Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
Source
Participants
Main
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frank luntz
r32:06
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heather long
26:17
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mimi geerges
cspan29:57
Appearances
alexandria ocasio-cortez
rep/d02:05
brian lamb
cspan01:32
james comey
01:33
karoline leavitt
admin01:59
peter navarro
admin00:36
sean duffy
admin01:41
volodymyr zelenskyy
ukr00:45
Clips
mark warner
sen/d00:21
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patrice oneal
00:06
Callers
alex in virginia
callers00:22
donald in maryland
callers00:06
nathaniel in south-carolina
callers00:04
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Voice
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High-Speed Internet Dreams00:02:19
unidentified
Princeton University professor for a civil dialogue on rising political polarization in the U.S. and top issues facing the country.
Bridging the divide in American politics.
Watch Ceasefire Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered.
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Coming up this morning on Washington Journal, along with your calls and comments live, we'll talk about the mood of the nation with pollster, author, and communications strategist Frank Luntz.
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And we're on social media, facebook.com slash C-SPAN, an ex at C-SPANWJ.
Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
Before we get to your calls, just an update from Politico.
It says, high-ranking U.S. and Russian negotiators gathered in Abu Dhabi this morning to try to finalize a peace deal on Ukraine.
President Trump dispatched his new man of the hour, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, to present a revised set of peace proposals to the Russian team.
It continues per the Associated Press.
Russia launched a wave of attacks on Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, overnight, and at least six people killed in strikes that hit city buildings and energy infrastructure.
A Ukrainian attack on southern Russia killed three people and damaged homes, according to authorities.
And here is White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt.
She was with reporters yesterday at the White House.
unidentified
Thanks a lot, Caroline.
There are a few Republican senators who are critical of the 2820 peace plan, including Senator Rounds, Senator Graham, Senator McConnell.
What do you say to those senators who say that this is giving too much away to Russia?
And has Russia made any concessions as it relates to a peace, a possible peace deal concerning ending the war in Ukraine?
I would point any critics to the words of the Ukrainians yesterday, in which they said that they feel very positive about this plan.
They've been very involved.
They have had direct input on the language of this plan, and that we are in direct communication and correspondence with them.
Any idea, let me just finish with this.
The idea that the United States of America is not engaging with both sides equally in this war to bring it to an end is a complete and total fallacy.
And I saw a lot of misinformation and rumors and allegations against people in this building, such as Secretary Rubio and Special Envoy Wynkoff and the President himself, that they are favoring one side over the other.
That could not be further from the truth.
I have watched as the president and his team have worked around the clock overnight with both sides on endless phone calls, endless meetings to try to bring this war to a close.
And any suggestion otherwise is a complete misunderstanding of the facts.
It's coming from people who have no idea what they're talking about or people who are pushing their own agenda.
Or maybe people who don't want to see this war come to an end.
That was Caroline Levitt yesterday, and we are taking your calls for the first half hour of the program on your views on the Trump administration's handling of the Ukraine-Russia negotiations.
This is the BBC.
Ukraine calls for Trump-Zelensky meeting in the U.S. this week.
It says this, that the Ukraine security chief says he is hoping to arrange for President Zelensky to visit the U.S., quote, at the earliest suitable date this month as diplomatic attempts to end the war continue.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has confirmed its officials are set to meet Russian representatives in Abu Dhabi as part of efforts to end the Ukraine war.
It continues.
On Sunday, the U.S. and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva to discuss the draft plan, which had been criticized by leaders in Kyiv and Europe as too favorable to Russia.
It says it appears that Ukraine's European allies produced an amended version of the plan after rejecting parts which favored Russia's war aims.
Zelensky said this on Monday.
Now the list of necessary steps to end the war can become doable.
Many correct elements have been incorporated into this framework.
Wonder what you think about all that.
We'll start with Alan in Brooklyn, New York.
Democrat.
Hi, Alan.
unidentified
Good morning, Amy.
Thank you very much.
I have to admire Carolyn Levitt's ability to put a spin on facts that are pretty unequivocally opposite what she is saying and give an appearance of sincerity.
The idea that this plan has been prepared in a way that's even-handed is a mockery of facts.
Even Mark Rubio admitted that this plan did not arise out of discussions with both sides, but was basically an outline of a wish list that was submitted through an ambassador to Washington,
and that Trump basically submitted that as an opening bid in the negotiations as if he were an attorney working for Putin and not someone who's acting as a middleman to try to bring parties together even-handedly.
And the idea that he keeps reminding people this war would never have happened if I were president is the farthest thing from a compliment to him because Putin seems to be so happy having him in power that he would have no reason to start a war like this to complicate the administration of someone he wants to see thrive because he's basically doing Putin's bidding.
And that is not a compliment to Trump's ability.
That is basically an admission that he is the prize Putin's been looking for and to start a war that would disrupt him would be counterproductive for himself, for Putin.
They have not released that publicly, but it seems that the Ukrainians are okay with it.
What do you think is going to happen now?
Do you think that it will just be rejected by Putin because he's not getting everything he wants?
unidentified
That's been the pattern up to now.
Up to now, every time there's a proposal, Putin would rather go back and start firing missiles at Kiev instead of changing his demands.
And he sees that Trump is such a useful tool for him that he knows that he just has to continue to weigh things out and get his optimal list of demands met rather than having to submit to a ceasefire or to a drastic change in the terms.
And there was no use of European input in the initial 28-point list.
Just because Donald Trump seems to never be able to say a bad word about Vladimir Putin and is bored with the war.
Instead of trying to rally with the Ukrainians and our European allies, he basically has a giveaway plan that, as I said over the weekend, make Neville Chamberlain's collapse to Hitler around Munich look pale in comparison.
It says this young Army Secretary rises as key negotiator.
It says that it's easy to overlook Dan Driscoll, who is 38, is the youngest secretary in U.S. Army history as part of a Trump diplomatic team that features heavyweights, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.
Yet Washington insiders have figured out something the rest of the world is learning as Mr. Driscoll takes on an increasingly visible role in U.S.-Ukraine peace negotiations.
Former North Carolina businessman clearly has the full support of the commander-in-chief.
It continues talking about that Mr. Driscoll traveled to Kyiv last week, and he is, according to reports, in Abu Dhabi doing those reports, doing those negotiations.
Here is Philip, Lakeville, Minnesota Republican.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I couldn't agree more with Senator Warner's comments.
This is Munich all over again.
It's complete capitulation.
Donald Trump is apparently owned by Putin.
There's no other explanation for his utter disregard for the freedom, the sovereignty, and principles of democracy that are at stake here in Ukraine.
I think it's just an abomination.
It's horrible.
We have a clown like Steve Whitless going over there to negotiate with absolutely no experience in international affairs whatsoever.
He went into the first round of negotiations with the Russians without even taking a translator along with him and relied on a Russian translator for all communications back and forth.
I mean, it's just really hard to even put in words what a travesty this is and what a joke this administration has made of our foreign policy.
And I don't know where the solution lies.
The only hope is that Ukraine will stand firm and not capitulate and not cede territory to Russia.
So, Philip, let me ask you this, because, you know, people are saying, look, this is a war of attrition.
This is just going to keep continuing.
People are just going to keep dying.
What do you think of that?
Do you think, look, maybe Ukraine does need to give up something in order to save lives and end this war?
What do you think of that argument?
unidentified
Our founding fathers started the revolution based on the principle that there were worse things than death.
And one of them was living in bondage and slavery, to put it the way Patrick Henry did.
And I echo his sentiment.
Forbidden Almighty God.
There are principles we're taking a stand for.
There are things that are worth risking one's life, and the Ukrainians are demonstrating that with great courage.
I wish anybody in this administration or anybody in the leadership In the European nations possess the sort of courage and resolve that the Ukrainians have demonstrated.
I was going to say, I wish we could get the guys that are on YouTube on Legends on your show so they can explain what's going on with the war because I believe that the media is just misrepresenting what's going on over here in the war.
That most of the front line has been, it's called a stagger line.
He was addressing Sweden's parliament and had these comments to say.
unidentified
Right now, we are at a critical moment.
And we are working closely with the United States, with European partners, with many, many others to define steps that can end Russia's war against us, against Ukraine, and bring real security.
In the steps we have coordinated with the side of the U.S., we managed to keep extremely sensitive points on the table, including the full release of all Ukrainians, prisoners of war, under the all-for-all formula and civilians, and the complaint return on Ukrainian children abducted by Russia.
unidentified
These are important steps, but to achieve real peace, more, more is needed.
And we are taking your calls for this first half hour.
That was President Zelensky yesterday addressing the Swedish parliament.
And this is Jan in Michigan, Democrat.
Hi, Jan.
Good morning.
unidentified
People to know that Putin is the one that invaded Ukraine.
Putin has committed so many war crimes.
His men, they actually cut off the private parts of many of those Ukrainian soldiers that they captured.
They raped and then killed the women in front of their children.
Think about this, people.
And Trump is rolling out the red carpet for him.
What is going on?
What is going on in this world?
This is disgusting.
And how could he let him have anything?
And what he did to Zelensky when he was in that White House, him in that nutcase vance, how could they do that to him after he fought so hard to help his people?
Now, Trina, what some of the critics of the original plan were saying is this rewards aggression, Russian aggression, by giving them Ukrainian land.
What do you make of that?
Yeah, go ahead.
unidentified
I don't disagree that it seems pretty lopsided.
At least it's something.
I think that it's going to adjust itself a little bit.
Definitely, I think the children should all be returned to Ukraine.
Of course, it's horrendous what he's done.
Absolutely horrendous.
But maybe we need to look at it from turning the perspective just a little bit and stop blaming Trump for this happening because he wasn't in office when this happened.
He didn't enable it.
He didn't do nothing.
He's doing something.
And it'd be great if people would just pray for our president and for peace over there in Ukraine and Russia and let God take care of the punishment piece.
