C-SPAN’s Washington Journal (12/08/2025) dissects President Trump’s 36% approval amid inflation fears—46% of Americans call living costs the worst ever, with 62.3% disapproving of his handling—while Treasury Secretary Bessent cites 3% real GDP growth despite a shutdown and blames service-sector inflation. Callers clash over tariffs (coconut oil prices doubled for Dave’s soap business), ACA subsidies (KFF warns of 26% premium hikes in 23 days), and Trump’s divisive tactics, including his break with Marjorie Taylor Greene, who claims his Saudi diplomacy harms domestic priorities. Meanwhile, CTE programs surge as alternatives to college, with welding pay hitting $3,000/week for Kenny’s workers, yet federal loan access remains restricted for nursing despite high demand. The episode underscores how economic policy and education reform collide in 2026’s partisan battleground, exposing gaps between rhetoric and reality. [Automatically generated summary]
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Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, along with your calls and comments live, NBC News senior congressional reporter Scott Wong on the week ahead for Congress.
And then SCODUS Blog Executive Editor Zachary Shemtom previews today's Supreme Court case, Trump v. Slaughter, which will examine the legality of President Trump's firing of a federal trade commission member.
Also, Julia Manchester, White House reporter for The Hill on the week ahead at the White House.
And we'll talk about a new poll that examines Americans' declining attitudes on the value of a four-year college degree and educational alternatives to it with career education colleges and universities president and CEO Jason Altmeyer.
This is Washington Journal for Monday, December 8th.
Amid polls showing growing concern about the economy and rising costs, President Trump is set to travel to Pennsylvania tomorrow to talk affordability and tout his economic record.
It's part of a push by the White House to rev up domestic messaging around the economy ahead of the 2026 midterms.
So this morning, we want to know what you think.
Is President Trump doing a good job handling the economy and inflation?
Or has he been too focused on foreign policy matters?
Or is he just stuck trying to fix a broken economy that he and his allies say former President Biden caused?
To join in on our conversation this morning, your lines are open, Republicans.
That number is 202-748-8001.
Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000.
Independents, your line is 202-748-8002.
You can also reach us by text message.
That line is 202-748-8003.
Include your first name and where you're from.
You can also reach us on Facebook.
That's facebook.com forward slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ.
We start this morning on affordability, a word on both American voters and lawmakers' minds alike as high prices threaten to derail the public conversation this week.
As we noted earlier, President Trump is set to travel to Pennsylvania to tout his economic record, something that the White House says that the president has been focused on from day one, bringing down those high prices.
But obviously, there's still some concern among the population.
According to a political headline this morning, it reads that as affordability concerns mount, Hill Republicans are struggling to act.
Now, that piece says that the GOP is struggling to coalesce behind a health care plan that would prevent Obamacare premium hikes set to kick in next month in efforts to rein in President Trump's tariffs have run aground in the House.
Meanwhile, the administration's proposal to distribute $2,000 rebate checks has gotten a lukewarm response on Capitol Hill and the fate of other smaller bills to address things like housing prices and student debt have sparked intra-party sparring.
Now, they released a poll three weeks ago, Political, I mean, three days ago, Politico did.
That headline is Trump's own voters begin blaming him for the affordability crisis.
And it says that almost half, 46%, say the cost of living in the U.S. is the worst they can ever remember it being, a view being held by 37% of 2024 Trump voters.
Americans also say that the affordability crisis is Trump's responsibility, with 46% saying it's his economy now and his administration is responsible for the costs they struggle with.
A poll from RCP Average this week says that President Trump's job approval on inflation is 62.3% disapprove.
Approve is 34.7%.
There you can see it on your screen here.
And an additional poll from that same RCP shows that Trump's job approval on the economy disapproved 57.8%.
Approve 39.6%.
Scott Bessant, Treasury Secretary, was on the Sunday shows yesterday morning defending President Trump on this issue.
But when we hear from, for example, the president when he says that affordability is a con job by Democrats, that seems to just not be resonating with consumers that have been polled by CBS.
60% of Americans polled by this network told us President Trump makes prices and inflation sound better than they really are.
And his approval rating in the economy is now down to 36% in our latest poll.
Yes, I think President Trump has done more in 10 months than any other president.
He has used a balanced approach, not only in the economy, but crime, healthcare, etc.
And these Democrats who think they're going to have this United Front, which failed in this recent shutdown, really don't have any answer.
And even if they win the midterms, what they're going to do, they're going to try to impeach him, and they're going to try to reopen the borders and screw up our country.
To Stewart's point, there was an article after a White House event this week.
The New York Times headline is Trump returns to gasoline as fuel of choice for cars gutting Biden's climate policy.
If you read a little bit down, it said that last week, President Trump threw the weight of the federal government behind vehicles that burn gasoline rather than electric cars, gutting one of the country's most significant efforts to address climate change and thrusting the automobile industry into greater uncertainty.
Flanked by executives from major automakers in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said the Transportation Department would significantly weaken fuel efficiency requirements for tens of millions of new cars and light trucks.
The administration claimed the changes would save Americans $109 billion over five years and shave off $1,000 off the average cost of a new car.
Dave from Bloomington, Indiana, a Democrat, you're next.
unidentified
Yeah, this is Dave.
My biggest problem is the tariffs.
We're a small business.
We make handmade soap and have for 30 years.
And our prices are basically on the items that we've had to buy because we've bought plenty ahead, but all our items have virtually doubled.
Our coconut oil per barrel has gone from $425 in April to $875 now.
We just bought some here, well, actually, in July.
And then our sodium hydroxide, which we have had imported, we buy from a major wholesaler here in America, imported from China at times, and at times from Canada.
And now we're getting it from Tennessee.
And they have raised their prices to make the same price as what it would cost if we had it brought in by from another country to pay the tariffs.
It has gone in the last, well, since the first of the year, January, we bought 400 pounds at $815.
And now we just bought about a month and a half ago, 400 pounds, $1,368.
It's made in Tennessee.
The people are raising their prices because they know they can get away with it.
America has taken advantage of everyone they can.
And I'm sure it's not the small business owners, because I hear there's quite a few going out of business because of that.
And all of our prices are going up, so we have to spend about a week figuring out what our new pricing is going to be as soon as we get a little bit of time.
Ralph from Harrison, New York, Republican, you're next.
unidentified
Yes, good morning.
I wanted to talk about the Democrats.
When you lose an election and you obstruct and try not to help the American people like the Schumer shutdown, we could have improved health care.
We could improve prices.
I didn't hear the media talking about 90% inflation.
And now all the Democrats have to do is obstruct.
I wish they would join us, try to help the American people.
And with the future of the tax cuts and 2026 and all of Trump's plans to improve the economy, please, Democrats, I know you lost an election, but try to get behind the American people.
Heather from Maryland and Independent, you're next.
unidentified
Hi, how are you?
I just want to say, I really agree, the small business that just called, I've seen a lot in my area of small businesses start to really struggle because of tariffs.
And one of the biggest things I'm seeing in the health care field is the elderly and the less fortunate.
A lot of homelessness.
To me, I'm seeing homelessness increase significantly.
And I am scared to see the health care world in the next year or two because of the lack of resources for people, and especially with the problems with health insurance coming up.
The headline is: For small businesses hit by soaring costs, layoffs are painful and personal.
And part of that story says that companies with fewer than 50 employees shed 120,000 jobs in November, according to data from payroll processing giant ADP.
The sharp drop comes ahead of a month that for many small businesses is most pivotal and is the most pivotal sales period of the year.
Julia from Massachusetts and Independent, you're next.
unidentified
Hi, so I have a couple things to say.
Whereas I am definitely an independent, but more of a Democratic person.
I told you before.
But everything is raising, but people are talking about Campbell's soup going down.
Like, can't understand that because my grocery bill is not lowering.
I will say this, you know, Donald Trump is a very unserious person, a person who, as has been well documented, bankrupted his businesses six different times, bankrupted casinos, which is very difficult to do.
That was Kirk from Pennsylvania on his note about gas prices.
An article from Forbes published yesterday.
The headline is, Trump claims gas is below $199 in places.
Here's where gas prices are actually lowest amid affordability crisis.
And it says, states with the lowest gas prices in the country include Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Iowa, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, all hovering between $2.18 to $2.95 per gallon.
Rob from New York and Independent, your line is open.
unidentified
Good morning.
I just wanted to say, look, under Joe Biden, I paid $5 a gallon for gasoline.
Yesterday, I paid $2.85.
And this is an upstate New York, a place where we got so much tax on every gallon of gas.
But the bigger thing I'd like to say is I'm just, I'm a little bit disappointed in C-SPAN.
First of all, they've had this subject on so many times.
You haven't talked about the Somalis in Minnesota stealing billions of dollars of taxpayer money.
Well, I'll just point to a Forbes article from last month that says Trump reverses tariffs on coffee, bananas, and other foods in response as prices soar.
Millie from Asheville, North Carolina, an independent, you're next.
unidentified
Yeah, the groceries and gas have come down in Asheville, North Carolina.
I just want people to understand that and stop believing whatever else they're listening to because this man, in his first term for four years, $8 trillion, he owned a quarter of the debt when he left office.
Yeah, I'd just like to give Donald Trump a little advice.
Instead of subsidizing, you know, with the lazy poor people, you know, like Medicaid and SNAP and all these other welfare programs, maybe they should just subsidize diesel fuel, make it like a dollar a gallon or 50 cents a gallon, and then we could ship everything all over and people could get some food and stuff a lot cheaper.
That's all I got to say.
I think the Democratic Party is the party of non-working people, not working people.
Going back to a comment that we heard from a caller before, I want to read that U.S. Today article that I pulled up.
It headlines: A volcano controversy has hit the Minnesota Somali community.
A fraud investigation and criticism from President Donald Trump have put the national spotlight on a tight-knit community that fled a civil war.
And it says, if you scroll down a little bit, that fear and anxiety among the nation's largest Somali population in Minnesota reached new heights after Trump's comments, in which he pointed to a massive fraud investigation.
If you click on that link, you go to a White House page where it says, yes, there is something wrong with Waltz, and it's costing taxpayers $1 billion.
On this White House page, they cite a list of the things that the White House believes that is going wrong in Minnesota.
I would encourage you to read both of those articles.
Tina from Virginia, an independent, your line is open.
unidentified
Okay, thank you.
Good morning.
I'm calling because, you know, I'll be keeping up and down with everything going on in this country.
And nobody never mentioned anything about Trump.
Okay, Trump basically got wealthy off the American people.
Not only is Trump got wealthy off the American people, his family getting wealthy off the American people.
You know, and it's supposed to be, when he ran, he ran America first.
Now there's this mega thing.
You know what I mean?
And I don't see people talking about gas two lot more.
You got to realize when Biden was in there, gas did start coming down.
And then, you know, I went to church yesterday and my pastor was telling us to look, go home, look in the mirror, and look through Christ's eyes and see, don't look through your eyes, look through Christ's eyes and see if that's a person that you like yourself.
You know what I mean?
Do you really like yourself?
With everything going on in this world right now, you know, with the killing of the people on the boats, with the Somalis and all of this, it's wrong.
You know, there's no way you can shake information.
Well, he is for the millionaire, billionaire class who he is given much to in his short 11 months.
