C-SPAN’s Washington Journal explores 2025’s polarized political engagement, with Gallup and AP-NORC data revealing generational divides—older voters prioritize issues like spending and immigration while younger adults disengage. Callers debate Trump’s executive overreach against Hamilton/Jefferson’s warnings of "Caesarism," citing the unitary theory and Alito’s imperial presidency critique, though Rosen notes no clear Founding-era answers. Beth frames love as a political solution, while Scott laments NFL streaming costs excluding older fans; Cheryl praises Trump’s 2025 GDP growth (4.3%) but dismisses crime reports as biased. Anger over Social Security adjustments, Florida’s Republican policies, and Epstein files dominates calls, exposing deep distrust in both parties’ narratives. [Automatically generated summary]
With many folks visiting friends and family this time of year, some may be tested when it comes to how they talk about the political events of the past year and their own response to them.
But in this era of political polarization, some have found new energy to get more involved in civic life.
And that's our topic for this holiday morning.
Have you become more politically engaged this year?
Called a member of Congress for the first time, went to a town hall, attended a protest, or maybe just changed the way you talk to others who think differently than you about politics.
Our phone lines for Republicans: 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.
We're also on social media at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ.
Now, despite the political polarization in this country, Americans actually do agree on quite a bit.
There's some polling about that from Gallup saying Americans show consensus on many democracy-related matters.
Eight in 10 endorse compromise, 83% reject political violence, 84% say that the U.S. benefits from having a mix of cultures.
There is a public split, however, on whether cultural change is happening too fast.
A bit more on that from Gallup.
Eight in 10 U.S. adults agree on a variety of issues that reflect core aspects of U.S. democracy.
These include that using violence to achieve political goals is never okay, that elected leaders should compromise to get things done, and that having a mix of races, religions, and cultures benefits the nation.
Americans also express a desire to limit the political influence of wealthy individuals and businesses and believe there is a difference between facts and opinion.
Now, in terms of political engagement, there is a difference across generations here in the United States when it comes to activism in civic life, as well as just paying attention to what's happening in politics.
There's polling from AP Nork on that issue in particular, which found that younger adults are less engaged with U.S. politics.
While 9 in 10 older adults say voting is very important, only 6 in 10 young adults agree.
Younger adults are half as likely than older adults to follow U.S. politics closely.
Let's dig into that data a little bit more.
In general, younger adults are less interested and engaged in U.S. politics than older individuals.
Although two-thirds of adults aged 18 to 29 feel it is important for people to vote, they are less likely than adults over 45 to see the value.
Younger adults are also less inclined to pay much attention to news about American politics.
That generational gap is apparent not only in how closely different age groups follow politics in general, but also how much they care about various issues, including government spending and immigration.
Those ages 18 to 29 are less likely than adults 45 and older to feel voting is very or extremely important.
People ages 45 and older are especially likely to say that voting is extremely important compared to those under 45.
Now, on the issue of political polarization in particular, last month at Columbia University Institute of Global Politics event, former Secretaries of State Mike Pompeo and Hillary Clinton spoke about their concerns about the political polarization in this country.
unidentified
Always been a rambunctious nation.
It's literally since our founding, like they're killing each other.
And yet we get excited today when somebody gets angry on CNN.
We need more dialogue, even like what we're doing here today.
It's hard for us to have the kind of honest, forthright agreements and disagreements that we need to have.
You know, there are good arguments for and against doing a lot of the things that are on the agenda for whether we are going to remain strong and prosperous and united and all the rest of it.
But we're not having that.
Some of it because of intimidation from this administration for their own party.
Some of it because of social media and the like.
So, you know, I think polarization is certainly real, but it's not inevitable.
But that requires every one of us to assert our own agency against being told what to believe, being told what we're supposed to do, or being influenced by voices on social media that you're not often even sure what's behind their position.
So I think we have some serious challenges as to how we get back to the kind of give and take and organize as well as just, you know, citizen discussion that we need in a democracy.
This concept of how we should disagree on issues related to politics came up as well from a recent event at Vanderbilt University where presidential historian and author John Meacham was speaking about the importance of civil disagreement in society.
A sense of neighborliness is the oxygen of democracy.
If we're not willing to see each other as having equal dignity and equality before the law, and if you're so inclined before God, then it doesn't work.
If you can be lesser than because of some characteristic that I either discern or assign to you, then we're in a thunderdome.
We're not in an arena where politics is the resolution of problems for a given period of time.
We're in a zone where politics becomes total war.
And when politics is total war, there can be no democracy.
There can only be autocracies of the season.
Autocracies are seasonal.
They come and they go because there is also a fundamental human.
If you value strength as your central principle, then people are going to seek to be strong and remove you and make you weak.
The whole point of the United States was to limit that peril.
And we're as close at this hour as we've ever been to descending into the strong versus the weak.
You mentioned social media and the impact of that on civic engagement.
There's some research from Pew that 42% of social media users say that those sites are important for them getting involved with political and social issues.
Half of U.S. adult social media users say social media is very or somewhat important for them when it comes to finding others who share their views about important issues, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in February.
So this is from earlier this year.
Smaller shares say social media is important for getting involved with political or social issues that are important to them, 42%, or giving them a venue to express their political opinions, 34%.
Melvin is in Richmond, Virginia, on our line for Democrats.
Melvin, have you become more politically engaged this year?
unidentified
Good morning, Kimberly.
Thank you for taking my call.
And Kimberly, may you have a wonderful holiday.
Kimberly, my political engagement hasn't changed.
It's at a level where I always am looking to support people who will treat me like a human being, okay?
If you come at me from a standpoint that based on race or whatever, whatever your little problem is as far as what you don't like about people, then of course I'm going to have to defend myself.
And that is the case where, in my humble opinion, where Democrats are.
We're not, you know, I'm not upset about these Republican.
You know, only the time I get upset is when they become, when they act out their racism, because Republicans really is a racist party.
We have to admit that.
You know, it wasn't a Republican Party who was for the Voting Rights Act.
It wasn't a Republican Party who was for women's rights.
It wasn't a Republican Party who was for gay rights.
The Republicans have always opposed anything that should be considered that is helpful to America just to keep everybody in the middle of the day.
Let's hear from Gordon in Plant City, Florida on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Gordon.
unidentified
Hey, thank you for taking my call, Kimberly.
Everyone will remember me.
I'm the conservative Republican in Plant City named Gordon Wayne Watts that nearly won the Terry Shibo case.
And the four to three lost in the Terry Shadow case did better than Governor Bush's case.
And I actually, anyone who disbelieves this can Google Terry Shadow and Gordon Wayne Watts.
So about my political involvement, earlier this morning, I called my friend George Norrie at Coast to Coast A.M. and I said, look, everyone here at Coast knows I'm a conservative Republican, but I'm a Christian first.
And I want to have a message for Hakeem Jeffries.
Even though I want to cut spending, the request for a reasonable priced health care and reasonable priced education is reasonable.
And I found a solution.
It's a Christmas miracle.
When I called him a couple of months ago, there was the Middleman Elimination Act by Gordon in Florida.
You didn't even need Gordon Wayne Watts.
But the Google Google graph shows that the Middleman Elimination Act by Gordon in Florida is really high.
And here's what I have to say about ZED: there's a solution that I found.
Polk County, Florida is where Sheriff Grady Judd is, and it's one of the most conservative places in the world.
Gordon, I'm thinking that I understand that you're talking about the issue specific to Florida, but I wonder what motivates your political engagement overall.
unidentified
Well, what motivates my political engagement is that President Trump made promises to cut spending, to abolish the Department of ZED, to eliminate the health insurance middleman.
And although I think he's tried, he has given up.
And I want to reach out and help him and the Democrats work together because the Polk County, Florida's free health care for their low-income citizens costs the taxpayers less.
And if I'm a Republican, I don't care if it's free.
I'm not no liberal just because I'm trying to do something free.
If it costs the taxpayers less, it'll help the Democrats costing less because there's no middleman.
There's like it costs far less than the ACA, no offense to meant to President Obama, but what he eventually got wasn't working.
And if it works for both sides, I'm a Christian first, and I'm politically involved as a conservative Republican, but I'm a Christian.
And I see that eliminating the middleman for health insurance and for student loans where it directly funds the health care and the college.
If Polk County, Florida has free health care and it costs the taxpayers less, but it costs the patients less, why can't we all work together and have something where I want everyone to go to GordonWatts.com and Gordon Clay.
So what inspired you to get involved in particular this year in a political campaign?
unidentified
Well, because this all, this Trump era, it all goes back to when Nixon was running for president and Martin Luther King was in jail with his head busted and Nixon wouldn't even make a phone call to get him out of jail, but Kennedy did.
And that's when my family stopped voting Republican.
And I mean, I'm sure there was always good people in the Republican Party because they told Nixon that he was going to get impeached if he didn't resign, so he did.
But now it's like they won't do anything.
They give up any power they have politically.
And I'm just sick of politicians on both sides of the aisle begging for money because money isn't the answer to our problems.
We've had trouble with immigration and people hating on each other since way before I was born.
Sarah is in Savannah, Georgia on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Sarah.
unidentified
Good morning.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
I just have a quick few points I would like to make.
First of all, I'm 40 years old, and I have been a part of an organization called Ladies on the Right that we formed in Savannah, Georgia several years ago.
So I've been a part of it for a while now.
And we, you know, we talk about all of these points.
We talk about political engagement, you know, protesting, things like that.
So here's my thoughts on it for protesting.
It's a waste of time.
It gets people all riled up and everybody wants to scream and yell and get all crazy.
So I just think people need to calm down and focus on what you can do to make an effective change.
And then if you don't know anything about politics and if you're not going to politically engage and vote, then shut your mouth.
Because if you don't know what you don't know, then don't talk about it.
And then my third point is if you want to find something out, there's many ways and resources to do that outside of the news station.
So you can, you know, request an open records request to find out things that you want to look at, whether it's money management through the government and or your local law enforcement and other nonprofit organizations.
But, you know, people will sit there and they're going to fight.
They're going to, that's all they're going to do when they protest.
So, Sarah, I was looking at the website for your group, Ladies on the Right, and I see that you organize luncheons and things like that.
I'm wondering, you mentioned that certain types of political engagement are more useful than others.
What have you found in your work with this group and others to be the most effective forms of political engagement?
unidentified
Yes, ma'am.
So we have like, we have a lot of people that come in for our luncheons, our monthly luncheons, and they will come from all around.
It's not just political folks.
It's all kinds of different organizations who are advocating for certain things that are going on in our day-to-day lives.
And so we've got great speakers and sponsors that will come in and discuss things and have an open forum to really understand what's going on.
How can we effectively make a change and or promote a certain aspect of whatever the topic is for that particular luncheon?
But I have found those luncheons to be extremely useful because it, you know, some of them you go, oh, well, it's not necessarily my kind of thing, but that's why you go because you get to go and you get to learn, you get to find out, you get to find out new resources, and then you take and do with those as you please.
Sarah mentioned the questions about the efficacy of certain protests and things like that.
This was written about back in April in Brookings, The Power of Protest in the U.S.
