C-SPAN’s Washington Journal (12/19/2025) dissects the ACA subsidies’ expiration, with 39% blaming Trump and 67% targeting Republicans for failing to extend them despite warnings of premium spikes, rural hospital closures, and millions losing coverage. Schumer predicts average premiums doubling; Johnson cites procedural constraints, while callers—from William (Ohio) praising ACA’s life-saving benefits to Howard (New London) slamming $16K bills—demand universal systems. Tim (NY) accuses both parties of broken promises, while Kenny (Kentucky) highlights hospital price-gouging. The debate reveals deep partisan divides and systemic failures in U.S. health care, exposing how political gridlock and profit-driven models leave millions vulnerable. [Automatically generated summary]
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Thank you for joining us in the Washington Journal this morning on this Friday, December 19th.
We'll begin this morning with health care and your thoughts on how your party has handled the issue in recent weeks.
The ACA enhanced tax subsidies will expire at the end of this month.
That follows a Senate bill to extend them for three years, failing in that body in recent days.
And despite having enough votes in the House for that same measure, the body will not vote until January.
Our question to all of you this morning: are you satisfied with your party's handling of health care?
Republicans dial in at 202-748-8001.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
If you don't want to call, you can text at 202-748-8003, include your first name, city, and state.
You can post on facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X with the handle at C-SPANWJ.
KFF, who does surveys and analysis of healthcare, put out this poll recently that found when they asked who is to blame for ACA tax credits not being extended, of all those responded,
39% said President Trump, 37% said congressional Republicans, and 22% said it was Congressional Democrats would be to blame if these ACA enhanced tax subsidies were not extended.
And a reminder, they expire at the end of this month.
President Trump was asked yesterday at the White House if he wanted Congress to extend the expiring ACA subsidies.
President Trump in the Oval Office yesterday on these expiring health care tax subsidies.
You heard there from Dr. Oz as well on the issue.
We want to know, are you satisfied with your party's handling of health care?
Republicans, your line this morning is 202-748-8001.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
And Independents, call us this morning at 202-748-8002.
We're going to get to these calls in just a minute.
Let's go to the other side of the aisle.
Here is the Democratic leader in the House, or excuse me, in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, on the Senate floor yesterday, criticizing President Trump's recent televised address and his handling of the expiring ACA subsidies.
Let's talk about one of the most important issues for Americans when it comes to cost health care.
Last night, Donald Trump offered exactly zero solutions for how we're going to lower Americans' health care premiums.
He kept blaming Democrats.
He kept saying the health care crisis is not his fault.
But here are the facts.
Immutable facts, Donald Trump.
No amount of finger pointing, lying, hyping it up, patting yourself on the back is going to undo the fact that the American people are going to pay a lot more for health care come January 1st.
Because on January 1st, the ACA enhanced premium tax credits are going to expire because Donald Trump chose to let them die.
Even our Republican colleagues have told us time and time again, if Trump would do something here and support an extension of the tax credits, as we Democrats are fighting for, that maybe they'd be able to do something.
But he doesn't.
And now, tens of millions are going to see their insurance premiums double on average.
Four million people will lose insurance because Donald Trump let it happen.
And he's there sitting in front of the TV camera, patting himself on the back.
Unbelievable.
Millions more with private insurance will see their premiums go up because Donald Trump let it happen.
Emergency rooms are going to be even more overrun.
People are going to be kicked out of nursing homes.
Rural hospitals will close.
And there's Donald Trump congratulating himself on how great he is.
And look, because of Republican total inaction on health care, huge damage has already been done.
And nothing we do after January 1st can undo so much of that damage.
As I've said before, the toothpaste is out of the tube.
However you want to say it, the point is this.
Because of Republicans, it is now impossible, sadly, to prevent people from having to pay hundreds, if not thousands, more on their premiums next year.
It's going to start January 1st.
Even if we can figure out a way to stop the bleeding next year, that's a very big if.
Republicans are still in shambles and have no plan themselves.
The Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer of New York, on the Senate floor yesterday, his comments follow votes earlier this month by senators.
One vote to extend these ACA tax subsidies, the enhanced subsidies, for three years.
That was the Democratic proposal.
And then there was a Republican proposal to replace them with Health Savings Act.
Neither accounts, excuse me, neither one of those proposals were able to garner the 60 votes needed to get over the filibuster in the Senate.
