Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
Source
Participants
Main
donald j trump
admin13:48
m
mimi geerges
cspan31:23
Appearances
chris murphy
sen/d01:58
dana bash
cnn00:50
gavin newsom
d01:13
hakeem jeffries
rep/d01:58
jd vance
admin03:38
kamala harris
d01:04
marjorie taylor greene
rep/r01:12
mike johnson
rep/r01:56
robert f kennedy-jr
admin00:48
r
rosie rios
04:10
thomas massie
rep/r01:47
volodymyr zelenskyy
ukr01:10
Clips
al green
rep/d00:04
b
brad sherman
rep/d00:07
charlie kirk
tpusa00:06
d
david gergen
00:07
d
dick cheney
r00:06
j
jane goodall
00:06
m
mia love
rep/r00:08
m
michael mccaul
rep/r00:09
patty murray
sen/d00:08
p
pope francis
00:24
sean duffy
admin00:06
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Voice
Speaker
Time
Text
C-SPAN's Global Reach00:03:05
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Friday, on C-SPAN's Ceasefire, at a time when finding common ground matters most in Washington, former House Speaker, Republican California Congressman Kevin McCarthy and former independent West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin come together to preview the year ahead in politics, including the upcoming midterm elections and the political and legislative battles ahead in Washington.
They join host Dasha Burns.
Bridging the Divide in American Politics.
Watch C-SPIN, Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPIN.
There's a lot of things that Congress fights about, that they disagree on.
We can all watch that on C-SPAN.
unidentified
Millions of people across the country tuned into C-SPAN.
Speaking!
Jesus!
That was a major C-SPAN moment.
If you watch on C-SPAN, you're going to see me physically across the aisle every day, just trying to build relationships and try to understand their perspective and find common ground.
And welcome forward to everybody watching at home.
Then in February, the Doge cut started happening, and Doge was the Department of Government Efficiency, although it wasn't a department.
Here is Senator Corey Booker, a Democrat of New Jersey, talking about that at a rally.
unidentified
First of all, in the United States Senate, we will not cooperate.
We are joining the leadership.
We are joining the leadership already stated by Brian Schatz of Hawaii that we will cooperate with no appointments when it comes to the State Department.
No appointments when it becomes of foreign policy.
The first thing we're going to do in the Senate is not cooperate with the illegal and unconstitutional acts that they are trying to do.
The second thing we are going to do, and we met this morning, it is in the legal perspective.
The second thing we are going to do is we are going to fight this legally in every way we can.
We will fight their violation of civil service laws.
We will fight their violation of civil rights laws.
We will fight their violations of separation of powers.
We will fight their violations of our Constitution of the United States of America.
We will not shut up.
We will stand up.
We will speak up.
We will rise up.
It is time, as the African spiritual says, for us to lift every voice in condemnation of what's going on.
Yeah, I think that that's exactly what I was going to say, that there's a crime syndicate operating out of the White House.
It's all criminal, led by a criminal.
And what's amazing is that the American people are so good that they are standing up.
Millions and millions of people have been out on the streets this year demonstrating against this assault on the Constitution and on the United States of America.
Yes, I think that Article 2, Section 4, is being overlooked when it comes to the bribery issue and also the pardoning of that cocaine leader there in Central America.
And then on the other hand, bombing these little boats.
It's kind of like a Disney production wrapped around the Twilight Zone.
There's no logic, there's no reason, and there's a poor explanation.
So Article 2, Section 4, is probably the most important thing that should be questioned at this point in time.
And Aaron in South Hill, Virginia, line for Democrats.
Good morning, Aaron.
unidentified
Yes, I'm concerned about the bombing in Nigeria and Venezuela.
Our president is doing things that's not sanctioned by Congress.
He has no right to be bombing his people.
He said they're killing Christians.
That's not true.
They're killing people of all religions, whether you're Muslim, Christian, whatever your faith is.
He said these terrorists are killing Christians.
That is not true.
Our president is overstepping his hand.
He's out of control.
He needs to be impeached and he needs to be stopped.
Congress needs to speak up.
All the Republicans that are supporting Trump need to be held accountable also along with this president because this regime that we have in America now is dragging us into wars that we should not be involved in.
And there's no explanation for it.
He's not seeking any support from Congress or any of his administration on this.
And do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?
No, in this entire meeting, have you said thank you?
If you went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October, offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who's trying to save your country.
And here is Russell in San Jose, California, line for Democrats.
Good morning, Russell.
unidentified
Good morning, America.
Happy New Year.
So very quickly, I wanted to talk about the fraud in Minnesota.
You know, that's not on the news enough.
And I believe that if you're stealing money from taxpayers like myself, then you should be kicked out of the country.
I see it here in San Jose, California, in the Vietnamese community.
I see it in the Hispanic community.
They're sending all their money back to their other country.
And our veterans are being treated like dirt.
And it's just not fair.
So, you know, I think the law is the law, is the law.
So if you can't, if you come here and you don't want to assimilate to our laws and you want to get caught stealing from our country, taking money out of my pocket, I'm a black man, so I don't want to hear the race car thing.
I worked hard all my life to pay for my house.
I paid, it's fully paid for.
I live in the most expensive place in the United States, San Jose, California.
So I just want people to wake up, stop saying I'm Democrat, I'm Republican, I'm independent.
How about us taking care of our people here in this country instead of everybody else that comes from different countries that don't even want to speak our language?
And the previous caller mentioned the fraud case in Minnesota.
This is foxnews.com with the headline, HHS, that's the Department of Housing and Human Services, freezes Minnesota child care payments over alleged daycare fraud scheme.
It says that the agencies said yesterday that they would be freezing all child care payments, federal child care payments to Minnesota.
And here is a quote from the Deputy Secretary.
He says this on X, you have probably read the serious allegations that the state of Minnesota has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to fraudulent daycares across Minnesota over the past decade.
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.
The parents felt as strongly about getting the 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.
Susan says on Facebook was her biggest news story of the year was the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
That is on Facebook.
Also here on Facebook is Jim who says, Nick Shirley doing the job the media once did.
The true story is not the fraud in Minnesota, it's the media failing to report or investigate the Somalian corruption and the incompetence of government to monitor how the people's money is spent.
And just so you know who Nick Shirley is, this is The Hill with this article.
Who is Nick Shirley?
It's a YouTuber who made viral Minnesota fraud video.
He became a viral sensation overnight after posting a 42-minute video documenting his hunt for fraudulent child care programs in Minnesota.
Video has been viewed more than 100 million times on X.
It shows him visiting daycare centers receiving public funds.
He's 23 years old.
He alleged that multiple local centers were not providing services to any children and bombarded employees with questions about children's whereabouts on camera outside of each location.
And here is Fernando in Galveston, Texas, Republican Line.
All right, Fernando, here's Ed in New Jersey, Independent Line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Yeah, good morning.
To me, the biggest news story of this 25 is the war in Ukraine and also the war in Gaza.
I think for a lot of people in the world, that's also the biggest story.
I think for a lot of people in Europe, that's the biggest story.
I think that Europe is gearing up to become more involved in this war.
Look at the increased defendant expenditure of a lot of countries in Europe that are now spending more money and getting ready for war in bigger Europe, and this could really blow up.
I would just also like to thank you for letting us hear that exchange in the White House between Trump, Zelensky, and Vance because it shows the lack of civility that exists in the White House.
I don't like Zelensky, but I was kind of sympathetic towards the guy because he was trying to make his point and he kept being, because he was interrupting also.
But here is the guy, Zelensky, who really doesn't speak very good English, was combating those two politicians.
So I would like to just shout out to people that we better spend a little more time looking at Ukraine because this thing could get a whole lot worse.
All right, and here is Juan in Massachusetts, Independent Line.
Good morning, Juan.
unidentified
Good morning, happy new year.
I just want to speak to the people who surlined it.
What happened is they go against what this administration is doing in South America.
But I'm an immigrant from Colombia.
I've been in the army in the country.
And I see in the frost line what they do to the kids, the little girls, 9, 10, 11-year-old, and they take them with them.
