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Jan. 11, 2026 11:00-13:03 - CSPAN

02:02:57

Washington Journal

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henry olsen

28:16

kimberly adams

cspan 21:20

oliver libby

24:51

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brian lamb

cspan 00:40

donald j trump

admin 02:49

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willie nelson

00:03

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barbara in north carolina

callers 04:47

julia in kentucky

callers 01:09

phil in florida

callers 00:53

steve in north charleston

callers 08:44

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Speaker	Time	Text
Why We Left Google 00:15:01
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kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We're joined now by Henry Olson, who's a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Thank you for having me back.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I want to talk about the tragic situation in Minnesota that happened this past week.
		The killing of Renee Nicole Good by federal immigration agent in Minneapolis, which has been incredibly controversial.
		The Trump administration, the vice president, have stated this was self-defense.
		Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam said that Good's actions were an act of domestic terrorism.
		Obviously, Democrats and many others have a different perspective.
		Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called the self-defense claim a garbage narrative.
		There's video of this shooting.
		What is your take on all of this?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think one thing, from a political standpoint, people are viewing it through the prism that they bring to President Trump, that if they're strongly opposed to President Trump, they're taking the most negative view.
		If they're strongly supportive, they're taking the most positive view with respect to the administration's narrative.
		I think it's a tragedy that this is a woman who was in a place and doing something she ought not to have been doing and an officer who overreacted, even if he was in front of the car and touched.
		You know, that doesn't mean you should shoot the driver.
		And it's just a tragedy that, unfortunately, we have to deal with.
		It's not that different in kind than what happened in Kent State in 1970.
		Student protesters shot by nervous National Guardsmen.
		And I think it's unfortunate, but we have to deal with the aftermath.
		Hopefully ICE agents can be better trained not to overreact even when they're dealing with citizens who are doing things in places where they ought not to be.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		This is prompting protests and increased even action in Congress in terms of ICE's actions nationwide and whether or not that role is too expansive.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of movements both in Congress and in the streets to rein in the role of ICE in communities across the country?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		You know, I think the laws are the laws and they need to be enforced.
		The question is, are they being enforced in an efficient and professional manner?
		If we look at what ICE is doing and we decide, well, you know, they're sending people in too many dangerous circumstances or not being targeted enough with their deportation efforts, then clearly those need to be reformed.
		But there are millions of people who are here illegally.
		The government is enforcing the law when they're trying to identify, apprehend, and remove those people.
		And citizens should not be getting in the way of people who are enforcing the law, especially when they are in the field trying to do so, which under circumstances which are always going to be nervous.
		They don't know if the person they're going to apprehend is going to flee or going to shoot or something.
		And so they're always on triggers.
		And normal citizens can protest and ought to protest, but they should not be interfering with law enforcement officers who are doing nothing more than enforcing the law.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I want to turn to the U.S. military action in Venezuela and the capture of former President Nicholas Maduro.
		There was a YouGov poll that showed that nearly three-fourths of Republicans say they somewhat or strongly support the U.S. using military force to invade as opposed to 19% of Democrats, 40% of Independents.
		But this has changed.
		Back in December when there was polling about this, people were pretty opposed to this idea.
		What do you think has shifted?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		I think what shifted is success, that the president did something that what everyone thinks about the law, the justice is clearly on the side of apprehending a murderous dictator who has ruined his country.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		And the fact that the president was able to do what he did with the military at the order of the president and succeeded beyond expectations without a loss of an American troop is what's turned that around, is that Republicans and Republican-leaning independents see success, and so they support it, and they want to see more of it.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		There are some Republicans who, along with Democrats, are taking issue with the way in which these strikes were conducted.
		Indiana GOP Senator Todd Young was one of five senators to advance a war powers resolution that would limit the president's ability to conduct further attacks against Venezuela.
		I want to read you a bit of what he said at the time.
		He said, President Trump campaigned against forever wars, and I strongly support him in that position.
		A drawn-out campaign in Venezuela involving American military, even if unintended, would be the opposite of President Trump's goal of ending foreign entanglements.
		The Constitution requires that Congress first authorize operations involving American boots on the ground, and my vote today reaffirms that long-standing congressional role.
		Now, there has not been a lot of Republican pushback to much of what the president has done in his second term so far.
		What's different here?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		I think what's different here is the possibility of an extended, long-term American presence that necessarily is going to involve some type of guerrilla warfare.
		You don't think that if Americans did move into Venezuela in order to rebuild that country, that the regime's security forces are suddenly just going to surrender.
		They're going to retreat to heavily forested highlands that's nearly ideal for terrorists and guerrilla operations to try and fight back against the Americans.
		And I think Senator Young and other Republicans who are saying, no, we need to have congressional authorization for this, are telling the president, no, this is more serious.
		It's one thing to remove one person in a lightning raid.
		It's another thing to remake the country with an extended expedition of American forces.
		And if you're going to do that, you need to get our consent.
		That's the concern that they have, and I think they're right to have it.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You had a piece about Venezuela before the military action in the Washington Examiner.
		The great reinsurer, a Trump doctrine, emerges.
		Can you explain this concept, what you mean by Trump as the great reinsurer or America as the great reinsurer?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, what I'm trying to, you know, what we've had throughout the last 50, 75 years is America building a global network of alliances in order to secure its safety and the safety of its allies.
		And what Trump is essentially saying is what that turned into, no matter what it was in 1950, was America paying all the bills and paying all the price.
		It was as if an insurer wasn't charging the right premiums and not conducting any fraud investigations on claims that were put to him.
		He says that day is over.
		And what a reinsurer does is they take an insurance company and they say, when you've exceeded certain losses, we will come in and backstop you.
		And I think that's what Trump is moving towards, is that in Europe, he's telling the Europeans that you are rich enough and big enough that you can contain Russia on your own.
		Do it, and we'll back you up if it's too much.
		And the same thing with the Asian allies with respect to China.
		In the Western Hemisphere, there is no other power.
		We have to be the insurer of our own security.
		And I think that's what Venezuela shows, is that Trump is willing to be more like Israel in its sphere of influence, the Western Hemisphere, the way Israel acts in its interest in the Middle East to strike Hezbollah or strike Gaza or with respect to Iran.
		He wants each country or each area in its area of security to act as an insurer, be more like Israel.
		And in the Western Hemisphere, that means expect a more muscular America.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And that muscular America, the administration is trying to expand this, especially in terms of the narrative this past week, into Greenland.
		Last week, Trump's senior aide, Stephen Miller, said that Greenland rightfully belonged to the United States and that this administration would be justified in seizing it or taking over in some capacity.
		Where do you think this is headed?
		And do you think that this is a good policy for the administration?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Well, first of all, Miller is completely wrong.
		We have no legitimate right to Greenland.
		We've never owned it.
		We have a security interest in Greenland, but that does not mean that we have a right to the territory.
		The idea that MIT makes right, which is what he's advancing, is simply antithetical to American ideals.
		That doesn't mean we don't have a security interest in Greenland.
		And what we should be doing is pursuing that to the fullest extent that we can with our Danish allies.
		Denmark has been a fabulous ally to the United States, losing troops in Afghanistan in support of our objective, not withdrawing until we withdrew.
		It is contrary to American interest for us to be angering the European allies at exactly the moment when we're trying to get them to stand up and be, to use the analogy from the previous question, the insurer of their own security, to act in a way that says we're not going to be the reinsurer of you if it's in our interest not to be.
		That's the wrong way to act, and I think Miller is completely wrong.
		I think what we should be doing is pursuing an agreement with the Danes that America will substantially increase its involvement, economic and military, there.
		I think the Danes would be happy to do it, and we should be doing it through discussions, not through saber-rattling.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		The saber-rattling, if actually turned into something else, several folks have said that this would effectively destroy NATO.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		If it wouldn't destroy NATO, it would put it on life support, and that is not in our interest.
		I wrote a piece most recently in the Washington Examiner that came out over the weekend on that point.
		And it's America is secure when it has allies that combine technological prowess and economic power.
		If Europe and the other NATO allies were to leave, we would lose the strongest economic bloc outside of ourselves and China.
		That would be folly to throw away.
		It would be contrary to American interest.
		It would severely damage national security.
		The European alliance has to be restructured.
		The Europeans can't free ride on us anymore, but the European alliance should not be dissolved, and invading Greenland would put that at risk, and we should not do it.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		For folks who have questions for Henry Olson, you can call us Democrats at 202-748-8000.
		For Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Before we get to callers, I want to talk to you about another area where there seems to be an increasing fracture between Republicans and the White House in a way that many did not expect, which is on health care.
		You know, on Thursday, 17 House Republicans voted for a measure which would provide a three-year extension to the Enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that were originally passed, obviously, in response to COVID-19.
		That bill passed 230 to 196.
		It seems a bad look, not just for the White House, but also for Speaker Johnson.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		It does.
		But again, you have the old dictum, all politics is local.
		The fact is, of those 17, 15 of them were in among the most threatened districts that Republicans hold going into the midterms.
		They were voting their districts.
		They were voting their political interest.
		That's a classic American political tactic.
		And we should not be surprised when they do that, especially when they know that the bill is DOA in the Senate because of the filibuster.
		They could cast the vote that helps them in the district, knowing that something else would come out of the Senate that would be more palatable to the president.
		And of course, that's where the game is being played right now.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You referenced the midterms, and last week, President Trump spoke before a meeting of House Republicans and discussed the prospect of another impeachment effort against him should the Democrats retake the House in the midterms.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Let's listen to his comments.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		You got to win the midterms, because if we don't win the midterms, it's just going to be, I mean, they'll find a reason to impeach me.
		I'll get impeached.
		We don't impeach them.
		You know why?
		Because they're meaner than we are.
		We should have impeached Joe Biden for 100 different things.
		They are mean and smart.
		But fortunately for you, they have horrible policy.
		They can be smart as can be.
		But when they want open borders, when they want, as I said, men and women sports, when they want transgender for everyone, bring your kids in.
		We're going to change the sex of your child.
		Just send them our way.
		In some cases, like in Minnesota, they don't even tell the parents.
		Is that right?
		And nobody believes it when I say, I think we have six states.
		Nobody, am I correct?
		Okay, Tom Emmer said yes, so, but it's true.
unidentified		Where the kid comes back, they keep the kid.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		They operate on the kid.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		They don't tell the parents.
unidentified		It's not believable.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		We have great, solid common sense policy.
		They have horrendous policy.
		What they do is they stick together.
		They never have a no vote.
		They impeached me.
		I never knew I was going to be impeached.