The House this week then moved to this health care debate over these ACA subsidies, and the Republicans did not allow a vote on the extension of the ACA subsidies offered by bipartisan groups of members of the House.
Instead, they voted on a Republican proposal on that side of Congress.
It passed on a lot of party line votes.
But moderates then, for moderate Republicans, signed on to a discharge petition offered by Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries to extend the ACA subsidies for three years, and it garnered the 218 signatures it needed to force a vote on this, but not until January.
This morning, are you satisfied with your party's handling of health care?
And William, do you remember when the government shut down in recent months and Democrats refused to open up the government until there was a vote on the Affordable Care Act?
It didn't end up that they got that vote.
They got a promise of a vote, which took place this month.
Did you agree with Democrats' strategy to keep the government shut down over a vote over these enhanced subsidies?
unidentified
But I'm telling you, I'm sorry that they reopened the government, but he was stirring poor people just to get the government back open.
Okay, we're going to go to Harold in Edwardsville, Illinois, Democratic caller.
Harold, good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm not satisfied with either side, actually.
I think the Obamacare is way too expensive.
And the insurance companies, from what I understand, the insurance companies are making trillions of dollars and everybody agrees that they're making all this money off of this.
Well, why doesn't Orange Boy, the deal maker of the century, just go before them and tell them that we're going to take over this insurance thing here from you.
The government's going to have a single payer plan where we're going to pay in off of our taxes and everybody's going to be covered like Medicaid.
You just go in and you get fixed up.
If they don't agree to lower the prices, well, then the government takes over and takes some of that trillions of dollars.
I don't see what the problem is why the government, if there's trillions of dollars to be made off of this, why the government won't get in and let us pay 5%, even the billionaires, pay 5% like you did on Medicaid or Medicare.
And we ought to all be covered.
Go to the hospital, get you covered, have your prescriptions right there.
Well, we're talking specifically about health care.
unidentified
I know, I know, I know, but you asked.
Here, my boy, six days ago, was in a small car accident in town, 25 miles an hour.
He had open heart surgery three years ago, had a valve replaced.
Now, he's only 42 years old, right?
But now he was just a little sore.
His wife got all over him because he should go get checked out.
So he went and got checked out the next day.
Okay, he was there four hours.
They ran a couple tests on him, his blood pressure and MRI or whatever.
He got his doctor bill hospital bill yesterday.
Six days later, he got his bill.
$16,000.
Now, I asked him, how long was you in there, Michael?
He says, four hours.
I says, well, that's $4,000 an hour.
Then he says, well, the insurance company called him, and he had told him that he'd already received a bill because it wasn't his fault, but he went and had it done.
And he told him that it was $16,000.
And they said, well, that's fine.
They'll get that knocked down to about $8,500.
That's fine.
Don't worry about it.
Now, are you serious?
For A bumper beat accident, you go in and get checked out, and they're wanting $16,000.
On the Capitol steps yesterday, the Democratic leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, congratulating his party for securing a vote to extend the expiring ACA enhance subsidies.
He also called for Speaker Mike Johnson to schedule the vote.
You, House Democrats, for always showing up, standing up, and speaking up for the American people.
And because of the leadership of House Democrats, of this House Democratic caucus, we've successfully secured a vote with a successful discharge petition to protect the health care of the American people and extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.
We're here gathered on the house steps with one last thing remaining.
We want to make clear to Mike Johnson that the American people deserve a vote on the Affordable Care Act tax credit legislation and deserve that vote today.
No more excuses, no more delay, no more burying your head in the sand.
Under no circumstances should the House of Representatives adjourn until we successfully extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits for tens of millions of Americans.
The American people deserve a vote today, not tomorrow, not next week, not next year, today.
Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries on the Capitol steps yesterday calling for a vote on extending the enhanced tax subsidies before Congress leaves for the holiday.
The House is not in session today, and they have left Washington for the holiday break.
The vote that will take place on extending the ACA tax subsidies is likely to come in January after Democrats were able to get four Republicans to join them on a discharge petition, which requires 218 votes.
Here is Speaker Mike Johnson talking to reporters on Wednesday about the four Republicans who broke ranks to support the Democrats' discharge petition.
I understand that every member has a different district with different dynamics and different demographics.
And some of them felt like it was a really important thing to have a vote on the floor.
I tried very hard, and they will all tell you that.
