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unidentified
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Here's what's ahead on today's edition of Washington Journal. | |
| After a look at the news and some viewer phone calls, we'll conclude our special holiday authors week series, where we feature a new author each day. | ||
| Our guest today is Sarah Kenzior, who will discuss her book, The Last American Road Trip, about her family's cross-country road trips through an era of political upheaval, the pandemic, and social change. | ||
| Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky touted progress at a meeting yesterday at Mar-a-Lago as they seek an agreement on a peace deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war. | ||
| We'll learn more about that in a moment. | ||
| And we'll spend the full hour on a broader discussion of President Trump's foreign policy thus far in his second term. | ||
| The administration has taken major action in the Middle East, in the Southern Hemisphere, and elsewhere around the world. | ||
| So we ask, what grade would you give the president on foreign policy? | ||
| Here's how to join the conversation. | ||
| Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000. | ||
| Independents, your line is 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can also text us at 202-748-8003. | ||
| You can reach us on Facebook, on facebook.com forward slash C-SPAN, or on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| We start this morning with foreign policy. | ||
| President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky spoke of progress yesterday at Mar-a-Lago, but it was clear there was no breakthrough from those negotiations. | ||
| Thorny issues remain, including territory. | ||
| Take a listen to President Trump here. | ||
|
unidentified
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The U.S. Ukraine security guarantees. | |
| What number are we at right now? | ||
| Well, I think we're, look, you know, you can say 95%, but I don't like to say percentages. | ||
| I just think we're doing very well. | ||
| We're very, we could be very close. | ||
| There are one or two very thorny issues, very tough issues, but I think we're doing very well. | ||
| We've made a lot of progress today, but really we've made it over the last month. | ||
| This is not a one-day process deal. | ||
| It's very complicated stuff. | ||
| But I think when the president says 95, I think, you know, it could be close to 95%. | ||
| Yeah, please behind you. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. President, have you agreed on the so-called free trade zone on Donbass? | |
| How to separate, how to separate the sites, how to make the separation line, who will be responsible? | ||
| The word agreed is too strong. | ||
| I would say not agreed, but we're getting closer to an agreement on that. | ||
| And that's a big issue, certainly. | ||
| That's one of the big issues. | ||
| And I think we're closer than we were probably one. | ||
| It's unresolved, but it's getting a lot closer. | ||
| That's a very tough issue, but one that I think will get resolved. | ||
| Yeah, please. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. President, we are receiving some mixed signals coming from Moscow, even after you spoke with President Putin. | |
| Can you assure us that you have received written or any formal response from them? | ||
| Well, what was the issue you have to tell me? | ||
| What did they say? | ||
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unidentified
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They are telling that Ukraine has to give up Donbass. | |
| Just a very recent statement. | ||
| Well, that's what they've been asking for. | ||
| And, you know, there's a dispute about that. | ||
| So they're going to have to iron that out. | ||
| That's an issue they have to iron out. | ||
| But I think it's moving in the right direction. | ||
| That was President Trump at Mar-a-Lago yesterday talking about those discussions. | ||
| Joining us now from West Palm Beach is Kate Sullivan, Bloomberg News' White House correspondent. | ||
| Kate, so much. | ||
| Thank you so much for joining us at the program this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you for having me. | |
| Okay, let's dive right in. | ||
| President Trump yesterday met for several hours with Zelensky at Mor-a-Lago on those peace efforts with Russia. | ||
| I wonder, can you talk about how those discussions yesterday moved the needle forward towards any sort of peace agreement? | ||
|
unidentified
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It's a great question because I think the big takeaway from yesterday was that there actually was no breakthrough. | |
| There was no announcement. | ||
| There were very few specifics and it's unclear. | ||
| It's really unclear exactly how it moved the needle. | ||
| I do think that it's notable that the meeting even happened. | ||
| You know, the president had said previously that at this point, you know, after months and months of negotiations, that he wouldn't be meeting directly with President Zelensky or President Putin unless this peace deal was really in the final stages and really kind of looking like there was an end in sight. | ||
| So I do think it's notable that Zelensky flew to Mar-a-Lago to meet with the president at this stage. | ||
| But as you heard in that clip, the president is really projecting an optimistic tone here and saying, you know, we're 90% there. | ||
| We're closer than ever before. | ||
| But that last 10% is really, there are these really important key sticking points that have been thorny issues throughout this entire process. | ||
| And it's really unclear whether either side are willing to make real compromises there. | ||
| You know, there are talks about, it's mostly centered around the territory and whether Ukraine would need to cede territory that Russia doesn't even control at the moment. | ||
| So there's still a lot up in the air. | ||
| We still need to hear more details about security guarantees. | ||
| You know, the president was quite candid yesterday and said, you know, nobody knows what exactly what those security guarantees are going to look like, but that's a very critical part of all of this. | ||
| Right. | ||
| I wanted to talk to you more about that 10% or 5%, as the president put it yesterday about unresolved issues. | ||
| We have territory like the Donbass region. | ||
| We know that there has been some conversation about whether or not these changes that would happen in the peace agreement would have to go to the Ukrainian people in a referendum. | ||
| Of course, security guarantees. | ||
| I wonder if there are other major sticking points outside of those two or even, you know, just drilling down on those two that you can walk us through. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, absolutely. | |
| I mean, I think those are definitely the big outstanding ones. | ||
| The, you know, Russia has demanded that Ukraine cede the entire Donbass region and Ukraine has said that they won't give up any territory. | ||
| And like I said, those two positions, we've not seen any willingness from Russia at all to compromise on that really core issue for them. | ||
| I think Ukraine has, you know, there have been discussions about whether there might be some kind of demilitarized zone or a free economic zone where troops from both countries would withdraw and there would be some kind of international troop monitoring of that area. | ||
| And so I think that's very much part of the discussions right now. | ||
| And when it comes to security guarantees, it's really interesting. | ||
| I was in Berlin when Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who doesn't have an official role in the administration, but is definitely playing a very big role, particularly in these peace talks. | ||
| And the big thing that came out of that meeting where they met with Zelensky in Berlin was that the United States did commit to providing what they described as Article 5-like security guarantees. | ||
| So it's a huge commitment. | ||
| It's something that it was a question for a while whether the United States would even provide security guarantees at all. | ||
| So that was definitely a very big development. | ||
| I think they're still trying to, as we heard from the president, they don't know what those details are going to look like yet. | ||
| I would also just add that anything that's worked out between the United States and Ukraine then needs to be taken to Russia for approval if there's going to be any kind of deal between Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| So that's also a huge question mark: whether any of the work that's happening right now at the leader level, at working level, whether Russia would even approve it. | ||
| So a lot of questions still remain, a lot of key sticking points in this very complicated process that the president wishes was wrapped up, like he said, in 24 hours after he, you know, he promised on the campaign trail. | ||
| Jasmine, I know you were on the campaign trail a lot and heard him say this a lot, but he thought that he was going to have this wrapped up long ago, and it's now been quite a long time. | ||
| On that Russia question, obviously a major question in these negotiations, President Trump said that he spoke with Russian President Putin before meeting with Zelensky and that he expected to speak with him again afterwards. | ||
| Can you talk about what the White House is describing that conversation like and how those conversations we know color the president's negotiating once he gets in the room with Ukraine? | ||
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unidentified
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I think it's very notable that he had that two-hour long conversation with Putin right before meeting with Zelensky. | |
| We've seen this pattern before. | ||
| And so I think he, and then during the press conference with Zelensky, he said he was going to speak with him after. | ||
| So, you know, I think the president and the White House, their public position, at least, they really do believe that Russia wants to make a deal, that they are ready to make a deal, that they're definitely very open to these kind of compromises and changes. | ||
| I think the reality is more complicated, and European allies, certainly the Ukrainians, are just much more skeptical. | ||
| And experts in this field are much more skeptical about Russia's willingness to really play ball here and what they actually want to get out of these talks. | ||
| There have been for a long time concerns that Russia is really just dragging this process out as they continue to try to make gains on the battlefield. | ||
| So it's very interesting that the president said that he spoke to Vladimir Putin right before and was going to speak to him right after. | ||
| I do think that the president has long touted his relationship with the Russian president, even as he said in recent months that he's sort of frustrated about how the pace is going of the talks. | ||
| But I'm also very curious whether there's going to be any kind of direct meeting between President Trump and President Putin, or if we're going to get this trilateral that they've been talking about for a long time, because many of these issues, I think, need to be worked out between Zelensky and Putin directly. | ||
| And so it would be very interesting to see whether this summit, we have not heard anything about this being scheduled at all in the immediate future, but whether this trilateral really would take place. | ||
| And if that would be sort of the final piece of the puzzle here. | ||
| Yeah, outside of this kind of amorphous trilateral, which officials have basically been trying to get off the ground for months and months now, and we haven't seen it come into fruition. | ||
| I wonder, what are you watching for next? | ||
| Do the two, I mean, Zelensky and President Trump have a plan to speak more in the future? | ||
| Is it going to go back to that working level? | ||
| How do you see this happening or evolving in the next few weeks, Kate? | ||
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unidentified
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I would suspect, you know, we heard a little bit from the president yesterday. | |
| There was a bit of a confusing moment where he said, Zelensky and I are going to speak tomorrow. | ||
| And then when a reporter asked to clarify, he definitely left it more open. | ||
| He said, well, you know, maybe we'll speak tomorrow if we have more to talk about. | ||
| And so I think right now it's very, the way that the president, as you know, conducts diplomacy is not very structured and scheduled very rigidly. | ||
| You know, if Trump feels like he needs to call a leader, he will just call that leader whenever that is. | ||
| And so I would expect that Special Envoy Steve Witkoff has been doing a lot of work in this space, as has Jared Kushner. | ||
| And so I would expect that it might now, after this meeting has happened at Mar-a-Lago between Trump and Zelensky, that it might go back, you know, down to that level, or that, you know, there's, there's more to be worked out with the working groups, with sort of the lower level administration officials and Ukrainian officials. | ||
| And so, you know, we have not heard anything about another summit being scheduled, but I'm definitely watching for, you know, I think one thing that the next part of this is we might get more details about what these security guarantees are actually going to look like. | ||
| I'd be very curious to see, you know, just an explicit explanation of what the United States is willing to commit at this point and what they're, you know, willing to agree to in order to bring this war to a close. | ||
| And then, of course, whether Russia would actually accept those guarantees and whether, you know, anything that the United States and Ukraine work out, whether Russia would approve that. | ||
| And last question for you here, Kate. | ||
| President Trump's foreign policy down in Florida week continues as he meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his resort. | ||
| I wonder there, what are you watching for when it comes to potentially the next phase of this Gaza ceasefire? | ||
|
unidentified
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There's definitely been a lot of flurry of diplomatic activity down here at Mar-a-Lago, you know, with the Zelensky meeting yesterday and the Netanyahu meeting, which is a very big one today. | |
| You know, the president has actually hosted Netanyahu more than any other foreign leader in his second term, which I think is very interesting. | ||
| And this meeting is coming at a point where the truce between Israel and Hamas that Trump helped broker and he's very proud of the fact that he helped broker it and he continues to tout, you know, he's declared that the war in Gaza is over. | ||
| You know, this truce is at a very fragile moment. | ||
| And I think, you know, a lot of what there are many items, I'm sure, on the agenda today, but just trying to move this, there's a real sense of urgency, you know, in the White House and with the president to move the Gaza peace plan from the first phase, which it's been stuck in for quite a while, to move it into the second phase. | ||
| There have been a lot of sticking points and roadblocks. | ||
| And I think Marco Rubio was speaking to reporters recently and he essentially said the status quo right now is just not sustainable and that there is a big urgency to try to move this to the second phase. | ||
| So I'm sure discussions will be over that. | ||
| There have been reports that Trump's relationship with Netanyahu has really deteriorated and that there's been a lot of frustration and concerns that Israel is really trying to slow walk this peace process. | ||
| And so I think definitely there are a host of other issues as there always are when it comes to a big summit like this and on the leader level between two presidents. | ||
| But it's really coming at a time where the president would like to see this Gaza peace process move forward. | ||
| Kate Sullivan, Bloomberg News White House correspondent, thank you so much for joining us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| And now we turn back to foreign policy where we are asking you to grade President Trump's first year in office for his second term on foreign policy. | ||
| I turn to an article which Kate referenced from Axios. | ||
| The headline is Netanyahu's Mar-a-Lago visit, quote, crucial for the future of Gaza deal. | ||
| And it says that White House officials think Netanyahu is slow-walking the peace process and fear he will resume the war with Hamas. | ||
| But while the Israeli prime minister is butting heads with Trump's team, he hopes to bring the president himself over to more hawkish point of view, a senior Israeli official said. | ||
| The White House wants to unveil a Palestinian technocratic government, an international stabilization force for Gaza as soon as possible, and potentially even convene the Trump-led Board of Peace at the World Economic Forum in Davos later in January, White House officials say. | ||
| But Netanyahu has expressed skepticism over Witcoff and Kushner's ideas, especially on the demilitarization of Gaza and recent meetings with Lindsey Graham in Jerusalem, according to a source with knowledge. | ||
| And so now let's turn to some of your phone calls. | ||
| Karen from New York, a Democrat. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| Karen, your line's open. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hello. | |
| Hi, Karen. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi. | |
| Hi. | ||
| What grade would you give President Trump in foreign policy in his first year of his second term? | ||
|
unidentified
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I give Trump an F. | |
| I think he has ruined our reputation in this world stage. | ||
| He has humiliated us, and he's made our military murderers with what he's doing with Venezuela. | ||
| I think he has not done anything he should have done with Ukraine. | ||
| He should have stood by them and by our allies. | ||
| Our allies are not even giving us information because they don't trust us, and they shouldn't. | ||
| He's not trustworthy. | ||
| And he's not really put a hard line with Israel around what they're doing in Palestine. | ||
| And he could have. | ||
| I give him an F. Dan from Youngstown, Ohio, a Republican. | ||
| What grade would you give President Trump on how he handles foreign policy in the first year of his second term? | ||
|
unidentified
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Okay, I would give Trump a B. | |
| And I think that the woman that just spoke and said that we've been humiliated. | ||
| I mean, do the Democrats look at the facts? | ||
| The facts are that attacks came during a very weak Biden administration. | ||
| During this Biden administration, we had a ceasefire in Israel, and Hamas broke the ceasefire. | ||
| They attacked Israel in one of the worst attacks that we've ever seen since the Holocaust. | ||
| So let's face reality. | ||
| Putin took advantage of the weak Biden administration. | ||
| He mounted troops for a year. | ||
| Biden did absolutely nothing. | ||
| He sat there. | ||
| In fact, when Russia attacked, Biden called it a minor excursion. | ||
| This was a minor excursion, this war. | ||
| And the Democrats let it go on. | ||
| Trump steps in. | ||
| This war is in full bloom. | ||
| And he takes the reins and takes control to try to stop this war. | ||
| Pete from Massachusetts, a Democrat, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, good morning. | |
| Yeah, F minus for sure. | ||
| Particularly the Ukraine situation. | ||
| I've never seen in the history of mankind where, well, maybe Neville Chamberlain, where appeasement of Putin seems to be the policy. | ||
| There is no policy. | ||
| The policy is you send a real estate developer who has no experience ever to talk to this madman. | ||
| Also, when has the aggressor supposed to be rewarded? | ||
| It makes zero sense, this whole charade. | ||
| If Zelensky was smart, he would tell the U.S. to go pounce all, get Europe on his side, and then they can go slug it out. | ||
| But this is the most bizarre foreign policy I've ever seen from an completely incompetent bunch of morons. | ||
| Take a listen at President Trump yesterday in Mar-a-Lago talking about the potential to rebuild Ukraine after a possible peace negotiation or peace agreement was negotiated. | ||
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unidentified
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So in your conversation with President Putin, did you discuss what responsibility Russia will have for any kind of reconstruction of Ukraine post-agreement? | |