They give it an air 15 and put it in the jungle.
They start killing soldiers, police, families, everything.
Those cartels, they have no mercy.
And they believe me, and they want to put that in America.
They want to bring drugs everywhere.
And now the Democrats are defending Venezuela.
And they say, oh, no, because federal is an abuse.
Now, when you come to the country, to America, I'm from Colombia.
I'm an immigrant.
And when you come to America, you got to follow the rules.
You got to go by the law.
If you come to America, you cannot go against America.
That's what happened with the immigrants now.
They come from different countries and they come against America.
You don't like it, please.
So, because they run away from those countries to come here, and now they want to leave, or they want the people to live according to for the things they run away.
And now they complain because they're taking the money and supporting all terrorist groups all over the world, taking the American money, the taxpayers.
And it's not right.
I think there is no right.
And some people who defend that, they are in the wrong line.
I'm calling in because too often we have people, and especially people of color, they're calling in to do their put-down talk and being very negative because the show host will not do the talk that they, but they bring people in to do their negative talk and influences them to come in on the shows.
And especially the PM shows on these different networks like CNN, they bring those people in to do their talking.
It's just that it's a divider.
We, the people, divide the people in this country, not the president.
And I did hear about one caller that called in and said that President Trump hadn't done a thing, and all they need to do is just look at the border.
The border is a lot better.
That's one thing.
And taxes is another thing.
So if they will look and dig and see what the president has done, they would not be talking so negative about him.
And a lot of my people are talking about that they agree with a lot of things that President Trump has done.
So we need to take a look and write down what he's done so we'll know how to speak on it.
But all this negative talk that these host show hosts allow people to do, they need to stop it because we see that they bring them in to influence the division in this country.
Well, Carolyn mentioned the border, and this is Mike on Facebook who says: I'd say the enforcement of the southern border and mass deportation of illegal immigrants is the biggest story of 2025.
And here is actually, the Department of Homeland Security put this out.
If you go to DHS.gov, you will see this, Historic Year of Accomplishments, where they talk about secured the southern border to historic levels, citing these statistics.
Border crossings year over year have plunged 93%.
There have been 53% less than the monthly average of apprehensions along the southwest border.
Ask me a question like you did the guy talking about Columbia.
Dr. Redfield said if they did gain of function on bird flu like they did on SARS that created COVID, it could be a bigger disaster, like 100 times or 1,000 times worse than COVID.
And he's given another talk at Brookings January 20th, along with the scientist Alina Chun, who people tried to get fired from her job at the Harvard and Columbia Broad Institute because they wanted to censor her.
So Dr. Redfield said that the bird flu Gain of function would be a man-made possessor worse than any war or climate change or COVID.
So I appreciate your interview with him, but you cut him off when he mentioned COVID at the beginning of the Washington Journal talk.
And you gave a good interview, but then he kind of smiled at the end.
It was like he didn't really get a chance to talk about COVID.
I haven't called since the National Day of Prayer back in May, so we're still a house divided.
So here's my prayer: With a humble heart, we beseech thee, O Lord, restore unto us the joy of thy salvation that we may walk in your paths and keep your adjustments.
I just wanted to say that the way the president's done this first year, I think it's an excellent job.
And I think the top story is the way he did the border and getting these illegals out of the country.
And I think we should all make a New Year's resolution that we're one nation under God and let China and Russia and these other countries know that we're united and we're fully behind our president.
Going back to March now, if you'll recall, that was SignalGate.
So that was there was a journalist accidentally put on a signal chat that is not encrypted, and they were talking about, they were discussing the plans on the attack on Yemen, the American attack on Yemen at that time.
Here is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressing that he was in Hawaii.
unidentified
Can you share how your information about war plans against the Houthis in Yemen was shared with a journalist in the Atlantic?
And were those details classified?
So you're talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who's made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again to include the, I don't know, the hoaxes of Russia, Russia, Russia, or the fine people on both sides hoax, or suckers and losers hoax.
So this is the guy that peddles in garbage.
This is what he does.
I would love to comment on the Houthi campaign because of the skill and courage of our troops.
I've monitored it very closely from the beginning.
And you see, we've been managing four years of deferred maintenance under the Trump administration.
Our troops, our sailors, were getting shot at as targets.
Our ships couldn't sail through.
And when they did shoot back, it was purely defensively or at shacks in Yemen.
President Trump said, no more.
We will reestablish deterrence.
We will open freedom of navigation.
And we will ultimately decimate the Houthis, which is exactly what we're doing as we speak from the beginning, overwhelmingly.
Why were those details shared on Signal?
And how did you learn that a journalist was privy to the targets, the types of weapons used?
I've heard I was characterized.
Nobody was texting war plans, and that's all I have to say about that.
And this is the journalist that he was referring to was Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic.
Here is the headline of that article.
The Trump administration accidentally texted me its war plans.
U.S. national security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen.
I didn't think it could be real.
Then the bomb started falling.
You can read that at The Atlantic if you're interested.
Let's talk to Katrina in Georgia, Line for Democrats.
Hi, Katrina.
unidentified
Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my call.
I guess my biggest story is the failure of this government, the failure of our government, the failure of putting adequate and intelligent individuals in positions that has those individuals having the qualifications to run those divisions.
This president looks at our government as a joke, and he can tell by the people he appoints to different parts of the government to oversee different departments, and they have no clue.
They have no background in the departments that they oversee.
So that just tells you how serious he take our security and the security of the people.
This is from May, and it's Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a Democrat, questioning HHS Secretary RFK Jr. about his views on vaccines and the one, the measles vaccine.
Just this morning in front of the House of Representatives, you also said that you, in fact, would not recommend that kids get vaccinated for measles.
You said you would just lay out the pros and cons.
Okay, so this is the summation of everything that you have said to compromise people's faith in the measles vaccine in particular is contrary to what you said before this committee.
You said you support the measles vaccine, but then you have laid out a set of facts that are contested.
And I will submit information for the record from experts who can test what you've said about the vaccine.
And the result is to undermine faith in the vaccines.
Kind of like saying, listen, I think you should swim in that lake, but, you know, the lake is probably toxic, and there's probably a ton of snakes and alligators in that lake, but I think you should swim in it.
Nobody's going to swim in that lake if that's what you say.
And so I want you to acknowledge that when you say you support the measles vaccine and then go out and repeatedly undermine the vaccine with information that is contested by public health experts, that is not supporting the vaccine.
And so I guess I have two simple questions for you.
One is, can you clarify what you said in the House this morning?
Are you or are you not recommending that families get their children vaccinated or are you just giving people the pros and cons?
And do you understand that when you say these things about the measles vaccine, what ends up happening is less people get the vaccine?
That may be what you want, but do you understand that the result of constantly questioning the efficacy or safety of the vaccine results in less people getting the vaccine?
So I don't necessarily want to spend the remaining 20 seconds in an argument over the science, but do you at least understand that that's the consequence of what you're saying?
And are you actually still recommending people get the vaccine or are you not?
What I've said and what I said and doesn't sound like you are if that's are you gonna let me answer are you gonna keep it are you are you not are you gonna let me answer what I pledged before this committee when I during my confirmation is that I would tell the truth that I would have radical transparency I'm gonna tell the truth about everything we know and we don't know about I am not going to just tell people everything is safe and effective.
If I know that there's issues, I need to respect people's intelligence.
Go look at the transcript And we are taking your top news story of 2025.
The lines are on your screen.
Republicans are on 202-748-8001.
Democrats 202-748-8000.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
Bob Kingwood, Texas Republican line.
Good morning, Bob.
unidentified
Good morning, Mimi.
I think the stories that haven't been discussed were pretty important for this year.
The first one is the bombing of Iran, that Trump was bold enough to take out the Iran nuclear problem that had been plaguing us well since Obama when we gave cash and that it perpetuated on through Trump's first administration and then on through Biden.
You haven't heard much from Iran, and they were the ones funding Hamas and funding all the wars.
So we've made them quiet.
And in fact, their regime is in a lot of trouble now.
