical.
		And know that we have your back.
		Because now, more than ever, the American people need you.
		We need you to stand up for our laws, our Constitution, and who we are as Americans.
		Don't give up.
		Don't give up the ship.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And that got a lot of news over the weekend.
		Also, President Trump's reaction to it.
		This is an article that said Trump issued another pair of calls for Democrats who spoke out against illegal orders to the military to be jailed late Saturday evening as he battles his public image and unprecedented resistance within his own party at on the hill.
		That's from the Independents.
		Is part of what he said.
		Quote: Many great legal scholars agree that the Democrat traders that told the military to disobey my orders as president have committed a crime of serious proportion.
		He continued, the traitors that told the military to disobey my orders should be in jail right now, not roaming the fake news networks trying to explain that what they said was okay.
unidentified		It wasn't and never will be.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is Eddie, North Miami Beach, Florida, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Eddie.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm calling.
		I recently became an independent.
		I was a lifelong Democrat, but kind of got tired of what I see in the Democratic Party in Congress.
		There is some hope with what's coming up through the new generation of what I'm seeing, but they're very early in the process.
		Anyways, I was once told that Democrats are dumb and Republicans are evil.
		I don't think that's totally true, but that's kind of the vision.
		The reason I'm calling, I believe, as many, many people do, that there should be term limits in Congress.
		I am wondering if you agree, don't agree, but more importantly, what would it take to have that happen?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And, Eddie, how long would you think an appropriate term would be for the limits?
unidentified		I would say an equivalent of 16 years.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		For both House and Senate?
unidentified		Yes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		We'll see what other people think about that.
		Here's Ruth, Wildwood, Florida, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Ruth.
unidentified		You're on the air.
		Oh, okay.
		Sorry, I'm a first-time caller.
		No problem.
		Yeah, so I have been an independent my entire life, and it's been a long one, a good one.
		But I truly lean more conservative lately because I don't even recognize the Democrat Party personally.
		The only thing I tell most people when I get into conversations with them is to truly do their own research.
		I'll be honest, about the only news source or anything like that is your channel because I feel you don't offer a bias where you see on other media.
		So I tell people do their own research and decide for themselves.
		And I think because we all have different opinions.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So Ruth, let me ask you: our previous guest said that political independents tend to be fiscal conservatives and social liberals.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Does that describe you, or how would you describe your politics?
unidentified		Geez, I am definitely fiscal conservatives.
		A small government.
		I don't believe in this huge government and getting into everything.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And where are you on social issues?
unidentified		Social issues, I probably somewhat liberal, but not totally.
unidentified		You know, an example, and this might put it because I am a Christian, but I still believe in free choice.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Ruth.
		And we are in open forum.
		We will pause our phone calls.
		You can keep calling in and just hold on the line because we're going to speak to a national political reporter for Spectrum News, Taylor Popolars.
		Taylor, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Good morning, Amy.
unidentified		Great to be with you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So just getting an idea of what's happening at the White House, actually this past weekend, the president stayed in town.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's not typical for him.
unidentified		That's not, especially this time of year when it's a bit colder here in D.C.
		He often goes down to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, but he stayed here this weekend.
		We know he actually conducted a tour of the golf course that is near Joint Base Andrews, the military base that the president flies in and out of.
		And we know the president has been overseeing a lot of construction projects here on the White House grounds and throughout Washington, but there hasn't been much more information made available about that.
		But there's also, we also believe he's going to be spending the Thanksgiving holiday down in Florida at his Mar-a-Lago Club.
		It hasn't been publicly released for his public schedule yet, but the local paper down in West Palm Beach says they've gotten word that VIP travel is expected as soon as Tuesday.
		So it looks like the president will be spending a longer weekend down in Florida.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And real quick, you did mention construction projects.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What's the latest on the ballroom construction at the White House?
unidentified		It is going and it is very active.
		I could actually hear some of the equipment behind me right now.
		The East Wing is just off my shoulder, or what was the East Wing.
		It has been a constant construction zone since those demolition images surfaced a few weeks ago.
		But most of it is fenced off from the public.
		So you can't really get a good look of it if you're outside the White House and if you're visiting the nation's capital.
		But the president talks about it a lot.
		He alludes to when he's in the east room of the White House that there's a big curtain set up that will eventually be the entrance into the ballroom.
		And that price tag has ballooned.
		The last we heard, it could be $350 million.
		But the president says it should be open potentially sometime next year.
		And he's planning to host a lot of events there.
		A lot of events there.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And regarding the peace plan, the White House peace proposal for the Russia-Ukraine war, what are you hearing?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What's the latest on that?
unidentified		Yeah, this has been a very fluid story because over the months, if people have been following this, President Trump has gone back and forth on how much he is essentially pressuring Ukraine to accept a peace deal because Russia has not really changed its position.
		We know Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other top administration officials spent the weekend in Switzerland where they were meeting with their Ukrainian counterparts.
		At one point, President Trump, who was of course here in Washington, posted on his Truth Social account that he was questioning Ukraine's leadership and was questioning whether or not they wanted this war to come to an end.
		But then flash forward to Sunday evening and Rubio came out publicly and said a ton of progress had been made in negotiations and that they were getting closer to Ukraine accepting what Rubio said is between a 26 or 28 point peace plan.
		But one point I want to point out from over the weekend, a bipartisan group of senators was at a security conference in Halifax.
		They said on Saturday they got on the phone with Rubio and he claimed to them, these are their words, that this was a peace proposal put forward by Russia that the U.S. then accepted.
		But very quickly, the Trump administration walked that back and said that this was a peace plan put forward by the U.S. with input from both Russia and Ukraine.
		So we're waiting to see what will happen.
		But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team are actively talking with the U.S.
		The president has given a deadline of this Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, for Ukraine to make a decision, but then Rubio indicated that that could be a soft deadline and it could potentially bleed into next week.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So what are you expecting?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is anything expected to happen over this week, given the holiday?
unidentified		So there are some rumors of that.