unidentified		I get a phone call.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		You just got impeached.
		I said, what does that mean?
		It took them 10 minutes.
		They impeached the president who did a damn good job.
		I rebuilt our military, Space Force.
		I got everything.
		I did a lot.
		They impeached me for nothing, twice, for nothing.
		Fortunately, you were on our side, and we were unanimous.
		And the second time, the few people in this little group, like Rice and this, they're all gone.
		Every one of them is gone, except one that we're going to sort of let ride with.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		The President covered a lot of ground there, but taking it back to the issue of the midterms, given everything that's happened in regards to ICE, in regards to health care, in regards to Trump's military actions and how different members of Congress are responding, what do you think are the GOP prospects for the midterms right now?
President's Job Approval Matters 00:02:05
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Well, historically, you have to say they'll lose the House.
		And the reason why is you're going back into the late 19th century is there's like three midterms or four midterms where the power party of the president lost four seats or fewer.
		So historically, you have to say that Republicans are going to lose the House.
		The Senate, the map is very good for Republicans.
		It's highly unlikely they would lose the Senate, even where things stand now, where President Trump's job approval is around 44 or 45 percent.
		They might lose a seat or two, but they'll keep control of the Senate.
		The key figure to look at in assessing the midterms is the presidential job approval rating is that people who approve of the president are 90 to 95 percent likely to vote for the president's party.
		If he can get his job approval rating up to 46 or 47, then the Republicans might have a fighting chance to hold the House.
		If it goes back much further from where it is, then I think you're talking about significant losses and you're talking about the possible loss of the Senate or requiring JD Vance to literally camp out there and cast the deciding vote every day.
		Right now, these things are not hurting the president.
		That immigration is his strongest job approval subpart.
		People approve of his immigration policy, even with everything.
		We'll see if what happened in Minnesota changes that.
		But so far, even the protests in Los Angeles and the calling of the National Guard did not disturb his rating on immigration.
		Americans want the law enforcement.
		We'll see whether these other things drop his approval rating when polls start coming out.
Suspect Long-Term Strategy 00:11:30
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's get to calls.
		Scott is in Hutchinson, Kansas on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Scott.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you so much for taking my call.
		And I appreciate the insights of your guests this morning.
		I consider myself a pretty moderate Democrat, not really looking through a prism of hard left or hard right.
		And the shooting in Minnesota, the video, and then hearing what the rules were for what the ICE people are supposed to do, there was a violation of the policies, and this woman was killed.
		And I think back during the Obama administration, the amount of people that were deported were even a greater number than today.
		And the ICE people wore windbreakers, and they didn't wear masks, and they didn't go into armed in an armed way.
		That is kind of disrupting society.
		So my question about what can be done to bring a fair trial and do you think that they're actively trying to aggravate people to create civil disharmony?
		And I'd appreciate what the guest has to say about that.
		Thank you so much for taking my call.
		Those are some great questions.
		I think that with respect to a fair trial, you may need to move the trial outside of Minneapolis.
		I would expect that there will be very difficult to find an untainted jury pool in Minneapolis.
		With respect to what the president's actions and his subordinates' actions are, understand that what they're trying to do is something dramatically more expansive than what President Obama was trying to do.
		President Obama was trying to remove some illegal aliens, and he did do so, but he never made an attempt to remove the entire illegal population.
		That is the goal of the Trump administration.
		It requires a much more expansive and direct approach.
		I would prefer if the President and Congress authorized mandatory use of e-Verify so that employers would be held liable if they hire people who are not legally here in the United States.
		I think that would be a dramatic, nonviolent way of persuading people to go home.
		If they can't get jobs, they can't stay here practically.
		I think that's something that would particularly increase the numbers of people leaving, which is what the president wants, and decrease the need to have the sort of fraught, targeted actions that unfortunately led to the killing in Minnesota.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		John is in West Island, New York, on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Hello?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Yes, go ahead.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You're on with Henry Olson.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
		Thank you very much for letting me speak with you guys.
		what's your question uh well i just made kind of made a statement that you know that all these states are sanctuary cities and states and they don't want to allow what if they just said you know if you want to be a sanctuary city or a sanctuary state that's okay But don't expect any money coming in from for welfare, for schooling, for anything.
		And maybe make it so that You know, we don't want to punish people, but if they decided to go back to whatever country they came from and they would have an advanced way to get back into the United States illegally after a very, very extensive questionnaire or whatever to get back into the United States.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So this is an interesting point that John raises about if a state or city wants to be a sanctuary area that they should lose funding.
		I mean, in this case, there's been this is reporting from CBS and elsewhere, over $120 million in USDA award payments to Minnesota has been suspended, according to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
		And that is tied more so to these allegations of fraud in the state.
		But there have been several administration officials who've come out and said that Minnesota should lose funding or that funding should be pulled back from some of these communities and states that oppose Trump policies.
		What are your thoughts on that?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Well, constitutionally, states cannot impede federal law enforcement, but they are not required to help them.
		And that's what a lot of these states and cities have been doing.
		But the federal government has an equal constitutional ability to withhold funding in areas where they have shared partnerships.
		And that would be the nuclear option for either the administration or the president.
		Every state is largely dependent on federal funding to run income security programs, welfare programs, certainly health programs.
		Medicaid is largely funded.
		And in the Medicaid expansion states, almost entirely funded by the federal government.
		Law enforcement, transportation, education, all of these things are either partially or wholly dependent on the federal government.
		And if the Republicans really wanted to have the nuclear option, that would be something that they could pursue.
		Of course, what that would mean is that lots of people would go without health care in these states, and they may not want to have the circumstance where poor people or disabled people are thrown out of nursing homes because of pulling back that money.
		The circumstances and the consequences of pulling that money back would be severe.
		And it may be considered by Americans to be out of proportion to what sanctuary cities or states are doing.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		There's a question from Barb in Longrove, Illinois.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What is Mr. Olson's view of the fact that with Maduro out, and this is referencing Venezuela, the regime still remains?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		I think that's a big problem for the administration.
		They think that they can have their cake and eat it too, remove Maduro and work with the people who enabled Maduro.
		I suspect that what they're going to find is that that's not something that will work, that people who have supported dictatorship and repression and socialism for all of their adult lives are not suddenly going to become loyal American clients.
		And I suspect that sometime in the next couple of months, the President is going to realize these aren't people that he can do business with.
		And then we get to the question that Senator Young advanced, which is that if you're serious about changing Venezuela, you're going to need American boots on the ground and an extended involvement in order to pacify and rebuild a shattered country.
		I think the president's going to have to come to that conclusion because I can't imagine that the socialist leopard is going to lose their spots just because their leader was removed.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Jim is in Winter Park, Florida on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Jim.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Mr. Wilson.
unidentified		I have a couple of questions.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		One, well, first of all, we're coming up on 3,500 days of Trump derangement syndrome since the day he came down the escalator.
		And that's why anything that he does, if he was to cure cancer, the Democrats would go against it.
		But I saw a gentleman on a thread the other day who made a point about the fact that when we went into Venezuela, if everybody wants to talk about it, it was about the drugs.
		It was about the oil.
		But we don't need their oil.
		What this gentleman said was, what we need is the ability to control their oil.
		Because according to him, China gets about 90% of Venezuelans' oil.
		And then they get Iranian oil.
		And we attacked Iran, too.
unidentified		And this man talked about Trump doing what is known as an endgame, a long game.
unidentified		And that's what China does.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		China doesn't look at us at things going on in this world for this week, this month, this year.
		They look at it for the next century.
		And I really believe, I wonder whether you believe that Trump is and his group of people that are in the office are literally doing exactly what China does.
unidentified		They were looking at the long game.
unidentified		We're trying to stop China from being the head of AI, from attacking Taiwan.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		If they don't have the oil and the fuel to be able to fuel their ships and fuel all their military might, and they don't have the power to be able to build AI centers, we can win this thing.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		But we need people to stop hating Trump and start thinking about the long game.
unidentified		I'd like your answer, and thank you for being on the show.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much.
		I think there's a significant amount of truth to that, is that China is dependent on Venezuelan oil, but even more so on Iranian oil.
		And they get it at cut rate prices because of the sanctions.
		So they get a lot of oil, and they get it relatively cheaply.
		You take both of those states out of the equation.
		It's not going to cripple the Chinese, but it's going to put a crimp in them.
		They're going to need to find that oil somewhere else and the places where they can find that oil, given the fact that they're already taking a lot of Russian oil, they're going to find it from places that America can directly influence, and that's not something that the Chinese want.
		I think the Trump administration does have some sort of a long-term strategy.
		Part of it is what I mentioned and that Kimberly brought up earlier is the reinsurance approach, which is we're going to keep our network of alliances, but we're going to invest in allies that are good risks, not in allies that are freeloaders.
		And we're going to build up our own military, hence the president's statement that he wants to increase the defense budget by 50%, something we've never done outside of wartime in the next budget from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion.
		And things like depriving China of cheap oil supply, like building up alternative supplies of rare earth minerals so that we're no longer dependent on China for things that we need for our modern economy.
		I do think those are elements of a long-term strategy that the president is pursuing.
		And I suspect those are things that if you turned the microphone off and took Trump's name off it, many Democrats would approve.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Amanda is in Hurt, Virginia on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Amanda.
unidentified		Good morning.
julia in kentucky ▲ ● ▼		Your guest said that we need to support our police officers when he was talking about ICE.
		ICE are not police officers.
		ICE are not local and state cops there to control local laws.
		They are federal enforcement officers that should only focus on immigration and custom laws, and they should leave the regular local enforcement to the local and state police.
Citizenship Jurisdiction Debate 00:10:59
julia in kentucky ▲ ● ▼		ICE, in fact, are ice coles, and they use deceptive, aggressive tactics, often impersonating local cops.
		And they wear intimidating garb because that is their mission, is to intimidate our citizens.
		If they had approached Ms. Good in a nonviolent way, then Ms. Good would be here today.
		Rest in peace, beautiful lady.
		Your guest is obviously a maggot supporter, and I'm sick of this.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Did you have a question for her specifically because you don't deserve to insult our guests?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Do you have a question for Mr. Olson?
julia in kentucky ▲ ● ▼		My guest is, yeah, when he supports anyone that's not more than a fourth-generation American to be appreciated or sent out of the country, that would include Stephen Miller.
unidentified		Stephen Miller is pushing all this.
unidentified		Get them all out.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I think they all have your idea.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, look.
		Sorry that the lady has a misimpression of what I said or what I believe.
		Obviously, ICE is not local law enforcement.
		They do operate locally because they have to operate locally in order to enforce federal laws.
		You know, with respect to American citizenship, I'm a fourth-generation American.
