C-SPAN’s Washington Journal (12/14/2025) dives into collapsing trust in government—just 9% of Democrats and 26% of Republicans now believe in its integrity—while examining Obamacare subsidies expiring at year-end, with GOP reforms like association health plans failing to gain traction. Former Secretary Dan Glickman reveals farmers’ reliance on $11B in bridge funding amid tariff disputes and skyrocketing health care costs ($50K–$60K annually for small operations), despite foreign land ownership claims being exaggerated at 3.61%. Callers clash over Trump’s influence, media bias, and racial tensions within the GOP, with a poll showing 15% of Republicans self-identify as racist and 77% of Black GOP voters endorsing "masculine thinking" over progressive policies. The episode underscores how polarization and grievance-driven politics risk destabilizing both parties’ coalitions, leaving moderates and independents increasingly disillusioned. [Automatically generated summary]
Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, along with your calls and comments live, Jesse Arm of the Manhattan Institute will talk about a new poll examining the makeup of the current Republican coalition.
Also, Dan Glickman, Bipartisan Policy Center Senior Fellow and former Agriculture Secretary, talks about issues impacting U.S. farmers, including tariffs and Trump administration farm assistance policies.
Can you trust the government to do the right thing?
According to recent polling, most Americans say no.
A long-running survey from Pew Research found public trust in government at one of the lowest rates seen in the seven decades of the poll.
That's the topic our first hour this morning.
Your thoughts on Americans' lack of trust in our government.
Our phone line for Republicans is 202-748-8001.
For Democrats, 202-748-8000.
And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
If you'd like to text us, that number is 202-748-8003.
Just please be sure to include your name and where you're writing in from.
We're also on social media at facebook.com slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ.
Now, let's look at some details from that polling from Pew Research, which found just 17% of Americans now say that their trust in government, that they trust the government in Washington, D.C. to do what is right just about always, 2%, or most of the time, 15%.
While trust in government has been low for decades, the current measure is one of the lowest in the nearly seven decades since the question was first asked by the national election study, and it's lower than it was in the last year.
Now, when you break that down by political party, Democrats' trust in the government has never been lower.
Just 9% now say they trust the federal government just about always or most of the time.
Today, 26% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they trust the federal government on par with GOP views during the first Trump administration.
Now, that Pew polling was conducted even before the federal government shutdown and Congress's recent failed attempts to find a solution to expiring enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt was asked if the president was going to intervene more directly in the health care debate now that it's clear the ACA subsidies are likely to expire in a matter of days.
We are working, the president is working with his health care policy team here at the White House, as well as Republicans on Capitol Hill to find a solution.
The president and Republicans are currently coming up with creative solutions and ideas to lower health care costs for the American people, and you'll continue to hear more from them on that.
I just said you're going to continue to hear more from the president and Republicans on this issue, I'm sure.
Now, after one of the failed Senate votes to extend these subsidies in some capacity, Democrat Amy Klobuchar made remarks arguing that the public is on the side of Democrats in wanting to extend the subsidies.
You have already seen how the public feels about this, whether it is the Virginia and the New Jersey governors' races, whether it is the statewide Georgia races, including a recent legislative race there.
They said enough.
They want us to be working together to do something about their health care.
And we have given them the opportunity so many times through straight extension.
Straight extension.
And we would like to do a lot more, believe me, reverse the cuts from the big, beautiful betrayal of the bill when it comes to Medicaid, do something more on my legislation for negotiation of prescription drugs so we could do that faster.
Public option, you name it.
There's a lot of choices here.
But right now, we have an immediate crisis.
And as Senator Schumer points out, this is not a January thing.
It's going to be set by then.
This is not a February thing.
This is a now thing.
And they not only rejected this three years, despite four of them, including a very conservative Republican, voting with us today, they also rejected a two-year.
They also rejected a very clear vote on a simple one-year extension that basically would have been the same amount of money as they sent to Argentina.
So I don't know how they explain to that soybean farmer in Minnesota that it was more important for them to send money to Argentina for one of the president's buddies than it is to help people with their health care.
75% of the people on these plans are in red states.
Again, our question this morning has to do with the declining trust in the federal government by the American people.
And this is particularly noticeable amongst younger Americans.
Here's a story in Axios about Gen Z losing faith in America, how young Americans say they believe things in the nation are going, saying that young Americans say the country is heading down a dark road and fear their futures are unstable, according to the latest Harvard youth poll out Thursday morning.
Financial insecurity, intense political polarization, and the rise of AI are eroding Gen Z's faith in their economic prospects and public institutions overall.
The authors of the report, now in its 25th year, warned that this massive upheaval is threatening the country's stability.
Instability is shaping nearly every part of young people's lives, said John DeLaVolp, director of polling at the Harvard Institute of Politics, in a Zoom call with reporters and students involved in the survey.
A majority of the respondents, 57%, say the country is headed in the wrong direction, a six-point rise from last year and one point down from the record high notched in the spring of 2024.
Young adults are far more worried about the country's future now than they were in the depths of the Great Recession in 2009 when the economy was truly cooked.
Again, our phone lines for this question.
Republicans at 202-748-8001.
For Democrats, 202-748-8000.
And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
You can also text us at 202-748-8003.
And we're on social media at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ.
Let's get some of your comments that we've received so far.
On Facebook, Matthew Crawley says: the trust in government should always be low.
Look no further than the national debt and the number of illegal aliens in our country.
Our government is unwilling to do basic functions such as balancing a budget and securing a border.
It's baffling that some want more government involvement.
Scott Lashley says, When the government wants into every part of your life, trust goes out the window.
And then Mike Thornton says, Water is wet.
Who would have guessed?
Now, a bit more of that axiom.
Excuse me.
President Trump was at a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this week defending his record on lowering costs, a key issue for many Americans.
My first inkling is Khrushchev banging on the, banging it, taking his shoe off and banging his heel on the shoe and telling America you're going to ruin yourselves within.
unidentified
And trust me now, I was back in the 70s, I was progressive.
You're correct that members of Congress do make six figures.
ABC News actually did a survey of lawmakers to see who actually accepted their pay during the recent government shutdown.
Some lawmakers were donating their salaries.
Nearly four in ten members of the U.S. House of Representatives did not take their pay during the government shutdown, according to an ABC News survey of congressional offices.
That group included leaders of both parties in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York, whose offices confirmed to ABC News that they asked for pay to be withheld for the duration of the shutdown.
Unlike their staffers and federal workers, members of Congress and delegates are guaranteed pay by the Constitution during a government shutdown.
The House was set to vote on reopening the gov. This is an older article.
But overall, 242 House offices, more than half of the chamber did not respond to questions from ABC News about how the representatives were handling their salaries during the shutdown.
Back to your calls.
Kurt is in Mount Union, Pennsylvania on our line for independence.
Good morning, Kurt.
unidentified
Yes, good morning.
Today's word is hypocrisy.
Explain to me how all these people that don't trust the government all of a sudden want the government to run their health care.
And then you have Amy Klobuchar on there who's talking about sending money to Argentina when her state, Minnesota, $2 billion pissed away that could help for the health care, that it was fraud.
There is quite a bit of reporting on this situation in Minnesota that you were asking about, Donald.
Here's just some reporting from thehill.com.
This is a story from December the 12th that Minnesota's governor, Tim Walz, is addressing this fraud scandal, saying that Minnesota's generosity has been taken advantage of.
That story going on to say that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz addressed his state's growing fraud scandal on Friday, telling residents that the North Star State's generosity has been taken advantage of.
The scandal erupted after more than 50 people were convicted in connection with a theft of hundreds of millions of dollars stolen from a federally funded nutrition program.
As much as $1 billion in taxpayer money may have been stolen in separate plots, the New York Times reported in November.
Quote, we are a state that chooses not to let people go hungry or homeless or uneducated, Walls said in his address.
However, that generosity has been taken advantage of by an organized group of fraudsters and criminals.
Minnesota's long-standing high standards of integrity of public funds go hand in hand with a culture of generosity.
You can't have one without the other.
Going to skim down a bit.
President Trump has latched on to the scandal over the pandemic era fraud with the nonprofit Feeding Our Future as dozens of Somali community members have been convicted or face charges.
Trump accused Minnesota's Somali population of ripping off the state.
The president is also planning to launch an immigration enforcement operation to target Somalis in Minnesota who entered the U.S. illegally.
The president claimed on Truth Social without evidence that Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for prey.
Next up, our topic again is declining trust in the federal government.
Stephen is in Lexington, Kentucky on our line for independence.
Good morning, Stephen.
unidentified
Yes, good morning.
Thanks for having me on this cold Sunday.
Yeah, of course trust is very low with the U.S. government, with the federal government.
I mean, there are actual conspiracies that came true that we caught the government in lies between MKUltra, where they were doing experimental studies on people without them knowing, or the Tuskegee syphilis study, that they didn't tell people that they were doing these experiments on them.
And we got whistleblowers right now, currently, coming out of the government, saying that we have always, for the last 80 years, the government has always known about NHI, UFOs, UATs.
I mean, the number one documentary right now on Amazon is the age of disclosure, where Marco Vrubio, the Secretary of State currently, is telling you: listen, all the elderly have always been told that UFOs don't exist.
They actually do exist, and we have been covering it for the last 80 years.
What about Watergate?
It's like, yes, the government lies.
And look, the current government lies.
Like, why would you trust a billionaire to deal with your health care?
It makes no sense.
So, yes, of course.
Low, low, low.
I'm a millennial and I've never trusted the government.
I mean, they only lie to you.
They kind of just tease you, string you along.
Like, yeah, of course.
Even at the state government, they're lying to you.
Politicians in general are just terrible people and they don't care about you.
So, yeah, the whistleblowers are coming out.
UFOs are real.
Aliens are real.
The government doesn't really care about you.
They just care about making themselves more powerful.
I'm calling to let you know: as long as our government continues to grow, as long as the people continue to only look out for themselves, we're going to go down because these people are out for themselves and only themselves.
As long as we have all these pigs at the trough taking for themselves and no term limits on these people, our government's going to fail.
Anytime our government gets involved with our personal lives, they're here to protect us so that we can live our personal lives.
They're not here to control every aspect of it.
And until we have term limits, we're going down.
And that's real unfortunate for us American people.
Actually, Clifford, before you go on, it looks like you're seeing some trend that it matches up with the data from Pew Research.
Sure enough, it seems to have started more or less in the Johnson era, but certainly you see a pretty sharp decline during the Nixon era in the public trust in government as indicated on the chart here.
It's a pretty steep drop-off.
unidentified
Yes, and into the 80s with The mass media and the internet and things like CNN, Fox News, and mass media in general, and the local newspapers going away.
I'm just seeing no consequence or libel or slander and Fox News getting away with calling themselves entertainment.
I'm just using them as an example.
MSNBC could be a bad.
But without any consequence or LIBOR slander, the manipulation of the public's how they view politics has just gotten so negative.
And I think a lot of this is a result of corporations trying to manipulate people to feel bad, and it's working.
What do you think of these low levels of trust in the federal government?
unidentified
Well, first of all, they need to repeal Citizens United and reinstate the fairness doctrine.
And the lady from New Jersey talking about the Russian hoax, who was Paul Manafort.
Now, if you would please fill us Article 2, Section 4 of the Constitution, so everyone can take a good look and analyze that paragraph, if you would, please.
Yeah, do you know that the government, because the government passed laws to protect people and to keep people from being taken advantage of, there's a certain group of people don't like the government because the government don't give them what they want.
That means get out the way and let us do what we want.
Now we got ICE out here.
We got these people out here that ICE and they don't want to listen.
They never did want to go by the rules.
The rules, it was against them.
So that's why they're out here to start a whole new police force, ICE and all of them, at the new government system.
That's what they've been wanting to do.
And now they done took over.
So now the people of America is the government protect us.
A previous caller was asking about Article 2, Section 4 of the Constitution.