		Again, we haven't gotten much information about the president's schedule.
		For instance, today, as of right now, his public schedule only includes a 4 o'clock executive order signing in the Oval Office that's currently listed as closed press.
		But there have been rumblings, especially in the foreign policy community, of whether or not Ukrainian President Zelensky will talk on the phone with President Trump.
		Is there a chance that Zelensky could come back here to Washington to the White House for another meeting?
		He was here just several weeks ago.
		And we know that when the president meets with Zelensky face to face, it sometimes goes poorly.
		It sometimes goes really well.
		And that's where it's gotten hard to follow where President Trump stands on this because it was just a couple of months ago he was alluding to the fact that Ukraine could potentially win back its territory that had been stolen from Russia.
		And now it's believed that this peace plan being negotiated could include Ukraine giving up some of the territory in the eastern part of the country that Russia has taken over the course of this war.
		So we're waiting on bated breath to see if there will be any movements or if the president will just go to Florida and spend Thanksgiving there.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And finally, Taylor, about the president's public schedule, is there a turkey pardoning happening?
unidentified		As per usual, there is.
		We believe it's set to happen tomorrow on Tuesday.
		But first, Christmas will be celebrated here in a certain way.
		Later today, First Lady Melania Trump is set to welcome the annual White House Christmas tree to the White House where it will then be decorated.
		Of course, with all the construction projects going on, it's going to be interesting to see how they handle all the holiday parties that are set to happen, White House tours.
		But we know that Christmas tree is arriving today.
		The turkey pardon is set to happen tomorrow, presumably before the president flies down south.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Taylor Pablars, a national political reporter for Spectrum News.
		Thanks so much for joining us.
unidentified		Thanks, Bimi.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It is open forum, and we will get right back to your calls on anything that you'd like to talk about, public affairs, politics-wise.
		Line for Democrats, Rockford, Illinois.
		Benita, you're on the air.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I want to make a comment about your previous guest that you had, who's the independent proponent.
		I considered being an independent about 10 years ago, and they do have a platform.
		You can look it up on the internet.
		And my Benita, are you still there?
		Yes.
		I'm sorry.
		I'm trying to.
		I have the TV muted and I'm trying to figure it out.
		They do have a platform.
		You can look it up on the internet.
		My takeaway was they're just another name for a Republican because of their conservativism.
		And for those people who are considering becoming, you know, going to another party, there is a wonderful website called the World's Smallest Political Quiz.
		And you can look that up on the internet.
		They ask you like 10 questions.
		And then they tell you what you are or what your leanings are.
		And I go on there periodically, usually like once a year to make sure I'm still in the right party.
		It's a wonderful website.
		It's called the World's Smallest Political Quiz.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Benita.
unidentified		Thank you, Mimi.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You're welcome.
		Michael Sonoma, California, Independent Line.
		Good morning, Michael.
unidentified		Good morning, and thanks for taking my call.
		What disturbs me is something that J.D. Fance did in Germany when he went there and handed out alcohol to veterans, which is a huge and deadly problem in the military.
		I worked in a military hospital, and believe me, just in this country alone, alcohol kills 178,000 people and causes many other diseases as well.
		And he should have been handing out protein drinks instead of alcohol.
		And another thing he was shown feeding his children muffins made out of white refined flour and table sugar when we 33% of our children in this country are either diabetic or pre-diabetic when he could have been making those muffins out of seed flowers, almond flour, coconut flour, and using things like lojan or stevia or even coconut sugar, which is a lower glycemic index.
		So that's my concern.
		We need to upgrade our health industry in this country and work with biochemists and molecular biologists to get health going under our RFK.
		And that's all I have to say.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Michael, and this is from Stars and Stripes about what he was talking about.
		VP Vance pours out praise and beer during Ramstein Air Base stopover.
		And there's a picture here of Vice President Vance with service member.
		Chuck in Arkansas Line for Democrats.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, my name is Chuck.
		I'm talking about that when Elon Musk was on stage with that chainsaw.
		Well, that president of Argentina was there jumping up and down with him, too, because he's going to get all that money.
		I guess 20 billion or whatnot.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it was the president of Argentina actually Malay that gave him the chainsaw.
unidentified		Okay, yeah.
		Yeah.
		You know, people forget that, you know.
		But also, I'd like to say something about those boats being blown up there.
		Those boats don't have enough gas to go anywhere with four engines on them.
		And it could be our DEA agents or custom agents or ATF agents undercover.
		You know, there's all kinds of things going wrong.
		Plus, this Saudi President, the White House, getting F-35 on top of the line aircraft, and they are a dictatorship.
		Plus, the ones that flew into our buildings were Saudi nationals.
		And then he says something about sedan.
		Well, we already tried that.
		Plus, we cut off all the food.
		That's what usually causes all this wars here and there.
		Well, that's all I got to say for Russia.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Chuck, we are going to be talking in the next segment about those boat strikes in the Caribbean and the Pacific.
		So make sure you stick with us for that.
		Here is Brenda in Florida, Independent Line.
		Hi, Brenda.
unidentified		Hi.
		I know that we can talk about anything.
		So I need to bring up the opioid crisis, what it has done to the pain patients that are legally pain patients.
		They have diseases other than cancer that leaves them crippled and it's completely bedridden.
		And thanks to grouping the disabled into the street drug users, the disabled are now not getting treatment, and many of them are taking their lives.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Brenda, thanks for bringing that up with us.
		And for your schedule, right after this program at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, we're going to take you to the UN Security Council.
		They'll meet to discuss Middle East issues, including the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and potential Palestinian statehood.
		You can watch that live right after this program at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
		It's also going to be on our app, C-SPANNOW and online at c-span.org.