I'm going to read you this article, but you can start calling in now about any other topic you'd like to talk about for the next half hour.
The numbers are Democrats, 202748, 8,000.
Republicans, 202, 748, 8001.
And Independents, 202748, 8002.
This is Politico lawmakers say Rubio distanced U.S. from the peace plan.
It says, members of Congress attending an international security forum said Secretary of State Marco Rubio called them to say the Americans did not instigate the proposal.
And this is Wesley in Los Angeles, Line for Democrats.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
So this is my 30 years ago.
We began the expansion of NATO.
And Arthur Schlesinger, who is JFK's historian, and George F. Kennan, believed that this was a mistake.
So as NATO expanded, it became more and more threatening to Russia.
And now, by the time 2022 rolled around, Russia decided that it expanded too far.
Now, think about all you have to do to understand Russia's position.
Imagine the United States and imagine Mexico wanting to join a military organization that was opposed to the United States.
Three Demands Made00:01:40
unidentified
We wouldn't tolerate it for a moment.
And so he finally put his foot down, Putin, and he asked three things.
One of them was that NATO, Ukraine not be allowed to join NATO.
Another was that they would take out the threatening missiles that are aimed at Russia, just like the United States didn't like threatening missiles from Havana.
So I don't see, I see Russia not necessarily as just completely the aggressor.
I understand the Russian position, and I think Wesley.
And Ray, this is on the front page of the Washington Times about what you're talking about.
So it says Pentagon threatens Kelly with prosecution.
Senator Hit over video to troops.
It says the Pentagon is threatening to recall Senator Mark Kelly.
He's a Democrat of Arizona, a former Navy pilot, to active duty, where he could face court-martial proceedings over, quote, serious allegations of misconduct.
It says, Mr. Kelly made a video with five other Democratic lawmakers urging U.S. troops to ignore any illegal orders from President Trump.
Mr. Kelly, who also served as a NASA astronaut before entering politics, said the video only advised service members and intelligence personnel not to follow illegal orders.
Trump administration said otherwise.
Defense Secretary Hegseth called the video despicable, reckless, and false.
He is a retired, he retired as a captain in October of 2021 after a 25-year career in the Navy and the NASA Astronaut Corps.
Now, Mr. Senator Kelly did have a reaction to that.
This is what he said on X.
He says, so this is the Department of Defense saying this.
The Department of War has received serious allegations of misconduct against Captain Mark Kelly.
In accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice and other applicable regulations, a thorough review of these allegations has been initiated to determine further actions, which may include recall to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.
This matter will be handled in compliance with military law, ensuring due process and impartiality.
Further official comments will be limited to preserve the integrity of the proceedings.
It says, this is Mark Kelly, his response on X.
It says, when I was 22 years old, I commissioned.
He continues, Secretary Hexa's tweet is the first I heard of this.
Apparently, he learned about it by tweet.
I also saw the president's post saying I should be arrested, hanged, and put to death.
If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won't work.
I've given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution.
That's on X.
And this is Sabrina on the Independent Line in Thomasville, Georgia.
unidentified
Oh, good morning, Mimi.
Good morning.
Mark Kelly, this Mark Kelly issue from Arizona pulling him back into active duty, a Democrat whose wife was shot due to political violence, because let's remember, according to Republicans, only Democrats are violent.
So they could court-martial him due to a video educating servicemen and service women is insane.
Donald Trump dodged the draft five times.
None of his sons or daughter even served in the military, yet insulted veterans like John McCain and called other veterans stupid, although not one of his sons, although one of his sons is holding a head of a dead tiger that he killed and brought back to the United States.
Real brave guy.
I believe the next time Donald Trump goes into Walter Reed, they seriously need to do a psychological evaluation on the man.
He's a compulsive liar.
He's out of touch with the reality of the economy, out of touch with health care costs.
His relationship with the, he denies his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
In other news, this is the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
Comey and James cases are tossed.
It says the federal judge finds a Trump-aligned prosecutor wasn't lawfully appointed.
Federal judge dismissed criminal charges Monday, yesterday, against both former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, ruling that the prosecutor President Trump chose to bring the cases was unlawfully appointed.
A pair of decisions by the judge deal a setback to the Justice Department in two high-profile criminal cases it brought after Trump publicly called on Attorney General Pamboni to prosecute several of his prominent critics, including Comey and James.
They both contested Lindsey Halligan's appointment as the interim U.S. Attorney in Eastern Virginia, while also pointing to Trump's public statements to argue that his prosecution was rooted in the president's desire for retribution against perceived adversaries.
You can continue reading that at the Wall Street Journal.
Here is Melinda in Arizona, line for Democrats.
unidentified
I wanted to talk about the Ukraine thing.
This is this giving Putin everything is ridiculous.
Ukraine did not start the war.
And every time Trump has gone to meet with Putin, Putin makes a damn fool, excuse me, a fool out of Trump.
Trump is a coward.
He's threatening to withdraw everything, but he will not stand up to Putin.
He'll give everything to Putin and nothing to Ukraine.
This is wrong.
Very wrong.
I'm 84 years old, and I started in with Harry S. Truman, and Trump is the most self-centered, vicious president I have ever seen.
So this is the Hill House Republicans move to force vote on, quote, crushing Russia sanctions.
This is from three days ago.
It says that Representative Fitzpatrick, a Republican of Pennsylvania, on Friday, this would be last Friday, said he has submitted a discharge petition to force a vote on bipartisan legislation imposing punishing sanctions on countries enabling Russia's war against Ukraine.
It says the move comes as President Trump is putting intense pressure on Kyiv to accept a peace proposal widely criticized as favorable toward Moscow.
Good morning, Mimi, and to all of your C-SPAN listeners.
I'm a second-time caller, but I listen to you for this radio broadcast very, frequently.
My comment this morning, I want to comment on the open forum segment of Washington Journal pertaining to the immigration.
My stand on that is, and I'm from a very international family.
We cover the countries of El Salvador, Chile, Ghana, just to name a few.
And I have friends from those countries.
We need to have limits on, and the laws need to be reformed.
We need to have limits on how many immigrants we should allow into this country.
The loopholes, like the other caller said yesterday, needs to be fixed.
What did I want to say?
Oh, yeah.
There was a caller that called in, and I want to clarify, because I understood what she was trying to say.
I am African American.
I am a born-again Bible practicing Christian.
This is what she was trying to say.
After the civil rights laws were made, there were other laws made in the United States of America that prevented African American people from getting, you know, the jobs and equal opportunities in this country.
I just met somebody yesterday, Mimi, in America, and this man is living in his car.
He's homeless.
He's homeless.
He lost his job.
And I recorded his testimony, even where I live.
The construction workers consist of all immigrants.
Some of them are illegal.
I've even had to call in on some of the illegal immigrants.
Bottom line, I don't have a racist bone in my body.
Some of my closest friends are women in the church and the community from various Central and South American countries, African American countries.
But just like Australia and other European countries, we do need to put limitations and reform these immigration laws.
And we need more opportunities for our African American people and poor white people and other legal immigrants in this country to have jobs.
And we're putting profits over people.
What about taking care of their beginning at home, as my mother taught me?
And just a brief comment on Ukraine.
We've been praying for Ukraine ever since Vladimir Putin and Russia started this war.
If they started it and the true Christians that claim that they work for this Republican Party, Trump is wrong.
There will never be true peace.
He will not win a peace prize because what they're doing to the Ukrainian people and the president of Ukraine is wrong.
And if it were me, I'm from a military family.
I'm a brother that's a Vietnam vet.
My father was the only African American in his outfit, the army, the branch of armed forces.
And I was a civilian, legally blind, 62 years of age.
Ms. Rhodesia worked as a civilian at the Pentagon.
Bottom line, if I was Ukraine, I would not consent.
And I do agree with an earlier caller.
NATO needs to get involved and we need to clean up our house.
People need jobs here.
And the homelessness rate, like that sister said, 40% African-American without housing.
First thing I'd like to do is remind everyone that when the Ukraine had nuclear missiles owned by Russia, owned by Russia, and returned them to Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom or Britain guaranteed the sovereignty of the Ukraine.
Then came along Obama.
The invasion of the Ukraine started with Obama, not Biden and not Trump.
Next, the United States has unwritten agreements with Taiwan, for instance, that we're going to take and protect them from an invasion.
Well, if we don't take and protect the Ukraine and we give away different parts of the Ukraine, then who is going to believe us with Taiwan?
If you think about it that way, you had a lady on there that talked about her house and how she was willing to give up a portion of the Ukraine to Russia.
Well, if I bring my family of 15 over to her house and invade her house and I say this is my half of the house and that's your house of the house, would she agree to that?
No, James, one of the callers did one of the callers said, you know, they should give up the Donbass because there's more Russian speakers there than Ukrainian speakers.
The issue is: if you go back to the 1930s, when Russia initially invaded the Ukraine and they destroyed the border between Russia and the Ukraine back in the 1930s, when Stalin tried to starve all of the Ukrainians by taking all the food and giving it to Russia while they starved the Ukrainians.
If you want to go back that far, go back that far.
Now, let's talk about the Admiral.
The Admiral needs to be brought back on active duty only to explain what an unlawful order is when he was on active duty.
Once he can explain what an unlawful order is, then we'll all understand what it means for those folks that said that.
This is Robert in Lynchburg, Virginia, Independent Line.
Hi, Robert.
unidentified
Thank you, Mimi, for taking my call.
And I just want people to know what they voted for.
So I'm laying the ground now for to remain in office like he says you would when he won the second time.
He's starting a war with, you want to start a war with Venus Carrella so he can declare martial war, martial law, and then he don't want to leave office.
And unlawful order is if you don't come to the uniform military code of justice.
I'm calling about the ad that they run about illegal orders.
People need to go back and look up the Mila massacre when Captain Medina gave an order to Lieutenant William Calley and he followed it and ended up with about 300 individuals dead, innocent people shot down.