		I think anyone who becomes a citizen is automatically an American citizen and should remain an American citizen absent an act of armed insurrection or rejection of their own American citizenship.
		We are a nation of immigrants.
		We always have been a nation of immigrants.
		And we should support lawful, legal, and fair immigration.
		What we're talking about with ICE is people who came here illegally and have no legal status, and they are not here legally, and it's a violation of the law to turn the other eye, and we should not turn the other eye.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of the president's efforts to undo birthright citizenship?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		I think that birthright citizenship is a very difficult legal question when you actually look at it.
		I certainly do not think that anyone who has already received citizenship because of birthright citizenship should have it removed.
		If the Supreme Court agrees with the President's desire to end it, it should be done prospectively and not retrospectively.
		People who came under the existing law should maintain their citizenship, and no effort should be supported or countenanced that would undo that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		But do you have an opinion on whether or not it should be changed?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		The question turns legally on the interpretation of under the jurisdiction thereof, because that's what the 14th Amendment Says that anyone who's here under the jurisdiction of the United States is an American citizen.
		And I've read good arguments on one side or the other as to what that means.
		I actually haven't formed my own opinion on that precisely because it's a close question.
		Is that what they're talking about is does under the jurisdiction thereof only exclude foreign diplomats or people who are here but are really here doing official business for the other nation, or does it mean people who are here legally under an immigration statute of the United States?
		The test case of in the 1890s that a Supreme Court precedent in favor of birthright citizenship, which is Wang Arc versus the United States, dealt with a Chinese immigrant who was here legally.
		I think legal immigrants, it's clear they're here under the jurisdiction of the United States.
		Illegal immigrants, it's a tough question for me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Kevin is in New Orleans, Louisiana, on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Kevin.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Thank you for taking my call.
unidentified		I was wondering if your guests, Mr. Olson, could speak to the policy or philosophy of accelerationism or accelerationist policy as expounded by Nick Land and supported by the Silicon Valley tech pros that President Trump has embraced.
		And this speaks to the developments of artificial intelligence and the necessity of maintaining superior defense in this country so that we can have whatever remains of democracy, because you won't have that if China or Russia proved superior in weaponry with hypersonic missiles, which we would be using Greenland to defend against,
		or using oil from Venezuela to fund the encroachment of communism in South America and our hemisphere.
		And I think this accelerationist policy is more of a necessity of a short-term war than a long-term thinking.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So, Kevin, I'm going to pause you for just a moment because your description of accelerationism is slightly different than what I'm seeing because several outlets actually refer to this idea as a white supremacist ideology, that the existing state of society is irreparable and that the only solution is the destruction or collapse of the system.
		Obviously, based on what you said, Kevin, you have a different interpretation of that.
		Mr. Olson, have you heard of this concept?
		Are you familiar with that?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		No, I was going to say I'm not familiar with accelerationism, so it's not something that I want to comment on.
		I don't like to comment on things that I'm unfamiliar with.
		The question of AI development in Order to ensure our freedom and independence is something, you know, it's clear that we cannot allow our adversaries a edge and a technology that could lead to our destruction.
		On the other hand, AI obviously also has difficulties and moral questions that should be considered while we're pursuing our own security.
		And I confess to not knowing enough about the technology to have a deep understanding of what's at stake, but I do think that you should not move so quickly as to disregard the possibilities of autonomous, genuine intelligence that moves faster and through networks that would be very difficult for human beings to control.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Barbara is in North Carolina on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Barbara.
barbara in north carolina ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
barbara in north carolina ▲ ● ▼		Am I on to speak now?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Yes, you are with Henry Olson.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
barbara in north carolina ▲ ● ▼		Thank you for this guest this morning.
		I think he's very well informed.
		My questions pertain to his comment about the Trump administration's efforts to reinsure our economy.
		And my question would pertain to China's Belt and Road project, which is so extensive that it does threaten our very economic substance.
		It is one of the largest distribution footprints on the face of the earth.
		And I don't believe Americans are cognizant of the efforts that Trump is making to fortify our economy.
		And when I see how we have fallen behind, and I particularly appreciate the term that your speaker used, the backstop, I'm not a Horton graduate, but I can recognize that this speaker is very well versed in his international finance and policies.
		So I wish our population could appreciate that Trump is in what I would classify as a catch-up period that is just tremendous.
		And I'm very grateful that he has the kind of energy, foresight, and intelligence to do what he's doing.
		My other question would also be: what would the speaker believe Trump might do to address what I see as a real fallacy in this country that's developed that people believe that they can be innocuous when they and harmless or nice when they confront or when they are in the presence of law enforcement?
		And this has become so pervasive, and it's such a tragedy about the loss of life of the lady in Minnesota.
		But you could, I perceive that this lady felt that she could be friendly and oppositional.
		And yet, with law enforcement, when you do face their objectives, I can't imagine that you wouldn't understand that you yield and you are very obsequious to that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Barbara, you've raised several points.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I want to let Henry Olson respond.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		With respect to that.
unidentified		Thank you.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much, ma'am.
		I appreciate this.
		The latter question: citizens should not get in the way of law enforcement trying to do their jobs.
		You're just taking risks.
		You know, if you were somebody who objected to drug laws and you ran into DEA agents who were trying to arrest people while in pursuit of traffickers of drugs, you would understand that you are taking a risk that somebody who is heavily armed pursuing people who are heavily armed, you might be caught in the crossfire.
		And when you see pictures of people throwing themselves on the hoods of ICE vehicles to stop them, where you've got this woman who, again, tragically was murdered.
		I'm not saying that the ICE agent did the right thing, but the fact is when you're obstructing ICE agents and there's an ICE agent in front of you and you hit the accelerator, that's a bad decision.
		You shouldn't put yourself in a position where bad decisions can result in tragedy.
		With respect to the long-term confrontation of China, I do think that there is a quiet, unarticulated strategy behind the containment of Chinese power.
Legislative Branch Blues 00:04:39
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		And part of that is military, part of that is building up the allies, and part of that is economic.
		And I think it was something that was started under President Biden, but it's been dramatically sped up and expanded under President Trump.
		And I think she is still figuring out how comprehensive this is and trying to figure out how to respond.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Next up is Steve in Freeland, Maryland on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Steve.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Mr. Olson.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		I think 95% of our problems come from the legislative branch, the Boat Roads Initiative.
		I think we're just being outworked, outplayed, and outpaced.
		And the legislative branch, they had earlier about executive orders.
		Well, every president does it now, and that's how we do business.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		The worst part about that is we don't make it a law, and so things are just going to go right back to where they were.
unidentified		I'll give you an example.
unidentified		I think if we get another Democratic president, like a Gavin Newsome or Les Moore, I think we'll be right back to open borders.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		I think when it comes to the budget, nobody even spoke about this, the budget this year.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		Once again, we didn't pass a budget that will be 29 years of no budget.
unidentified		We have insider trading spill taking place.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		I think our legislative branch is just a useless body.
unidentified		I'd love to get your thoughts on the legislative branch, their inability to do their jobs each and every year, which lead us to all these difficulty problems in our society because they're not doing their jobs.
unidentified		Love to get your thoughts on the legislative branch and how inept they truly are.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		I think the legislative branch has dramatically underperformed over the last 20 to 30 years.
		I think some of that is attributed to the incentives that they face now, which is politicians act in self-interested ways, and when they can get notoriety, less by legislating and more by pontificating to niche audiences, they will be tempted not to do their jobs and instead to do media hits.
		But I think we really have to look at the elephant in the room or the donkey in the room, and that is the partisan filibuster.
		The partisan filibuster effectively means that, and by the partisan filibuster, I mean using the filibuster as a partisan objective to obstruct anything the other party wants to do with the majority.
		That was not the way this country operated for the first nearly 200 years of its existence.
		The filibuster did not exist until the early 20th century, so a minority could not stop a majority in the Senate.
		Its use for partisan reasons did not become a major element of policy until the oughts.
		This is a new development, and it makes a legislative process impossible to operate, especially in polarized times, because when 41 senators can object and stop a platform of people who have 53, 55, 57 votes in the Senate, what it means is the only thing they can get through are things of the least common denominator.
		And that's not the problems this country needs to solve.
		We have majorities.
		Democrats had majorities under President Biden.
		They should have been able to enact their policies.
		Republicans have majorities now.
		They should be able to enact their policies.
		You remove the partisan use of the filibuster.
		Suddenly Congress can act in ways that are consistent with the wishes of the people who elect them.
		And I think if you removed that, you would see Congress actually step, perhaps not to the ideal, there'll still be the temptations, but you give them the ability to act, and I think they would act.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Jeff is in Benton, Arkansas on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Jeff.
unidentified		Yeah, I was wondering, where do you think President Trump and ICE has done with our local law enforcement, state law enforcement?
Going Back to the 60s 00:03:41
unidentified		They spent so much time trying to rebuild trust with the public.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		And it seems like we're going back to the 60s with this.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		And, you know, I don't know, it's just abuse of power.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What do you mean by going back to the 60s, Jeff?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What else do you mean?
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		Well, I was born in 68, so all he saw was whenever the Vietnam War, civil rights movements, protesting, and just the way that the police treated the minorities, especially the African black people.
		You know, and it just seems like the trust that we have going on now, because, you know, local law enforcements across the United States have done their best to clean up and get rid of the bad apples.
		And so I'm just wondering, like, what do you think that ICE is doing?
		Are they helping?
unidentified		Are we going back to the 60s?
unidentified		You know, I don't know.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		I just see like everything.
		There's been money spent for public relations and whatnot.
		So I'm just wondering, you know, what do you think?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Let's let him respond.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, sir.
		I don't think we're going back to the 60s, but I am troubled by things that I see.
		Again, you never know what is being presented via the media, how representative that is.
		But I think what's clear is that ICE agents are regularly put in positions where they are conducting operations that have the possibility of tragedy.
		And that's not necessarily the wisest course.
		It's particularly not the wisest course if you don't have extremely well-trained individuals.
		I, again, would prefer to see an administration that passes things like dramatically higher taxes on remittances.
		We have a 1% tax on remittance.
		What happens if we have a 15% tax?
		People who are here illegally for the purpose of sending money home to their families may not find that they can do that anymore.
		They may decide to leave.
		If the objection, if the objective is to have people who are here illegally no longer be resident in the United States, then you have to take a look at the beating heart of that system.
		And the beating heart of that system is employment in the United States.