		Let's take a look at what Representative Michael McFaul, Republican of Texas, said on ABC this week, yesterday, about the U.S. peace plan for the Ukraine war.
unidentified		You have seen that proposal.
		It seems to heavily favor Russia, your reaction, and what should be done.
		Let me say first, if Biden hadn't let Afghanistan fall, we probably wouldn't have been in this position in the first place and the mishandling of the weapons going into Ukraine, as I talked about for the entirety of the Biden administration.
		Having said all that, the way I see it now, we did have a conversation with the White House, the Vice President, Secretary of State, Rubio, last night.
michael mccaul ▲ ● ▼		I also talked to others like Keith Kellogg.
unidentified		The inception of this agreement seems to have come from a Witcoff discussion with the Russian Demetria, who heads up the Russian Sovereign Wealth Fund.
michael mccaul ▲ ● ▼		It's unclear how much input was given by either Ukraine or our European allies.
unidentified		Rubio did say on the call that this is a United States document with input from Ukraine and from Russia.
michael mccaul ▲ ● ▼		About 80% of this deal, I think, they're going to find agreement with as they go to Geneva.
michael mccaul ▲ ● ▼		The problem's going to be the 20% of really tough items to negotiate.
unidentified		You know, what happens with that?
michael mccaul ▲ ● ▼		And I would take a page out of Donald Trump's book, The Art of the Deal, to all parties involved in this.
unidentified		If you have a bad deal, then you got to be prepared to walk away.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is Richard Pauley's Island, South Carolina.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Democrat, good morning, Richard.
unidentified		Hi, I think the man took away my thunder in what he said because he's correct.
		I think Rubio needs to be awfully embarrassed that he doesn't seem to be the front man in doing this important work.
		I think that the deal is not going to work in the long term for our country and for Ukraine and the Europeans.
		But I think that Rubio has just given away all of his responsibilities to Mr. Witkoff, who I don't know.
		I suppose he's a good negotiator, whatever, but he isn't.
		It's just not right.
		Where is our Secretary of State?
		And that's really all I have to say.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, regarding the Ukraine war, this is the front page of the Wall Street Journal with the headline for Hobald Zelensky, defying Trump is safer than yielding.
		It says the Ukrainian public's firm stance on war makes a deal favoring Putin, political suicide.
		That's on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
		Also, by the way, this is the picture here with this headline, Israeli strike kills a Hezbollah leader in Beirut.
		It says that people gathered Sunday below a residential building in Beirut, where a strike left five people dead and injured 28.
		Lebanese authorities said.
		Israel said the attack killed a leader of the militant group Hezbollah's rearmament effort.
		And we have a post here.
		Remember, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that she will be stepping down from Congress effective January 5th.
		And this is President Trump responding to a reporter question about that.
unidentified		Are you willing to forgive Congresswoman Taylor Green?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Forgive for us.
unidentified		No, we just, I just disagreed with her philosophy.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		She started backing perhaps the worst Republican congressman in our history.
unidentified		Just, you know, stupid person, James Bassey.
unidentified		And I said, go your own way.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		And once I left her, she resigned because she would never have survived a primary.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		But I think she's a nice person.
unidentified		Okay, thank you very much.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And that's it for Open Forum.
		Coming up next, joining us to discuss the Trump administration's current strategy of ending the drug war in Venezuela is Ivan Eland of the Independent Institute.
		Stay with us.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Kenneth Feinberg is a Washington-based attorney who served as a special master of the U.S. government's September 11, 2001 Victims Compensation Fund.
		Mr. Feinberg worked for 33 months pro bono deciding who should be compensated as a result of the deaths and injuries from 9-11.
		Kenneth Feinberg, who today is 79, was interviewed on Cease Band's QA about his book, What is Life Worth?
		The unprecedented effort to compensate the victims of 9-11.
		Here is an encore presentation of that July 1st, 2005 interview 20 years ago.
unidentified		Author Kenneth Feinberg with his book, What is Life Worth?
		The unprecedented effort to compensate the victims of 9-11 on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		Joining us to discuss the U.S. military response against drug cartels is Ivan Eland.
		He's director of the Center on Peace and Liberty at the Independent Institute.
		Ivan, welcome to the program.
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for having me on.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Tell us about the Independent Institute and your funding sources.
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, we're a libertarian think tank or a, if you will, a market liberal think tank.
		And in California, I don't work in the California office, but I'm affiliated with the Institute.
		And we get our funding from a variety of sources.
		I'm not even sure where we get our funding from, but we get different people give us contributions, and that's how we're a nonprofit.
		And that's how we don't express a partisan viewpoint at all.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And what's your institution's, your institute's view on foreign policy?
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, we tend to be more restrained in our views about foreign policy.
		We think that excessive wars leads to bigger government and a distortion of the American checks and balances system, which is what my book is about, the fact that the domestic, there's been many domestic causes of war and many domestic ill effects of war throughout U.S. history.
		And so this is the primary reason that we take the view that we do, that war is the biggest source of big government in world history and in U.S. history.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And that book is called Domestic Causes of American Wars, Economic and Political Triggers.
		I forgot to mention that you are the author of that book.
		I want to ask you about the headline of your article that you wrote for Independent Institute, and it says, Illegal and Ineffective, The Constitutional Peril of Trump's Anti-Drug Military Ops.
		I want to break that down into first the illegal part of that.
		How are these boat strikes illegal in your opinion?
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, to make the strikes, you either have to have due process or you have to have congressional approval of the strikes, and neither one has happened.
		So basically, you're killing people and you don't have the authority to do it.
		Normally, when we have drug traffickers, we have the Coast Guard or if the Navy picks them up on the high seas, they're taken and put into a judicial process where they have due process and they're essentially arrested and taken to the proper law enforcement authorities.
		It's a law enforcement issue.
		It's not a situation where the military kills people who are doing this.