| I did. | ||
| They're going to be helping. | ||
| Russia is going to be helping. | ||
| Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed. | ||
| It sounds a little strange, but I was explaining to the president. | ||
| President Putin was very generous in his feeling toward Ukraine succeeding, including supplying energy, electricity, and other things at very low prices. | ||
| So a lot of good things came out of that call today. | ||
| But they were in the works for two weeks with Steve and with Jared and Marco and everybody. | ||
|
unidentified
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Did Russia agree or did Putin agree to a ceasefire to allow a referendum to take place? | |
| Not a ceasefire. | ||
| And that's one of the points that we're working on right now. | ||
| No, not a ceasefire. | ||
| He feels that, look, you know, they're fighting to stop. | ||
| And then if they have to start again, which is a possibility, he doesn't want to be in that position. | ||
| I understand that position. | ||
|
unidentified
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The president feels strongly about that or something. | |
| But I think we're finding ways that we can get around that. | ||
| But I understand President Putin from that standpoint. | ||
| You know, you have to understand the other side. | ||
| And, you know, I'm on the side of peace. | ||
| I'm on the side of stopping the war. | ||
| So, but I think that's a problem that's going to get solved. | ||
| So there was President Trump at Mar-a-Lago yesterday standing next to the Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky talking about the potential for Russia to help rebuild Ukraine after, of course, they started the war. | ||
| I would like to invite our viewers to join in on the conversations. | ||
| Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000. | ||
| Independents, your line is 202-748-8002. | ||
| Tidale from Flushing, New York, an independent. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning to you. | |
| Happy holiday. | ||
| Happy New Year. | ||
| I think I've been following international news, foreign relationships. | ||
| I'm not a student, but I really have a sense of these things very well. | ||
| So what grade would you give, President? | ||
|
unidentified
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If you start from my continent, Africa, Congo, Rwanda, and Congo business, we know it. | |
| We have direct information from them. | ||
| There is no peace. | ||
| There is no peace agreement. | ||
| All these transactional things Trump is doing is that he believes that those people who have force, they can do something on the ground. | ||
| That's what he's doing now in Russia. | ||
| He believes that Putin is not talking. | ||
| Putin is using the time to change whatever on the ground to his advantage. | ||
| That's what he's doing. | ||
| Look, but what I really appreciate on Zeleninski is that he goes along with Europeans. | ||
| Europeans have one united front. | ||
| There is one principle. | ||
| You cannot change territory by force. | ||
| Europe is holding this ground. | ||
| Trump said, okay, we can give this one. | ||
| You can't give that. | ||
| We will not get a solution on that one. | ||
| So Trump is doing something, I think, for his own personal thing. | ||
| Maybe to get the Nobel Peace Prize, I don't know. | ||
| But his side of doing international business by transaction, giving that without that, is not working. | ||
| The body language yesterday I see is it just doesn't give sense at all. | ||
| This will continue. | ||
| Russia will bomb. | ||
| We don't know what's going to be the end. | ||
| When you come to Gaza, the same thing. | ||
| Now, Netanyahu is on the driver's seat. | ||
| He's not rushing. | ||
| He's not going to go to the second phase. | ||
| He will drag it. | ||
| He will drag it. | ||
| And then the second term is coming. | ||
| The president will be almost nothing. | ||
| We'll be going the same place, I think. | ||
| Donald Trump, foreign policy, if I give him a grade, I will give him F, fat F. Mark from New York, a Republican? | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I actually teach foreign policy in a local college in New York. | ||
| And here's my grade for Trump: A plus. | ||
| I'll tell you why. | ||
| Number one, a few of the areas of the world that he has addressed. | ||
| And I have to give him credit for trying to address these things, which some of the previous administrations didn't try. | ||
| Iran, he pushed back the Iranian nuclear program, which Biden's policy was advancing. | ||
| In Syria, he worked with Al-Shara to try to stabilize that regime. | ||
| Incredible. | ||
| In Israel, he achieved the hostages getting out and suppressing Hamas. | ||
| In Venezuela, he is stopping narco-terrorism in our backyard. | ||
| Now, as far as Gaza and these comments about Gaza, let's be realistic. | ||
| These are impossible issues, even the one with Ukraine. | ||
| Incredibly difficult to deal with Russia. | ||
| So in my conclusion, in my grading for President Donald Trump for this semester, I gave him an A-plus, and I think he deserves the Nobel Prize because he tries hard to achieve peace, and he keeps on and on at it. | ||
| And eventually, hopefully, Gaza will stabilize. | ||
| The Ukraine war will, God willing, end with all its carnage when Russia, Russia as an aggressor, but it's very difficult to deal with these issues. | ||
| And so what the United States has achieved is being in the forefront and the guide of trying to work a more peaceful world. | ||
| So in conclusion, Donald Trump, I think, has done a very, very formidable job. | ||
| And I think he should be given kudos for it and not F grades. | ||
| He deserves an A plus. | ||
| So that's my opinion. | ||
| Anyway. | ||
| William from Ohio, a Democrat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning, Kimberly. | |
| This is the old 90-year-old hillbilly. | ||
| I would give the big bully as many F's that you could line up in the line. | ||
| I used to live in West Palm Beach. | ||
| My wife lived there from 53 till 88. | ||
| He's nothing but a big bully. | ||
| They kicked him out of Palm Beach County schools after three days because of his bully. | ||
| He was so big over the other little kids, he'd run around like a helicopter with his arms out, bowling the little kids over. | ||
|
unidentified
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He's nothing but a big bully. | |
| And if the United States stands, it will be a miracle. | ||
| It won't be nothing that Psycho Don has accomplished. | ||
| Chris from California, an independent. | ||
| Your line's open. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, hello. | |
| Hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I give Donald Trump a D minus, and only that because he's at least pretending to try to, you know, garner peace in the world. | |
| All this is what he's doing in Ukraine, it's all about the rare earth minerals. | ||
| It has nothing to do with peace. | ||
| That's why they want all the extra land that Russia hasn't gobbled up yet. | ||
| That's where the rare earths are. | ||
| It's the same reason he gave Argentina $40 billion because Argentina, or yeah, Melee is already in the process of booting out indigenous people from their lands because that's where the rare earth minerals are in Argentina. | ||
| That's why he wants Greenland. | ||
| It's all about rare earths. | ||
| The only other thing that isn't about rare earths is Gaza. | ||
| That's about a land grab for the Israelis and to build resorts. | ||
| And if I may add, Donald Trump's foreign policy is not a foreign policy. | ||
| Donald Trump is a wannabe mob boss. | ||
| He wants to affect the commission, like Lucky Luciani had, for the families he wants to do in the world. | ||
| It'll be primarily him, G, and Putin, with minor players of Erdogan, which I'm going to call it, from Hungary. | ||
| That's why he wanted Boris. | ||
| Yes, thank you. | ||
| That's why he wanted Borceonaro in Brazil. | ||
| Donald Trump wants to rule the world like it's a commission, but he's not smart enough to be the head of the commission like Luciano was. | ||
| It would be G because G has the power. | ||
| It would be Putin because Putin is by far the most clever intellectual KGB type person to run it. | ||
| Trump thinks he could run it, but he doesn't have the intellect to run it. | ||
| Danny from Hyattsville, Maryland, a Republican? | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| My calling just to say I am a Republican living in a Democratic family, and I want to say that Trump has an A for my for his effort and what he's doing. | ||
| He's the only president who's trying to bring this world together as a people. | ||
| And I think that he will do it. | ||
| It all takes time. | ||
| It took time to get where we are. | ||
| It's going to take time to get where we want to go as a United States. | ||
| That's my question. | ||
| And that's my statement. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Ulysses from Greenville, South Carolina, a Democrat. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I give Donald Trump an F plus, a F plus, and an F plus, and a F plus. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Do you want to explain why? | ||
| He haven't done nothing but bullied the country. | ||
| Just turn us all against each other. | ||
| What about his foreign policy? | ||
| I give him a F, F, F, F plus, F plus, F plus. | ||
| Thank you, Dan. | ||
| That was Ulysses from Greenville, South Carolina. | ||
| Now, if I turn to some tweets that we're getting, or some X's, I guess you would call them. | ||
| Vicki Mayfield, or excuse me, this is off your Facebook. | ||
| Vicki Mayfield says, I give him the best grade of handling foreign policy since Reagan. | ||
| It's refreshing. | ||
| He took out Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| He didn't give Iran billions in cash. | ||
| He didn't shame our country with an incompetent pullout from Afghanistan. | ||
| I would assume referencing the Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021 under the Biden administration. | ||
| Bill from Mart, Texas, an independent. | ||
| Your line is open. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I agree with that lady that just got off the phone. | |
| She, you know, she referenced he, you know, he did a lot better job than what Biden did. | ||
| Biden with the Afghan pullout was horrible. | ||
| You know, the young lady that won the Nobel Peace Prize, she even says from Venezuela. | ||
| Yeah, from Venezuela. | ||
| The young lady, the Machado young lady, that won the Nobel Peace Prize. | ||
| She even says that Donald Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. | ||
| She said it should belong to him. | ||
| And because he got the Israel hostages out, the Iran bombing, I don't know if anybody, not even, maybe not even Ronald Reagan could have pulled that off, but he did it. | ||
| The India-Pakistan war, it wasn't going on for years, he ended that. | ||
| The Congo-Rwanda war, he ended that. | ||
| He's stopping these drug boats from killing, bringing drugs over here and killing Americans by the thousands. | ||
| He's stopping that. | ||
| He shut down the border, and the Democrats are just letting the drug just pour in, you know, the drug cartels. | ||
| We had an incident down here in Texas just the other day from drug cartels because of Biden, you know, and they kidnapped a young girl and, you know, and tried to get her for sex slave. | ||
| And, you know, the drug cartels, because they got a foothold when Biden was here. | ||
| Now we have to deal with them. | ||
| Multiple callers have talked about the Iranian bombing over the summer. | ||
| Take a listen to President Trump in June when he announced, excuse me, in June when he announced those strikes. | ||
| A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime: Ford, Natanz, and Esfahan. | ||
| Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. | ||
| Our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's number one state sponsor of terror. | ||
| Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. | ||
| Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. | ||
| Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. | ||
| If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier. | ||
| For 40 years, Iran has been saying death to America, death to Israel. | ||
| They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs. | ||
| That was their specialty. | ||
| We lost over a thousand people, and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate. | ||
| In particular, so many were killed by their general, Qasem Soleimani. | ||
| I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen. | ||
| Will not continue. | ||
| I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. | ||
| We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before. | ||
| And we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel. | ||
| I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they've done. | ||
| And most importantly, I want to congratulate the great American patriots who flew those magnificent machines tonight and all of the United States military on an operation the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades. | ||
| Hopefully, we will no longer need their services in this capacity. | ||
| I hope that's so. | ||
| That was President Trump in June announcing the strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran. | ||
| As we ask you what grade you would give the president for his foreign policy, his first year in office for his second term, I want to turn to a poll from Real Clear Politics on his job approval. | ||
| Foreign policy. | ||
| 54% of respondents to the survey say that they disapprove of the job that President Trump is doing. | ||
| 43% say that they approve. | ||
| On immigration, similar numbers. | ||
| 50% disapprove, 47% approve. | ||
| On the economy, 55% disapprove, 41% disapprove. | ||
| And on inflation, 63% disapprove and 36% approve. | ||
| Hamilton from Pennsylvania, an independent, you're next. | ||
| What grade would you give President Trump on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning, gentlemen. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| As an ex-Marine, we had ability that we do not deal with terrorists. | ||
| President Putin is a terrorist. | ||
| He attacked a sovereign country. | ||
| He killed, he kidnapped kids. | ||
| He did rapes. | ||
| Why are we rolling out the red carpet for Putin? | ||
| Why are we dealing with all these other countries that have done terroristic acts? | ||
| In my opinion, we shouldn't be talking to Putin. | ||
| We should be giving the Ukraine everything they need. | ||
| And I give him an F. | ||
| And thank you very much for taking my call. | ||
| Militant from Philadelphia, Democrat, you're next. | ||
| What grade would you give the president? | ||
|
unidentified
|
F plus. | |
| And I like to make two points. | ||
| I agree with what that last caller said. | ||
| But about the main point, you just played the clip where Trump talked about that we had a successful strike against Iran. | ||
| Tabby Gifford, the DNI, you know, the Department Director of Intelligence, came shortly after that and said we didn't get all of Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| So that was a lot. | ||
| You know, the main thing I don't understand about Americans, what do Putin have on Trump? | ||
| It seems that Trump goes out his way to do Putin's bidding. | ||
| Yesterday in that news conference, Trump made this big thing about that Putin's looking out for the good of Ukrainians. | ||
| He attacked that country. | ||
| But he's looking out for the Ukrainians. | ||
| It took a lot for Zeliski to stand up there and hear him say it. | ||
| But it seemed like he, and then he talked about, well, the Ukrainians are bombing Russian territories. | ||
| Well, look what the Russians did two days ago. | ||
| They bombed the hell out of Kiev. | ||
| But I don't understand what, and then you take, go back in 16 election. | ||
| You had Muller found over 100 contacts between Trump people and the Russians. | ||
| Then you had the Trump power meeting there. | ||
| I don't know what Putin had on him, but it seemed like Trump go out his way to please Putin. | ||
| And it used to be this country used to stood up to thugs like Putin and to communists. | ||
| Well, I can imagine Ronald Reagan is turned over in his grave by the Republican Party right now, not standing up to Trump and not standing up to Putin. | ||
| We got fighting for democracy here. | ||
| We used to stand out for that. | ||
| I don't know what happened to our country. | ||
| Volcker from Minnesota, excuse me, Volcker from Minnesota and Independent. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| What grade would you give the president, Volcker? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| If the goal of the foreign policy is the enrichment of the Trump family, I give him a name plus the humanitarian side of the whole thing F isn't bad enough. | ||
| That's my opinion. | ||
| And sorry, that's my opinion. | ||
| I want to join our audience, or I want to invite our audience to join in on the conversation. | ||
| Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000. | ||
| Independents, your line is 202-748-8002. | ||
| Now, let's turn to some of responses we're getting on social. | ||
| The first one says, Hi, Jasmine. | ||
| A plus. | ||
| Remember that Biden handed Trump two major wars and 50 conflicts around the world. | ||
| And the Democrats blame Trump? | ||
| Hypocrisy at its finest. | ||
| Guy in Oklahoma. | ||
| The next one says, I give Trump an F on foreign policy. | ||
| He has alienated all of our allies, threatened to take over Greenland and Canada, and won't make a move on Ukraine unless he gets the okay from Putin first. | ||
| He has cozied up to every dictator in the world and rolled out the red carpet for backers of 9-11, D. Radford, Virginia. | ||
| Barb from Long Grove, Illinois, she says, I would give President Trump a grade of C in his handling of foreign policy at this time. | ||
| He's actively trying to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and he has not involved the U.S. in any prolonged conflict. | ||
| Cheryl Hernandez on Facebook says, highly unqualified. | ||
| Randomly killing people and votes in international waters, extortion, and bullying is not a foreign policy. | ||
| Conspiring with Israel for a development deal is not a foreign policy. | ||
| Timbo from Mountain Home, Arkansas, he says, quote, E for effort. | ||
| It's a mix bagged. | ||
| It's a mix, mixed bagged, considering, quote, Iran declared war on the United States over the weekend, blowing up boats carrying who knows what, pardoning all drug, all drug kingpins in South America. | ||
| I give up, you figure it out. | ||
| Betty from Georgia, a Democrat, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'll give him an F F F on everything he's doing. | |
| Do you want to explain when you're talking about foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, foreign policy and everything else he's doing because he really don't know what he's doing about nothing. | |
| He don't need to be the president. | ||
| Jamal from Philadelphia, a Republican. | ||
| Your line's open. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, I just want to grade him. | |
| I think he's doing excellent. | ||
| It takes time for the last four years. | ||
| We went through a lot of turmoil, and you know, it's going to take about three to four years for it to turn around. | ||
| Just give him time. | ||
| Be patient. | ||
| You know, America, we love the underdog, and he definitely displays that. | ||
| Go Trump. | ||
| Always for life. | ||
| Michael, New Jersey, an independent, your line's open. | ||
| What grade would you give the president? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'd give him an A-minus. | ||
| I just, I do not understand all these people calling in, blaming the president for so many problems that he inherited, and they just seem to live in this fantasy world. | ||
| For instance, they keep on saying he doesn't give Ukraine anything and that he's coddling Russia and rolling out the red carpet for Putin. | ||
| We're spending billions of dollars fighting the Russians over there in Ukraine. | ||
| The only thing that Trump has done is made the Ukrainians actually pay for it, you know, through the Europeans. | ||
| We're still throwing everything we got at the Russians right there, yet they insist that we're doing nothing. | ||
| We have the claim that he's alienating our allies. | ||
| Really? | ||
| He just met with Zelensky yesterday. | ||
| He's meeting with Netanyahu. | ||
| He had a huge meeting with a bunch of European leaders at the White House to work on this Ukraine issue. | ||