And among other things, it says to succeed in the long term, protest activities must have clear strategic objectives, broaden their coalitions, and develop concrete electoral and political mobilization efforts.
Successful movements of past decades often took months or even years to organize and achieve policy victories.
Protest is not an endeavor that delivers immediate results.
It requires considerable time, along with patience, perseverance, and courage from all involved.
Some protesters believe that tweeting discontent or posting videos on social media platforms constitutes political protest or electoral mobilization.
However, effective protests have demonstrated that long-term success involves many steps, from mass protests and political alliance building to candidate recruitment, fundraising, registration drives, and get-out-the-vote efforts.
Back to your calls on whether you've become more politically engaged this year.
Al is in Washington, D.C. on our line for Democrats.
So Al was mentioning how he has friends from across the political spectrum.
And there's a story actually about this in the Washington Examiner that Republicans are more likely than Democrats to have close friends in the other party.
This is from a poll.
Republicans are more likely than Democrats to have a close friend on the other side of the political aisle.
A poll that was recently released shows.
The poll found that 82% of Republicans have at least one close friend on the left compared to 64% of Democratic respondents.
While the majority of voters on both sides have friends across the aisle, the bulk of respondents who claim they do not have close cross-party friendships are particularly younger voters.
The poll also found that respondents who identified themselves as moderates were also expected to have a close friend in a different political party.
For instance, self-identified moderate Republicans were 8% more likely to have a close friend in the Democratic Party than conservative Republicans.
In parallel, the poll found that moderate Democrats were 21% more likely to have a close Republican friend than liberal Democrats.
Let's get back to your calls on whether you've become more politically engaged in 2025.
All righty, I would like to wish the country a happy new year.
Haphazardly speaking, my political engagement improved or advanced when George Bush made an attempt to run for office in 1999,
and he haphazardly displayed his, how can I say, de facto bureaucracy and actually won his seat by the corruption held at the state of Georgia, which is led by a whole vastness of local municipal corruption.
And one of those corruptions is just from Georgia within itself.
And so with my advancement, I saw that repeated itself.
I saw that it was repeating itself with Joseph Biden.
And I said, a vote for Trump is a vote for America.
And with that, I was hoping, I was praying, I said, God forsaken Joseph Biden got these people blinded.
Political corruption can turn into tyranny.
It can turn into a suppression of the economic stimulus.
Let's hear from Alan in Ithaca, New York, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Alan.
unidentified
Hi.
Ceasons, greetings to you and the listeners.
I've been politically active since I got back from Vietnam and have joined, am a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and also have recently joined Veterans for Peace.
And I'm not sure of one thing except that the class that determines the direction of the economy also determines foreign policy.
And that class and the priorities of that class have been similar since the Vietnam War.
And I look at the Ukraine war that's going on now.
And to me, the only explanation for that is what has been called the deep state or this consistent anti-Soviet Union and now anti-Russia foreign policy of the deep state.
And it's something that I think a lot of people are waking up to.
And I've recently become involved or worked with and gone out for the No Kings march.
And I think people have got to sort of look at the foreign policy that has been consistent since the end of World War II and realize that has to change.
And I like to be optimistic and say most Americans have common sense and are looking, are feeling what is happening now and taking a look at the politics behind it.
So, Alan, you've mentioned that you've been engaged in politics since Vietnam.
You came back from Vietnam, but you've recently sort of joined these new groups as well as attended protests.
Have you seen others around you doing more political engagement than maybe you have in the past?
unidentified
Well, in my small town, there was a huge turnout for the No Kings Day.
And I mean, and when you look at the protest across the country, I don't think that it was nonviolent, but I don't think the media really looked at why so many people turned out.
And yes, people that I know, yeah, are all across the board.
People are upset, but they don't have a vehicle or a way to articulate and focus their anger and their frustration.
All right, let's hear from Randy in Millington, Michigan on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Randy.
unidentified
Ho, ho, ho.
Merry Christmas to the country, and I hope everyone has a great new year coming.
I want to thank you for very much for working on Christmas and being out, being away from your family, you and all the other men and women that are there today working.
I appreciate the great job you're doing for the nation.
I've always been politically involved ever since I hired into General Motors and became a union member.
My daughter is really politically involved as a younger person.
What kind of political activities are you involved in?
unidentified
I was involved with any of the union, the rallies that we had for Carmela Harris, going to gatherings to discuss it with debates on political debates when they would have them with the different candidates.
I would go to them.
That's my involvement now.
Not quite as much on the in the sorry about that.
That was cat.
Not quite as active as I used to be when I was working, but still want to stay involved and have discuss with debates with people in that kind of engagement.
And that is what I'm into now.
Not quite so much going to all the rallies like I used to, but I still go to the ones that I deem the most important where the most action can get to be taken care of or try to make the outcome the best for everyone.
That's how I look at my involvement when I do get involved.
I try not to try to, I'm a moderate.
So I try to look at both sides and work with people.
That's how I do it.
But I really wanted to call and just thank you for working on Christmas.
So speaking of working on Christmas, yesterday President Trump and the First Lady spoke words of encouragement and well wishes to U.S. troops who are working this holiday stationed abroad on Christmas Eve.
Well, I'd like to wish a very big hello to all of our wonderful service members and a very, very Merry Christmas.
It's a great Christmas for this country.
We're doing better than ever.
Financially, we're setting records.
You saw 4.3% GDP yesterday.
That was a big one.
It was two points more than anyone expected, but we knew it.
On behalf of the First Lady and our entire country, let me thank each and every one of you for your extraordinary devotion and service to America.
I also want to salute your wonderful families.
It's amazing how much they sacrifice.
You understand it better than anybody, but they sacrifice so much, and especially during these beautiful holidays.
I know it's not easy when duty separates you from your loved ones, but you have earned the gratitude of all Americans for keeping our country safe, strong, and free.
And tonight and tomorrow, countless millions of Americans have you in their prayers.
We are praying for all of you.
You have no idea how respected you are, how loved you are.
You don't see it because there's no way of you seeing it, but you are respected and loved more than anyone.
As your Commander-in-Chief, I also want to thank you for your incredible backup.
You've backed up everything I've wanted to do, and you've made our country stronger and more prosperous than ever before.
But I have your back also because by now I hope most of you have received your special warrior dividend of $1776, right?
$1,776.
And, you know, in case you're not aware of it, it's tax-free.
You don't have to pay tax.
In other words, you don't have to send half of it back to the government 15 minutes after you get it.
You don't have to send anything back.
So that's $1776.
It's tax-free.
And we've distributed just about all of it in time for Christmas.
And you've earned it.
Nobody else is going to do that for you, that I can tell you.
We have a few Christmas wishes as well from members of Congress.
This one from Representative August Piefler, who says, Merry Christmas Eve, Texas 11.
What a joy it is to celebrate the humble birth of our Savior.
As we expectantly await Christmas Day, I pray you'll join me in reflecting on the reason we can celebrate this week.
And then Representative Adrian Smith says, Christmas is a time to count our blessings.
I'm grateful for the freedoms we enjoy in the United States, the strength of family, and the promise of a new year.
From our family to yours, Merry Christmas and a happy new year.
And then Kwasi Mfume says, may this Christmas bring peace and joy as we gather with friends, both family, friends, and loved ones.
Wishing everyone a blessed and meaningful day and Merry Christmas.
Our question this morning again is have you become more politically engaged in 2025?
Our phone lines again for Republicans 202-748-8001.
For Democrats, 202-748-8000.
And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
Let's hear from James in Florence, South Carolina on our line for independence.
Good morning, James.
Have you become more politically engaged in 2025?
unidentified
To the extent that I'm able to, I have.
First, I want to wish everybody a happy holidays because I don't know what their religious affiliations are, and I don't want to insult anybody.
Now, you had a caller several calls back that was saying how, you know, the Republican Party has always been racist and this and that.
That caller, I hear him every single day on C-SPAN.
So it would be great that, you know, when he calls to just remind him about the 30-day call policy.
And as far as him claiming that, you know, Republicans have always been racist, I'd like to remind him that Abraham Lincoln was Republican and that Martin Luther King Jr. was Republican.
Now, I've made some pretty bad decisions in my life, so I'm not able to vote, but I have spoken to several people about my religious, about my political leanings.
I used to be a Republican, but due to a lot of the decisions that Donald Trump has made, I switched over to the Independent Party because I see both good and bad on both sides of the political spectrum.
James, since you've kind of gone through this yourself, can you talk about some of the ways that people like yourself can be politically engaged even when you're not voting?
unidentified
By speaking to people, I speak to my pastor at my church quite a bit.
I speak to the owners of the business that I work at, neighbors I've spoken to about, you know, my thoughts of how the political spectrum has been going and decisions that I would like to see be made.
How have you become more politically engaged in 2025?
unidentified
Well, two weeks ago, I stepped out on faith and I applied to run for the county commissioner in this county.
And, of course, I'm running on a Democratic ticket, and this is a solid Republican county, 75%, 44 Donald J. Trump last year.
So a Democrat hadn't been elected in probably 10 or 20 years countywide.
But last time there was no Democrats on the ticket for county commissioner.
So I felt like I want to give people a choice.
You know, I think it'll be better if people have a choice.
So I've always been politically involved.
I've got an advanced degree in political science.
But last year, I had some medical issues, so I hadn't wasn't very involved, but I'm better now and I'm stepping out on faith, and I'm going to fight like crazy.
So, Michael, has that made you want to be more politically engaged in the last year?
unidentified
Yeah, when you're out there praying in the streets and it's just not a nice place where even American people who have lived there all their lives are not welcome in that town, even the mayor of the Senate.
You guys need to take a little survey for that town and bring it back to us and see what you have to say.
Well, I'm curious, Michael, since you seem to not like what's happening in your community, if you've gotten involved in the politics in your area at all?
Let's look at some messages that we received via text and social media on political engagement.
Jim Bo in Bakersfield, California, an independent, says, now that everyone is entitled to their own facts, I have completely abandoned any attempt to be politically engaged with anyone with the exceptions of text messages to C-SPAN Washington Journal.
Attempting to deprogram individuals with a brain full of misinformation is a waste of time.
I have, in essence, abandoned all hope for our democracy.
Merry Christmas.
Lori says, as families across the Commonwealth come together to celebrate Christmas Eve, I'm thinking of everyone.
This is a representative thinking of everyone working to keep our communities safe, healthy, and warm, grateful for their service, especially during the holiday season.
Back to your calls for whether you've become more politically engaged in 2025.
Eric is in Dothan, Alabama, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Eric.
Good morning, Eric.
Can you hear us?
All right, let's go to Philip.
Yes, I can hear you.
Go ahead, Eric.
unidentified
Yes.
I have become even more politically awakened, I guess, for the fact that the president is making so many moves and he's making them quickly.
I think one of his goals is to be the fastest person, well, the most productive more quickly without true politics, you know, just getting things done.
And that's really had me, that's really got my attention, the fact that he is making moves against Venezuela, actually stopping or showing an attempt to try to stop the drugs from coming here to our country.