		In fact, some of these people who have been killed are peasants or farmers who are poor and they accept money from drug traffickers to use their boats to traffic drugs.
		And they're not professional cartel members or whatever.
		Now, they're still doing something illegally and they should still pay a price for that.
		But should they really be killed?
		We don't have a death penalty for drug trafficking in the United States.
		And so it's probably, these small boats are probably a law enforcement issue.
		And we don't have, we're certainly not at war with the drug cartels because we don't have any sort of congressional approval for this.
		So these boat strikes are clearly illegal and they're unconstitutional because we don't have either a declaration of war or some other approval from Congress to do this.
		Now, we have a general drug war since the 1970s, but that's not an official war.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So Ivan, recently the U.S. has delegated the Cartel de las Solas of Venezuela, a foreign terrorist organization.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Doesn't that cover your concerns about legality?
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Doesn't it make it legal to the law says that you can, with organizations that are so designated, you can increase economic sanctions, but it doesn't authorize military force.
		And we have no authorization for that.
		And as an aside, that terrorism list has been a political document for a long time.
		What we're seeing, drug trafficking, as horrible as it is, is an economic crime.
		People are out to make money.
		The terrorists like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, they're out to kill people to make a political statement.
		And terrorism has always been the use of violence for political ends.
		And these are economic crimes, and they've always been separate until this year when the Trump administration put these eight groups on the list, the terrorism list.
		And I don't think they should even be on the list.
		Now, if you want to take military action, that's fine.
		But you need to get some sort of authorization from the Congress to do so.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, the administration would argue that these are terrorist organizations, and the terrorism stems from the drugs coming into the United States, destabilizing the political system of the United States.
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's violence associated with the drug trafficking.
		That's usually between the two, between the groups or groups and foreign governments.
		And yes, drugs are bad.
		They come into the United States, but we've been fighting this war, as I mentioned, since 1970s when Richard Nixon started the drug war, the anti-drug war, I should say.
		But it's failed.
		We still have, despite all the military and police action, we haven't had very much success in stopping it.
		And the reason for that is the Latin American countries are right that it's U.S. demand for drugs.
		And a counterintuitive solution to this problem is legalizing drugs for adults.
		We have more people killed in this country from the abuse of legal drugs than we do illegal drugs.
		That doesn't mean illegal drugs are not a problem, but I think we need to deal with it differently.
		And this would be legalization only for adults, not children.
		But then you invest in prevention ads and saying how the addiction is really bad, and also the prevention, or excuse me, the treatment of drug addicts.
		And I think that's the way to go.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Ivan, you would advocate then legalizing all drugs, heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, opioids.
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, I would certainly decriminalize it.
		And I think they're moving towards that on marijuana for some time.
		But I think also this war has been so militarized and such a failure that we're dumping hundreds of billions of dollars into military and police solutions to this.
		And the economics are simple.
		The reason for all the violence is because it's illegal and it raises the price.
		And you can make enormous profits by drug trafficking.
		And that's why these poor people in Venezuela and other places are doing this because they need the money and that sort of thing.
		So they draw in poor people and other people who are willing to traffic this stuff.
		And then you have the cartels, which do use violence.
		And the way to do this, it's very counterintuitive.
		And I know there's a lot of pushback when you say you need to legalize this stuff.
		But there's a lot of things that are like organized crime makes money off, if you stop to think about it, things that maybe shouldn't be illegal in the first place.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		If you'd like to join our conversation with Ivan Eland, you can do so.
		We're talking about the use of the U.S. military in the drug trafficking in the Caribbean and the Pacific.
		You can call us on our lines by party.
		Democrats are on 202-748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		And Independents 202748-8002.
		The second part of your headline here is ineffective as far as the military operations go against drug cartels.
		Why do you believe they've been ineffective?
		Have we seen any effect so far on these actions from these actions?
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, they've killed 83 people in small boats.
		I mean, you're not going to make a dent on the drug traffic by that type of thing.
		This is really a four-show exercise.
		And this is, Trump is not the first president to do things like this for demonstrative purposes rather than actually doing it.
		Only 5% of most of the cocaine is produced in Colombia.
		84% of the cocaine that comes into the United States is from Colombia.
		5% of what they of Colombia produces goes through Venezuela.
		It's just a trickle.
		So what this really is, is a pretext to put more pressure on the Maduro regime to overthrow them.
		And I think that's misplaced too, because I don't think we have to go back in both the drug war and this military action against Maduro.
		I think we have to go back and ask a basic question, which is never asked: what is the specific national security threat to the United States?
		We've had the drugs coming in for years, and it's not good.
		But there are other solutions besides this.
		And the drug war is a canar in this case, because what they're trying to do, they're doing it out of Venezuela, which is not the problem.
		It's Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia that produce cocaine.
		And if you go after fentanyl, the precursors come in from Asia, and their labs are in Mexico.
		And so, you know, what they're trying to fight, and it's this cartel de solas, the cartel of the sons, refers to military people in Venezuela who are on the drug trade.
		Well, that's true, but it's not really even an organized cartel.
		And so this is all a pretext to put more pressure on the Maduro regime.
		And I'm not sure why there's many leaders in Latin America that are involved in the drug trade.
		And he has gotten sideways, Maduro has gotten sideways with the Trump administration and other U.S. administrations as well, because he's a socialist and he's ruined his economy.
		But is that really a specific threat to the U.S. economy?
		Excuse me, to the national security of the United States, it's not.
		And the polling indicates that 70% of Americans don't really think that we should take military action against Venezuela.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And when you say that the Trump administration is doing this for show, isn't that part of the issue, though, that this would be deterrence?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So if you saw that there are these boats that are being blasted, then you would be less likely to be transporting drugs into the United States on those boats.
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, of course, those boats are not transporting any drugs into the United States.
		They're going well that boats are going across the top of, yes, boats are going across the top of South America, likely taking cocaine to the east of Venezuela.