And he's not doing a thing for the average working American, especially those folks who are not invested in stocks and bonds on the stock market, who are trying to make it from one paycheck to the next.
So he's got them wearing their little red hat and walking around after him, but he is not doing anything.
We get a caller like we got earlier telling us that prices were lower in Texas.
Even if that's true, one thing that also is lower in Texas is the minimum wage, which is stuck at the national $7 and something an hour.
So people, you got to figure out what Donald Trump is doing to ingratiate himself to you, not to liming his own pockets.
Democrats are united on fighting to lower health care costs.
Republicans are a mess.
They can't come to an agreement on a bill.
They can't come to an agreement on a solution.
Many of them don't want any solution at all.
Well, next week, Republican senators will have an opportunity to show the American people they want to lower their health care costs, or they will spurn the American people's desire to lower those health care costs by not supporting Democratic legislation.
They are in a bubble.
From Donald Trump on down, Donald Trump says there's no affordability crisis.
What kind of world is he living in?
He's a billionaire.
He doesn't have to worry about paying his medical bills, his heating bills, his food bills.
But as president, you'd think he'd have some understanding of how the vast majority of Americans live every week struggling.
How are they going to pay this bill?
How are they going to pay that bill?
What am I going to cut off?
But they're in this bubble.
They don't get it.
Well, Democrats know our job is to fight for the American people and to lower their costs.
Lauren from Ch. Paul, Minnesota Independent, your line is open.
unidentified
Hello.
Yes.
My name is Lauren.
I'm from Minnesota, born and raised.
I'm not a member of the Somali community.
I identify as a black American that was born here through American history.
And I actually do not believe that, you know, the economy is going to change.
I am an independent.
I do not believe the economy is going to change if we stay connected to this bipartisan two-party system.
As someone who is a true millennial, born right in the heart of what we consider the age to be a millennial, you know, I have survived multiple wars.
I have survived multiple market crashes.
I bought into the system of, you know, going to college, getting a job that's going to pay off everything.
And now I'm actually preparing to pack my bags and move overseas so that I actually have a chance to build generational wealth for my family and potentially bring the wealth that I make overseas working as a consultant and online back to the U.S. economy because right now it just does not seem realistic.
Like I said, I'm someone who's born and raised from this country who felt that I have done everything right regardless of the setbacks that my personal cultural group has experienced.
And I just see no end in sight unless we break away from a two-party system.
That is no fault of Donald Trump's or anyone else's.
And if people would look back to 2020, that's when America really started to go downhill.
We lived four years under a president that hiked the price of everything, gave out ridiculous amounts of aid as far as EBT, SNAP, whatever you want to call it.
And now we're paying the price.
Everybody wants to get on here and down President Trump.
But my gas bill's lower, my electric bill's lower, my food bill's lower.
So he's got to be doing something right.
Everybody has this, I hate Trump because of everything that was lied about back four years ago.
He hasn't even been there for a year, and these people won't stop.
I am tired of seeing other countries' flags coming before ours.
We are all American.
And as far as Minnesota, Tim Waltz, he needs to go.
He's part of it.
Omar, she needs to go.
And I used to be a Democrat, used to support these people.
They all need to go.
There's too much fraud.
All these PPP loans that we're given out, collect on them.
You know, he's trying to do this country common sense.
And sadly, I see that that is lacking in many Americans.
Our kids cannot read in high school.
I mean, I don't get it.
What is so wrong?
Show me one thing that President Biden did to help us and not hurt us.
In the history books, I read that gold was at one time $35 an ounce.
Now it's over $4,000.
It doesn't go away.
He tried to raise tariffs to support the government, as George Washington did to support an army because Britain was still up there in Canada.
A tariff isn't a duty on imports from England at the time.
We didn't have taxes then, income taxes, state taxes.
That's why we need tariffs.
But for the judges also to deny him the reason to fire the 30% increase that Joe Biden increased in governmental labor by the duties on Medicare, things of that nature.
The taxes, that has to be eliminated.
And the judges says, no, he can't fire these people.
It's up to the Supreme Court now for tariffs.
I'm worried about the situation that he can't help much because he's being hindered by liberal, socialist, welfare proponents, and it's not going to work.
Oliver from Falls Church, Virginia, a Democrat, you're next.
unidentified
Good morning.
Good morning.
Listen, give me a minute, please.
I haven't called CBAN in a while.
And when I was, you know, my month had went by a couple of times and I didn't call because I wanted to sit back and listen to other people, their opinion on what was going on in the country.
And we are, I am telling you, I am so scared of the way things are, people that support this man who's a con man who tells them lies, who is doing anything he can to help the rich and step on the neck of the poor.
This is a man that went to the Supreme Court to stop giving people SNAP benefits.
He's a disgrace to this country, and it's amazing to me that many people will come on here and talk about what a great president he is.
And I think I'm 72 years old.
I turned 72 in August, and I think he's the worst president we've ever had.
He's disrespectful.
He has no respect for other people, main-calling, and childish.
And he's also a coward.
He started that riot on the Capitol and then went and hid in the White House while that riot was going on.
I don't know how they could support a human being that would do something like that.
And this is a guy that passed Barack Obama's address out here in Washington, D.C., where I know people who had never had a clue where Barack Obama lived till Donald Trump put him on the internet so that he could, he was hoping that something would happen to Barack Obama and his family.
He's treated Barack Obama like a dog, only because he's a black man.
So to the point about SNAP benefits, the caller said that the president went to the Supreme Court to try to get SNAP benefits paused.
That was during the shutdown.
The latest on SNAP benefits we heard last week in the cabinet meeting from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
I'm looking at a notice article here.
The headline is Trump USDA to pause funding for blue states over SNAP data.
Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins said the administration will hold funding starting next week.
This was published last week, so that would be this week.
And it says, it quotes, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture told notice in a statement that states refusing to turn over the data will have another opportunity to do so before losing funding.
And the quote is, we have sent Democratic states yet another request for data.
And if they fail to comply, they will be provided with formal warning that USDA will pull their administrative funds, the spokesperson said.
Rollins said last week during the cabinet meeting that the pause would be in effect as soon as this week.
This fight between the administration and states over personal data goes back months.
Russell from Ohio, a Republican, you're next.
unidentified
Good morning.
I just want to say, you know, it took better than four years for Biden and the Democrats to get these prices up to where they're at.
It's going to take Trump and the Republicans his whole term to get them down.
And as far as the tariffs are concerned, he raised the tariffs because the other countries had their tariffs all jacked up.
If he could get the other countries to bring their tariffs down, and he would lower the tariffs that he put in place.
I feel we should have a world-free trade.
We trade with Other countries, other countries trade with us and let the chips fall where they may fall.
So, Russell, what do you make of the administration moving last month to lower tariffs on things like coffee, bananas, other more domestic or other issues or other things that we consume in this country theoretically to bring down prices?
unidentified
Well, that's an incentive.
Now, we trade goods to Brazil and Colombia, like for the coffee and bananas.
We lower our tariffs.
They lower their tariffs on our goods.
And, you know, it makes an even trade all the way around.
I'd like to say I'm not understanding everything that's going on right now.
I mean, the couple of callers ahead of me said exactly what I wanted to say.
The prices of food, the prices of gas, I'm 69 years old.
It's going to go up and down.
And you have to learn how to adjust.
We're from the old thing.
If you didn't work, you didn't eat.
I don't look for the government to give me anything.
I have a pension.
I have Social Security.
And I still work because I like to.
But the problem I'm having with, I'm tired going on every channel here and pointing hearing the president, who's supposed to be my leader, my president, saying the Democrats, this, the Democrats that, like, we're the devil, you know, pointing the finger, we did this, we did that.
Everybody, what happened to the United States?
People should understand, I'm not worried about the prices and none of that.
What we should be looking at is how he's representing us to the world.
It's like the other callers said, you do not, we all are United States citizens.
There's no such thing as calling people garbage or looking down on people.
It's just very upsetting.
And he's grifting.
I've never seen that in my life.
And the people are just turning their eyes to it.
What happened to Congress?
My father told me that a president can do only so much that Congress holds the power of the purse.
Why are they letting him circumvent the rules?
Why are they letting him get good news onto you because they have to sign a waiver to say what he wants them to say?
I mean, just what happened to the United States?
What can we do to change this?
It's got to change right now because it's disgraceful.
I hear about how prices are up, and yes, they are for many people.
It's been almost a year.
I think 2026 will be better.
I got a notice for my mortgage.
It's dropped over $100.
I don't know why.
Gasoline here is about $270 where I live in Arizona.
The other thing is, I work IT and I work from home.
I'm doing remote.
And I have multiple screens up for IT, but also news.
And I simultaneously watch News Nation, MS Now, Newsmax, CNN, Fox, and you get the drift there.
So I'm watching eight, ten different news stations all the time.
And I have the volume low on all of them.
I'll turn it up on certain ones that catch my eye.
And it's extremely clear.
I'm at a really good advantage to see that there's a well, I don't know how to word that, but it's like two completely different opposites no matter what.
And some of the callers come in, they have they're clearly listening to one side, whether it be Republican or Democrat.
And by the way, I've been a Democrat all my life until the election for 45 and 47.
And I can see why all this, all the things he's doing on the terrorist system, I can see why that is going to benefit.
And it's good they got it right out the door because it's going to, it's probably going to take a couple of years or so before other people start seeing it.
But there are a lot of other stations never talk about the positive.
And I agree with a guy that was talking just before me.
A little bit of positive, a little bit 15 minutes worth of positive.
I wrote a letter 2020, and I sent it to Washington, D.C. Same letter I sent to Washington, D.C., I sent it to 100 West Randolph, supposed to be the City Hall address.
And Trump is going by my letter.
I wrote, I'm going to explain it to you.
I worked and volunteered like a Democrat.
I believe like a Republican.
Even though I'm independent, I'm holding a doubt on some coming season.
Like that games have been to the mountaintop.
Okay, like this.
I'm walking down the mountain like Green Parade.
I'm looking like an FBI.
I'm growing like a CIA.
And I'm part of like Black Pass.
See, the president of City Hall, William Trump, went with the Republican this time.
At first, he was independent in 2020.
It ain't never three type presidents, Democratic Republic independent.
But many of them go with the Republic because the Republicans carried out their mission on Washington, D.C.
So, to the previous caller who brought up COVID, I'm looking at an Axios article.
Now, this is from March of 2025, so before the president put in place most of his tariffs.
But the headline is why food prices are still high five years after COVID.
It has a graph that shows a number of different commodities, but it says food prices increased by 23.6% from 2020 to 2024, outpacing overall inflation of 21.2% during that period, according to the U.S. Economic Research Service.
It was a story of supply disruption and demand disruption in their complex interplay.
Supply chains broke, costs rose for raw materials, energy, labor, and shoppers paid in the end.
Donald Trump's handling of the economy has been very, very poor.
You have a lot of Republicans that will call in and they'll defend him like the lady from North Carolina because she doesn't like everything he does.
But the fact of the matter is tariffs have created higher prices.
Of course, those prices are passed on to the consumer.
Folks don't realize and understand basic economics.
You had a gentleman that called in from Ohio, I believe, that talked about the lazy poor people on Medicaid.