Medina himself shot a lady in the head twice because she had a basket in her hands.
There was an orange officer named Hugh Thompson, set his chopper down between those people and those soldiers and told his gunner they were not to fire on those people.
And he tried to defend those people.
They were innocent as could be, and they killed them.
Yes, first of all, I want to address a gentleman that called earlier and talked about Trump getting his college deferments.
Why isn't there ever anything mentioned about Joe Biden getting five college deferments?
Supposedly, he developed asthma even though he was on the track team and played football in college.
So, and also, I'd like to know why no one ever addresses the fact that Biden gave his son a pardon even though he said he wouldn't, and it went back 10 years.
Was Hunter doing illegal things for 10 years?
Nothing is ever talked about that either.
So, I think that this justice system is so screwed up.
It's so much against the Republicans.
So I wonder if anybody has anything to say about that.
Okay, and this is Rainey in West Lafayette, Ohio, Independent Line.
unidentified
Go ahead.
Hi, I'm going in just to, I guess, make a statement on what I've heard about and with the Republicans.
One thing I'm tired of hearing is Trump, at least Trump's doing something.
At least Trump's doing something.
Just talking, there's no results other than results of rolling out red carpets for dictators and giving dictators what they want.
He's not rolling out red carpets for Zelensky.
In fact, he's sitting there making a mockery of him.
There is laws being broken when it comes to blowing up ships, which to me is no more than murder.
And then every time somebody puts a comment on anything that Donald Trump is doing that goes against the laws, everybody has something to say about the Democrats being brainwashed.
However, if you just research the laws a little bit, you can find the facts in what they're saying.
And I don't believe that Senator or I'm sorry, Kelly should be able to, or should be called to war, called to action, because he is just putting a line in between integrity and doing something that's wrong.
This is why those five brave men and women has come forth to warn the American people, Hedgehog, and Donald Trump has taken control of those young men and women.
One more call on this segment from Lafayette, Louisiana, Republican line.
John, you're on the air.
unidentified
Yes, ma'am.
Thank you for your, I've given an opportunity to say this.
Millie, under the first Trump administration, had a backdoor channel to a foreign power.
When you have people in your administration communicating with other people without your, as a president, without your knowledge or permission, that is seditious.
I just had the what Trump and the others are trying to say is you should not be communicating with a foreign power or you have the military poised against itself.
Good Grief, BidenDodging00:00:59
unidentified
One of the old generals asked the Japanese at the end of the war, why did you attack?
And he says, because it looked like you guys were fighting each other.
You felt vulnerable.
So all we're trying to say is when you have when you put in the you instigate such things as have the military or the government fighting against itself, that's sedition.
You're creating an atmosphere that can destroy the country.
So they're trying to shut that down.
It's not all this stuff about he's a criminal.
Good grief.
Thanks for the lady that said the things that they don't bring about Biden's dodging whatever.
Frank Luntz On National Mood00:04:02
unidentified
But I just want to say if they keep doing all this emotional stuff, those guys that serve in the military know better than that.
And they knew what they were doing.
It was a calculated move and they did it.
And it's got us where we are right now in this divided at each other's throats, literally.
And coming up later on the program, could the AI bubble burst and impact the overall economy?
Navy Federal Credit Union Chief Economist Heather Long joins us later to discuss the possibility of that happening.
But first, pollster and strategist Frank Luntz joins with his latest research talking about the current mood of the nation.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
Sunday night on C-SPAN's Q&A.
White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro went to prison in 2024, convicted of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the January 6th committee after being found guilty on two counts.
In his new book, I Went to Prison So You Won't Have To, Peter Navarro lays out the Justice Department's case, his arrest and trial, and what it was like for him behind bars.
It's like everybody told me there that they'd rather be in a cell because you only have to worry about one other guy.
You know, there's a thing called the lock, lock in the sock, right?
You take a padlock, you throw it in a sock, and a lot of rough justice goes on like that.
unidentified
White House trade advisor and author Peter Navarro, Sunday night at 8 Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q&A wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
Yale constitutional law professor Akhil Reed Amar's second book in a trilogy is titled Born Equal, Remaking America's Constitution, 1840 to 1920.
In Professor Amar's introduction, he writes, Millions of Americans can recite by heart Lincoln's opening line at Gettysburg.
But how many of us understand it?
This sentence sits at the very center of this book.
Akil Amar was born in 1958 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was raised in California after law school at Yale, clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, and became a junior professor back at his alma mater at age 26.
unidentified
Author Akhil Reed Ammar with his book, Born Equal, Remaking America's Constitution, 1840 to 1920, on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
I've been listening to the calls before I sat down here, and that's why I do what I do at West Point.
It restores, and we were talking before that I was going to bring this up at the beginning.
For me, the savior, the reason to get up in the morning, even though we're so angry with each other and so hostile with each other, is these cadets up in Highland Falls, New York.
And whether it's a Democratic administration or a Republican administration, the demand is keep your promises, say what you mean and mean what you say.
And what's going on in Washington is driving this negativity.
And I follow that there are certain moods that happen at certain times.
When people go shopping this week to buy the food for Thanksgiving, if prices are up and people can't get what they want, they're going to be mad as hell.
And that's what happened to Joe Biden five years ago.
He doesn't realize that the seeds of his destruction were sown on Thanksgiving of 2021 when people cannot afford the food they were looking for and how much worse it got by 2022.
And then on Christmas, the purchasing of gifts, of presents, if you can't get what you want to buy, if there are shortages, if things aren't available, people punish those in charge.
And so these days are critical.
In terms of Labor Day, that's when people get together and host their final summer party.
And they talk to each other about where things are, about the year starting up again.
And if prices aren't down by then, he'll get punished.
But he still has almost a year to make a difference.
Yes, and sometimes he delivers, and sometimes he doesn't.
And the key in all of this is to maintain your credibility, maintain believability.
Trump voters have more patience than any people I've ever seen.
I've been doing this now since the end of the Reagan administration.
Trump voters are more loyal, more committed, more willing to accept disappointment as long as they see a light at the end of the tunnel.
And that tunnel goes from now until Labor Day of 2026.
You have the time, you have the resources, you have the support of Congress.
If you over-deliver, if you under-promise and over-deliver, they'll reward you.
If you over-promise and under-deliver, they'll punish you.
And we have history, 50 years of history, that says the Democrats should be winning the House.
That the voters punish the party in power after two years.
And he's got to overcome that.
And at this point, I don't think he does.
At this point, when you look at the Texas redistricting being thrown out, California redistricting passing, and then historic trends, it's really hard for Republicans to keep control.
Well, that's politics, and West Point does not do politics, does not do partisanship.
Partisanship.
My first reaction was, why the hell did you put this video out?
I know you're trying to poke at him.
Of course you don't obey an illegal order.
Of course there are standards and processes that our military has followed not just for decades, but for centuries.
That's a given.
You're doing this just to create a political issue.
And shame on you, because there are men and women who are serving in Japan, in Korea, all over the globe, in the Middle East, in other Asian countries.
We're going to talk about Thanksgiving, but the reaction from the Pentagon was to investigate Senator Mark Kelly, a 25-year veteran of the Navy, by bringing him back, reactivating him so that he could be court-martialed pending the investigation, of course.
And I hope that the producers back there, wherever back there is, will include them.
Because even though they're stationed someplace else, or even though they're retired, I want to know what they think.
I'm listening to them, I'm learning from them, and I will tell you that with Thanksgiving, 48 hours away, that's where my heart is, that's where my head is.
We need to hear from them, and we need to express our appreciation, our respect, and how much we value them.
So, you are a senior fellow in the Department of Social Sciences at West Point, and you spoke to some of the cadets about their gratitude.
I'm going to play it, and then you can talk about it.
unidentified
Thank you.
I would just say I'm filled with a great sense of gratitude.
This country has given me so much, and I'm eager to give back.
This country is my everything.
This country gave me life, and this country continues to give me life.
And I'd like to quickly brief on duty, honor, country.
Duty, honor, country is the what, how, and why of West One.
So, the what is your duty, you're going to get the job done in front of you.
The how is honor, you're going to honor your country in the process, and country is what you're doing it for.
To me, the United States is my home, and it's the banner of freedom for the rest of the world.
Yeah, I think, Dr. Lens, our generation is positive when we think about the future of our country.
And so, in a sentence, I would just say it's a beacon of hope for the future for us.
I know that sounds a little cliche, but I mean, listening to my peers up here talk about the country so passionately in the way that I do is reassuring.
Well, we're trying to do the political discourse here on this program, so let's talk to callers.
And this is Ken, North Carolina, Independent Line.
Go ahead, Ken, you're on with Franklin's.
unidentified
Good morning, C-SPAN, and good morning, America.
Mr. Lutz, I've watched you for years.
You've always tried so hard for this country to listen, to behave, and you are such a credit.
I have just two points I would like to ask.
Number one, redistricting in the U.S. has got to be out of control.
What's your thought about that?
And number two, what's going on in Ukraine?
You being a military man, you know how Europe was attacked in the 1930s when there was a man who promised he would not invade, and he went from country to country.
They even bombed Europe.
They even bombed England.
And they also put many Jews in concentration camp.
So first thing, if I can reach down and not pull out my wires, I don't just wear my country on my sleeve.
I wear my country on my feet.
And I'm proud to do this.
And I didn't do this before.
These are old.
I've had these for 15 years.
I stopped doing this until two years ago.
And I restored my patriotism.
I restored my love for country.
And it really is back.
In terms of redistricting, the caller, you are so right.
It's wrong for us to be changing the rules and changing the borders.
Nothing will destroy our faith and trust and confidence in the electoral system like changing the boundaries.
That's setting us up for a disaster.
And I wish both parties would stop, but they're not, because now it's a war to the bottom.
And at this point, with Texas, with their lines having been rejected by the courts, now you have that decision stayed temporarily by a Supreme Court justice.
But if Texas ends up rejecting redistricting in California and its vote is upholded by the courts, I don't see how Republicans keep control.