		And most of, as I say, most of the routes are, those boats are not on the routes that come to the United States.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to callers.
		We'll start with Steve in Erie, Pennsylvania, Independent.
		Good morning, Scott.
unidentified		Hello, good morning, everybody.
		Just real quick, first, I feel once a person is saved and allows God in their heart, they cannot have a desire to kill or have hate in their heart.
		You answered a lot of questions.
		And I like people that are real on there and are straight.
		It is against the Constitution.
		It's in the Constitution due process for everybody, not just Americans.
		And it is the Fifth Amendment.
		No person should be deprived of life, liberty, and et cetera.
		I appreciate the people on here that are real.
		I don't like the games that are played by people who sometimes get on here.
		Trump did say what about a year ago, he feels like we should do like what China does, kill drug dealers.
		I'd like to, I hear stuff straight out of Trump's mouth, and people don't seem to believe it.
		But he actually said that he thinks drug dealers should be killed.
		And I don't understand that because I know the higher-ups and people that have money, they do drugs.
		They do coke.
		That's their drug of choice.
		And they do it.
		I know they do.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Scott.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Ivan, your comments on due process for everybody, not just Americans.
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, just because Trump says that, so that's what the leader of the Philippines said that they should kill drug dealers.
		And he actually did it in his home country.
		And he's in trouble on human rights violations and everything else.
		Yes, we need due process for everybody.
		We even need due process for terrorists because sometimes wrong people are selected.
		They've produced no evidence that any of these boats were drug trafficking.
		Now, maybe they were.
		But even if they were, is the death penalty the right thing to do?
		Because these are not probably not high-level drug traffickers.
		They're people who've been recruited to do this, and they're desperate for money.
		Some of them, who knows?
		They may have some kingpins in the boats.
		But this is not a major, this is not going to be a major way to restrict drug traffic.
		And I'm not sure it's really going to deter that much since the profits are so high.
		I mean, they've tried everything for 40 years.
		We've been trying this for 40 years and more than that, actually, I think 50 years now.
		And it hasn't worked.
		So maybe we should try something different.
		That's what I'm saying.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Robert in New York, line for Democrats.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Thank you for having me.
		Yes, I just more or less have a question or a statement and a question.
		You said that you have no idea who funds your institute.
		To me, that seems crazy.
		And another thing, how do we know that you're not funded by someone that wants to do damage to the United States, like maybe a George Soros or something like that?
		And if you don't know who you're funded by, we really can't trust what you say.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Robert.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Any comment, Ivan?
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, actually, I think it's an advantage because the analysts are separated from the funding, but I assure you, we don't get any money from George Soros.
		I can guarantee that probably.
		But just by our philosophy.
		But I'm not necessarily against all of Trump's policy.
		I think him paying more attention to the Western hemisphere is good.
		It's just that he's approaching it in the wrong manner.
		So we're usually pretty independent in our thought, and we don't really take money from the right or the left.
		A lot of times the people who donate to us are just individuals who donate most of it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Shirley in California, line for Republicans.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Shirley.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I kind of agree with a previous caller.
		I could not trust this guy as far as I could throw him.
		California legalizing just marijuana enticed illegal grows.
		I lived in Northern California to the point where it has just been uncontrollable.
		Destruction of our youth and to legalize drugs is just a crazy notion.
		It destroys society.
		I don't know where this man comes from.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Did you have something else, Shirley?
		Sorry.
unidentified		No, no, thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, go ahead, Ivan.
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, we tried illegalizing alcohol in the 1920s and early 30s, and that was a disaster.
		And the reason is because there was still a high demand for it.
		And most economists, I think, would probably agree with me that this is the way to go.
		Now, it's an unpopular thing, but it's becoming more popular.
		As I say, they're decriminalizing marijuana.
		And marijuana is a fairly mild drug compared to these others.
		But the principle is the same.
		You have to, if you're going to have it, you have to come up with a better solution than the one we have because it's not working.
		If you can come up with a different solution, but bombing people on a pretext, we're discussing the drug war, but that's not really the issue here.
		The issue is we have all sorts of military assets.
		I think 12 ships down in the Caribbean right now.
		And they're saying that there may be military action against Venezuela.
		That has nothing to do with the drug war, or at least very little to do with the drug war.
		And it has more to do with the fact that we want to take out a Latin American leader.
		And yes, he hasn't ruined, he's a socialist and he's ruined the economy.
		But the real question is, do we really need to do that for U.S. national security?
		The drugs coming in are certainly a health problem.
		And some of our youth do do those drugs.
		But is that really a national security problem?
		Is the country going to fall apart doing that?
		No, but it's been happening for 50 years and the drug war hasn't worked.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to play you a short portion of Senator Lindsey Graham on the Senate floor.
		He was arguing a couple weeks ago about giving President Trump the authority he needs for these strikes.
		And then I'll get your reaction to it.
unidentified		We could cut off funding.
		The Constitution reserves the right of the Congress, beginning in the House, to appropriate money.
		So if there's a military engagement out there, you just pick the topic.
		And as a member of Congress, you think America should not be in this conflict.
lindsey graham ▲ ● ▼		Constitutionally, you could terminate funding.
unidentified		And that would be a constitutional check and balance on the president's ability to use military force.
		The second thing you could do as a member of Congress, if you thought the president was doing something wrong by using the military, is you could do an article of impeachment, somehow create a high crime or misdemeanor that the use of force in this circumstance is a high crime and misdemeanor and impeach the president.
		Those are two things that Congress can do to check and balance a president.
		The one thing we can't do, in my opinion, is to substitute our judgment for that of the commander-in-chief about a military operation.
		Because if that's the case, then you don't have a single commander-in-chief, you have 535 commander-in-chiefs.
		There's never been in the history of the country a termination of military activity based on the idea Congress did not approve it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of that, Ivan Eland?
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, first of all, the last statement is not true.