		There is no amount of ICE agents that can systematically remove people who are here illegally as effectively as cutting off the supply of money and jobs to people who legally cannot work here, but do so anyway, because we do not have a law system.
		We do not have laws that require employers to verify the legal status.
		They're only required to take papers and pass them along.
		And if they look legal, they are absolved of responsibility.
		They never have to check if those papers are legitimate, whether those Social Security numbers they're presented are fake or not.
		We should put those burden on employers.
		We should cut the economic lifeline that keeps people who are here illegally afloat.
		And I think we would see a lot more people leave for a lot less social and physical confrontation.
Syria Strikes Update 00:07:05
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you so much.
		Henry Olson is the senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and also the host of the podcast Beyond the Polls.
		Thanks again for your time and expertise.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you for having me, Kimberly.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Coming up later on Washington Journal, we'll be joined by Democratic donor and venture capitalist Oliver Libby to discuss his book, Strong Floor, No Ceiling, Building a New Foundation for the American Dream.
		But up next, we'll take more of your calls and comments in our open forum.
		Our phone line again for Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		For Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
		You can start calling in now, and we'll be right back.
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		He discusses the role that he played, especially in managing the day-to-day operations, presidential transitions, and major events at the White House.
		I received a call directly from Mrs. Ford and she said, Gary, would you go up and make sure that Jack is up?
		I know he had calls put to him earlier.
		And so I did that twice.
		And both times I was told, yeah, I'm getting ready.
		I'll be ready by the time I'm supposed to be ready.
		That's kind of a tricky role, isn't it?
		Waking up the president's son?
		No, not when the president and the first lady said, get him off.
		That was an easy decision for me.
		Gary Walters with his book, White House Memories, 1970 to 2007.
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		I've watched C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased.
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		You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions.
		Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark.
		On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		After 15 books on revolutionary America, John Ferling still has more to say about the early period in the life of the United States.
		Ferling is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of West Georgia.
		In the preface of his current book, Shots Heard Round the World, Professor Ferling opens with this, quote, Now that America will be commemorating the 250th anniversary of its War of Independence, what pops into your mind as you hear or witness references to that conflict?
		Professor Ferling gives his answer in a 500-page book focusing on America, Britain, and Europe in the Revolutionary War era.
unidentified		A new interview with author John Ferling about his book, Shots Heard Round the World, America, Britain, and Europe in the Revolutionary War.
		BookNotes Plus with our host Brian Lamb is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
		Washington Journal continues.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We're in open forum, ready to take your calls with comments about public policy issues of the day.
		Our phone lines again, for Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		For Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Some other news that we are following today include recent strikes in Syria by the United States.
		Here's coverage of that in the Associated Press.
		U.S. launches new retaliatory strikes against IS in Syria after deadly ambush.
		The U.S. has launched another round of retaliatory strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria following last month's ambush that killed two U.S. soldiers and one American civilian interpreter in the country.
		The large-scale strikes conducted by the U.S. alongside partner forces occurred around 12.30 p.m. Eastern on Saturday.
		According to the U.S. Central Command, the strikes hit multiple IS targets across Syria.
		The Jordanian military later announced it had taken part in the strikes.
		Saturday strikes are part of a broader operation that is part of President Donald Trump's response to the deadly IS attack that killed Sergeant Edgar Brian Torres Tovar, Sergeant William Nathaniel Howard, and Ayad Mansoor Sakat, the civilian interpreter in Palmyra last month.
		That's just one of the many stories happening this weekend that we have been following here.
		But let's get to your calls in open form.
		We'll start with Steve in North Charton in North Charleston, South Carolina on our line for Republicans.
Sanctuary Cities Controversy 00:05:13
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Steve.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		I'd like to revisit the sanctuary city problems if you don't mind, just briefly.
		Here's a problem.
		Here's a big problem for large, medium to large cities all over the country.
		I live in, well, I'm not from North Charleston, although my zip code pulled that up.
		I'm in a bedroom community next door.
		So I live near North Charleston in Charleston.
		Several years ago, the mayor of North Charleston was on a talk radio show, and somebody called and said, is North Charleston a sanctuary city?
		He says, no, he said, I don't proclaim it to be a sanctuary city.
		He said, what you have to understand is some cities are kind of sanctuary cities by default.
		He said, the illegals know that we don't have the resources, the local resources and police to keep up with immigration.
		He said, that's a federal function.
		And at that time, I think he said there are like six agents to handle all of this part of South Huntington.
		He says, now we will work jointly with them.
		He said, but the illegals know, we just don't have enough people to handle our own business, much less federal functions.
		So people kind of congregate there.
		And it's just the way it is.
		They're smart.
		And they know.
		And another big problem with that is that a lot of the illegals, in fact, most of them, are part of the underground economy.
		What I mean is they live in a cash world, which means they aren't contributing by paying federal and state income tax.
		Now, a big problem with living in that cash world is the local bad guys.
		They know these guys are just rich with cash all the time, so they will rob them.
		Well, guess what?
		They're not going to call the police because they know that if they call the police, they're going to realize that, hey, they come to my house, they're going to find out I'm an illegal, and I might possibly get deported.
		So, see, it contributes in so many ways, in negative ways.
		It contributes to crime.
		They're not contributing with state and local income tax.
		It's just a big mess across the board.
		So, it is a federal function for sure with local help if needed.
		But it's just not enough people to keep up with it at all.
		It's just the way it is.
		Can I say a word about the drug boats they've been shooting?
unidentified		About what?
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		The drug trafficking boats they've been shooting.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		Can I say a word about that?
unidentified		Go ahead.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I worked with the federal contractor for several years, and I worked with two former naval officers who used to be part of the Joint Interagency Task Force South down in Key West.
		And their function was to intercept drug trafficking boats.
		This was an interagency unit made up of DHS, FBI, DEA, Coast Guard, whatever, several, and they would try to intersect what they call GoFast, these big Roshan racing boats with three or four outboards on the back.
		But what they discovered long ago, and this is something that disturbs me about what has been going on with the drug boats.
		These people discovered long ago that the drug crews, boat crews are not always willing participants.
		The cartels hold their families hostage and tell them, they say, as long as you don't give up and you don't throw up your hands, we will always take care of your families.
		If you do, well, I don't even know where to go from there.
		So what they would do, they actually, and I've seen videos of this, some of the crew members would strap themselves across the top of the outboards because they knew that they just wanted to disable the boats and not kill the people because they knew they weren't willing participants.
		So that's a big mess.
		And I, you know, and I'm not sure if I like the way that's being handled.
		Sure, I want the drugs out of the outgoing.
		I want that boat stop.
		But again, I think the government knows all these people aren't willing participants, and that's troubling.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Let's go to Gene in Batvia, Illinois, Batavia, Illinois, on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Gene.
barbara in north carolina ▲ ● ▼		The question is, as long as everybody hates immigrants so much, is why are they coming here in the first place?
barbara in north carolina ▲ ● ▼		And the good portion of the reason why they're coming here is for jobs and because their own countries have been destituted by the United States of America for the last 200 years.
unidentified		We've sucked everything out of their country.
barbara in north carolina ▲ ● ▼		We get fresh fruits and vegetables, potatoes, everything under the sun we want out of Central and South America.
barbara in north carolina ▲ ● ▼		We benefit for the last 200 years, and they live like paupers.
unidentified		Why aren't we helping these countries in Central and South America to bring up their standard of living and be able to support their own populations?
barbara in north carolina ▲ ● ▼		We should have been doing this long ago, but all the white boys in the country want to make sure that the black and brown people stay out.
barbara in north carolina ▲ ● ▼		And all they do is go on and on about the immigrants.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Next up is Kurt in Morgantown, North Carolina on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Kurt.
Draft Dodger Debunked 00:07:30
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'd like to talk about Venezuela and all the distractions.
		The boats distraction, the oil distraction.
		It's all about the gold.
		You looked at the White House and it's all about the gold.
		Amen.
willie nelson ▲ ● ▼		Have a good time, America.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Next up is Everett in Colorado on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Everett.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		I'd like to talk about the draft during the Vietnam War.
		And I'd like to say, because there's so many people out there who believe that the president is a draft dodger, I'd like to make it real simple.
		In the Vietnam War, the draft started for the year 1970 and 1969.
		The draft numbers went up the first year to 190, and it affected people that were born from 1950 to 19 that date, basically, when they started the draft.
		And all you need to do is type in on your search engine, if there's people that believe this out there, selective service chart.
		And you take the date of their birth, or anybody's birth, and you can go down to the number for each of the years to each of the numbers to 1993 or 1973.
		And you can determine whose number is which number that they were drafted by, or if they had a deferment.
		It's simple.
		It's simple history.
		And the president was not eligible during that time.
		Neither was President Biden because he was born in 1942, November 20th.
		And President Bush was born June 14th, 1946.
		So I'd encourage people to do that and straighten this accusation out and get to the truth of it.
		And that's the truth.
		He was not a draft Dodger.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Richard is in Tyler, Texas, on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Richard.
unidentified		Oh, good morning.
		I have a couple of questions.
		As far as the ICE that happened, that lady that lost her life that day, I watched the videos also with other people.
		I have one question.
		The man or the ICE agent that shot that lady, And y'all can look at that video again.
		He had no regards about anybody's safety, especially the other ICE agents that were next to that car when he fired.
		No warning saying stop or I will shoot.
		Never, ever.
		Nobody said anything.
		And when he shot, there were two ICE agents right there.
		They could have been hit.
		So, yes, he did.
		He put them in jeopardy.
		Like I said, people, y'all need to go up.
		Donald Trump has lied to the American people, to the Republicans.
		That lady that died and the cops that were died that day on January 6th, they were willing to kill their fellow Americans over a lie.
		I would like somebody to explain to me: if Donald Trump has the proof that this election was stolen, where's the proof?
		I have not heard anything about the proof.
		No evidence, no proof, nothing.
		Why?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, next up is Bronson in Pueblo, Colorado on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Bronson.
unidentified		Good morning, America.
		My name is Bronson.
		I'm a disabled veteran, served during the Vietnam War, born in Mexico.
		And during the Vietnam War, 50,000 plus Americans were draft Dodgers.
		Over 50,000 draft dodgers that President Carter later pardoned.
		What does that tell you?
		It tells you that nobody likes wars.
		And if Donald Trump was a little bit smarter in the let and no, I'm talking no, I want to address myself to the legislators.
		They should pass a law to allow some of these undocumented to join the military.
		Because when a real war erupts, when a large war erupts, we're going to need these people.
		I think that some of these undocumented should be screened, of course, and allow them to join the military on a non-combat service, non-combat.
		You know, I was a mechanic in Fort Carson, Colorado.
		I traveled to Oklahoma for training.
		When I was in Oklahoma, a doctor called me.
		He says, Doctor, you know, you got problems with your feet.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So, Bronson, I think we have your idea about the idea of undocumented folks serving in the military.
		Let's go to Nancy in Florida on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Nancy.
unidentified		Good morning, Kimberly.
		I'm calling up, not necessarily with a political statement, but to take a moment and ask all of our viewers and everyone to say a prayer for the family of Dr. Janelle Green-Smith, who tragically lost her life in childbirth.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Stephen is in Quincy, Illinois on our line for independence.