So this strategy could actually hand the election to the Democrats.
Stop playing games with our electoral system.
And in terms of Ukraine, I'm Ukrainian.
My grandparents on one side and my great-grandparents on the other, all four.
Odessa and Keith, though I used to call it Kiev.
And so I have a personal stake in this.
And I say this only as a citizen.
And I'm not a military person.
I appreciate I never served.
And I think that's one of the reasons I'm guilty.
And I see them out in the cold and out in the rain and out in the snow and doing 18-mile hiking with 35 pounds on their backs.
And I never did that.
And I'm lucky.
I know you're going to the phone.
I hope the U.S. stays behind Ukraine.
I hope that we continue to stand up for freedom and we stand against countries that invade others without any motivation, without any provocation.
And they're just re-emphasizing you do not follow illegal orders.
And I want to remind you of this Abel Grave when young people there thought they were taking orders from civilians, FBI agents, and people from the Defense Department for the Pentagon.
Who went to jail?
Whose careers were ruined?
Who's these young people, these young soldiers, a young pregnant woman?
They went to jail, not the people that encouraged them to do it.
And now you have people that are saying, oh, it's okay to have swastikas out in the military and show them.
And the response that it got, and the effort itself is the politicization.
This Army is led by General Randy George, who has done more to upgrade and to innovate.
And to, from appropriations to technology to warfighting itself, General George has done more to upgrade this Army than any Army leader for decades.
He doesn't need to be reminded of this.
It's wasting our time talking about something that they fully understand and fully embrace, and it just created this mess.
How many hours has Ceaseman spent talking about this?
Has it appeared in the newspaper?
They understand this, they practice this.
And I want to give credit also to Dan Driscoll, the Secretary of the Army.
The combination of Randy George and Dan Driscoll has completely innovated.
And we need to.
What's been happening in Ukraine with the drones, with a new type of warfighting that we were not anticipating three years ago, and these two individuals working together daily, hourly, have made a meaningful difference.
And you ask me, and I'll do it in one case, just in this case, to talk about the cadets.
The cadets believe that General George and Secretary Driscoll have their backs.
The cadets believe that the Army is preparing them for the battles of the future.
And they have complete confidence that their leadership is on their side.
This is what the cadets, regardless of their gender, of their race, of where they come from, even first generation, they want to be held to the same standard, nothing more, nothing less.
And they want to be able to do the same jobs, nothing more and nothing less.
What do you want the American people to know from you as West Point cadets?
unidentified
I believe the end product of the United States Military Academy is a leader who will promote democratic values in the American people and in the world, and that we train every day to be the best at that that we can be.
I'd want people to know that the work that we're doing here goes far beyond just our four years here and even beyond our time in the Army.
The values that we learn, the values that we kind of take with us into our career is going to be with us past the Army and hopefully we can create a real positive impact in other sectors as well.
We have so much hope for the future.
I'm not signing up.
None of us are signing up for a future we don't believe is going to be good.
We have so much hope.
We believe we can build a better future.
It won't just happen.
That we will be part of the solution.
And that despite politics or division, that we are one people and we will fight for the future we want to see.
And the thing that I want to say to every mother and father or every grandparent who's watching this, that when their child comes home for Thanksgiving, watch them.
They sit up straighter.
They look you straight in the eye.
They say, yes, ma'am.
Yes, sir.
They get up and help you.
They clean up their rooms.
Everything they touch becomes better because of their training, who they are.
I go on this.
I go on the inspections and I see what they do with the uniforms and what they do with their rooms.
Only perfection is allowed.
And thank God we have 4,000 of them committed to perfection in whatever job they do.
And one last point here.
They're in demand now.
The problem, and this is going to be a problem for the military, is that after five years, they have to commit to five years of hard service.
And after that, every business wants to hire them because they have the ethics and the perseverance and the resilience.
Here's Randolph in Charles City, Virginia, Republican.
Good morning, Randolph.
unidentified
Good morning, Frank.
I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the quote, an introduction to Hundreds of school board and city council and board of supervisors meetings for the phrase: there is no more important issue than children's health.
Now, you gave me that when I called into C-SPAN 22 years ago.
And over these last 22 years, I have pulled a 50-foot mobile fitness trailer to 1,500 schools here in Virginia and many other host organizations that wanted to add a health component to their message.
And I have had the good fortune of training many military families in Lincoln housing here in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.
And I've had to retire because of my own health circumstances.
And it won't be too long before I graduate.
But I really appreciate the opportunity to call in and thank you for that phrase.
Darrell in Caldwell, Idaho, Independent Line, you're on the air.
unidentified
You know, basically, I'm 82 years old, so I couldn't consider being the president or going to West Point or anything.
I've got to use a roller later just to go from A to B.
But I was in the Marine Corps, and I've survived that.
And it's a situation where I've started studying the scriptures.
As you realize, you know, your lifespan here, when you're 60 years old, you've already spent 20 years sleeping.
And we've got a situation now where the scripture says, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
And then you've got a situation in the New Testament where Jesus is commenting the fact that you're going to go against an enemy and you've got 10,000 and the enemy's got 20,000.
Jesus says, you better take and walk out there with your delegation and you better make peace.
And I look at this stuff going on in Ukraine and you've got a situation where Zelensky has reached the point that he's not going to surrender because he likes that power.
Is nation as corrupt as can be, and yet we don't want to go to the fact that we've told the Russians back in 1991, we're not going to come one more end story.
So basically, we're a nation that is not afraid to lie, and we've got to get afraid to do it or the other ones.
All right, let's play that last portion that we've got for you.
unidentified
I'm unapologetically patriotic.
And so when I'm sitting here and I'm going through these things, and I'm going through the moments of waking up at 2, 3, 4 in the morning and thinking, why am I doing this?
All I have to tell myself is that someone out there across the globe is trying to hurt those that are important to me, trying to hurt the country I love, and I will not let them.
And so that mindset stayed the entirety of CODT, and I can't ever imagine it will go away.
It's just embracing the opportunity.
There's a leader in all of us, and being able to sit back, understand what is going on for the day, what you need from your subordinate leaders, and persevering through whatever challenges there are, and utilizing those around you.
That's the biggest thing.
I think this teaches you teamwork.
And it's gritty.
It is gritty for sure, but it's gritty together.
I think that's what matters, sir.
Soon, all 32 of us are tired and hungry and hurting.
But the reason I think that we are prepared and there's nothing that's going to stop us is because I know that no matter what I'm going through, I have 31 other people around me who I can count on to push me through, and that all 32 of us unanimously feel the same way.
And so no matter how bad it gets, no matter how sorry we feel for ourselves, there's 31 other people who are willing to pick you up and drag you all the way to the end.
And so I just really can't see a way in which we're not prepared.
The leader of West Point, Steve Gillen, three-star general, did more for America in the Delta forces than almost anyone I've ever met in my life.
And this man is the embodiment of service with character and sacrifice.
And he will not discuss his past, even though I've been trying very hard.
But he sets the tone for every cadet to follow.
The commandant, R.J. Garcia, is a warrior.
And he teaches them the importance of the training and the discipline and the resilience and perseverance.
The dean, Shane Reeves, is the smartest dean I've ever seen.
I am so glad that I left my previous jobs to teach because the academic commitment and the intensity of learning at West Point is unlike any place I've ever seen.
And two other people, the BTO, Colonel Klepper scared the hell out of me because he's looking, he's right now emailing me, your shirt is wrong, your jacket should be.
He adds a level of discipline that I did not appreciate when I was first there, and now I realize that that's the secret sauce.
And Colonel Fedorovich, who's in charge of military training and military teaching, five leaders of character, five leaders who do not accept anything but 100% perfection, produce 4,000 cadets who are committed to selfless service, who love their country, who are willing to do this 24-7 for all the right reasons and all the right ways.
Terry in Eugene, Oregon, Democrat, you're on the air.
Faith and Military Service00:15:22
unidentified
Good morning.
Before I start, well, my name is Terry McComb, and I live in Eugene, Oregon.
And I want to thank you, Mimi.
I admire you.
I think you do a superb job as a host.
The way that you listen, you truly listen to people and you respond and you engage in a sincere way.
And I'm very grateful for you.
Yes.
And I would just like to make a comment to Frank.
You're not my guy.
I find you a little too dramatic for me, but I do want to say one thing, push back against your state, your comments about the video that our congresspeople, the Democratic six, put out to warn people that are serving in the military to not follow an illegal order.
And let me tell you why.
January 6th, the President, Donald J. Trump, called for an insurrection.
They called for people to come and stop those, oh, you know, the counting of the okay, so, and they almost succeeded.
And the first thing that Donald Trump does when he gets back into office is he forgives all of them.
But they all paid a price for that, didn't they?
They paid a price.
President Trump didn't.
But all of those people that followed him, the thousands of people that followed him to do this insurrection, they got busted and they got prison terms and they paid a price.
That's all those six members were saying is you can't just, if the president was walking down the street and says, shoot those protesters in the legs, we had military people that said, you can't do that, sir.
I totally agree with you about your sentiments of the military for starters, but I want to talk about the economy.
Something I've seen in my lifetime that I've never seen before is the breaking, what I consider the breaking of the middle class because of the expense of essentials, housing, insurance, power bills, electricity.
It is hitting the middle class from the elderly people to the youngest people and everybody in between.
And I don't know what's going to happen.
How are people going to afford to live?
What is the way out of this?
I would just like your comment.
And before I do go, I want to say, Frank Luntz, you look 20 years younger.
I don't know what you're doing, but you're doing it right.
Yes, who are running and jumping and hiking, and I'm sitting in the corner wishing that I could do this.
That is my single greatest embarrassment.
And I've been told, don't be embarrassed, and I am.
Because if this were six years ago, I'd be jumping off the helicopter.
I'd be climbing the mountains.
I can't even clear my throat.
I cannot even speak properly.