And I think President Trump did a really good job to do that, and the media and the Democrats really opposed him on that.
The other thing was the shutdown of Congress.
Nobody's talked about that.
Again, the Democrats shut our government down.
They claim the Republicans did it, but they were the ones that refused to vote to open our government.
And, Bob, when you said the shutdown of Congress, so what did you think of the House not being in session as long as the federal government was shut down?
Did you agree with Speaker Johnson's decision to keep all the Republicans at home and not in session?
unidentified
They could have come to work, obviously, but what would they do?
They would sit there and argue and do their things, whatever they were going to do, but the official shutdown was the responsibility of the Democrats to vote to allow the government to open up, and they refused to do it until finally, eight Democrats, most of them retiring or getting out because they would have had trouble with their party, allowed it to open up.
And now look at the mess we're in.
We had little time to try to reconcile the health care situation that they wanted to have their shutdown over.
And where are we?
The health care is not going to happen.
The health care administration repair isn't going to happen.
There's no denying that this year has had its highs and lows.
After slashing SNAP and Medicaid, Donald Trump is sending millions of Americans into the new year without health care, a home they can afford, or food on the table.
He's wrecked havoc on our institutions, our democracy, and fundamental rights in unprecedented ways.
But we also saw exactly what happens when folks fight back.
This past November, Trump was dealt major losses in critical races across Virginia, New York, and New Jersey.
Bob also mentioned Iran.
So I wanted to show you this.
This is from yesterday's CBS news.
Iran vows harsh response to any attack, as Trump says he'd, quote, knock the hell out of them if nuclear work resumes.
It says that the Iranian president promised on Tuesday yesterday a harsh response to any attack, appearing to respond to a warning the previous day by President Trump over Iran's purported attempts to rebuild its nuclear program.
On a social media post, he says, answer of Islamic Republic of Iran to any cruel aggression will be harsh and discouraging.
The president did not elaborate, but his statement came a day after Mr. Trump suggested the U.S. could carry out new military strikes if Iran attempts to reconstitute its nuclear program.
He made those comments during wide-ranging talks with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
Rush, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Independent Line, what is your top news story of 2025?
unidentified
Good morning, Mimi.
I got you again, huh?
But my big story, I just always say that to you.
I only call once a month, by the way.
But all the last callers are the Irans, everything is big.
To me, the Epstein stuff is the biggest because when it first started, this and that, Trump says, well, you mean we're still talking about Epstein?
And then he said it's a Democrat hoax.
Then he's lied.
I voted for him three times, but then he said he might have been on that plane once or twice.
He's on there eight times.
At any rate, he's pretty corrupt.
Now, you can get into a thing they call the tail wagon the dog.
So when you're caught up in that kind of stuff, and it's not only him, trust me, it's a bunch of them, and that's why they're probably not doing anything about it.
But, you know, you can start all kinds of crap like wars, and he's supposed to be the peaceful president, and he says he stopped all these wars.
Heck, he bombed Somalia and Nigeria Christmas Day.
You know, even in World War I, World War II, Vietnam, I think even with Putin and him, they didn't do anything.
So, Rush, since you mentioned the Epstein files, let's go ahead and take a look at Representative Thomas Massey speaking in September about that issue.
I hope my colleagues are watching this press conference.
I want them to think: what if this was your sister?
What if this was your daughter?
When these survivors speak, the Washington establishment is asking the American public to believe something that is not believable.
They're asking you to believe that two individuals created hundreds of victims and they acted alone, and that the DOJ has no idea of who else might have been involved, that nobody else did anything that rose to a criminal enterprise.
The American people know that's not true.
Now, the Speaker of the House just offered a fig leaf to my colleagues.
They're going to vote on a non-binding resolution today that does absolutely nothing.
I appreciate the efforts of my colleague James Comer, who's leading the Oversight Committee.
They may find some information, but they're allowing the DOJ to curate all of the information that the DOJ is giving them.
If you've looked at the pages they've released so far, they're heavily redacted.
Some pages are entirely redacted.
And 97% of this is already in the public domain.
So I'm calling on my colleagues.
Be one of the next two who sponsors this discharge petition.
I think it's shameful that this has been called a hoax.
Hopefully, today we can clear that up.
This is not a hoax.
This is real.
There are real survivors.
There are real victims to this criminal enterprise.
And the perpetrators are being protected because they're rich and powerful and political donors to the establishment here in Washington, D.C.
This answer sort of encompasses a whole range of things that have not been done by the Supreme Court, which is controlled by Republicans, and by the Congress, controlled by Republicans, to honor the intent of our Constitution to have checks and balances among competing branches to ensure that no one branch brings tyranny to America.
Without that competition, we are a tyrannical monarchy, and that's what they're creating by letting Trump run rampant in so many areas and not checking his power.
And it seems to be that this is a deliberate attempt to raise a single party to the role of a monarchical force in the country.
And in the onset of the administration this year, when they first named their cabinet nominees, we recall the RTV program on December 4th of last year praising those choices as being capable, if they were all confirmed, Of dismantling America from within, brick by brick.
That is something that pleased Trump's media, and apparently that is something that Trump agreed to.
For all we know, Trump agreed to the cabinet nominees recommended by Putin for that reason, just the way he agreed to a peace plan for Ukraine, virtually verbatim.
And this combination of loyalty to a foreign force and disloyalty of the courts and the Congress to the principles of checks and balances is a prescription for tyranny if the people don't continue to push back and demand that all the branches of government act first on behalf of their branch and then, if ever, last for their party.
Because we cannot have a one-party dictatorship in this country.
Okay, and Alan is in New York, and I wanted to make sure you saw that Zorhan Mamdani will be sworn in tonight just after midnight.
So here is NBC News.
Mamdani to be sworn in as New York City mayor by Senator Bernie Sanders and A.G. Letitia James.
James will formally swear in Mamdani at midnight when his term officially begins, and Sanders will oversee the mayor-elect ceremonial swearing in later that day.
Here is Rick, Columbus, Ohio, Republican line.
Go ahead, Rick.
unidentified
Yes, I'm talking about the fraud in the Somalian community.
What is his name?
Shirley, please have him come to Columbus, Ohio, because right down the street from me is one of the biggest churches that we've had.
It's on Cleveland Avenue and Huey Road.
The Somalians has taken it over and bought it.
Now, how can you come from a third world country where you don't even have a tool of paper, and then you come to our country and you buy a church that is one of the biggest churches in our community?
I want to know how that works and tell me they ain't no fraud.
And I know that they're selling their food stamps because I see it every day with my own eyes.
So you can't tell me I ain't seeing it.
And I know people that's doing it that are Americans to try to survive.
Now, what is the solution to this problem?
I was sitting in a bar in the 80s, and the bartender came up and told me I wasn't allowed to smoke a cigarette no more.
Well, the Democrats were in power, and that's when they started.
All this crap that they've got going on because they want to control us, and they say Donald Trump wants to be a dictator.
They better look at Obama.
That was the wordless president we ever had.
I used to have a sign in my yard that said, Obama.
My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day, waiting for a long time.
April 2nd, 2025 will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again.
Gonna make it wealthy, good and wealthy.
For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike.
American steel workers, auto workers, farmers, and skilled craftsmen, we have a lot of them here with us today.
They really suffered gravely.
They watched in anguish as foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream.
We had an American dream that you don't hear so much about.
You did four years ago, and you are now, but you don't too often, and for many years and decades even, you didn't hear too much about.
Our country and its taxpayers have been ripped off for more than 50 years, but it is not going to happen anymore.
It's not going to happen.
In a few moments, I will sign a historic executive order instituting reciprocal tariffs on countries throughout the world.
Reciprocal.
That means they do it to us and we do it to them.
Very simple.
Can't get any simpler than that.
This is one of the most important days, in my opinion, in American history.
For years, hardworking American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful, much of it at our expense.
But now it's our turn to prosper and in so doing use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt and it'll all happen very quickly.
With today's action, we are finally going to be able to make America great again, greater than ever before.
Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country, and you see it happening already.
We will supercharge our domestic industrial base.