And I just wanted to get the exact language, which is the section related to impeachment.
The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Marty is in Waco, Texas on our line for independence.
Good morning, Marty.
unidentified
Good morning, ma'am.
Thank you for taking my call.
I would just like to allude to the simple facts of what is transpiring right now.
We've got a serious situation, and nobody seems to be paying attention.
For example, the recent executive order by President Trump violating the 10th Amendment.
All right, Marty was referencing the President's recent executive order related to artificial intelligence.
Here's a story about it in NPR.
Trump is trying to preempt state AI laws via an executive order.
It may not be legal.
The Trump administration is seeking to challenge state laws regulating the artificial intelligence industry.
According to an executive order the president signed on Thursday, the order directs the Justice Department to set up an AI litigation task force to sue states over their AI-related laws and also directs the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission to work with the Department of Justice to follow the White House's AI action plan to circumvent, quote, onerous state and local regulations.
Now scrolling down a bit there, the executive order is almost certain to be challenged in court and tech policy researchers say the Trump administration cannot restrict state regulation in this way without Congress passing a law.
The order also directs SACS to work with Congress to help draft the legislation.
Trump's executive order drew criticism from some of his supporters, including organizations that are part of a bipartisan effort to pass laws protecting children from AI harms.
Some of the comments that we have received on social media and text, Barb in Longrove, Illinois on our question of trust in government says, I trust the government to make the right decisions most of the time, especially where defense and law enforcement are concerned.
Butch Smith says, I don't have an issue trusting our government.
It's our elected representatives that I don't trust.
And Vicki Mayfield says, I love my country, not my government.
Back to your calls.
Jeff is in Hiddenike, North Carolina, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Jeff.
unidentified
Good morning.
Well, I guess I'm a Republican, so I trust the government in now more than I would a Democratic Party's government.
But by saying that, I don't trust neither side when it comes to the senators, congressmen in bed with insurance companies, lobbyists inside trading, until the American people stop it and they can and quit talking about it and actually try to stop it.
The Senate is actually, as reported here in ABC News, back to square one on health care.
After both bills fail, the Enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits are set to expire soon.
The Senate on Thursday failed to advance two competing health care proposals aimed at addressing a spike in costs that are expected for tens of millions of Americans who receive enhanced Affordable Care Act credits.
Both plans, one put forward by Democrats and the other championed by Republicans, failed to get the 60 votes needed.
Now lawmakers are back to square one with only a matter of days remaining to address the looming expiration of the enhanced tax credits.
The credits, which were the focal point of the record government shutdown this fall, help lower or eliminate the out-of-pocket cost of monthly premiums for individuals who purchase insurance through the marketplace.
They are set to expire at the end of the year, which will cause prices to skyrocket.
Now, House Speaker Mike Johnson earlier this week did say that the GOP will have a plan and a vote on some kind of solution to this next week.
So in the coming days, what you're going to see is the other party, the Republican Party, continuing to do the important work that we've already begun to actually lower the cost of health care and reduce fraud.
And we hope Democrats will join us in those efforts.
There are two parties in this town.
One has no intention and no plan and no desire to lower your health care costs.
They really haven't put any good idea on the table.
They just want to subsidize a broken system.
Check them on that.
The Republican Party, on the other hand, is already demonstrating that we know how to do this.
We're not just talking about it.
We've done it.
In the Working Families Tax Cut, you will remember, in the Medicaid reforms, we went after program integrity.
We didn't change the substance of Medicaid, as they've claimed, falsely.
We went to program integrity.
Why?
Because we owed that to the American taxpayers.
We got ineligible recipients off of Medicaid, and we cut out the fraud, waste, and abuse.
And the CBO said they've calculated it saved $185 billion for American taxpayers and reduced premiums.
We reformed it to strengthen Medicaid.
Those same principles are going to guide us in the months, in the weeks, the days, and weeks and months forward.
As Leader Scalise noted, we have some low-hanging fruit.
We have some things that every Republican agrees to.
Democrats won't.
Remember, they don't actually want to fix this problem.
But you're going to see a package come together that will be on the floor next week that will actually reduce premiums for 100% of Americans who are on health insurance, not just the 7%.
Remember, the COVID-era subsidy only covers 7% of Americans, and it was passed and extended without any reforms at all.
It would only reduce their premiums by 4%.
So they're using that as a red herring.
The overall system is broken, and we're the ones that are going to fix it.
Back to your calls on the low levels of trust in the federal government.
Ava is in Cleveland, Oklahoma, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Ava.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm fearful of the government right now.
I have a friend from Canada.
She used to come to go to Vegas on vacation every year.
And she's afraid she's afraid to go there because if they check her cell phone and find out some things she's been checking on, she's afraid she'll be in trouble.
She asked me a question that I'm unable to answer.
She asked me if the government was turning into our she asked me if our government was turning into a terrorist organization.
That scared me, and she commented that the Supreme Court gave Donald Trump the right to commit crimes as long as he claimed it was an official act.
And I'm just fearful of this government right now and where it's going.
Next up is James in Englewood, Ohio, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, James.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I listen often to your show, and the diversity amongst your callers is so dynamic, and it really defines why people live in fear.
They hear a punchline or a topic, and they run with it.
The thing I would like to say is in the years of being a part of the United States and the political system, I have never seen as much transparency as I see with President Trump.
I think President Trump has a great heart and is a patriot beyond belief and is trying to do what's best for the nation as a whole, not for the world as a whole, but for the nation.
There's people that have gotten so fat off of the fat of the land.
And it's no different than what's going on in Minnesota with all of the money that was pulled out of the system and who knows where it's been shipped to.
Is it in Somalia now?
Or is it in bank accounts amongst all of those people that took part in this?
I pray for our nation.
And we are a people of goodness with bad people involved as well.
James is in Plainfield, Illinois on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, James.
unidentified
Yes, good morning.
Here's my concern with everything as far as I'm putting these pieces together.
I don't understand what global warming were denying it because I watched a show, it was a fictional show called Newsroom, and they did a piece on global warming in 2016.
And three factors this guy said came true.
There would be an immigration issue around the world.
You'll have all kinds of forest fires all over, and then storms with destruction like you wouldn't believe.
And that's what's happening now that scares me.
Then we got the great reset.
That really scares me with the World Economic Forum.
What they want to do is centralize or digitalize the banking system.
And that way they'll be able to give you credits.
And basically, they'll say you won't be able to do it.
Well, Ian, if you give me a moment, I'll read a bit more from Pew on this topic as sort of breaking it down by era, and then I'll get your follow-up thoughts.
So starting in 1958, 73% of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing almost always or most of the time when the national election study first asked the question.
In the 1960s and 70s, trust in government began eroding amid the escalation of the Vietnam War.
The decline continued in the 1970s with the Watergate scandal and worsening economic struggles.
By 1980, only about a quarter of Americans expressed a high level of trust.
In the 1980s and 90s, confidence in the government recovered in the mid-80s before falling again in the mid-90s.
But as the economy grew in the late 1990s, trust in the government also rose.
In the 2000s and 9/11, public trust reached a three-decade high shortly after the September 11th terrorist attacks, but declined again quickly in the wake of the Iraq War and the financial crisis of the late 2000s.
Now, looking at 2007 to the present, the shares saying they can trust the government always or most of the time have never been higher than 30% since 2007.
What are your thoughts on that, Ian?
unidentified
I just, 30% is really low.
I just don't understand how that's possible because it's like I was trying to mention earlier, things could be so much worse.
We could be living in a country that is a national banana republic, like the other guy was just saying.
We don't have a banana republic.
That's insane.
We don't live in a dictatorship as much as people would like to say on some sides.
You know, it could be so much worse.
I really just think we should be more thankful of what we have, at the very least.
Next up is Sue in Holdredge, Nebraska on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Sue.
unidentified
Good morning.
In answer to your question, I think the faith in the government is very low.
And I think both parties spend way too much time finger pointing and trying to destroy each other instead of looking at what the American problems are, talking to the Americans that really live out in this world and really need issues taken care of.
If we went to our jobs and just bantered back and forth all the time, we would be fired.
Sue, what are some of those issues that you think they should be paying more attention to that might help you trust the government more?
unidentified
The reality of health insurance, what it's really like to have to deal with health insurance, people in government have no idea what HSAs are.
They have no idea what Obamacare really does.
Fortunately, I didn't initially believe in Obamacare, but my husband's a farmer, and that's the only insurance he has.
There's a big misconception that pre-existing conditions don't exist, but they do exist under certain circumstances.
There's just some basic things that if they actually had to live how this stuff really works, they could understand better and take care of the issues better.
Sue, I want to flag for you that later on in the show we are going to have a segment on some of the issues facing American farmers.
And so we will be touching on some of those issues that you raised there affecting your community.
So thank you for sharing that.
I do want to flag that the House GOP did last week unveil a health care plan ahead of their vote next week as this cost hike that Sue was just talking about looms for millions.
This is a story in Fox News.
House Republicans have released a 111-page plan for reforming health care that they hope to vote on next week.
House GOP leadership aides also told reporters on Friday afternoon that they expected a vote on extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies to also happen next week as part of the amendment process to the final bill called the Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act.
The subsidies have been the subject of fierce interparty debate for Republicans.
Now, let's look at some of the outlines of that Republican health care plan that they released on Friday.
It would expand association health plans, which allow employers to band together to purchase coverage.
It funds a cost-sharing reduction program meant to lower premiums for certain ACA enrollees and imposes new transparency requirements on pharmacy benefit managers in a bid to lower drug costs.
It does not extend the soon-to-expire ACA subsidies, although, as the article mentioned, leaders are expected to allow a floor vote on an amendment related to those subsidies.
It also does not include the Senate GOP plan to provide $1,000 to $1,500 in healthcare savings accounts.
So, those are some of the broad outlines of that plan.
Now, then, coming up on Washington Journal later on, we're going to hear from Dan Glickman of the Bipartisan Policy Center Senior Fellow and former Agriculture Secretary, who's going to join us to discuss issues impacting U.S. farmers, including tariffs and American and Trump farm assistance policies.
But up next, we'll have the Manhattan Institute's Jesse Arm joining us to discuss a new poll examining the makeup of the new Republican coalition.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series.
Today, with our guest best-selling author, Arthur Brooks, who has written 13 books about finding purpose, connection, and cultivating lasting joy.
His books include Love Your Enemies: Build the Life You Want with co-author Oprah Winfrey and his latest The Happiness Files.
He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein.
The answer is not passionate love, but what we call in my business companionate love.
unidentified
Companionate love, which is best friendship.
You know, I told my kids that who are now, you know, two of my kids are young married, and my son Carlos said, Companionate love, that's not hot.
And I said, Well, trust me, it's got some hotness to it.
Watch America's Book Club with Arthur Brooks today at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
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All right, let's look at this new poll that you did.
It says a survey analysis of Americans overall, today's Republican coalition, and the minorities of MAGA.
Talk a little bit about your poll, who you looked at, and how you went about it.
unidentified
Absolutely.
So there are a lot of conversations happening in Washington right now.
There are conclusions sort of being reached between both the dissident, online, sort of oddball right and a lot of figures in the left-leaning corporate media that the future of the GOP is mostly this hyper-online and highly alienated set of young men who spend inordinate amounts of time with radical figures on the internet.
With our new Manhattan Institute poll we took of nearly 3,000 voters, we show the picture that is a little bit more complex.
The beating heart of the Republican coalition is still very much the normal, long-standing GOP voters who are church-going, more hawkish on questions relating to China, more pro-Israel, opposed to DEI and gender ideology, and instinctively sort of conservative on taxes and spending.
So the idea that the party is really being taken over by this fringe group of maybe Gen Z that says more about elite media habits than what it actually says about our electorate.
What the data actually shows is a coalition of two major blocs.
About two-thirds are what we in the survey report call core Republicans.
These are people who are consistent conservatives and have voted for the GOP for years.