Larry's Study Reveals 00:09:13
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Stephen.
unidentified		Good morning, Kimberly.
		Nice to see you again.
		You and Mimi do the best job.
		I'm a former elected state's attorney, a two-term state's attorney in Illinois.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		I was also a college professor at a major university in the law enforcement administration department where I taught and was an expert in deadly use of force by law enforcement officials.
		I have examined all of the tapes that have been available on the different television channels.
		And at the common law, the ICE agent is guilty of murder.
		According to Minnesota law, there's an argument that he's guilty of voluntary manslaughter.
		But that's not the problem.
		In communist countries where the government murders citizens, they take a two-step approach.
		First of all, they abort the truth and present falsehoods about the circumstances surrounding the death.
		Secondly, they smear the innocent murder victim.
		The Trump administration is following the communist playbook.
		Several hours after this poor girl was murdered, Trump said that she ran over officer loss, which is a falsehood.
		Several hours later, Secretary Noam stated that the woman was a domestic terrorist, which was an outrageous statement.
		And then our vice president stated the poor woman was deranged when there's no evidence to that.
		This is all an absolute disgrace in regard to how this is being handled.
		I would additionally add that Vice President Vance a few years ago was an atheist.
		He then became a Roman Catholic in order to pursue his political plans to be a U.S. Senator from Ohio and get on the Trump ticket.
unidentified		I think he should be denied communion until he presents the truth and admits he's a liar.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Next up is John in Vero Beach, Florida on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, John.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, C-STEN.
unidentified		How are you?
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		Two things.
phil in florida ▲ ● ▼		Could somebody please, Brian Lamb's favorite employee, walk down the hall, beg him to show all nine hours of the Smith deposition.
		Nobody else has done it.
		The government has effectively buried it.
		We haven't seen anything but snippets of that.
		And I know it's nine hours, but it could be broken up.
		It could be done with intelligent commentary.
		And it could be informative as hell.
		Also informative was Mr. Olson.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much.
phil in florida ▲ ● ▼		I'm almost already forgiven for his persecution of President Clinton.
		And as to the president conspired with a corrupt doctor and his father and his brother to diagnose a false condition that didn't exist in return for reduced rent in Choice New York real estate so that he wouldn't even have to register with Social Security.
		Joe Biden was a married law student with two young kids.
		Thank you for hearing me, C-SPAN.
		And you guys are great.
unidentified		Appreciate it.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		John is in Massachusetts on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, John.
unidentified		All right.
		Let me break the sorry truth about people's history.
		Your history was created by the Rockefeller family.
		And on top of that, all your presidents, with the exception of one, are all related to King John of England.
		Hillary and Trump are cousins.
		So if it's not white supremacy, colonial imperialism, this is part of a plantation of European and British colonization.
		It just continues.
		It's about resources and oil.
		You got the ones that cross-border.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Where are you getting the information about the family?
unidentified		Racism.
		That's what you're saying.
		And C-SPAN is a corporation, too.
		You're an LLC.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		It's a non-profit, but Robert is in North Carolina on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Robert.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Good morning.
		I got a couple things to say.
		First of all, I'm not a racist.
		That's first of all.
		Second of all, Mexicans don't care about nobody else no way, but the self.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		They don't interact with people.
unidentified		They sweep.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I do find a sweeping statement about that large of a group of people who is not racist.
steve in north charleston ▲ ● ▼		They don't speak English.
unidentified		Well, what I'm saying is they're not culturally nice.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Lucius is in Etwel, Alabama, on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Lucas.
		Lucius.
unidentified		Well, good morning.
		Couple questions I would like to ask about the boats, blowing up the boats.
		Okay, you never hear no one make about when the drugs get to America, who is buying it?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I'm guessing you mean American citizens are creating the market for the drugs that are coming into the country, correct, Lucius?
unidentified		Yes, that's the question I'm going to ask.
		They talk about the drugs coming in here and killing my kids.
		Now, when the drugs lawyer went his drugs in here, he had not no chicken chain money.
		This big time money.
		So who paying for the drug once you get to American to get in there to a milk and be killing your kids?
		Who paying for the drugs?
		So, and don't no one have no gun upside your kid head to take their drugs for them to kill themselves.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, next up is Larry in Southport, North Carolina, on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Larry.
unidentified		Yes, ma'am.
		I was calling Reverend's good various things.
		Angie from Mexico want to go here without the girl business.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Larry, it's a little bit challenging to understand you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I'm wondering if you can say that again, please.
unidentified		Yes, ma'am.
		A lot of these news, all of them, have a DS as cup design to my senator.
		John Hoffgun put out a research that showed that liberals, 47% women and 28% men, have mental illness.
		And there the proof is going to put.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I believe that what Larry is referencing there is a Johns Hopkins study showing the differing ways that groups deal with depression.
		And this is a study that was published in September of 2024.
		And among other things, it says a new study published in September in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice sheds light on the mental crisis gripping millions of Americans.
		And the findings suggest that depression is a bipartisan issue that affects people across party lines.
		According to the study, there is, however, a striking divide on whether people seek mental health treatment, with Republicans less likely to have access care despite reporting similar rates of depression compared to Democrats and Independents.
		Frank is in Akron, Ohio, on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Frank.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Years ago, Vice President Vance said Trump is America's Hitler.
		And now he's proving it by telling Venezuela, give me your oil or else people will get killed.
		He's telling Denmark, give me your Greenland or you will get hurt.
		That's called aggravated menacing in local law enforcement.
		Well, you go to jail for those kind of things.
		He's also, Marjorie Taylor Greene says he's obstructing justice by not releasing the Epstein files.
		They only released 1% of them.
Need to Restore Sabbath 00:06:16
unidentified		She says that there are no such things as Democrats and Republicans.
		There's only people hungry for money and power and greed.
		And we have a government of liars, not of honesty.
		And also, he told Marjorie Taylor Green that he's protecting his friends by not releasing the Epstein files.
		What friends is he protecting from jail and law enforcement?
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Jean is in Detroit on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Jean.
unidentified		Good morning.
barbara in north carolina ▲ ● ▼		I just want to say that I feel very strongly that as a nation, we have lost our way morally.
		We've elected a man that does everything that the Bible says that we should not do.
		I had said before he was elected that he was an enemy of the state as well as an enemy of the word of God.
		And he has proved me right over and over again.
unidentified		And I really think that things started changing in this country when we no longer honored the Sabbath day.
unidentified		I grew up when businesses were closed on Sunday.
barbara in north carolina ▲ ● ▼		So you went to church, you had time with your family or your friends.
unidentified		And it just seems like, you know, I tried to do a little bit of research and went online, and it says that it was in 1973 that we made the change that J.C. Penny petitioned to be able to open on Sunday because there were discount stores that were opening up.
barbara in north carolina ▲ ● ▼		And I just think that we need, first of all, to be obedient to the word of God, which is about the fourth commandment to honor the Sabbath day.
		And we need to restore for Christians this Sunday because that's when Jesus was resurrected.
		And I feel like we need to restore the Sabbath day and not go after this pursuit of money, which it seems like is the number one thing in our country.
		And we have a president who really exemplifies the love of money, which the scripture says is the root of all kinds of evil.
		And I just think we should begin to honor God, and maybe that would help us to have a moral compass and not elect a person who has no morals.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Thanks to everyone who called in during Open Forum.
		Coming up next, we will be joined by Democratic donor and venture capitalist Oliver Libby to discuss his book, Strong Floor, No Ceiling: Building a New Foundation for the American Dream.
		We'll be right back.
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		Tonight, on C-SPAN's QA, in his book, White House Memories, 1970 to 2007, Gary Walters, chief usher from 1986 to 2007, shares stories from his time in the executive residence, serving seven different U.S. presidents and their families.
		He discusses the role that he played, especially in managing the day-to-day operations, presidential transitions, and major events at the White House.
		I received a call directly from Mrs. Ford and she said, Gary, would you go up and make sure that Jack is up?
		I know he had calls put to him earlier.
		And so I did that twice.
		And both times I was told, Yeah, I'm getting ready.
		I'll be ready by the time I'm supposed to be ready.
		That's kind of a tricky role, isn't it?
		Waking up the president's son?
		No, not when the president and the first lady said, get him off.
		That was an easy decision for me.
		Gary Walters with his book, White House Memories, 1970 to 2007.
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		He joins our host, civic leader, best-selling author, and owner of the Baltimore Orioles, David Rubenstein.
		I thought writing kids' books were a good way to broach certain subjects that might have been tough when you were kids or whatever else in the backdrop of a travel team, travel baseball team, because we all worry about things as kids, and it was a way to communicate a good message through books.
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		Washington Journal continues.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We're joined now by Oliver Libby, who's the co-founder and managing partner of HL Ventures and also the author of the new book, Strong Floor, No Ceiling: Building a New Foundation for the American Dream.
Work Hard, Play Fair 00:15:16
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome to Washington Journal.
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		Thanks so much for having me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Can you talk a little bit first about your background in business as well as civic engagement?
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		Well, thanks so much for having me here.
		I have spent my life kind of between all the sectors.
		At the very beginning of my career, I actually started in the federal government, and then I went from there to consulting, learning about business.
		worked with a number of my very close friends to start a nonprofit that helps college students around the world start social responsible businesses across America and around the world.
		And then, yes, I started a co-founded a venture firm that's focused on companies that are both really great businesses, but that also help people on the planet called HL Venture has been at that for now close to a decade and a half, a little over that.
		And so blending all those sectors together is what actually gave me a lot of the kind of perspective to start thinking about strong floor and no ceiling and what that means.
		that might mean for our country.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So what do you mean by that?
		Strong floor, no ceiling?
		What does that title mean?
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		So you know, for me, when I think about the things that are a real danger to our country, we all grow up, whether we're born here or we came here learning about the American dream, and I think you and I both know that that dream is something that hasn't worked for a lot of Americans for a long time and actually something like a quarter of Americans believe today, like it is real, and that to me, more than any external threat or anything, is a danger to our country, because people need to believe that if they work hard, they play by the rules,
		that they can get ahead and leave their kids and their families better off than them.
		And I started to think to myself eight years ago, what would the ingredients of that be?
		And no one party, no one group of people or thinkers has the answer to that, but I thought that one of the key ingredients is a strong floor.
		A strong floor has the planks that would help build opportunity for folks.
		It's education, it's healthcare, it's housing and jobs and justice and access to opportunity the things you'd stand on to reach into the middle class, to reach higher than the middle class if you can.
		But a fundamentally American idea is that it shouldn't stop there, that if you do work hard, you play by the rules, you do great things.
		That there should be no ceiling to what you can achieve in this country as long as you play by those rules, and that you're supporting a system that has that strong floor.