I tried very hard over the last several weeks and even through the weekend and as late as yesterday trying to engineer a way for them to have a vote on the floor so they could show that priority.
But it was not to be.
You know, you've heard all the machinations of how it came about.
There's no ill will here.
This is not a challenge to the Speaker's leadership.
They're using the rules.
Here's the reality, everybody.
We have a small majority.
We have a razor-thin majority, a record small majority.
And so things operate differently when you have a small majority.
In the old days, a discharge petition would never be used by the majority party or anybody in it because the speaker had a long stick that he would administer punishment for that, okay?
I don't have that because we have a small margin.
So look, I love all these guys and ladies that I work with.
I understand what their concerns are.
We talked about it at length.
I was in those rooms with them.
And we had, as we say in the deep south, you hear me saying, let's have some intense fellowship, but it's all good.
Everybody's in good spirits now and everybody understands what's happening.
Speaker Mike Johnson earlier this week on four Republicans, those four on your screen breaking with their party and signing on to a Democrats discharge petition.
That's Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Mike Lawler of New York, Robert Bresnahan of Pennsylvania, and Ryan McKinsey also of Pennsylvania.
Those four signing on to the Democrats discharge petition to have a vote on extending the ACA enhanced subsidies for three years.
Washington Post this morning, Johnson says he still controls House allies as allies break ranks.
Some fellow Republicans disagree.
From the article, they note that a motion to consider removing Johnson as Speaker would require nine votes from the Republican conference.
Such a coalition has not yet emerged.
For now, lawmakers are unwilling to remove Johnson from the speakership because Trump still backs him and there's no guarantee lawmakers can quickly get behind a candidate.
Here's a quote.
If you vacate the chair, then there is no speaker and nothing can happen.
So not really a good solution, said Representative Kevin Kiley, Republican of California, who's been critical of the speaker.
He said that would not be fun.
We're here on Christmas on our 15th speaker vote.
That would not be great.
They go on to report that a bipartisan, the GOP-led House Rules Committee earlier this week ultimately blocked moderates from holding floor votes on their amendments, an outcome that moderates warned days earlier would come with consequences.
One Republican lawmaker said Johnson's handling of the issue led to the Democratic bill, which extends ACA subsidies for three years, garnering enough GOP support to get a floor vote with a discharge petition.
Quote, if that's not political and legislative malpractice, I don't know what is, said one Republican to the Washington Post.
Are you satisfied with your party's handling of health care?
Martha's a Democrat in Indiana, Pennsylvania.
Good morning.
Go ahead.
unidentified
Good morning, Greta.
I'm not satisfied with the way Democrats are handling this.
It is very disappointing that the Democrats can't make their case.
If you compare the Affordable Care Act to Medicare, if you go point by point, the Affordable Care Act is way more cost-efficient than Medicare.
So if you think that Affordable Care Act is a failure, look at our Medicare budget.
It is a colossal failure.
And the thing of it is, I was on the Affordable Care Act for five years while I was working.
And the federal income tax that I paid over those five years more than paid for the subsidies that I got for my medical insurance.
So aren't the Republicans all about giving people back their tax money?
So aren't these subsidies giving people their tax money back to spend on medical insurance?
And remember, back in 2017, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Republican Speaker of the House, he proposed the idea of turning Medicare into a voucher system.
And he proposed this several times during the debates on the Trump tax cuts, talking about our national debt and our annual deficit.
Paul Ryan wanted to give Medicare recipients a voucher, X amount of dollars for Medicare people to buy their own medical insurance on the open market.
Isn't that essentially what Affordable Care Act is?
Giving people a voucher, X amount of dollars to buy medical insurance on the open market.
So Paul Ryan saw this voucher system for Medicare as being more cost-efficient than the way Medicare was being run then.
Kenny in Kentucky, we'll go to John in Florida, Independent.
John.
unidentified
Good morning.
Yeah, first thing off on the ACA, when we call them subsidies, it's just really taxpayer money.
It's not free.
We're paying for the subsidies for these people to get health care.
The second thing is, this only really affects 7% of the American people, this ACA deal.
And then 5% of that is what you will save with these taxpayers' money.
Now that that's out of the way, the Republicans have handled this terribly, and the Democrats, of course, always handled things terribly.
The last call is correct.
We need to get some investigative work into why everything is so much money here in America, and in other countries, not so much.