We will pry open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers.
And ultimately, more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers.
And here's what Judy sent us from Waynesburg, Pennsylvania on text.
Trump's war on drugs has included bombing Venezuela and pardoning a major drug dealer, but not asking the people of this country to not buy illegal drugs.
I love my fellow callers, even when I don't agree with them.
Maybe one of the top news stories would be when you have the Billionaire Boys Club, the Lutnick Boys, the Witcoff Boys, the Trump Boys, the Ellison boy, and they don't have enough money, so they get about $24 billion of Saudi money, and they want to take over the American media with a Skydance Paramount Warner Brothers deal.
Now, pretty soon, Mimi, we're going to all be wishing that Mimi was back because they're going to yank PBS, C-SPAN off the air, because you deliver bad news.
See, there's a shiny object there.
We don't want you to see the bad news.
We'll do away with the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
We'll do away with the Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Protection Boards.
So, Gary, do you mind if I ask you, I mean, what happened when you confronted your wife about those messages?
unidentified
Well, so ICE, it's being invested.
There's a big investigation going on right now.
So what happened was initially, about 12 years into our marriage, my wife, my son came to me and told me that my wife threatened to slap him in a WhatsApp message.
So I said, well, I asked my wife, can I see your text messages?
She said, yeah, go right ahead.
As I started looking at him, she asked me, well, what are you looking for?
I said, well, our son said that you threatened to slap him.
So when I tried to read the messages, she tried to take the phone and then she pulled a butcher knife out and threatened to, I don't know if she was going to stab me or not, but this is what happened.
So we went, got tested.
You know, 13 years later, we got over it, moved on.
And then my son found messages in WhatsApp where she was planning to get visas with her brother, Alfonso Leyva, in Colombia, who's still there, his sister, Lena Maria.
And they planned on getting all these visas for the rest of her family.
Yeah, for the rest of her family.
Okay.
It was in Colombia.
So I could not translate it.
So as it was presented to me, I was just like, okay, well, I'll just, I'll figure it out later on.
I don't have time to deal with it.
But now we know after we broke it down, our attorney, that she was planning, they had planned this very sophisticated.
What can we in the older generation do to make a better world for this country?
Before we leave the stage, what can we accomplish?
unidentified
We do have a problem in baseball, and using steroids is not respecting the game.
We were so curious, so excited about being at the moon that we are like three school kids looking into a candy store window, watching those ancient old craters go by.
Those are some of the notable people that were lost in 2025.
But we are taking your calls throughout this program up until the end of the program at 10 a.m. Eastern on your top new story of 2025.
As you look back on the year, what really stood out for you?
What do you think was the most impactful?
Let's hear from Lester in Washington, D.C. Democrat.
Good morning, Lester.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
Okay, good morning.
What I want to say is that a couple things.
Number one, I think the top story today is the ACA and the Affordable Care Act.
And most people out there, you know, most people don't understand that the Affordable Care Act was never the solution to the health care crisis in America.
It was only an opportunity to resolve and to make people eligible for health care.
24 million American students.
It was never a solution.
The solution to the health care crisis in America is universal health care.
But that sounds too much like socialism.
Second, a lot of people call in from different places talking about how great the economy is.
How great the economy can be when you let off thousands of Americans, okay?
Thousands of Americans.
You know, Biden left the economy with 3% inflation.
Trump is hovering between three, I think a little over 3% now, as well as the fact that you have thousands of people seeking employment right now.
So how great is the economy?
Also, too, you know, how serious is the Trump administration when it comes to the war against drugs?
When the Trump administration pardoned the Honduran president or Honduran president who made it very clear that he was, you know, that he was floating cocaine here in the United States.
So how serious can Mr. Trump be talking about stopping the drugs?
You know, I mean, people call in and they, you know, they make it, they seem to lack, I don't know, maybe intelligence or maybe an understanding of the drug war.
You know, and last but not least, you know, we haven't heard the last from Iran.
Let's talk to Caroline next in Ohio, line for Republicans.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning, Mimi.
I just want to say I'm the, I just want to horseback off of one of the callers that called in on the South and Central American women, you know, wanting to marry him only for the green card.
Well, that was just a reminder that in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, when the slew of African men had come to this country to marry the black American women, only to get green cards, have kids, and just create havoc in their lives.
And I just want to implore to President Trump to please not build anything over in Gaza, because if you read in Jeremiah in the King James Version Bible, that that land is cursed.
Do not build anything over there or bad things will happen.
In Gaza, that's the modern day Jericho.
And please don't put a brick or any mortar in that country.
Leave it alone.
These people know that that land is cursed, but they're skinning and grinning in President Trump's face, and they know that, you know, it's a cursed piece of land.
And in New York, Line for Democrats, you're on the air.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thank you for C-SPAN.
And I just have to say, the young woman who took my call as a screener, she did a fabulous job, as do you and all of the hosts on C-SPAN.
I really loved your retrospective of who we lost this year.
I would have liked to have seen Diane Keaton included.
So if you do any updates, that would have been great if you could include her.
And also, I think the main story is the Epstein finals cover-up by Trump and his powerful cronies known as the Epstein class, and specifically how Ghelane Maxwell was moved to a low-security prison.
If that's not a quid pro quo, I don't know what is.
We are going to be covering the New York New Year's Eve celebration tonight happening in Times Square in New York City.
There will also be videos celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States.
That celebration kicks off at midnight.
The ball drop at midnight will include a patriotic salute to America's birthday.
Our coverage starts at 6 p.m. Eastern Time.
You can watch that live here on C-SPAN.
Also, tonight, you can ring in the new year with a fireworks show in Washington, D.C. on the National Mall.
A candle is going to be projected onto the Washington Monument in honor of America's 250th birthday.
Live coverage starting just before midnight on C-SPAN 2.
Both of those you can also watch online at c-span.org and our free mobile video app, C-SPAN now.
Here is Jeff in Ohio, Republican line.
Good morning, Jeff.
unidentified
Good morning.
Good morning.
The top story for me and realization this year was how right and correct Elon Musk was about the fraud, waste, and abuse in our country.
If everyone remembers going back nine, ten months ago, he was vilified by members of the House of Representatives and senators from the Democratic Party and got people to torture his dealerships, destroy his Teslas all over the country.
And look how right he was about the fraud with recent discovery in Minnesota now coming up here in Columbus, Ohio, and New York, and then the fraud in the state of California.
It turns out he was right, and the Democrats should listen to him, and they should apologize.
So is there something specifically, John, that you've seen Secretary Hagseth do that makes you believe that he is not qualified for the job?
unidentified
Yes.
The bombing of the boats coming out of supposedly coming out of Venezuela when they don't even have the capacity to reach our shores and the fact that he passes over classified information.
I've served so many years in the military and had top secret security clearances, and they made it very clear about your responsibilities to secure top secret information and also with the law of armed conflict from the time I joined the military when I was 17 years old.
And they taught us about our responsibilities that we are in war.
And if our soldiers are in that position, then that allows our enemies to go out and do the same thing to us.
And we can't say anything because we'd have lost the moral high ground.
And speaking of the economy, this is from earlier this month.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat of New York, criticizing President Trump and congressional Republicans for their handling of the economy.
Yeah, House Republicans have no issue as it relates to affordability.
They believe that the affordability crisis in the country is a hoax and a scam.
That's what their leader has said, Donald Trump, who says he's both the president and the speaker at the same time, Donald Trump's words, not mine.
They don't plan to address the high cost of living in this country because they don't even believe that it exists.
Now, the interesting thing is that I agree that the American people will continue to feel the impact of the one big ugly bill that Republicans jammed down their throats.
But it's going to be an adverse impact because hospitals and nursing homes and community-based health centers are going to continue to close as a result of Republicans enacting the largest cut to Medicaid in American history.
Electricity bills are skyrocketing because of the Republican attack on the clean energy economy.
Clean energy is cheaper energy, but they gutted those provisions of the tax code.
Republicans did so they could reward big oil and their donors.
But as a result, the American people are seeing their electricity bills skyrocket.