Some of his tariff moves, he's doing things that are at such a rate that I'm wondering how this is all going to turn out.
I don't want to see him get stopped.
And I would like to see more Americans actually come around to his way of thinking.
I mean, you know, there are people that are actually turned off by all this stuff that he's doing, and they are benefiting.
I don't understand that.
I see, too, that he has done things for the troops.
I don't think I've seen any other president do this for the troops.
And he just said, you know, this money is yours.
You'll give half of it back to the government.
I've never seen anything like this before.
I don't know if he's Reagan or if he's, I don't know, I don't know what president to Reagan and JFK.
So, Eric, can you talk a little bit about the type of political engagement that you do that you feel is most useful?
unidentified
The ones where he is engaging other Somalis won.
That right there, that right there is just mind-blowing.
And how he has rapidly went to these cities, these crime-ridden cities.
I like to see that, how he has been engaging in that politically, and how he has come against these Democrats who are actually trying to fight him and stop him from doing so.
We have another text that we received from Jim in Forsyth, Illinois, who, in answer to the question, have you become more politically engaged?
No, because my interest in national politics has been at a fever pitch since Trump entered office in 2016, and that has not waned.
I spend too much time following Trump.
I consider myself a John McCain Republican.
I am disgusted by Trump and MAGA.
Thanks for your show.
Now, our caller we just finished with was talking about the fact that very few people in his life discuss politics at this point.
And there was an op-ed in the New York Post by Jonathan Alpert that got to this exact idea, saying, The classic holiday blow-up isn't what's derailing families anymore.
It's the silence that creeps in before it.
People aren't fighting more.
They're filtering more.
They stay polite while bracing on the inside.
It doesn't have to be this way.
Families don't need to avoid politics.
In fact, avoidance often makes the fear worse.
What helps is restoring something simple: trust.
Relatives need to believe they can disagree without being reduced to caricature.
They need room to be imperfect.
They need to assume complexity in one another, assume complexity in one another rather than moral clarity from one comment.
If politics comes up, the most effective move is to stay grounded, redirect to shared values or personal experience, and remind yourself the bond matters more than the debate.
Don't take the bait.
If all else fails, there's always please pass the stuffing.
That was in the New York Post.
Philip is in Springfield, Massachusetts, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Philip.
unidentified
Hi, good morning.
I wanted to say I've been called Richard Neal's office and gave my opinions about the health care debacle they have on the increases and about the I watch your C-SPAN every day and call in every 30 days.
And so I feel I'm getting more involved.
And I give the Democrat Party donations through the mail.
And I've done surveys on political issues and vote every primary and every election.
And I just wanted to comment on the president.
Maybe Trump could give each American a $2,000 stimulus check if since he's helped the military would check that maybe the American citizens could get that because there's a lot of hurting people.
And I feel like this year I've been more involved in politics than ever because this is the first year I've called into the Washington Journal and gave my opinions on certain issues.
And I just want to say thank you and have a Merry Christmas and God bless.
We have a comment from Steve in Tampa, Florida, who texted, as an 80-year-old Republican retiree with a degree in political science, I have the time to contact many congressmen, senators, and even the White House about ideas I think would be beneficial to the country.
Unfortunately, my friends on the other side of the political spectrum hesitate to talk about politics.
David is in Arcade New York on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, David.
David, can you make sure to turn down the volume on your TV and then go ahead with your comment?
Senators, even the White House got ideas.
All right, in the meantime, let's hear from Dee in Massachusetts on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Dee.
unidentified
Yeah, good morning.
Yeah, I just want to make a couple of comments about how this country is being run.
I tend to think in the midterm, they should be a complete wipeout of the Republican Party.
I mean, they're not doing anything.
I mean, Trump is running the whole show.
You got a whole bunch of 400 of them on the Republican side, and they can't do nothing without Trump running the show.
I mean, you got a Supreme Court that don't do nothing but work for Donald Trump.
And we need to get, you know, once we get a new president, we need, like I said, we need to flip the Senate to like 60 senators in there to get rid of that Supreme Court by putting 15 new Supreme Court people in there.
Because like I said, this country turning into garbage turning, making immigrants look like Rodens and whatnot, putting everybody in jail and whatnot, going to university.
Have you gotten more engaged in politics or changed the way that you interact with your elected officials?
unidentified
Well, I vote when it's time to vote.
I mean, I talk to people politics every day, you know.
But the thing is that, like I said, you got, let me tell you something, even the media is being runned over by Donald Trump.
I mean, to me, when he started calling them, let me tell you something.
That's what the problem with these women in this country.
You stand up there letting the U.S. president call a woman pigs, and you all still vote for this fool in the White House and why that's why in Massachusetts, we call him a mashed potato boy.
Because the thing is, he ain't even stronger than woman and calling women pigs and all kinds of names and whatnot.
And it's a disgrace.
And these women that's out here in this country, they better wake up.
Rob in Fairfax, Virginia says via text, I have become more politically aware compliments of C-SPAN.
I watch as many of the confirmations, hearings, and programs that I can.
Ceasefire is a wonderful new addition.
Yet I'm a fraud in very blue northern VA.
I put up a facade of political neutrality so that I do not upset the folks I interact with.
Well, Rob was mentioning ceasefire, and on a recent episode of the Ceasefire program, we had Alabama Republican Senator Katie Britt and Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman talk about how they became friends.
People who have very different political views on a number of issues, but saw each other as people and got to know each other in that way as well.
unidentified
And so getting to know John and Giselle, getting to hear about their kids.
This is also another demographic that is not necessarily represented a great deal in Congress or particularly in the Senate, is people who are raising children in our home states.
And so that's something else that we bonded over.
Not just, we'd go to committee hearings.
We were both on the banking committee.
And I remember sitting in the ante-room, which is the room right outside of the committee hearing, and talking about the vote schedule.
And, you know, there's so much of being a parent where, you know, people, we obviously raised our hand to do this, but our kids did not.
And I think that has also been a bond too about how to balance making sure we're present for our children and doing everything we can for our constituency and also the perspective that it brings to a number of issues being parents.
unidentified
But all of that to say, it has been one of the best parts of being in the Senate is friendship with John and the work we've been able to do together.
Yeah, and Senator Fetterman, for you to have someone across the aisle who has stuck by you to the point where she visited you in the hospital and at a time when you struggled with depression, with adjusting to life in the Senate early on.
How important did this friendship become?
unidentified
Oh, it's very affirming.
And just like that.
And just immediately, it's just how, I mean, there wasn't media there.
And now we're only the first year, you know, now I'm not sure the direction the town is overall going, but you can't forget that we, you know, we need each other, you know, politically, and we have to find a way to get together.
And I represent a very, very purple state.
And I don't, I can't forget that my neighbor might have a different views on things and that thing.
unidentified
And we have to find a way forward.
And then that's been my struggle this year just trying to do that.
On our question of whether folks have become more politically engaged in 2025, Sue in Whiting, New Jersey says, while I consider myself politically interested, I'm not an activist.
I definitely don't care for the I'm right and you're wrong attitude, which is so prevalent in politics.
I'm all for adult-like discussions and debate, but not name-calling.
It's a turnoff.
Gary is in Fort Pierce, Florida, on our line for Republicans.
There's all sorts of types of political engagements, and thanks to everybody who called in this hour to share what they've been up to.
Coming up next, Washington Journal's annual Holiday Authors Week series will continue this morning.
We're in the midst of nine days of authors from across the political spectrum whose books shine a spotlight on some important aspect of American life.
This morning's featured author is National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeffrey Rosen, who's going to join us to discuss his book, The Pursuit of Liberty, how Hamilton versus Jefferson ignited the lasting battle over power in America.
unidentified
We'll be right back all week through the new year, the C-SPAN networks will present a series of marathons highlighting the most consequential moments, conversations and coverage of 2025 across C-SPAN, C-SPAN 2 and C-SPAN 3.
Revisit speeches that moved a nation, hearings that shape debates, and be authors, leaders, and thinkers that define the year.
Our highlights include key speeches with this year's most impactful speeches from elected leaders and influential voices.
Book TV book fairs featuring author conversations and interviews from our book fairs across the country.
Memorable moments with some of this year's most watched and talked about C-SPAN programming.
President Trump and foreign leaders with key coverage of events both at home and overseas.
America's Book Club, featuring a special lineup from our new weekly series of thought-provoking conversations with host David Rubinstein and leading authors.
America 250 highlights the events, conversations, and reflections marking our nation's semi-quincentennial in Memoriam.
Remembering the political figures, public servants, and other influential people who've passed away in 2025.
Key congressional hearings that sparked debate and captured public attention.
Voices of 2025 with book TV and American History TV's compelling interviews and discussions with historians, scholars, and authors who shaped the national conversation.
Watch our in-depth look at the people and events that defined 2025, C-SPAN's year-end marathon, all week through the new year on the C-SPAN networks.
For our complete marathon schedule, head over to our website, C-SPAN.org.
This Friday, on a special edition of Ceasefire, host Dasha Burns features key moments from Ceasefire's inaugural season, highlighting moments of friendship and humor, respectful disagreement.
The thing that I appreciated about Rob is while we differed, particularly after he led the charge for the Democrats to defeat the Republican majority in 2006, I always felt like still too soon.
Washington Journal's annual holiday authors week continues this morning.
We have nine days of conversations with America's top writers from across the political spectrum on a variety of public policy and political topics.
This morning's featured author is Jeffrey Rosen, President and CEO of the National Constitution Center and author of the book, The Pursuit of Liberty, How Hamilton versus Jefferson, Igniting the Lasting Battle Over Power in America.
I was struck by the fact that all of the major battles in American history are defined by the initial battles between Hamilton and Jefferson.
And it was Hamilton and Jefferson's battle about national power versus states' rights and executive power versus the power of Congress and democracy versus rule by elites and liberal versus strict construction of the Constitution that defined the rise of America's initial political parties and has defined our big debates on the Supreme Court and in the country ever since.
My goal is to share my excitement and enthusiasm for learning about American history with readers.
It's so exciting to see the clash of ideas that has defined us since the founding.
And it's so inspiring to see that despite this clash of ideas, Americans have been committed to the project of the American idea itself and its big ideals, namely liberty, equality, and government by consent.
We're about to embark on the 250th anniversary of America on January 1st.
And this is such an important time for Americans of different perspectives, like the ones that C-SPAN brings together so meaningfully every day, debate the meaning of these ideals, but also commit to preserving, protecting, and defending them.
And that's why the Hamilton-Jefferson story is so exciting.
And that's why I want viewers to read these stories over the holidays so that they can inspire themselves in the year ahead to continue to debate and embrace the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
One of the things that you write early on, in the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Thomas Jefferson defined America in terms of three shining ideas, liberty, equality, and government by consent.
But just a decade later, after the new Constitution was drafted in 1787, Jefferson and Hamilton began a heated debate about the relationship between these three ideas.
That initial debate between Hamilton and Jefferson has framed the epic battles about how to balance liberty and power that have unfolded throughout American history.
This really gets at, especially, this idea of federal powers versus states' rights.
Can you talk about how that debate played out between the two?