I live in the state of Texas.
We have the largest uninsured population of healthcare in the United States.
And the majority of them by far are Republican.
This is a rich state.
Just to be clear, at the end of the day, you're going to have folks that are going to continue to make excuses and talk about Donald Trump, what he's doing, and better for the economy and whatnot.
The man has had created a lot of havoc here in this country.
They know it.
And unfortunately, they won't look in their mirror and say, hey, you know, I made a mistake because it was a mistake.
He ran up the deficit, like the gentleman said, the first term, $8 trillion, doubling what Barack Obama ran up the deficit on.
And by the way, Barack Obama saved the economy, which he doesn't get credit for.
There's one last comment I'd like to make.
One of the reasons why Donald Trump is ranked at the very bottom in terms of president is the way he handled the economy, the way he handled COVID, and he incited an insurrection in the capital United States of America.
Later this morning on the Washington Journal, we'll turn our attention to the rise in technical and career education in this country amid the soaring costs for traditional four-year colleges.
That conversation with former Congressman Jason Altimere, now the president and CEO of the group Career Education College and Universities.
But first, after the break, NBC Congressional Reporter Scott Wong joins us to preview the week ahead on Capitol Hill, recording the big votes in the Senate on those expiring ACA subsidies.
Boston-based writer Doug Most's new book is called Launching Liberty, subtitled to build the ships that took America to war.
Most, who spent 15 years at the Boston Globe, writes, and I quote, in total, American shipyards produced 2,710 Liberty ships in essentially four years, peaking in the spring and summer of 1943, when almost 800 ships were built in seven months.
A lot of the credit is given to Henry Kaiser, who produced half of all Liberty ships, 1,490.
By 1943, average time per ship was down to 42 days, the fastest month recorded.
Author Doug Most is currently working at Boston University.
unidentified
Author Doug Most with his book Launching Liberty: The Epic Race to Build the Ships That Took America to War.
On this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
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Whether or not that results in some kind of extension for these critical ACA subsidies for millions and millions of Americans is an entirely different question.
This is really crunch time for Congress.
They're here for two more weeks, as you mentioned, before they depart for the holiday recess.
This week will be an extremely critical week because we are going to see Democrats and Republicans in the Senate taking a critical vote on extending these ACA subsidies for three years.
A clean bill, nothing attached to it, just a clean vote on extension.
You'll remember this is part of a deal that was negotiated by Gene Shaheen, Democrat from New Hampshire, with the Republican leadership in order to reopen the government during that government shutdown.
They're giving them a vote.
One thing we're also watching is whether or not there's some kind of Republican counterproposal that will be going in tandem with this Democratic proposal, whether or not John Thune decides to bring that to a vote in a side-by-side vote.
So we're looking for Senate Republicans to perhaps bring a version of their own bill to potentially extend the ACA subsidies, make a replacement for that.
Obviously, House Speaker Mike Johnson has said that he will unveil a Republican plan.
We haven't seen the Speaker's plan or the Speaker endorse plan yet.
We expect to in the coming days.
On the Senate side, we have seen some proposals.
Now, most Republicans, especially the conservatives, don't want to extend the ACA subsidies at all.
They think that this was something created by the Democrats during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Democrats pushed that through on a party line vote.
They renewed it during the Inflation Reduction Act.
And so now we're in this situation.
Republicans say, well, this is Democratic created.
They should be the ones to solve this problem themselves.
Senators Bill Cassidy and Rick Scott, both Republicans, have floated proposals to sort of replace these subsidies with direct payments to health savings accounts.
These are some of the ideas that are floating out there.
These are some ideas that possibly could get a vote in the Senate in the side-by-side that we were talking about earlier.
And those would mirror requests from Donald Trump basically to create a sort of HSA account for Americans, replacing that ACA subsidies, something that Democrats have not really talked about in a serious way.
Really, they want to try to extend those in a clean fashion.
I wonder, you know, there are bipartisan talks happening on the rank and file level.
You talked about Bill Cassidy.
You talked about Rick Scott.
Are there conversations happening on the leader-to-leader level between Chuck Schumer and John Thune, between House Speaker Mike Johnson and Hakeem Jeffries on the Democrat side?
The leaders do speak from time to time on various issues, whether it's national security or things like reopening the government.
We haven't seen any formal sort of talks when it comes to health care.
Now, on the House side, there are numerous bipartisan talks happening, mostly among the Centrist, vulnerable, at-risk members who have tough elections heading into 2026.
Jen Kiggins is teaming up with Josh Gottheimer and Democrats in a group of about three dozen who unveiled a framework to try to renew these ACA subsidies for two years, but with a bunch of caveats, things like income caps and other provisions that would sort of restrict the number of people who would be eligible for these ACA subsidies.
So those talks are continuing.
Brian Fitzpatrick, one of the leaders of the problem solvers, this bipartisan group, the problem solvers, has put forward, is planning to put forward his own plan in the same vein to try to extend these subsidies.
He says, look, if we don't get a vote by the end of this year, when the subsidies expire December 31st, I could force a vote through a discharge petition similar to what we saw just a couple weeks ago with the Epstein files and how that vote was forced to the floor and how everyone was forced to go on record on the Epstein files.
I want to get into the discharge petition mania happening on Capitol Hill in a bit.
But first I want to invite our viewers to join in on that conversation.
Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001.
Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000.
Independents, your line is 202-748-8002.
I mean, Scott, just to kind of button this up on health care and affordability, that's what this conversation is about, right?
How to make the country more affordable for more Americans.
There was an article from NBC earlier this week.
The headline was, people aren't done.
Dumb.
Republicans worry that they're not doing enough on affordability, where your colleagues quoted a number of lawmakers who say that midterm messaging is underway.
It fits in with this narrative on whether or not health care prices will spike.
It fits in on whether or not things are affordable for Americans.
Is there a realization just among people on Capitol Hill right now that this is where the conversation is for a lot of Americans?
That piece that you referenced by some of my colleagues, they interviewed two dozen Republicans.
These are lawmakers, aides on Capitol Hill, strategists who said there is an acknowledgement that they are not doing well in terms of being able to message to voters, to the American public, that they are solving the affordability problem.
They acknowledge that they need to do more.
And they also say that, look, President Trump isn't helping by calling affordability a, quote, Democratic hoax, right?
We have heard that term from the President of the United States on several occasions.
Republicans on the Hill say that's simply not helpful for our cause.
They are trying to figure out how to tackle this.
Clearly, earlier today, you heard from a number of your callers who are saying, look, gas prices are down.
And that is true.
It has ticked down from a year ago.
It's about $2.95 a gallon based on AAA, down from about 302 a year ago.
So in some areas, yes, prices have come down, but in other areas, prices remain stubbornly high when it comes to groceries, meat specifically, other products that you buy in the grocery store.
And so it's a real challenge for Republicans who are in control of everything to try to implement policies that will actually have a real impact in bringing down a lot of those costs.
Turning to House Speaker Mike Johnson and how he's doing, especially after his bruising week last week, you wrote a piece.
The headline on NBC is, Speaker Johnson struggles to keep control of the House floor.
The Louisiana Republican has had a rough few weeks as rank-and-file Republicans employ discharge petitions to go around him and block a key leadership-backed bill on the floor.
Talk to us about what's going on.
Your opening line, I think, kind of says it all, but less than a year before the critical 2026 midterm elections, Speaker Johnson is losing control of the House floor.
I think this really was one of the worst weeks for the Speaker of the House since he became the leader of the House a little more than two years ago.
There are members of his own party in open revolt against him, specifically a handful of GOP women, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, others.
In addition, a number of Republicans have either brought or are threatening to bring discharge petitions to the floor.
And you know this, what discharge petition is, is just a way for rank-and-file members to force a vote on any piece of legislation, especially legislation that the leadership doesn't want to come to the floor.
So we saw that successfully done with the Jeffrey Epstein files bill just a couple weeks ago.
Now Anna Paulina Luna has filed a discharge petition to force a vote to ban lawmakers and their family members from owning or selling or trading individual stocks.
Well, I will just say that one lawmaker I spoke to last week said that there are a number of very upset individuals in the Republican conference walking around Congress.
They're carrying grenades and they have the pin pulled out of the grenade.
I thought that was quite the image.
You're referring to the motion to vacate.
And these are sort of no confidence votes that we have seen from time to time.
One took out Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which led us to Speaker Johnson a couple years ago.
They have changed the rules so that one member cannot force a motion to vacate vote.
It can't just be a single member.
It now has to be nine members who have to sign a petition, and that then could trigger a vote.
So far, I'm not hearing that that's where things are headed.
Obviously, it would be disastrous for House Republicans in trying to preserve their very narrow majority if they had a big speaker fight in the middle of this midterm season.
And so I don't think that's where this is headed, but we have seen crazier things.
And on Twitter, excuse me, on X, the new name, we have from Jimbo Bakersfield, a California independent voter.
And he asked you, Does Mr. Wong believe that Congress will be unable to pass another CR, so a continuing resolution, on January 30th, 2026, after people's health care insurance skyrockets in parentheses and Congress does nothing.
Well, we saw that the 43-day shutdown, the longest in history, was extremely disruptive.
There were a number of Democrats who thought that, you know, based on polls and other things, that that was actually a productive thing to shut down the government, that they felt the voters were on their side, that while there was significant pain felt in the federal government and among federal employees, that they had actually, you know, been able to stop President Trump and stand up to President Trump.
And so I think there probably are a handful of Democrats who would say, you know, we should do this again.
We have leverage.
We can disrupt the administration.
But at the same time, that was extremely disruptive, not only to the economy and to the long airport lines that we saw, the people who were not getting paid, who were waiting in food lines.
There's a human cost and certainly an economic cost in the billions of dollars to shutting down the government.
I'm not sure that Democrats want to go there again and do that.
I think many of them feel that they've made their point and they feel like they have a win under their belt, a political win under their belt.
And so it's not something that I've heard many Democrats talking about, but it's certainly an option.
Scott from Georgia, a Republican, your light is open.
unidentified
Good morning.
Mr. Young, I mean, Mr. Young, don't you think that we are far too down the road with ACA to be making changes and not go ahead and approving the subsidies?
Any change we would make now, such as HSAs, that's not going to have any effect, a positive effect.
When you have medical costs, what they are, you know, you've got maintenance drugs at $30,000 a month.
An HSA isn't going to solve that.
And there needs to be a comprehensive overhaul.
But the entire medical world has adjusted the ACA and has absorbed that.
And a last-minute change and just throwing away the subsidies, which are an integral part of the ACA, wouldn't work and would be disastrous.
There certainly is not enough time between now and the end of the year to see some sort of major overhaul to the ACA or Obamacare as we like to call it.
You know, Republicans have been trying to repeal, reform, replace Obamacare for the better part of 15 years.
Actually, I arrived on Capitol Hill as a reporter in 2010 right in the aftermath of the passage of Obamacare.
That's how long I've been around.
The Republicans have been at this a long time trying to do something.
Certainly they've been able to tweak things around the edges, but not a wholesale repeal and replace as we saw with that disastrous effort during Trump's initial year in the White House, 2017, when we all remember John McCain and that infamous thumbs down vote that killed that repeal and replace effort.