		And and in fact Himberly that those ideas are not contradictory, that they are related, that we can only afford the strong floor if we have no ceiling for our people, and that is one of the most fundamentally American ideas I can think of this concept.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Strong floor, no ceiling has been picked up by quite a few Democrats and most famously, Hakeem Jeffries has been citing this idea quite a bit.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Can you talk a little bit about your relationship with Democratic leaders as well as your own political ideology?
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so thank you for asking.
		I myself have been a Democrat my whole life.
		I've worked as a volunteer on Democratic campaigns.
		I've also given, but actually unusually perhaps, i've also worked for Republicans and with Republicans.
		My time at the beginning of my career in the government was during a Republican administration and I count among my friends people on both sides of the aisle.
		It's actually one of the reasons why I think this idea came to me in the way that it did.
		I mean, it's just my lived experience to want to take the best ideas from both sides and and actually one of the interesting things about strong floor and no ceiling for those who do read it is the ideas in it aren't just the boring middle and they're not just from the left or from the right.
		The idea, if we want to solve tough problems in our country now is a first admission that neither side has all the answers and that neither side has led us particularly effectively over the last 50 years.
		I mean we, we have that breach of faith with the American dream, Not because one side has been right and the other side wrong.
		Now, I think what you'll find in the strong floor is a lot of the policies that you'd recognize as democratic policies.
		But some of the overlays in the no-ceiling are things that would normally be thought of as conservative.
		And I think the concert between those things is where we can find good quality answers to reignite the American dream for people.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Can you talk a little bit more about that concert between the two?
		Because we are in an era of extreme economic inequality, growing economic inequality.
		So while I imagine you can find a lot of folks, especially on the left, agreeing with you that there needs to be this strong floor, the idea of no ceiling, unlimited wealth in some people's minds, might be an anathema to folks.
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		Look, first of all, you're right.
		We are in the era where affordability is on everybody's mind, and rightfully so.
		And actually, people are angry, and rightfully so.
		I said it just before, and I'll say it again: for a long time, our institutions have been failing our people, and that is something that all of our leaders ought to own.
		But at the end of the day, it's not just enough to say that there should be limits arbitrarily, right?
		And I think everybody in America wants to believe that if they do the right thing and work hard, that there should be no ceiling to what they can do.
		And by the way, I want to emphasize: no ceiling should not mean no rules, right?
		And we have laws, and we want to enforce the tax code, which we do a poor job of.
		And we ought to have a real national conversation about what the tax rates are, particularly for people who are amassing wealth, that is unlike most of what we've seen in history before.
		But at the end of the day, I would ask back the question: like, what is the maximum amount of wealth?
		Why should we be thinking about a cap?
		And if people are upset, as they rightfully should be, about people, for example, dumping huge amounts of money into politics, I think that's a problem we ought to solve as a country.
		There should not be the opportunity for a almost trillionaire to put a quarter billion dollars into a campaign cycle.
		But as you and I both know, that's not illegal yet.
		And so if we believe that should be one of the rules, we should make it one of the rules.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		As I mentioned earlier, your idea has gotten quite a bit of traction amongst Democrats.
		And Hakeem Jeffries cited your book and its title as sort of this democratic counter almost to some of the messaging that's been targeted at Democrats, this idea of socialism that the Republicans are trying to pin on Democrats.
		Some have even talked about this concept as a counter to the Make America Great Again slogan.
		What do you think of that?
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		Look, I think that America has long had at really important parts of our history a plan.
		And we kind of know the names of those plans, right?
		There's the Great Society, the New Deal, being the arsenal of democracy.
		Some of those plans worked out better than others, but we kind of knew what we were getting out of bed to do as a country.
		And today, we don't have that.
		I mean, a solid minority of the country believes in MAGA, but that is not a broadly popular view that is unifying America right now, I think it's fair to say.
		And so I believe we should be in search of that.
		I think strong floor and no ceiling could be that.
		If it's not, I welcome other great ideas.
		But I want something where no matter at what dinner table, what Thanksgiving party you're at, where if you said, hey, we should have a strong floor and no ceiling for our people, that's a way to breathe new life into the American dream, that that would be welcomed and something that would inspire people.
		And actually, out there talking to folks about this, especially folks who aren't on either fringe, it is amazing to the extent that people find this an inspiring message.
		And I think that's something we should want as a country.
		We should want to rededicate ourselves to an idea we can all get behind and work on, because we have real problems here.
		I mean, it is the affordability crisis, some of the big national challenges we have.
		These require us to be together as a nation in a way that you're right, we fundamentally are not right now.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk about the specifics of some of the planks that you're talking about in this strong floor, specifically when it comes to health care.
		You're right.
		Why do people say that your zip code is as important as your genetic code in health care?
		What do you think we should do differently there?
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		An enormous amount.
		I'm so glad you started with healthcare, Kimberly.
		Healthcare is both the most expensive thing we do in this country.
		It's between 17 and 20 cents of every dollar in the American economy.
		And I don't know about you, but I don't think we are getting our money's worth.
		And we certainly are not for everyday Americans.
		You know, if you happen to have wealth and you live near a major teaching hospital and you can call a couple of the board members and get that private room, you know, then you have access to the best health care in the world.
		For everybody else, it's a crapshoot.
		And that is something that is totally unacceptable.
		So what could we do about that?
		Well, let's use strong floor no-ceiling as a rubric.
		First of all, I think it's long time overdue that we have a single-payer health care system in America.
		It's something that works in virtually every other industrialized country.
		My family are doctors and scientists.
		I grew up around that.
		I worked the front desk at my mom's ultrasound office and I took insurance.
		And I wondered why it was that people paid wildly different sums and some of them couldn't pay.
		And it was just chaos.
		And even that early in my life, I was probably 14 or 15 when I was doing that, I thought to myself, this is broken.
		But on the flip side, we ought to also analyze what's wrong with parts of our system.
		We take care of people mostly when they are the sickest.
		We have, I think it's been called a sick care system in America.
		And that is also the most expensive moment.
		When you come to the hospital with a heart attack, you are not only in dire trouble for you and your family and your earning potential and your access to the American dream, you're also expensive.
		And so we ought to provide, for example, a tax credit for folks seeing their doctor every year, a preventative tax care program for America, a preventative health care program, I should say, for America that would help us control the costs of that single-payer system and make healthcare more affordable as an industry.
		And last but not least, we have to make sure that we maintain our leadership in biotechnology.
		And yes, that does mean a partnership with pharma companies to continue to innovate, but those pharma companies actually depend on government-funded science.
		If you think about GLP-1s that so many people are on, that started with research into an obscure lizard's saliva.
		I promise you, as someone who invests in startups, that was not an idea that we were backing in the private sector until it had been long proven out with peer-reviewed research.
		So that partnership between the government-funded science, universities, and the private sector, we need to want to keep them shooting at those moonshots so that we get preventative care and we can pay for health care for everybody.
		That's just one example of how we apply strong floor no-ceiling to a major national problem.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Another major national problem that you address is the issues around immigration.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		How do you think that President Trump's mass deportations, as well as the immigration policy, or sort of our lack of a cohesive immigration policy, affecting the ability to create this strong floor that you're advocating?
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		Look, I wouldn't be doing it the way that President Trump is doing it, although I believe that, let's start from first principles here.
		Immigration is one of America's greatest superpowers.
		It has been so since the beginning of our country.
		My family comes here as refugees from Nazi Germany in most cases at a time when many refugees were turned away.
		So I care a lot about immigration, and I think it's a strength for our country, a strength that we have badly messed up over the last several decades.
		And that, again, is something that is owned by both parties.
		There was a chance for bipartisan reform several times, and it failed every time.
		So what should we do?
		First of all, I don't think there's a real debate where a lot of people agree that if you commit crimes, you ought to stay in this country.
		And I think almost everybody in this country, if you ask them, believes that we should have, we should know who's in our country and what folks are up to.
		Equally, though, I think most of the people who are in this country, perhaps not legally, are just trying to make ends meet.
		They're trying to reach for something better.
		And that's something that is fundamentally American.
		So we need a moment in time where we try and reset this, where we do control our borders effectively, where there's good use of information and technology, where we give folks who are here honestly, who are paying their taxes and working in jobs, by the way, that are an enormous subsidy for our economy, give them a chance to participate legally, and also make sure that if folks are committing crimes, that they do go home, right?
		because I think that's something that's a clear bargain between our government and its people that we keep folks safe.
		And so, no, I think right now what's going on seems rushed and chaotic and probably not the right pathway, but I do think we have a duty to our country to get this real problem right.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Wilgan, we're going to be taking your questions for Oliver Libby about his new book, Strong Floor, No Ceiling.
		If you want to call in, Democrats at 202-748-8000, Republicans at 202-748-8001.
		And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
		I do want to read you, though, first, some of the pushback against your ideas and also this idea that it could be messaging for Democrats more broadly.
		Paul Waldman, who's a liberal columnist and commentator, wrote that thus the slogan Jeffries adopted, Hakeem Jeffries there, sounds like it was crafted to offend no one and communicate to the billionaire class, don't worry, we won't tax you too much, no ceiling.
		The slogan is emblematic of an approach the party's leadership always seems to take.
		They're so afraid they might offend someone, they decline to call out genuine villains.
		While they'll criticize Republican attempts to favor the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us, it often sounds like they're not that displeased with the status quo.
		They just don't want to make things worse, which of course says nothing about how they want to make things better.
		Nobody is going to proudly wear a strong floor, no ceiling hat.
		It will never be the equivalent of Donald Trump's Make America Great Again, one of the most effective slogans in American political history.
		Why does that phrase still resonate so powerfully for Trump supporters?
		Because in four words, it communicates the problem as conservatives see it.
		America isn't great anymore.
		And the solution, a revival of greatness.
		Why do you think that this idea might struggle potentially to respond to these things?
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		Any idea might struggle.
		My purpose here was to provide one, right?
		I think, you know, trying to do my best to share this idea, if it can be helpful, is what I set out to do.
		I don't know, Kimberly, if this idea is going to be on a hat or not.
		I didn't set out for it to be.
		But on the other hand, I actually believe that, again, when I talk to people, they do understand it.
		They understand it from the get-go.
		If I say in the context of America, strong floor, no ceiling, people understand that the floor is something that ought to give people a hand up and give them a chance to succeed and that we don't let people fall below it, but also they can stand on it to reach into opportunity.
		And they understand at a vista, they understand at their core that no ceiling means if you strive, that you ought to be able to achieve.
		So, you know, I don't know, first of all, one of the things in that article, actually, which I certainly read, is that there ought to be more meat on the bones of these policies.
		Well, there's 350 pages and 75,000 words of meat on the bones and strong floor, no ceiling.
		I invite anyone to read it.
		I hope everyone does.
		And I think there are really good, actionable ideas because the one thing you can't say about me is that I'm happy with the status quo.
		The whole purpose of this book is not because I felt like I needed to be an author desperately, but the fact that I think there's real problems in our society, deep problems, and in fact, that we have been incapable of handling them.
		And so we need to make an investment in our society.
		And as someone who invests for a living, an investment in a strong floor, in a society of people who aren't worried about making ends meet, who don't have only $400 in the bank to survive a challenge, who believe that if they work hard, that things might actually work for them.