But just under 30% are what we're calling the new entrant Republicans.
These are GOP voters who are new to the coalition.
They've joined during the Trump era.
They're younger, they're more diverse, they're often former Democrats.
They're people who were much more likely to have voted for Biden or Obama or Clinton or Harris.
And on policy, somewhat surprisingly, but also unsurprisingly, once you dig down into the data, they're notably less conservative.
They're more open to higher taxes.
They're less hawkish on foreign policy.
They're more liberal on cultural issues.
And in other words, they basically don't look like coherent, paleoconservative populists or anything like that.
They're disaffected Obama to Trump or Biden-to-Trump voters whose politics are largely unsettled.
They're all over the map and they're likely to believe all sorts of different things.
Now, your poll in particular starts with the question of how the GOP is going to look once President Trump is out of office.
Why was it important to examine that?
unidentified
Yeah, we were very curious because Trump has obviously brought together disparate strands of not just right-of-center Americans, but Americans of all types.
Ronald Reagan built an ideological coalition that brought in Reagan Democrats who saw something attractive in American conservatism.
President Trump has built a coalition with different people.
There was a theory of the case about what the Republican Party might need to do with itself in 2012 after sustaining a brutal loss with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to Obama and Biden.
And they went back to the drawing board and they did this big study internally about what they needed to do to be more quote-unquote normal.
But in reality, Donald Trump had maybe a better sense of what normal actually looked like in America in that day and age.
Maybe he was learning it from going on Howard Stern or WWE wrestling, but it was a clearer picture.
And this is where things actually get a little bit hairy with our study.
So it's not like these new entrants are just more moderate members of the Republican Party.
No, these are some of the ugliest ideas that are coming from the right right now are largely concentrated among these new entrants.
So it's not paired with an ideological conservatism.
New entrants are far more likely to believe conspiracy theories, to say political violence is sometimes justified.
And yet those same voters are the ones who are often more liberal on taxes or DEI or social issues than the old GOP base.
So the takeaway here is really a bit counterintuitive, but important.
The most conspiratorial or quote-unquote bigoted voices on the right are not leading a disciplined ideological insurgency.
They're importing chaos into the coalition without bringing a conservative governing agenda with them.
Yes, I'm looking at this Newsweek article that millennial Republicans are more likely to identify as racist than boomers, and that's according to your own poll.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
It says a total of 34% of Republican survey respondents between the ages of 30 and 49 answered, I am such a person, when asked for their views on individuals who openly express racist views.
Only 3% of Republican survey respondents over the age of 65 answered, I am such a person.
A total of 23% of Republican survey respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 and 6% between the ages of 50 and 64 also answered, I am such a person, you know, in response to this question about individuals who openly express racist views.
unidentified
Yeah, so we obviously have to be careful when we go into the crosstabs and try to extrapolate big ideas out, but I think it is entirely fair to say that a through line across this entire survey is that young people do not look at the term racist and think about it with the same horror that it means for older generations of Americans.
Part of that we may be able to chalk up to the fact that, well, a lot of figures for young people, a lot of figures that have been associated with the American right have been called racist by sort of the mainstream media for a very long time.
These are charges they heard about John McCain, about Mitt Romney, about Donald Trump, about political commentators like Ben Shapiro and figures like Tucker Carlson long before they ever left the prime time slot on Fox News.
So for a lot of young people, when they hear about new figures who are highly controversial, like a young man by the name of Nick Fuentes, who has been saying some pretty egregious things and has caught a lot of popularity, perhaps as a result of some of the egregious things he's said, when an older generation or more legacy media institutions come down and suggest to them you can't listen to that figure because he or she is racist, well,
they heard the same thing about many other conservatives from the past, so it doesn't pack quite the same punch that it did perhaps a decade ago.
Your poll also found some interesting breakdowns in those crosstabs that you mentioned.
When it comes to views on gender, the current GOP overwhelmingly, 69% to 24%, believes that American society is, quote, too feminine and that more masculine thinking is needed.
Men are the most likely to hold this view, 78%, compared to 17% who don't.
But women also agree by a substantial margin, 58% to 31%.
Support is especially high among black Republicans, 77% to 19%, and Hispanic Republicans, 75% to 21%.
What do you think is behind those numbers?
unidentified
Well, a big trend throughout this poll was we saw that black and Hispanic Republicans, who are largely comprised mostly of new entrants to the GOP, did consistently hold some of these more culturally conservative views, but not so much on economic policy questions.
But I think actually one of the most interesting things happening in our politics right now is to see how Democrats are intuiting that reality about our politics, that there is clearly an appetite for some kind of greater masculine intonation with respect to their own party.
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, is now, by pretty much all metrics, whether it's polls or betting markets, whatever you want to take your pick, is the frontrunner for the 2028 Democratic nomination.
And he's gotten there at this point by adopting very much a macho posture with respect to political and policy issues.
Now, Newsom's governing record is not sterling coming from the Golden State, but who's to say that really matters?
He's adopting the right rhetoric and the right tone right now.
So if we're looking at this from a VIBE standpoint, that is sort of common terminology in politics today for is he hitting the right tone on communication?
Does he stand a shot at winning back some of those new entrants to the GOP?
Can you describe your methodology for this report?
How many Republicans did you speak to?
How did you choose them?
And what's the overall makeup of the outcome?
unidentified
Absolutely.
So in late October, I believe the 15th through the 26th, we at the Manhattan Institute surveyed four separate national audiences, one consisting of just under 1,500 Republicans and or 2024 Trump voters, 300 or so black Republicans, and 501 or so, I think, Hispanic Republicans and or 2024 Trump voters.
But this is where it got a little bit different for us relative to a lot of polls you see of Republicans or of Trump voters.
We said and or, okay?
We were looking at, when we refer to this report throughout this report as the current GOP, we are talking about the coalition that Donald Trump brought together for president in 2024.
That also included Republicans, though, who maybe didn't vote for Trump in 2024.
So we were looking the whole of what could be considered the GOP coalition.
Why did we do those significant oversamples of black and Hispanic Republicans and or Trump voters?
Well, we did it because oftentimes when you're looking at big surveys like this, it's good to be able to take an even closer snapshot of audiences that you really care about, that you want to extrapolate, takeaways about what it is that these subgroups think.
We don't overweight them in the sense that, well, we just had a disproportionate number of black and Hispanic voters relative to this larger pool.
We took a bigger chunk of them because we wanted to make sure that our data was really, really good and rich and accurate about them.
So we obviously do waiting on the back end to make sure that the Trump coalition is reflective of how it actually came out to vote in 2024.
But yeah, this was a poll of not just Republicans, not just Trump voters, but the entirety of what could be considered today's GOP coalition.
I want to read a little bit more from your report on that coalition in particular.
The findings point to a coalition that is divided into two broad segments.
The majority segment, long-standing Republicans who have backed the party for many years, are consistently conservative on economic, foreign policy, and social issues.
But a sizable minority, new entrants to the GOP coalition over the past two presidential cycles, look markedly different.
And you've talked a bit already about how different these groups are, but I wonder how that shapes the actual political power of the Republican Party and what it means for future elections, particularly the midterms coming up.
unidentified
Yeah, I think the political lesson is fairly straightforward.
Online intensity is not the exact same thing as electoral reality.
You've got influencers on the web who are very obviously rewarded for garnering attention, whereas politicians are rewarded for coalition building.
Republicans make a serious mistake when they confuse anonymous X accounts with median voters who show up in, like you said, midterm elections or 2028 presidential primary elections.
The future of this party, the Republican Party, is not going to be defined by the loudest and strangest corner of the internet, but by whether leaders who can defend clear lines, order over chaos.
This is a consistent theme that we saw show up in our survey.
Prosperity over grievance.
These are things that Republican voters still want very clearly, whether or not it shows up when you're scrolling through Twitter.
But expanding the coalition the way that successful presidents always have in order to do that, Trump did it very clearly once by changing the electoral map, winning in places that it was deemed a Republican perhaps no longer could.
The next Republican leader is going to have to do that again, not by necessarily indulging the fringe, although that is, I suppose, one theory of the case of how to get there, but I think by remembering actually who shows up and participates in these elections to vote, that's going to be the better path.
And yeah, the next leader of this party is going to have to be a creative political entrepreneur who charts their own path and breaks from the Trump coalition because obviously there's something singular about Donald Trump as a political figure.
He has a personality that attracts a lot of people into the party, despite the fact that these people are of very diverse ideological persuasions.
But even the most recent Trump coalition itself seems to be fracturing a bit.
I'm looking at particularly at the example of Republican Marjorie Taylor Green.
She was on 60 Minutes last weekend talking about divisions in the party related to President Trump, especially interesting given her recent fallout with the president.
I think that there's an issue with that video, but basically she was talking about the fact that making the distinction between the Make America Great Again movement and the America First movement, Leslie Stahl, was asking about how other Republicans feel about her speaking out in this way and the threats that she's received.
What do you think?
Is there really a split even in the Trump coalition itself?
unidentified
No, I don't think there is one really inherently inflected with ideology.
I think that what you're seeing Marjorie Taylor Greene do is exactly what I'm describing from the findings in this survey and what we've sort of been talking about over the course of this conversation.
Green is someone who is motivated.
She is leaving Congress no longer by winning votes.
She views her future as with this hyper-online audience where outrage sells and conspiracy sells.
President Trump is focused on winning the midterms and creating a lasting political legacy to ensure that the Republican Party stays positively changed in the ways that he introduced policy innovation.
So this question of whether or not Marjorie Tagler Greene represents some massive block of burgeoning young voters, I think if she really did, she'd be staying in American politics, not rushing to go to the outside, where influencers are motivated by voices that come from far outside the American right.
And oftentimes, as we're now beginning to learn, far outside America to generate their clicks, which in turn generate their income.
So, Patrick, just because there is some polling there that in Jesse's study at the Manhattan Institute, the study did look at foreign policy.
I'm looking here in particular.
You asked people which of these statements is closer to your view, asking about whether or not a country is an important and effective ally of the United States.
And 55% of Republicans said that Israel is an ally, but not somebody like, not as much for Qatar or China.
Can you talk a little bit about what the Republican voters you polled did have to say about foreign policy?
unidentified
I'd be happy to do that, but we should also be kind of honest about what that question actually was.
I think it provided a glimpse into this conspiratorial impulse that was part of the GOP coalition with President Trump's election in 2024.
But I'd be very curious to ask that caller who he voted for over the last couple of election cycles.
Is this someone who is easy to pin down in either political coalition?
It sounds like not.
This is someone who thinks derisively about conservative values.
Describe my conservative values as such as something that is sort of incoherent and inconsistent.
On the one hand, he describes a desire for balanced budgets and fiscal conservatism, right?
I think that is probably part of how you channel populist intensity in the right direction.
That was part of the success of the Tea Party movement within the Republican Party.
It showed an ideological, consistent place to channel populist energy.
Doge, which the caller also referenced when talking about waste, fraud, and abuse, was also an example of that kind of positive populist energy being channeled in the right direction.
If you look south of the United States to Argentina, where Javier Millay has sort of made right-of-center governance cool again in South America, that's another example where getting your fiscal house in order can actually be something that excites and animates a populist base.
But in the absence of that, you're going to have callers frustrated, like the one who we just had, and That guy probably is a voter, and I doubt he's a consistent one for either party.
Let's go to Alexander in Brooklyn, New York, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Alexander.
unidentified
Morning.
Happy holidays.
Thank you for taking my call.
Yeah, I mean, this is what the Republican Party is.
I mean, I think you've described it.
It's dangerous.
You know, Margie Taylor Greene is actually being smart because she has built the platform within the theatrics of government, and now she's going to go out and she's going to be an influencer like Laura Loomer.
And she's going to make a lot of money.
And that's what politics has become.
It's become about clickbait for politicians to have podcasts.
And there is no difference between the theatrics happening in the world of conspiracies on the right and what's happening in the politics that they are pushing.