And then, of course, if you rip $186 billion from SNAP, which Republicans did in their one big, ugly bill, they're going to cause everyday Americans to go hungry.
We're talking about 42 million people, 16 million children who are going to be hurt by what Republicans did in their one big, ugly bill, 8 million older Americans, and over a million veterans who rely on SNAP.
And so the adverse impact, the harm that Republicans have done to the American people, actually, we're just scratching the surface.
My biggest story of 2025 is the Supreme Court, the GOP Supreme Court, and the coward, powerly Republicans in Congress by not presenting a tyrantical presidential takeover, including Trump's MAGA followers.
They act just like the Supreme Court, refusing to acknowledge his destruction of America's values and our historical achievements.
These people who voted for Trump have actually betrayed America, betrayed immigrants, Ukraine, and Gaza by not condemning Trump.
So that's my biggest story, that Trump has actually taken office, that he was allowed to take office and allowed to continue his destruction.
Let's talk to Kathy in Grand Terrace, California, Democrat.
Good morning, Kathy.
unidentified
Good morning.
Excuse me.
Good morning.
The ability for him to be elected was a sham and should never have happened.
But that, you know, we are where we are.
The bottom line is this.
America needs to understand that this man should never have been elected.
And all the things he's doing to seniors, all the things he's doing to people who came here trying to make a better life of themselves, the horrific things that he's doing to everyone in America.
I could go on and on, but I don't have a lot of time.
But thank you so much for listening and hope everyone has a happy new year.
And I guess my message to the American people who are still feeling like things are unaffordable, who are still feeling like things are rough out there, is: look, we get it, and we hear you, and we know that there's a lot of work to do.
There's a lot of wood to chop because the Biden administration put us in such a very, very tough spot.
The way that I think about this is it's always helpful to take this from the abstractions to the actual real things that people are worried about.
So, take, for example, a dozen eggs.
I'll never forget this.
It was one of the very first, maybe the single first press conference that the president had done since he had been the since he had started his second term.
And some reporter, probably from ABC, yells at him and says, What have you done about the price of eggs?
The price of eggs are up 300% over the past three years.
And it's like it was January the 23rd.
It's like, what do you mean, what have we done in two days?
It's going to take a little bit of time to fix that problem.
And so, if you're an American who's just struggling to get by, you work hard, you pay your taxes, you want your kids to have good opportunities, and the price of eggs goes from $2 a dozen to $8 a dozen under the Biden administration, and then under the Trump administration, it goes from $8 a dozen to maybe $6.50 a dozen.
Well, to you, that is still a major problem.
And even though we've made incredible progress, we understand that there's a lot more work to do.
And the thing that I'd ask for the American people is a little bit of patience.
This economy was not harmed in 10 months.
It took a deliberate four-year administration that was making life harder for everyday Americans, that was importing foreign workers instead of giving jobs to American workers, that was over-regulating, over-taxing, overspending.
They were doing everything wrong.
And as much progress as we've made, it's going to take a little bit of time for every American to feel that economic boom, which we really do believe is coming.
We believe that we're on the front end of it, but we also recognize that we've got a lot of work to do to undo the damage that Joe Biden did to the American economy.
And the last one I'll say, Matt, is it's let's be honest, it's not just Joe Biden.
As much as I think Joe Biden was one of the most disastrous presidents of American history, we had a policy in this country for 40 years of shipping American jobs overseas and hiring foreign workers instead of American workers.
That has caused the economic stagnation of the American middle class.
There was one bright spot in 40 years, and that was the first Trump administration.
And there is going to be a massive exception to that 40-year trajectory of American decline, and that's the second Trump administration.
Good morning, Mimi, and wishing you and the Washington Journal a happy new year.
It's always wonderful to watch the program.
Just wanted to say, everybody's really going in with a lot of good stories, and they kind of took mine, which was one of the fraud being exposed in Minnesota.
Oh, my God.
And I can't imagine what's going on across our nation.
This American delineation for all of the rest of the people is something that we have needed to be doing from a very long time ago.
The foundational black Americans who are also delineating from those people who are acting like them and coming into this country and really taking advantage of all the things that should be given to them.
Much respect to you all and no disrespect to anyone.
Have a wonderful new year.
And yes, I can't wait to see what's going to happen in the future with all of this fraud being exposed.
And regarding research, here is the National Desk has some fact-check information for you on that the fraud cases in Minnesota.
It says, so some of the things it says is federal prosecutors have already secured convictions tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud involving Minnesota-administered programs.
Most prominent case centers on the Feeding Our Future nonprofit operated under a federal pandemic meal program meant to provide food to children.
According to the DOJ, defendants in that case alone fraudulently siphoned approximately $250 million, making it the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme charged in U.S. history.
More than 90 individuals have been charged.
At least 60 have been convicted.
You can read that at the nationaldesk.com if you'd like more information.
Cindy, Hampton, New Hampshire, Independent Line, good morning.
unidentified
Oh, good morning.
Hi, Mimi.
Hi.
I just wanted to give a little levity for everybody because it's not the top news story of the year because we could just go on and on about all of the things.
But my favorite story of the year is the raccoon that broke into the liquor store and was found out passed out in the bathroom.
Drunk Raccoon CPR00:01:39
unidentified
And just for everybody to get a little chuckle.
And, you know, the bears that are breaking into the stores in Japan.
I mean, is it animals gone wild this year of 2023?
Yeah, my top story for the year is, of course, the F-City files.
We all know that we got a pedophile in the White House right now.
Clowns and Grandbabies00:11:16
unidentified
And I would advise Ivanka Trump, which is his daughter, and Laura Trump, his daughter-in-law, to please hide the grandbabies.
Do not let these grandbabies go around Papa, Papa Trump, because we all know he's a pedophile.
And my last thing I want to tell you guys is: Mr. Feist, Mr. Sam Feiss, you guys' boss, tell him, please do not cave in to these clowns because these clowns are going to, we know you guys are independent, but these guys are going to try to set us all down.
They hate us calling in, saying things about Trump.
So they're going to try to do what they, that guy with an FCC car and Trump and the rest of them clowns over there.
They're going to do everything they can to try to set Cease Man down.
But I know you guys are going to stand strong and let us keep on calling in.
But we got a lot to say about this clown.
And thank you, Mimi, and have a great, happy new year.
I would just like to explain how I think about the economy.
So I'd like to give thanks to the Democrats in the last couple times they've ran the government, especially Biden.
If you don't know about how oil works, oil is in every product you buy.
Every single product you buy has got oil in it.
When you get inflation, it's mostly when oil goes up, just like in the 70s when I lived through that silliness through Carter and he jumped the thing way up.
Yeah, I just wanted to call in because I think, yeah, one of my biggest things I've noticed this year that I've personally enjoyed is America seems to be getting a little bit of its sense of humor back, at least to me.
You know, people seem to be a little bit less hung up on when someone says a certain word or a certain phrase.
You know, it gets less traction.
It seems that, you know, there's a little bit more let the water roll off your back than there has been in a few, you know, the past few years.
And that's probably the biggest positive I can pick up from this year.
Called him up to tell him, got to do a better job.
He's done a bad job causing a lot of death and a lot of potential death.
If we didn't send the National Guard, and last night we gave a little additional help, you would have Los Angeles would be burning right now.
Los Angeles would be not a lot different than what you saw take place in California and Los Angeles just a little while ago.
And, you know, you've got to remember we have the Olympics coming, and we don't want people looking at Los Angeles like it was, like it would have been.
It would have been bad.
Last night they had total control.
We didn't have the military in there, the National Guard.
And then we also sent in some Marines.
We had some bad people.
We have people they look in your face and they spit right in your face.
They're animals.
And these are paid insurrectionists.
These are paid troublemakers.
They're agitators.
They're paid.
Do you think somebody walks up to a curb and starts hammering pieces out, has all the equipment necessary, and starts handing it out to people to use as a weapon?
These are paid insurrectionists or agitators or troublemakers.
You can call it whatever you want.
And we ended it, and we have in custody some very bad people.
Some very bad people.