		That might just give us a chance to inspire our people to great things again.
		And you know what?
The Great Society's Legacy 00:15:25
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		We've done it before in the past.
		I mean, when you hear a phrase like the Great Society, was that destined to be one of the greatest programs of national renewal in history from the outset?
		If you heard that phrase without any traction or anything, would you say that's it?
		But in fact, there's a picture of all the pens that LBJ used to sign those bills, over 100 bills into law in a decade where our leaders were being killed, where our streets were riotous, where we were in a war that most Americans hated, and yet we achieved great things.
		So I don't know if strong floor or no ceiling is it, but I'm trying to put it out there because I hope it is, because I think if we get people working hard again, we can do great things still.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Let's get to your calls.
		Delia is in Harlem, New York on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Delia.
unidentified		Oh, good morning, Kimberly, and thank you for taking my call.
		I love the name of your book, by the way.
		I just want to get that out there.
		It reminds me of First Lady Hillary Clinton when she ran in 2008 when she gave her speech, you know, running for the Democratic nomination.
		She said, you know, there was 18 million cracks in that glass ceiling for a woman to run for president.
		I don't know if you were giving a nod to that.
		I hope she runs again, but I just want to say I love the name of your book.
		The other thing is I wanted to ask, did you hear about the $2,000, and I live in Harlem, I really want to know.
		There was a $2,000 dividend check from the tariffs that President Trump said he was going to give to America.
		Yeah, I see you, Dania.
		Thank God.
		Okay.
		That he said that he was going to give to all Americans, you know, like he did in his first administration.
		The thing was, he gave the economic speech after that, I think, like a month ago, and I didn't hear him mention that.
		However, he did say that the checks, those checks, went to the soldiers for $17.76 or something like that.
		And then the other night, or was it a couple of nights ago, I heard him in it, forgive me, dear, I can't, I wasn't in on the beginning part of what that conversation was about.
		I think he was saying something about economics, and he was saying that, you know, I don't know, you know, saying that Americans were upset, you know, about the, I guess, the cost of living or whatever.
		And again, I don't want to say that, and that's not what he said.
		That's what I thought he was saying.
		And he said, I think they think they're going to, you know, they want a check or something like that.
		And I said, oh, wait a minute.
		I hope he's not pulling back, you know, on what he said, because, oh, I'm sure you know, you know, having wrote this book and talking to everyone, you know, that we, you know, we really need that check.
		I know I do.
		So, you know, I don't know.
		And again, I don't want to cast aspersions on him.
		That's not what I'm trying to do.
		I just want to know if you heard something about it.
		Could you tell us, you know, are we going to get it?
		And please give me some information on that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's let him respond.
unidentified		Sure.
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		Well, first of all, I got to shout out New York.
		Thank you for calling.
		And thanks for a great question.
		Look, I believe that there are a lot of ways in which we could help folks like you make ends meet.
		And the strong floor is all about that.
		And by the way, I would love for you to read the book.
		I think there's a lot of ideas you'll like.
		I don't have any information as to whether we're getting a tariff check from the president.
		And the president.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I'll just pause for a moment.
		The most recent information I could find is that asked about tariff.
		This is according to CNBC.
		Asked about tariff rebates this week.
		A White House official told CNBC that President Trump's tariffs are raising historic revenue for the federal government, and the administration is committed to putting that money to good use for the American people.
		The White House has also said elsewhere in this article it points out that they're planning in theory to bring something to Congress in the new year this year that would allow this to happen.
		But still in the works.
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		Kimberly, thanks for the check there.
		I think, but taking it back to basics here, right, writing a one-time check to you, while it could be really helpful, isn't investing in you.
		And if you think about the things that are in the strong floor part of my book, these are things like education, health care, certainly certain kinds of economic aid that would go a long way, not just to giving you a one-time boost, but to actually changing the circumstances of so many people in America.
		So look, again, I mean, the president did issue checks during COVID, and that was an effective policy to help us out of a really tough situation.
		I don't know whether these checks are coming from the tariffs or from healthcare, but I mean, the health care checks, for example, during the shutdown, were such an interesting thing to offer because the $2,000 or something that were being mentioned, that's a fraction of what people need to spend on health care and a fraction of what folks are going to lose if the Obamacare rebates get pulled back.
		And so I just think we need to be honest about what we're talking about.
		And look, again, strong floor, no ceiling is about oftentimes tough love for our country.
		It's about speaking truth.
		And the truth is tariffs are taxes.
		And so if we think those are necessary, fine.
		As a society, we should perhaps have them or not.
		But at the end of the day, writing you a small check as a result of it isn't changing the economic impact of the tariffs.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Bob is in Texas on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Bob.
unidentified		Yes, Oliver.
unidentified		I wanted to ask, can we have a strong floor if we ignore the only written guarantee in our first book in America, which is our Constitution?
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		No, I think the Constitution and the Strong Floor are compatible.
		I mean, the Constitution is an amazing document, and it is part of the contract that our country signs with all of us.
		I know it may seem out of touch to talk about things like the social contract, but they are important.
		We all agree in some way to be governed, and the Constitution is part of it.
		But part of that bargain is that the government does have some responsibility to us.
		And the thing that I'm interested in, Strong Floor, No Ceiling, is the responsibility that government has that I think is broadly popular to make sure that everyone doesn't have all the same things, but that everyone has enough so that we have a healthy society.
		And again, I think about this, Caller, as an investment.
		As someone who invests for a living, I think if our society is well-educated, is healthy, is consumer-oriented, wants to buy products, wants to engage civically, feels hope, not despair, if you think about the affordability crisis we're in now, that daily struggle turns into a lifetime of hopelessness.
		And if I go back to the Constitution, sir, I think the Constitution is part of a contract where we should try and keep our people from being filled with despair and instead fill them with hope, hope that they can alter their circumstances, but that the government is there in certain important ways to give them a shot to do that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Howard is in Meadow Bridge, West Virginia on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Howard.
unidentified		Yes, thank you for taking my call.
		The speaker online this morning seems to be quite informed.
		And I have a question I've had most of my life.
		And I'm an old man, very old man.
		And I've noticed that political left despises the political right.
		And the political right doesn't despise the left, but they think they're just maybe a little misguided.
		And there's quite a difference in there.
		And I've seen the left even go to extremes.
		For instance, I'll say, trying to assassinate President Trump.
		And now I'm not, I am from the right, but I, you know, I'm not a strong guy.
		I don't do crazy things.
		And I'm just wondering if you could just help me with that.
		It's Charlie Kirk attempted President Trump.
		Just what is the difference?
		And please help me with that.
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		Well, sir, thank you for the question.
		And you have seen more than I have in your life.
		I would only say I wish that that were true.
		I think both sides right now despise each other.
		And one of the things, Kimberly, you asked me this question earlier.
		One of the things that I've heard about Strong Floor and No Ceiling, this book, is that actually if politicians want to win today, they should just get angry and find a villain.
		And look, people are angry and they're angry for good reasons, sir.
		But at the end of the day, that's not enough.
		For you, for everybody in our country, we have to come up with solutions.
		We have to make government and our economy work for people again.
		And so, look, I think folks from the left, a lot of them hate folks on the right, and a lot of folks on the right hate a lot of folks on the left.
		At the end of the day, we should, and let me say this clearly, have a society where no one is getting shot for their political beliefs, not lawmakers in Minnesota, not Mr. Kirk, not the president.
		No one should lose their lives for having political views in our country.
		But at the end of the day, that's where we are today.
		And if we don't give people a reason to believe in our country again, then we will continue to go down this pathway.
		And this pathway has no solutions and no goodness at the end of it.
		So I really appreciate your question.
		I think you're getting to the heart of one of the things that makes solutions so hard in this country, which is so many of us hate each other just for what we believe.
		And one last thing that I'll share on this.
		There is a great book called The Big Sort, often confused with The Big Short.
		I recommend The Big Sort to people because it describes a sad story in our country's history, which is the fact that we have geographically chosen to live next to people who believe only the things that we believe.
		And by the way, we've done that digitally now too.
		We only live digitally with people who believe what we want to believe.
		I've spent my life living with, working with people who disagree with me.
		I think we should all try and do that more as a country.
		And I try and see the best in folks who believe different things.
		I sense you do too, sir.
		And I hope we can all do that because that's the only way out of all this.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I want to read a comment we received from X and then some data to back it up.
		MLB says, the strong floor to me is education.
		Education is the great equalizer and the more we cut education, the weaker we will become as a nation and society.
		And if you can hold that thought, there was some recent polling, and here it is reported in NBC News, that in a dramatic shift, Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost.
		The latest NBC News poll shows two-thirds of registered voters are down on the value proposition of a degree.
		A majority said degrees were worth the cost a dozen years ago.
		And in this article, Democratic pollster Jeff Horwit says, it's just remarkable to see attitudes on any issue shift this dramatically and particularly on a central tenet of the American dream, which is a college degree.
		Americans used to view a college degree as aspirational.
		It provided an opportunity for a better life.
		And now that promise is really in doubt.
		And a lot of the reason for the doubt that people have about that college degree has to do with the debt associated with it for many people.
		42.5 million borrowers have federal student loan debt.
		The average federal student loan debt is about $39,000 per borrower.
		Outstanding private student loan debt totals about $145 billion.
		The average student borrows over $30,000 to pursue a bachelor's degree.
		And it may take borrowers close to 20 years to pay off their student loans, according to the Education Data Initiative.
		So just reading MLB's comment again that the strong floor is education and education being a great equalizer in society.
		Can you talk about what you say in your book about education and what you make of all of this data?
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		First of all, I just have to say I really appreciate this program for the depth that you go into here.
		That is an incredibly great question.
		And by the way, the commentator on X is right.
		Education is one of the most important planks of the strong floor.
		There's no doubt about it.
		It's the second policy chapter in the book after healthcare because I believe if you have a healthy population, the next thing you have to do is have a well-educated population.
		And look, the comments that you read are right.
		We have actually broken the promise of higher education in this country, but it is so much more complicated.
		We need to rethink education in our country, especially in the era of AI, which is coming on like a freight train and is part of the reason why the college promise is broken now is for the first time ever, recent college grads are going jobless at crazy rates.
		And it is expensive to get that degree if you're not going to be able to do it.
		And if those entry-level jobs are now being done by AI, which sends that money instead to a handful of AI companies and not to people who have spent $100,000 plus dollars on education.
		So what does Strong Floor and O'Cealing have to say about this?
		Number one, education is a long-term investment in our society.
		If you want to run great businesses, start great businesses, have inventors and entrepreneurs, you have to have education cranking in this country.
		And that starts with pre-K.
		College is, in some cases, unless you go into graduate degrees for some few Americans, it's the end of the line of a long line.
		You've got to start with pre-K.
		You have to make sure we've got programs to take care of kids as early as that.
		And also to support their families, because people are working so many jobs that their kids are just sitting at home watching a screen.
		Unacceptable.
		We need to have a national program for pre-K education.
		Also, we have to emphasize parts of the education system that have been so fundamentally left behind as to be ruined, right?
		The community college system in America, there ought to be an option to be able to go for free.
		That is, by the way, not a giveaway, that's an investment.