What I will say is this, and I wish I had more time.
What your data will never show, and what you can't even understand as far as a Hispanic, a citizen of this country and Hispanic, is what I consider the hollow people in this country.
There are millions of us, and I have friends in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida.
We are Hispanics.
Some are first generation, second generation, a lot of family in the military.
People do no longer believe in this country.
And they are living here because their kids are here, their family is here.
But a lot of people want to leave this country or no longer believe in this country precisely because of the racism, the open racism, the hatred, and quite frankly, the destruction of the government in this country.
And it's not because of only the people within the government, but it's because so many people in this country accept what is happening.
And they see nothing wrong in saying Trump should have a third term.
People are garbage.
They're venom.
And this is the Conservative Party, and this is the Republican Party.
And they are the single biggest threat, as you just said, even in Argentina, in Poland, and all over the world.
Steve is in Tampa, Florida, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Steve.
unidentified
Yes, I have a question for Jesse.
Does he believe in the proverb that I believe in, which is an Amish proverb that says, when you're looking for something, you find what you want to see?
I think that's one of the big problems in the U.S. right now, is that the media is biased.
It doesn't matter which media you talk to, you will go to the media that says what you want to hear.
And that's causing influence of all the voters.
The younger people go to social media.
The older people go to the conservative or the legacy media.
You watch what you want to hear, and that just reinforces your opinion instead of searching for the truth.
I actually think that social media metastasizes that problem and makes it vastly worse.
These algorithms will reward confirmation bias to an even greater extent than just a general right-of-center disposition on Fox and Newsmax and a general left-of-center disposition on CNN and MSNBC.
It's a much bigger problem than that now because when you're Gen Z, right, and you're getting your news primarily through TikTok, as many of these folks are, you're being rewarded down to an even more micro level.
You're just seeing the things that really are a niche influencer within a niche influencer who's just confirming the things you believe at an even more tailor-made level to you.
But at the same time, you also want to see the things that make you angry.
And that is a big chunk of what both left-of-center cable news outlets do and right-of-center cable news outlets do.
They show you the things that are going to stoke outrage and keep you mad at the other side.
And especially with a platform like TikTok, which has ties to foreign governments that sort of are incentivized to sew disorder within our own country, that is a really big problem because with a micro, micro, micro-niche audience that really is only tailored to your interests, well, and an economy that is motivated by outrage, they are going to keep you mad at just about everybody.
Brenda is in Princeton, West Virginia on our line for independence.
Good morning, Brenda.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm glad you're taking my call.
I would like for the guests to comment on the fact that I have always felt that I was a moderate Republican when I was younger.
I'm 68 years old.
And I have had to change over to independent.
And I don't have any, I don't really don't have anyone to vote for.
And would the guests comment on whether or not they'll be moderate Republicans or moderate Democrats in the future for people like me to vote for?
I think that's a great question.
The problem is moderate means different things to different people.
In many ways, Donald Trump was a massive moderating force on the Republican Party.
The issue positions that the party has taken on abortion in 2024 with rewriting language in the party platform, I don't think would have been possible with a different leader of the GOP.
On all sorts of economic policy questions, Trump has been a moderating force with respect to what his party is willing to say relative to the days of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.
But on the other hand, there is a whole nother set of voters out there in this country that just view the intense posture that President Trump takes with respect to rhetoric and disposition or vibe and says, I don't like the tension.
I don't like how much things have been ratcheted up in the last few years.
When I say I want moderate, I want to go back to Mitt Romney because he was a nicer fellow who was less hotly contesting everything that the media threw at him all of the time.
He was more of a gentleman, so to speak.
So moderate means different things to different people.
That is something that we learned from this survey.
It's the more moderate question, sorry, the more moderate members of the new coalition, that is the GOP, who are importing a lot of very radical ideas about conspiracies in America, as well as some of this racism, anti-Semitism, and a disposition toward political violence, even.
So, moderate means different things to different people.
Calvin, you'll need to turn down the volume on your TV, and then you can go ahead with your question for Jesse Autumn of the Manhattan Institute.
unidentified
All righty.
Good morning.
My question to Jesse would be: how would you screen out the new GOP Republican Coalition of Racism Tensions?
Because what I see now, we have a racist president who's actually showing it.
Now, how would you screen that out and what would be your process?
Well, we didn't screen it out.
I mean, we looked for it.
We asked about it.
We probed for it.
And we tried to understand to what extent there are people who harbor these kinds of ideas within the Republican coalition.
We were also curious about, we also polled a larger number of the electorate, right, to understand at a representative level, what does the total of America think relative to the current GOP coalition?
And with that came a slice of Democrats that we got a picture of as well.
And honestly, at least on the anti-Jewish Republican point, I think we found that anti-Semitic beliefs were sort of harbored by something like 17% of members of this new GOP coalition, as well as 20% of Democrats surveyed.
So this is a problem with respect to this bigotry we're talking about in both political parties.
Calvin, I need you to turn down the volume on your TV again.
And I just want to read from the poll here about exactly how you asked that question, Jesse, and how folks answered.
This was regarding individuals who openly expressed the following, what comes closer to your view regarding their role in your party and political movement.
And you asked about both racist views as well as anti-Semitic views.
And, you know, more folks in general said that they aren't welcome and don't represent what I stand for.
But 15% in the current GOP said that I am such a person when it came to racist views.
12% said that they held these anti-Semitic views.
You also gave people the option to say, I've had enough of cancel culture.
This should not count against them.
Can you expand a little bit more on how you ask these questions and what you think of these responses?
unidentified
Yeah, so I don't have the full text of the survey in front of me, but I think that question was also posed as, are these people okay to be in the party?
We can try to get their votes if it's useful, but they should not be in positions of power or leadership.
unidentified
Yeah, so one of those answers was sort of geared toward the pragmatists' view, right?
In the sense that's like, I don't believe my party leadership is bigoted inherently, but if bigots want to vote for us, have at it, versus another response option that was more to the effect of a purist approach, right?
I don't want any bigots within my political coalition.
None of these questions are supposed to be probing to the point where they paint us an exactly accurate picture of how things stand.
And we'll do future survey work, I believe, in the next couple of months, early in the new year, probing the Democratic Party's coalition and how it feels about some of these things as well.
But no, we designed these questions this way, and we asked about these sort of often taboo topics in this survey because we did want to understand how people feel about this stuff.
There's an entire other battery within the survey where we just ask about different groups in the United States, Jews, blacks, immigrants from India and other places, because we really wanted to tap into and get a clear sense of how members of this coalition and the electorate writ large feel about different groups in American society, their ability to assimilate,
and whether or not they do harbor any kind of xenophobia or other sorts of hostile feelings toward any given group in American life.
And I think we got an illuminating picture that it is a small minority, but it is one that is paid a whole lot of attention to by both the media and by figures on this sort of online dissident right that are looking to whip up outrage for all sorts of reasons, including ones that benefit their own bottom line.
Akiva is in Clifton, New Jersey on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Akiva.
unidentified
Good morning, Kimberly.
Good morning, Mr. Arms.
Maya, I only have three questions for you.
Only three first question of three is: you know, Trump really, I believe, got there, not the presidency, because swing voters in wealthy suburban counties such as Oakland County, Michigan, or on Government County.
That's my home county.
So I love to hear about Oakland County, Michigan.
Sorry to cut you off.
That's actually, Mr. Arm first question is: do you have any information on whether Trump is popular in Trump is popular among suburban voters in either of those states, Pennsylvania or Michigan, because they want to do great in the midterms next year in Michigan or Pennsylvania or both.
Second of three questions is: you know, after 1986.
Can you make sure you're speaking directly into your phone?
unidentified
I will.
Okay.
Second of three questions is: you know, after 1986, you saw the Republican coalition divide.
You saw Bush, who sees the air because he was the sitting VP, have to clash with Pat Robertson, a non-elected official, and the Senate minority leader, Robert Dole of Kansas.
I read a lot of history.
Do you think that the coalition is sustainable beyond 2027, which is when Trump becomes a lame duck in third?
Do you believe that Trump can expand, excuse me, not just Trump, but also the Republican Party can expand to lean blue states in 2026, next year's midterms in states like Minnesota or New Hampshire?
Sure.
Trump didn't win, but he got extremely close, like less than.
So this was about Trump's popularity in the suburbs, particularly in Michigan and Pennsylvania, the GOP coalition, particularly leftover from the 80s, and could it be sustainable beyond 2027, and also whether the GOP can expand to lean blue states.
unidentified
Okay, a lot of ground to cover there, but I'll try to do it rapid fire.
To the question, the first question about President Trump's popularity, I think it's often needs to be accompanied by the fact of relative to what.
So in 2024, in the presidential election, President Trump won because in those suburban counties that the caller was describing, he was more popular than Kamala Harris.
There was a lot of disorder with respect to the country at large, but also with specific respect to what was going on at the top of the Democratic ticket.
Kamala Harris had kind of been shoot in at the last second and was presented as this inevitability almost.
And there was a lot of distrust there.
There was a lot of lack of confidence about whether this was the right person for the job, whether she could do the job.
And there was a feeling that the country was kind of coming apart at the seams with the current people that were left with the keys to the castle.
And with President Trump, a lot of people thought about his record from 2017 to 2019 prior to the pandemic and thought back to themselves: okay, maybe I'd like to go back to that period in time where, yes, it felt chaotic back then, but it's feeling stable in retrospect after this giant pandemic, after the BLM riots of the summer of 2020, and after a whole lot of chaos with respect to who's really running the country.
So I think that was what helped catapult President Trump back into the presidency.
With respect to the GOP coalition from the 80s, I think I was talking about this a little bit earlier, but that was very much an ideological coalition.
President Reagan made the case for an old school, kind of free market-oriented, anti-communist conservatism, and it really sold with respect to what Americans were looking for at that time.
He won his first election, and then he won an unprecedented something like 49 states in the re-elect.
So, obviously, the days of those kinds of broad, ideologically unified and cohesive coalitions are much more difficult to maintain and manage with how civility has kind of degraded in our politics.
There's just a lot more Americans who are completely not open to ever voting for the other party.
There are no longer there's less ideological diversity in both parties, too.
In that era, you still had liberal Republicans in the Northeast and conservative Democrats throughout the South.
So, because both parties have sort of narrowed in on ideological conservatism, became the unifying force behind the Republican Party and progressivism as a response, the one in the Democratic Party.
I think you're going to see, yeah, less likelihood of sweeping GOP victories in blue states anytime soon.
The last question, I believe, was about Republicans and their ability to win in blue states.
I think I kind of went to blue states like Minnesota.
unidentified
Yeah, so the 2026 midterms are going to be really, really tough.
I think the Republicans are mostly on defense.
I think they are trying to maintain the Senate.
I think they're quite pessimistic about the House, if we're being completely honest, because of the fundamentals of our politics.
It is a swinging pendulum.
It is really hard when you win a sweeping victory, like Republicans did in 2024, control in Congress and a considerable victory to secure the White House in every swing state.
Really hard to come back from that, short of having massive victories across the board on every level and win in the midterms.
In many ways, 2022 was sort of an aberration where Democrats managed to keep the Senate.
And I think they were able to do that partially because the GOP was in a hot spot with a presidential primary that was heating up unusually early, January 6th, still in the sort of recent rearview mirror, as well as the pandemic, as well as the BLM riots for a lot of Republicans.
And yeah, there was sort of a split within the Republican Party.
It was: do we want President Trump again or do we want to try our hand with a Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley or somebody like that?
So that was a period in which the GOP really was gearing up for a hotly contested intra-party fight.
And ultimately, the Democrats were able to benefit from that.
But that was the exception to the rule.
I think it's going to be really hard for Republicans to win in blue states in 2026.
Thank you so much to Jesse Arm, Vice President of External Affairs at the Manhattan Institute with their new survey looking at Republican voters and the future of the Republican Party.