And so this is going to be an issue, I believe, that will be kicked into 2026.
It is an issue that Democrats feel that they are on strong footing on in terms of a political issue that they can rally behind in the 2026 midterms.
But at the same time, the health care cliff that Democrats have been talking about is right around the corner here.
The more urgent issue are these ACA subsidies that impact virtually every person that is an enrollee in the ACA system, 24 million people.
And so that is that, and we're talking about costs that could double, triple.
These are real dollars.
These are real lives that will be impacted.
And so that's why people are watching this so closely.
I watched many of my colleagues go from making fun of him, making fun of how he talks, making fun of me constantly for supporting him to when he won the primary in 2024.
They all started, excuse my language, Leslie, kissing his ass and decided to put on a MAGA hat for the first time.
This break between Marjorie Taylor Green and President Trump has been one of the most fascinating to watch because she for a number of years has been his number one cheerleader on Capitol Hill.
In fact, whenever we would look for a lawmaker to defend President Trump on the Hill, we would often turn to her and she would be the voice for that.
This has been an extremely public break.
I assume that President Trump, if he had not watched that interview, I think he was at the Kennedy Center last night, but he eventually will see clips of this interview.
He has lashed out at Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling her, of course, a traitor, which she said incited a number of threats against her, her family members, specifically her son.
She says that is one of the big driving reasons of why she decided she's going to resign her seat in January, a full year before her term is over.
Some of the things that jumped out at me, she described a phone call with President Trump where she said he was extremely angry with her and questioned why she was endorsing the release of these Epstein files and had signed that discharge petition.
She says that she brought up a number of these threats that she had been receiving and that Trump was not sympathetic to her concerns and what she was saying and her safety and her family's safety.
And Leslie Stahl asked Marjorie Taylor Green, Do you consider yourself MAGA?
Are you MAGA?
And she says, I am America First, sort of sidestepping the question of MAGA.
She says, MAGA is Trump's term.
I am America First.
That's interesting.
She's seeing a differentiation between MAGA and America First.
That's led a lot of people to speculate: is she going to run for president in 2028?
She certainly has a name ID.
She has a fundraising base.
She's popular to a certain segment of the population, certainly in the Republican Party.
She was asked that very question: Are you running for president?
She says, Absolutely not.
She says there's, quote, zero chance that I'll run for president.
We will see.
If that proves to be the case, people certainly have changed their minds.
The president is divisive, and I don't think he would disagree with that characterization at all.
He sort of leans into that.
He embraces that sort of divisive position.
I would point out that the recent Gallup poll from last week pegged him at about 36%.
So he had been in recent polls in the 40s.
He's now dipping into the 30s.
That is extremely bad for a party in power, especially when they're trying to retain their majorities in the House and the Senate.
And so I think that is also what's driving some of these breaks with the president, very public and passionate breaks with the president from people like MTG, who say the president has deviated from this America First agenda that he campaigned on in 2024.
He said he was going to focus on Americans.
Why is he, in her words, why is he at the White House hosting the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia?
Why is he having meetings, she said, with Zorhan Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York, a self-proclaimed Democratic socialist.
So she has said that he's essentially taken his eye off the ball, not focusing on domestic issues here at home, focused too much on issues abroad.
She says, you know, that's why we've, she and many other Republicans say that's why that he's taken a hit in the polls.
And I think that is one of the big driving forces of why we're seeing a bunch of Republicans finally deciding to stand up to President Trump after years and years of, you know, being absolute loyalists.
I just wanted to ask more about, well, first, Margie Taylor Greene doesn't have much sway over members of Republican voters, over any Republican voters outside of her district.
She's not like an AOC or Bernie Sanders.
I think she's more of a sideshow act right now that Democrats and the media are sort of seizing on, and maybe she's trying to set herself up for a very, very low-level elected position in the future.
But my real point today is that if they want to include those ACA subsidies again, why can't the Democrats offer some sort of budget cut elsewhere or at least acknowledge how terrible the trillion-plus dollars in debt will affect our country in the future?
It's often complicated for Congress to sort of pair one issue with another issue over here.
There are different committees involved.
Obviously, the Appropriations Committee, one of the most powerful, perhaps the most powerful in Congress that controls federal spending, is working, as we were discussing earlier, on a year-long, you know, fiscal year-long plan to fund the government for the rest of this 2026 fiscal year.
It's an interesting idea, certainly, that the caller raises, but I just think that given the time constraints, probably simplicity is better.
That's why we are seeing these offers by Democrats, these votes that we'll see later in the week on a clean extension.
Three years, obviously, is a non-starter with Republicans.
But it's an interesting idea that we're seeing from people like Brian Fitzpatrick, the problem solvers leader from Pennsylvania, who is saying, look, if we are right up against that deadline, I'm going to force a vote through discharge petition and get everybody on record because people in all of our districts are going to see major hikes in their premiums,
and that's unacceptable for me and many of my colleagues.
And so that will be interesting to see if he follows through with that threat and if we actually see not a three-year plan, but perhaps a two-year or a one-year plan or even shorter, just to buy Congress a little bit more time to make some progress on reforming health care.
Brian Fitzpatrick is an interesting congressman to watch because he seems very much so primed to book both President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson in the coming months as we get closer to midterms.
I want to point to this another ex post that we got, a question for you from Sue B. Whitting, New Jersey.
Are there any good ideas floating around on Capitol Hill to bring down health care costs for everyone, not just those enrolled in ACA?
Some people, such as myself, have also seen a steep increase in homeowners' insurance.
The divisiveness between blue states and red states, and you were talking about earlier the price of gas, the price of gas here in Wisconsin has paid $2.59 a gallon to fill up.
In California, it's $5 a gallon.
The majority of the difference is state taxes because there are blue states and blue states tax higher on goods and services typically.
So that was my one comment.
And another comment on health insurance.
I have private health insurance through my retirement plan from my employer, which I'm extremely thankful for.
I retired early at 56 years old.
And my plan has gone up.
It's going to go up $50 a month this year.
It's been going up every year since I retired.
But the main thing with all of the inflation, price of food, is Biden and the inflation.
When he passed all his bills, and inflation ticked up to 10%.
Right now, currently, the annual inflation is like 3%, which is about normal, 2.8%.
There's constantly inflation.
So, I mean, Trump's doing the best he can to try and bring prices down.
I just didn't know if you have any comment or anything to say about what I had to say.
I would just say that what the caller said is echoed by the President of the United States.
He has blamed a lot of these rising costs and inflation on President Biden.
However, Biden's in the rearview mirror.
He's the candidate from the last term.
He's not going to run for political office in the future.
So people that are looking to the future, people, number one, they always blame the president who's in the White House or the party in power.
Certainly we have seen that reflected in midterm elections and in a president's first midterm elections where we oftentimes, almost all the time, see the minority party, the opposition party, take power because of voters turning against the party in power.
It appears to be headed in that same direction for the 2026 midterms based on the polling, based on that very narrow, narrow majority that Speaker Johnson is holding on to just by three seats in the House of Representatives.
And so I'm not sure it's a wise strategy for Republicans to be looking in the rearview mirror and blaming Biden when voters are focused on the here and now and looking to the future.
Well, we know the midterms is something that is very much so on President Trump's mind.
Scott Wong, a senior congressional reporter with NBC News, thank you so, so much for joining us this morning.
Later on this morning on the Washington Journal, we'll turn our attention to the rise in technical and career education in this country amid the soaring costs for traditional four-year colleges.
That conversation with former Congressman Jason Altmeyer, now president and CEO of the group Career Education College and Universities.
But first, it's open forum.
Your chance to call in on any political or public policy topic on your mind this morning.
Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins.
Politico Playbook chief correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns is host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue.
Ceasefire on the network that doesn't take sides.
Fridays at 7 and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
Your chance to call in on any public policy or politics issue that you want to talk about.
Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001.
Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000.
Independents, your line is 202-748-8002.
While we wait for your calls, I wanted to bring you up to date on an important case happening at the Supreme Court this morning, later on this morning, relating to presidential power.
Joining us for a preview is Zach Shimtaub, executive editor for SCOTUS Blog.
Zach, thank you so much for being with us this morning.
I want to dive right in.
What is the legal issue that SCOTUS is examining this morning?
So the case is called Trump versus Slaughter, and the situation is that President Trump fired Rebecca Slaughter, remove Rebecca Slaughter, who is a commissioner or a member of the Federal Trade Commission.
And he did so despite a statute saying that effectively she could only be fired with cause, but there was not cause to fire her.
So after doing this, the big question is, can the president effectively go through or ignore the congressional statute and fire someone who is the head of what is considered an independent agency?
Because if, let's say, the Supreme Court hears these arguments and down the line they rule in favor of the president, what impact does that have for potential future presidents?
I mean, so ultimately, it's all about what's called the unitary executive theory, which is the idea that the president or the executive has effectively total control over personnel in the independent agencies.
And these agencies, as I said, were set up for the idea to be independent and so to not succumb to political pressure from the president or the head of the executive branch.
And so this would give the president a great deal more, indeed enormous power, to control these independent agencies.
And these independent agencies, even though we often don't think or hear of them, have great effects on the lives of many Americans.
There are around two dozen of these from the Federal Trade Commission to the Securities and Exchange Commission to the Federal Reserve.
And so these have traditionally been independent, and this would increase the president's power over these agencies, which would in turn have great effect on the lives and decisions in these agencies and therefore on the lives of everyday Americans.
Obviously, we've seen President Trump attempt to expand his executive authority across the federal government and different lawsuits we've seen this administration bring.
Something that he's also been doing is trying to effectively take control of the Federal Reserve.
Now, the Supreme Court a few months ago basically stopped that, saying that the Federal Reserve acts a little bit differently.
Can you compare that ruling to what we could see in these oral arguments at 10 a.m.?
Well, it's not entirely clear on what way ultimately the Federal Reserve would be distinguished, other than the Federal Reserve has very particular powers and has traditionally acted in the most independent capacity of the agencies.
So I think there may be some comparisons in these arguments to the Federal Reserve, but also an attempt to distinguish the Federal Reserve from the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Trade Commission being the agency at issue in oral arguments today.
I think that at the end of the day here, the Supreme Court in this case is likely to side with the Trump administration and allow Trump to have removed Rebecca Slaughter.
I think it's likely to be 6-3 and perhaps written by Chief Justice Roberts, who has been, you know, someone who believes the president should have more power over these agencies.
And I think you'll have the traditional split with the three Democratic appointed justices led by probably Justice Kagan saying the president should have no such authority.
So I think it'll be interesting to see how far the majority, which I think will be led by Chief Justice Roberts, is going to push it.
And again, whether it is reflected through the Fed.
And there'll definitely be some pointed questions from Justice Kagan, you know, about the president effectively being able to ignore the statute.
To your point there, Zach, the New York Times today on their front page has an article that says Trump power to oust gets a legal test.
And it says that once he ascended to the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roberts joined other conservatives on the bench in a series of rulings that have chipped away at Congress's power to constrain the president's authority to fire independent regulators.
That decades-long project of the conservative legal movement collides on Monday when the case is argued in court.
At stake is a president's desire to oust officials across the government across the government in defiance of federal laws meant to protect their jobs and shield them from politics.