Mr. President, did you see the guy throwing the rocks at the police cars as they went by and crushing their windows and endangering our police?
That was in June, and we're asking for your top news story of the year.
Here's Jennifer Democrat in Missouri.
Good morning, Jennifer.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call and happy new year.
I just wanted to mention quickly a few things, starting with the clip you showed of JD Vance talking about affordability and the price of eggs and all that.
In case anyone forgot the price of eggs went up due to the bird flu, it wasn't regulations or any of Biden's policy that really had anything to do with that.
And also, he's talking about immigrants coming into the country, and he's trying to push this lately, how the immigrants are causing the housing affordability crisis and other affordability crisis due to immigrants.
And that's so not true.
And this country, again, was built on immigrants.
During the gold rush, we brought in a bunch of foreigners to help with that.
When we built the railroads, we brought in foreigners to help build the railroads.
So this little country was literally built with the help of foreigners that we brought in.
And now we're kicking out all these immigrants who do a lot of work that the Americans won't do, picking in the farms and all that.
So I just don't believe half of what the Trump administration has to say.
Trump's been a proven liar over and over again.
And another comment for the guy who said that he saved $20 on a tank of gas, well, oil's pretty volatile.
Mark my words.
By the end of the Trump administration, gas will go up again because it goes up and it goes down.
So maybe you save $20 on a tank of gas, but when you look at your electric bill and your grocery bill, you know, you just lost that $20 that you saved.
But in any case, not happy with this administration, his dehumanization of people, talking about different foreigners doing this and that.
And then he generalizes the whole country or the whole culture and makes everybody seem bad.
So I just, I think he's a bad president for this country.
First of all, I just want to say I'm a kind of laid-bad guy, independent.
I vote for either side.
It's just that it's been very hard lately.
I'm a former soldier, and the whole idea of a person that was afraid to be a soldier wants to command soldiers.
A person that has no respect for military wants to command the military and have them do all kinds of stuff that he himself was too afraid to do.
And one more thing.
Presidents and pedophilia and administrations and pedophilia, all of that stuff is not right.
The Man Needs to Tell Us00:15:44
unidentified
Just in the beginning.
If a person cannot just stop, I mean, the president or his administration or anybody and say, hey, we need to investigate what happened to these young girls, these women.
Let's expose this.
What is this thing that America is doing right now where we're not looking at the real?
We're talking about children.
They're women now, but who are we protecting?
If I was in that scenario, anything like that, I'd be in prison, maybe dead by now.
I just want fairness.
We need to know about the Epstein files.
The man needs to tell us his involvement or their involvement.
And a couple of programming notes for you for your New Year's celebrations.
And that is, first, we'll have live coverage from Times Square.
You can watch the scenes from New York City and the videos celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States, the ball drop at midnight.
We'll include a patriotic salute to America's birthday.
That starts at 6 p.m. Eastern here on C-SPAN.
And also, you can ring in the new year with Fireworks Show in Washington, D.C. on the National Mall.
That's starting just before midnight.
You'll see a candle projected on the Washington Monument in honor of America's 250th birthday.
That's on C-SPAN too.
Both those programs are going to be on our website, c-span.org, and on our app, C-SPAN Now.
On the line for Democrats in Brooklyn, New York, Alexander, good morning to you.
unidentified
Good morning, Mimi, and happy new year to you, the rest of the C-SPAN team, and the rest of the listeners.
Really, really insightful show this morning, just showing the range of topics that everybody has picked.
You know, I'm thinking of everything that everybody said, I think the biggest story of this year, for me at least, is the failure of the American people.
I am extremely disappointed that coming into 2015, 2016, knowing from the first tapes that came out about Trump and the way that he treated women,
the way that he treated his opponents in the primary, insulting everybody, saying that even the first primary run was rigged against him, knowing full well all the evidence of the thousands of cases that have been brought against him, the corruption, everything else, the bankruptcies.
And here we are.
The American people picked this person again.
And he has been destroying the government, lying that he knew anything about the 2025 project and picking the most, you know, destructive administration and embarrassing administration that has destroyed this country.
But so for me, the misinformation, disinformation, and the corruption of the mind of the people of this country, I don't see hope because I don't think people with C-SPAN, the tool that can give them the resources to see the facts for what they are, they still fall for the lies.
And one last thing, Mimi, just so that we can, you know, I can get off.
Put to the American people what the projection of the temperature of this world will be now that we have gone beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius and we are jumping to 2.6.
The misinformation and disinformation about the real disasters that are happening in this world are just being ignored completely.
So if you can just do me that favor, I would really appreciate it, Mimi.
I voted for Trump in 2020 and 2024, but I now consider myself anti-Trump.
Trump takes orders from BBNet and Yahoo, not from the MAGA voters who served the historic mandate in 2024.
The top news story of 2025 is Trump's betrayal of his supporters in the MAGA base, which is illustrated by one, total capitulation to Israel, and two, the Epstein cover-up perpetrated by Trump's Department of Justice.
That's all I have to say.
Thank you for taking my call and have a happy new year.
And I would like to say humbly, I'm sorry for taking part in the toxic politics.
It's very bad for our country.
And it's been something I've thought about a lot, especially since Charlie Kirk was assassinated, is that I'm only responsible for myself and my own words and actions.
And I am committed, and I've been working on this a lot lately, to put down the knives in politics.
I really just want to see people be kind to one another.
And we need to figure out a new path forward that is focused on the American people because as Americans, no matter what side of the aisle we're on, we have far more in common than we have differences.
And we need to be able to respect each other with our disagreements.
So just to put a button on this, you regret the things that you have said and posted in the past.
Facebook post that was taken down of you in 2020 holding a gun alongside the squad, encouraging people to go on the offense against the socialists, liking a tweet of somebody calling for the execution of Nancy Pelosi and former President Obama.
Okay, my story of the year, and it's many, but I would say what really sent chills up my spine was the Doge coming into the government and slicing jobs and going into our Social Security information.
That right there to the American people should be very, very scary.
And even though there's a lot to talk about, that particular Doge is what really sent chills up my spine.
Listen to this, America people.
Doge went into our personal information.
The government is supposed to protect us.
People from off the street had no business into our files.
And another thing I want to mention is that people are saying, calling in on the Republican line, talking about y'all always are talking about Trump.
Y'all hate Trump and all of this mess.
Let me take you back.
Trump came into office with baggage.
This is not the American people talking about Trump and talking about bad things about Trump.
This is Trump being Trump.
He came into the government.
When he came into the White House, he had baggage of scamming people.
He had cases that was pending where he had scammed people out of their money.
He had so much going on, not paying his taxes.
This is what Trump brought to the American government.
And I want to say one more thing about biomics, okay?
We are talking about handing Trump a bad economy.
Do y'all remember COVID?
Do y'all remember COVID, what Biden had to come into, where everything was out of order and Biden had to stabilize the country?
Do y'all remember that?
Okay, you're talking about Trump inheriting a bad economy.
This is from February, where President Trump responds to a question about Elon Musk and his team getting access to the Treasury Department's payment system.
And this is on the front page of the New York Times today: a government upended by a decimation of jobs.
Under Trump, a lean federal workforce results in less efficient services.
It says the extent of the effect on the public so far is unclear.
Some of the White House's moves are stalled by a mountain of litigation.
More than 200 lawsuits have been filed challenging the firings of federal workers and the freezing of grants and elimination of programs, vast majority of which are still pending.
Agencies have not fully detailed the number of staff members and services that have been cut, making it difficult to discern the full scope of the difference between today's federal government and the one from a year ago.
That's at the New York Times this morning.
And this is Linda in New York.
Democrat.
Hi, Linda.
unidentified
Hi.
Hi.
I don't really know what the top story would be.
I just don't understand the American people have voted in a man like Trump.
I know the one lady says, oh, everybody hates Trump, but to make it normal that this man is doing normal things to me is just beyond.
I just don't understand it.
I'm 75 years old, and I know that a lot of the classmates that I've graduated are feeling the same way.
What has happened to the people in this country to vote in a man like this who just is, I mean, you know, when you say, why don't you like him?