Later on our program, we're going to be joined by Dan Glickman of the Bipartisan Policy Center, where he's a senior fellow.
And Dan Glickman is a former agriculture secretary, and he's going to discuss issues affecting U.S. farmers, including tariffs, as well as the president's farm assistance policies.
But up next, we're going to take more of your calls and comments on political news of the day in open forum.
Our numbers are on your screen.
You can start calling in Republicans at 202-748-8001, Democrats at 202-748-8000.
Most of the names are familiar to those who follow politics and government.
Hunter Biden, Rudolph Giuliani, Tony Podesta, Paul Manafort, and many others.
Kenneth Vogel has written a book about these figures.
It's called Devil's Advocates, The Hidden Story of Rudy Giuliani, Hunter Biden, and Washington Insiders on the Payrolls of Corrupt Foreign Interests.
In the publisher Mauro's liner notes on the book, they write, the foreign influence business comprised of shadowy operators who quietly shape U.S. foreign policy while producing massive paydays for themselves has existed for decades, often unnoticed by Americans.
Ken Vogel is a reporter for the New York Times, previously was with Politico.
unidentified
Author Kenneth Vogel with his book, Devil's Advocates, The Hidden Story of Rudy Giuliani, Hunter Biden, and the Washington Insiders on the payroll of corrupt foreign interests.
On this episode of BookNotes Plus, with our host, Brian Lamb.
BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
And it is as unbiased as you can get.
You are so fair.
I don't know how anybody can say otherwise.
You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country.
I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices.
You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds.
I absolutely love C-SPAN.
I love to hear both sides.
I've watched C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased.
And you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments.
It's probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country.
You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions.
But first, quick updates on the two shootings that we've been following this morning: one in Australia, as well as the one in Rhode Island at Brown University.
Here's the latest on that shooting, in particular from the Providence Journal, Brown University Mass Shooting Live Updates.
There's a person of interest in custody reporting here at the Providence Journal.
The Providence Police Department has confirmed that a person of interest in connection with the mass shooting at Brown University on December 13th is in police custody.
The shooting, which happened around 4 p.m., left at least two students dead and nine other students injured.
Law enforcement worked well into the night to clear and evacuate Brown University buildings and bring students to the established reunification center.
Now, yesterday, President Trump spoke to reporters briefly to address the shooting on Brown University's campus.
And unfortunately, the other shooting that we're following this morning is in Australia.
Here's coverage from the New York Times: what we know about the shooting at Bondi Beach.
Two gunmen opened fire at dozens of people who were at a Jewish holiday event.
At least 11 people were killed in the attack, and so was one of the shooters, police said.
Now, back to open forum with your comments on public policy issues of the day.
We're going to start with Al in Detroit, Michigan, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Al.
unidentified
Hi, good morning.
I think that as far as social media is concerned, that we really don't have to listen or look at any of the media outlets.
All we have to do is listen to the president.
Let's listen to what he's saying and what he's talking about.
If that's what you like, with these degrading every race and insulting people with our warships over in a foreign land, the same thing Putin did because of drugs and blowing and killing up, killing people that, you know, they don't even have the means to reach us.
Not one America has died in his so-called war.
I think that all the think tanks, the person that was just on, he's just a member of the think tank, which is an extension of MAGA.
They all have that same opinion.
And I call myself a moderate Democrat, but I have to admit the Republicans are much better right now.
They're better spend doctors.
They're better liars.
They're beating us in every stage of the game.
I'm not all the way left.
I don't believe in the extreme left of my party.
And I just hope that America, we don't have to listen to any of the news outlets.
Let's just listen and look at what's going on in our country.
I'm African American and I'm a veteran, and I'm also a civil servant.
And I think that no one has shown their love for this country, you know, better than the African American who served in the armed forces under conditions no one else has to face.
So I would just encourage America just to, you know, it's not your lion eyes.
Listen to what is going on and vote appropriately if our vote is going to matter.
I grew up, I was in high school in the middle 60s.
And at the time, we had a president running for president, a Democrat.
And the greatest bifurcation of our political system occurred during that time when John Kennedy, he asked, you asked the country, don't ask what your country can do for you.
Ask what you can do for your country.
Then he turned around, needing to get votes in Texas and brought in Lyndon Johnson as his vice president.
And that became the greatest bifurcation of our political system at the time.
He took it to the different direction, the great society, and we've never been the same since.
Dee is in Flint, Michigan on our line for independence.
Good morning, Dee.
unidentified
Yes.
I wanted to address the mail-in voting issue.
It seems that the president and others want in-person voting during elections, yet they do not consider that service members that are serving overseas cannot fly into home country and vote.
We had, as a veteran, we had billing voting, and that's what mail-in voting is when you're out of the country serving in the United States military.
Godfrey is in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Godfrey.
unidentified
Good morning.
What I'd like to point out, which has been my issue, first off, I served in the military during the Vietnam conflict, and I was in training with the Army when President Kennedy was shot.
And what I found was that at the point where Johnson was elected, and at that time, no one, in other words, the future is going to be determined by who wins the economic domination of the world politics.
And they neglect the most impactful policy decision that Trump has made, and that is the one of energy policy.
And the Chinese seem to be leading us in the right direction.
And anyone who suspects that climate change won't be an impactful issue in the future is really blind, scientifically blind.
The atmospheric river that's affecting Washington State and other areas of the globe now is going to be the most impactful issue of the future.
And if the idea that my grandchild might be digging coal in a coal mine in the future is really a turnoff.
Trump has it all wrong.
Definitely, we have to upgrade to sustainable energy resources.
And I'd lastly like to point out that every dollar that's spent in this country or worldwide is a portion of every dollar that's devoted to energy.
So that's going to be the issue of the future.
And it's an existential issue for the planet that we correct our position on sustainable energy.
If we don't, the consequences are going to be horrific.
JL is in Moab, Utah, on our line for your independence.
Good morning, JL.
unidentified
Good morning, Kimberly.
Good morning, America.
Happy holidays to all.
I tried to call during the lack of trust in our federal government.
And for me, it's summed up pretty good in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
If Congress would do what it says in the Constitution, it only has a limited amount of power, and it should be really good at these things.
But it doesn't.
It's abdicated all of its power to the executive branch for whatever reason.
But I would have a lot more trust in my federal government if they would do the powers listed in Article 1, Section 8.
Some of those are borrow money and regulate commerce and establish post offices and secure the borders.
Real basic things.
It also says in there that any of these powers, not specifically given to the federal government, belong to the states or the people at large.
And I would have a lot more trust, and I guess this message I want to get to Senator Lee, Senator Curtis, and my representative Mike Kennedy, that being a presidential puppet is not representing me.
I would appreciate my representatives to have their own ideas and their own agenda and do their job, make the laws so we don't have to count on these executive orders that will go away as soon as the next president comes in.
So the Constitution is what makes this country special and great.
I would ask my federal government and the representatives there to adhere to it, at least show me that they're willing to live by that law.
They haven't had a budget for 12 Clinton.
That's one of the powers that they have.
They're supposed to get a budget and report to the people of what they're spending, of where the money's coming from, and where it's going.
But they haven't done that.
The Defense Department is supposed to be audited every so often.
They tried to do it a few years ago, and it was too big a deal.
You know, if you shoot somebody and it's televised and they know that you did it, I don't understand why there shouldn't even be a hearing.
I mean, it's televised.
That gentleman in New York got shot.
The shooting and stuff is all about money.
Everything is about money.
A large courtroom drama and everything.
It's almost like the world has turned into a soap opera.
Well, I'm going to close now, and I hope all of you have a happy holiday.
But I'd like to hear some input from other people on what they think about the justice system and the fact, like that gentleman says, that Congress don't do anything.
Otis is in Detroit, Michigan on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Otis.
unidentified
Yes, how are you doing?
My name is Otis.
I'm from Southwest Detroit, an area we're trying to get retagged as African Town 48217 after our zip code.
I am also a Vietnam slash Vietnam here veteran.
And I bring that up based on what the last host, I mean, the last guest you had.
One thing Trump has said when he was in Pennsylvania recently was about the different countries that he don't think that's acceptable coming to the United States.
And I'm not going to use the foul language that he has used about those countries.
But as your last guest, he did not ever mention, seemed to be about what do you think about white Europeans coming to America.
Your last guest spoke of all the countries of color, people of color, but he never mentioned or say white European countries, but do his survey says about them.
So like here in African town 48217, it's southwest Detroit, where we're trying to get located on our city and state maps, just like court town.
It's always that there's no emphasis on the white community when you're doing these surveys.
We have us assume that majority of the people that he's talking to are white, but it's never actually mentioned.
First off, I'd like to tell the last gentleman that President Trump has not gotten one single dime from this country.
unidentified
And people need to know the money that's coming in, the trillions that he talks about, this investment into our country, that money is not here yet.
It's not cash.
They're not giving him cash.
It is to build new businesses here.
The countries are going to come and use that money that they're talking about to make more businesses here so they don't have to pay tariffs.
Isn't that great?
And so anyway, I wanted to say that Maduro is not the leader of Venezuela.
He is the head of the narco-terrorist cartel there, and he is also a dictator who was never elected.
Mercado was elected.
I believe right now she's out of the country over in Norway, hiding from this crazy man.
And Trump wants to get him, bring him back here, and put him on trial for what he has done to our children and one of my own family.
And I would also like to say about Maduro and what's going on there and how Trump's going to Colombia, so he says, and Mexico and other places.
He's getting rid of the drugs and the drug cartels, but he is also trying to save South America from being taken over by China.
China is coming in there and making all sorts of deals to have ports in all of these countries around the edges, and he's taking over things, and Trump is trying to stop them.
And as far as evidence goes, and y'all want to see evidence, he has people there, CIA, intelligence, army intelligence, whatever other kind of intelligence they need, that is looking at everything and telling them what is happening with these boats and who are on these boats.
He can't come out and say that to y'all.
He can't come right out and, well, as a matter of fact, the news did come out and say the CIA was there.
I always like to say I agree with all of the caller set for the North Carolina.
The president is getting paid through taxes from taxpayers.
Not only that they invading Venezuela, but they're doing it for men's rights.
So is Putin with this pipeline.
And we just had a few soldiers died, National Guard over in Syria.
We had two veterans last month and this month died trained in Ukraine over there, but he can put a red carpet down.
I have a bone to pick with the veteran administration, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
I have a bone to pick with meat on it.
I've been fighting the VA since 1985.
And thanks God for Senator Shelby and a few Democrats who established the United States Court of Veterans Appeals claim for veterans because the board was the only one can make that decision.
I want to follow up on the issue you raised about the soldiers in Syria, just to give folks an update on that news.
Here's a story from Reuters that two U.S. soldiers and an interpreter were killed and suspected in the Islamic State attack in Syria.
Again, this is reporting from Reuters as well as elsewhere.
The two U.S. Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed in Syria on Saturday by a suspected Islamic State attacker who targeted a convoy of American and Syrian forces before being shot dead, the U.S. military said.
The attack was barely a month after Syria announced it had signed a political cooperation agreement with the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, which coincided with Syrian President Ahmad Al-Shara's visit to the White House.
Now, yesterday, President Trump expressed his condolences for the American service members that were killed in that apparent ambush by ISIS in Syria.
Here are his remarks when he left the White House.
Next up is Max in Valdosta, Georgia on our line for independence.
Good morning, Max.
unidentified
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call and hope you have a good day today.
I just want to say two quick points.
Number one, we keep arguing with each other about the federal government and what the federal government should be doing.
Let's look at the Constitution.
I think the federal government has become way too big.
These problems that it's facing could be much better accomplished by the states.
And if a state is doing something you don't like, you can easily petition that state government or move to another state.
The federal government really only has a small amount of responsibilities.
It's outlined in the Constitution.
Most other responsibilities can be given to state and local governments.