I wonder, Zach, just to wrap this up for us: if once these legal arguments happen and if the Supreme Court rules in the way that you believe that they do, what could we see next, both from the Supreme Court and the Trump White House when it comes to executive power?
I mean, I think at that point, you will see the president likely remove the heads of many of these federal agencies who he does not see in agreement with his priorities.
So you would see a great shift there and then a great shift in the regulations that are implemented at these agencies.
And then the big question, as we've discussed, will be: what about the Federal Reserve and how does this play into it?
So this is all about not only this agency, the Federal Trade Commission, which is certainly important, but the larger implications and how that could play out in the president's authority and giving the president even more power than he currently wields.
And you can continue watching C-SPAN after Washington Journal today to hear those arguments starting at 10 a.m.
There you see it on your screen, Trump versus Slaughter, the president's authority to remove the FTC commissioner.
Now we are entering open forum where I'll be taking some of your calls on any public policy or political issue.
Again, Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001.
Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000.
Independents, your line is 202-748-8002.
Denise from Ohio, an independent, once I find your name, you're up next.
unidentified
Hi.
Thank you for taking.
Thanks for taking my call.
You know, my big picture on this big bill, it just falls in line with Project 2025.
And, you know, Americans need to recognize that they're deflecting from a lot of this and they're going after the weakest links through social programmings.
And it will work its way up the chain, and we'll all have to pay for that until democracy becomes bipartisanship again.
People that are Republicans, independents need to recognize that MAGA is really all about the oligarchs.
I wanted to address the interview that was on 60 Minutes last night of Representative Margie Taylor Green.
First of all, Representative Green went on the attack when Leslie Stahl asked her about her attacks and her approaches in the House of Representatives.
Representative Greene, that's Leslie Stahl's job.
Your job is to honorably represent the people of your district and ultimately the rest of us.
People forget, and Leslie never brought up the background that I think was pertinent to that discussion.
Representative Greene was a spokesperson of sorts for the NRA before she ever ran for her seat in Congress, if I'm not mistaken.
And I remember a very disturbing video of her following around, harassing, asking ridiculous questions of the young man who was still a teenager at the time.
But she was asking all kinds of stupid questions, really.
I hate to use that term.
But in a harassing way, I remember that video.
And he was just a teenager still at that time.
I would like to move on to one other point if I have time.
On the boats being shot out of the water in the Caribbean, what Democrats need in this is we need proof.
And I'm sure with the technology of spycraft and so forth that we have in today's intelligence gathering, that, you know, we could provide photos clearer than the ones that are shown on TV.
We could show boats being loaded in their point of origin.
We could show boats being unloaded where their destination is.
If there is a trail that they follow to get to the United States, I bet that we know what that is, and I know we could provide that.
And that's what we as Americans need to know so that we can make sure that our country isn't out there committing war crimes.
It sure looks like they are.
And the fact that they won't release that second tab probably proves that.
I am calling my monthly call about a particular subject which directly relates to the court case today at the Supreme Court.
When initially designed the United States Constitution had a clause, an amendment that was supposed to increase the House, the size of the House in proportion with the side of the population in the United States, that was passed by the House in a majority of states back then, and since has been tried to pass, but has not.
If we had enough representatives in the House of the United States, we would not allow the president to be able to do the things that he's doing.
Gabriel from Connecticut, a Republican, you're next.
unidentified
Yes, good morning, Jasmine.
I just want to thank you for the job that you're doing, you know, because if I can't tell your position, I think you're doing a great job.
Thank you very much.
Second, I want to say that the fundamental difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is that the Republicans believe that you should earn your pay.
You should go out, get a job, make your life the best that you can, and pay for it.
And the Democrats, they believe that they're smarter than you, and they want to spend your money.
They want to grab all your money and spend it the way they feel is best.
And the problem is that that ends up basically communism, which doesn't work.
And when they say that there's Republican red states and blue Democratic states, that's not true.
You look at the color of the state, and the bulk of it is red.
And what's blue are these areas, these big city areas that are basically lawless almost, that honest citizens can't make a living because they live in fear.
And the lawmakers in those areas spend your money faster than you can earn it.
And we're at a national debt now of $42 trillion.
And the blue states, like the one I'm in, with the debt, $100 billion now, California, I mean, $10 trillion, whatever it is, we cannot continue this.
I mean, the Democrats have done a great job of making things more expensive, and we've got to shut that down.
Rick from Corona, California, an independent, you're next.
unidentified
Oh, thanks.
Thanks, Gabby.
So first, the last caller made some great points.
And I am also a big believer in the fact that Democrats typically rule with their heart or govern with their heart and Republicans with their head.
But that said, our country has become, because of the Democratic leadership, has created so many personal attacks against all Republicans, instantly calling them all racists, instantly calling them all Nazis.
I don't think that our country is much of a future if we can't have any conversations anymore.
And I think what we need to do is settle down and keep the tone down.
But again, I'm just happy Nancy Pelosi's gone, not because I think she's a terrible person, but I think that she stirred the pot.
And Chuck Schumer stirs the pot with these comments and these horrible characterizations of other people that I'm sure behind closed doors, they're friends with.
But again, our country needs to keep this heat down.
The first caller today was talking about Project 2025 that has nothing to do with the Trump administration.
This country needs someone to say, quit fighting, get it together.
And more importantly, give some credit to Donald Trump for all the good he's done for our country so far.
You know, they say he'll do something okay, not great, but okay.
It's a great point you bring up because I think a lot of second-term presidents, Jasmine, tend to focus on foreign policy.
And we've actually seen the president do more foreign travel this year, seemingly do more foreign travel this year, than he has done domestic travel.
But we've seen after a number of special election losses for Republicans, of course, those off-year election losses in Virginia and New Jersey for Republicans, President Trump is really being forced to pivot on this issue and turn his attention back stateside.
This was an issue that he has been successful on in the past.
Of course, he won on it in 2024 during the presidential election.
But we've seen that in the past few elections, Republicans really have floundered on this issue.
And it's something that's also really frustrating the president.
I am curious to see if tomorrow when he goes to Pennsylvania, if he calls this, as he has in the past few weeks, you know, affordability being a Democratic con job or a hoax.
So it's going to be interesting to see if his messaging on this really evolves going forward.
To your point, Julia, when I talk to White House officials, they say that the president has been focused on lowering prices from day one, but obviously we now see this travel.
I want to read you a quote from the Atlantic's Jonathan Lemire, who talked about the president's domestic travel.
And in it, he says, it has been many months since Trump hosted a full-on campaign-style rally.
He has opted instead to travel abroad, golf at his private clubs, and dine with wealthy friends, business leaders, and major donors.
Beyond the rallies, Trump has dramatically scaled back speeches, public events, and domestic travel compared with the first year of his initial turn.
And that lack of voter contact has contributed to a growing fear among Republicans and White House allies that Trump is too isolated and has become out of touch with what the public wants from its president.
I wonder, Julia, can you remind us the last time that we saw President Trump travel domestically to talk about the economy?
Oh my goodness, I don't think I can recall the last time he's traveled domestically at least to talk about the economy.
In fact, there was a lot of questions as to whether he would travel to Tennessee's 7th congressional district last week to campaign for the Republican Matt Van Epps in that district.
Of course, the very heavily Republican-leaning district, but a district where you saw Democrats leaning into this issue of affordability and Democrats seemingly closed the margin in that very red district.
We've instead seen the president hold a number of foreign policy-related events here in the United States.
For example, having the Saudi Arabian Prince over, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, he's been focusing on the FIFA World Cup, the Kennedy Center honors.
He had that very big trip to Asia as well as the United Kingdom.
So it's been a number of seemingly foreign policy-based initiatives that the president has been working on, but not a ton of selling it domestically.
It seems that instead he has really sent Vice President JD Vance out to sell that agenda, which makes sense because he is seen as a rising star in MA.
He is the air, you know, seen by some at least as an heir apparent in the Republican Party.
But I think Donald Trump is seen as the key to getting Republican voters activated, turned out, and he has been successful on the message or the issue of affordability in the past.
So we've seen this sort of downtick, if you will, of President Trump campaigning domestically.
I remember during his first administration, 2016 to 2020, he was campaigning quite a bit domestically.
That's changed drastically.
So I'm curious to see if we'll see that go back to those first term levels or if the president will maybe sprinkle in some domestic travel in here and there.
Turning to the Affordable Care Act and health care, we know that an ACA subsidies extension vote is set to happen on Capitol Hill over the next week, basically, as Senate Majority Leader John Thune has promised.
How is the White House involved or are they involved in these current conversations?
Well, it's interesting because a few weeks ago, just prior to Thanksgiving, we thought the White House was going to announce this plan on health care, and then suddenly the White House stepped back on that and did not reveal a plan or a strategy in terms of how to move forward with health care.
Look, I think a lot of those in the president's orbit are hoping on this issue of health care maybe for Republicans to tie this to the issue of affordability.
We've heard President Trump himself telegraph that, talking about how he wants to lower prescription drug prices.
That's a big part of his health care message.
We've also heard him tout this direct payment plan to the American people and having Americans choose how they spend their money on health care.
That seems to have some support among Republicans in Congress.
But it'll be interesting to see going forward how involved the White House is on this issue because we know it's an issue that Trump has quite frankly lost on in the past.
And during his first administration, he sought to repeal Obamacare and replace Obamacare.
It didn't work.
There's always been the question of what would the Republican replacement of Obamacare be.
We don't know what that is, even though we've heard some ideas floated.
So this is a make or break moment for Republicans and by extension the administration.
And the White House says that the president really wants to see a solution on health care.
But I wonder if in your conversations with officials across the federal government, is the administration prepared to take the blame if a solution is not provided by Congress before January 1st?
I don't think they would want to take the blame, obviously.
That would be a major loss, I think, for the administration, and they would certainly try to punt that.
Look, you would think that with Republicans in control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, there would be able to, there would be some solution would be able to be presented, but it's unclear if that would happen.
I think you'll see that the White House will, if that does happen, if this we don't see a deal reached or a proposal put forth, I think the White House will punt this back to Democrats, saying this is the fact that we're even talking about subsidies and prices rising is because of what they say is a flaw in Obamacare.
But like I said, I think this is a really high-stakes moment for the administration here when it comes to health care.
On Venezuela and those boat strikes that are happening off the coast of the Caribbean, there's been a continued fallout against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth over his handling of it.
I wonder, one, do you make, or what do you make of how the White House has positioned him over the last week?
And does the White House still plan to stand by their Secretary of War?
So as far as we know, the White House is absolutely standing by the Secretary of War.
We saw Hagseth sitting next to Trump in that cabinet meeting and then backing each other and also backing the Admiral who carried out that second strike in the Caribbean.
But what I thought was interesting, Jasmine, is last week in the Oval Office, we heard President Trump say that he would be fine with the video of the second strike being released to the public.
But when Pete Hegseth was asked about that this weekend, he gave a slightly different answer saying he was reviewing his team, was reviewing that footage.
So two different answers coming out about the transparency of this operation.
Yeah, I think that's going to be up to obviously the president and Pete Hegseth, but it seems that we're getting two different answers there.
I mean, if the president wants it released, we would assume it would be released, but Hagseth being much more cautious, saying, like I said, they're reviewing that footage.