Jefferson and Hamilton have very different views about the balance between liberty and power.
Jefferson is, we call him today a libertarian.
In his view, every increase in government power threatens liberty.
By contrast, Hamilton takes a more conservative or statist view, and he thinks that increases in state power can help to secure liberty.
And it's that basic difference between liberals and conservatives, libertarians and progressives.
In the old days, they called it Whigs and Tories, Federalists and Anti-Federalists, that led to the rise of America's first party system.
Jefferson founds the Democratic Republican Party in order to resist the supposed consolidation and monarchism of Hamilton and the Federalists.
They want to lace congressional powers up strictly, and they want judges to construe those powers strictly in interpreting the Constitution.
And it all blows up in the battle over the Bank of the United States, which we can talk about later.
The details are essentially that Hamilton wants a centralized bank in order to increase the credit of the United States and create a global trade.
And Jefferson thinks that the bank is unconstitutional.
So George Washington asks for both of their opinions.
Jefferson says that you have to strictly construe the word necessary in the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to grant all powers that are necessary and proper for carrying out its purposes.
And he says a bank isn't necessary to raise taxes or promote the general welfare.
Hamilton disagrees.
He says construe the word necessary liberally to mean useful or conducive.
And because a bank might be useful and conducive to promoting the general welfare, you can imply the power to create it.
And it's that difference between enumerated versus implied powers.
In other words, does the power have to be written down for Congress to exercise it, or can it be implied that defines the difference between Hamilton and Jefferson on how to construe the Constitution?
George Washington sides with Hamilton, and then John Marshall on the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice, also sides with Hamilton and liberally construes the word necessary and proper to allow the bank.
And it's that basic debate, liberal versus reconstruction, implied versus enumerated powers, that defines the debate about federal power ever since.
And on this banking issue in particular, it also, there's so many parallels to debates we are still having today, as you said, but a lot of that also had to do with public debt.
Just a bit of what you wrote on that.
Hamilton and Jefferson's competing views on public debt came to define the difference between supporters and opponents of the federal government for the rest of American history.
Jefferson thinks that any form of debt is a burden on future generations, and he opposes public debt.
He's not only for a balanced budget, and he does balance the budget during his term as president, but he thinks that no generation can impose a debt on another.
That's why he wants to have a constitutional convention every 19 years so that people can decide again whether they want to be bound by the Constitution and not impose it on their predecessors.
And that defines also his vision of limited government.
And in his first inaugural as president, he talks about the need for fiscal discipline as key to a free government.
Hamilton disagrees.
He thinks that a public debt is necessary, both to create global confidence that will lead foreign governments to invest in the U.S. and create a circulating money supply.
And he also, the key to his plan, is for the federal government to assume the debts of the states, the Revolutionary War debts.
States couldn't pay those debts.
As a result, foreign creditors didn't want to lend anymore.
And folks who've seen the Hamilton musical will remember that it was in a secret deal in the room where it happened, Jefferson's house in New York, that Hamilton gets Jefferson to agree for the federal government to assume the state debt in exchange for moving the capital from New York, where it is, to Philadelphia and eventually to Washington, D.C.
And that's the deal, and Jefferson later regrets it.
And it all has to do with whether or not to have a public debt.
We are going to be taking questions for Jeffrey Rosen from folks in the audience.
Republicans can call in at 202-748-8001.
Democrats on 202-748-8000.
And Independents on 202-748-8002.
There are, as you lay out, Mr. Rosen, so many parallels between the debates that were happening at the founding of the country and some of the debates that we're having now.
One of them has to do with the powers of the president.
And President Trump and some of his allies have been teasing the possibility of the president serving a third term.
This 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951, 175 years after the Constitution was signed.
And I want to read a bit of your book on this topic in particular.
In Hamilton's view, a life term would free the president to pursue the public interest rather than flattering the people to advance his own self-interest.
Jefferson was similarly concerned about presidents refusing to leave office.
His study of ancient history had convinced him that all elective monarchies had ended with popular leaders like Caesar converting themselves into hereditary despots.
But if Hamilton feared demagogues would flatter the majority from below, Jefferson worried about demagogues who would thwart the majority will from above.
Jefferson was especially concerned that an unscrupulous president in the distant future might lose a bid for reelection by a few votes and falsely insist that the election had been stolen.
How do you relate that to some of the debates that we're having now?
Well, the first thing to say is that that debate about how long the president should serve also arose from a dinner party.
And it was a dinner party in the same room where it happened, Jefferson's house in New York.
But this one is a year later, after they'd already agreed to move the capital to D.C.
And the whole cabinet is gathered.
Washington is away on business.
And at some point in the evening, Hamilton asked Jefferson, who are those three guys on the wall, those three portraits you have in your dining room.
And Jefferson said, those are my three portraits of the greatest men that ever lived, John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton.
And Hamilton paused for a long time and then he blurted out, according to Jefferson, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar.
And Jefferson writes in his diary later, this proved that Hamilton was not only for a monarchy, but a monarchy bottomed on corruption.
And he goes on to found the Democratic Republican Party in order to stop the alleged monarchism or Caesarism of Hamilton and the Federalists.
He calls them monocrats.
The amazing thing about this story is that Hamilton was probably joking.
That's what Ron Chernow, his great biographer, concludes, because Hamilton fears a kind of Julius Caesar-like character who will come in, flatter the mob from below, and convert himself into an elected dictator.
He says in Shea's Rebellion, in Federalist 22, imagine that Shea's rebellion had been led by a Caesar or a Cataline.
The Republic might have fallen in its cradle.
Hamilton's solution to an aspiring Caesar-like demagogue is, as you said, a life term for the president.
That's what he proposes at the Constitutional Convention in a long speech.
In the end, that doesn't go through, but he's not totally out there.
James Madison and James Wilson also at different points support a life term for the president because they think it'll put him above the temptation to flatter the mob and will allow him to tend to the public interest.
Jefferson has the totally opposite view.
In that passage you read, it's from a letter that he wrote to Madison after he received a copy of the Constitution.
And he worried that because the president can run for re-election, a future president might lose an election by a few votes, cry foul, and refuse to leave office.
That's a direct quotation from Jefferson.
Jefferson's solution is a one-year term limit for the president because if he can't run again, he won't be tempted to steal an election, basically.
In the end, there are no term limits.
Washington establishes a precedent of stepping down after two terms.
Jefferson keeps that tradition when he too steps down.
For until the early 1900s, no president tries to run for a third term.
Teddy Roosevelt breaks that tradition and runs unsuccessfully for a third term.
And then Franklin Roosevelt comes in.
And it's really striking.
He's constantly attacked as a Julius Caesar-like autocrat when he's in office.
And during his birthday party in 1934, he dresses up like Julius Caesar, wearing a wreath crown, and his wife, Eleanor, dresses up like a Roman matron, and he kind of makes fun of the charges.
But people really think he's trying to overthrow American democracy.
He then runs for a third term and then a fourth.
And he dies 80 days or so into his fourth term.
And it's then that Congress proposes and the states ratify the 22nd Amendment to ensure that no president can seek a fourth term again.
So that's where we get our current two-term tradition.
It all comes from fears of aspiring demagogues and monarchs.
And of course, today we're having a debate about whether President Trump is like Julius Caesar or like Andrew Jackson.
And his critics say that he's the fulfillment of Hamilton and Jefferson's fears of consolidated executive power unchecked by the Congress or the judiciary.
His supporters say he's like Andrew Jackson, a populist who's attacking elites and trying to shrink the size of the federal government by using executive power, just as Jackson did when he killed the Bank of the United States.
As a historian, I think it's too soon to say whether our current president is Julius Caesar or Andrew Jackson.
But this is why it's so important to read history and so exciting and interesting.
When we see that these are exactly the same debates that people had ever since the founding, we can help put our current debates into context.
This idea around separation of powers, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had a comment that was quoted in Newsweek, an inclination by presidents to try to do more and more and more using their own power or what they believe to be their own power.
And now, under President Trump, it's gone on like this.
And he's used executive power very aggressively.
And what we have seen since the beginning of his second term, since January, is that so many of these things that he has done are immediately challenged in court.
We have 680 district judges.
A district judge says it's unconstitutional or it's unlawful.
And then the case comes to us as an emergency power.
What do you think Hamilton and Jefferson would make of the current state of the balance of powers in our government?
And, you know, as head of the National Constitution Center, I have to be nonpartisan.
Our charter says that our job is to increase awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people on a nonpartisan basis.
So basically, I'm not allowed to have any political opinions whatsoever.
And I can tell you, C-SPAN friends, I've got the best job in America because I wake up every morning untroubled by the need to opine politically about anything.
And it's very liberating.
But I can say without any fear of partisanship that both Hamilton and Jefferson would have been concerned about our current balance of powers because it doesn't look anything like the system they envisioned.
Both of them thought that Congress would be the most dangerous branch, to use James Madison's words, sucking all power into its impetuous vortex.
They thought the president would be a kind of chief magistrate who would execute Congress's will, and the judiciary would be the least dangerous branch, having neither force nor will, but only the power of persuasion.
But as Justice Alito said in that comment, presidential power has been exploding for a long time.
This just isn't just President Trump.
Ever since the progressive era, presidents like Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt have insisted that they are direct stewards of the people who should channel popular will.
And that's created a kind of imperial presidency, to use Arthur Schlesinger's phrase.
And at the same time, Congress has stopped doing its job.
It's just rubber stamping whatever presidents of its own party proposes, as opposed to exercising an independent checking function.
And at the same time, the judiciary has been increasingly sympathetic to broad executive power, embracing a theory of the so-called unitary executive, which is giving the president even more power than maybe even Hamilton wanted, although that's being debated on the Supreme Court today.
So the result of all this is that a vastly expanded presidency, a supine Congress, and a judiciary deferential to executive power has created a system that neither Hamilton or Jefferson would have recognized.
We actually have a question on what you just mentioned there.
Jimbo in Bakersfield, California asks, can your guests speculate as to what both Jefferson and Hamilton would have thought of President Trump's use of his unitary executive theory as a guiding principle of his presidential authority?
And check out the transcripts of the oral argument in Trump v. Slaughter, which is the recent case evaluating the constitutionality of independent agencies.
It's exactly your question.
What's so striking is that briefs on both sides are invoking Hamilton and Jefferson for their position.
The proponents of the so-called unitary executive theory invoke Hamilton's broad statements about executive power to say the president should be able to fire any official that he appoints because the Constitution vests all executive power in the president.
That's in Article 2.
And they say that Hamilton had come to embrace the ability of the president to fire any official he appoints.
The folks on the other side say absolutely not.
Hamilton's initial position in the Federalist Papers, number 77, is that Congress should be able to check the president's ability to fire officials that they both appoint.
And the folks on the other side also note that Hamilton created a so-called sinking fund to fund the national debt as part of his program.
And that insulated the head of that fund from being fired from the president.
And they broadly say that this mix of congressional and presidential authority over independent agencies was embraced by James Madison, who created a controller of the treasury when Congress created the Treasury Department, who couldn't be fired by the president.