		Congress cut off the funding for Cambodia, the war in Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
		And the second thing is, he's right.
		You could take those actions, but that's after the fact.
		The Constitution, he's unfamiliar with the Constitution, apparently, which says that Congress declares war.
		And that's before the fact.
		Congress initiates war.
		And the commander-in-chief, once that war is initiated, then we turn it over to the president, who's the commander-in-chief.
		Now, that's not done anymore.
		He's correct, but we're so used to the fact that the president gets to decide when we go to war or not.
		The founders would just fall over dead if you said that to them.
		That's why they put the declaration of war in the people's house, because those were elected by the people.
		And they did that because they saw European monarchs take their countries to war.
		And who bore the cost, both their lives and money, was the common people.
		And they did not want that.
		They were very clear about that.
		Even Alexander Hamilton, who was the most ardent proponent of executive power at the founding, he said in the Federalist that initiating war was clearly a congressional duty.
		And we haven't done that since World War II.
		And all the presidents since then, not just Republicans, but Democrats and everybody else, they've been askew of that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		He also mentioned the possibility of impeachment.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And since you believe that these strikes are illegal, do you think this is an impeachable offense?
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, of course it is, but many presidents have, when Obama attacked Libya, he didn't get a declaration of war.
		That was an impeachable offense.
		So presidents of both parties have been, you know, would be able to be impeached for that.
		We've had a lot of impeachable offenses, and we've never had impeachments for them.
		So yes, he's correct.
		You can cut off the funding, which Congress did in one case, and you can impeach them.
		But we've gotten into this habit of saying, well, the president can do anything he wants if we want to go to war, even small wars or big wars or military actions, but those should be approved by Congress simply because there's no emergency here.
		The emergency has been, if you want to take them at face value, which I don't, that it's for the drugs, the drugs have been coming in for 50 years.
		And so, even longer than that, but we've had a drug war for 50 years.
		But this is clearly directed at Maduro, and he has no authority to do that.
		Now, if he went to Congress and they said, well, we want to do this, most of the time Congress unfortunately caves in.
		But he needs to do that because you just can't start bombing countries just because you're the commander-in-chief.
		The commander-in-chief was originally, that role was very narrowly construed.
		The president has the constitutional ability to defend the country if there's an emergency and Congress is out of session.
		Well, Congress is hardly ever out of session nowadays, like it was back in the beginning of the country.
		But certainly the president could defend the country even against nuclear attack still under the Constitution.
		But this is an offensive war, and those have to be approved by Congress, either with a declaration or with some legislation, as was done after 9-11.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Carol in Elgin, Texas, Independent Line, you're on the air.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning, Mimi.
		Good morning, C-SPAN.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		Thank you for the guess.
		I just think we're being really disingenuous with this argument about the drug trade.
		This has very little to do about the drug trade.
		I agree with your guess that this is a these shooting up these boats and things like that.
		This is for show on the American TV networks because what's really going on is the amount of oil that Venezuela has under the ground and how much of that oil is being exported to other countries, not us.
		And so I think 80% of their oil exports are going to China or something like that.
		And you saw conflicting policies come through over the summer from the White House, from Trump, about, well, we're not going to allow Chevron to export oil out of Venezuela.
		Oh, well, now we're going to allow Chevron to export oil.
		And you've seen a bunch of flip-flops on that.
		But this is about the oil that Venezuela has under the ground and who's going to control it.
		And the problem that we have is we have a bad history in Latin America, especially these countries, because capitalism and the brand of capitalism that we practice down there and that we've brought down there hasn't always been good for the people.
		And that's why you saw the socialists able to take over in Venezuela.
		And they were successful for a while, but then the price of oil dropped.
		And so now you're going to see an opportunistic thing where we shift our focus away from Europe, away from the wars in Ukraine, away from Middle East, and we start focusing on the South so that we can get control of that oil field down there in Venezuela.
		It's going to be really risky.
		And I want everybody to remember what Colin Powell said about going into Iraq and about going into the Middle East with troops the way we did.
		And that is, once you go in, it's like a bull in a China shop.
		Once you go in, you own it.
		And we don't really have a very good record about holding up the human rights of the common people in Latin America.
		So I think we're being disingenuous to say, oh, this is going to be about drug trade.
		Yes, there's tremendous drug trade.
		But if you want to go in and go after that, then you're going to have to take control of Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador right now.
		There's a tremendous amount of risk there to sit there and say we're going to go after the drug trade when, in fact, you're really just interested in the oil that Venezuela has on the ground.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
		And I just want to show people what you're talking about.
		This is Washington Examiner Bessant, Scott Bessant, that's the Treasury Secretary.
		He says oil prices could drop further if, quote, something happens down in Venezuela.
		He said these comments on Fox News on Thursday.
		Go ahead, Ivan Eland.
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, war usually, particularly if you're fighting against a major oil producer, and Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world.
		Yes, the caller's correct.
		Oil is always in the background of these things.
		But we're not going to be able to take over the oil militarily.
		And we don't even have enough forces, although we have significant forces.
		We're not going to be able to.
		I hope they don't invade Venezuela because I think they're going to have another Iraq situation on their hands with the guerrilla activity and whatnot.
		I wrote another new book, A Balance of Titans, where I would applaud Trump's more focus on the Western Hemisphere.
		Now, I don't agree with him using troops here at home to police cities, but I do think that we need to worry about more about Latin America than other places that we have been worrying about, like the Middle East.
		But the idea that we're somehow going to control the oil trade with military power is or affect the oil price with military action.
		That usually drives up the price when there's a war involving an oil-producing country.
unidentified		So, Scott Dusson.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Oh.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You still there, Ivan?
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Usually happens.
		As far as having a more friendly producer of oil, he's a socialist who's ruined his country and they have tremendous, could have tremendous oil industry.
		Perhaps having a less violent stance or bellico stance towards him, why not buy his oil?