I think that might solve a lot of problems in this country.
That way, if we have a problem with the state government, like I said, you can go to it.
You have a much easier access to petition your state representative than federal representatives.
That was my first point.
Let's get back to a smaller federal government.
And number two, my second point: it's Christmas.
I just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.
And as you are going around your towns and neighborhoods this Christmas time and celebrating, it's easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle, but just remember that we celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, and that is the real meaning of Christmas.
And I want everyone to just remember that and not get stressed out at this holiday time.
Chris is in Roxboro, North Carolina, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Chris.
unidentified
Good morning.
I've got to was listening earlier some comments about media and its effects and the extremities of them.
It's an extreme, either left, extreme right, and he got 24 hours of news.
Ronald Reagan changed the law or did away with the law where it had to be equal time for each one that you had on talking and any news compensation connotations.
And it had to be balanced or equal to let the people see and it had to be fact-based.
And I think that that law needs to be reinstated to where people, instead of 24 hours and even comedians, or so-called comedians, you know, getting so involved in everything being political and extreme one way or the other.
We need moderation in the country and people get along.
And I think if it was straight down the middle, like it needs to be, people would be a lot happier and less extreme.
And that's what's a big problem for the country.
And the other thing is the judicial, if it's fact-based and if the Biden's Biden's laptop, if all of that stuff is true that you see her on one extreme or the other extreme that it's not, then your judicial system should be getting the facts and prosecuting people.
If not above the law, then they need to not be above the law and be treated equally across this whole land, no matter what position you're in.
You can't say it and keep double standards.
Congress has its own health care that's different than everybody else.
Things like that.
They need to be Americans too.
If they want to act like Americans, they got to be Americans and treat everyone equally and do everything off of facts, not hearsay and conjecture and pumping people up to do things that they normally wouldn't think and do.
Next up is Al in Griffith, Indiana on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Al.
unidentified
Good morning.
The guest, I'd like to try and lay out kind of like a map that you might compare your study to or examine with it.
The trajectory of the Republican Party, it seems to me, is based largely, if we go back to recent history, Nixon era, when he virtually went unpunished for his wrongdoing as the elite white male in the Republican Party, which is mostly the Republican Party powerful.
He went totally almost exonerated.
Then you had white privilege extended to Ronald Reagan through Iran-Contra, and he was not punished for that.
Then white privilege extended to W, who led us into the Iraq war, and none of them were really punished for that.
And now we have stage four Trump.
We've had this metastasized, this white male privilege, which is essentially the ethos of the Republican governing party.
And I think that the changing demographics has the Republican Party in a panic.
That is what is motivating all of this racist stuff.
You know, going all the way back to the Tea Party, the Tea Party was a racist organization that was developed under the guise of taxes, but in actuality, it was a weapon against ever electing a person of color again in the presidency.
How that relates to the people, young people today in the Republican conservative movement, I'm not quite sure how I get it, but I think the appeal mainly is, once again, is to return for the Republican Party.
It's no mistake that apartheid buddies, billionaires from South Africa, are involved in the Republican Party now.
I think they're on a mission.
This Project 2025 is on a mission to reestablish apartheid and the Civil War-era Red Confederate states.
And how does that compare with what your study looked at?
So our guest is actually gone, but we hear your point.
Let's go to Eric in Tucson, Arizona, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Eric.
unidentified
Morning.
I'm a retired Air Force veteran of 24 years, been around the world and back and back and back again.
Been in the Vietnam theater, and Trump is a few years older than I am.
And his crowd was probably a couple, three years older, his brothers, cousins, et cetera, et cetera.
But he always lost at these war games.
We had a game called War, a game called Risk, Monopoly.
So in his mind, which is pretty deranged, but that's another conversation.
We're not going to go there on that because everybody right now is ignoring the elephant in the room, which we're talking about mass shootings.
We're talking about, you know, talk, you know, finally checking on the children about getting on the internet with Congress and the powers that be do nothing about the crime in this country, especially the UDs, undesirables.
They all should be caned.
There should be something that Congress needs to look at because, wow, meanwhile, back at Durance, we done went crazy.
Big K, big R, big A, big Z, big Y.
These states should be doing buybacks for weapons.
People got guns hanging around, and a lot of people are tired of shooting their straws.
And then you can get online and get whatever you want, but you're throwing this down on the children like you don't want them to see no porn.
Okay, that's a good idea.
I agree with that.
But once again, here we go.
Here we go.
Nobody wants to attack the gun issues in this country.
Okay, anyway, these tariffs are nothing more than an additional tax on the working man.
The tariffs, that's just more taxes on us.
It's contributing to inflation and everything else.
And Trump tries to take credit for bringing money into the country.
He's just taxing the consumers.
The other point I wanted to bring up is I was wondering if Congress is still planning on taking their Christmas vacation or their Christmas break instead of just they just came off a paid vacation.
And I'm wondering if they wouldn't want to stay in Washington and actually do something this year.
It just doesn't seem right because they were home for all that time being paid and now they turn around and want to go home again.
And consequently, nothing got done.
I just want to invest in discuss it all.
Anyway, thank you for taking my call and God bless everybody.
That's all the time that we have for our open forum today.
Thanks to everybody who called in.
Coming up, we'll be joined by Dan Glickman, Bipartisan Policy Center Senior Fellow and former Agriculture Secretary to discuss issues impacting U.S. farmers, including farm assistance policies and tariffs.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, in his book Presidential Seclusion, The Power of Camp David, Charles Ferguson talks about the history of the U.S. presidential retreat and its recreational and diplomatic uses.
Located in Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland, Camp David has, since 1942, hosted presidents from FDR to Trump, their families, and numerous foreign dignitaries.
FDR didn't want to go all the way up to Hyde Park or down to Warm Springs as often as he had been going because he was asking the American people to ration fuel and everyday items.
And in order to make it cost-effective, they chose a place within a three-hour drive of D.C.
It had to be at an elevation of 1,800 feet because of Roosevelt's asthma.
And then, as you mentioned, the third criteria was somewhere that was safe and secure that no one would stumble across it.
unidentified
Charles Ferguson, with his book, Presidential Seclusion, The Power of Camp David, tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's QA.
You can listen to Q&A and all our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app.
Weekends bring you Book TV, featuring leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
Matthew Davis tells the history of Mount Rushmore, including economic and political forces that influenced the memorial's creation in 1925.
Coverage of the annual Boston Book Festival.
Hear from authors discussing gambling, sports culture, Silicon Valley, and more.
British journalist Piers Morgan argues that there's been a global rejection of wokeism and discusses what he thinks a post-woke world would be like.
Watch Book TV every weekend on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule in your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
We're joined now by Dan Glickman, who's a former agriculture secretary with the Clinton administration and is now a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Can you expand a bit more about your background in agriculture and farming, as well as your service in government?
unidentified
Well, I served in Congress for 18 years as a member of the House Agriculture Committee where I chaired the subcommittee on most farm commodities.
And that was back from like the mid-70s to the early 90s.
Then I became Secretary of Agriculture under President Clinton and served there for about six years as secretary.
And then I've maintained my interest in farm and agriculture issues, both from a production agriculture point as well as from a consumer point.
I'm an adjunct professor of nutrition at Tufts University, so I talk a lot about health nutrition issues and the relationship between that and agriculture.
So I've not been a practicing farmer, but I'm very much interested in the food and agriculture world.
Can you talk a bit about some of the financial challenges that are facing farmers today?
unidentified
Well, most farmers are under serious stress, almost always, because of the vagaries of production agriculture.
You're subject to the whims of the weather, whether it's drought or floods.
You're subject to pests and disease, both animal disease and crop disease.
And you're subject to the whims of the geopolitical world, like we've seen with the tariffs that the president and the administration have imposed, which create unpredictability and instability in the farm and agriculture world.
So farmers are always under stress.
Over the years, the government has provided a lot of assistance to farmers.
Much of it goes to larger farmers, and smaller and mid-sized farmers don't get as much under the programs because of the nature of the scale of agriculture.
But many farmers are doing okay, but many farmers are not doing okay.
And the tariff situation has made matters a lot worse because we export a huge amount of our crops overseas.
We grow way more than we consume domestically.
So because of those exports, if they're interrupted by, let's say, a geopolitical issue or a war or some sort of tariff issues like we've seen with China, it really hurts American agriculture.
The headline is, Desperate Farmers Say the System Is Broken As Bailout Arrives.
U.S. farmers have described a perilous, slow-moving crisis that has threatened their livelihood.
President Donald Trump announced a $12 billion bailout.
But prior to President Donald Trump's announcement of that $12 billion assistance package for farmers, many feared that the economic uncertainty would linger.
Some are worried about losing farms that have been in their family for generations.
Elsewhere in that story, it points out that more than 180 farmers have filed for bankruptcy protection in the first two quarters of 2025, nearly 60% more than this time last year, according to U.S. bankruptcy court filings.
Why is the situation so particularly dire for farmers right now?
unidentified
Well, first of all, let me say that it is particularly dire for smaller and mid-sized farmers who are not diversified in agriculture.
So if you tend to produce one crop, let's say wheat or even corn and soybeans, the risks are just much greater than if you're diversified and produced both raw crops, livestock, and even fresh produce, fresh fruits and vegetables.
And so the smaller and mid-sized farmers are always in a more vulnerable situation than the larger farmers are.
And that has been growing.
This problem has been growing for many, many years because the risks in agriculture are very great indeed, particularly with respect to weather and climate.
But this tariff situation has really pointed out the vagaries that farmers have to deal with when they can't rely on predictable markets to sell their crops overseas.
That affects all farmers, whether they're small or large.
I'm delighted to announce this afternoon that the United States will be taking a small portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars we receive in tariffs.
We are making a lot of money from countries that took advantage of us for years.
They took advantage of us.
Like nobody's ever seen our deficits are way down because of tariffs.
I guess because of the election, because without the election, you wouldn't have tariffs.
You'd be sitting here losing your shirt.
But we're taking in billions.
We're really taking in trillions of dollars if you think about it, Scott, because the real numbers, you know, when you think of all the money being poured into the country for new auto plants and all of the other things, AI.
So what we're doing is we're taking a relatively small portion of that, and we're going to be giving and providing it to the farmers in economic assistance.
And we love our farmers.
And as you know, the farmers like me, because, you know, based on voting trends, you could call it voting trends or anything else, but they're great people.
They're the backbone of our country.
So we're going to use that money to provide $12 billion in economic assistance to American farmers.
This relief will provide much-needed certainty to farmers as they get this year's harvest to market and look ahead to next year's crops, and it'll help them continue their efforts to lower food prices.
I want to read a bit more detail about the outlines of that aid package, which includes $11 billion in one-time payments to crop farmers through a new Department of Agriculture bridge payment program.
And then the remaining funds, that additional billion dollars, will go to other crops not covered by that program.
And as the President just said, that would funding come from U.S. tariff revenues.
Mr. Gluckman, what do you think the impact of this is going to be?
Is this going to be enough to sort of help farmers that are on the brink?
unidentified
Well, first of all, farmers appreciate any help from their government, but let's be honest about it.
The White House created this problem, at least the current problem, by these tariffs, which resulted in the elimination of Chinese purchases of American soybeans and other products.
So they created the problem.
Then they're using this bailout to solve the problem that they created.
And while, again, a lot of farmers are in distress and they can always use these resources.
And farmers were having trouble for even before the president announced this tariff problem.
This is an example of what's happened when farmers get whipsawed by trade policies that take away their export market.
The president says we love our farmers, but if we really loved our farmers, we would not be going down that road of closing our markets overseas.
And so it's a difficult, tedious situation.
You know, the same thing happened in the first Trump administration, where the White House announced a $26 to $28 billion package to help farmers as a result of the economics at that time, in part caused by our trade policies.
So, you know, I think this is fine.
This is nice, I guess.
Some farmers can really use this money.
Some farmers don't need this money.