So the history is messy, and it always is.
And both sides are always invoking Hamilton and Jefferson for their position.
But that's why the Hamilton-Jefferson debate is so central.
It's not that it gives clear answers to these questions, but that they are the lodestars, the guiding lights, the north stars of the debates, and that throughout American history, people have invoked them on both sides of all of our major constitutional, political, and intellectual disputes.
Once again, we'll be taking your calls with questions for Jeffrey Rosen about his book, The Pursuit of Liberty.
Let's start with Dick in Sharpsburg, Georgia, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Dick.
unidentified
Merry Christmas, Jeffrey.
One of my favorite guests.
I've got a book here.
It's called How to Read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Jeffrey, when they were debating the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, one of their great debates was over Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution.
And when Johnson and Nixon both took the United States citizens off on the redeemability of paper currency, they never amended Article I, Section 10.
Is it still effective?
Can I still refuse to pay with Federal Reserve notes and pay my taxes with paper currency instead of lawful money of the United States?
Thanks for reading Article I, Section 10, which sets out those important powers of Congress.
And as you know, that question of Congress's power to create paper currency and people's ability to use it as legal tender was the central question right after the Civil War when Abe Lincoln, who's funded the Civil War by using paper currency, is afraid that the Supreme Court will strike down that power.
And he is then martyred.
Congress reduces the size of the court by two justices to deny Andrew Johnson the power to make appointments because they fear the court's going to strike down the power.
Then Grant comes in and the court says Congress can't print paper money.
And then Grant appoints two justices who reverse the decision within a year.
It's so strikingly like today that the dissenters say the only thing that's changed is the composition of the court.
This is pure politics.
But they then bless the ability to print paper money.
So you know what's so striking about this?
And I'd love you to check out the passages of the book that describe this constitutional battle.
Often it all comes down to the construction of the word necessary.
That's that one that divided Hamilton and Jefferson over the bank.
And the basic idea is, are you going to strictly construe necessary to say absolutely indispensably necessary, or can it be just conducive or appropriate?
So basically, I think you can argue it either way, as always, but it's one of the central debates in American history.
Garr is in Decatur, Georgia, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Garr.
unidentified
Happy holidays to everyone.
And I love history, and I probably will read Jeffrey Rosen's book.
The question is, you know, the thing about it is that Peter Thiel once said, and he's JD Vance's boss at one time, said, freedom, capitalism is more important than freedom.
And another question is that Denise Spielberg wrote a book called Jefferson's Quran, who it was said that he was called a Muslim before President Obama.
And the other question is about George Mason, who refused to sign the Constitution, I believe it was, because it wouldn't end slavery.
George Mason of Virginia is indeed a libertarian hero.
He's the guy who wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights that Jefferson had next to him when he wrote the famous first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.
It's paraphrased from George Mason.
He refused to sign the Constitution because it didn't contain a Bill of Rights.
I think it's giving him a little too much credit to say it was because it didn't end slavery.
Although it is true that George Mason, who's an enslaver and did not want to end slavery completely, did oppose the extension of the international slave trade.
It's really striking that the delegates from the upper south, including Virginia and the Carolinas, all are willing to end the international slave trade because they don't need to import more human beings to keep their economy going.
It's only the delegates from South Carolina and Georgia who want to extend the international slave trade because they're cultivating rice and they still need more enslaved labor.
And they threatened to walk from the Constitutional Convention unless the slave trade were extended in a notorious deal with Connecticut.
They agreed to keep the international slave trade going until 1808 in exchange for giving Congress the power to pass Navigation Acts, which Congress and New England wanted.
And James Madison thought it was that fateful decision that really entrenched slavery and ultimately led to the Civil War.
So Mason gets credit, like all the Virginians, for being willing to end slavery.
But after 1808, the importation of human beings.
But his main legacy, and I've got his collected works behind me right in the bookcase here, he is the libertarian hero who refused to sign the Constitution because it didn't contain a Bill of Rights.
I'm so glad you asked about that question because the debate over freedom of conscience was absolutely central to the founding, to the debates over the Declaration and over the Constitution.
And Jefferson and Madison are at the center of it, and we can infer Hamilton's views as well.
The debate begins in the debate over Virginia's proposal to have a tax to support Christian ministers.
This is proposed by Patrick Henry.
And Jefferson and Madison oppose it on the grounds that freedom of conscience is an unalienable right.
And they say in the Virginia Bill of Religious Liberty, since the opinions of men being dependent on evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot be controlled by other men.
In other words, I can't give you or anyone else the power to control my thoughts or opinions.
They're the product of my reason, not my will.
They can only be affected by persuasion, not force or violence.
That's why the Virginia Constitution, written by Mason, says the opinions of men can be directed only by reason and conviction, not force or violence.
The argument on the other side is that of Roger Sherman and the Puritan theocrats.
They think that our opinions come from authority, from a king or a religious authority, rather than from reason and persuasion.
That debate plays out in the debate over the Bill of Rights, and Madison and Jefferson win.
And that's why we have a First Amendment that forbids an establishment of religion at the federal level.
Madison also wants to forbid it at the state level and says that you can't force people's religious beliefs and can't have coerced state support for religion.
So that's the big debate.
Now, where did Hamilton come down on this?
That has to do with their own personal religious degree of observance.
And Jefferson and Hamilton are different in this regard.
Jefferson, we'd call a deist.
He does believe in a creator, a God who created the universe.
He believes in afterlife, although he doesn't believe in sectarian expressions of it and is not sure about the Trinity and miracles is what he rejects.
Hamilton does support a society for the promotion of Christian religion at the end of his life.
So he thinks that this, at least voluntary society, should be able to promote Christianity, and he dies on his deathbed having taken confession.
But here I have to share, I hope I'm not going on too long, but since this is Christmas, one of the most interesting things I learned in the book is that Hamilton may have been Jewish.
There's a historian, Andrew Porschewanger, who has a book called The Jewish World of Hamilton, where he notes that Hamilton's mom married a Dutchman called Levine, who was almost certainly Jewish.
And Hamilton attended a Jewish day school on Neves, and people remembered reading the Ten Commandments in Hebrew.
And Porschewanger speculates that his mom may have converted to Judaism in order to marry Levine, and that would explain why Hamilton went to a Jewish day school, why he didn't take communion for most of his until his deathbed, and why he was very much a supporter of Jews throughout his life.
So, here on Christmas, you know, my co-religionists would be delighted if Hamilton were Jewish, but whether he was or not, he supports a general promotion of Christian religion in order to promote virtue, but not state-supported.
It's on a voluntary level.
And the big answer to your question is that all the Hamilton and Jefferson and Madison all believe in freedom of conscience, don't think the state can openly promote religion, whereas Sherman and the Puritans are more comfortable with establishments of religion at the state level.
We have a text message question from Alan in Brooklyn who asks, Isn't our focus on the number of presidential terms a distraction from the greater risk, the pursuit by the GOP of long incumbency in power by any one party over all three branches of government?
When the checks and balances our founders invented to ward off tyranny is so easily defeated by loyalty to a party that has no root in the Constitution, shouldn't voters have the standing to challenge this inter-branch partisan collusion?
And of course, neither Hamilton nor Jefferson, when they wrote the Constitution, anticipated the rise of political parties.
They viewed those as factions, which Madison defines in Federalist 10 as any group, a majority or a minority devoted to self-interest rather than the public interest.
Now, right after the Constitution was drafted, Hamilton and Jefferson themselves preside over the creation of America's first two political parties, with the Jeffersonian Democrats saying that they represent democracy and states' rights, and the Hamiltonian Federalists saying that they represent nationalism and rule by elites, essentially.
And that debate continues throughout American history.
Now, we're more polarized today than at any time since the end of the Civil War.
And in particular, it's the negative polarization.
In other words, people are more concerned about destroying the other side than debating them and engaging them.
And that is not the system that Hamilton and Jefferson anticipated.
And we know that from the very moving fact, and I end the book with this, that after Hamilton dies in the duel, Jefferson places a bust of Hamilton across from his own bust in the central entrance hall of Monticello.
You can see it there today.
And when he passed the bust, he would smile faintly and say, opposed in life as in death.
Isn't that moving that he saw Hamilton not as a hated enemy to be destroyed, but a respected opponent to be engaged with?
That's the spirit that we've got to get back to today.
That's the spirit of C-SPAN, it's the spirit of America, and it is necessary to preserve the United States of America.
Well, first of all, thank you for defining yourself as an ordinary citizen who votes every two years.
That's the highest office you can have in the American Republic, and it's an inspiration to be able to debate these questions together.
We know that the bedrock principle that Hamilton and Jefferson agree on is separation of powers, and in particular, the idea that the president is not a king.
That was the reason they fought the American Revolution, and that was the reason they designed the Constitution to prevent all power from being consolidated in the president.
In Russia, at the time, the czar could put people in jail because he didn't like them or command that wars are started on his own say-so.
In America, that wasn't supposed to be the case.
The president would execute the law, Congress would make it, and the judiciary would interpret and enforce it.
Again, this is not a criticism of President Trump alone, because we've been seeing that executive power has been consolidated for a long time.
But none of the founders would have wanted an unchecked president.
What they had an expectation of was that the branches would have institutional independence, that they'd be more devoted to preserving and exercising their own powers than to catering to political parties or partisanship.
And at a time when Congress stops insisting on its own power to make the laws or insisting that the money that it allocates is spent or withholding money from the president if they don't like his policies, the system can't easily function.
That's why so many of the most thoughtful proposals for reform today come from proposals to reform Congress.
And here I'll recommend Yuval Levin's wonderful book, American Covenant, which notes that if power in Congress were put back in the committee system so that all bills had to be debated by both parties rather than consolidated in leadership who could kind of railroad it through without any debate, that would be a good first step.
But the one thing I want to talk to you about, and happy holidays, by the way, the one thing I want to talk to you about is that approximately 64% of American adults reported reading at least one book in the past year.
But on that same study, okay, 48.5% of respondents indicated they cannot read any books over a year, that they have not read any books over a year.
Now, you, as head of the National Constitution Center, has written this great book and should be commended for it.
But put history in the context of our society.
You know, we look at the Federalist Papers, Federalist 10, 78, even Brutus 1, you know, that you think about.
And could that be read in the same context in the society that we live in today?
And what is the challenge that you have as the National Constitution Center CEO or the head of it in terms of creating a message where the kids get their information from social media, TikTok, all the different media sources?
How do you channel this great information about this, about Hamilton and Jefferson into that society and into that segment of our society that does not read?
I'm going to thank you very much and Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and I wish you the best and thanks for your work.
I know it's hard to write this book, but thank you.
Thank you so much for that inspiring, for the good words and the inspiring question.
You ask a simple question.
How can and does the National Constitution Center inspire people to learn about history at a time when people are not reading books?
And this is not just the least privileged among us.
All of us are not reading books because we are addicted to our screens.
And here I'll just fess up.
I feel like I'm witnessing, but I'll hold up my cell phone and say, like everyone else, I've been spending so much time browsing and surfing and tweeting and TikToking that I'd stop reading books.