| But these people just continue to live in a fantasy world. | ||
| It's unbelievable. | ||
| I do give a B plus or A minus for delivery. | ||
| I do think that he's done a lot of things that are good, that have improved our standing in the world. | ||
| But some of the delivery, I think he does alienate Americans. | ||
| I think there are some things that he does that come off as unnecessarily aggressive, and it just makes people not agree with the objectives that he's trying to reach. | ||
| Again, I don't think. | ||
| What are you referencing specifically, Michael, if I can ask? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, for instance, I think that his rhetoric on the Venezuelans with the drug boats or the alleged drug boats, I don't think any Americans are really in favor of drugs being smuggled into this country. | |
| And I think that we can agree as a country that past policies in the so-called war on drugs have not been very effective at all. | ||
| And if you could have, if he could have actually leveraged this sentiment, this argument in a way that was more productive instead of coming across as just so aggressive and warmongering, I think that you would have had more Americans, especially independents, on board with this thing. | ||
| Do you believe that the ultimate goal, even though the administration hasn't said it, but the ultimate goal is regime change in Venezuela? | ||
| Do you believe that the conflict is actually about oil, or are you under the belief that what they actually are seeking is stopping drug trade, knowing that, of course, fentanyl is not made in Venezuela? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that regime change is certainly an objective that's going to come out of this. | |
| I think that the Venezuelan regime right now is a scourge on this hemisphere. | ||
| Just look at who they gave the Nobel Prize to this past year, right? | ||
| A Democratic activist who legitimately won an election and was not allowed to take power in that country. | ||
| And it is a real problem having this regime in our backyard doing its bidding. | ||
| And quite frankly, you know, those were not fishing boats that are being blown out of the water. | ||
| You don't go fishing on high-powered speed boats like that in those waters. | ||
| Bill from Arizona, a Democrat, you're next. | ||
| What grade would you give the president? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'd give him an F. On foreign policy? | |
| All his policies, especially his foreign. | ||
| He doesn't like to go by the law. | ||
| He likes to start wars, which Congress is the one that has approves that. | ||
| And he does. | ||
| He's gone after Mark Kelly, and he goes after different individuals for no reason. | ||
| I just don't care for the way he governs. | ||
| Ed from Silver Spring, Maryland, an independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Excuse me. | |
| I give him an F across the board, especially foreign policy. | ||
| Anybody who's lived a few years and studied history knows if Vlad gets a hold of Ukraine, Poland will be next. | ||
| He's trying to rebuild his Soviet empire. | ||
| And I think he's able to play the Don like a fool because he's been around in a way that Dadon can't possibly understand. | ||
| I'd also like to mention this is all in the context of a guy who tried to overthrow the U.S. government and Capitol Police officers died. | ||
| We seem to keep forgetting that. | ||
| And it's really a disgrace in my lifetime to see that happen. | ||
| And I'm very happy to see the Democrats concede power in January peacefully and with dignity and decency like we've always done before. | ||
| And I hope that continues into the future. | ||
| Thank you so much for letting me call. | ||
| Monique from Missouri, a Democrat. | ||
| What grade would you give the president on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm going to have to give him an F simply because, you know, everything that he has done, basically, since he's got back in office has not been very, very good for us. | |
| The tariff situation is no good. | ||
| The lady said it. | ||
| He really has turned our allies against us. | ||
| And I don't know why he's doing what he's doing. | ||
| I think it's just basically because he's upset. | ||
| He's old. | ||
| He's on his way out. | ||
| You know, he's following Reagan. | ||
| I mean, Reagan was the first worst president in United States history. | ||
| Now we got Trump. | ||
| Reagan's foreign policy wasn't well. | ||
| Trump is backing his policy, and it's just no good. | ||
| No good. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Al from Virginia Beach, an independent. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| What grade would you give the president on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I give him an absolute F minus. | |
| I think, you know, he wants so many awards. | ||
| He should be awarded the Neville Chamberlain Award for he has done exactly what Chamberlain did in World War II. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Trump is afraid of Putin for some reason. | |
| And it might be with what we're finding out about his connection with Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| There have always been rumors about Trump hotel in Moscow, I think it was, and about the Russians had gotten some dirt on him. | ||
| Are you describing the steel dossier that has been relatively discredited? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I don't know if that's it or not. | |
| I just know that that were rumored. | ||
| Let's just call them rumors were flying years ago about something going on when he was in Russia. | ||
| But no matter whether that's true or not, he seems to be afraid of Putin. | ||
| He won't insist that Putin stop the bombing while we're having peace talks. | ||
| You know, the Russians are continuing to bomb the Ukrainian towns, killing innocent people. | ||
| And so, you know, Trump is The thing is, Trump was never the right person for, you know, I mean, he was a very poor candidate, and most people that had any knowledge were aware of his being so bad. | ||
| But his issue at hand, his Matt from Delray Beach, Florida, a Republican. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| What grade would you give the president on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, what grade I'd give him a B plus, a B plus, almost an A minus. | |
| I'm 41 years. | ||
| I was a medic in the New York City fire department and a first responder in the towers on 9-11, as well as in 1983 as a responder with the New York City Police Department. | ||
| Trump has a tough job. | ||
| I would want the job. | ||
| Granted, his personality lacks certain capabilities of bringing everybody into the fold, but incredibly tough jazz. | ||
| But I wanted to thank you because I watch the show all the time, and this is the first time I've called in. | ||
| I also have family that was retired, 82nd Airborne Special Forces. | ||
| Our whole family participated. | ||
| And to be frank with you, I walk around still carrying Narcan with me because, you know, when we talk about people dying and these boat strikes, no one wants to see anybody hurt. | ||
| On the other hand, how many family members in America have to die because of illicit drugs? | ||
| So, you know, I wouldn't want the job. | ||
| I would help him if I was given the opportunity. | ||
| I'm now a Floridian, originally a New Yorker. | ||
| And, you know, the one thing I also would say is we have a lot of people who are not criminals, who have lived in the U.S. for quite a while, paid taxes for well over a decade. | ||
| And I worry about them because I think they're valued. | ||
| I think they play an important role in our economy. | ||
| So this one-size-fits-all is not necessarily the answer. | ||
| And I think that his bedside manner could improve. | ||
| Thank you, Jasmine, downwards. | ||
| Something that the White House has faced a bunch of criticism on, of course, is their approach to foreign aid. | ||
| Take a listen to Secretary of State Marco Rubio talking about the administration's policies in their first year when it comes to foreign policy at his year-end press conference earlier this month. | ||
| But at its core, the core principle of the national interest, the core principle behind our foreign policy needs to be our national interests. | ||
| So you have to, first of all, define what is the national interest and then you have to apply it. | ||
| We defined it as we are in favor of foreign policies that make America safer or stronger or more prosperous. | ||
| Hopefully all three, but at least one of those three. | ||
| And then it requires you to prioritize. | ||
| Even the richest, most powerful and influential country on earth has limited resources, has limited time. | ||
| And it has to be able to dedicate those resources and time through a process of prioritization. | ||
| That includes geographic prioritization. | ||
| It also includes issue prioritization. | ||
| And that's what we intend to do here. | ||
| Then you have to have the mechanisms of foreign policy to deliver on it. | ||
| In essence, you have to have a Department of State and a National Security Council and all the elements of U.S. foreign policy influence and power to deliver, to identify and then deliver on those priorities. | ||
| And that's what we've attempted to do here. | ||
| And I think we're well on our way to doing it. | ||
| There's more work to be done. | ||
| There's things we will improve upon. | ||
| But generally speaking, it was the genesis behind the reorganization of the department, oftentimes applying reforms that secretaries of states of both parties, appointed by presidents of both parties, have long sought to do. | ||
| And we're very proud of that going into effect and continuing to work forward. | ||
| I think we generally avoided massive disruptions to our operation, although any transition involves some disruption. | ||
| We're very happy with the way we empowered our regional bureaus, meaning our embassies and the folks at the desks here behind the regions have become more empowered and having influence over every element of our foreign policy, particularly how it's applied tactically. | ||
| At the same time, one of the things we looked at is foreign aid. | ||
| Foreign aid is not a separate activity of the United States government. | ||
| It is an element and a tool of our foreign policy, and it should be used for the purpose of furthering the national interest. | ||
| That doesn't mean we don't care about human rights. | ||
| That doesn't mean we don't care about starvation. | ||
| That doesn't mean we don't care about hunger. | ||
| That doesn't mean we don't care about humanitarian need. | ||
| What it does mean, however, is that even foreign aid, which is not charity, it is an act of the U.S. taxpayer. | ||
| Now, American charities are free to give their money to whoever they want, as long as it's not a sanctioned entity. | ||
| But the United States and the taxpayer money should be spent in furtherance of our foreign policy, should be spent in places and on things that further our foreign policy. | ||
| And even that is not unlimited. | ||
| We have a limited amount of money that we can dedicate to foreign aid and humanitarian assistance. | ||
| And that has to be applied in a way that furthers our national interests. | ||
| And that's what we have sought to do as well. | ||
| And in that endeavor as well, we have empowered the regional bureaus and our embassies to play a dramatic role. | ||
| In fact, they are not just the implementers of this. | ||
| They, in many cases, are the ones that are suggesting and are leading the response. | ||
| And so bringing the tools of foreign aid underneath the umbrella of our broader foreign policy has been an important and dramatic reform. | ||
| So that was Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, describing the administration's foreign policy priorities and strategy in its first year. | ||
| Darrell from Georgia, a Democrat. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| What's your, how do you grade Trump's first year in foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I give him a F for the first year and a F for the second year. | |
| I give the people that support him, we do not, he has done nothing but lie to America, attack America, attack people, and allow and try to absorb as much money as he can while he's in office. | ||
| I want to touch base on something that America misses out on. | ||
| We don't listen enough to average everyday people. | ||
| This administration, with his attack on the Mark Kelly and the group that did the commercial group of the group of Democratic senators and lawmakers who told military officials not to follow unlawful orders. | ||
| That's what you describe it. | ||
| Right, right. | ||
| Well, I served 12 years in the military. | ||
| I was a drill sergeant while I was in there. | ||
| Now, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, to obey an unlawful order is illegal. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| It doesn't matter who it comes from. | ||
| If it's unlawful, it's illegal. | ||
| Furthermore, this is in the book. | ||
| And if people go back and look at the Mili Massacre of 1968 with Mark with Callie, Lieutenant Callie, he obeyed, he did an unlawful order and went to trial for it. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| He was pardoned by, I think it was Nixon or somebody. | ||
| But they were absolutely correct. | ||
| And there's nothing wrong with people in the military. | ||
| They're told every day. | ||
| So with this and the attacks, this administration is totally, totally, they do not understand the concepts of their jobs. | ||
| Christy from Missouri, a Republican. | ||
| Your line is open. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| And happy New Year, America. | ||
| And hopefully it will be as long as the Republicans stay in the House. | ||
| And I want to point out, yeah, I give Trump an A plus on foreign policy, and I give you an F as a host because you have had two Republican callers out of the last half hour. | ||
| They've all been Democrat and Independent. | ||
| So we all know the host, you know, Christy, let me stop you there because we take all three, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. | ||
| We've had independents who've spoken favorably of Trump's foreign policy program. | ||
| We've had Republicans who have not given him an A-plus as you have. | ||
| And so we're across the political spectrum. | ||
| We're not picking sides. | ||
| We want to hear from Americans, and that's why we're hearing from you right now. | ||
| Do an F, and I guess DEI is on C-SPAN now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, you know, how about. | |
| Yeah, we don't agree with that language. | ||
| We don't use that. | ||
| I'm extremely qualified for this job, and I like doing C-SPAN. | ||
| Sam from Bakersfield, California, a Democrat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're lying to me. | |
| Good morning, Jasmine. | ||
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I would give President Trump, it's hard to even say that, an F. | ||
| Well, no, I'll give him a D. I'll be fair. | ||
| I'll give him a D, D minus. | ||
| It's only been 11 months. | ||
| This country is, it's unbelievable that these people in this country, the United States of amnesia, they can't remember what President Biden was handed when he took office. | ||
| It was a nightmare. | ||
| You know, we had a caller a few minutes ago talking about how it's going to take four years to get over this. | ||
| Biden had us back down to 3% inflation in about three years. | ||
| And now we're back up to 4. | ||
| Whatever and climbing. | ||
| How could you give this guy a good grade on anything? | ||
| It's unbelievable. | ||
| This guy's not qualified. | ||
| He's a failed businessman. | ||
| He's bankrupted how many companies? | ||
| All I can say is release the Epstein files in whole. | ||
| Release them out. | ||
| Let the people judge for themselves. | ||
| The Afghanistan pullout, that was Trump's deal. | ||
| He made the deal with the Taliban. | ||
| He was going to bring them to Camp David. | ||
| Nobody can remember this stuff. | ||
| It's like, what is wrong with this country? | ||
| It's unbelievable. | ||
| F, F minus. | ||
| I changed my grade. | ||
| F minus. | ||
| Bill from Bolingbroke, Illinois, Independent. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| I would give him an F minus. | ||
| Trump, the only thing that seems like Trump cares about is lining his pockets and his rich friends' pockets and his family's pockets. | ||
| All these trips that he's made and says foreign policy. | ||
| He's a deal maker. | ||
| That's true. | ||
| And this war with Ukraine and Russia, he's playing right into Putin's hands. | ||
| He could have ended this thing from, you know, early part of this year. | ||
| He could have ended all of this. | ||
| But he's not. | ||
| Jamie from Pennsylvania and Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just want to say that I think that he and the whole administration, Rubio, they get glaring F. Jasmine, you get an A plus, plus, plus, and beyond. | |
| You're doing a magnificent job. | ||
| I've seen you on your last few episodes. | ||
| So thank you, and thank you for C-SPAN. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I want to turn to an article that we have describing exactly what is some of the latest reporting. | ||
| Oh, excuse me. | ||
| I want to turn to a tweet from Marjorie Taylor Greene. | ||
| Give me one second to pull it up. | ||
| Who, after President Trump met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, in anticipation of his meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, she tweeted, once I find it for you, oh, I cannot find it. | ||
| She basically tweeted looking at, oh, I cannot find it. | ||
| Let's actually go to your call right now. | ||
| Anna, North Carolina Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Jasmine. | |
| Morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I give him an A. | ||
| The foreign policies, I believe, are they know what they're doing. | ||
| The intel, you got to understand there's so much to what is happening. | ||
| They're not just blowing boats out of the water in Venezuela. | ||
| They're not trying to attack Venezuelans. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is the corruption and the cartels that they're going after. | |
| And as far as the economy, I think that it is on the move up. | ||
| We have just given away so much of our American tax dollars to so many different countries that we did not have any money coming back in. | ||
| And that's why we have such a high deficit. | ||
| And I believe that with the industries coming back and we're going to have products to sell, and the tariffs are a bartering chip, so to speak, to hey, look, you want us to get your goods? | ||
| Well, you've got to take our goods too. | ||
| Because that wasn't happening and we weren't getting anything out of it. | ||
| So I think he's doing a great job and I think he's trying to bring our economy back. | ||
| And I thank you, Jasmine. | ||
| Happy. | ||
| Lawrence from Silver Spring, Maryland, a Democrat. | ||
| Your line is open. | ||
| Lawrence, what grade would you give the president? | ||
| You've got about 30 seconds here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, excuse me. | |
| Lawrence, are you there? | ||
| Yes, I'm here. | ||
| All right. | ||
| What grade would you give the president? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I will give the president an F. How come? | |
| Foreign policy, the only thing President Trump has done is taken after his billionaires. | ||
| Everything, he's scared to say anything to Russia, scared to say anything to China, because he wants to be like them. | ||
| He wants to be an autocrat like them. | ||
| That's why he doesn't want to annoy them. | ||
| So anybody that knows who an autocrat is will know that President Trump is one. | ||
| And if you think that President Trump is going to leave the office after his four years, you are just deceiving yourself. | ||
| Up next on Washington Journal, more in our annual Holiday Authors Week series, Nine Days of Authors from Across the Political Spectrum Whose Books Shine the Spotlight on an Important Aspect of American Life. | ||
| We finished a series this morning with journalist and best-selling author Sarah Kinzor on her book, The Last American Road Trip, a memoir. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Washington Journal's annual Holiday Author Week series continues this morning. | ||
| Nine days of conversations with America's top writers from across the political spectrum on a variety of public policy and political topics. | ||