The caller is correct.
And there are four areas that are particularly important.
Food and fuel, because if you can't put the food you want to put on the table, you feel like you're not successful.
And if you cannot fill your car with gas all the way up to the top, you can't even do the things you want to do.
Housing and health care, because if you can't live where you want to live and you're not healthy because of economics, that destroys trust and confidence in the free market system.
And notice I do not say capitalism.
In fact, for those, this is a learning lesson for you.
Capitalism is about Wall Street.
It's about billionaires.
It's about people who've already made it.
Economic freedom is about Main Street, about people working their way.
And hardworking taxpayers deserve a break, and they're not getting it.
The caller, your concern is exactly what will determine who wins in 2026.
And right now, people are disappointed with where we are as a country.
We know from the work we've been doing that the public is struggling to afford what they want to spend for Thanksgiving.
And I know what's coming in a week as they start to shop for Christmas presents.
People are not just struggling, they're suffering.
And it's almost half of Americans feel that way right now.
And it's going to get acute in the days to follow.
Let's talk to Gene in Detroit, Line for Democrats.
Go ahead, Gene.
unidentified
Hi, I just want to make a couple of comments and a couple of questions.
I remember you, Frank, from years ago, but my Interpretation was that you would give these talking points to Republicans and tell them what words to use to help them in getting across to the American people.
And that's something that I gave up maybe 10 years ago because I just so much.
unidentified
I got mad at you about those things.
But because he was good at it, is that why?
Because he was good at it.
I said, these two, you know, that he was able to use those words to help people get fooled and to trust Republicans when they were, to me, they were not trustworthy because I looked at the different things that had happened from Republican policies, especially Newt Gingrich coming in and really to me being the father of the divisiveness that we have between the parties now because he came in demonizing Democrats.
Newt Gingrich is the smartest person I ever worked for.
And we would talk for hours about policies, and it was never about communication for him.
And you may disagree with the outcome.
You may disagree with the motives, but I will tell you as someone who watched it, and I'll give you the example approaching Christmas when he discussed the benefits of orphanages versus foster homes.
And I told him at the time, stop doing this.
Yes, there are young people who live in orphanages, but the public thinks foster homes are so much better.
And he said to me, I don't care.
Foster homes is where there's a lot of violence.
There's sexual predators, and orphanages are actually safer for the young people.
And I said to him, you're going to get destroyed over this.
And call her, he did.
And there's so much of what he talked about.
He was willing to engage in this public debate over policy, over theory, and over practice.
And I know that there's some things that he said were very brittle and were negative.
But I've never worked with someone before or since who had the mind that he had, and the goal was to make American society stronger.
And I'm trying to remember the phrase that he had, but it was saving American civilization.
He was truly committed to that.
He may not have communicated it, but this was a guy who was dedicated to a better America.
For me, faith plays such a role in what has happened within our company, our country, rather.
I think from the founding of this country, the Sabbath day was established up until the 1970s.
And it's like greed took over.
We began opening up stores, gas stations, everything in the pursuit of money.
And it's a commandment of God that we honor the Sabbath day, which for Christians is on Sunday.
So I want to ask you, what role do you think that played in the disintegration of our society?
And the last question is about Chief Justice David Souter, who issued a warning in an NPR interview September of 2012, warning about such a man as Trump who took office.
If you hold the Bible in one hand, you cannot hold a bottle of pills or a gun in the other.
If you are going to church on Sunday, you cannot, or you probably won't be destructive the other six days of the week.
And that if I had to add one thing to my answer to you about why things had so disintegrated, the thing that I left out is faith.
And I realized this.
I actually took Father Matt with my cadets to Washington, D.C. to discuss leadership with character with five senators and eight members of Congress in two days.
Because faith is not just who we are, but faith is what we become.
I'm not just interested in how we behave right now.
My job as a pollster is to look to the future, to understand where we're headed, and frankly, if I think it's in the wrong direction, try to shift it, try to learn.
And it's not about partisanship.
It is about character.
And so, Caller, I endorse everything that you just said.
And the 1970s was the turning point.
We took faith out of society.
We took faith out of schools.
What exactly is the damage of the Ten Commandments?
I'm Jewish.
I probably shouldn't admit that at this moment.
I don't mind the Ten Commandments being taught.
Those are values.
Those are principles.
Those are priorities.
Honor your father and your mother.
What is wrong with that?
I want us to be a country of faith.
I just want us to respect each faith and respect how we practice it.
I'm so thankful to you and to C-SPAN and to every caller, whether or not you agreed or not, because only in America can we do this.
Only in America can we have this exchange and disagree strongly, but still shake hands when it's done.
I'm so grateful for this opportunity.
And for the guys up in Highland Falls, I hope I haven't embarrassed them.
But I thank all of them and their mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and wives and husbands because in the end we forget about their sacrifice and have learned this intimately.
Later in the program, Navy Federal Credit Union Chief Economist Heather Long discusses the current economy and concerns about an AI bubble.
But first, it's open forum.
You can call in now.
The numbers are on your screen.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
On Thanksgiving Day, starting at 10 a.m. Eastern, C-SPAN presents a day-long America 250 marathon, all part of our more than year-long coverage of historic moments that explore the American story.
Exploring the American Story00:02:20
unidentified
At 11 a.m., we'll feature Boston's Freedom Trail through a guided tour featuring the site of the Boston Massacre, Old Statehouse, Faniel Hall, and Old North Church.
Give me liberty or give me death at 2.30 p.m. Eastern, Patrick Henry's Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death speech on the 250th anniversary and in its original location, St. John's Church in Richmond.
At 6.05 p.m., the U.S. Navy 250th Anniversary Victory at Sea concert in Philadelphia with a musical performance by Patty LaBelle.
Also at 8 p.m., the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill, where more than 1,000 reenactors commemorate one of the earliest and most consequential Revolutionary War battles.
And at 9:30 p.m., a celebration of the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary, featuring a parade through Washington, D.C., an enlistment ceremony, parachute demonstration, and fireworks.
Watch the America 250 Thanksgiving all-day marathon on Thursday on C-SPAN.
Also, head over to c-span.org to get the full schedule.
Middle and high school students join C-SPAN as we celebrate America's 250th anniversary during our 2026 C-SPAN Student Cam Video Documentary Competition.
This year's theme is Exploring the American Story through the Declaration of Independence.
We're asking students to create a five to six minute documentary that answers one of two questions.
What's the Declaration's influence on a key moment from America's 250-year history?
Or how have its values touched on a contemporary issue that's impacting you or your community?
We encourage all students to participate, regardless of prior filmmaking experience.
Consider interviewing topical experts and explore a variety of viewpoints around your chosen issue.
Students should also include clips of related C-SPAN footage, which are easy to download on our website, studentcam.org.
Department Justice and Political Enforcers00:11:19
unidentified
C-SPAN Student Cam Competition awards $100,000 in total cash prizes to students and teachers and $5,000 for the grand prize winner.
Entries must be received before January 20th, 2026.
For competition rules, tips, or just how to get started, visit our website at studentcam.org.
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Sunday night on C-SPAN's Q&A.
White House trade advisor Peter Navarro went to prison in 2024, convicted of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the January 6th Committee after being found guilty on two counts.
In his new book, I Went to Prison So You Won't Have To, Peter Navarro lays out the Justice Department's case, his arrest and trial, and what it was like for him behind bars.
We are in open forum for about the next 15 minutes and wanting to hear what you think about politics.
Public policy will start on the Republican line in Blythe, California.
Ivy, good morning.
unidentified
Good morning, Mimi.
Thank you for taking my call.
This is my first time calling, and I'm such a fan.
Just wanted to say that this morning when I turned on the TV, I saw Mr. Lutz, and I just knew that he would make me emotional as well as he has each time.
He really does speak so eloquently on our cadets at West Point, and I just want to thank him for his service as well.
But for the most part, just really wanted to call in to say that C-SPAN is fantastic and that I watch it every single day, almost 24-7.
And if anything, that also gives me hope for the future, it's C-SPAN.
I wanted to know, and people seem to be confused, and maybe I am, who is attacking who between Russia and Ukraine, and why is Trump so much for Putin and he puts down Selensky?
Hey, you know, I'd like to explain how Donald Trump knows what seditious behavior is.
You know, if you, you know, check out Fort Worth, you know, in 63, you know, he's part of killing Kennedy, you know, along with all the other riffraff.
You know, you can hang up on me all you want, you know, but, you know, Lucky Luciano, Sam Giancano, and of course, Lucky Luciano, he should be dead.
In Milltown, New Jersey, Independent Line, good morning, Richard.
unidentified
Yes, I wanted to speak to Mr. Lutz, but I couldn't get through.
I did serve in the military from 68 to 72.
And the problem that I have is that you can't trust leaders in order to be able to run the military, because if we look at Vietnam, we look at Baghdad, Iraq, and Panama, and the other places that the military have been used, it really turns out to be a disappointment.
And now we're on the verge of going into Venezuela.
I'm grateful that the court ended the case against me, which was a prosecution based on malevolence and incompetence, and a reflection of what the Department of Justice has become under Donald Trump, which is heartbreaking.
But I was also inspired by the example of the career people who refused to be part of this travesty.
It cost some of them their jobs, which is painful, but it preserved their integrity, which is beyond price.
And I know they will serve again.
I was very lucky that some of the best lawyers in America stepped forward to represent me.
I hope they serve as an example to more and more lawyers, especially some of the big firms, to participate in protecting our liberty, protecting the rule of law.
And my family and friends were always with me.
And luckily for me, include some of those great lawyers.
This case mattered to me personally, obviously, but it matters most because a message has to be sent that the President of the United States cannot use the Department of Justice to target his political enemies.
I don't care what your politics are.
You have to see that as fundamentally un-American and a threat to the rule of law that keeps all of us free.
I know that Donald Trump will probably come after me again, and my attitude is going to be the same.
I'm innocent.
I am not afraid.