I mean, every day he shows us why not to like him or understand.
You know, I just, this just, to me, I just don't understand it.
I will leave this earth never understanding it.
I look back, and I think at the end of the Biden administration, they said the inflation was 2.9%.
It's gone up since Trump is here.
And I do understand, like the woman said, Biden had to deal with the shutdown of the world, with COVID.
You may not have agreed with some of the things that he did, but in general, in general, he was a decent man, empathetic, compassionate.
And I look back at the years of eight years of President Obama.
There might have been things you disagreed with, but the man was a decent, compassionate, empathetic man and intelligent.
And now all we have is you've got Vance standing up, giving speeches, say, well, you don't have to be apologizing for being white now.
And the caliber of people that are there in that administration is pathetic.
So the One Times Square Alliance, which is the owner of the One Times Square building and the Times Square Alliance, are partners in kind of having three bites of the New York apple this year.
So first of all, I am here in Times Square today.
This is the moment that's going to really spark the movement moving forward.
And we are here to do a second celebration at 1204, where we are going to mark the semi-quincentennial, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence with several tons of confetti, a great way to, again, kind of bring the patriotism to life in a way that Times Square has never seen before.
In addition to that, we are coming back on July 3rd.
And out of the almost 120-year history of the Times Square ball drop, this is going to be the first one ever outside of New Year's Eve.
We're doing that to bring in July 4th.
And then we are coming back again on December 31st of next year because we have a number of exciting initiatives that will conclude at that time, but also just a great way to hopefully keep the momentum going even long after 2026.
You know, I would say of all of our movement activities, you know, we have the moment, of course, tonight, and then the movement, which is going to be sparked by America Gives.
This is my favorite.
It really is.
America Gives, our national service initiative, that makes giving back a full, a year-round effort.
We are making 2026 the largest year of volunteer hours ever recorded by our country.
And it starts literally at the stroke of midnight, and we're taking it all the way through calendar year 2026.
And as I mentioned, we're going to make that grand announcement next December 31st of what that volunteer record number is going to look like.
And I can only predict, I'm just, I'm curious how it's going to all work out, but it's going to be incredible.
And C-SPAN is the official media partner, so we will be with you along the way and we'll be showing that to our audience, all those great activities that you've got planned.
Rosie Rios, America 250 Commission Chair, and as mentioned, the website is america250.org.
And we did cover the funeral of Pope Francis here on C-SPAN in its entirety.
So you can go ahead and take a look at that at c-span.org.
On the line for Republicans, North Carolina, Mike, you're on the air.
unidentified
Good morning.
And the first thing I want to say is we're seeing the greatest generation of war soldiers and the greatest generation of America soldiers from World War II and the Korean War dying off at Michael's numbers.
And we're probably going to be alive to see the last one.
But I just, my dad fought in World War II, and that's the greatest generation from, in my opinion, not from them, from Vietnam now, but the greatest generation of World War II.
Trump's War Crimes Narrative00:15:15
unidentified
But my top story is Trump.
And I voted for him all three times.
And, you know, it's just like this border thing.
I know when Biden come in, he said, just give me some legislation to shut the border.
Just look, if Kamala would have got elected, I mean, we would have had 100 million refugees and immigrants in this country.
Democrats don't understand illegal immigration.
If you come into this country illegally, you're illegal.
And Trump is doing his best.
Like you say, you know, how many years did Obama blame Bush for the economy?
How many years?
All eight years of his administration.
But Trump is doing what he can to help this country, and it don't flip overnight.
It don't change overnight.
It's got to go in gradually.
And as far as Marjorie Kaler Green, she's, you know, she wanted to run for Senate in Georgia.
And all the polling numbers said she would come in below any of the Democrats.
And that's the main reason why she turned on Trump.
But this Epstein files, all you hear, you got a couple Democrats talking, or a couple Republicans and the Democrats talking about it.
What Pam Bondi ought to do is release everything and everything, unredacted and everything.
Then all these, quote, survivors that got paid from the Epstein state, let them sue the Democrats and a couple of Republicans, but put everything out there, every single thing out there and let it be out.
Because that's all they trying to say they want to protect the survivors and all this stuff.
Okay, you got to take time to redact stuff.
And there's a lot of rich politicians and rich lawyers and from Larry Summers and all them.
Their names are exposed, but all the main, the main thing is like a bunch of rabbit dogs.
They're all wanting to find something on Trump, find something on Trump.
And you can read that report from the Wall Street Journal, I think, yesterday, that why Trump kicked severed ties with Epstein.
Hey, I just want to say my top story is just Trump being president.
And you know this Epstein thing that's flying around.
If they, all these people in Washington are lawyers, they did the Me Too movement with all these victims from the Epstein case, went to New York, opened a case, and they would blow it wide open.
Everybody, Me Too, Eugene Carroll convicted Trump on only her words.
They made Stormy Daniel come to court and testify when NBA signed legal document.
If they did all that on the Epstein case, it would blow it wide open.
I'd say the top story is Trump and everything his administration has done.
And also one of the big things to me is how C-SPAN this year, I believe, is when you stop doing any fact-checking.
And one of the reasons that came to my mind this morning when I heard the clip where Trump was talking about the millions of dollars spent on condoms to Hamas, I believe, Mimi, that that was never, there were never any facts to prove that.
There might have been to Gaza as part of some public health initiatives that certainly not that number.
unidentified
Right.
Exactly.
And there's so many other things that even exceed the scope of that.
I mean, have you even looked at how much Doge actually saved us?
Or did they end up costing us money?
Okay.
You know, and how much of our, you know, data did they take?
I don't think we really know about that yet.
And Trump and crypto and how his family is getting wealthy on that and how they control the regulations.
I mean, there's just so much.
You know, the pardons of the January 6th people who were went to court and were convicted by juries of their peers.
You know, him releasing, pardoning the president of Honduras that we know what's trafficking in drugs, and he expects us to believe he's hard on crime.
All right, let's go to the Republican line next, Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Mike, you're on the air.
unidentified
Hi.
My story, I think, of 2025 just recently happened here in Minnesota.
And here you have Elon Omar that's a representative of that state, as well as Tim Waltz.
And the fact that they're blaming this fraud, this massive amounts of fraud that's going on here on Donald Trump is basically par for the course for liberals to spin any kind of narrative that they can to blame Trump for anything.
But, you know, I thought of all that.
You know, the real reason why I think Obama was a terrible president because of his mandates alone.
You know, first thing he did in office was basically took abortion and put it in the taxpayers' hands to try to do that, which was unconstitutional.
He mandated COVID vaccinations, you know, for every business that had a certain amount of employees and federal legislation.
He's done this while letting in undocumented, unvaccinated, and unvended illegal immigrants in this country, at the same time, putting COVID shots in people's faces and firing them.
And of course, Trump's given a lot of money back to those people because that in itself was also constitutional, what he did with that.
But then, you know, the student loan forgiveness.
There's another example of something that's illegal that the Supreme Court knocked down as well.
So due to Biden's mandates alone was the biggest reason that I thought, you know, the man is absolutely untethered to the Constitution.
And a couple of callers mentioned the Epstein files.
Here is what President Trump said about it in September.
unidentified
Right now, there have been survivors of Jeffrey Epstein speaking at a press conference on Capitol Hill.
They're calling for these case files, these documents to be released.
And Thomas Massey, who is some sort of discharge position to get the House to vote on Louise Those documents, says he hasn't been here implicated in these files, but many of your friends and donors may be.
And he says that's why the Justice Department is redacting them and slow walking the release.
Is the Justice Department protecting any friends or donors?
You know, it reminds me a little of the Kennedy situation.
We gave him everything over and over again, more and more and more, and nobody's ever satisfied.
From what I understand, I could check, but from what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given.
But it's really a Democrat hoax because they're trying to get people to talk about something that's totally irrelevant to the success that we've had as a nation since I've been president.
Even if you look at D.C. right now, D.C., it's a totally safe zone.
It's called a safe zone.
That's a term.
It's a term of art.