| We conclude the series this morning with journalist and bestseller author Sarah Kinzior on her book, The Last American Road Trip, a memoir. | ||
| Sarah, thanks so much for joining the program this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, thank you for having me. | |
| So you are based in St. Louis in the Midwest. | ||
| You write about how you and your family do a lot of long road trips. | ||
| How and why did this become such an important theme for you and why write about it in your memoir? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, my previous books were more analyses of our politics in the U.S. | |
| But while I was writing those, I was raising two kids, you know, who were five and nine in 2016 when we began taking these road trips across the country. | ||
| And, you know, I did this partly for the reason anyone would, you know, to go on vacation to see, you know, other states, to see national parks, to see beautiful places. | ||
| We did this on and off for eight years. | ||
| The book describes the period between 2016 and 2024. | ||
| So a very tumultuous time. | ||
| And a lot of my readers, I noticed, were struggling with how to raise children during this time and how to teach children what America is and how to be an American during this time. | ||
| And it was important to me that my children see the country through their own eyes, you know, not through pundits, not through TV shows or, you know, other people's opinions, but firsthand and get to meet their fellow countrymen, get to see, you know, not just the atrocities that mar our history, but so many of the beautiful people and places that exist here. | ||
| Why do you refer to it as the last American road trip? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, as I said, this is a very tumultuous time. | |
| And every time we would set out on the road, I worried that this would be the last time, that this would be the last time we'd be able to move freely, that this would be the last time certain places we love to visit, like national parks, would be open. | ||
| Of course, in 2020, when so much was shut down by COVID, I was deeply worried that this would come true. | ||
| And, you know, to be clear, I never set out to write a book like this. | ||
| When we were driving around, you know, in every direction, visiting different places, it was for fun. | ||
| You know, it was, I guess, in part for education, but mostly for fun. | ||
| It was later on that I realized I had collected so many experiences that they told a story of America, of America's broader past, but also America during this time. | ||
| And that, of course, includes the interlude in 2020, 2021, where we traveled relatively infrequently and not very far. | ||
| And I had to, you know, come up with some creative outdoor ideas to keep my kids occupied and keep them interested in what was happening around us and not just in the most dire and gloomy way. | ||
| Before we continue the conversation, Sarah, I want to invite our viewers to join in on the conversation. | ||
| Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000. | ||
| Independents, your line is 202-748-8002. | ||
| Sarah, I wonder if you can describe this for us because you come from the world of academia. | ||
| You have a popular sub stack. | ||
| How does physically being on the road deepen your understanding of this country rather than, say, researching from afar or using social media like Twitter, like Facebook to kind of farm not your content, but farm how you're coming to your thesis and analysis? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, that's a great question. | |
| I encourage anyone to go out for a drive, even if it's just something locally. | ||
| It doesn't have to be a big, expensive deal. | ||
| I've certainly learned far more from driving around this country in every direction, especially through the back roads, through places that aren't popular destinations, through places that aren't normally visited, and talking to folks and just seeing people's way of life. | ||
| It cuts through a lot of the propaganda. | ||
| You know, I think it's very important that we learn our history. | ||
| I'm concerned about the erasure of history that's happening in a number of ways, whether through censorship, but also through things like AI. | ||
| Like when you look up an image on the internet of a place and it's not that place, or it's been doctored so badly that you don't know what's real. | ||
| That's one of the reasons I'm really glad I took my kids when I did. | ||
| You know, they're now older teenagers and they're dealing with this new digital dystopia. | ||
| And I'm glad that they've been able to see our country, to see the beauty of our landscape, to feel an obligation to protect that landscape too, kind of one that comes from the heart, not in some sort of demagogue top-down kind of way, but one where you really truly love our land, our history. | ||
| We want to preserve it. | ||
| We also want to be honest about it. | ||
| But yeah, you know, I just got back from a road trip. | ||
| We drove down to Texas, went down through Oklahoma, came back through Arkansas. | ||
| I encourage, you know, and I mean, look that right now. | ||
| But I encourage folks to, you know, to drive in whatever direction they can, maybe with no destination in sight, you know, just to observe, just to talk to people. | ||
| You know, there's a lot that isn't covered, I think, by our media, which tends to be very coastal. | ||
| You know, it's very much based in New York and D.C. or maybe San Francisco and LA. | ||
| And I think for my part of the country, you know, in the Midwest, and I also, you know, talk about the Southwest to South, the Upper Midwest, et cetera, you know, it's heavily defined that way because we leave from Missouri. | ||
| You know, when you live in Missouri, you tend to go to places you can drive to from Missouri. | ||
| But I think that a lot of those places are underrepresented. | ||
| They get to, you know, they're talked a lot in terms of electoral politics. | ||
| They're talked about when there's a weather disaster or something like that. | ||
| But they're often ignored when it comes to day-to-day life, both the beauty and the struggle. | ||
| You talked about bringing your children with you. | ||
| I know obviously they're a little bit older now. | ||
| You know, teens are maybe a little bit more restless. | ||
| But I wonder if you found that their understanding of America deepened, perhaps just by looking out of the window when you guys are driving from Missouri to the West Coast or from Missouri to the East Coast or, you know, what have you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I think it did. | |
| You know, like I said, I think that they're conservationists in a natural way. | ||
| Like when you grow up in Missouri and you drive west, for example, and you suddenly are seeing the plains of Texas and then they're turning into the mesas of New Mexico and then into mountains, into desert, and they've never seen landscapes like this. | ||
| They are in awe and we are in awe. | ||
| We also had experiences where, for example, we saw the Milky Way. | ||
| I saw the Milky Way for the first time in my life when I was 40 and it brought me to tears. | ||
| I thought, how could I have gone so long without seeing this? | ||
| This makes me think about how much collectively we've lost. | ||
| But there were also other things, going to cities that had long been majority Spanish-speaking cities, Latino cities in the southwest, going to the Navajo Nation or driving through Oklahoma, where so many different tribes live and just casual things like pulling into a gas station and seeing the alphabet on the wall in Cherokee. | ||
| Those are important things, I think, for children because they see living history. | ||
| They're not seeing sort of generalizations and stereotypes. | ||
| They're seeing the different ways that Americans from all sorts of backgrounds live and that we are all American and that there's no higher. | ||
| I mean, there's a hierarchy in terms of how we are treated, but there's not a hierarchy in terms of who we inherently are, what our value is, that that should not be based on ethnicity or background. | ||
| That was something I think is, you know, children have to be taught, you know, bigotry and hatred. | ||
| And I think there's a lot of effort to sort of push kids sometimes in that direction. | ||
| But I think a great antidote to that is for kids to actually go out and meet people in the rest of the country firsthand and see how they live and be able to, when they are confronted with those sorts of generalizations later on in life, be able to debunk them based on their own experiences. | ||
| In your memoir, Sarah, The Last American Road Trip, you write, I drive the highways of America like I'm reading its poem because I know the only way to put things back together is to see how they fell apart. | ||
| I trace the past in roadside ruins, period pieces, and a national puzzle. | ||
| I read billboards and bumper stickers like they are prophecies. | ||
| I study slogans scrawled in rest stops and graffiti spray painted in alleyways. | ||
| I am searching for answers about an uncertain future because I am a mother and I can't help but worry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Describe for us, Sarah, what worries you? | |
| Oh, gosh, so much these days. | ||
| You know, the kleptocratic initiatives of our government, to be clear for your audience, I'm an independent. | ||
| I've never been in either political party. | ||
| I'm pretty disgusted with both of the parties and with the failures of our system basically since I was born in the Reagan era. | ||
| I worry a lot about the environment. | ||
| I worry about climate disasters. | ||
| I worry a lot about digital technology and this dehumanizing element of it. | ||
| I think people are being encouraged to think of themselves as brands first instead of human beings. | ||
| I think it's hard to make a living, and people panic about that. | ||
| I think that level of panic and fear can bring out the cruelty in people, and sometimes that cruelty could be monetized for very negative ends. | ||
| And, you know, I've watched life go downhill in kind of a broad sense in terms of when I look for the, you know, at my own future, at my children's future. | ||
| And so one reason I take these trips is to find these small, miraculous things, you know, to find these moments of joy or serenity in the midst of this chaos because it is still there. | ||
| And, you know, my state, Missouri, in particular, I think has had a very hard time. | ||
| I think it's also a very beautiful state, but a lot of that beauty lies in places where I think people wouldn't necessarily think to look. | ||
| You know, it's in our geology, it's in our rivers, it's in our small towns, it's in our big cities, including mine, you know, battered by a tornado, you know, just half a year ago. | ||
| These are tough times. | ||
| And so, one thing, as a mother that I've tried to do is just find, you know, the beauty within those tough times and encourage people to use their own imagination to find it. | ||
| You know, not chat bots, not AI, you know, but use their eyes, use their senses, engage with the world directly and make up their own minds about things instead of just kind of accepting what they're told. | ||
| Now, I want to enjoy, enjoy, I want to invite our viewers to join in on our conversation, Sarah. | ||
| Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000. | ||
| Independents, your line is 202-748-8002. | ||
| Patty from Pennsylvania, Democrat, your line is open. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Jasmine, for taking my call. | |
| Good morning, Sarah. | ||
| I have followed you and all of your books over the years. | ||
| Really appreciate your work. | ||
| You know, I was really hoping you were wrong engaging on formerly known as Twitter with MSW and Marcy. | ||
| And unfortunately, your predictions turned out to be right. | ||
| But to get to my questions, I have a couple of things. | ||
| I have two teenage granddaughters. | ||
| So they are on social media, which as you're concerned about, and I also am. | ||
| And they're struggling, and I don't know how to help them understand how people in their lives that they care about could know the things that they know about. | ||
| It's very disorienting to say this president because it's like we thought we were getting close and now here we are back again. | ||
| Anyhow, how do I help them navigate that while they try to reconcile people that they know in their lives and they see, say, these things and support this and then engage with them in real life. | ||
| And also, I'd like you to comment. | ||
| I'm sorry, this is kind of a little bit uncomfortable, but being where you're sitting talking with folks on Washington Journal right now, how do you reconcile that basically neutrality is covering rather than showing us democracy, they're sharing autocracy or the slide towards autocracy through the lens of democracy. | ||
| So those are my two main issues. | ||
| And thank you so, so, so much. | ||
| Well, thank you very much. | ||
| And thank you for your kind words. | ||
| And yeah, you know, these are incredibly difficult times. | ||
| And I think one of the best things for kids to do is to really learn history. | ||
| And I think that's why there's been such an attempt from, you know, the president and his backers, his powerful backers, to try to erase or censor parts of American history. | ||
| Because, you know, there is precedent for this. | ||
| You know, Trump did not come out of nowhere. | ||
| He is not an aberration. | ||
| He is a culmination. | ||
| And it's not just about him as one man. | ||
| It's about these broader networks of corruption. | ||
| And these networks of corruption are something that have marred American institutions for a very long time. | ||
| You know, I see this as a bipartisan or nonpartisan problem. | ||
| I see this as something that is sucked in everybody in which the average American citizen is suffering under it. | ||
| But looking at past cases, looking at past administrations, seeing how we got to this point, I think is helpful. | ||
| Looking at the ways that people have resisted it. | ||
| But I think more than anything else is holding on to what your morals are, your values are. | ||
| Encourage your kids to write that down, like what lines they would not cross, what they believe is right and wrong, and then check back with that moral inventory later to see if things change. | ||
| Because so much has happened in the last 10 years that I think we have a lot of folks saying things that they once wouldn't have said or doing things that they once wouldn't have done. | ||
| And even, you know, for kids, having to grow up with social media with all of these messages pushed into their face, I think it's very difficult and it can be very scary. | ||
| But knowing who you are as a human being or at least figuring that out, you know, because when you're young, of course, you don't always know, is one way to kind of keep a foothold when there's so much chaos in the broader world. | ||
| Steve from South Carolina, Republican, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, thank you for taking my call. | |
| I really wanted to say that I'm very interested in reading your guest's book. | ||
| I have spent the last 50 years traveling on a motorcycle with my wife, and we have traveled all the states in the United States and seen a lot of different things. | ||
| I have seen things change. | ||
| And simple things like Mount Rushmore, the first time I went there, it was a stone parking lot with a wood fence that you looked up at the faces of the presidents there. | ||
| And the last time I went there, it had a parking lot that had three levels to it, and it was a big concrete thing that walked out to it with a lot of flags and that. | ||
| It was nice. | ||
| I'm not saying it wasn't. | ||
| But I've just seen so many changes in our different parks and such. | ||
| But many of them have been good. | ||
| The other thing is that I've met so many different people. | ||
| And we've often traveled the back roads. | ||
| And when you stop and have lunch, people get interested in it. | ||
| They especially did when I first was writing. | ||
| And they would just ask me questions. | ||
| You rode all the way from there to here? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And it had excellent conversations. | ||
| I think what you're doing or what you're actually booked about and trying to get the kids involved, I think that makes a big difference. | ||
| The kids get out there and actually see and you actually get to know people. | ||
| So my question basically is just that. | ||
| Do you think that people are traveling more and hopefully their kids are getting involved and meeting people so that they understand both sides? | ||
| You understand different people and what they're thinking and that kind of stuff? | ||
| Yeah, I actually do. | ||
| I've seen a big rise, particularly big interest in national parks, you know, and there's objective data that'll back this up in terms of how many tourists and stuff like that. | ||
| But just, you know, an enormous amount of people, I think, have a new appreciation. | ||
| I think some of it is based on ecological worry. | ||
| I think some of it is because, you know, the internet has presented so many images and people see something and they think, you know, I want to meet that too. | ||
| You know, I mean, I want to see that too. | ||
| But I think also, you know, what you're saying about meeting people on the road and having these kind of casual conversations, you know, just about what's going on in the day, about where you've traveled, where you'd like to go. | ||
| Those sorts of exchanges, I think, are important. | ||
| You know, we're going through such an ugly time politically with people at each other's throats. | ||
| But often when we meet each other face to face, and especially when we share a mutual reverence for something, you know, for a national monument, for a national park, for a beautiful landscape, that can bring people together. | ||
| I think that that makes people want to fight, you know, for the preservation of that region and also just notice the beauty of it. | ||
| And I think a lot of folks are looking for that experience. | ||
| You know, when you're online, you don't know if you're talking to a real person. | ||
| You don't know that person's name. | ||
| Everybody's kind of anonymous. | ||
| When you see people face to face, when they look you in the eye, if they have a kind word for your child, that can go a long way. | ||
| You'll remember that for a long time, and your kids will remember that too. | ||
| And I think that that goes a long way to destroying the sort of the harmful generalizations that we're all being subjected to. | ||
| Kind of on the topic of that last question, Sarah, you write about how places that once promised stability, like national parks, small towns, highways, now feel a bit fragile. | ||
| Can you explain that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think everything feels very fragile. | |
| And, you know, one of the places I wrote about, which will have its 100th anniversary next year, was Route 66, which I've driven almost all the way. | ||
| There's a little bit in California that I haven't, but it goes from Chicago to California. | ||
| It was once the great thoroughfare of America before the interstate highway system was built. | ||
| And if you drive it, you can watch America slowly fall apart. | ||
| Some of this is kind of inevitable. | ||
| People would prefer to take the highway than take this long, slow road. | ||
| There are whole parts of the road where it just fractures. | ||
| It just disappears for a while. | ||
| And it became to feel like this kind of metaphorical excursion. | ||
| But it's also the kind of road, when you go through these ghost towns, when you go through these abandoned storefronts, that you're seeing American history and fold right in front of you. | ||
| And one of the things I noticed the most is when I first took a road trip, it was on Route 66, and it was back in 1998. | ||
| And I watched those old ghosts of the past. | ||
| You know, you'll see like an old bootlegger's tavern from the 1920s or something like that, you know, lie in ruins on the road, which, you know, it kind of you assume it should. | ||
| But then it began to be joined by abandoned malls, abandoned homes after the financial collapse of 2008. | ||
| You know, my experiences driving that route after 2008 or any route were quite different. | ||
| I feel like that's one of these big topics that gets kind of overshadowed by things that have happened more recently: is that a lot of this country really never recovered from the recession. | ||