And I believe in an independent federal judiciary.
The gift from our founders that protects us from a would-be tyrant.
Lindsay Calligan was legally appointed, and that's the administration's position.
I know there was a judge who is clearly trying to shield Letitia James and James Comey from receiving accountability, and that's why they took this unprecedented action to throw away the indictments against these two individuals.
But the Department of Justice will be appealing very soon.
And it is our position that Lindsey Halligan is extremely qualified for this position, but more importantly, was legally appointed to it.
Yes, I was wanting to say something to your guest you had on a while ago, but I didn't get on there.
I could tell he was, you know, upset and crying or going about to, but what he should have been crying about was January the 6th.
I mean, if that would have been military people there instead of just, you know, regular people, and he told them to go to the Capitol and fight like hell, should they have done that?
No, they shouldn't.
And the people that did it shouldn't have done it.
And he should be in front of a firing squad for being a traitor.
Yeah, I just wanted to make a statement about your guest that you have on.
He seemed like a nice guy, but his statement that those Democratic senators, I believe they were, that said that they made the statements that they did about not to follow orders of the military.
He said that that shouldn't have been said.
And I thought that was, I thought, you know, how can he be serious about that?
You know, at a time where, you know, the president is saying that the president is saying that we should use the streets of the United States as a training ground for the military.
And he's threatening that those people that said those things should be put to death.
This is Matthew in North Carolina, Independent Line.
Good morning, Matthew.
unidentified
Good morning.
I just wanted to say that yesterday there was a woman from California who called in.
I think she said her name was Catherine.
And she said that she was, I think, a black conservative.
Well, I'm a black independent, but she apparently tried to push the fact that she thought Donald Trump was doing everything he could for black people, which is a lie.
And I'm ashamed of you, Catherine.
I want to say this.
See, she quoted W.E.B. Du Bois as saying he was against immigration.
What W.E.D.E.B. Du Bois said was: if you enslave and oppress a people, ravish and degrade their women, emancipate them into poverty, helplessness, and ignorance, systematically teach them humility in a braggart age, what would you expect to develop?
Angels or devils?
And I wanted to say, as I closed, I wanted to say a couple of one more thing.
Trump simply does not want black people to hold any position of power, prestige, or authority.
Ditch the Pajamas00:02:59
unidentified
The day after he attempted to fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board, he posted a picture of his cabinet.
Only one was black, somebody we'd never heard of, possibly.
He fired Charles Q. Brown.
He fired in 1989.
I could go on and on, but in 1989, he filed a full-page newspaper ad on the Central Park V saying they should be executed and put to death.
All of them were subsequently proven not guilty, but innocent because they weren't even involved.
But I think we have to think about how do we do a better job?
How do we, you know, maintain maybe some of that frustration we have as we travel this Thanksgiving season?
Maybe we should say please and thank you to our pilots and to our flight attendants.
I think, again, I call this just maybe dressing with some respect.
You know, whether it's a pair of jeans and a decent shirt, I would encourage people to maybe dress a little better, which encourages us to maybe behave all a little better.
Let's try not to wear slippers and pajamas as we come to the airport.
I think that's positive.
If we can help someone as we're getting on the aircraft that might need some help putting their bag in the overhead bin and you're a little stronger, a little buffer, you've been lifting, you know, stand up and offer to grab that bag and put it up for someone who's having a more difficult time.
Common courtesy and civility, I think, is going to work well.
And I'd ask you to please be patient with our TSA and our gate agents.
And again, they're working their hearts out to make sure the best, make sure that this is the best experience possible for you and the safest experience possible for you.
And again, a little gratitude goes a long way.
And if we all do that, I think we're going to have a far better travel season.
By the way, we're going to get to our families on Thanksgiving with a lot better attitude.
Who couldn't ask for that?
You guys can fight about politics when you get home for Thanksgiving.
Let's have this be the pre-run that is politic-free and very friendly with pleasing thank yous and a lot of gratitude for all the work that happens to get you to your final destination.
And I think those senators have the same fear that I have.
And I can remember Teneman Square in China, and the people protested against authoritarianism and for democracy.
The troops were allowed to shoot and kill thousands of people in that protest.
So, going back to Hess Beck, he said, he said, he wouldn't reply to an answer from the Congress: Would you fire on American citizens if the president gave you the order?
He did not respond to that question.
So they have the same fear that I have.
The next protest that we have in this country, the next protest that we have in this country, you could see something like that happen where troops would fire on American citizens.
Anybody that believes that he has anything, the truth in him is wrong.
8647, remember that when he called that and took a picture of it, him and his wife was walking the beach, and he said 8647, James Comey is about James Comey.
And also, I like watching C-SPAM, but the problem with America is that 70% of these people that call in don't have a clue, and they vote.
That's what's I know, it's Republicans and Democrats.
Let's talk to George La Plata, Maryland, Independent Line.
unidentified
Hey, Mimi, thank you for taking my call.
I love C-SPAN.
I'm an Independent, and I'm also a John McCain Republican.
I try to get in the call for when Frank Lunce was on, and I appreciate his emotion.
I'm an emotional person, too.
And what I wanted to say to Frank was that I hope they're teaching at West Point what Donald Trump did to John McCain in 2015.
I had no use for Trump even before that, but for him to dishonor John McCain, not to appreciate the advice of John Kelly and James Madison, to insult the dead at Normandy.
He refused to go to a memorial service because it was raining.
And he said that the Medal of Freedom is more important than the Medal of Honor.
He also refused to listen to his security advisors.
So I hope that these items that I'm talking about are being taught at West Point, Quantico, the Naval Academy, because I feel terrible that our military, I'm a veteran.
I was in Vietnam in 1967.
I feel terrible that our military has to face this commander-in-chief.
And it breaks my heart.
I was in the Marine Corps.
It breaks my heart to see those two Marines, those two innocent Marines at both sides of the front door at the White House, have to stand at attention and salute that spineless worm that lives in that Oval Office and that White House.
And coming up, before I tell you what's coming up next, I want to make sure you know about something coming up in our schedule.
Later this afternoon, we're going to have live coverage at noon Eastern of President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump participating in the Thanksgiving Turkey Pardoning at the White House.
That's an annual tradition that dates back to President Abraham Lincoln.
And this year's Turkeys are named Gobble and Waddle.
You can watch that here on C-SPAN live at noon.
Coming up, we've got Navy Federal Credit Union Chief Economist Heather Long to discuss economic conditions and concerns about an AI bubble.
Stay with us.
unidentified
On Thanksgiving Day, starting at 10 a.m. Eastern, C-SPAN presents a day-long America 250 Marathon, all part of our more than year-long coverage of historic moments that explore the American story.
At 11 a.m., we'll feature Boston's Freedom Trail through a guided tour featuring the site of the Boston Massacre, Old Statehouse, Fanyel Hall, and Old North Church.
Give me liberty or give me death.
At 2.30 p.m. Eastern, Patrick Henry's Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death speech on the 250th anniversary and in its original location, St. John's Church in Richmond.
At 6.05 p.m., the U.S. Navy 250th anniversary Victory at Sea concert in Philadelphia with a musical performance by Patty LaBelle.
Also at 8 p.m., the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill, where more than 1,000 reenactors commemorate one of the earliest and most consequential Revolutionary War battles.
And at 9.30 p.m., a celebration of the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary, featuring a parade through Washington, D.C., an enlistment ceremony, parachute demonstration, and fireworks.
Watch the America 250 Thanksgiving all-day marathon on Thursday on C-SPAN.
Also, head over to C-SPAN.org to get the full schedule.
Friday, on C-SPAN's Ceasefire, at a time when finding common ground matters most in Washington, host Dasha Burns sits down with Cornell West, Union Theological Seminary professor, and Robert George, Princeton University professor, for a civil dialogue on rising political polarization in the U.S. and top issues facing the country.
Bridging the Divide in American Politics.
Watch Ceasefire Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
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Two-Story Economy Insights00:15:17
unidentified
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So number one, obviously not everybody owns stocks, and so isn't not everyone is benefiting from the stock market boom that's going on.
The other thing that's going on this year is this big transition in the labor market.
I've been calling it a frozen labor market all year.
Look, it's hard to get a job right now.
If you don't work in healthcare, there are almost no jobs available.
If we didn't have health care job gains this year, we would be negative.
We would be talking about the year of layoffs in 2025.
And so you certainly hear it from young people who are struggling to find work, but really, and because of that transition in the labor market, employers don't have to pay up, right?
The wage gains are getting smaller, and at the same time, the cost of living is rising.
And so that's the squeeze, right?
Pay isn't rising very fast, and cost of living inflation is creeping up.
I use ChapGPT and Claude from Anthropic and Copilot from Microsoft.
So look, these products are real and they are having an impact on the economy.
People are using them in positive ways.
We can debate if having an AI boyfriend or girlfriend is positive, but I think for the economy, it's generally been positive.
But the real question for 2026 is, are these valuations in the stock market and the amount of money that people have spent, these companies have spent, is that justified?
Are they going to get the return and the payoff that equals that mega dollar amount?
There's a lot been made of circular financing, that all these AI companies are just kind of investing in each other and that that's not really based on sound economic principles.
Yeah, there's probably a little bit of truth to that.
Again, it's different from the dot-com bubble because there is real revenue.
You know, companies like mine are buying these products and licensing them to use them and use them in productive ways.
What I do think it's interesting, and you can see this starting to turn even this week as we're talking, and that is there's going to be a lot more winners and losers in 2026.
I think what you're describing is in 2025, almost anything AI-related got a ton of money thrown at it.
You know, they were winner.
Everybody was a winner in AI in 2025.
And now we're starting to see this debate about, wait a minute, some companies are going to rise to the top.
Some companies are going to have better models.
Some companies, you know, Google's making a play are going to integrate better across their organization.
And so that's really the debate, I think, for 2026 in both the economy and the stock market.
Who really deserves the valuation and the dollars?