If they give the president power over this federal stuff, that means that he'll be able to fire them.
The other one is that one guy was talking about welfare.
That's nothing but welfare, what the president gave to the billionaires, giving them all that money.
And the other one is that this new Secretary of Defense is making our military look weak and evil by not following the rules and the laws of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
The other thing is that Republicans are making Trump a king the way they keep licking his boots and kissing his ring.
And on the ACA, Republicans, I think they get a ton of money from these insurance companies.
That's the reason why they don't want to change it.
If I were mayor, the very first thing I would do is I'd sit down with ICE and I'd say, I want the bad guys out of my city, and I want my citizens to feel safe.
Now let's do that.
And too much of that isn't happening.
It's like us against them.
I don't think these protesters are compassionate.
I think to the extent that ICE is not transparent, it brings this fear into a community.
And we've got to get rid of that fear.
We've got to get rid of the bad guys and be compassionate at the same time.
So there was a Republican from Utah, Senator John Curtis, talking about the president's immigration strategy.
I want to go to Mark from St. Charles, Missouri, an Independent.
You're next.
unidentified
Yes.
Thank you for taking my call.
One point that I would like to stress here is that I haven't really been following politics a whole lot until probably since Donald Trump came onto the scene.
And one thing that I've noticed is that the mainstream media, it's very apparent that they are just a political arm of the Democratic Party.
And that is very easy to see as I watch the different news outlets and the stories that they have on their shows.
It seems like they're all just bashing nonstop Donald Trump and never ever talk about anything that he's done good for the country or anything.
And it's very apparent on the stories that they produce and more important on the stories that they don't tell about.
And so I just really think that the American people are waking up and we can no longer really trust the mainstream media at all, whether it be CNN, Fox News.
I mean, even C-SPAN has lied and cheated the American people.
And so I'm just very concerned, and I'm just thankful that Donald Trump has really brought that to the forefront for the American people to see.
Well, I can only speak for C-SPAN when I say that we take comments and questions and callers all across the political spectrum.
That's why we identify folks as independents, Democrats, and Republicans, because we are interested in hearing from the American people in a neutral way.
Bill from New Jersey, an independent?
Your line's open?
unidentified
Morning.
My problem is the national debt.
I have a solution for the national debt.
And if you'll let me finish, I'll explain it all.
At the present time, Social Security is collected from working earned income up to $77,000.
After that, there's no more Social Security paid.
That's by the worker or the employer.
So my suggestion is everybody should pay Social Security.
If they did that, the amount of money collected would be over, would at least triple.
If they did that, my suggestion would be that for however many period time it would take, we you cut me off, didn't you?
They would take the employees' money would go into Social Security directly.
The employer's money would go into a special fund to pay down the national debt.
Once the national debt was paid down, the bill should say it should never go above a certain amount unless we're in a situation like a natural war or something.
All right, well, if you look at the screen here, you can see where the national debt is on national debt, our usdebtclock.org.
It's ticking up.
But that was his idea.
Brian from Ohio, a Democrat.
You're next.
unidentified
How are you doing?
I think the Democrats and Republicans both ought to get their head out of their hindies and work together on this problem and quit blaming everything on the Democrats.
The Republicans has done the same thing, but I think they both need to be accountable for.
Up next on Washington Journal, we'll be joined by former Congressman Jason Altmeier, now the president and CEO of the group Career Education College and Universities.
We'll talk about the rise in technical and career education in this country amid the soaring costs for traditional four-year colleges.
unidentified
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From the halls of our nation's most iconic libraries and institutions comes America's Book Club, a bold, original series where ideas, history, and democracy meet.
Hosted by renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein, each week features in-depth conversations with the thinkers shaping our national story.
Among this season's remarkable guests, John Grisham, master storyteller of the American justice system.
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Democracy.
It isn't just an idea.
It's a process.
A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles.
It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted.
Democracy in real time.
This is your government at work.
This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered.
Joining us now is a familiar face for C-SPAN Watchers.
He's Jason Altmeier, former Pennsylvania congressman, who's now the president and CEO of the group Career Education Colleges and University.
Jason, welcome back.
Glad to have you this morning.
First, just remind our viewers what your organization is, what the mission is, and what do you do?
unidentified
Career Education Colleges and Universities is the national association representing private post-secondary career schools.
So think of the trade schools, the welding HVAC, blue-collar trades that people think about, truck driving, the skilled trades all across the board related to aviation, techs, auto-technicians, and then we have health care programs like nursing and the allied health professions, beauty and wellness programs, cosmetology, massage therapy, and then other types of programs like commercial drone application and things like that.
So we have 850 campuses across the country for career and trade schools.
Now, trade schools have been a topic of conversation both on Congress and at the White House as President Trump is trying to bring back manufacturing and emphasize trade schools in his economic policies.
Part of that was passing the One Big Beautiful bill that addressed some of this.
I wonder, what was your interaction with Congress in passing that bill?
Were you able to lobby them to get things put in there that was helpful to your group and your mission?
unidentified
We were very happy with what was in the bill.
Part of our mission is to work with Congress and the administration on behalf of our members.
And with regard to the Big Beautiful bill, some of the things we looked at were the short-term Pell Grant, which is new, very important for trade schools, and our schools were included in that.
Accountability measures for schools.
There's been a long, years-long debate in the country about how to hold schools accountable for their outcomes to make sure students are getting what they're paying for, getting job opportunities on the other end of their education.
We were very involved in making sure that that accountability applied to all types of schools, not just private and for-profit schools, which we represent, but public institutions as well.
So we were very pleased with that universal accountability.
We do have some issues with the formula that is used, but by and large, we were very happy that they applied that accountability to all types of schools.
And things like 529 savings plans for parents, being able to use that students and parents on trade schools and programs that are important for the future of the country.
Now I want to invite our viewers to join in on this conversation.
Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001.
Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000.
Independents, your line is 202-748-8002.
Excuse me, I actually am going to amend what I just said and say that we are changing some of those lines.
I'll have our producers flash them on the screen, but they're more regional and not specific to public or political affiliation.
I want to turn to this NBC news poll because it had some pretty shocking results.
It showed that two-thirds of registered voters say that a four-year college degree isn't worth the cost.
A majority have said that degrees were worth the, and that's a majority that said the degrees were worth the cost years ago.
NBC poll sir Jeff Horitz stated that it's just remarkable to see attitudes on any issue shift this dramatically, particularly on a central tenet of the American dream.
I wonder, what are your thoughts?
unidentified
We are not surprised at those results because we could see this coming.
For decades, we have talked in this country about the four-year path to college being the optimum path for students.
And then if you took the lesser path, what was perceived to be the second choice, that would be then trade and career schools.
And what you're seeing now is it's totally flipped.
And a lot of things are driving that.
One is the attention to artificial intelligence and AI and the concern that a lot of the jobs that have traditionally flowed through four-year colleges and universities are going to go away with regard to AI.
There's great concern in the country.
And then you continue to see news stories of students who graduated in 24, 25, it's estimated it's going to be even worse in 26, being unable to find jobs, not just even in their chosen field of profession, but any type of job.
And that is of great concern.
So when you add all of that up and the recognition that it is the skilled trades, the health care programs, those programs that I mentioned that our trade schools offer, that's the type of thing that students see as the future, not just for them, but it's the future of the country.
Because with AI, Amazon distribution warehouses, AI, you're going to have the big data centers that you hear.
We're bringing manufacturing back to the United States.
There's a lot of infrastructure.
There's a lot of building that is going on in this country.
And people can see we're going to need the workers to carry out those jobs.
And we hear from employers all the time, they can't find enough skilled workers to do that type of work.
So when you add all of that up, the students can see that is the better career path for some of them than the traditional four-year degree.
Now, I want to clarify those lines for folks who want to call in.
Eastern Central Line, your Easter Central Region, your line is 202-748-8000.
Mountain and Pacific region, your line is 202-748-8001.
And if you have experience with career or technical education, something that we're talking about this morning, your line is 202-748-8002.
But to your point of what's kind of driving the sentiment around colleges and where to go, we have here that inability to pay debts is obviously a looming issue.
Average federal student loan is $39,075 per borrower.
I wonder if you have seen the impact of the president's student loan policies compared to potentially former President Joe Biden's policies on student loans.
Have those changes impacted what we're seeing now for people's ability to go to either technical school, trade school, or a four-year university?
unidentified
President Trump, both in his first term, but he's really ramped it up in his second term, has focused quite extensively on career and technical education.
He's merging portions of the Department of Education and the Department of Labor as they relate to workforce development, better coordinating the agencies across the government.
That would include the Department of Commerce in addition to the other two.
And you're seeing an increased attention paid to apprenticeships, hands-on learning for students to be able to enter the workplace and get that training.
So I do think there's a recognition in the current administration that those are the type of programs that represent the future of America.
Previously, in the Biden and the Obama administrations, there was more of a punitive approach to our type of schools, to private and for-profit schools.
There was a lot of attention paid to regulating them.
The accountability measures that I mentioned generally only focused on those types of schools and short-term certificate programs at other schools.
So, what you're seeing now, I think, is a more universal understanding and appreciation of the work of trade schools.
Well, good morning, and thank you for taking my call.
My criticism has always been about colleges and universities: you go in with a major in hand.
Let's say, okay, I want to be a history, I want to go in and study history, but I have to take courses in chemistry and all these other courses that have nothing to do with my major, and that's costing the student additional money.
If he's declaring his major, why does he necessarily have to take these courses that he will never use?
Anyway, that's just my question.
Have a nice day.
There is an argument to be made for students being well-rounded for having a comprehensive education.
You will find advocates for that.
I count myself among the advocates for that, the benefit of that.
However, in trade schools, when you're thinking about career education, the caller is exactly right.
What you see is these are often non-traditional students.
These are people who are probably working full-time, maybe have more than one job, single parents, veterans returning to the workforce for the first time, people who've been downsized, maybe going through a divorce, whatever the situation might be, they are not in position to have to worry about those general education credits.
And if you want to become an underwater construction diver, whether or not you've studied Chaucer is not really part of that equation.
So, I would agree with the caller, and our schools generally focus on that: that the student can get in, get out, they have flexible hours, evenings, weekends.
We work with non-traditional students in a way that is not available in other types of settings.
Bravo to Tom, actually, because that is a good thing with the whole scam of about colleges and the way that they raked money out of the whole population of people.
But, anyways, that being said, I think that there's a huge importance to bring back industrial arts and all of these things back into the public school systems and high schools, middle schools.
It's just a basic back when I was in school, and I don't know why it was ever taken out just when standardized testing came in and forced everybody to look at being accredited schools or in risk of losing their accreditation.
It really just should be brought back in a big way and then continue with secondary trade schools after that.
Absolutely, you know, a need for it in our country.
We have a whole Generation of kids that, you know, if they didn't qualify for college or if they weren't college material, they were left floundering.
Thankfully, we have moved away from the situation that I described earlier where taking anything other than that four-year path was considered to be the second choice.
And now, when you talk to high school guidance counselors, they're offering trade schools as an opportunity for students.
They're talking about the job opportunities that are going to be on the other side of that.