That's the way a lot of agriculture programs are.
But in the meantime, we've got to understand why this thing happened right now.
I want to switch gears and talk a bit about another issue facing American farmers, which is the issue of immigration and how that's affecting the labor force.
In particular, the ICE raids that have been so prominent.
Can you talk about how that's been affecting farmers?
unidentified
Well, agriculture is a big user of labor.
It's particularly true with respect to produce, fresh produce that's produced, fruits and vegetables, but also true with dairy and also true with other commodities that need farm labor.
And we've never really resolved the issue of how to bring and keep workers into this country because we can't seem to find enough American workers who will do the very difficult work of picking crops and the farm labor situation that exists in our country.
And that's a problem that hasn't been resolved for a very long time, but it's gotten a lot, lot worse.
And so when you can't find that labor, you can't produce the crops.
And American consumers are impacted by that, particularly, as I said, in the fresh produce, fresh fruits, and vegetable world.
And these raids, you know, if you're a, if let's say you're a, you're even here legally under a green card situation, or there's a lot of labor that's not here legally, but these raids create an atmosphere where people don't want to come to work or are scared to death.
And that also reduces production of food for the rest of us in terms of our consumers.
So it's really a double-edged sword.
This immigration problem that particularly affects agriculture because of the nature of how we produce crops in this country.
We need those workers.
We need to find a way to bring and keep those workers here.
And the Trump administration has issued some kind of response to this issue.
Here it is, reporting in stateline from back in November that Trump is allowing more foreign ag workers, easing off the ICE raids on farms, that shift coming as many Americans are concerned about the rising cost of food.
This is in reference to changes to the H-2A visa immigration policy and some of the changes that the administration is making, allowing employers to bring foreign nationals into the U.S. for temporary or seasonal agricultural jobs, which is the nature of the program.
Under a new rule, the Department of Homeland Security will approve H-2A visas more quickly.
420,000 of those visas have been issued every year since 2023.
That's about half of the needed 812,000 agricultural worker jobs.
And these visas are going to be concentrated in states that grow fruits and vegetables.
Almost half of those issued in FY29 were in Florida, Georgia, California, Washington, and North Carolina.
Mr. Gluckman, can you talk a bit more about the changes the Trump administration is suggesting to sort of ease this labor shortage and will it be enough?
unidentified
Well, the proof is in the pudding.
We don't know whether it will be enough.
Do you know that even the program that's announced by this administration does not deal fundamentally with the longer-term problem of getting workers into this country and allowing them the predictability to stay during the growing season and not being throwing been throwing out of the country after a while?
This problem did not start with the Trump administration.
The ag labor issues have been going for a very long time.
But it is harder and harder for fruit and vegetable farmers and dairies too to produce without a predictable supply of labor.
And so while what the administration announced is a start, it is not a long-term solution either.
And we need to use our modern technology and our political efforts to try to get it resolved.
Otherwise, we will have an unpredictable supply of a lot of these farm products for consumers.
We're going to be taking calls for Dan Glickman, former Agriculture Secretary and currently at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Our phone lines for Republicans: 202-748-8001.
For Democrats, 202-748-8000.
And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
And we have a special phone line this segment for farmers, people who are working directly in the agriculture industry.
You can call us at 202-748-8003.
Let's start with Lou in Chicago on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Lou.
unidentified
Hey, good morning, Dan.
You're looking great.
I'm nine months older than you.
I remember when tomatoes were 29 cents a pound.
Anyway, here's the question, Dan.
Can the American farmer survive without government assistance?
It's a great question, and an honest answer is probably no.
Some farmers can weather this storm of the unpredictability of agriculture, which is really, you know, you talk about weather.
Imagine a whole business where your entire livelihood is depending upon whether you get rain the next week or the nature of the droughts or all these other things that I've talked about.
And so I think we'll always have farm programs.
We started those in the 1930s during the Depression, and quite frankly, they have produced a safe and predictable food supply for the American consumer.
But at the same time, what's happened is that you've had to grow bigger, scale up your size in order to basically produce productively and effectively.
And it's become so difficult for smaller farmers to cope with these changes.
So given that fact, I don't see the day where we'll ever end farm programs.
I do see the day where we can reduce our reliance on government assistance directly.
We've done that with something called the crop insurance program, where the government pays a portion of the premium to buy insurance that then protects the farmer against natural disasters and volatile prices.
But your direct question is: will we ever see the government get out of agriculture completely in terms of subsidies?
This raises the issue of the farm bill, which is supposed to be passed every five years but hasn't been passed and has been on extensions for quite some time now.
What's the status of the farm bill and what do you think that might mean for sort of the way that the government relates to farmers?
unidentified
Well, it's basically gotten extended to next September because as a result of the government shutdown, the agriculture appropriations bill has become law and the farm bill has been extended.
So at least for the time being, it is the status quo prevails.
But that's no long-term predictable situation.
Look, we started our farm bills back during the 30s, and by and large, They provided a way to keep farmers in business because the outflow, the bankruptcy of farmers was higher than the national average in terms of other businesses.
And then more lately, the farm bill is also, in addition to helping farmers, helps poor consumers through the SNAP program or the old food stamp program.
So you've had this kind of coalition between rural farming and urban poverty, so to speak, to keep people well fed.
But I worry that we haven't had a farm bill for some time now.
It keeps getting extended and it gets provided through these ad hoc emergency type of programs that we're seeing right now.
And if we don't get a new farm bill, it may be that we won't have regular farm bills anymore.
We'll have these ad hoc annual emergency payments in the future.
And I'm not sure that's healthy for farmers or consumers.
What we need, we've got to remember, our goal here is to do two things.
We do need to keep a healthy agriculture producing not only to provide income in rural America and for the farmers themselves, but also to provide adequate food supplies for the public as a whole, the consumers of America and globally as well.
You raised the food assistance programs that are included in the farm bill, but there's also been some changes under the Trump administration to even how some of those operates.
This is a story from Governing Magazine from back in August that schools, food banks, and farmers feel the sting of federal cuts.
Groups focused on food security are scrambling.
Following the cancellation of federal programs supporting purchases from local farmers, more than a billion dollars in USDA funding meant to support local purchases, purchases from local farmers for school lunch programs in food banks has been canceled.
Cuts to food stamp programs and rising food costs could add to food insecurity.
Seniors and children are especially at risk.
Farmers, schools, and others have pushed back against the cuts.
Lawmakers have introduced legislation that could restore elements of those canceled programs.
How big of an impact have these changes made in the farming industry?
unidentified
Well, if a farmer participates in farmers' markets around the country and you can't get those programs, those food products into, let's say, schools or into people's homes, it has had a significant effect.
By the way, these local programs like farmers markets and local agriculture programs have been very helpful to getting farmers to diversify their agriculture beyond just one crop to produce more than one crop.
And that's very positive for production agriculture.
In terms of the food stamp or the SNAP world, these cuts do not help poor people.
Remember that America is one place in the world, more than any other place that I can think of, that provides food for hungry people.
We have this incredible program, series of programs.
It's the SNAP program.
It's the school meals programs.
It's a program called WIC, Women, Infant, and Children, and others to try to help people bootstrap themselves up in life by getting food assistance.
And most people aren't on these programs on a permanent type of basis.
And then that, of course, helps farmers because it provides billions of dollars into the farm economy to produce those crops.
So anytime the government, you know, it's funny.
We always go after SNAP and poor people's programs much more than we seem to go after other people's programs.
And there's some resistance to this, and I hope it continues.
There's a question we received via text from Barbara in Whiting, Vermont, who says, please ask your guest, how much did the Biden administration's requirement for green energy initiatives cause farmers to go out of business?
400,000 farmers went out of business between 2020 and 2024.
Please ask him to explain.
unidentified
Yeah, this is a canard, you know, what's happened, and I'm not the most partisan guy in the world.
To be involved in agriculture programs requires you to be very bipartisan, and I work at the Bipartisan Policy Center and other things.
But this idea that green energy during the Biden years has cost all these people jobs and their livelihoods.
It's just nonsense.
I mean, one can argue whether green energy does produce enough energy and whether it's economically viable or not.
That's a legitimate argument.
But it hasn't cost hundreds of thousands of farmers to go out of business.
And, you know, and there's a huge amount of alternative energy going on in America, whether it's in electric vehicles or whether it's in soil conservation efforts or whether it's in solar energy and those kinds of things.
And I think that's positive.
We need all forms of energy from regular natural gas, in some cases coal and petroleum.
We need nuclear energy, but we also need alternative energies that come from the sun and other places.
So it's just nonsense to believe that that's cost people hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Sarah is in New Hampshire on our line for independence.
Good morning, Sarah.
unidentified
Hey, good morning.
A couple questions.
When farmers go bankrupt and their property is for sale, how much of this property, this farmland, agricultural land, is going to foreign nationals and private equity, which will ultimately undermine American agriculture.
And also, the president bailed out $12 billion in bailout money, which is pretty much going to crop farmers, commodity farmers, not to any vegetable fruits or any of that.
He's undermined beef production.
So how much damage has Donald Trump done personally to the American farmer?
And is his plan to first get rid of immigrant labor and then bring them back for less money and put them under total control of their employer, a modern day slavery scheme by Donald Trump?
And also, just because there's a similar question from, at least to Sarah's first question, Dave in Goose Creek, South Carolina also wanted to know about foreign control.
What percentage of our farms are controlled by foreign interests?
Do these foreign interests receive taxpayer-paid subsidies as well?
So Sarah's question, as it relates to foreign ownership, was who's buying up these farms as they go out of business.
unidentified
Yeah, so there has been a consolidation in agriculture for the last 20 or 30 or 40 years.
Farms get bigger, livestock operations get bigger.
Part of that is just the economics of agriculture.
But there is very, very little, at least in recent years, foreign ownership of land that's taken in bankruptcy proceedings.
If any, the real ownership goes to larger and larger farms and to some cases, private equity and people who have not been in the agriculture business before and use it as a way to make money because farmland prices have gone up.
But I hear this all the time that foreign ownership of farmland has just gotten unacceptable.
And we have state laws that govern this right now.
But quite honestly, the amount of foreign ownership of American farmland is infinitesimal.
And I think people want it that way.
And I don't think it's going to grow.
I think the real problem is consolidation of agriculture generally.
Farms getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and there are fewer and fewer smaller and medium-sized farms because it's harder for them to operate economically.
And they're the ones that are really suffering.
In terms of this crop farmers versus vegetable farmers, it is true that most of the recent bailout or bridge funding, whatever you want to call it, goes to crop farmers.
They added a billion dollars for perishables like fruits and vegetables, but that program has not been really formulated yet.
And fruit and vegetable farmers overall have not been a part of our farm programs over the last 50 or 60 years.
Crop subsidies largely go to the traditional row crops, wheat, corn, cotton, rice, and soybeans, and have not really gone to, let's say, fruit and vegetable farmers wherever they exist.
One positive thing, however, is that the rules have been loosened up so you can grow fruits and vegetables almost anywhere in America.
For a long time, if you had to grew wheat or corn or other farm commodities, if you grew fruits and vegetables on that farm land, you would lose your farm program payments.
Those issues have been loosened a lot.
So you now see farmers all over the country being able to grow both wheat and corn and peaches and pears and other perishables where the weather allows.
A final issue with immigration, I repeat this problem, it's a huge problem in agriculture.
So we need a predictable supply of farm workers.
And if most of these workers come from overseas or south of the border, then we have to find a way to have them come here fairly and equitably.
So they're not, let's say, servants of a larger class.
It's not like a peasant class, but in fact, they are doing predictable labor, well paid, and well treated.
And it has been so difficult to get that done politically in this country for a lot of reasons.
And one reason now is people do not want more immigrants in America.
But agriculture in various parts of agriculture desperately needs farm labor to work.
And by and large, we do not find enough Americans who want to take those jobs, or at least native-born Americans who want to take those jobs themselves.