So people's deepest fears, secrets, emotional content, relationships can all be mined for this empty promise that we're getting from these companies to turn a profit.
And the reason I bring all of this up is because the exposure of this industry and this investment, I fear, has reached broad levels potentially of the American economy.
When we're talking about 40% of stock growth in the United States being attributed to these companies in the AI sector alone, and that sector has not turned a profit, we're talking about a massive economic bubble.
And when we've seen the, depending on the exposure of that bubble, we could see 2008-style threats to economic stability.
She described very well the risk to a K-shaped economy where we are heavily dependent on the AI boom and on rich consumers, that top 20% that we were talking about.
And when the economy is so dependent on those small number of players, as she points out, if something happens to rock that confidence in AI, if there is a correction or a bear market, she's describing 2008, which is more like a 40 to 50% loss in the market.
Yes, that is going to send us into a recession, possibly worse.
But I think we also have to step back and say, you know, when is that going to happen?
Is it a guarantee?
No.
And so, what companies like mine, and I think throughout the economy, are planning, they're hesitant right now.
And I think you can see that hesitance that outside of AI spending, there's not a lot of investment that's going on.
There's certainly not a lot of hiring that's going on right now.
And so I think everyone's sort of waiting to see what scenario is going to play out in 2026.
I think we learned a lot of lessons from 2008 in terms of what is worth bailing out.
One of the big mistakes, I would argue, in 2008 is we spent a lot of time bailing out certain companies and industries, and we didn't bail out Main Street.
And there were a lot of homeowners, millions of people who had their homes foreclosed and lost so much of their wealth and so much of their well-being.
And I think we learned as a society how detrimental that is.
We'll start with Kyle Sealrock, Oregon, Independent Line.
Go ahead, Kyle.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thank you.
Hey, you mentioned that healthcare is a big goal for people wanting jobs right now.
And I agree.
I also think, though, that I'm hoping that this era is kind of a return to the trades.
There's a lot of vocational schools that I don't know how much help they get from the federal government, but they are starting programs where companies are in need.
It could be something plumbers, electricians, meat cutters.
There's some great good jobs available out there that aren't the college route that was pushed for decades.
Everybody had to go to college.
And I'm hoping that as AI takes over those kinds of jobs, we get back to the trades.
We not only need to push trades again, but also apprenticeships.
The good news is we've doubled the amount of apprenticeships, mainly in skilled trades, in the past decade.
The bad news is we're still doing fewer than a million a year.
A nation as large as ours should be probably doing four or five million of those a year.
I will tell you an anecdote: a lot of young people believe they will never buy a home or be able to afford a home as the typical age of a first-time home buyer has risen to 40.
But I was just touring some of our members recently, and I met two people in their early 20s who are working.
They left high school, got into apprenticeships, got into the trades, and they just bought a home this fall.
I mean, that tells you that's about as good of a preach for the value of trades right now: stable jobs, stable income.
I mean, normally Federal Reserve is well telegraphed in advance, but it's really a toss-up whether they are going to cut interest rates in December.
I do think if they don't do it in December, they'll probably do it in January, so that's not a huge difference.
But I can tell you, we have people every day who call into Navy Federal and are asking us what the latest mortgage rate and auto loan rate is.
I mean, people really want to buy if they can, but they need those rates to be lower.
They need the borrowing costs to be lower.
And so I do, I don't know, I was betting they were going to cut interest rates in December, but it really does, you can see the tension that's going on right now.
You know, are we actually in this boom and we're really worried about inflation and things getting too hot too fast?
Or are we worried about the job market and the fact that you can pretty much only get a job in healthcare right now?
And we're starting to see many sectors do layoffs.
So that's the sort of untold story this year is you have transportation and warehouse, you have the manufacturing sector doing layoffs, and of course a lot of white-collar professions that are doing layoffs this year.
And so that's really the two parts of the economy.
So look, the healthcare story is really the aging of America.
There is just so much demand as baby boomers age for everything from home health care to knee replacements, you name it.
So that's just going to continue even during recessions, even during the 2008 that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was talking about, healthcare was still hiring.
And that will probably continue.
The manufacturing sector, when people ask, hey, the tariffs really haven't had much impact this year, you're right.
It's not as big as we thought it would be.
But where is it showing up?
It's showing up in manufacturing and the warehouse sector, right?
We are not making as many goods because prices of steel and other items that we need to import in order to manufacture have gone up so much in price.
So that's the opposite of one of the stated goals of the tariffs was to onshore and to revitalize American manufacturing, like just make everything here.
So if you're the White House, you argue that this is a temporary transition.
And in years to come, we would make more in the United States.
But from an economist's perspective, know that what's happening, what's playing out is very much what many economists, myself included, were warning about, that these tariffs, particularly on every product.
And I'm happy to see the White House is starting to fine-tune a little bit.
And they've started to pull back some of the tariffs on things we do not make in the United States.
Let's talk to Robert Keyport, New Jersey, Independent Line.
unidentified
Hi, Robert.
Hi.
This is the first time I'm calling, so I'm very excited to be on the line.
I just wanted to ask Heather, and just first point out that I think there's a big difference between what happened in 2008 versus now, where there was more fundamental things in 2008 versus just like a bubble in the stock market.
And that them trying to fix the bubble in the stock market has been like a repeated pattern since like kind of the 90s.
And I wanted to get her take on like that statement, if it's true or not, and then what that has to do with the point that touches the access on her K chart, right?
So like if they try to fix the stock market, is it going to be next $200,000 that people are going to feel comfortable with?
Like what does them choosing to fix the stock market, what does it have to do with her K-chart?
That is that the fundamentals look very different from 2008, obviously driven by this huge, really fraud that was basically going on in the housing market.
There's some question now.
People talk about the private credit market and whether there may be situations going on there that were very opaque, that we don't fully understand.
You may have heard the comments about the cockroach, and whenever you see one cockroach, you're going to see more.
But generally, I don't see similar dynamics.
So, you make an interesting point.
Should we be concerned about the stock market?
Should the Federal Reserve be concerned about high stock market valuations?
So far, I don't think we're so out of whack that they should be focused on that.
There are more important fundamentals in the economy that they are looking at right now, and they're kind of ignoring stocks.
I will say, if I do think we're overdue for a correction, so the notion of the stock market going down about 10%, that's very healthy, maybe even 15 or so percent or 20%, would not be unheard of and would not be an unhealthy thing to see right now to just reset some of those expectations in the stock market at some point in the coming months.
If that happens, I think it does impact the K-shape in terms of the top wealthier earners would probably pull back on their spending, similar to what we're seeing from the middle class and moderate-income Americans.
But I don't think it derails the economy in any huge fundamental way.
Look, I think what I hear you saying is what we hear so many Americans saying that the White House needs to get back to focusing on affordability.
And they seem to be getting that message.
They're taking some action to tweak the tariffs.
I would like to see them take a little bit more action.
I think they need to look again through the tariff playbook and really adjust some more to help with those costs.
I really want to see them pivot to housing.
You know, that we need to build more housing in America.
It was encouraging to see the president and the incoming mayor of New York City talking about ways to potentially build more housing.
And this is supposedly what Donald Trump's career has been: real estate, right?
I mean, think about whatever you think about the president.
If he could help to build and incentivize more building in America, that would be huge.
I don't think the 50-year mortgage is the solution.
That was a little bit of a gimmick, but I like that he would be thinking more about housing.
And look, I think they're going to have a big problem with health care.
There's been a lot of focus on the Affordable Care Act and those subsidies going away potentially in 2026.
Doesn't look like they're going to get a fix.
But I think what people are not talking about enough, even if you have a health care plan through your employer, the increases next year are looking to be 7% to 11% increases for most Americans who even have quote-unquote good health care.
And so I think this, again, one more cost of living that people are seeing.
Everybody in this world that we live in, they want a solution for tomorrow.
And I think the way that I would think about it is there's some things like reducing the tariffs that can have a pretty immediate impact.
And so, look, I think we're already starting to see some of those reduced costs come through in the grocery store, and we'll see more and more as we head into the holidays.
And so that's why if I were them, that's the first trigger that I would work on and work through.
Look, they could work with the Democrats, Republicans, Democrats could work on some sort of compromise on the health care.
You know, it doesn't look likely.
You know more than me on the politics, but it doesn't have to be exactly what the Democrats want.
But something is better than nothing, is how I would say there.
Housing, you're right.
Housing, there is no easy solution.
Even a 50-year mortgage, we were talking about it at our institution.
Look, if somebody's not qualifying for a 30-year mortgage, the likelihood of them qualifying for a 50-year, even setting aside that it's not great because you're just paying so much more interest over the lifetime of that 50-year loan, I don't think that many people are going to qualify for a 50-year mortgage.
And they would be higher, yes, and they would be paying more interest.
So I don't think they're going to necessarily love a lot of the terms that they're getting with a 50-year mortgage.
The other one that we probably should talk about more, I know it's a dicey issue politically.
I come at it from an economic standpoint.
But look, immigration is also, the immigration situation is providing a drag on the economy in the sense that just from a numbers basis, since March, we've lost over a million foreign-born workers in the workforce.
And, you know, look, you can have your own feelings about what's going on with immigration.
But again, I think much like tariffs, there probably needs to be some fine-tuning.
Let's talk to Michael, Plainfield, Illinois, Independent Line.
Michael, you're on with Heather Long.
unidentified
Good morning.
And maybe I have a question for the guest and then a short comment.
But the question, first of all, is I have heard that the activity, the major amount of activity in the stock market has really been concentrated in just a few companies, perhaps less than 20.
It might even be a number much smaller than that, on the SP, you know, like that NGE and all this other AI stuff.
And I'm just wondering if this distorted activity in only one segment of one of our indices, are there historical parallels to that, or is this an anomaly that is something new?
And my comment is, and I'm sure your guest might take offense at this.
I don't mean to be rude, but Karl Marx was right.