| And we're all dealing with these drastic economic changes brought about by digital media, by a digital economy, the kind of dissolving of brick and mortar stores. | ||
| America looks different, and you can trace that and see that and kind of wonder about the lives of people before. | ||
| But you also wonder about their struggles. | ||
| Where did they go? | ||
| How did they cope with a lot of the same problems we're having today? | ||
| I mean, that's something that will certainly come home to you every time you drive through this country is history repeating, people having to deal with many of the same issues. | ||
| And often, the answer is something unpleasant. | ||
| The history is something very dark. | ||
| But I think it's important that we confront that darkness, confront that head on. | ||
| That helps ease that fragility is to simply know what you may be up against. | ||
| Sean from Milton, Florida, Democrat, your light is open. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, yeah. | |
| I'm trying to get you off the speakerphone here. | ||
| I share a lot of the ideas that you're talking about, and I want to remind people of the fragility of the places that they go to visit. | ||
| I'm a wildlife photographer. | ||
| I go to a lot of national parks in the area, West Florida. | ||
| And in a lot of the photographs that I take, I see plastic water bottles, plastic jugs. | ||
| I see lures on the backs of birds that are just trying to survive in an environment that's closing further and further down on them. | ||
| And we've got to be better stewards of the places that we visit and the places that we go. | ||
| I don't share the idea of like sharing opinions with other people. | ||
| And I'd rather people leave me kind of alone when I'm working in my artwork on the nature trails and places like that. | ||
| But it's kind of hard to avoid. | ||
| Please take care of the national parks. | ||
| Pack out what you pack in. | ||
| Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Fritz from Clarksville, Tennessee, an independent. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I drive a truck. | |
| And I do this road trip seven days a week. | ||
| And I found that it's a lot more interesting if you listen to audiobooks while you do it. | ||
| I once drove from Louisville, Kentucky up through St. Louis to the Northwest while listening to the Lewis and Clark Journals. | ||
| Yeah, no, I mean, I actually end up writing about Lewis and Clark in the book because if you take that route, the one you just described, where you leave from St. Louis, which was the origin of the Lewis and Clark journey, and you drive towards, you know, the Northwest, it's just this endless collection of signs of like the most mundane things that Lewis and Clark did. | ||
| Like literally every action they had seems to be commemorated in some kind of roadside post. | ||
| So yeah, we certainly learned quite a lot about Lewis and Clark. | ||
| We also drove the Natchez Trace, where Lewis committed suicide. | ||
| We live in St. Louis where we see where Clark's grave is here. | ||
| It says he's interred under the obelisk, which is quite another way to go out. | ||
| But yeah, I think that you can't help but retrace those old historical roots. | ||
| And there's something particularly fun in doing that. | ||
| You know, like I'm an 80s kid, so Oregon Trail was a big part of my youth and being able to actually drive on that, see certain places like Chimney Rock and Nebraska that I knew primarily as pixelated images from when I was nine years old. | ||
| It was like seeing a rock star in real life. | ||
| It was very exciting for me. | ||
| So hopefully, you know, in your job, you can find that same excitement for yourself. | ||
| Jim from Idaho, a Republican, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I started school way back when I was shortly after World War II. | |
| We were still practicing ducking under our desk and stuff in case of a blowout. | ||
| And when I got older, I had to do chores around the yard feeding our livestock before I got ready for school. | ||
| And then, as I got older, I was taught you don't work, you won't eat, you won't have anything to wear, and you probably won't have a roof over your head. | ||
| Nowadays, it seems like, government, please help me. | ||
| I need help. | ||
| Help. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Bye. | ||
| Sarah, what do you have in response? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, you know, folks do need help. | |
| And I think that, you know, as taxpaying citizens, I'm glad when my tax money goes to help people versus to, you know, fund wars or other initiatives that I disagree with. | ||
| You know, sometimes people are just down on their luck, and it's not through their fault of their own. | ||
| And they need help getting back started. | ||
| And I don't think there's any shame in that. | ||
| One thing you write about, Sarah, is, you know, not that you're just traveling as a journalist, somebody who's observing what you see on these various different roads on your way from one place to another, but also as a parent. | ||
| I want to read you a part of your book. | ||
| You write, I don't want my children to chase American illusions marketed as American dreams, but I want them to understand why things went wrong, to appreciate everyday miracles, and not to think them small, to have reverence for the good that endures, and to work to protect it. | ||
| A republic, if you can keep it, a family that would remain American, whether or not America remains. | ||
| We would love America out of defiance and defy America out of love. | ||
| Can you talk about your journeys as a parent also on the road? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, it was an interesting thing to start out with kids, you know, who are quite young in the beginning. | |
| Like I said, that my son was five, my daughter was nine. | ||
| Obviously, they're full of questions, because kids always are, about what they are seeing, but the level of sophistication or knowledge of those questions grew over time. | ||
| And so, you know, it was important to me, though, that when we would see a place, you know, with darker chapters of American history, Native American genocide, the enslavement of black Americans, that I did not sugarcoat that, that I told them in a straightforward way what happened. | ||
| You know, children are full of moral inquiry. | ||
| One of the questions I received the most was, you know, how did people just sit back and allow that to occur? | ||
| Because I think there's some expectation that, you know, of course, there's going to be evil in the world. | ||
| There's going to be greed. | ||
| But it's more, how did that get received as normal? | ||
| How did something like slavery just be considered a part of everyday American life? | ||
| And I think it's important that kids, that everybody be thinking along those lines because it's a process of normalization of unfathomable horrors so that people feel comfortable looking the other way. | ||
| I think when you travel, you have a direct confrontation with history. | ||
| You know, you're standing in the sights of historical actors. | ||
| You're thinking about how they got to the decisions that they made in their life. | ||
| And you're also thinking, you know, this is my country. | ||
| And, you know, I love this country like a parent. | ||
| I love this country like a child, you know, with wide-eyed wonder, but I feel that protectiveness of it, you know, just like I would of any kind of vulnerable body. | ||
| You know, I see malicious actors trying to tear it apart, trying to pit people against each other for their own, you know, greedy aims, essentially. | ||
| And, you know, I want to protect that as well. | ||
| But you can't lie about it. | ||
| You know, that's one of the things they tried to be home is we all have to be honest brokers here about what's happening in America, what has happened in America. | ||
| It doesn't mean that you broadly condemn any group of people. | ||
| It just means that you understand how we got over decades, over the centuries, to the point that we are now so that we could be a better country, so that we can feel whole again as a country. | ||
| You know, when I drive across it, I do feel that. | ||
| When you go from place to place, it's like, sure, you know, each place is different. | ||
| People have their own local concerns, but we are bound together. | ||
| And there's something very refreshing about that on the road versus, say, online or in some other kind of disembodied form where you're not quite sure what's real. | ||
| You're not quite sure who you're talking to. | ||
| That's one of the reasons, especially with kids having so much digital stuff thrown their way, that it was important for my children to grow up that way, be able to make decisions on their own and make those decisions be informed decisions based on real memories and not something kind of implanted from afar by a stranger. | ||
| Yeah, you describe that tension in your book, wanting to talk about some of the uglier parts of the history of this country while also talking about your love for this country. | ||
| I want to turn because the smartphone or smartphones in general kind of loom large in this book. | ||
| You write about how the day that you found out Jeffrey Epstein died, you were on the road and it took you out of it and you were scrolling your phone. | ||
| I wonder if you see that as a metaphor for where we exist now when we know that so much about politics is focused on the attention economy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| You know, I've written two books about Epstein hiding in plain sight and they knew. | ||
| And in 2009, I'd gone on this two-week vacation to try to get over the trauma or just the hardship, I should say, because I don't want to minimize this for what other people went through of writing about the Epstein-Maxwell operation and how it is. | ||
| But if there's a villain to my new book, The Last American Road Trip, it is the smartphone. | ||
| It is the way that it interferes with sort of experiencing life and in real time, staying in the moment. | ||
| But yes, of course, you can't divorce things like Epstein or government corruption or these horrific, nefarious actors from our everyday life either. | ||
| There are other times where we went to, for example, the room in Chattanooga where Al Capone was arrested. | ||
| We went to the MENA airport where Iran-Contra happened. | ||
| These are all predecessors to the kind of mafia state world that Epstein inhabits. | ||
| But yes, that case, unfortunately, is something that I wrote about a great deal. | ||
| And I wrote about it because I wanted to stop it. | ||
| I wanted to play a role in exposing it. | ||
| And my hope was that if it is exposed, then there'll be justice for the victims. | ||
| That justice did not come. | ||
| Instead, it's something I think that, you know, honestly, like in a perverse way, it's something that brings America together because there is nobody who is on the side of Epstein and Maxwell, except for the predator elite that used their connections to them and participated in these grotesque acts. | ||
| So it's sort of the flip side, the dark side, to the other things that bring us together as Americans. | ||
| Think reverence for our natural landscapes, things like that. | ||
| This is the darker side where I think everyone just wants this to stop. | ||
| They want so badly this level of depravity and evil and corruption to stop. | ||
| They want the perpetrators to be exposed. | ||
| They want transparency. | ||
| They want accountability. | ||
| I want all those things too. | ||
| I think this is something that unites us, but of course, it does cast a shadow when you're driving with two children. | ||
| And I think I wrote in the book: my children knew full well who Epstein was back in 2019. | ||
| This was no great secret. | ||
| This is no great revelation. | ||
| And folks in Congress and in other political positions that are acting like this is brand new, they knew all along as well. | ||
| And that's an incredibly depressing and disheartening thing to me that they knew and did nothing about it. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I want to invite our audience to join in on the conversation. | ||
| Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000. | ||
| Independents, your line is 202-748-8002. | ||
| Doug from St. Paul, Minnesota, a Democrat. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, Jasmine and Sarah. | |
| Thanks for your book and your talk. | ||
| I've gone on many road trips, a lot of them by myself, mostly to the East Coast where my relatives are in Cape Cod and Connecticut. | ||
| One in particular, I don't take the interstates. | ||
| I just take back roads, get lost. | ||
| The Garmin is saying, make a U-turn, go back, and I just ignore that. | ||
| But one time, for instance, I found myself at Kent State University purely by accident, and I thought, wow, this is a place where history occurred. | ||
| Another time I took a road trip and I went to Osawatomi and Leavenworth, Kansas, which is next door to your state. | ||
| There's the cradle of the Civil War there. | ||
| This place is sort of a forgotten place, tiny, but that's where John Brown's son was killed as a scout. | ||
| But what I wanted to talk about was a particular place in Minnesota that is a private residence. | ||
| The farm, the barn, has been converted into a bicycle bunkhouse for transcontinental cyclists. | ||
| And I often ride up there about 70 miles away just to stay overnight, local for me. | ||
| And I would meet so many people, internationals, couples, single people, little groups traveling on the Northern Tier Adventure Cyclist route across the United States. | ||
| Ends in Bar Harbor, Maine, starts someplace in Washington. | ||
| And it was so much fun talking to these people, meeting them. | ||
| But the owner of this place says that after COVID, the number of people doing this has dropped from 200 guests a year at this bunkhouse to just a trickle. | ||
| The last few times I've been there, all by myself, nobody else. | ||
| Not that it's a big place. | ||
| I'd only expect to see one or two people. | ||
| But anyway, that goes along with your idea: the last American road trip. | ||
| Fewer people are doing this. | ||
| Thanks, Sarah. | ||
| Bye. | ||
| Yeah, thank you. | ||
| I mean, I can't offer much particular comment on that place. | ||
| Like I said before, I have seen more tourism to stuff like national parks. | ||
| It does make me wonder if smaller places are maybe not getting that, especially places that require a great deal of physical stamina. | ||
| You know, I think we're dealing with a bad healthcare system. | ||
| We're dealing with a lot of folks who are sick, who might dream of taking a trip like that, are unable to do it. | ||
| I'm a big canoeer, big kayaker. | ||
| That's why I love Minnesota. | ||
| You know, want to go there badly. | ||
| And I have noticed fewer folks doing that in recent years, but it's hard for me to really make a pronouncement on it. | ||
| Henry from Kentucky and Independent, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| How are you this morning? | ||
| I'm good. | ||
| How are you? | ||
| I'm doing great. | ||
| Traveling this great country on the interstates. | ||
| I'm an over-the-road truck driver. | ||
| I've been doing it for about two months now. | ||
| And I just thank you so much, C-SPAN, for giving us hours and hours of content to listen to. | ||
| I appreciate the way you moderate and kind of both sides of the aisle. | ||
| So thank you. | ||
| Also, thank you for writing your book here. | ||
| You're advertising here this morning about traveling. | ||
| I haven't got the name of it yet, but I'm looking forward to listening to it. | ||
| And now, as a truck driver, I'd really like to call all the other truck drivers. | ||
| I know I'm new at this, guys, but we really need to make trucking clean again. | ||
| We've got a lot of trash and debris at all of our truck stops and on the sides of the road. | ||
| And it's just trash and things that give truckers a bad name. | ||
| At the same time, we also need some common sense regulation for how do we keep the runoff from these truck stops actually clean. | ||
| I mean, you wouldn't believe the kind of garbage that flows down into these storm sewers and these drains. | ||
| We've got to do something about it. | ||
| It's so much more than the vilifying of these people that have come from other countries in order to seek a job in a truck, the non-domiciled truck drivers. | ||
| Guys are trying to make a living, and I feel for them. | ||
| However, they have to speak English. | ||
| Anyway, I'm sorry, I'm kind of on a rant here. | ||
| What do you suggest that a young guy do in order to get involved and be the effective change we need to see in this industry? | ||
| You got any thoughts on that? | ||
| Yeah, you know, I mean, I think you already know some of it in terms of, you know, litter and just general pollution and kind of, you know, talk to fellow truckers, talk to other people on the road. | ||
| You know, we hit a lot of truck stops, so I know what you mean. | ||
| I think it's a very grueling job. | ||
| It's a demanding job. | ||
| You know, we eat lunch or breakfast at a lot of these truck stops and hear people, you know, talking. | ||
| So I think some of it just might be that. | ||
| You certainly know more about the industry than me, but I get the sort of sense of exhaustion. | ||
| But yeah, you know, having regulations, having standards. | ||
| You know, one thing that I've enjoyed about the diversity of trucking is the changes in food that we've gotten at truck stops that are now serving biryani and other delicacies from India and stuff. | ||
| There's a nice, you know, there's a stuck use in Doolittle, Missouri that's, you know, got particularly good food. | ||
| You know, we have a changing population, and that means, you know, changing culture, I think anyone, no matter where they're from, has an obligation to, you know, keep places clean, keep the road clean, not litter, not, you know, create problems for other people. | ||
| That's just a universal thing. | ||
| I don't think that's particular to any kind of, you know, any kind of ethnic group or anything like that. | ||
| But, you know, best of luck to you. | ||
| I know it can be a tough job. | ||
| Sarah, you write in your novel, The Last American Road Trip, or your memoir excuse me. | ||
| You write a lot about Route 66. | ||
| I know we talked a little bit about it earlier, but I want to read this quote. | ||
| Oh, excuse me. | ||
| I want to read this quote. | ||
| It says, there is nothing that does not belong on Route 66 because there is nowhere Route 66 belongs, not anymore. | ||
| Route 66 beckons you to the freedom of the open road, but the open road keeps terminating without warning. | ||
| Route 66 is America, and America is falling apart. | ||
| You spoke a little bit about how driving on Route 66, you've seen the decline of America, but you've also talked about how the decline isn't always dramatic. | ||
| Can you kind of mesh those two ideas together for us? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, you know, when you're driving along, you know, it's not like you suddenly enter some sort of hellhole out of some sort of beautiful area. | |
| I mean, Route 66 is in St. Louis. | ||
| Like, I can drive on and go buy groceries. | ||
| You know, and then you move along and then you see some old places. | ||
| And what I see a lot of on Route 66 is nostalgia. | ||
| And what's interesting to me is that so much of the nostalgia was nostalgia created in the 1970s. | ||
| So those monuments of nostalgia themselves have now become somewhat eroded or falling down. | ||
| Some are thriving, like say Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo. | ||
| This is a little bit off of Route 66, was basically part of the drive. | ||
| Other ones are, you know, in Missouri, there's a guy who, you know, went to his hometown of Red Oak and then saw that it had basically declined by the early 1970s and just built Red Oak 2. | ||
| It was just a recreation of what he had grown up with, all these 1930s and 1940s style buildings. | ||
| And you could just go visit Red Oak too. | ||
| And so you see this deep longing in this other very chaotic time of the Vietnam War, of Watergate, of all these corruption being revealed, the Pentagon Papers and so forth. | ||
| I think people were hearkening for something to hold on to. | ||
| You also see a lot of monuments that just are of enormous things, enormous praying hands, an enormous cow, an enormous ball of twine. | ||
| There's this tendency in America to do that. | ||
| And a lot of those monuments get placed on Route 66, where then again, as I said, they sometimes kind of fray away. | ||