Now, I broke that habit a few years ago when I spent the COVID year reading the books of moral philosophy on Thomas Jefferson's reading list.
And I woke up every morning before dawn and I read moral philosophy for two hours and I watched the sunrise.
This kind of crazy thing I was moved to do.
I wrote a book about the pursuit of happiness as a result of that project because it taught me that the founders defined happiness not as feeling good but being good, not the pursuit of immediate pleasure, but the pursuit of long-term virtue.
The takeaway from the project for me, which is why I'm sharing it now, is it got me back into the habit of daily reading.
My new rule is when I wake up, I have to read books before I'm allowed to browse or surf.
It's totally changed my life.
It allowed me to write this book on the pursuit of liberty, and I feel every morning like I've learned something.
And learning and growing is, for the founders, and for me, the definition of the pursuit of happiness.
I know you C-SPAN viewers are doing that as well.
So how does the National Constitution Center inspire others to read at a time when reading is under threat?
Well, by creating the most exciting and deep and accessible free online resources.
So I want you to go to the National Constitution Center website and check out our interactive Constitution that brings together America's leading liberal and conservative scholars to write about every clause of the Constitution and this amazing new civic toolkit for America 250, which brings together the most incredible historians to write about the big ideas of the Declaration and the Constitution.
Danielle Allen on equality, Robbie George on liberty, Gordon Wood, of all people, on government by consent.
Akhil Amar has annotated the entire Declaration clause by clause.
So you can find that online at constitutioncenter.org.
That's the America 250 Civic Toolkit.
It's going to be a book, a paperback published by Simon and Schuster in May.
So it's going to go out across America.
And then what we've got to do together is inspire people to read it.
And we're creating book clubs and discussion groups around this great toolkit.
I'd love to work with C-SPAN so we can talk about it with all of you, great C-SPAN viewers.
But in the end, I'll just bring this home because you asked the central question.
It's up to each one of us as individuals to model these habits, to practice these habits, to ensure that every morning we are reading and educating ourselves with different perspectives, just like C-SPAN does, which is why C-SPAN is performing a crucial service in bringing together liberals and conservatives to talk about these issues.
And then we've got to take this model that C-SPAN and the National Constitution Center exist to promote across the country and inspire our fellow citizens to read, listen, and learn as well.
Thank you for asking that very important question.
And Jefferson is not at the Constitutional Convention.
Hamilton is.
But I think it's fair to say that neither of them questioned that compromise.
It was part of the infamous Three-Fifths Compromise.
It was proposed by James Wilson of Pennsylvania, who in fact was an abolition, was opposed to slavery, but thought it was necessary to prevent the South from walking.
And he took that formula from the Northwest Ordinance, which had used it to apportion taxes and another question.
The underlying profound question you ask is: where do they stand on slavery?
And here the differences are really stark.
Hamilton opposes slavery.
He wants to abolish it.
And he founds an abolition society in New York, which proposes to end slavery.
So he is committed to opposing this wicked and immoral practice.
And Jefferson always insists until the end of his life that slavery is inconsistent with the ideals articulated in the Declaration of Independence, that it's a violation of the fact that all men are created equal and have equal liberty.
And he always says that slavery should end, but it's at some point in the distant future that keeps receding in the horizon as he gets older.
And then, of course, there's his personal hypocrisy as an enslaver who says slavery is immoral, but is served at Monticello by his own kids, by Sally Hemmings, who are the ones serving him in his house, because Sally Hemmings, his enslaved mistress, if you want to use that inappropriate term, since she was enslaved, she agrees to come back from Paris only on the condition that he free their kids when he dies, which he does do, but he frees no other enslaved human beings.
And Jefferson just becomes more calcified about slavery as he gets older.
He'd initially wanted to ban it in the federal territories, but then he comes to oppose the Missouri Compromise, which would ban the expansion of slavery.
And he calls it a death knell in the night, and he fears civil war.
And in the end, he even endorses the idea of secession.
So there's a pretty strong contrast between Hamilton and Jefferson, with Jefferson becoming increasingly committed to preserving slavery as he gets older and Hamilton wanting to abolish it.
Angela is in Washington, D.C. on our line for independence.
Good morning, Angela.
unidentified
Hi, good morning.
Mr. Frozen, I just wanted to let you know that I've had a lifelong interest in Hamilton because he spent his formative years in my hometown, which is Christianstead, St. Croix.
This is another central question about which Hamilton and Jefferson disagree.
So Hamilton's position is that we are one people, to use the language of the Declaration of Independence.
And since we, the people of the entire United States, created the Union, only we, the entire people, can break it.
And a single state can't secede any more than a party to a contract can unilaterally agree to withdraw from it.
You're bound by it until the body that made it, namely the entire people, changes their mind.
Jefferson disagrees.
And again, toward the end of his life, in the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, where he's opposing the sedition acts, which Hamilton and John Adams have passed to allow the Federalists to prosecute their critics, Jefferson says that if a single state disagrees with a federal law, it can nullify it, by which means refuses to follow it, or even secede from the Union.
And then the question is, what does James Madison think?
And even though he's generally with Jefferson on many questions involving states' rights and wrote the Virginia resolutions objecting to the federal laws, he ends up agreeing with Hamilton that once the entire union has been created by the entire people, a single state cannot secede.
And he opposes secession.
And in the end, that's the question that leads to the Civil War with the South taking the radical Jeffersonian position, Abraham Lincoln taking the Hamilton position, and the war came, as Lincoln said.
And at least since the end of the Civil War, it's supposed to have been settled that Lincoln and Hamilton were right and Jefferson was wrong.
Let's hear from Ed in Columbia Station, Ohio on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Ed.
unidentified
Merry Christmas afternoon here, everyone.
I had a reason why I caught, but your last caller and your guy just answered it.
That is called ratification.
Was that an amendment to the Constitution what they debated?
It's not once they could decide to separate the country, but they don't like how we're set up today.
It's called, and it's a law in a book that it started already.
It's called ratification of the states.
We need, I believe it's a two-thirds of the country has to vote for the different states.
And it's already in process the way that our politics have been going for years.
The conservatives have started ratifications of states, and the population of each state votes.
We have over a third of the states almost already enough for it.
We're still working it because our politics today are not what our forefathers wrote.
And they warned us of this: of an overbearing enemy of running overseas or overpowering government.
And when we got rid of the king, which we had, was England.
That's what we fought for our independence.
That was the king we were under.
Now, another thing: where are we at today in Democrat in our democracy?
Okay, you see what our forefathers wrote us about: debate.
What party wants debate and doesn't?
Republicans, we just said, okay, I remember Maggie Winter five years ago, and she's still for the Democrats.
She ran around.
You see a Republican anywhere in a restaurant, anywhere.
Ed, did you have a question for Mr. Rosen?
Who is the party of democracy, really, and freedom and debate in this country?
It is the Republican Party.
The Democrats today, from what they've been teaching for years and the professors, are overwhelming 90% in Doc Naton.
They're far left, all of them, from 30-year-old teachers in school, from the teachers' union to the ones that are 80 years old still teaching in colleges to the young professors.
Just on that first point about ratification, you mentioned the two-thirds threshold.
The rule is that constitutional amendments can be proposed in two ways: either by two-thirds of Congress and then ratified by three-quarters of the state legislatures, or proposed by a constitutional convention after two-thirds of the states request one and then ratified by three-quarters of the state legislatures, or in both cases, three-quarters of state conventions specifically called for the purpose.
That's it's a really high bar.
Basically, no matter how the amendment is proposed, you've got to get three-quarters of the states or of special state conventions to ratify it.
And that's why, although you could have an amendment that broke the union and redefined the nature of it, it would have such a high battle for ratification, namely three-quarters of the state legislatures, that it seems very unlikely to pass.
I'm grinning because John and John Quincy Adams are such heroes of mine.
The print behind me next to the bookcase is of Hercules choosing between virtue and vice.
And John Adams proposed it as the great seal of the United States, and he would always wake up having dreams about whether or not he was choosing rightly.
It's really interesting, your question: why didn't he have more influence partly because of that bonus from the three-fifths clause?
Most of our first presidents, aside from Adams, were all from the South, the enslaving states, because they got a boost because of their enslaved population.
And Adams and John Quincy represent the old Federalist Party, Hamilton's party, rather than the democracy represented by Jefferson and Madison.
But John Quincy Adams is such a hero.
And it was he is the first abolitionist president.
And after he loses reelection to Andrew Jackson, he spends a year reading Cicero and the Bible.
And he concludes that slavery violates the Bible and natural law.
He proposes a constitutional amendment to end slavery.
He denounces the gag rule forbidding the reading of anti-slavery petitions on the floor of Congress.
And he dies on the floor of Congress after voting against the Mexican war.
And his last words are, I am composed.
He gets this from Cicero and the stoic ideal of the perfectly self-mastered man devoted to virtue and the republic.
He's an incredibly inspiring figure.
And for everyone who wants a model of principled opposition to slavery, Frederick Douglass called John Quincy Adams the greatest white American of his time.
Of course, we can't know, but we can know that at the end of their lives, Hamilton and Jefferson were not sure that the experiment would succeed.
Hamilton's last murmured words in his letter the day or so before he died is that the real threat that America faces is democracy.
He feared the anarchy of the mob and thought that individual rights had to be shored up against demagogues.
Jefferson fears civil war because, and he's right, because he really wants to preserve slavery.
And George Washington fears faction, and he thinks that America will be riven by party politics and will come to go the way of Greece and Rome.
So none of them are sure that the experiment will succeed.
Only Madison is a little more optimistic because he expects less of individual virtue and has more faith in checks and balances, which we've been talking about all morning.
Madison also has faith in the media, and he believes that when citizens read arguments about politics in the newspapers and consider differing points of view, they will make up their own minds and ultimately be governed by reason rather than passion.
Madison couldn't have anticipated the social media we've been talking about, TikTok and Instagram and all these enrage to engage technologies, but he would have been inspired by C-SPAN.
And that's why it's such an honor always to appear on C-SPAN and to talk with all of you.
We're all having a rational conversation.
We're listening to each other.
And that idea of listening to people of differing points of view, of reading books, which we've also talked about, and examining the primary sources for yourself and making up your own mind is what the founders hope for.
So if we want a light of optimism, and we do here on Christmas Day, as we approach the 250th anniversary, I think that Hamilton and Jefferson would have been proud of C-SPAN and I hope of the National Constitution Center as well, and of all of you for engaging in your civic duty of civil constitutional debate.
Well, thank you so much for those kind words, Mr. Rosen.
That's Jeffrey Rosen, who's the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center and also author of the book The Pursuit of Liberty, part of our annual authors weeks, going through nine days of coverage of authors that we talk to all year.
Now, coming up next, we're going to have an hour of open forum.
You can start calling in now.
Our phone lines are 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, or 202-748-8002 for Independents.
That's Open Forum, and we'll be right back.
unidentified
This Friday on a special edition of Ceasefire, host Dasha Burns features key moments from Ceasefire's inaugural season, highlighting moments of friendship and humor, respectful disagreement, Tim's someone who, even when he disagrees, vehemently disagrees, Tim makes friends across the aisle with everyone.