It's a safe zone because it's very safe.
You could walk down the street now and nothing's going to happen.
No crime, no murders, no nothing.
Because we had a lot of problems with certain places, and we still do.
All run by Democrats, or for the most part, run by Democrats.
So what they're trying to do with the Epstein hoax is get people to talk about that instead of speaking about the tremendous success like ending seven wars.
I ended seven wars.
Nobody's going to talk about because they're going to talk about the Epstein, whatever.
I understand that we were subpoenaed to give files, and I understand we've given thousands of pages of files.
And I know that no matter what you do, it's going to keep going.
And I think it's, I think, really, I think it's enough because I think we should talk about the greatness of our country and the success that we're having.
I think we're probably having, according to what I read, even from two people in this room, we're having the most successful eight months of any president ever.
And that's what I want to talk about.
That's what we should be talking about, not the Epstein hoax.
And this is William, a North Carolina Independent Line.
Hi, William.
unidentified
Good morning, and happy new year to you, Mimi.
First thing I'd like to do is that lady who said that people call up and talk about Trump and never mention any of the things he does that are illegal.
Well, you can talk about how he constantly is usurping the Constitution, ignoring court orders, the emolument clause, taking a plane as a gift, using his office to make him and his family wealthy or wealthier, just so many different things, ignoring even the Epstein file thing, if that's being brought up so much.
Still haven't released all the files, and now they're talking about, oh, they just happened to find a million more and it's going to take a few more weeks.
But my top story is basically the seven wars thing.
There's no proof that he's ended any wars, really.
And some of them are still ongoing conflicts.
And he keeps bragging about this stuff.
And yet he has no real proof of it.
This trillions of dollars that are coming into our country.
Where's this $18 trillion?
Most estimates say that's about $8 million as opposed to $18 million.
So just the fact that he also makes comments like the next inauguration is going to be in the new ballroom.
How would he determine the next inauguration?
That the hepatitis vaccine should be given to children when they're sexually active, like when they're 12.
He made that comment.
So there's a lot of things about Trump that unfortunately these Fox News narrators could come on sometimes and talk about him on this line particularly are talking about how everyone is brainwashed.
That's the biggest thing that's going on right now.
No matter what Trump does, everybody finds a reason.
And they keep going back to Obama, what's that, 16 years ago?
And Biden, Biden's not in office anymore.
And the economy, still not better.
I mean, same inflation.
Now unemployment's ticked up.
So I think the people that want to boast about Trump being the greatest president of all time might want to actually do some fact-checking and stop letting AI tell them everything.
The greatest story of 2025 was how all these patriots have stood up against the biggest fascist regime in our history.
I'm talking about the No Kings events where thousands and thousands of people have marched the streets and come out for America.
Why Generation X Matters00:08:05
unidentified
The reason why the United States was even founded was for people protesting against a king.
And we have been doing that every week in lots of red states and blue states.
And it just gets so little press from, well, we're fighting for the freedom of press.
And now that it's been taken over, CBS News has been taken over by the Trump regime.
And I mean, you have to go to independent places to find the real news, the true news.
But I'm so proud of my patriots that have been out protesting against this awful, awful destruction of our republic, of our democracy.
It's just happening every week, and nobody is paying attention to it except for on the biggest days when people can't get through Washington, D.C. or New York City because everybody's protesting for our wonderful country to keep it alive.
And we will be in 2026, we will have Congress back.
Congress has been under the thumb of the Trump regime, and it will come back to us in 2026.
The Democrat shutdown is finally over, thanks to House and Senate Republicans who stood together to get the job done.
Absolutely no question in anybody's mind now that the Democrats were responsible for this.
What happened?
Millions of American families went without food on their table.
You had millions of Americans stranded in airports, their flights canceled and delayed.
You had troops and federal employees wondering where their next paycheck would come from.
The Democrats openly admitted, they openly admitted, many of them said it in their own words, that they used the American people as leverage in this political game.
They knew that it would cause that pain to the people, and they did it anyway.
They did it for their own selfish purposes, their political purposes, and it was a game they played with real people's lives.
It's something that is very difficult to forgive.
I want to say that all this was utterly pointless and foolish.
This outcome was totally foreseeable.
I said that this would be the outcome when all this began back in mid-September.
They did it anyway.
Democrats admitted that they used the people as leverage, and they got nothing for their selfish political stunt here.
They didn't achieve anything with this at all.
And anyone who studied history would know that shutdowns never yield any positive result.
It just hurts people.
I said on the House floor a little while ago that we did all this in good faith.
From the very beginning, I was insistent about this.
Our leadership team was.
The Republicans did the right thing.
We had a nonpartisan continuing resolution.
We didn't have any Republican priorities on it at all.
We just said, in good faith, let's keep the lights on.
Let's keep this going for another seven weeks so that the Congress can do its work, so they can get back to the regular appropriations process the way that it is supposed to be done for the people.
The reason I say that is because we have so much division going on in the world.
And the division we are passing on to our children, we are passing on to everyone.
And this has to stop because it is not doing anything but stunting our growth with all this division.
One other thing I would like to add is that I really think the next president of the United States elects should be a generational X. Why do I say that?
Because a generational X can understand and understand the certain views that's going on now, whether that generational X is a Republican, a Democratic, or Independent.
If you can, can you do any research for me to see if we ever had a president in office that was a generational X?
I would definitely appreciate that if you can do that for me.
All right, Daryl, here's Frankie in Pennsylvania, Independent Line.
Go ahead, Frankie.
unidentified
Good morning, Nimi.
And I have to start off.
The only nice thing I'm going to say this morning is your nails look beautiful as they always do.
But my top story is not just of the year, but it's of our lifetime.
It just happened to happen this year.
We are on the second crusades of humanity.
We are about to go into scientific darkness again.
And what happened the first time, 500 years of scientific darkness had set our species back incredibly.
And thanks to two men who wear way too much orange makeup, what they're doing to the scientific community and the scientific doubt from medicine to human-caused climate change, they are about to, we are watching the beginning of the destroying of humanity as we know it.
And this is going to go down in history for thousands of years.
If our species survives, they are going to look back.
And the way we look back at what the Crusades did to our species, how it just changed the world and not in a good way.
This is what we're observing during our lifetime.
So I wish everybody luck.
And the next generation, what we're doing to them is what true men with orange makeup is astounding to me.
I'm lost of words of what's happening.
And science is the only thing that's going to save us, not imaginary gods.
And I would just like to end it with a recommendation.
We will be back with you tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern Time.
This was the last show, Washington Journal of 2025.
Happy New Year, everybody.
Have a great year in 2026.
unidentified
On this New Year's Eve, C-SPAN will have live coverage throughout the day and evening of events to ring in the new year.
Starting at 6 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, we'll take you to Times Square in New York City as the crowd starts to gather for pre-celebratory festivities ahead of tonight's ball drop.
Then at 7 p.m., we'll head over to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for a light and projection show on the Washington Monument as part of our America 250 coverage.
Then at 11 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, we're back at Times Square for the final countdown and ball drop.
And just before midnight on C-SPAN 2, there's more America 250 coverage with a fireworks show on the National Mall.
Our New Year's Eve coverage is also available to watch on the free C-SPAN Now video app and online at C-SPAN.org.
C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered.
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Counting The Votes00:02:31
unidentified
Well, up next, we'll take you back to January of 2025, where a joint session of Congress was held to count the Electoral College votes for the 2024 presidential election.
Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Mike Johnson presided over the session.
Mr. Speaker and members of Congress, pursuant to the Constitution and laws of the United States, the Senate and House of Representatives are meeting in joint session to verify the certificates and count the votes of the electors of the several states for President and Vice President of the United States.
After ascertainment has been had that the certificates are authentic and correct in form, the tellers will count and make a list of the votes cast by the electors of the several states.
The tellers on the part of the two houses will take their places at the clerk's desk.
Without objection, the tellers will dispense with reading formal portions of the certificates.
After ascertaining that the certificates are regular, in form, and authentic, the tellers will announce the votes cast by the electors for each state, beginning with Alabama.