| I personally love visiting them and we'll treat them with the reverence they deserve. | ||
| But yeah, it's not an overt kind of straight-down decline. | ||
| And I think it does mirror our political trajectory. | ||
| I think a lot of things we're seeing politically now began when I was a child under the Reagan administration and predate even that. | ||
| I think there's certain economic policies that really do go directly to the Reagan administration. | ||
| But, you know, half the country is known no other way. | ||
| And we have a government that I think, regardless of which party is in charge, is not particularly interested in our welfare and our well-being. | ||
| I think they're very interested in elections and in raising money for elections, you know, pitting parties against each other. | ||
| Most Americans aren't in a party. | ||
| They're independent. | ||
| They're just trying to live their lives. | ||
| And Route 66 sort of sees, you know, it serves as this symbol of that, of people just sort of struggling to get by and of all the different things that can go wrong and of all the different kind of dreams and products of the American imagination that people sought to make permanent in their own way when they felt their own lives were so vulnerable, when they felt that things were falling apart. | ||
| You know, they made an effort to commemorate what they saw of America or what was important in America and put that as a roadside marker and show it to a world that now, unfortunately, is passing it by in favor of the highway and faster routes. | ||
| Nadine from Massachusetts, a Democrat, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey there, how are you doing? | |
| Hey, good. | ||
| How are you? | ||
| I'm good. | ||
| I had a strange job in my life. | ||
| I was a road actor, and I performed poetry in school. | ||
| So my job was to get from one school to the next. | ||
| And the way the job worked out, first there were more than one team that went around doing shows like this, and we sort of divided the country up into vertical pathways. | ||
| So there was East, and then there was Great Lakes, and then there was Mississippi, and then Mountains, and then the West Coast. | ||
| And sometimes you'd cross back and forth. | ||
| One interesting thing was sometimes driving to the next school and not really knowing what road you were on, and then doing something absolutely nuts, like going over Boulder Dam. | ||
| We really didn't expect that because you were just trying to get to Las Vegas because that's where the next school was. | ||
| So got to do that in the middle of the night. | ||
| Anyway, I just wanted to share that. | ||
| And I actually got to do this for about 15 years. | ||
| So I'm very appreciative of you and your travels. | ||
| And I just wanted to share a little bit of what I did in my bizarre job. | ||
| Anyway, so I performed poetry in schools. | ||
| That's great. | ||
| No, thank you for sharing. | ||
| That's a really interesting job. | ||
| It sounds like it combines a lot of different creative qualities, a lot of different ways to see the country. | ||
| David Johnson City, Texas, an independent, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hi, David. | ||
| We can hear you. | ||
| Yep. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, great. | |
| I have a real misunderstanding about how the government does things, the government officials. | ||
| In other words, when they want to make a decision on doing something in the government that's going to affect the people in a real positive way, something that's going to real benefit people. | ||
| I can't really give an example right currently. | ||
| But they'll say, okay, we understand we're going to do something about it, but we're going to start in February. | ||
| And you find out it's December. | ||
| There's something that's needed right away. | ||
| You know, these government officials, what kind of job do they have? | ||
| You know, what kind of work do they do? | ||
| They make decisions. | ||
| That's about the only thing they do, as far as I know. | ||
| And, you know, if they can put something off, they'll do it, you know, regardless of what people think. | ||
| You know, they're the ones, you know, in control. | ||
| Yeah, it's a very frustrating thing. | ||
| You know, it's bureaucracy. | ||
| I think one of the most frustrating things is that these are often long-term problems. | ||
| These are like the same problems that were around when I was five years old, and people know full well that they exist. | ||
| And then they take their sweet time doing something about them because they can, you know, put more money in their bill or use them to campaign on an election. | ||
| And, you know, I think this is part of a broader symptom where our elected officials do not feel an obligation to represent us anymore. | ||
| You know, they're not trying to win us over. | ||
| They're not trying to make sure they retain our approval so that they can win their election. | ||
| You know, it's all dark money and politicking and just such an enormous amount of money put into these campaigns and put into these initiatives. | ||
| And that money is not being used in a pragmatic matter. | ||
| It's not being used quickly enough. | ||
| I think our problems are quite urgent. | ||
| And it's very frustrating that, you know, all of these day-to-day concerns get pushed by the wayside in favor of scandal and intrigue and nonsense and greed. | ||
| And I want to turn to some comments that we have on social media right now. | ||
| The first one is from William Goldsboro, North Carolina. | ||
| He says, you don't have to take a road trip. | ||
| I hike the Appalachian Trail. | ||
| Every three to five days you're at a town or village. | ||
| That, too, is a great way to experience America person to person. | ||
| I wonder, Sarah, have you ever hiked the Appalachian Trail? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I hike a little of it, but I hike all the time. | |
| I hike a lot in the Ozarks, both in Missouri and in Arkansas. | ||
| Yes, I absolutely agree with this. | ||
| And a lot of the book, you know, it's called The Last American Road Trip, but there are kayak trips, canoe trips, hiking trips, sand dune walking trips and climbing trips. | ||
| You know, we traveled by foot quite a bit because I do think that that is one of the best ways to see this country. | ||
| And, you know, a lot of times it was driving to a place in order to be able to experience it by foot, experience nature directly. | ||
| And, you know, I wish I could go hike the Appalachian Trail. | ||
| Maybe when both my kids are out of the house, I could do that, or we could do that as a family. | ||
| That's one of those things you need a considerable amount of time for. | ||
| But yeah, I would love to do that. | ||
| It's one of my dreams. | ||
| So congrats to you that you got to. | ||
| A second tweet that we have says, thanks, Sarah, for putting this book out. | ||
| I'm Russell in Jerome, Idaho, and 67 years old. | ||
| I spent a lot of time hitchhiking during the 70s and 80s. | ||
| I'm surprised at how many people here have never experienced going to the beach. | ||
| Hopefully your book will inspire them to hit the road sometime. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I hope so. | |
| I remember when my kids finally saw the beach for the first time, you know, growing up in Missouri, of course, have rivers all over the place. | ||
| But when we finally, we drove down to Florida, to the Florida Panhandle, and when they saw that ocean, it's such a mind-blowing thing. | ||
| So if you're like me, if you're, you know, a Midwest mom and your kid has never seen the ocean, try at some point in your life, especially when they're young, when they're so awestruck to see that. | ||
| And also, if you have a six-year-old with you, warn them that sand will cause them to sink and that that is supposed to happen when they walk upon it because my child was a bit surprised. | ||
| But yeah. | ||
| In your book, Sarah, you write, road trips are storied American avenues of escape, but that romance looks different in the rear view. | ||
| I search for truth and justice and wind up on the American way, a path of pain and violence that permeates from past to present. | ||
| Yet even in the worst of times, I refuse to believe our nation's fate is preordained. | ||
| There is no inevitable autocracy or inevitable democracy. | ||
| There are no red states or blue states. | ||
| There are only purple states, purple like a bruise, and people trying to survive in a broken promise land. | ||
| I wonder what do you want your readers and our viewers to take away from your book? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, I want them to take away whatever they get out of it. | |
| And that's just sort of a broad way of viewing life. | ||
| That's why I take these road trips, is to get my own first-hand view of America. | ||
| And I hope you get, you know, your own first-hand perspective from what I'm saying. | ||
| But that line, which I've included in many of my books, that America is purple, it's purple like a bruise. | ||
| I mean, that is something I believe in strongly. | ||
| I don't believe in this red state, blue state nonsense. | ||
| I think any of us who live in any state can see that there are differences in cities and urban areas and rural areas, that places are not what they seem, that the generalizations and stereotypes don't hold, no matter who you are. | ||
| But those categories are being pushed on us. | ||
| They've been pushed on us since the 2000 presidential election, which is when they were cooked up. | ||
| And they're treated like these inevitable little boxes that we have to check. | ||
| We have to pick one. | ||
| I don't think that's true. | ||
| I've enjoyed talking to all of you from all of your different political perspectives. | ||
| But I often think our political parties or affiliations or whatnot are not the most important thing about us. | ||
| What's the most important thing is how we treat people, what kind of person we are morally, and whether we're willing to look at the world with an open mind and an open heart. | ||
| And I hope you do that for our country. | ||
| And if you read my book, I hope you do that for that as well. | ||
| Vincent from Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Independent, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| My question is, first of all, hello. | ||
| But purple states do not exist. | ||
| There's no such thing. | ||
| Have to deal with facts. | ||
| Facts. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And the fact is, there are red states and there are blue states. | ||
| And the majority of the blue states are horrible. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because of the government and the mayors. | ||
| But I think there's a big difference between the government of a state and the people of the state. | ||
| Like in terms of the government, yeah, there are Republican governments, there are Democratic majority governments, Republican majority governments. | ||
| In terms of the people living there, you know, most people are not registered in a party and they don't live their lives defined by it. | ||
| And also within those states, you'll find, you know, people voting for all sorts of different folks, people having a whole range of ideological beliefs. | ||
| You know, my point is not that people don't have, you know, one belief or the other, but that there's so much diversity within each state and it doesn't always show up when you look at the representatives of the government of the state. | ||
| You know, there's a gap there between the representatives and between the people. | ||
| And our last question for you, Sarah. | ||
| You are known for your political predictions. | ||
| Obviously, a viewer earlier in the hour mentioned it. | ||
| I wonder what could you leave us for, or what could you leave us with in terms of a prediction for 2026? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, this is going to be another tough year. | |
| I almost don't want to end on this because it's, you know, it can be quite bleak. | ||
| I'll just say, please hold on to yourselves. | ||
| Be very careful about digital media. | ||
| Stay away from AI. | ||
| Please don't use these chat bots. | ||
| Continue to read and explore and go out and see the world and make up your own mind. | ||
| If you do that, it will help protect you from some of the moral and rot and the corruption that is going to engulf us during the year 2026. | ||
| Okay, leave us with something optimistic. | ||
| What are you looking forward to? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm looking forward to the 100th anniversary of Route 66 just because of my own personal interest. | |
| I hope that the folks who also appreciate this route come out and celebrate it and that there's interesting things to see, festivals, things to do. | ||
| There usually is for something like that. | ||
| So yeah, it might be a cool year for me in that respect. | ||
| All right, Sarah Kinzier, author of The Last American Road Trip, a memoir. | ||
| Thanks so much for joining us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, thank you so much for having me. | |
| Coming next, we'll revisit our discussion from earlier this morning on Trump's foreign policy platform in his first year in office. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| Helen High School students, join C-SPAN as we celebrate America's 250th anniversary during our 2026 C-SPAN Student Cam Video Documentary Competition. | ||
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| And past president. | ||
| What? | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
| This is a kangaroo club. | ||
| Fridays, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity. | ||
| Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| Politico Playbook chief correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns is host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue. | ||
| Ceasefire on the network that doesn't take sides Fridays at 7 and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| We're back this morning talking about President Trump's first year in office on his foreign policy agenda. | ||
| We are asking you what grade would you give the president on foreign policy? | ||
| He spoke about his priorities and what he expects to happen both next year and what happened this year earlier. | ||
| First, though, I want to invite you guys to join in on the conversation. | ||
| Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, your line is 202-748-800. | ||
| And Independents, your line is 202-748-8002. | ||
| Here's President Trump in his primetime address earlier this month talking about his foreign policy priorities for this year and the next. | ||
| Take a listen. | ||
| After rebuilding the United States military in my first term, and with the addition we are adding right now, we have the most powerful military anywhere in the world, and it's not even close. | ||
| I've restored American strength, settled eight wars in ten months, destroyed the Iran nuclear threat, and ended the war in Gaza, bringing for the first time in 3,000 years peace to the Middle East and secured the release of the hostages, both living and dead. | ||
| That was President Trump talking about his priorities on foreign policy, his first year in office and his second term. | ||
| Mariah from Houston, a Democrat. | ||
| Your line is open. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| What grade would you give President Trump on foreign policy, Mariah? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, I would give him a F plus, no, F minus, minus, minus, minus. | |
| I'll come. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I speaks with. | |
| Speaks with. | ||
| Every time I listen to President Trump, I become more confused. | ||
| When he starts spouting off numbers and statistics and percentages, it goes from 1,000 to 100,000 to 1 million to a billion. | ||
| But on foreign policy, of course, we all knew that the wars with Ukraine and in Israel would not be solved in one day, whether he was president or not. | ||
| So I was waiting, or I'm still waiting, to see what's going to be done. | ||
| Patrick from Massachusetts, a Republican. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi, Patrick. | ||
| What would you grade President Trump on his first year in foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would give him an A plus simply because he's done more than the past people. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| John from Kentucky, a Democrat. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| What would you grade President Trump on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'll tell you what. | |
| He is what you call a figurehead. | ||
| Just like a lot of presidents in the past, and I'm going to give the real big picture of what's going on in this country and the world. | ||
| If you're not going forward, you're going backwards because nothing remains the same. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Susan from Fort Wayne, Indiana, Republican. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just wanted to say that this is very difficult for me because I don't see over the last couple of days at least any open forum. | ||
| I know you're talking about President Trump's foreign policy, but you're carrying it through the whole show instead of giving us an open forum so that we can talk about the Somali fraud and Tim Waltz and the hijabs being worn by our American citizen and the people who represent Minnesota. | ||
| There's so many other things that we would like to talk about. | ||
| And I'm saying this as a matter of correction because you're not giving us any opportunity except the one thing that you want to fault Trump for today. | ||
| So today, the fault is foreign policy by Donald Trump. | ||
| Well, Susan, I wonder if you have a grade for him. | ||
| I understand that you would like to talk about other things, but since we are talking about foreign policy, I wonder if you can contribute to the conversation in that way. | ||
| How would you grade him? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would grade him with an A. | |
| The man absolutely works 20 hours a day for America. | ||
| He is working for the people. | ||
| And these Democrats who totally deny reality, who will give no credit, you know, every call you've had so far today, Republicans say A, Democrats say F. | ||
| And there is not one shred of positiveness from a Democrat. | ||
| Every single one is negative about every little thing. | ||
| The man can't tie his shoes right. | ||
| For heaven's sakes, this is just ridiculous. | ||
| Can we talk about the news? | ||
| Democracy unfiltered means all news, not just the things you want to do to hurt Trump. | ||
| Well, we're talking about foreign policy. | ||
| We appreciate you calling in. | ||
| Sam from Catskills, New York, a Democrat. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, first of all, this is my very first time calling, and I felt really it was important to call in. | |
| First of all, Donald Trump spews nothing but lies. | ||
| According to the sticking to the topic at hand, he named at least in that speech 18 different lies. | ||
| He did not solve eight wars. | ||
| I'd like a list from somebody from the MAGA side to list out what those wars are. | ||
| Gaza is certainly not settled. | ||
| There's still a lot of issues there, and there's still attacks going on by Hamas. | ||
| The Ukrainian war is certainly not over. | ||
| In fact, as much as they want to spew that there is a lot of progress in their negotiations with Putin, Putin's not giving that up. | ||
| You know, Trump said on this first day of the Ukraine war, resolved in the first week of his day or week of his administration, he hasn't resolved anything because he's got his, excuse my expression, but he's got his Doug from Falls Church, Virginia, Republican. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Happy holidays, everyone. | ||
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Yeah, for Trump's foreign policy overall, I'd give him a B plus, A minus. | ||
| I think he's accomplished a lot of things. | ||
| I think the Middle East in particular was one of his biggest success, whether it's, you know, going after the Houthis. | ||
| They're not fully gone, but they've definitely been a lot more quiet, at least as it pertains to American ships. | ||
| Obviously, went after Iran directly. | ||
| That was a big thing, and he helped settle down Israel and Iran. | ||
| And then obviously the Israeli Gaza hostages being released. | ||
| That's obviously not fully settled. | ||
| But if things fall apart right now, based off his peace proposal, it's still a smashing success. | ||