The thing that I appreciated about Rob is while we differed, particularly after he led the charge for the Democrats to defeat the Republican mature in 2006, I always felt still too soon.
We ought to just commit ourselves to love and justice, not hatred and revenge.
unidentified
One of the wonderful things that I've been able to experience with my very dear brother, Robert George, is that I love the brother when he's right.
I love him when he's wrong.
I love him when he's wrestling in his quest for truth.
Watch our special bipartisan moments from the season of Ceasefire this Friday at 7 p.m. Eastern, only on C-SPAN.
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Famed chef and global relief entrepreneur Jose Andres, reimagining food.
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We're in open forum, ready to take your calls with your comments.
Our phone lines again for Republicans 202-748-8001.
For Democrats, 202-748-8000.
And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
Some of the stories there is still news, even on a holiday.
Here's something from the New York Times: Trump administration updates.
The Justice Department says it has found over a million more Epstein documents, delaying the release process.
The Justice Department said on Wednesday that it had discovered over a million more documents potentially related to the investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and that it could take weeks to review them for release.
Democratic lawmakers accused the Trump administration of violating a law passed by Congress requiring the disclosure of most of the material about Mr. Epstein.
Now, let's get to your calls in open forum.
Let's start with Walt in Indiana on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Walt.
unidentified
Merry Christmas to all the Christians out there and happy holidays to the non-Christians.
I'm a retired senior, so I have plenty of time to read at least four newspapers a day, plus foreign sources like The Economist Magazine, television programs, and so forth.
But one of the biggest treats I have during the week is on Sunday when you have you feature the books.
And while I only read nonfiction books, I can't remember the last time I read a novel.
But in any case, I do read books, but I also especially like watching C-SPAN on Sunday morning.
And you can, the emphasis is on book writing, featuring books.
And while I can't read all the books that are featured, it's wonderful to be able to sit there throughout the day and listen to the authors of the books talk about what they were saying in the books.
And I certainly thank C-SPAN for providing that service.
It's very unique.
And if more people spend more time taking their citizenship more seriously and looking at authoritative sources like C-SPAN, the country would be a lot better.
Paul is in Terryville, Connecticut, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Paul.
unidentified
Hi, Kimberly.
Happy holidays to everybody.
So my coming around as a political, you know, long-term political activist, the turnaround for me was the Trump election.
Of course, the pardons, the lawless deportation dragnets, U.S. government purges and shutdowns.
The incivility has been really dangerous for someone like me.
I'm a talk show serial caller.
So C-SPAN is definitely something I engage with.
And it's all about getting information out that is missed by the mainstream media.
And also to bring light to the way that censorship works on a local level, because I once was able to be present on maybe six or seven different radio stations in Connecticut.
Now I'm down to one that has been taken over by political operatives.
The host and the owner, they're not willing to hear dissension views.
So it does come with a consequence, though.
You know, you open yourself up for when you're not anonymous and you're outed, you open up yourself for attack within social organizations and even the churches.
So last 2025, of course, the important event within the Catholic community was the passing of Pope Francis and then an American Pope being elected by the Cardinals.
And just trying to get out the teachings and the statements of Pope Francis, I was met with unbelievable barbs, attacks,
and surveillance because how dare I write the quotes in the statements of Pope Francis regarding genocide in Gaza and his daily contact with the Catholic Church there where parishioners were shot at and killed.
I mean, this is the kind of stuff that has brought attention to me on a local level.
And so it comes with consequence.
Be prepared, folks.
Arm yourself with the knowledge of operatives that come into communities with this specific goal of expunging the dissenter.
You did mention Pope Francis passing and Pope Leo taking over.
Pope Leo gave an address this morning in that he urged courage to end Ukraine war in his first Christmas address.
This is a story here from the BBC saying that Pope Leo has urged Ukraine and Russia to find the courage to hold direct talks to end the war during his first Christmas remarks to crowds in St. Peter's Square.
He called for an end to conflicts around the world during his Uribe et Uri Orbi address, which is traditionally delivered by the pontiff on Christmas Day to worshipers gathered in Vatican City.
Speaking about Ukraine, the Pope said: May the clamor of weapons cease and may the parties involved with the support and commitment of the international community find the courage to engage in sincere, direct, and respectful dialogue.
His plea comes as U.S.-led negotiations on a deal to end the fighting continues.
The U.S. has sought to mediate between Kyiv and Moscow at Moscow as it seeks to put together an agreement to end the fighting acceptable to both sides.
But direct talks between the warring parties have not taken place during this latest round of diplomatic efforts.
Back to your calls and open forum.
Aaron is in New York on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Aaron.
unidentified
Good morning.
Good morning, Kimberly.
This is Aaron from New York.
I have a wish for us as Americans.
I wish I've been watching politics now since Reagan and Jimmy Carter back in the days when I was a young buck and finally got introduced to me and my dad watching the debates and the whole thing.
And I love that.
I think now what I wish moving forward is that C-SPAN stop saying Democrat and Republican.
I think you guys should have a line that open to Americans.
That would help the situation.
Instead of placing Democrat, Republican or Independent, just say Americans.
And then the person who's calling can identify who they are and what party they're from.
And that's how we should look at everybody and everything.
And another issue is we keep saying, I've argued with my professor to the end.
I always say when they mention race, I've been on this planet now for over 60 years.
I have never met a different human being on this planet.
The only human being, the only person that I've the only race of people that I've been running into has been humans.
All the other stuff does not matter to you.
So you can't say I'm a different race, different race.
We are the human race.
And the only thing that differentiates us is obviously your language, which is cultural.
And that's man-made.
And if you don't believe in me, those people who are calling in don't agree with that idea, I would ask them to look in the mirror and ask themselves this one question.
Jimmy is in Butler, Indiana, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Jimmy.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thank you very much for taking my call.
And I'm a weird old bird.
I served in the military.
I'm just turned 70 years old.
I'm out here in northeast Indiana.
And no matter what politicians I've ever seen in my life, Republican, Democrat, they haven't affected me at all.
I have to cut my grass, clean my home, pay my bills, be a good neighbor, be a good husband, be a good friend.
It really has nothing to do with me anymore.
You go out, you vote, you pull the ticket, and then you move on in life.
Here's my thing: I've never been on the internet.
I've never had a smartphone.
I've never been on a computer.
I've never emailed TikTok, Facebook, or chit-chat, but I'm in the present, and I look up and I see things.
I wish that people would take all of their electronic devices and throw them away because we're getting bombarded non-stop 24 hours a day with information that we can't do anything about that gets us agitated, gets us depressed, and we're not there.
You see, families go to a restaurant, they sit down and they all pull out what they call the cell phones.
I call them pods because we turn into pods.
And everybody pulls out a pod and bows their head and stares into a pod and we're not there.
And if we could just throw all of our phones away, unless you had to do it for work, okay, work.
But young children in the house up to 18 should never have any of those electronic devices.
And you know what?
Go out and throw your head up and say hi to people because we're all the same, honey.
In the end, when we're laying on our deathbed, none of this mattered.
Live a good life.
Be thankful for the things you have.
Hey, I got up this morning.
I stood on my own two feet.
It's warm in the house.
The sun is shining and the coffee is hot.
I'm golden.
But put away things you can't control.
And if you start to read, read stoic philosophies to teach you the only three things you concern yourself with is what you say, what you think, and what you do.
What's going on in some other third world country or in another state?
You can't do anything about it.
And if you can, quick, go do something about it.
And just love and laugh at yourself and love other people.
You know, let's be so Gary, and I'll read some data from some polling done by Pew Research that actually echoes much of what you just said there.
This is from December the 10th, so just a couple weeks ago.
Most Americans say that the government has a responsibility to ensure health care coverage.
Most Americans, 66%, say the federal government has a responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage.
Far fewer, 33%, say it does not, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted November 17th through 30th among more than 10,000 U.S. adults.
Yet those who say the federal government has this responsibility are split over how it should ensure coverage.
35% of all adults favor a single national health insurance system run by the government.
31% say insurance should continue to be provided through a mix of private companies and government programs.
Most of those who say the federal government is not responsible for ensuring coverage say it should continue to cover seniors and the very poor through Medicare and Medicaid.
So that echoes some of those comments that Gary was making many Americans feel similar to him.
Let's go now to Jack in Illinois on our line for Republicans.
Listen, I just called in and I've been meaning to open forum all the time.
And the problem I'm having is that our American citizens, if they kill someone, they have no problem taking them to court and they're sentenced off to prison.
And we have to follow the law, but when it comes time to do anything to the illegals, there's such a hoop of law.
They don't belong here, and they all need to go back to where they came from up until everything is settled.
Because they have killed people.
Nobody's done anything with them.
And they're still here in our country collecting all the money, food stamps, everything else.
I'm very disappointed that we are treating our citizens worse than we are the illegals.
So I don't think it's fair.
Just if you pick them up, hurry up and get them back to their country.
If the rest of us had to follow the law and nobody had trouble taking our families way back to their country, then they should be doing the same thing.
Another thing is, is that we have trouble with, I'll say one bank for sure is Capital One.
When you pay your bill over the phone, they send you out of the U.S. You could wind up in, I've been over to Africa, I've been to different countries, and it's very difficult to pay your bill when you can't understand them.
And why are we allowing banks? to do that overseas when we have people here looking for jobs.
We know they're paying them a lot less, but that's not fair to us.
That's why our places I'd like to just read you a little bit of data and research about the point that you raised earlier about immigrants and crime rates, because there has been quite a bit of research on this, and I'd like to read you some of it just so you can have some context text and feel free to respond.
So this is from the Migration Policy Institute, which is an organization that does research on immigration.
And it says, immigrants in the United States commit crimes at lower rates than the U.S.-born population, notwithstanding the assertion by critics that immigration is linked to higher rates of criminal activity.
This reality of reduced criminality, which holds across immigrant groups, including unauthorized immigrants, has been demonstrated through research as well as findings for the one state in the United States, Texas, that tracks criminal arrests and convictions by immigration status.
A growing volume of research demonstrates that not only do immigrants commit fewer crimes, but they also do not raise crime rates in the U.S. communities where they settle.
In fact, some studies indicate that immigration can lower criminal activity, especially violent crime, in places with inclusive policies and social environments where immigrant populations are well established.
So some just numbers on that.
Immigrants in the United States have had lower incarceration rates than the native-born population since at least 1870 when such data was first recorded.
In 2020, immigrants were 60% less likely to be incarcerated than the U.S.-born, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
And a 2021 Justice Department study points out prosecutions of immigrants increased between 1990 and 2018.
Nearly 90% were for violations of immigration-related laws.
Notably, U.S.-born citizens were 10 times more likely than immigrants to be incarcerated for committing weapons-related offenses, five times more likely for violent offenses, and more than twice as likely for property crimes, and nearly twice as likely for drug offenses.
So, Joan, I was just curious as to what you thought of that information.
Anybody can call in and say they're this, that, or the other.
But, and here for this, I'm not sure I even trust that results of them and us here in the USA that have been born and raised.