		We did before.
		And it's not, you know, we buy products from China.
		They're a communist country.
		Free trade sometimes helps in the long term, I think, you know, make countries more open to things.
		So certainly he's not doing well by the Venezuelan people.
		And if they overthrew him by either street demonstrations or a coup on their own, that would be fine.
		But I don't think our military threatens are, I think, have a rally around the flag effect usually.
		And so a lot of times we work in a counterproductive fashion in Latin America by being too heavy-handed.
		We've had the Monroe Doctrine since 1823.
		And in the 20th century, we had a lot of military interventions in Latin America, and they really were counterproductive.
		And I think you can get more by trading with countries, no matter who they are.
		I'm not for a borrow-going Cuba either.
		I think that these countries, they're no threat now after the Soviet Union went away.
		These countries are no threat to U.S. security.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is what Andy said on X.
		He said, a caller presented a thought.
		Those boats are twin-engine boats and don't have enough fuel to make it to the U.S.
		They have to refuel somewhere.
		So if we can blow them out of the water, why can't we track them and detain them?
		The boat has to stop somewhere at some point.
		Let's hear from Susan in San Diego, Line for Democrats.
		Susan, good morning.
		You're on the air.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		We are fighting the war on drugs on the wrong front.
		You cannot win the war by eliminating the supply.
		You have to eliminate the demand.
		How do you eliminate the demand?
		You make using people who use drugs social pariahs.
		Make it so socially unacceptable to be a drug user that people won't do it.
		They need to be treated as lepers were treated in the Bible.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Any comment, Ivan?
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think he's absolutely correct.
		Not only social disfavor, but also remember smoking.
		Everybody smoked in 1960.
		And then people can make decisions based on information.
		And I think more awareness and more saying this is really awful.
		You can really get addicted, have better drug programs in schools saying, you know, you can't, you know, this may sound like a great idea, but you can get really addicted to this and you can't get off very easily.
		And, you know, if this were brought home, I think investing resources in that is better than wasting hundreds of billions of dollars trying to go after the supply.
		You really do need to address the demand.
		That was the central point, I think, the caller, and I think he's absolutely correct.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask you about that video that Democratic lawmakers put out.
		They are lawmakers with Military and intelligence backgrounds, and they were urging the troops not to obey illegal orders.
		This is, I'm going to play you a portion of one of those lawmakers that Senator Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan.
		She was responding to President Trump's statements on that on ABC yesterday.
		Take a look.
unidentified		So for me, my primary concern is the use of U.S. military on American shores in our cities and in our streets.
		We've seen now the courts overturn the deployment of U.S. military into our streets, including here in Washington, D.C. When you look at these videos coming out of places like Chicago, it makes me incredibly nervous that we're about to see people in law enforcement, people in uniformed military get nervous, get stressed, shoot at American civilians.
		It is very, a very, very stressful situation for these law enforcement and for the communities on the ground.
		So it was basically a warning to say, like, if you're asked to do something, particularly against American citizens, you have the ability to go to your JAG officer and push back.
		And with these service members calling you, couldn't you have done a video saying just what you just said?
		If you are asked to do something, if you are worried about whether it is legal or not, you can do this.
		It does imply that the president is having illegal orders, which you have not seen.
		I think for us, it was just a statement widely, right?
		We say very quickly and very to all the folks who come to us, this is the process.
		Go to your JAG officer, ask them for explanation for top cover for their view on things.
		We do that on a case-by-case basis, but we wanted to speak directly to the volumes of people who had come to us on this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Ivan Eland, she was speaking about American citizens, but in this case, obviously those that are being fired on are not American citizens.
		She was advocating that you go and talk to your JAG officer, which is your Judge Advocate General.
		What are your thoughts on that?
		And what would JAG officers say in the case of those Bose strikes?
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, unfortunately, we've become so inured to the fact that the commander-in-chief can order illegal wars that the JAGs probably would say that's okay.
		Now, the JAGS might not approve of domestic use of force because that's against the posse comitatus law.
		We've had that since the late 1800s, where we don't mix law enforcement and military action.
		And that's on purpose.
		Military people are trained to kill, and they should be, because if we get into a war, we want them to fight.
		We want them to fight hard.
		And that doesn't mean they can slaughter civilians wantonly, but certainly a war is different than law enforcement.
		Law enforcement policemen and women have to be more selective in their use of force.
		They use force only as a last resort.
		And so when you have military people on the streets for no reason, which is what we have now, or trumped up reasons, if you'll pardon the pun, you know, this is against the policy comitatus law and it's against U.S. tradition.
		And I think a lot of Republicans are even nervous about these types of things because the Republicans used to object to this wholeheartedly when any time this was done.
		And it wasn't done very often.
		The last previous time was done in Los Angeles during the riots there.
		And that was done when the governor requested it.
		And the legislature, either the governor or the legislature has to request it in a state under the Constitution for this to happen.
		The reason they put that in there, they turned down a proposal at the Constitutional Convention to just say, well, the federal government can come in and police any state that's acting up or whatever.
		And they turned that down.
		So in the Constitution, the governors or legislatures are supposed to request this.
		And as far as foreign wars, if they had more people going to their JAG officers and saying, well, flinking these boats or threatening and taking military action against Venezuela, I'm uncomfortable with that because it's not authorized.
		And in the case of the boats, there's no due process either.
		So they might have, if military people started doing that, it may have an effect.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		On the line for independence in Philadelphia, Michelle, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hi.
		I agree with your guests on almost everything.
		And I think, you know, it's very important that we realize, you know, that the American people realize that people are being killed on the high seas at the behest of the President of the United States.
		And, you know, I think people need to understand that there was a coup in Chile in 1973.
		And the United States was complicit.
		And people died.
		Americans died.
		Chileans died.
		You know, and international people died too during that.
		And I don't think we want to see that happen again in Venezuela.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Ivan Eland.