| And I think he built international consensus around that. | ||
| At the same time, he's pushing the Europeans to spend a lot more on their defense. | ||
| Their GDP targets are way up. | ||
| Their actual spending is way up. | ||
| They're thinking about it correctly. | ||
| And then he just sold, what, $11 billion in arms to the Taiwanese, which is appropriate. | ||
| We should be defending them. | ||
| And at the same time, he's very focused on the Western Hemisphere with this Trump-ish kind of Monroe doctrine, which I think is very, very important. | ||
| We've had all these hostages released around the world from these various countries. | ||
| All these people are taking back their citizens. | ||
| And I think tariffs is part of foreign policy because it's a tool of that. | ||
| And I think that's been massively successful. | ||
| I think the one thing he gets wrong was the Russia-Ukraine. | ||
| I think he thinks about it totally backwards. | ||
| Russia is definitely the aggressor. | ||
| The idea that you could pacify them, I don't think, is correct. | ||
| But I think he's gotten pretty much everything else right. | ||
| So I give him a lot of positive marks. | ||
| Let's take a look at the president yesterday at Mar-a-Lago, standing next to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, talking about the progress towards a peace agreement in the Ukraine-Russia war. | ||
| Of course, Russia would still need buy-in, but here's how the president described that progress yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The U.S. Ukraine security guarantees, what number are we at right now? | |
| Well, I think we're, look, you know, you can say 95%, but I don't like to say percentages. | ||
| I just think we're doing very well. | ||
| We're very, we could be very close. | ||
| There are one or two very thorny issues, very tough issues, but I think we're doing very well. | ||
| We've made a lot of progress today, but really we've made it over the last month. | ||
| This is not a one-day process deal. | ||
| This very complicated stuff. | ||
| But I think when the president says 95%, I think, you know, it could be close to 95%. | ||
| Yeah, please, behind you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, have you agreed on the so-called free trade zone on Donbass? | |
| How to separate, how to separate the sites, how to make the separation line, who will be responsible. | ||
| The word agreed is too strong. | ||
| I would say not agreed, but we're getting closer to an agreement on that. | ||
| And that's a big issue, certainly. | ||
| That's one of the big issues. | ||
| And I think we're closer than we were. | ||
| Probably it's unresolved, but it's getting a lot closer. | ||
| That's a very tough issue, but one that I think will get resolved. | ||
| Yeah, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, we are receiving some mixed signals coming from Moscow, even after you spoke with President Putin. | |
| Can you assure us that you have received written or any formal response from them? | ||
| Well, what was the issue you have to tell me? | ||
| What did they say? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They are telling that Ukraine has to give up Donbass. | |
| Just a very recent statement coming out of it. | ||
| Well, that's what they've been asking for. | ||
| And, you know, there's a dispute about that. | ||
| So they're going to have to iron that out. | ||
| That's an issue they have to iron out. | ||
| But I think it's moving in the right direction. | ||
| So there's President Trump at Mar-a-Lago yesterday talking about the progress that he believes is being made in those peace negotiations for the Ukraine-Russia war. | ||
| A quick update this morning, an article from Reuters. | ||
| The headline is, Kremlin says Ukraine should withdraw troops from Donbass in a Trump-Putin call expected soon. | ||
| It says, the Kremlin said on Monday that Ukraine should withdraw its troops from the part of Donbass that it still controls if it wanted peace, and that Kyiv did not strike a deal, and that if Kyiv did not strike a deal, then it would lose more territory. | ||
| President Putin and Trump spoke on Sunday ahead of Trump's meeting in Miami with Ukrainian President Vlodimir Zelensky. | ||
| Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said another call was planned very soon. | ||
| Peskov refused to comment on the idea of a free economic zone in Donbass or on the future of the nuclear power plant, which is controlled by Russia, saying that the Kremlin felt it was inappropriate. | ||
| Of course, that is our part of the negotiations that both President Trump and President Zelensky said progressed yesterday. | ||
| Now, Representative Mike Turner was on ABC News this week before that meeting yesterday at Mar-a-Lago. | ||
| And take a listen to what he said about the current state of negotiations with both Ukraine and Russia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You showed the images of Putin continuing to remind us that this is a war of aggression, as Putin mercilessly pounds Kyiv in civilian homes. | |
| This is Putin's. | ||
| He's reminding us that we can't be for this. | ||
| America, when we address the issue of whose side we're on, you can't be America first and be pro-Russia. | ||
| Russia is a self-declared adversary of the United States. | ||
| And here they are mercilessly killing Ukrainians and trying to take Ukrainian land. | ||
| So the President has rightly said we need to end this war. | ||
| When he goes for peace, Russia wants Ukrainian land. | ||
| Ukrainians have unbelievably risen to prevent Russia from taking their land. | ||
| Zelensky has led them for that. | ||
| And now, as he meets Zelensky, he's meeting the man who has led his country against Russian aggression. | ||
| So in this peace process, as Russia wants Ukrainian concessions, it's going to be much more difficult because Ukraine wants, of course, assurances that Russia is not going to come back, that the West is going to give them the assurances that they will deter Russia in the future. | ||
| And that's going to be difficult to give the type of assurances that the West is going to rise to the occasion to keep Russia from just reassembling and coming back stronger. | ||
| So that was former House Intelligence Chair Mike Turner, Republican, talking about the current state of negotiations. | ||
| I will lastly point you to the CNBC article that's headlined as, Zelensky asked Trump for 50 years of security guarantees, says meeting with Russia possible. | ||
| If you go a little bit deeper, it says that Zelensky said on Monday that he asked for up to 50 years worth of security guarantees for Ukraine during his meeting with Trump this weekend. | ||
| Commenting on talks, Zelensky told journalists that he said a meeting with Russia would only be possible after the president and European leaders had agreed on a framework deal for Ukraine. | ||
| The comments reported by Reuters on Monday included Zelensky stating that he had asked for the security guarantees, but currently the 20-point peace plan envisioned guarantees aimed at deterring future Russian aggression are only there for 15 years. | ||
| Steve from Florida and Independent, your line is open. | ||
| What would you grade the president's foreign policy foreign policy agenda the first time? | ||
|
unidentified
|
As an American citizen, and I believe most American citizens, we all pay taxes. | |
| And if you compare Trump with Biden, he's protected our tax dollars. | ||
| He's protected American citizens. | ||
| I give him an A plus. | ||
| If you don't have common sense, you have PDS, Trump derangement syndrome, of course they're going to give him an F every time. | ||
| I believe the foreign people of the other lands, they see that Trump is trying to be fair with the Americans. | ||
| We take care of America. | ||
| Trump takes care of American citizens, and he takes care of the world. | ||
| And he's doing A ⁇ , in my opinion. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Janet from Ohio, a Democrat, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, that woman that called was 100% right. | |
| An hour of this question was more than enough because showing it again or asking it again, we get this power-hungry clown who has the followers that call in that love him, that are nothing more than white supremacist, white nationalists, Christian nationalists, and then we hear his lies. | ||
| So please go back to open phones, please. | ||
| Kenny from Wilson, North Carolina, and Independent, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'll give him a FF also. | |
| You know, if we would have continued, why don't you have a show on this? | ||
| Compare his policy with Ukraine with Biden policy. | ||
| If we would have continued Biden policy, Putin would have been begging at the table. | ||
| It would probably be over. | ||
| And it's ridiculous that C-SPAN is not pushing this out and letting the people know and normalizing what Trump do as he's a normal president because he's not. | ||
| And all the news media has been bought up. | ||
| And now they're starting on C-SPAN and everything. | ||
| And it's almost like you guys are scared to really put Trump out there. | ||
| He got insurrectionists. | ||
| I was looking, you were just showing him speaking a while ago. | ||
| And he got insurrectionist right behind him. | ||
| These guys attacked the Capitol. | ||
| You guys don't have no share on that. | ||
| Well, the President is the president, and so we will have our viewers listening to what he says and the policy moves that he makes, and they can draw their own conclusion. | ||
| Sue from Indiana, a Democrat? | ||
| You're next. | ||
| What would you grade the president's foreign policy, first year in office foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
NF. | |
| And I would like to elaborate on Trump and Putin's interactions. | ||
| Before Trump ran for office, he took the Misteen USA patent to Russia. | ||
| And then in his first term, he did meet with Putin in Helsinki behind closed doors. | ||
| And I think that's when Putin told him he had him on tape. | ||
| And then when Trump and Putin came out, Trump told reporters that he believed Putin, that Putin had not interfered in the election, and this was over his U.S. intelligence agencies. | ||
| Now, this is my thought. | ||
| The people who are supposed to be taking Epstein files and going over them before they are released, they are working really hard to black out the names of these rich guys, Trump included, that raped these young girls. | ||
| And that's what I refer to it as rape. | ||
| Now, in my opinion, and I do not speak for God, in my opinion, for those men and others like them, there is a chair in hell. | ||
| So another foreign policy matter. | ||
| The president will be meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago later on today. | ||
| Article from The Hill, the headline is, Trump-Netanyahu meet at critical point for Gaza ceasefire. | ||
| It says, Trump will host Netanyahu at his residence at the President's Mar-a-Lago Resort in Florida, where the two men are expected to discuss next steps. | ||
| A ceasefire implemented in October has mostly held despite accusations of violations and deadly military attacks by both Hamas and Israel. | ||
| The remains of all but one deceased Israeli hostage have been handed over by Hamas, a key requirement of the first phase of the deal. | ||
| The second phase of the deal, which is more complex, calls for Hamas to give up its weapons and renounce control in Gaza and the Gaza Strip as Israel further withdraws from the area. | ||
| The U.S. officials have said Trump hopes to announce a transition in December, but questions remain for the country signed up to rehabilitate the Gaza Strip as enshrined in last month in United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803. | ||
| And here is President Trump at the White House in November in September, excuse me, talking about that 20-point peace plan that was ultimately agreed to by both Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his country and Gaza and the officials there. | ||
| Take a listen. | ||
| But if accepted by Hamas, this proposal calls for the release of all remaining hostages immediately, but in no case more than 72 hours. | ||
| So the hostages are coming back. | ||
| And I hate even saying this from the standpoint doesn't sound right, but it is so important to the parents. | ||
| The bodies of the young men, I believe in almost all cases, the young men Are coming back immediately. | ||
| I met with parents, their parents felt as strongly about getting their body of their dead boy back as they did as though the boy were alive and well. | ||
| It's so important to them. | ||
| And it means the immediate end to the war itself, not just Gaza. | ||
| It's the war itself. | ||
| Under the plan, Arab and Muslim countries have committed and in writing in many cases, but I actually would take their word for it, the people I mentioned, I take their word for it, to demilitarize Gaza, and that's quickly. | ||
| Decommission the military capabilities of Hamas and all other terror organizations. | ||
| Do that immediately. | ||
| And we're relying on the countries that I named and others to deal with Hamas. | ||
| And I'm hearing that Hamas wants to get this done too. | ||
| And that's a good thing. | ||
| And destroy all terror infrastructure, including the tunnels, weapons of production facilities. | ||
| They have a lot of production facilities that we're destroying. | ||
| They'll also help train local police forces in the areas that we're discussing right now, in particular in and around Gaza. | ||
| Working with the new transitional authority in Gaza, all parties will agree on a timeline for Israeli forces to withdraw in phases. | ||
| They'll be withdrawing in phases. | ||
| No more shooting, hopefully, as progress is made toward achieving these goals. | ||
| Arab and Muslim nations need to be allowed the chance to fulfill these commitments of dealing with Hamas. | ||
| They have to deal with them because they were the one group that we have not dealt with. | ||
| I haven't dealt with them. | ||
| But the Arab countries are going to, and Muslim countries are going to be dealing with Hamas. | ||
| And I believe they've already been there. | ||
| I think they probably have an understanding. | ||
| And they haven't maybe mentioned that, but I would imagine they do. | ||
| Otherwise, they wouldn't have gone as far as they've gone. | ||
| There was President Trump in September talking about that 20-point peace plan that eventually led to a ceasefire in the Israeli-Gaza war. | ||
| Mitch from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, an independent. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| What would you grade President Trump on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would give him a C. | |
| I believe that the purpose of war is to move towards less corrupt governments. | ||
| And if we don't engage in anti-corruption initiatives, we have no right to support, engage in war or support foreign wars. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Paul from Boston, an independent, you're next. | ||
| What would you grade President Trump on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would give President Trump an A, to tell you the truth, if you would have put it side by side with the last administration, which I would give an F, sort of prolonged it and paid, seemed to pay extortion and put it off and kick the can down the road when it came to the peace process. | |
| I believe President Trump is doing all that he can. | ||
| He's trying his best to deliver on his promises during his campaign. | ||
| He's very, he may say something that's a little crude, but he'll come back and explain it in depth what he meant by that. | ||
| You know, whereas, You know, he talked about in the last clip that you played, you talked about religion and regional, you know, Muslim and Arab, whereas it's been a civil war for them for eons. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And, you know, the time, like, just to get everybody on board, I mean, you're going to have to clear out Gaza. | |
| I mean, I'm talking on like the debris and stuff and rebuild. | ||
| And the sooner that somebody can facilitate the peace process between all sides, you know, it didn't seem to be happening in the last administration. | ||
| It was sort of like on the back burner, and you know, which is which is why I voted for Trump. | ||
| I was hoping that he would be the guy that would actually lift with his legs, not with his lips. | ||
| Noah from Miami Beach, Florida, an independent. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| What grade would you give the president on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I will give the president a low grade. | ||
| Now, my opinion of a foreign policy, an excellent policy that the United States should comply with and follow is of a pacifist working with humanitarian resources, not starting wars or not continuing ongoing wars to try to reduce it as much as possible, something that Trump hinted a lot in his campaign. | ||
| But in reality, it seems like it's more of an extension that's going on right now. | ||
| And there's not much of a definite answer to many conflicts. | ||
| Peace deals are made in countries that we can call third world countries. | ||
| And then they get broken days later because the situation is much more complex than a signing and a photo op. | ||
| And I wanted to mention something about this exact moment where Trump and Nayahu will meet in Florida. | ||
| I live near the area where the synagogue will be, where they come to meet. | ||
| I don't know what they'll discuss exactly, but I do believe it's wrong. | ||
| Him knowing that Florida and South Florida has a lot of a traffic situation coming here and blocking everything and having a high security protocol put on all and that our municipalities to not give any notice of such is annoying for us residents that live here. | ||
| And it's frustrating of us that we have to constantly handle the president coming down and blocking traffic in his comments, but it's something that affects me and other residents very closely. | ||
| By the way, Max from Spring, Silver Spring, Maryland, an independent. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| What would you grade the president? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I would give him an S. He's trying to start a needless war with Venezuela. | |
| He said he would stop the Russian-Ukrainian war in a day. | ||
| He hasn't been able to do it in a year. | ||
| The ceasefire in Gaza was kind of a plus, although he's allowing Israel to hide behind that while it continues to murder the people in Gaza and also murder the people in West Bank. | ||
| And it's terrible that he's having a foreign criminal to his house in Mar-a-Lago. | ||
| Netanyahu is a war criminal and he should be arrested when he gets off the plane. | ||
| And just a programming note: we will carry that meeting with President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at 1 p.m. on C-SPAN. | ||
| Felicia from Texas, a Republican. | ||
| Your line is open. | ||
| What would you grade the president on foreign policy, Felicia? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello? | |
| Hi, Felicia. | ||
| Can you hear me? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| What would you grade the president on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I give President Trump an A. | |
| It's really, I think he's done a good job. | ||
| Everybody, the opposing party this month could bash. | ||
| I mean, their policy at this point is just bash Trump, bash Trump, bash Trump. | ||
| And everybody sees him. | ||
| We went through the two impeachments. | ||
| We didn't believe any of it. | ||
| Now the facts are really coming out, and people are going to be surprised that he was not the insurrectionist. | ||
| He didn't cause that. | ||
| We all know who was behind that. | ||
| And I think that it's the bad. | ||
| He's only been in office less than a year, and everybody's criticizing. | ||
| He's got three more years to go. | ||
| I don't remember anybody being so horrible to any president before. | ||
| Why Trump? | ||
| Because he is doing so good. | ||
| He's not a politician. | ||
| And I think that's what everybody hates him so much. | ||
| Before he became a politician, everybody wanted to be Trump's friend. | ||
| Now, all of a sudden, they hate him. | ||
| They hate him. | ||
| And it's just ridiculous. | ||
| The rest of the people that voted for him, this is what we voted for. | ||
| We voted, you know, everybody said the board couldn't be closed. | ||
| He didn't have to have legislation to close the borders. | ||
| He just followed the rules that were there. | ||
| You don't come in legally, you got to go. | ||