And so we rely on these foreign workers who have kept a very good effort in keeping our food supply available to then go to consumers.
In terms of the earlier question from a couple of folks about the foreign ownership of land, I was able to find some data from the American Farm Bureau Federation, which tracks foreign ownership of agricultural land.
And here's a chart showing just 3.61% of U.S. agricultural land was owned by foreigners or foreign entities as of 2023.
That's 45.85 million acres, a very small slice.
The largest share of that being from Canada, 1.21% in terms of outside countries, followed by, it looks like the Netherlands, then Italy, then the United Kingdom, and then a combination of other countries.
And so that's data from the American farm.
unidentified
And I think that it is an important public policy for the country, whether the states or federal governments, to keep track on that, because we don't want the door to open and large, huge amounts of farmland being owned by overseas interests.
That has not happened yet.
There's a lot of interest in this as it relates to China, for example, Chinese ownership of American farmland and American agriculture.
To date, while there's some Chinese ownership, it is extremely small as well.
So this has kind of become a foot political football in Congress and every place else that kind of riling up the public to believe that foreigners are just taking over American agriculture.
There's a question from Steve Ma who asks, could the guests speak of the seed distribution and how farmers are not allowed to keep their seeds from previous years?
unidentified
Well, this is a controversial issue having to do with ownership rights of crop inputs like seeds or pesticides.
And there's been a lot of litigation about this in terms of whether a farmer has to rebuy the seeds every single year or not.
There's a lot of legislation in this regard to try to give farmers more freedom in terms of ownership.
And the very large co-ops, especially in the upper Midwest, have been working on this for some time.
There is no question that the issue of intellectual property rights, who owns the inputs that go into the ground, that is a serious economic and political question.
And it's one that deserves additional congressional oversight over the years to come.
Yeah, I first want to thank Mr. Gluttman for his service while he was an ag person.
I felt like he did everything with Midwest values and concern.
The first question, I guess, is, do other countries charge us tariffs when we take things, when we sell commodities or different products to other countries?
Do they charge tariffs on us?
I hear that quite a bit.
That's one question.
The second question is, I've talked with some younger farmers that are trying to get into farming, and one of their biggest problems is health care.
Health care is an issue that I think maybe the government should help young families, because if a man wants to bring in his son and maybe two sons, the health care costs could get up into $50,000 to $60,000 a year just for health costs.
And that's pretty hard to digest for most farms.
The bailout, I feel like, is kind of it's needed, but it also is needed to keep DuPont current and keep my credit line from the bank foreclosing on us.
You know, it just keeps a band-aid on what the real problem is.
I think we need to try to figure out a way to solve the real problem.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Well, it's good Kansas wisdom coming there in that call.
I would say a couple of things.
Yes, the rest of the world imposes tariffs on American products, and some of them are fair and some of them are not.
You know, to that extent, the president is probably correct to look at tariffs to determine how we can best make them more equitable.
It's just that agriculture is in a unique position because so much of our crop has to be exported.
And so, therefore, if we lose a big market like China or there are other places in the world, those markets tend to go elsewhere, like to Brazil and Argentina, and we don't get them back.
But yet the farmers, when they plant their crops, they plant for a market that's both domestic and global.
So we do see that agriculture is a bit unique in all of this stuff.
But yes, there are tariffs on a lot of our products going out.
The health care issue is a really important issue because most farmers are either individual proprietorships or individual, maybe incorporated, but they're not part of big groups that can keep health care prices down.
And so even the current debate about the Affordable Care Act, which is going on right now, affects farmers because a lot of farmers have taken advantage of the Affordable Care Act subsidies.
And if those expire, it makes health insurance so much more expensive.
Premiums are going up so astronomically and will go up if this matter isn't taken care of.
And so our health care system really works pretty well if you work for, let's say, if you're on Medicare like I am, you know, or need hospitalization or those things.
It works pretty good, to be honest with you.
Or if you work for a big company, the health care programs actually work pretty good.
But if you're a sole proprietorship or just an individual, it's really tough to try to get those premiums down.
Yeah, we had another caller earlier in the show reference the risk of health care costs going up for farmers, in particular in relation to those ACA-enhanced subsidies expiring.
CivilEats.com also has a story about this that farmers face prospect of skyrocketing health care premiums.
This is a story from back in November.
More than a quarter of U.S. farmers rely on the Affordable Care Act, but Biden-era tax credits expire at the end of the year.
Farmers are heavily reliant on the Affordable Care Act for health insurance, but with those tax credits set to expire, many will be facing major hikes to their premiums.
Farmers are now weighing difficult decisions like going uninsured or finding secondary employment.
These projected higher costs are coming at a time of increased stress for farmers, and the credits expiring is expected to have ripple effects in rural communities as well.
Go ahead.
unidentified
Well, I was just going to say that article points out the fact that agriculture and rural America is particularly vulnerable to the increased premiums that are going as part of the Affordable Care Act because most farmers and most people in small towns in rural America don't have the benefit of being part of a larger health care plan, either a corporate plan or maybe a cooperative plan or those kinds of things.
Some do, but some don't.
And so that has gotten very little public attention today in terms of the impact of these Affordable Care Act premiums increases on rural America and farmers.
And I just hope that this gets resolved because even it's funny, the government comes in with one hand and takes away with another hand.
And even with the increased funds coming through the bridge funding or the bailout, so to speak, a lot of farmers may not benefit from those very much because their health insurance premiums are going to go way up.
Frank is in Staten Island, New York on our line for independence.
Good morning, Frank.
unidentified
How are you doing?
Good morning.
Mr. Glickman, I like everything that you're saying here.
I remember when I first heard about this story and I saw the number of $12 billion.
That's a lot, a lot of money.
We're in a debt of like $37 trillion.
We need to do less government spending.
But it's funny, like the government doesn't seem to have any money for the AACA extensions.
But miraculously, they fined $12 billion to give to farmers who could not get income because of Trump's tariffs.
It's just, it just, I understand, okay, well, maybe now they'll have to give away this money because of the tariff situation, because Trump made this problem, made it happen.
It's just horrible in terms of trying to get down the debt.
We can never get down the debt.
$12 million would be one thing.
$12 billion just coming out of nowhere, and you're going to give it away to farmers who couldn't handle it.
I don't think this money is supposed to be coming from the revenue collected from tariffs so far, just for context there.
But what was your question for Mr. Gluckman?
unidentified
Well, I get his point, and that is that $12 billion is a lot of money.
But when you consider the numbers of farmers out there, it is in and of itself is manageable, but it does reflect a trend that we just, in terms of many federal programs, they just don't seem to stop.
They just seem to grow.
There is no way to try to deal with them in a longer-term context.
And our debt has just been growing astronomically.
Interest on their debt is becoming one of the largest parts of our federal budget deficit.
And when interest rates go up, it's just a monumental problem for the American economic picture.
So, you know, look, I said before that I think we'll always need farm programs because what they do is they provide a stability and a base for rural America to survive, to produce the quality and quantity of food that provides food for consumers here at home and around the world.
So when you look at that picture, agriculture is a really important part of our national security in this country.
But this leapfrogging, this episodic movement between no subsidy, a big subsidy, subsidies caused by tariffs, and then trying to solve the problem with money coming from tariffs, it all doesn't make a lot of sense either.
Let's go to Richard in Richmond, Virginia, also on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Richard.
unidentified
Good morning.
I want to make two questions and make a statement.
My first question is: what happens?
This supposed $12 trillion of tariffs hasn't even been $12 billion, hasn't even been said it's legal because the Supreme Court has taken up this tariff money is even legitimate.
So if they hand this out and the Supreme Court says, hey, it's not legal, then how do they go about clawing that back?
Secondly, you know, farmers, I blame farmers, a lot of rural farmers.
I think it's like 78 to 80 percent that voted for Republicans and Trump.
And they knew this was going to happen because they saw what happened the first time.
So how, if you keep rewarding them with bailouts from the Democrat perspective, how do you ever get them to come to your side?
Because they never received the punishment of their vote.
So like, you know, they hated USA aid, but they didn't realize, hey, that was what's helping them keep afloat.
They hate it.
They hate any type of green energy like windmills or solar, but they don't mind keeping the green energy from their biofuels, which is a joke.
You know, I used to work on small engines, and ethanol is the worst thing for small engines in most automobiles.
And lastly, I just want to say to all the American people that are watching: if you're a farmer from digging into the ground or if you work on Silicon Valley for 45 years, these people have been promising the Republican Party that trickle-down economics is going to help you out.
Well, it's not.
They just gave the biggest tax break to billionaires this year.
And look what they just did.
They just closed down a meat packing place in Nebraska.
It's devastated that rural community.
And they're laying off hundreds of thousands of people that work in white-class jobs due to AI.
So all those promises of you give billionaires tax breaks, they're going to give you jobs and they're going to give you raises.
It just went out the door from this.
But, you know, if you can, you know, answer a few of these questions, I'd appreciate it.
Yeah, no, I wish you could come into a congressional hearing and just talk to members of Congress because you're talking about so many issues here.
I would say the first thing is the $12 billion to $11 billion largely comes through something called the Commodity Credit Corporation.
It's a unique budgetary device that Congress has done to fund a lot of farm programs.
So even if there's a clawback, I doubt that this $11 or $12 billion is going to get bought back.
But we don't know if the Supreme Court rules against tariffs against the tariffs that the president has proposed, what that means in terms of clawing back hundreds of billions of dollars that are coming in revenue as a result of that.
It's just not sure.
I do think it's interesting your point about the politics of all this.
So most farm programs are very bipartisan.
Not all, but most.
And you see Republicans and Democrats, particularly from farm and rural areas, kind of joining together and pushing these.
The tariff thing, however, has demonstrated that the president's proposals of putting tariffs on and having to pay farmers for the tariffs and kind of pulling tariffs off, I think is a hard nut to crack if you're either a Republican or Democrat to figure out whether these programs make sense.
The other thing is over the last 30 or 40 years, there has been a significant movement of rural and farm country into the Republican Party.
And when I was in Congress during the 70s, and during that time period, there were lots of Democrats in the heartland states, Democrat representatives, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska.
I was from Kansas and Missouri and other places.
Today, those states are largely all Republican.
I don't think it's been the farm programs that have done that.
I think there have been other issues that have come that have farmers voting a certain way.
But it may be changing now.
I sense that there's more resistance among farmers to some of the White House programs.
And maybe you'll see a pushback in the next year, next elections that are coming out.
And coming up right after this program, we're going to have a special edition of Ceasefire.
We're going to feature highlights from our host and Politico White House Bureau Chief, Dasha Burns' in-depth interview with President Trump on a range of topics from the state of the economy and expiring ACA subsidies to the rising tensions with Venezuela, as well as the future of U.S. involvement in Ukraine and Russia peace efforts.
That's coming up next here on C-SPAN.
But coming up tomorrow on C-SPAN at 7 a.m. Eastern, we're going to have another edition of Washington Journal right here.
Welcome to Ceasefire, where we seek to bridge the divide in American politics.
I'm Dasha Burns, Politico White House Bureau Chief.
And this week, I sat down with President Donald Trump at the White House for a wide-ranging interview for my podcast, The Conversation.
Joining me now to dissect the key moments from my 45-minute conversation with President Trump are two political pros from both sides of the aisle.
Republican strategist Mark Short, top aide to President Trump and the first administration, as well as former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, and Democratic strategist Adrienne L. Rod, who began her career in the Clinton administration and has been a top aide to four presidential campaigns.
Most recently, former senior advisor to Vice President Harris's presidential campaign.
Welcome to you both.
Now, I know you've both done the surrogate game.
Today, you're doing the strategist game for me.
You're going to peel back the curtain on how your parties are navigating this moment, especially in the context of some of what we just heard from President Trump in my interview.
The White House has been making a renewed push on domestic issues, especially the economy.
So I want you to take a listen to my conversation with the president about affordability.