Capitalism only works for a handful of people.
The rest of us are going to be always left behind.
And the only solution, and Americans will take any job for the guest, that comment that she had a moment ago about what jobs Americans will take.
When you get hungry, and I've been in that position, you take anything.
So, you know, I think the economists need to get their heads screwed on right.
There can be other systems that we should be looking at because when you have an economy that is serving only a fraction of its citizens and the rest of us are left behind, the economy is simply not working.
I certainly agree that we need to be doing more to help middle-income and moderate-income Americans.
That's why I wrote about the K-Shape economy in the Washington Post in early August and was the first person to really shout that I think that the K-Shape economy is back and that there's a lot of risk.
There's a risk short-term to the economy to be so concentrated at the top and in these, I believe it's seven AI stocks.
And then he pointed out the longer term risk, which is there's a lot of societal unrest.
And you see it in these polling data and you see it in the economics field and the consumer sentiment data has been, you know, we're back at the second lowest level of consumer sentiment in the past 50 years, which is just, you know, that tells you the unrest, unease that is out there right now, even though 164 million Americans still have jobs.
They're not feeling that they're getting ahead and they can see in their communities ways that they feel that they're falling further behind.
I would say one time that maybe was pretty similar is going back to sort of Gilded Age and in particular the era of trains, of building railroads across the United States, having a handful of barons, if you will, of that era who were really benefiting and who were driving those companies.
And there was also a lot of speculation.
I mean, ultimately, that was a bubble that did burst because it got to a point where anything railroad related, people were just blindly throwing money into.
And so I think that, you know, tying our whole conversation together is the real fear.
I don't think we're at that point today, but we are certainly could be headed in that direction.
On the Republican line in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, Thomas, you're on the air.
unidentified
Yes, how are you?
My comment is also the previous person was talking about railroad.
We're dying for skilled labor on the railroad.
Built a lot of New York City over the last 30 years.
Payment Reduction Forecast00:12:19
unidentified
I could not get people to actually work on the railroad.
Their parents were just telling them go to college, get a degree, make $65,000 a year.
But the guys working on the railroad with me are making $130,000, $140,000 a year, making good money.
We're dying for skilled labor in this country.
We don't need to give it out to anyone else.
We need to bring our kids up.
And instead of spending $250,000 right off the bat for these kids to go to college, why don't you throw a little savings account in and put a down payment on a house, let them go to work, make some money, get a good skilled trade, and there they go.
They take off.
That's part of the answer, too, for helping kids get a down payment on a house.
I mean, notice that we've had both Republican and Democrat calls, you know, talking about the importance of trade, the need to put that at the center.
And to be honest, this is another area that I'd love to see the White House and Congress focus on in 2026.
There is bipartisan agreement.
I think there's agreement between workers and between industry that why are we not moving the pendulum back to pushing trades, to pushing apprenticeships across this economy?
It's what young people want.
Earn while you learn.
It's what's needed in many parts of America for whatever future you're envisioning in the United States of a more industrial future for America.
And so, you know, it's kind of a head scratcher.
The president did do an executive order earlier this year saying that he wants this studied and that he would like to see more investment and more apprenticeships, but they really haven't actually pulled the trigger to execute.
And so I really hope this is a focus given the need and the bipartisanship.
I have real concerns about our young people being unable to get into the housing market.
I grew up in Rockford, Illinois, and for some odd reason, well, I guess it's not an odd reason, the housing market there has exploded at the time when housing markets aren't doing well.
They're still getting, you know, three or four multiple offers on homes.
And a lot of them are investors coming in, driving up the cost of housing and making it unaffordable for our young kids to buy.
The question I guess I have is, could we not dial back the down payments required to purchase a home, like to 5% or something, to get more people into the housing market?
Would that not stir and create more economic benefits for all of us?
Yeah, so look, Troy, I think is, I hear this everywhere, just what Troy was saying, that young people are very bleak and very despondent about this economy, and particularly the fact that they don't think they will ever achieve any version of the American dream, any version of homeownership.
You know, on paper, their fears are kind of right in the sense that the first-time home buyer age keeps rising and just hit 40.
And certainly the home prices.
Look, home prices are up over 50% since 2020.
And that's been great for homeowners, but not for anybody trying to get into the market.
And look, again, I've said it a couple times now.
I think this needs to be a focus, a national focus as we head into 2026.
We're starting to see some great initiatives come out of different cities and different states around this, but it would be really helpful to have some federal work on these issues as well.
You know, it's an interesting idea.
I think people need to talk about the down payment, what it would look like if the down payment were reduced from the standard of the kind of 20% down that most people are doing on their 30-year mortgage at the moment.
The VA loan for veterans, for instance, we do have VA loans, as you might imagine, Navy Federal, we have a lower requirement for those for down payments, and that has certainly helped many people to get into housing.
So I think it's an intriguing idea.
Obviously, we don't want to recreate the situations that led to the 2008 financial crisis and housing market crash where people were getting in, putting almost nothing down, and then they don't have enough income and they didn't have enough equity in the home to survive, survive that downturn.
So I think it's a little bit, what is the right level is a good debate to have.
I'm not sure 5% is it, but I kind of agree, does it really need to be 20%?
Other countries do it very differently.
The 50-year mortgage, look, yes, possibly, because it possibly is a tax advantage.
Look, the other big advantage of owning a home is it's forced savings.
A lot of people are not good savers in the United States.
And what really builds the wealth is just the fact that people are putting away month after month some of that money.
And so in that sense, yeah, there's an argument for it, but I just go back to, I think there's better solutions for the middle class.
It just takes so long to build up equity in a home over that 50-year period that for the first sort of 10 to 15 years, you are basically renting.
You are basically throwing that money at the bank.
Well, the benefit, obviously, I certainly have moments where I wish I had bought it back in 2014, 2015.
I probably wouldn't be sitting here.
I'd probably be retired on a beach now.
But look, the price is gone up dramatically.
It's then it's come back a little bit in the last two weeks.
But I think you're right that one of the big debates that I have almost every day with people is beyond just the fact that it's going up so well and appreciating what is the real value of this Bitcoin or any crypto to the economy.
And it's a little bit harder, I think, to make the case, but I would say the underlying technology behind Bitcoin is really exciting.
The idea that basically you can have a very safe and trusted way of exchanging money or exchanging contracts or validating contracts without needing an intermediary going forward.
I think that could be very transformational for the financial system.
But the actual Bitcoin itself, in the United States, I see less need for it because we do have the dollar and the dollar is the global reserve currency.
I will say I have lived in other countries.
I lived briefly in Honduras and it's a totally different game.
When you live in a country where the currency isn't stable, the government isn't stable, you know, you could lose all.
Look at Argentina.
You could lose most of your money just from bad actions by the government.
And in those countries, owning something like Bitcoin can be very, very useful to move your money and to keep your money in a much more safe asset.
Well, the good news is we're finally getting some data.
We've just gotten most of the data for September.
We saw retail sales this morning, obviously the jobs report last week.
But the person's right that October is a bit of a black hole.
You know, we're not going to get an inflation report.
We're not going to get an official jobs report released.
There will never be an October unemployment rate, which is kind of a mind-boggling thing.
I certainly hope if there's ever another shutdown that they make the Bureau of Labor Statistics and our data people essential workers so that they will continue to do this, but that's water under the bridge now.
I mean, I'll tell you, the best advice that I can give, and I give it to myself, is be a little bit more choosy.
Maybe we don't need as many presents this year under the tree or on the Hanukkah.
And trying to increase savings is the best thing that you can do in a world where layoffs are likely to pick up, in a world where there could be stock market gyrations.
I know it's hard to save.
I don't pretend otherwise.
I have a three-year-old.
It's hard not to spend on things.
She's always pointing things at stores that she wants, but I've been really trying to put a little bit more money away.
We'll see you again tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern time.
Thanks for watching.
have a great day.
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This afternoon, President Trump and the First Lady are taking part in the Thanksgiving turkey pardoning at the White House, which has been an annual tradition that dates back to President Abraham Lincoln.
Bridging The Divide In American Politics00:02:56
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This year's turkeys are named gobble and waddle.
And you can watch the pardoning ceremony live beginning at noon Eastern on C-SPAN.
Also on C-SPAN now, our free mobile app and online at c-SPAN.org.
Friday on C-SPAN's Ceasefire.
At a time when finding common ground matters most in Washington, host Dasha Burns sits down with Cornell West, Union Theological Seminary professor, and Robert George, Princeton University professor, for a civil dialogue on rising political polarization in the U.S. and top issues facing the country.
Bridging the divide in American politics.
Watch Ceasefire Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
On the day after Thanksgiving, on Friday, C-SPAN will present a marathon lineup of episodes from our new weekly series, America's Book Club, hosted by acclaimed author and civic leader David Rubinstein from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern.
Filmed at some of the nation's most iconic libraries and cultural institutions, America's Book Club features lively, thought-provoking conversations with leading authors, policymakers, business innovators, and cultural figures.
Featured guests include Stacey Schiff at the National Archives, John Grisham at the Library of Congress, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett at the Folger Shakespeare Library, David Grant, also at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Walter Isaacson at the National Archives, and Jose Andres at Catholic University.
Watch episodes from our new weekly series, America's Book Club, in a marathon the day after Thanksgiving on Friday, starting at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
Also, head over to c-span.org to get the full schedule.
Yale constitutional law professor Akhil Reed Amar's second book in a trilogy is titled Born Equal, Remaking America's Constitution, 1840 to 1920.
In Professor Amar's introduction, he writes: Millions of Americans can recite by heart Lincoln's opening line at Gettysburg.
But how many of us understand it?
This sentence sits at the very center of this book.
Akhil Amar was born in 1958 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was raised in California after law school at Yale, clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, and became a junior professor back at his alma mater at age 26.
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Author Akhil Reed Ammar with his book, Born Equal: Remaking America's Constitution, 1840 to 1920, on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.