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, yes, El Ende coup in 1973 was at the behest of Richard Nixon.
		And we've done the Guatemalan coup was at the behest of Eisenhower, which I think was a mistake.
		We don't need to meddle anymore.
		We don't have a hard Cold War where if there's any leftist regime down there, and, you know, Nicaragua is probably, and Cuba, of course, are probably more socialists than even Maduro.
		I mean, Cuba is a full-blown communist dictatorship, but Cuba is no longer a threat to the United States.
		Maybe we should try something new there, try trading with it to open it up, that sort of thing.
		We have the luxury of doing that, and there's really no need to use such military power.
		In my book, The Balance of Titans, I said, yes, we should concentrate more on the Western Hemisphere.
		And if something comes up, we need to maybe use the military in certain rare instances.
		But I think we should go back to Hoover's and FDR's good neighbor policy, which had remarkable, remarkably good effects in preventing Latin America from supporting Hitler during World War II.
		And I think my mother always used to say, you get more with sugar than vinegar.
		And I think we probably should approach that.
		I think Trump is right to focus more on our Western hemisphere and less on, like I say, the Middle East.
		But I think he needs to probably take a softer line than he's taking.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, speaking of the Middle East, we are going to be taking viewers right after this program.
		We're standing by for the UN Security Council meeting to discuss Israel and the Palestinian question.
		And we will take you there at the end of this program.
		So stay with us for that.
		Meanwhile, we will talk to Ed in New York, Maine, Independent Line.
unidentified		Ed, you're on with Ivan Eland.
		Yes, thank goodness the C-SPAN.
		I'm wondering how the AUMF fits into this.
		I found it interesting that Lindsey Graham did not mention that repealing that as one of his solutions to this problem that we could do or that Congress could do.
		If you can elaborate.
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		Well, Lindsey Graham's always been really excited about using military power anywhere we can.
		Now, the AUMF that we had in 2001 against the al-Qaeda, it was supposed to be, it was written right in the law, you're authorized to use military force against the perpetrators of 9-11 and those who harbored it.
		That means Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
		Well, they stretched that to plinking any terrorist group in the world.
		And that was clearly a violation.
		And the Congress, Congress is a lot of times at fault for not doing anything about this.
		And Lindsey Graham is saying the Congress could do this and do that.
		And he's right about that part, that the Congress could do these things.
		And if a president got impeached or the funding cut off, they would, and Richard Nixon did react to the threats of funding cutoff in the Vietnam War.
		So if the Congress did do more, the Congress did not enforce the AUMF and they let not just the Bush administration, but Obama and subsequent presidents go all over the world and just go after terrorists.
		And in fact, Obama actually killed a terrorist with no due process.
		So we've been down this road before, killed two American citizens, a guy and his son, and they were probably members of al-Qaeda.
		But did they get any due process?
		No.
		So if we have a license for the president to go out and kill people without due process, and there's no war, it's different in a war.
		If you declare a war, you have approval from Congress for a war, then anything goes, right?
		You shoot, you don't deliberately shoot civilians, but if there's any sort of threat at all, you can shoot people.
		But you're not supposed to do that at peace.
		And we don't have a war declaration.
		And the AUMF does not cover anything outside Al-Qaeda and Taliban, technically.
		And the Congress never enforced that.
		And so they would probably try to use that.
		And I think they may be trying to use that because they're declaring Maduro and this alleged cartel del Solas, which is not really a cartel at all.
		They're doing that to probably use the AUMF as a justification.
unidentified		But as I say, that's very questionable.
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		And they probably should have repealed that long after the war against Al-Qaeda is over.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		On the Republican line in Anaheim, California, Kurt, you're on the air.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How are you?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		Happy Thanksgiving to you.
unidentified		That's coming up soon.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You too, Kurt.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go right ahead.
unidentified		Hey, I just want to let everybody know, yeah, drugs are bad.
		You know, I think it's really supply and demand.
		If we can help lower the demand, the need, the supply will shift and go elsewhere.
		I grew up around drugs.
		My son overdosed with heroin, but he came back, went to fentanyl, came back.
		I'm surprised I'm still alive.
		I did everything but heroin, thank God.
		And it was just on the streets all the time, you know, where I grew up.
		And today I'm going to have back surgery.
		I'm having a cyst removed.
		I have my bones fixed, and I'm no longer a drug user.
		I'm no longer an alcoholic, especially up to today.
		Thank God for just the opportunity and the surge.
		And so I just want to share with everybody as a parent or as a friend, if you can help someone reduce their need for a drug, replace it with something better, I promise you, man, it will help lower the need for people moving drugs and having to do things like we're doing.
		But I think what Trump's doing is good because you've got to go after it.
		You got to hit it hard.
		It won't be pretty.
		We won't be clean.
		We'll make some mistakes, but gosh darn it, we got to do something to fix this country in all countries.
		It's just so we can just lower the need and the want for drugs and alcohol.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Kurt.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And a quick response, Ivan?
ivan eland ▲ ● ▼		Well, I really commend the caller for changing his life and that of his son.
		And I think he's right about working on the demand side.
		We really need to do that.
		And I'm just saying all this action on the supply side has never really been working for 50 years.
		So we have to come up with something better than that.
		And I think also, again, we're using this as a pretext to take out Maduro in this case, because Venezuela is not the drug pro.
		If you want to go after the source, you go after Mexico for fentanyl and you go after Colombia for cocaine, and that's what you do.
		But it's still not going to work military-wise.
		And I'm not advocating that, but they're going after the wrong person.
		The whole thing doesn't pass the smell test.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And that's Ivan Eland.
		He is a director of the Center on Peace and Liberty at the Independent Institute.
		He's also author of the book Domestic Causes of American Wars: Economic and Political Triggers.
		You can find them at independent.org.
		Ivan, thanks so much for joining us.

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