And before we all decide to go to single payer, I'm a veteran, and if you want to go with me to the VA when I need to make an appointment, and I got to wait two months before I can get there, you might end up being dead before you actually get any medical care.
So you might want to rethink the single payer.
And also with single payer, you're going to be paying 50 and 60 percent in taxes.
So you're going to get you're going to get ripped off one way or another.
So I would love, you know, I like the idea of the for the children that they've been doing with the health care savings accounts that they've been giving to some kids.
I think that's a good way forward for the next generation.
But for our generation, you know, the way it's always been, we always took care of ourselves.
You know, you should have planned accordingly.
And now that you don't have money for your health care, you want everybody else to pay for it.
And so you were saying you worked as what was that?
unidentified
I was a medical assistant.
I worked emergency room at Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
I disagree heartily with the fact that the hospitals charge too much.
The hospitals charge to not only pay salaries, but to pay for people that come in that have no type of insurance or anything to help them.
They go ahead and they treat.
But we have a wonderful, wonderful group of people in the state of Ohio who love each other and want to care for each other, the rich and the poor.
I think we're looking here at someone, our president, and a few of his friends who decided first thing they would do was release some of these evil people that had already stolen from the United States of America.
In other news this morning, we'll get back to our conversation about health care, but in today, we are expecting the Epstein files to be released this because Congress passed a law and the president signed it that would require the Justice Department to do some redactions, but released release documents related to the Epstein files.
So that is happening today.
Be on the lookout for more news on that.
Ahead of the release, Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats in the House, had this to say about what he expects today from the DOJ.
unidentified
Peter Jeffries.
Tomorrow is the deadline for the Epstein files to be released legally.
Is it your expectation that the DOJ is going to cooperate?
And if not, what is your expectation for what we will see tomorrow?
Based on my conversations with some of the top Democrats who've been working on this matter related to full and complete disclosure of the Epstein files, we do expect compliance.
But if the Department of Justice does not comply with what is federal law at this point, there will be strong bipartisan pushback.
President Trump yesterday talking about the changing of the name of the Kennedy Center to the Trump Kennedy Center.
Now, from Axios's reporting, they say the Board of Trustees includes Attorney General Pam Bondi, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Second Lady Usha Vance, among other administration allies.
Representative Joyce Betty, Democrat of Ohio, an ex-member of the board, said her microphone was muted, preventing her from voicing her opposition to the name change.
unidentified
Listen to what she had to say.
I am bringing this to you live today because what you may hear is that there was a unanimous vote to rename the Kennedy Center the Trump Center.
Be clear, I was on that call, and as I tried to push my button to voice my concern, to ask questions, and certainly not to vote in support of this, I was muted.
Each time I tried to speak, I was muted.
Participants were not allowed to voice their concerns who were online.
Yet it was said at the end, it was a unanimous vote.
Clearly, the Congress has a say in this.
This center, the Kennedy Center, was created by the Congress.
I think it's important for us to know that this is just another attempt to evade the law and not let the people have a say.
Congresswoman Joyce Betty on the renaming of the Kennedy Center in case you missed it.
Back to our conversation with all of you this morning.
Are you satisfied with your party's handling of health care?
There are the lines on your screen.
We'll continue here until the top of the hour this morning on the Washington Journal, getting your thoughts on the health care debate that has taken place here in Washington in recent weeks, specifically over the enhanced tax subsidies for Obamacare.
In a recent poll done by KFF, when they asked those that they polled on support for extending enhanced ACA tax credits, 92% Democrats supported the idea, 82% of Independents, and 59% of Republicans.
When they polled just Republicans, more specifically, this is what they found.
57% of MAGA supporters liked the idea of extending enhanced ACA tax credits, while 70% of non-MAGA supporters supported the idea.
Let's hear from Ron, who's in Florida, an independent.
Ron, good morning to you.
Are you satisfied with your party's handling of health care?
You're an independent, so let me ask it a different way.
Which party has handled it better, Republicans or Democrats?
unidentified
Well, I don't believe either party has done a very good job, and no one looks for solutions.
You know, we have a lot of people that want to enter the medical field, but the cost of the education is so exorbitant that they can't do it.
They ought to be able to do it and then pay off their debt by working in community health centers throughout the country to make people healthier, to reduce health costs, and try to get the pharmaceutical companies out of the business of making profit on sick people in this country.
I mean, we should look at ourselves and say, how can we justify making money off sick people?