It just seems on your news locally when they tell you it's always about they found another immigrant family that was here illegally.
And then you have judges that want to say, oh, they can say we got a big problem.
But that's just my opinion.
The other thing is, is that I think all I tell everyone is I don't care who's running for office, if you're Democrat, Republican, or Independent.
All I want to vote for is someone that has some common sense already and can get into office and help us.
I don't know what everyone is doing.
I can't even follow senators or that because everything gets so entangled.
One says this, one says that.
But the proof is in the pudding.
Once they get into office, what do they do?
And there needs to be a retirement for these older people that are in the Senate and the House already, because the older they are, it seems like the meaner they are.
And since Christmas is a celebration of Christ's birth and Christ is the personification of love, we are actually celebrating the birth of love.
So I would like to discuss what the Bible says and I think about love and that I think St. Paul says it best in Corinthians when he describes love by its attributes.
What he says is, love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always persecutors.
Scott is in Effingham, Illinois on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Scott.
unidentified
Good morning.
Merry Christmas to all Americans and Christians.
And I want to lighten the load.
It's been heavy.
Let's all have peace today, okay?
Have a dinner, relax, let the kids open presents, okay?
All right, as a senior citizen Vietnam veteran, one thing that's irking me today that I never thought would happen is you can't watch a football game, NFL, on regular TV.
You gotta, I pay enough for cable, but the game, now it's on Prime and Netflix, and I don't get that.
I know people just buy that, but I like to watch the newses and C-SPAN every day.
And, you know, once a month I call in and give my two cents.
But, you know, us old-timers, we watch football, three channels on a black and white.
And now they're charging per game.
I mean, they're making millions of dollars.
I know this.
But come on, people, when our generation goes, you know how old I am.
When our generation goes, then you guys can fight with the internet and all that.
But us guys and families, we didn't grow up like that.
So please, just get at least one game on.
I don't care who plays.
I used to watch O.J. Simpson run in Buffalo.
I'd go to the stadium, you know, and the Rams here in Illinois until they pulled out, you know, but that's the way it goes.
But anyways, Merry Christmas.
Happy holidays.
Let's all just have a good day for at least one day.
I was trying to quickly find some data on the cost of streaming sports in 2025.
And this is an article from Kipling or Personal Finance that streaming your favorite team keeps getting more and more expensive.
Here's the true cost of sports and how to save because not only are the tickets, clothing, and other goods associated with your favorite team, now you also have to find a way to watch them.
The New York Times found that the average NFL fan will spend up to $631 to stream games this year.
They came to this total by factoring in live streaming services such as YouTube, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Peacock combined that would run you a total of $634, and that doesn't count any add-on packages such as NFL Sunday ticket.
So that is an accurate assessment of the higher cost of watching live sports.
Trent is in Omaha, Nebraska on our line for Democrats.
unidentified
Good morning, Trent.
Good morning.
Have everybody in C-SPAN or in America.
I just had two questions.
You had mentioned those numbers for like immigration percentages as being criminals.
But my question on that is how is that possible when for every immigrant that crosses, every illegal immigrant that crosses our border, once they cross our border, they done broke our law.
So wouldn't all of them already have a, at least already have the percentage of breaking our law versus it being lowered in Americans.
And my second thing is the Democrats, until they change two things, and that is letting boys in and stand out and say it forcefully and loudly that boys are not allowed or females are not allowed, boys are not allowed in women's bathrooms who are transvestitive, rather they got to build new bathrooms or do whatever.
That's what we're going to have to do if that's what it comes down to.
And my last thing is we definitely need to accept the fact that immigrants do lower our pay rate for lower income people who make lower jobs, especially in packing houses and cleaning jobs and things like that.
And most minorities in America can't get those jobs because a lot of immigrants come in, they leave those jobs and more come in and it's just to keep on rotation.
So Trent, before I let you go, I do want to follow up on just the immigration statistics part of it.
When people cross the border, even if they do so illegally, sometimes they apply for asylum or for refugee status, and that usually doesn't come with a criminal charge at first.
So that may be where the disconnect that you're talking about is.
Well, isn't it funny that an institution that supports immigration, no matter how they get it, put out a study that favors them?
It happens all the time.
You can read all the studies you want.
If they're coming from non-independent sources, they're all suspect, every one of them.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
But anyway, when you're in this country and you're undocumented, you are a criminal.
I am pro-immigration all the way, and I'm a born-again Christian all the way.
But we have laws, and the laws are there to keep all of us safe.
Otherwise, it would be chaotic mayhem.
And no, nobody has a right to just come into this country and take whatever they want.
It is a privilege to come to America.
We are a generous country full of wonderful, generous people.
Most people are very good-hearted.
I'm proud of that.
I'm proud of this country.
We do more humanitarian aid around the world than any other country.
We bring in more immigrants than any other country.
We send, we're always there for every disaster.
Our government, it tries so hard to stop wars.
Donald Trump has done nothing but work with his administration to stop chaos and killing around the world.
And I think he's doing a fantastic job.
And when you compare numbers for the economy to 2019 instead of 2022, you're kind of not really telling the whole truth because prices are coming down little by little.
Cindy is in Lexington, Kentucky, on Online for Democrats.
Good morning, Cindy.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call, and thank you for C-SPAN.
I wanted to talk about that I have become more politically involved this year.
I am a true Florida native.
I was an independent, and I became a Democrat because of the slaughter that I'm an eyewitness to, to the Republicans hoarding across Florida's number one killer, its northern border.
It is now 35% Florida natives and 65% the rest of the world.
And Trump fled into Florida to get out of paying taxes.
Trump also put a ban on Florida offshore oil drilling, so he has to steal it from Venezuela.
What the Republicans have done to Florida, to my native land, is uncalled for.
That's why I moved out.
They are slaughtering Florida to no end.
They are greed, they are taking every grain of sand and every blade of grass.
And even Facebook groups, I've been complaining about that northern border for the last 20 years.
And yet, finally, Facebook groups are starting to pop up about all this stuff that's going on in Florida, all the development going on.
They're killing the farmlands.
I moved to Kentucky to be under our loving Governor Bashir.
Governor Bashir is spending his Christmas with the poor.
He's not spending it with the billionaires.
And I'm so upset as to what the Republicans are doing to myself.
Republicans had a follow-up to our earlier conversation about people increasing their political engagement.
This was a comment we received via text.
I have become more aware of political issues, yet I feel that the current political opinion falls on conspiracy theories like the JFK assassination or that the Apollo moon landings were faked in a studio.
So I tend to be wary.
Tom is in Newark, Ohio, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Tom.
unidentified
Oh, thank you, darling, for taking my call and Merry Christmas.
And yes, you are a gorgeous thing to look at on television.
I'm just listening to people talking about love and talking about the president and all this kind of stuff.
But there's one thing that we're forgetting.
And I will say this.
We have left our first love.
We have left the marriage, which is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And any time that you leave, you get from under the Holy Spirit or God, anything allowed to happen.
We are seeing things that the Bible has already said is going to happen.
But then you say, see, you've heard the kingdom of heaven, our God rights.
He just says, see, man, we don't suppose to seek man.
We don't suppose to say our brother is a king.
Name of one king that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that's what's taking place in the world today.
I heard the lady say, We ought to love one day.
No, you love every day.
Every day.
Love covers all hearts and pain.
If you only just want to love for one day, then what's the news you want to love for tomorrow?
That don't make sense.
I say to America, we have walked up.
We have left the marriage.
I will say with Jesus Christ.
That's what done.
We have allowed Satan to come in and destroy our mind and to mislead us to a lot of things.
We are seeing stuff that's not there.
But our Heavenly Father standing up high looking down low, he writes everything down in the book of life that was taking place in man and woman's life today.
The President of the United States shared Christmas wishes on social media today.
This actually came out last night.
He said, Merry Christmas to all, including the radical left scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our country, but are failing badly.
We no longer have open borders, men and women's sports, transgender for everyone, or weak law enforcement.
What we do have is a record stock market and 401ks, lowest crime numbers in decades, no inflation, and yesterday a 4.3% GDP, two points better than expected.
Tariffs have given us trillions of dollars in growth and prosperity and the strongest national security we have ever had.
We are respected again, perhaps like never before.
God bless America.
Some members of Congress were also sharing their holiday wishes.
This is from Representative Marcy Capour, who says, at this time of year, many of us take time for contemplation, celebration, and to take stock of what has taken place over the past year as we begin anew with the start of 2026.
From Hanukkah and Kwanzaa to Festivus, Christmas, and New Year's, whatever you may be celebrating, hope that you may be surrounded by beautiful holiday memories of friends, family, and those you hold dear.
Wishing you warmth, joy, love, and light this holiday season.
Susan is in Worcester, Massachusetts on our line for Republicans.
Yeah, I'm calling in because, well, it's Christmas.
And I'm calling in about the guys that drive those boat, those drug boats, how they're being murdered.
Now, think about this.
I don't have no proof of this.
But if you were a drawer conte or big boss, why would you send your own people out there to drive those boats when you don't know they're going to get blowed up?
We would take a book for some poor, innocent farmer that has a family, separate him from his family, and then kill the family.
Let's tell him if you don't drive the boat.
So the both could have no choice but to drive those stupid boats.
We may have differences on different things, but at the end of the day, America will continue to lead the world because we are a true nation of God.
And this is Christmas, and I want to say, Cece Band, they're doing such a great job over here speaking, letting people speak like me, Billy Hollywood Groves.
And we're going to continue to be a world leader because we are a true nation of God.
Another Christmas wish from a member of Congress, Senator Marsha Blackburn, says, May your Christmas be filled with peace, joy, and plenty of time with your loved ones.
And Senator Ron Johnson says, wishing everyone a very merry and blessed Christmas and sincerely hoping for peace on earth and goodwill toward men in the new year.
And Mark Wayne Mullen, the senator, sent a photo of him thanking National Guard members who are out and about in the city.
And Leader John Thune says, Got to love it when you start reading the Christmas story to your grandkids and they end up reciting it to you.
Merry Christmas.
All right, we are going to end it there for the day.
Thank you to everyone who called in today and shared your thoughts and questions on Washington Journal.
We're going to be back with another edition of the show tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern.
We hope you'll join us then.
Have a great day and happy holidays.
unidentified
Coming up, a day-long marathon where we look back at memorable moments of 2025.
We begin with the Electoral College vote count for the 2024 presidential election.
And then we'll show you highlights from the second inauguration of Donald Trump, including the swearing-in ceremony and the signing of executive orders.
Following that, confirmation hearings featuring DHS Secretary Christy Noam, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
All this week, watch Washington Journal's Holiday Authors Week series, featuring live conversations with a new author each day.
And coming up Friday morning, former New York Republican Congressman Chris Gibson discusses his book, The Spirit of Philadelphia: A Call to Recover the Founding Principles.
Watch Authors Week live during Washington Journal, Friday morning at 7 Eastern on C-SPAN.
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Well, up next, we'll take you back to January of 2025, where a joint session of Congress was held to count the Electoral College votes for the 2024 presidential election.