And nobody is saying that those programs that maybe don't lead to four-year degrees at quite the same rate as others are less important, or that the four-year degree is not the right path for some students.
All we're saying is that there are students that are interested in the trades.
There's great job prospects on the other side of that education all across the country.
And if you look at the highest demand occupations in this country, oftentimes they're in the skilled trades and the healthcare professions, and that's exactly the type of student that we serve.
You know, I appreciate the conversation, but I think it gets a little bit narrow when it starts suggesting that a technical or that type of education would be good for everyone.
I have a spouse who did a technical education and then bounced into doing almost a four-year degree, but then he just kind of decided it wasn't working or wasn't worth it because he'd already has an engineering job.
It's a good job.
And then I have a four-year degree, which I struggled to get because of my family's economic level, but I worked very hard at it.
But then because I kind of left to raise kids at a point or de-escalated it to raise kids, I didn't feel like I got to keep going with what I was doing.
And it just left me kind of floundering.
But I think there's something in the middle between the technical and because I've met people who only have a technical background, and then they don't have enough of those higher skills to kind of just be out of the box and figure out what to do and kind of some of those other skills.
But I think we should let kids do that already advanced learning that they do in high school, like if they're in college prep, we should give them the college credit for it, which some of them now can earn, and then allow them to go from there.
But we should kind of hybrid some of the education so that we're getting both those tech skills and those higher skills.
Because I just think we're in need of all of those skills.
And people suggesting people don't need a college education anymore is a weird idea because this is a very complex world.
And almost nobody will hire you if you don't have a degree.
Congressman?
No one is suggesting, at least I'm not suggesting, that it's not worthwhile to have a college degree if it takes you in the career path that you have in mind.
I think what Jasmine was referencing was great concern among students in this country and people who are thinking about what their future is going to look like about whether the four-year path is the preferred option, is the best pathway for them to achieve success.
In many cases, it very well may be.
Now, there is a discussion ongoing about what's the role in the federal for the federal taxpayer to finance that student's education, and that includes state tax subsidies as well.
If you're a student and you're interested in anthropology or art history or film studies, whatever it might be, you know, there may be, if you look at the outcomes, there may not be a heavy payday on the other end of that.
But you may have a passion for that.
That might be the career that you want to pursue.
And with regard to the skilled trades, it's no different.
There are people who like to work with their hands.
There are people who go into healthcare because they want to help people.
And these are jobs that, again, are growing.
They're in demand in this country.
So there's no one-size-fits-all for everyone.
All we're saying is that people should have the opportunity to pursue the career of their choice.
And I think to that point, I want to put this New York Times chart on the screen here because it shows a graph which basically says that a fraction of long-term unemployed people with a college degree has grown from about one-fifth a decade ago to about one-third today.
One, I want to talk about why that is.
And, you know, some people say it's because of the growing amount of debt that you get from going to a four-year college.
And then maybe to that caller's point, do employers have less of a need for folks who have been through these four-year universities?
unidentified
You've seen all across the country in not just private sector jobs, but even in government jobs, a move to really re-evaluate the jobs for which a college degree should be required.
And now when you see these job postings, you'll often see when they list the education criteria, they don't mention that you need to have a college degree for that.
And I think there's been a reevaluation of that.
I think in the minds of students and people thinking about what they want to do in the future, they do think about whether or not they want to take on that debt, whether or not they want to spend the next four years of their life at a traditional campus in a physical setting, whereas they could go into a different profession, get some hands-on training, and go right into the workforce.
Well, what I was calling about is that I'm surprised that people do not think there are enough trade schools.
And there are quite a few.
And then there are also quite a few for-profit trade schools.
When I was in high school, we had what we called the Career Center.
And you could spend two years of your high school part-time in here and learn a trade or a career or become a licensed practical nurse.
And that was my stepping stone for getting into nursing and getting my professional degree.
And it was, I was a, I was not a young, I was a young adult, but I was also a single parent when I went to college again.
And I, you know, it's not impossible to do those things.
At times I had to take a little bit of time off, but I ended up with my nursing degree.
And I was very fortunate.
I have an associate degree and I could start working right away.
And if I wanted to get a new job in a hospital somewhere, I'd have to have four-year degrees.
Nursing is a profession.
It is a professional degree, unlike what our president says.
If you look at, the caller mentions for-profit schools, if you look at the jobs that are produced in this country, for-profit schools produce about one in five of the nurses in this country, about 25%.
The collar is a perfect example of the type of students that those type of institutions serve.
Non-traditional folks maybe a little bit older who are either changing careers or just getting started.
And nursing is a good example of that.
But that applies to the skilled trades as well as the healthcare professions.
And if you look at, for example, the Carnegie classifications, which for many years had judged the best institutions of higher education in the country based upon grants and research and the amount of funding that they were generating for those endeavors, they totally changed the way that they classify schools now working with the American Council on Education.
And they look at two things.
They look at the students' ability to rise up from where they start from, social mobility as a result of education.
And they look at student outcomes.
What's the quality of the education that the student is getting?
And it might be a surprise to some that if you look at the current Carnegie classifications, that category where institutions are the best of the best, they are providing a high quality education and they are helping students rise up, often from disadvantaged circumstances.
It is the for-profit schools that have the highest percentage of their membership that is in that.
21% of all for-profit schools in the country are in that highest category of the Carnegie classifications compared to 16% of private schools and 14% of public schools.
And I think that goes a long way to thinking through why are the skilled trades, why are these health care programs so popular with students?
It's because they're working, they're achieving success in moving disadvantaged students up the economic ladder and improving their life circumstances, and they're offering the highest quality in those programs that's available anywhere in the country.
Can you walk us through exactly what career and technical education CTE is?
I mean, I know that the previous caller was talking about nursing, but what roles and jobs typically come from that education in those schools?
unidentified
Whether or not nursing counts as a trade or a profession is a debate that's occurred in this country for over 100 years.
We were looking recently at a study that came out in 1929 where they were making these same arguments.
And for us, it's not about what you call it, how you classify it.
Nursing and the healthcare professions are high demand.
They can be short-term, credentials, shorter-term.
You can get an associate's degree, but you can also get a four-year all the way on up to doctorate degree in nursing.
And if you want to lead a nursing unit at a hospital, certainly if you want to be faculty for nurses, then you probably are going to need an advanced degree.
But you can get into the nursing field with an associate.
So when you think of career and technical education, I think most people think about those healthcare professions, but they also think about the beauty and wellness sector, which I talked about, cosmetology, massage therapy, and then certainly the blue-collar trades that I think most people have in mind when they hear that term skilled trade.
So that's truck driving, that's welding, that's aviation, auto-techs, HVAC, those type of programs.
Good morning, and thank you so much, sir, for taking your time and speaking on this.
I'm liking what you're saying regarding uplifting people and getting them out of their circumstances and providing opportunities for them and their families because education sometimes trickles down and across a family.
From a philosophical standpoint, I studied lots of things when I went to college, but from a philosophical standpoint, college is a transformative space to allow critical thinking, pursuing truth, and transforming and personal growth.
In some circles, there are people who say that these are indoctrination places, but as you mentioned, it's for growth.
Also, I'm having a hard time discerning why we should label things from Donald Trump, who was in charge of a for-profit school that turned out to be a fraud, now caring about education.
It's the same thing where they say, well, hey, we're not going to be behind student loan forgiveness, but yet offer $1,000 accounts for every child born after a certain age, which if you're saying I'm not socialist, how do you propose that?
How do you square that circle on getting people to believe things where even the party doesn't want to increase the minimum wage?
So we want people to do these manual labor jobs, but this is the same party that shipped the jobs overseas or have cheap labor and now want to export people out of the country.
So I'm having a hard time understanding where the shift is and what the language is and why we feel as though a four-year degree, regardless of what it's in, isn't beneficial.
And I'll wait for your response.
Thank you.
We don't have a position on many of those issues that you talked about.
They're kind of beyond the scope of the trade school issues that we're talking about.
But we do care very much about whether or not the student is getting a good return on their investment for their education.
And I think part of the concern that you're hearing with regard to students being apprehensive about do I want to really take on that debt to go down the four-year path?
Is that the right pathway for me?
Then I think it is worth looking at return on investment.
And I would point the viewers to the Georgetown University Center for Education and the Workforce.
You can Google it.
It'll come up.
Every three years, they do a study on return on investment.
So the student pays an amount to get the education that they are seeking.
And then what is the long-term implication of that investment?
Are they able to recoup over the long term?
And how much money are they going to make?
Who's getting the best return on that investment?
And what the Georgetown University Center finds is, as I mentioned earlier, for-profit schools, often career and trade schools, are hugely disproportionately represented at the top, the top 1% and the top 10% of schools that offer the highest return on investment for the student.
So career and technical education can work for students if that is the path that they choose.
You can make a quick return on investment, and you could do very well in your career as the years go by.
Kenny from Tennessee, who's calling on the experience with the technical or career education, you're next.
unidentified
Yes, I just wanted to add that I've been, I got into plumbers and steamfitters local right out of high school and made a real good living.
People they can really make a lot of money at the skilled trades, especially the welding.
Right now, I've got a friend bringing home over $3,000 a week up there in Iowa at a job.
All these chip plants and battery plants that they're building, they need construction workers.
They need electricians.
They need all kinds of technical stuff to get these plants up and running.
And there's a very good future in it.
And I just would, they're screaming for welders right now.
So women make, that's good for women too, because women make good welders.
They have steadier hands.
But that's all I just wanted to say.
And thank you for bringing this topic.
Thank you.
I like that caller.
He's good.
What he says is true.
He mentioned plumbers and electricians.
I would add heavy equipment, anything involved in construction.
Certainly welders fit into that.
Booming across this country because of the infrastructure, not just the data centers and the distribution warehouses, but roads and bridges, locks and dams.
Every airport in the country has either been rebuilt or is being modernized.
There's tremendous opportunity for people who are pursuing those types of careers.
Yeah, I was going to ask you actually about the impact of AI on these careers.
I've just pulled up a Wall Street Journal article.
The headline from November 29th is, data centers are a gold rush for construction workers.
I think going back to what the last caller just said, an investment boom in artificial intelligence is creating a thirst for massive data centers and a bonanza for workers building them.
It's unclear how long that boom will last, but for now, workers like Chambless are cashing in on high demand for their services.
They are enjoying the trappings, including perks, bonuses, and in many cases, pay boosts.
Joe from Dayton, Ohio.
Your line is open.
unidentified
Good morning from a sunny day in Ohio.
Mr. Altmeyer, thank you for this topic.
I just want to share a successful story of my life.
My parents were both born in Italy, lived under Benito Mussolini, and came here to the United States legally after World War II.
I have lived the American dream.
My mother told me at the age of 14 years old, get a trade, son.
Went to school at Fairmont West Vocational Program in Kettering, Ohio.
I graduated at 17 years of age.
I went directly to work at Rubicon Cadillac.
I became shop foreman there at the age of 22.
I started my own business at 24, retired at 57.
I owned the business and the property.
I retired a multi-millionaire.
That is the true American story.
The problem is, and actually people banging on Trump, but Ivanka Trump under the first Trump administration was pushing vocational programs, which is fantastic.
But the problem is in the automotive business, these young kids have to spend upfront a lot of money in tools.