These are our fellow citizens.
These are the people that have helped build this country.
There's just something fundamentally wrong when you can't afford the education to do the job.
And when you do get it, the prices are so high to pay unreasonable costs because there's too much profit in health care.
But I hope that one of these days they get it together.
Rob's thoughts there, Republican in Maplewood, Minnesota.
Let's listen to one of those four Republicans, Mike Lawler of New York, who joined us here on the Washington Journal yesterday, a day after signing that discharge petition for a vote on extending the ACA taxed enhanced subsidies.
In case you missed it, you can watch our entire conversation with Congressman Mike Lawler, Republican of New York, yesterday on the Washington Journal.
If you go to c-span.org, also our free video mobile app, C-SPAN Now.
Tim in New York, an independent.
Good morning to you, Tim.
unidentified
Good morning, Greta.
I personally feel like the American people have been gaslipped for the past 60 years.
Every country in the world practically has universal health care.
We are the richest country in the history of the world, and we don't have it.
And we keep getting told, pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
Meanwhile, they spend $6 trillion on a war, $4 trillion on tax cuts.
Roosevelt, Troman, Eisenhower, Nixon, they all talked about universal health care and still have done nothing.
My sister and her family lived in France for 25 years.
They never had a single dime to pay in tax in health care.
You know, what's being done now is just a matter, I think, of pure politics and money.
If you take the money out of it and you get rid of the insurance companies, they'll be able to do something, I hope, very different.
But it falls on the Republicans and the Democrats.
And it seems to me that the Republicans don't want health insurance.
Now, they've got junk bomb policies on the market, and people are buying it thinking they're covered until they get in that hospital and find out otherwise.
So what they need to do is do something about that.
And take the, for instance, the gentleman said about his son not being at fault for the 16 grand.
But if it was on the other way, or should I say, then he'd be in trouble trying to pay that kind of balance.
So that's the problem.
Everybody doesn't want to participate in it.
And I think it's the politicians who are hustling us.
If you participate in each state, then you will have a pooling of funds in order to pay these bills.
Then you can take care of the hospitals and whatnot.
But Bill Cassidy should not be advocating because he's a doctor.
I've never seen a doctor hold a conversation with me, for instance, about my health insurance.
Lee, with his thoughts in Charleston, South Carolina.
In the day ahead, some programming notes for you.
We'll hear from Secretary of State Marco Rubio at 11.30 a.m. Eastern Time today.
He'll hold a year-end press conference, and you can watch live coverage of that here on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, that free video mobile app that you can download or on demand online at c-span.org.
We're also covering today President Trump.
He'll give remarks in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina tonight.
He's expected to talk about the U.S. economy, and he'll be joined by North Carolina U.S. Senate candidate and former RNC chair Michael Watley.
You can watch live at 9 p.m. Eastern Time here on C-SPAN, C-SPANNOW, and c-SPAN.org.
Also, it's 7 p.m. Eastern Time tonight.
A new edition of Ceasefire.
Host Dasha Burns is joined by Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, and Senator Katie Britt, Republican of Alabama, plus conversations with Republican strategists and Democratic strategists as well.
Watch tonight, 7 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
Are you satisfied with your party's handling of health care?
Yes, I was just wanting to know what would happen if the government would take over the insurance and Medicare and stuff.
If they get mad and come out of another shutdown like it did for 41 days, what would happen to the American people on the insurance and the billing part?
On the Washington Journal yesterday, we also spoke to Mike Flood, who's a Republican of Nebraska.
He joined us, and he is happy with his Republican Party's handling of health care.
He touted the legislation that House Republicans passed on Wednesday and criticized the discharge petition to force a vote on extending those enhanced tax subsidies.
unidentified
Here's what he had to say: I am the chair of the Main Street Caucus.
Our caucus has always had an interest in extending the ACA tax credits as long as it's paired with real reform.
What we did yesterday was something that the entire broad spectrum of Republicans could agree on: pharmacy benefit manager reform, just taking a look at the way these association plans work.
Listen, the Wall Street Journal came out and said that if we adopt what we advanced yesterday, it will save money.
It'll reduce premiums across the United States by 12% for everybody.
Now, as it relates to the ACA tax credits, this is a real issue.
He joined us yesterday on the Washington Journal along with two other lawmakers, Mike Lawler of New York, who was one of those four Republicans who signed the discharge petition, along with Betty McCollum, who's a Democrat of Minnesota.