		If we have more people who come out with two-year degrees and know what they're doing, especially in the age of technology, that is something that we invest in for better workers and stronger ideas come out of our country.
		Also, apprenticeships and what I call jobs of national priority.
		There ought to be programs almost like West Points or service academies for all the major jobs that matter in our economy that are so underappreciated and underpaid.
		Think about it.
		In healthcare, we are dying for rural doctors, ER doctors, nurses, home health aides.
		These are jobs where you should get tax credits, support for your education, and that there should be stronger education focus early on in life.
		So maybe not a liberal arts degree.
		Maybe you're focused on vocational education earlier.
		The same stands for the major trades in construction, for defense work.
		There are a number of jobs in the book, national priority jobs that ought to have.
		So as you can see, right, I'm brimming with ideas here.
		Education is fundamental, and we are doing a poor job of it here.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned that it starts early on with pre-K, sometimes even daycare or something like this.
		In New York, the new, newly installed New York City Mayor, Zara Mamdani, made that a big part of his platform and is already trying to change the way that they handle early childhood education there.
		What do you think of some of his policies and how that relates to the, you know, no ceiling, but the strong floor concept?
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		Well, first of all, I am a big believer whenever anyone starts a new administration to wish them the best and hope they do well.
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		There are parts of Mayor Mamdani's policies that I find really interesting.
Joan's Vision for Rome 00:08:18
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		The partnership with New York's governor, Governor Hochul, on early childhood education, I think is something that needs investment and needs support.
		I want New York to be great, and I hope that the mayor can deliver those things.
		My view of Mayor Mamdani is he's very strong on the strong floor side of things.
		I hope that he agrees that there should be no ceiling.
		I hope that he can work with, for example, the technology industry in New York, with the business community, because all the things that he wants to do, many of which would help people, are going to be costly.
		And so I think it's, again, that partnership between the strong floor and the no-ceiling, and I do hope that he looks at both of those things.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Joan is in Bridgewater, New Jersey on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Joan.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Thank you for writing this book.
		I do plan on going out and buying this book because I like the idea of the strong floor.
		And I think if anything, we need something to combat MAGA because MAGA, we know, is a divide in the country.
		So my question is that the strong floor component, in order to have a strong floor, don't you also need to have a healthy ecosystem in terms of the country?
		And how do we even get to a strong floor where we're so divided right now and there's so much chaos?
		And I feel really bad for the media because the media just seems to be so overwhelmed.
		So how do you even get a message like that across when you see, for instance, like the president and Stephen Miller, like their talking points are complete Russian propaganda.
		Can we please educate the American people more about what Russian propaganda looks like and the talking points?
		Because every time the president opens his mouth, it's all Russian propaganda talking points.
		Are Americans even clear on what that is?
		Stephen Miller got up there this week and talked about the strong man and taking things from people and this we're just going to push everything down everybody's throat.
		My question on that is, Rome was strong once.
		Are we just going to look past our history?
		All those strong countries, Rome was strong and Rome crumbled.
		Italy at one point was strong and they crumbled.
		So that is, but that's a Russian talking point.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		That's strong.
		It sounds like I want to make sure that we're capturing your ideas accurately, that you want Mr. Libby to respond to this idea of having a strong American ecosystem.
		And I'm guessing you're referencing the economy as well to build that strong floor, but also layering on to this idea of strong, you're a bit cautious about the Trump administration's interpretation of a strong America from a foreign policy perspective.
		Is that right?
		Okay.
		Don't know if we still have Joan, but go ahead, Joan.
unidentified		The idea is great, but based on the chaos that we're in right now, how do you get these great ideas across?
		How do you push through to even get a slogan like strong floor, no ceiling?
		Okay.
		Because we need that guidance.
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		Joan, this is the most important question you can ask me about the book.
		And first of all, thank you for saying you're going to grab it.
		I would look forward to hearing your thoughts on it.
		At the end of the day, I was writing it for a long time, and every time I would write one of the policy chapters, it would occur to me that I would start to think, how are we going to do this?
		How are we going to do this in America today?
		How are we going to do these hard things?
		And so I did two things.
		In chapter two of the book, you'll find three ideas or groups of ideas that I think would make it more likely for us to succeed in doing this.
		The first is some sort of a shared experience for Americans as we leave high school, because it's something that happened after World War II.
		That generation mixed itself up, did something great together, and came home.
		And we saw not only the most economically successful decades in American history, but where we advanced civil rights and we moved forward social things in the great society that were really important.
		And I think fundamentally that's because we had this shared experience.
		The second thing is we would work to help get the information ecosystem back to a place where we're not at war with reality.
		And that goes kind of to what you do for a living.
		I think the media and the free flow of good quality information is the lifeblood of democracy, and we're breaking that now.
		And we need some guardrails around social media.
		Not that it should go away, but there ought to be some level of responsibility for these platforms for some level of fact and credentials and credibility.
		Because otherwise, how are we as a society supposed to vote and make good decisions?
		And then last but not least, we do need to get into the operations of our democracy.
		Now, don't get me wrong, Joan.
		I think if people can't put food on the table, it's really hard for them to worry about money and politics and gerrymandering, but we're not going to get solutions if we don't get into those problems and solve them.
		And I think there's broad support for that.
		Let me just close on this, though.
		I worry about the same thing that you do.
		I worry we might not be able to do these great things.
		But I think the alternative is that we just don't try.
		And we have had success.
		I mentioned, you know, the great society during the 1960s that by any measure must have felt similar to what this feels like today.
		And I would add to that the New Deal, which is one of the most, we're still enjoying the infrastructure built by the New Deal at a time during the Great Depression when Nazism and fascism was growing all around the world, which must again have felt a lot like today.
		And yet we did great things because we kept trying.
		So let me share the last idea.
		We in America tend to think of this country as exceptional.
		And I would agree.
		I'm a patriot and no party has a monopoly on patriotism.
		But at the end of the day, what that means is it calls us to try.
		We have to continue to earn everything that people have given us, our American brethren over the years have given us, because this country has not always worked for everybody, and it has not always worked for every part of our society, but we have kept trying to make it better.
		So the answer to your question, Joan, is I don't know if this will all work, but I want to try.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		In the few minutes we have left, I want to take another question from X. Is our history of free market capitalism being replaced with state capitalism, where the president directs private investments and takes ownership and control over private industry?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I think this is particularly relevant because in the last week or so, we've seen the president give directions basically to the housing industry, to the defense industry, and this has happened even more in terms of how these industries should be managing their businesses.
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		Look, when we fought World War II as a society, we came out of it and we set up a global system.
		We wrote the rules.
		It's as if there was a game like Monopoly and we wrote all the rules.
		And those rules sometimes in the individual day might seem like they don't favor America, but at the end of the day, they do.
		And those rules are the rules of the free market economy with some boundaries because let's be real, the economy's not always been a perfect capitalist economy and shouldn't be, right?
		I actually believe, by the way, that there should be more legal framework for corporations in America to care about more than just shareholders.
		They should care about stakeholders as well.
		It shouldn't be just about your share price.
		And I think most CEOs would actually welcome that.
		But at the end of the day, we set up those rules and they work for us.
		It's our dollar that's the reserve currency.
		It's our norms, our way of thinking that for large parts has been the way the world is run.
		And what the president's doing right now is threatening to flip the board over.
		Now, I'm not wise enough to predict every part of the results of that, but that game has worked well for America for a long time.
		And the market economy is one of those things.
		I am someone who is a capitalist.
		I work in that economy.
		And I think that making it possible for that economy with society's health as one of its goals, allowing that to work freely, that is a goal for our country.
unidentified		All right.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, that is all of the time that we have for today.
Monday Morning Spending Discussion 00:04:08
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Thank you so much, Oliver Libby, who is the co-founder and managing partner of HL Ventures.
		Most importantly for today, the author of the book, Strong Floor, No Ceiling, Building a New Foundation for the American Dream.
		Thank you for coming on today.
oliver libby ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for having me, and thanks for the important work you all do here at C-SPAN.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And thank you to everybody who called in with their comments and questions today.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We're going to be back with another edition of Washington Journal at 7 a.m. Eastern tomorrow.
unidentified		C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum, inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. and across the country.
		Coming up Monday morning, we'll discuss President Trump's recent call to increase Defense Department spending to $1.5 trillion in 2027 with Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute.
		And then Time magazine politics reporter Nick Popley previews the week ahead at the White House and News of the Day.
		Also, we'll look at new government data showing the extent of Trump administration cuts to the federal workforce in 2025 and what to expect in the year ahead with Max Steyer, President and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service.
		C-SPAN's Washington Journal.
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		Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series.
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		He joins our host, civic leader, best-selling author, and owner of the Baltimore Orioles, David Rubenstein.
		I thought writing kids' books were a good way to broach certain subjects that might have been tough when you're kids or whatever else in the backdrop of a travel team, travel baseball team, because we all worry about things as kids, and it was a way to communicate a good message through books.
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		The U.S. House returns Monday at noon Eastern.
		Members will consider legislation to prevent government payments to dead people by ensuring that the Social Security Administration can permanently share important data with the Treasury Department's Do Not Pay system.
		Later in the week, the House is expected to vote on a bill to provide protections to tipped workers in restaurants and other industries by clarifying the federal definition of who is a tipped worker, their tipped wage scale, and the hours they work.
		The Senate's back on Monday at 3 p.m. Eastern.
		Senators will begin debate on a three-bill spending package funding several federal departments, including the Commerce, Energy, Interior, and Justice Departments, through September 30th.
		Funding for most of the federal government expires at the end of the month, so Congress is working to pass these spending bills to avert a government shutdown.
		Lawmakers may also continue work on a war powers resolution to block future military action against Venezuela.
		Watch live coverage of the House on C-SPAN, see the Senate on C-SPAN too, and of course, all of our congressional coverage is available on our free video app, C-SPAN Now, and our website, c-span.org.
		Coming up, we've got more from the 2026 Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas.
		Up next, remarks from Nevada Republican Governor Joe Lombardo.
		And then it's a discussion on U.S. competition with China.
		And later, federal science and trade officials talk about the future of tech policy.
		And now, Nevada Republican Governor Joe Lombardo talks about innovation and opportunity making his state attractive for business investment and Nevada as a tech incubator.
		This is about half an hour.
		Thank you for being here.
		Thanks for making it.
		Why are they so quiet?

Chapters

00:00:00 Why We Left Google
00:14:46 President's Job Approval Matters
00:16:36 Suspect Long-Term Strategy
00:27:51 Citizenship Jurisdiction Debate
00:38:36 Legislative Branch Blues
00:43:01 Going Back to the 60s
00:46:27 Syria Strikes Update
00:53:18 Sanctuary Cities Controversy
00:58:17 Draft Dodger Debunked
01:05:32 Larry's Study Reveals
01:14:31 Need to Restore Sabbath
01:20:32 Work Hard, Play Fair
01:35:34 The Great Society's Legacy
01:50:45 Joan's Vision for Rome
01:58:49 Monday Morning Spending Discussion