I wish the government would help them with some kind of financial aid.
But Mr. Altmeyer, I just want to thank you for this topic because I'm a big advocate for vocational trades.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you for that.
And that's an inspiring story.
It's compelling.
And we hear that a lot from people who have chosen that career path.
You can't guarantee everybody's going to become a multi-millionaire.
It sounds like the caller's done quite well.
Yeah, but we have some great schools in Ohio, in Kettering, and in Dayton, and all across the country that are transforming lives.
As I said, these are often people who are struggling.
It's not just their second chance.
Often career education is their last chance.
And we are turning their lives around through the education that they're receiving, and they're able to get a family-sustaining wage, and they can grow over time as they grow in their careers.
That is folks to call in who have experience with technical, with experience with career and technical education.
And just quickly before we go back to calls, I want to point to this NBC article that I read off the top of our conversation because I don't think that we showed it on the screen.
But I just want you to see for folks listening in on just how different it is.
The title is, Members of Both Parties Have Soured on the Value of College, but Much More Among Republicans.
Republicans, you can look in 2013, 55% say it's worth the cost.
Only 38% say not worth the cost.
This year, 2025, only 22% say a four-year education is worth the cost.
74% say not worth the cost.
If we go to Democrats, in 2013, 61% said the value of college was worth the cost.
Now in 2025, only 47% of Democrats say the value of college is worth the cost.
So obviously pretty dramatic numbers here.
Gene from Dublin, Virginia, who is calling on the line with expertise in technical or career education.
Your line is open?
unidentified
Good morning.
Welcome.
Calling you from snowy southwestern Virginia this morning.
I'm going to be a little bit of a fly in the ointment in this discussion because my life has been on both sides of the divide.
I started out as a mechanic who later on went on and got an engineering degree at 29.
And I can tell you, my life fixing cars was never as good as it was when I ended up designing them.
I hear this a lot from, it's very popular to say you don't need a four-year degree, which is true, but it's always somebody with a degree and an advanced degree probably telling everybody else you don't need one.
I can tell you as an inner city, lower-class Philly kid who ended up spending 12 seasons as an engineer in Formula One, my engineering degree got me to places that I only dreamed about as a kid.
unidentified
I also see a lot of this as kind of having worked so long with young engineers out of Oxford, Cambridge, University College, London, etc.
These kids are smart and they're hot.
And they're from a society that pushes their children to be smarter, to go to get more education.
I mean, right now, someone working the line assembling Mercedes-Benz's is probably a lot better educated than the people we have working on the line at Ford.
So I don't want to take up too much time here, but this whole thing just seems to be a lot of, you know, the continuing of dumbing down of our society.
We really need smart STEM kids because we're going into an era when technical independence is going to be paramount importance for us to survive as a country.
And we need these kids to be smart and technical so that we can survive.
Hope I didn't sound too crazy.
No, I understand the point that you're making.
And we are certainly not saying that if you have an interest in a four-year degree or beyond in STEM education, in any type of training or career path that you choose, please go for it.
If you have an interest and an aptitude, we're not trying to dissuade people.
We're just trying to give opportunity for those who want to take a different path for whatever the reason might be.
Life circumstances, finances, interest and skill.
Those are reasons why people get into it.
And I would say that when you think about the caller mentions, you know, auto technicians, you shouldn't have the view today that these are folks underneath the car with the grease stripping down on them with screwdrivers and wrenches.
It's a lot more technical than that now.
These are electronic cars.
They're smart cars.
You have to have skill.
You have to be a technician to do that work.
It's an antiquated view to think that it's all about grease and tools.
A lot of it is about using technology in a way that's not been done before, not just in auto repair, but in aviation technology and other fields.
One question that we got on X from Merlene, Tacoma, Park, Maryland is, where is the money for training and education?
Diverse education and training workforce development programs are essential, not one at the expense of other.
Closing the education department doesn't help.
These programs existed in the public and private sectors for decades that have been eroded over the past 50 years.
That is what our tax dollars should support.
unidentified
We agree with what the ex-user is saying in the sense that we do think that it's important that you have funding available for students to pursue these careers.
What's happening with the national debate on the future of the Department of Education, those programs that fund education, these especially career technical fields that we're talking about, that funding is not going to go away.
When you look at the debate that's happening over the future of the Pell Grant, shorter-term workforce-driven Pell Grants, that's a very positive development that had not existed before Congress acted this year.
That's new funding available for these programs.
States all across this country are talking about how can workforce development agencies work better with employers to design curriculums that are going to train students for jobs that are going to be here in five years rather than jobs that were here five years ago, having a more futuristic vision of what that curriculum and career path is going to look like, and then having the funding necessary to allow students, especially from low-income populations, to pursue that education.
I'm 65 years old now, but I remember when I was going to school, trade school was free.
You went half your school day at the trade and the other half at school.
And even my friends got trade certifications, but led them to become entrepreneurs.
Ronald Reagan killed the programming.
He killed the funding for that and pushed college, right?
So that put a lot of minorities now could not afford to go to college, and now you had to pay to go to trade school.
And so he killed that.
And this is why you have, and what happened with that, because he pushed college, every year they kept increasing the tuition, increasing the tuition, and now you have it where now you end up $100,000 in debt.
That's my point, is that they could have continued with what they were doing.
But it just seemed to me that it was a racist-motivated thing that killed it because I knew a whole bunch of people that were benefiting.
They were coming entrepreneurs, creating generational wealth, and he killed the funding.
You mentioned, the caller mentioned that it was free.
Of course, free is not free to everyone.
Those are taxpayer funds that are assisting the student in pursuing that opportunity.
And I do think you're seeing a renewed recognition of the value of career and technical education.
You're going to see great competition in this country in the years ahead with community colleges, with high schools bringing back what used to be known as the shop classes that have gone away over the years.
You're going to see those come back.
You're going to see apprenticeship for hands-on workforce training, working with employers, giving students the opportunity to learn those trades.
You're going to see our types of schools, of course, continue to grow.
I think you are going to see, there's been this discussion about Harvard and the president having a discussion about Harvard starting their own trade school.
I do think you're going to see some traditional universities get in to this type of education because as we've talked about, this is where the future is in this country.
This is where many of the highest job demand exists.
It's where students want to go and they see security.
And I think you're going to see traditional universities get into this in a way already that they do adult education and they do some non-traditional learning.
I think you're going to see them get into the trades in a big way.
I also learned lifelong lessons about just being mechanically inclined and turning a wrench and doing a lot of things that still hold with me today that I appreciate.
unidentified
But I realized really early that I didn't want to do that particular profession.
So I think that these occupational schools are also really great for finding out whether you like to do something or whether it's not for me.
And I moved on to something else and I'm really happy with that.
But that's really my point.
And I'd like to hear a comment about that from the person you have there.
It's true that these jobs aren't for everybody.
You have to have an interest that it's hard work in a lot of cases.
We talked about welding and truck driving, some of these skilled trades, being a nurse, working in medical fields.
You have to have an interest in that.
And most importantly, you have to know that that's going to be your career.
That's the job you're going to have.
And you have to understand what the workforce looks like as you're holding that occupation.
It is not for everybody.
But that's the same with any career.
I think what we're saying is if you have the interest, you should have the ability to pursue that education the same way you would a four-year degree if that's the path you want to go Richard from Oregon, you're next.
Yeah, we've got about five more minutes, folks, and then you will be, you'll get all of your SCOTA Supreme Court goodness when we hear the case assessing legality of the president's removal of Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission.
But keeping on with this education topic, I want to read a question from X that we got.
It goes, please continue your work, Mr. Altmeyer.
Having both a BS, so a Bachelor's of Science, and a JD Juris Doctorate, and $200,000 plus in student loan debt, we must force colleges, universities, and professional schools to slash their budgets by eliminating their ability to overcharge students by easing access to federal student loans.
And the Department of Education's reclassification of, quote, professional degrees is just the first step to reining in schools costs from Joel in Georgia.
I wonder what your responses to that.
unidentified
The professional degree debate is a very hot-button issue right now.
What the Department of Education did as directed by Congress was re-evaluate the amount of loans that a student can take out to pursue these type of programs that we're talking about.
And they had to determine what's a professional degree because that's a higher threshold.
You can take out more money to pursue that, especially at the graduate level.
And what are other types of programs?
And nursing was a big part of that.
It was determined by the department that nursing did not fall into the category of professional degrees.
So those that are going for nursing education can only access fewer federal funds as a result.
She says four-year college graduates need to not only complete their degree, but also need to develop skills that are in demand by employers.
Just graduating with an art degree history won't cut it.
However, graduating with an art degree history and being experienced in project management or digital graphics, et cetera, will make the difference in terms of employability.
What's your response?
unidentified
I would agree.
I think that is exactly the way students should look at it.
You can have an interest in something.
There are two questions.
Should the taxpayer pay for your education if it's unlikely you're going to find work in that field?
But the bigger issue is what else can you do to supplement your interest in your education to make you more marketable in the future.
This is work I have done for 50 years as a professional, working with communities to bring in training and education on the job training and education.
We as a nation have invested in those types of opportunities and pathways for decades.
But over the last 50 years, that funding has eroded because I think to give tax breaks to billionaires, but that's not what's most important.
We need diverse education, training, workforce development programs.
Those are essential, not one at the expense of the other.
These programs existed, like I said, for the last 70 years or so, but that funding has been de-escalated significantly, very intentionally.
Closing the Department of Education doesn't help.
And, you know, we are an evolving and changing workforce.
And the corporate sector, the capitalists, the billionaires who need workers should be held accountable for helping fund those experiences and opportunities and pathways.
Colleges, technical schools, training programs in high schools, through colleges, through other associate two-year programs.
That's been going on for decades, but we defunded it.
So tell me about where is the money in this administration to support these types of efforts.
This administration has, I would say, focused intently on these issues.
When you think about the closing of the Department of Education, it's not these programs that are disappearing.
They're being moved to the Department of Labor.
There's discussion about the funding, application of that being moved to other areas, perhaps treasury.
But as I mentioned, the recognition that apprenticeships, that workforce education, that a better coordination among agencies for workforce development and the skilled trades, I would say this administration has done a lot on these issues, and we're excited at the focus they've placed on it.
One question that we have from Axe is that nobody is talking about the effect on the body with some skilled trades from Maryland and Las Vegas.
unidentified
It's an astute question because some of these professions are not things that you can do until you're 75 years old.
And this is where entrepreneurism comes in with people learning skills and getting into management throughout their career and being able to rise up and eventually move away from actually doing those tasks themselves and helping others either through teaching or managing the operation.
And we have a lot of former students that we see that are entrepreneurial in mindset and they get into that aspect and do very well in their own businesses.
These are careers that you can start your own shop and then do the management aspect and have other people work for you.
Obviously, we heard from one man who talked about welding as an emerging field.
Are there more in-demand roles that you see with your work now, roles that people should be focused on that have a real future for growth and demand in this country when it comes to technical or career education?
unidentified
I would say there's two things.
One is the demand in the country just on its own, driven by the marketplace.
So these are the healthcare and the skilled trades that we're talking about.
But there's also AI and the displacements that are going to result from that.
And when you think about the white-collar jobs that are being lost.