| What's wrong with that? | ||
| I mean, yes, I think he's doing a really good job. | ||
| And everybody just needs to set that, take a deep breath, and give him the three more years he's got coming. | ||
| Donald from College Park, Maryland, a Democrat. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| What would you grade the president on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I gave him an F simple reason that these wars that he keeps talking about, he has resolved. | |
| Israel is still attacking the Palestinians. | ||
| Ukraine war is still going on. | ||
| The wars in Africa are still going on. | ||
| So I'm like, okay, foreign policy has to be a failure. | ||
| I mean, don't listen to what somebody says. | ||
| Look at what they do. | ||
| Craig from Virginia, a Democrat. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| What would you give the president on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Hope you had a beautiful Christmas and have a happy new year. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there's unquestionably a failing grade, an F. | |
| And I would like to ask you a question. | ||
| If you have the capacity to look back at his history, right before he became president or ran for president, he had an interview with Howard Stern, in which Howard Stern asked him the question: Was he going to run for president? | ||
| And he said he didn't know, but then he said, if he did, what would you run as, Donald? | ||
| And then Donald said, well, if I was to run, I would probably run as a Republican. | ||
| And he said, yeah, why is that? | ||
| He said, because the Republicans have the Christian right. | ||
| And he said, those people will believe anything you tell them. | ||
| Now, that's documented and it's public record. | ||
| Now, he doesn't respect the people that he's representing. | ||
| He does not respect America. | ||
| He's a, as far as I'm concerned, I had an extensive background investigation. | ||
| I was a top secret Air Force, worked in a command post. | ||
| I dealt with SaaS material. | ||
| This guy is unqualified to be the president of the United States. | ||
| That was Craig from Virginia. | ||
| Another top foreign policy story evolving over the course of the last few days is the president's strikes on alleged drug votes off the coast of Venezuela. | ||
| Obviously, we know that they have moved on somewhat to oil tankers. | ||
| I'll turn to this New York Times article from December 28th. | ||
| The headline is, Trump says the U.S. struck a, quote, big facility in its campaign against Venezuela. | ||
| President Trump said in a radio interview that the United States had knocked out a big facility last week as a part of his administration's campaign against Venezuela, an apparent reference to an American attack on a drug trafficking site. | ||
| If Mr. Trump's suggestion that the United States had struck a site in the region proves accurate, it would be the first known attack on land since he began his military campaign against Venezuela. | ||
| U.S. officials declined to specify anything about the site the president said was hit, where it was located, how the attack was carried out, or what role the facility played in drug trafficking. | ||
| There has been no public report of an attack from the Venezuelan government or other authorities in the region. | ||
| Now, earlier this month on the Washington Journal, Democratic Congressman Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, criticized the president's military aims across the southern hemisphere. | ||
| Take a listen here. | ||
| I think the entire program is illegal. | ||
| It's contrary to the Constitution. | ||
| It's an abuse of the president's power. | ||
| And I also severely question whether or not it's going to have a significant impact on drug abuse in the United States. | ||
| So I am not a fan of the program. | ||
| I'm worried about it. | ||
| I think it undermines the rule of law. | ||
| And then there's the question of, is it about stopping drugs coming into the U.S. or is it about regime change and war with Venezuela? | ||
| The administration has not been clear about that. | ||
| It's bounced back and forth depending on the conversation. | ||
| And look, I mean, President Trump ran saying, you know, we were engaged in too many foreign conflicts, too many wars. | ||
| We get trapped into these forever wars. | ||
| I'm going to be the one to get us out of them. | ||
| And now he's walking into two conflicts. | ||
| One, if he's declared war on all narcotics traffickers, that's a pretty good definition of a forever war. | ||
| And then two, he's walking into a conflict with Venezuela, and we don't know where that's going to go. | ||
| This is NBC's exclusive headline with him, with their headline, President Trump not ruling out war with Venezuela. | ||
| Can the president go to war against Venezuela without congressional input? | ||
| Well, he's not supposed to. | ||
| And look, there's been a long history in this country of presidents using their authority as commander-in-chief, combined with their inherent right of self-defense, which has been interpreted from the sec, sorry, Article 2 of the Constitution for the President. | ||
| And we've done a lot of things over, gosh, centuries. | ||
| But what's different about this is normally those conflicts, many cases, they have had some kind of congressional authority. | ||
| You had the Gulf of Plunken Resolution for Vietnam. | ||
| You had the UA, sorry, the AUMF after 9-11. | ||
| This time, there is no congressional authorization whatsoever. | ||
| And second, conflicts that have been done without congressional authorization, Panama, Grenada, Libya, have always been very confined in their goals and short in duration, usually less than a month, two months at the most. | ||
| President Trump has taken us into an endless conflict with drug narratives with the narcoterrorists, as he calls them, in Venezuela without any congressional approval, and frankly, also without an adequate explanation. | ||
| We've had some classified briefs. | ||
| They waited a couple of months before they actually even started briefing Congress in a classified setting. | ||
| We have not had the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of State come before the appropriate Congressional Committee, Armed Services or Foreign Affairs, and said, this is what we're doing. | ||
| This is why we're doing it. | ||
| This is where it's going. | ||
| And then to be questioned by the people's representatives. | ||
| Okay, where is it really going? | ||
| There's been no effort to do that. | ||
| So I think this significantly undermines our Constitution is a massive expansion of presidential power. | ||
| Basically, what the president has decided is that we are now going to have the death penalty for drug traffickers. | ||
| But further, not only are we going to have the death penalty, but Trump is going to be judge, jury, and executioner. | ||
| He's not going to have to show any evidence or probable cause. | ||
| He's going to make the decision and he's going to start killing people. | ||
| That, again, is a massive expansion of presidential power. | ||
| Democratic Congressman Adam Smith, also ranking member of the Armed Services Committee in the House side, talking about the president's program in Venezuela and the Southern Hemisphere. | ||
| Pat from Atlanta, Georgia, an independent. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| What would you grade the president on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
A triple-A. | |
| A triple-A. | ||
| Why do you say that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you visualize this world once he tax office. | |
| You visualize this world as a gigantic cesspool, and you've got one janitor pushing and squeezing with no help. | ||
| That's got to be tremendously. | ||
| Ted from Texas, a Republican. | ||
| Your line's open. | ||
| What do you grade the president on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think he's great. | |
| I think I love what he's doing to the Narco boats. | ||
| And I want to know when y'all are going to cover the Somali fraud up in Minnesota. | ||
| So try that, Democrat. | ||
| We've talked a lot about the Somali fraud or the fraud happening in Minnesota, but right now we're talking about foreign policy. | ||
| Beverly, Casper, Wyoming, a Democrat? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I would like to just wish my wonderful daughter a happy birthday. | ||
| And I would like to give Donald Trump a D for Donald, and he'll always be Donald. | ||
| And forgive him for what he says. | ||
| And have a wonderful day. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Christina from Chattanooga, Tennessee, a Democrat. | ||
| What do you grade the president on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I grade the president an F in everything and in being a non-moral, non-honorable person. | |
| But he's out there killing people in boats in my name, and I don't appreciate that. | ||
| Let's turn back to Secretary Rubio, who in his year-end press conference talked about the relationships that America has with its allies across the spectrum now under this Trump administration. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Going back to the previous question about Europe, and I believe the Sky News reporter referenced civilizational erasure, which is a term that has been used by both the White House and the State Department. | |
| Both the Western State Department have made kind of recurring overtures to Europe as a civilization that is in some sort of danger and that should join with the United States as a sort of Western civilizational bloc. | ||
| That seems to be a recurring priority. | ||
| However, with the release of the National Security Strategy, many European leaders, leader of Germany, members of the European Parliament, have found it totally unacceptable or offensive or question the allyship of the United States with the rhetoric that was used. | ||
| So I just wonder if the United States is correct in that these policies like mass migration will lead to civilizational erasure. | ||
| Is it possible to save European civilization if the governments simply don't want to be saved? | ||
| How has this alliance long been described? | ||
| As the Western Alliance, right? | ||
| What is it? | ||
| And it's not just me saying, you go to these NATO meetings, you meet with people, what they will tell you is our shared history, our shared legacy, our shared values, our shared priorities. | ||
| That's what they talk about as the reason for this alliance. | ||
| Well, if you erase your shared history, your shared culture, your shared ideology, your shared priorities, your shared principles, then you just have a straight-up defense agreement. | ||
| That's all you have. | ||
| So, what I'm trying to point to, and what we've tried to point to, is very simple: that is at the bedrock and at the cornerstone of our relationship, with example with Europe, is the fact that we do have a shared culture, a shared civilization, a shared experience, and shared values and principles on things like human rights, on freedom, on liberty, on democracy, on all sorts of rights of the individual, all these sorts of things that we in this nation are the inheritors of, in many cases, because many of these ideas that led to the founding of our country found their genesis in some of these places in the Western Alliance. | ||
| If you take that away, if that's wiped out because for whatever reason it's no longer a priority, I do think it puts a strain and threatens the alliance in the long term and in the big picture. | ||
| Now, whatever internal politics causes people to dispute this, I'm not going to comment on other than to tell you that I do think, I do think that at the core of these special relationships we have is the fact that we have shared history, shared values, shared civilizational principles that we should be unapologetic about. | ||
| This is a nation that was founded on Western principles, founded on Western principles like liberty, the value of the right of the individual, the right of self-governance. | ||
| These are all Western values. | ||
| Now, others may have adopted in different parts of the world, but they emanate from Western history. | ||
| And it's something that we should be unapologetic about. | ||
| Why would we be apologetic about it? | ||
| Anyone who doesn't recognize, for example, that many of the features of our system of government find their root in Roman and Greek history is a fool. | ||
| It's a fool. | ||
| It's just not true. | ||
| And so I think that we need to understand and embrace that, not negate it. | ||
| And I think that's what we're pointing to here: we are concerned that, particularly in parts of Western Europe, those things that underpin our alliance and our tie to them could be under threat in the long term. | ||
| And by the way, there are leaders in those countries that recognize that as well. | ||
| Some say it openly, some say it privately. | ||
| In the eastern and southern part of Europe, they're much more open about it. | ||
| Nonetheless, it is a factor that needs to be addressed. | ||
| That was Marco Rubio at his press conference at the end of this year talking about the Trump administration's diplomatic priorities. | ||
| Now, if we go to this Facebook tweet, Facebook message from Craig Michael, he says, you cannot grade this U.S. president on foreign policy. | ||
| It's an American-first policy, so any foreign affairs will get attention only if the U.S. benefits from trade. | ||
| Trump is the first president to overall put the U.S. first among its allies and trade partners. | ||
| Nathaniel from New Jersey, a Democrat, your line is open. | ||
| How would you grade the president on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you doing? | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I would grade the president on foreign policy as a big F. | ||
| It's not America first, it's white first. | ||
| And I just want to let you know that you are doing a great job. | ||
| I love you as a new host. | ||
| And we do not care what these bigots and these rapists say. | ||
| We support you and you're doing a great job. | ||
| You have an amazing Monday. | ||
| Barbara from Atlanta, a Republican? | ||
| Your line is open. | ||
| What would you grade the president on foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I give him an A because for the first time in many years, he's taken a stand to make the U.S. powerful again. | |
| We've been beat down by foreign countries, backed off, bowed down to leaders in foreign countries when we shouldn't be bowing down to any one person. | ||
| So I give him an A, and I think the biggest problem with the Trump haters is they're looking at him as a politician, and he is a businessman, the first businessman we've had in office. | ||
| So he's really trying to straighten out a lot of the problems that we've had in running our country. | ||
| He's not a politician. | ||
| He makes mistakes. | ||
| He says things, I think, you know, that are not appropriate always. | ||
| But he's a businessman used to running companies and making profits. | ||
| And I think that's what he's trying to do for our country. | ||
| And I appreciate him. | ||
| And I appreciate you taking my call. | ||
| I hope you have a very nice day and a happy new year. | ||
| Happy New Year to you too, Barbara. | ||
| Let's turn to Chris Koons, a Democrat over at the Senate, describing what he believes is an error on the president's part in the way that he is relating to NATO. | ||
| I want to play for you, just because this is all coming out this morning, one other piece of this new interview with Trump. | ||
| What else he said about NATO? | ||
| Let me play this. | ||
| NATO calls me daddy. | ||
| I mean, I have a lot to say about it. | ||
| Look, I raised, you know, the GDP from 2% to 5%. | ||
| The 2% they weren't paying and the 5% they are paying. | ||
| And they're paying it because when we send things over, NATO pays for it. | ||
| And I assume they give it to Ukraine. | ||
| But Europe is being destroyed. | ||
| Europe is weak, decaying, being destroyed, and NATO calls me daddy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What is your reaction to this? | |
| Kate, tragically, that's in keeping with the recently released national security strategy of this administration, which fails to identify Russia as an aggressor, Ukraine as a democracy that deserves our defense, and NATO as strong, trusted, and valued allies. | ||
| This latest statement from President Trump dishonors the decades-long bipartisan commitment in the United States and here in Congress to stand up for democracy and human rights and to stand shoulder to shoulder with our NATO allies. | ||
| As the President just referenced, they've stepped forward. | ||
| They've made significant investments in Ukraine security, in European security. | ||
| They're showing strength, not weakness. | ||
| And a decision just made by President Trump to allow the export of cutting-edge AI chips to China further alarms me that he doesn't understand the moment we're in and is making national security decisions with regards to Europe and Asia that are weakening the United States, not strengthening us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What does this do, though, hearing this new broadside attack from the president? | |
| You say it dishonors the alliance, but what does it do? | ||
| Look, most world leaders are increasingly just ignoring what President Trump says or tweets one day to the next, and they try to look at the actions and decisions of the American government, the American Congress, and President Trump. | ||
| Unfortunately, as they look at his tariff policies, they've seen over months that it's unpredictable, chaotic, and destabilizing. | ||
| So a statement like this concerns our European partners because they think there may be actions that will follow, actions that would cave to Russian aggression and weaken the North Atlantic alliance between the United States and our trusted European allies. | ||
| That was Senator Chris Coons from earlier this month talking about President Trump and his relationship with NATO. | ||
| Now I want to turn to some social media messages. | ||
| Lynn Foster on Facebook says, well, he should definitely get an A for effort. | ||
| That's more than anyone else has done. | ||
| That is grading Trump's foreign policy in the first year. | ||
| Aaron Yoakum says he has been very successful in isolating us from our allies. | ||
| And Rob Huntington from West Virginia and Independent says, I'd give him a D. I'm cautiously optimistic about his treatment of Iran, specifically bombing its facilities designed to design nuclear weapons. | ||
| Other than that, it seems like Trump wants to go back to the days of imperialism. | ||
| Now, I want to turn to our callers, Chuck from Mountain Home, Arkansas, a Democrat. | ||
| Chuck, what would you grade the president's foreign policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't think there's no way to grade it. | |
| We're down going down to Venezuela. | ||
| If them people want to get free, they can free theirselves. | ||
| We don't need to be murdering people with outboard motors. | ||
| Those things, you've got to have three to four of them on the ocean, or you're not going anywhere. | ||
| They use five gallons of gas at a time and they don't go very far. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's murder. | |
| That's not, he's getting away with it. | ||
| And that's a war crime. | ||
| And that's not even a war crime because we're not a war. | ||
| It's just pure murder. | ||
| He's right now, Taiwan's being surrounded by China. | ||
| He's actually saying that Ukraine lost the war. | ||
| They're not going to stop. | ||
| We're going to go into a world war because if we don't take care of NATO and the Europeans, they're going to go into it. | ||
| They all have nuclear weapons. | ||
| He's a fool. | ||
| He's all over the FC files. | ||
| He doesn't regard any laws. | ||
| No laws apply to his administration. | ||
| It's a travesty of the United States. | ||
| And I doubt if we ever can fix it. | ||
| It tore down the White House. | ||
| You can't even drive on our roads here. | ||
| It tears your tires up. | ||
| It's unreal. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Chuck from Arkansas. | ||
| Now, to finish out our program this morning, I want to point to a CNN article published today. | ||
| The headline is: Trump doubles down on big foreign policy bets in end of the year flurry from Stephen Kalison. | ||
| It says that President Donald Trump is spending the end of the year trying to cash in huge foreign policy bets on which thousands of lives may depend, and that will define his attempt to wield decisive power far beyond American shores. |