If you missed our conversations with those members of Congress, find it online at c-SPAN.org or our free video mobile app, C-SPANNow.
Back to the conversations with all of you.
We've got a few minutes left here.
Are you satisfied with your party's handling of health care?
Yeah, I'm very satisfied with Democrats' handling of health care, health care, health insurance issues.
Democrats try.
You know, you were just playing that little snippet of Congressman Flood, and he was saying that, right there, it's proof and evidence by the GAO or somebody said that 12 million people out of 24 million people didn't submit a claim.
All right, Jim, with a little history lesson there.
And for all of you interested in that debate from 2010, go into the C-SPAN archives.
If you go to c-span.org and you go into our video library search engine at the top, you can listen to those debates that happened in 2009 and 2010 for yourself.
In the meantime, we'll go to Diane in DeSoto, Kansas, Republican.
Diane, what do you think of the GOP and their handling of health care?
unidentified
I don't like it, and I don't like the Democrat plan either.
But I want to give everybody a wake-up call here.
I'm 79 years old.
I make about $55,000 a year in income.
My costs, $22 a month for Medicare, plus my supplement, which I have to have, costs me $600 a month every month.
That's $9,600 a year.
My healthcare.
People think Medicare is free.
I got news.
It's not.
On top of that, it doesn't cover eyewear.
It doesn't cover dental.
It doesn't cover anything like Medicare or Medicaid does.
But that's the facts of life.
And I'm stretching it this year to make that payment.
And so costs are around the board.
And I blame Congress for this, both sides.
I blame insurance companies and especially the congresspeople that get their big donations from them.
Later on, the Washington Journal, we'll be joined by the House Armed Services top Democrat, Adam Smith.
He'll join President Trump's foreign and military policies.
We'll talk about that with him.
But first, President Trump signed an executive order yesterday to expedite the reclassification of marijuana.
Joining us next to discuss his concerns about the move is Kevin Sebette with the group Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
Today, on C-SPAN's Ceasefire, at a time when finding common ground matters most in Washington, Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman and Alabama Republican Senator Katie Britt come together for a bipartisan dialogue on the top issues facing the country.
They joined host Dasha Burns.
Bridging the Divide in American Politics.
Watch C Spire today at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story.
This weekend, as the nation celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, join American History TV for our series, America 250, and discover the ideas and defining moments of the American story.
This week at 11 a.m. Eastern, reenactors mark the anniversary of the 1780 Battle of Camden in South Carolina.
The British victory led to the replacement of General Horatio Gates with General Nathaniel Greene as commander of the Southern Continental Army.
Then at 1.45 p.m. Eastern, the first of three holiday programs.
In 1989, President George H.W. Bush received the first menorah to be displayed in the White House.
At 6 p.m. Eastern, a 1968 United States Army film showcases how American soldiers celebrate Christmas around the world.
And then at 9 p.m. Eastern, the 1982 President Ronald Reagan Christmas message about military service and help for refugees during his weekly radio address.
And at 9.15 p.m. Eastern on the Presidency, Conversations on Christmas in the White House, hosted by the George W. Bush Presidential Center and the National First Ladies Library and Museum.
Exploring the American story, watch American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find the full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history.
This morning we turn our attention to marijuana and joining us for that conversation is Kevin Sebette.
He's the president and CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
He's also the author of One Nation Under the Influence, America's Drug Habit and How We Can Overcome It.
Kevin Sebette, your reaction to the president trying to expedite the reclassification of marijuana yesterday.
What did you think?
unidentified
Yeah, I think it's in some ways a mixed bag.
I mean, it wasn't wholly unexpected.
The president talked about it during the campaign trail and even went further.
He said he was voting for the failed Florida effort to legalize marijuana outright.
You know, my concern and my concern with marijuana generally is that we're dealing with a fundamentally different drug today.
This is a new drug, really, that's been genetically altered to highly, highly potent, you know, strain, a highly potent level of THC, which is the active ingredient that gets you high.
And it's levels we've never seen.
It's exponentially higher, almost an order of magnitude more than in the Woodstock days where, you know, it was called weed for a reason.
It could have been 1% to 2% strong.
Now it's up to 99.9% strong with these vapes and dabs that are out there.
And it's causing, you know, terrible harm across the country.
It's causing psychosis, schizophrenia, other mental health problems.