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Join Washington Journal
00:02:51
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unidentified
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Christy and Anna Gomez will testify in an oversight hearing on Capitol Hill that starts at 10.15 a.m. Eastern. | |
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| Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, along with your calls and comments live, Evan Bloom of the German Marshall Fund will talk about President Trump's push to acquire Greenland. | ||
| We'll also talk about the Justice Department's criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, U.S. relations with Venezuela and Greenland, the recent shooting in Minneapolis, and other congressional news of the day. | ||
| First with Florida Republican Congressman Mike Haradopoulos, and then with California Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal is next. | ||
| Join the conversation. | ||
| Today is Wednesday, January 14th. | ||
| On today's Washington Journal, President Trump traveled to the battleground state of Michigan yesterday to tout his administration's handling of the economy amid polls showing voters increasingly worried about the cost of living and Republicans worried about their electoral prospects heading into the midterm elections. | ||
| So this morning, we want to hear from you. | ||
| Has the president done a good job when it comes to the economy? | ||
| Or do you think he hasn't done enough to address the affordability issues? | ||
| How big an issue will the economy be for you in the midterm elections? | ||
| Here's how you can join the conversation. | ||
| Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, your line? | ||
| 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, your line is 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can also text us at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Include your first name, city, and state. | ||
| You can also post on facebook.com forward slash C-SPAN or on X with the handle at C-SPANWJ. | ||
|
President's Housing Proposals
00:15:21
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| We start this morning with the economy. | ||
| In the past several days, President Trump has proposed big ideas on how to address some of these economic hardships that Americans may be facing, from things like credit card debt to housing. | ||
| Take a listen to him yesterday in Detroit talk about these proposals. | ||
| At Davos, next week, I'm going to provide much more detail about our housing policies so that every American who wants to own a home will be able to afford one. | ||
| We have some great things happening with housing. | ||
| As you know, you saw the $200 billion buy-in on bonds and mortgages. | ||
| This will include a ban on large institutional investors buying up single-family homes all over the country and making it impossible for people to buy all. | ||
| And I've also announced that the U.S. government is purchasing $200 billion of mortgage bonds to bring down mortgage rates, and it's had a huge impact. | ||
| It's already started. | ||
| And just last week, the average 30-year mortgage dropped below 6% for the first time in many years. | ||
| It's coming down very rapidly, and that's not with the help of the Fed. | ||
| If I had the help of the Fed, it would be easier. | ||
| But that jerk will be gone soon. | ||
| In addition, I proudly called for the credit card companies to cap interest rates at 10% for one year because they're getting 28 and 30 percent and 32 percent. | ||
| And it's unfair. | ||
| The rates are way too high. | ||
| To provide further relief to hardworking Americans, we'll also be confronting one of the biggest factors in driving up prices, the monstrosity known as the Unaffordable Care Act. | ||
| You know what that is, right? | ||
| It's Obamacare. | ||
| It's a great name. | ||
| Unaffordable Care Act. | ||
| Did anybody ever think of that one before? | ||
| It's true. | ||
| It's the Unaffordable Care Act. | ||
| Obamacare was a gift to make health insurance companies rich at the expense of the American people. | ||
| In particular, the so-called enhanced premium tax credits were a corrupt payoff to the insurers whose stock prices went up more than 1,000 percent after Obamacare was signed. | ||
| I want the same money to go. | ||
| I want it to go directly, very simple. | ||
| I want the money, there's big amounts of money paid for by the government, to go directly to the people so they can buy the health care that's right for them. | ||
| They can negotiate their own deal, health care savings account, but they'll buy their own health care, and everybody loves it. | ||
| That's why later this week, I'll announce our health care affordability framework that will reduce premiums for millions of lower drug prices, delivering price transparency and demand honesty and accountability from insurance companies all over the country, all over the world, actually. | ||
| That was President Trump at Detroit's Economic Club talking about some of his proposals to deal with the economy that he will unveil next week, he says, at Davos. | ||
| Now, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized the president, saying that he wasn't doing enough to address the affordability concerns, particularly as he has focused in recent days also on foreign policy. | ||
| Take a listen. | ||
| At a time when families are paying more, getting less, when grocery bills and energy costs are squeezing household budgets, Trump's focus is dangerously, dangerously off track. | ||
| Just this morning, we learned that inflation climbed again, driven by rising prices for food and energy, a clear sign that the affordability crisis is still biting working families and that the administration bears a large share of the blame for it. | ||
| What's Trump's response to Americans struggling to make ends meet? | ||
| More global adventurism, not relief at home. | ||
| Trump is saying that we may be stuck in Venezuela for years. | ||
| He's not afraid to put troops on the ground there. | ||
| That's not what Americans want. | ||
| That's not what he campaigned on when he said America first. | ||
| There was Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer talking about the economy, criticizing where the president's focus has been. | ||
| Now, I turned to this Bloomberg article since the minority leader talked about those inflation rates. | ||
| It says U.S. core CPI rises 0.2 percent, bucking estimates for a bigger rebound. | ||
| This came out yesterday. | ||
| It said underlying U.S. inflation rose in December by less than expected, a more confident signal of cooling price growth after shutdown-related distortions complicated. | ||
| The previous report, the core consumer price index, which excludes the often volatile food and energy categories, increased 0.2 percent from November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data out Tuesday. | ||
| On an annual basis, it advanced 2.6 percent, matching a four-year low. | ||
| And the last thing I'll point to before we take some calls is a full screen, excuse me, is a graphic from Real Clear Politics Average touting public opinion on the president's handling of the economy. | ||
| Overall, the economy, overall and the economy, 52.5% disapprove on how the president is handling the economy. | ||
| On inflation, how the president is handling inflation, 62.2% disapprove. | ||
| Jimmy from Tennessee, a Democrat? | ||
| Your line is open. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Good. | ||
| How are you? | ||
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unidentified
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Doing pretty good. | |
| Trump is not doing what he said that he was elected to do. | ||
| He's defaulting on the economy issues, and he's more worried about taking people's oil, wanting to take over Greenland. | ||
| We don't have time for their health insurance, and this stuff has got to stop. | ||
| This is why Republicans is going to lose the midterm elections in a big way. | ||
| If they don't stop Trump focusing on foreign stuff and not focusing on stuff here at home, this Republican Party will suffer at the ballot box. | ||
| And that's all I got to say. | ||
| Now, Jimmy, let me ask you, because something that the president proposed over the last few days would be a cap on credit card interest for one year at 10%. | ||
| Is that something that you would support? | ||
| That is a more populist idea. | ||
| It's something that Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat in the Senate, has talked about and said that she would be supportive of. | ||
| Is that a proposal as a Democrat that you would like President Trump to try to move forward on and try to bring his Congress to move forward on? | ||
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unidentified
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That might help, but what I've been hearing from other people, that's not going to help people's problems when it comes to rent and food and everything else like that. | |
| But I do agree the Republicans and Democrats need to come up with some type of solution to help with the economic crisis right now. | ||
| And warring about foreign affairs, that's not going to help it. | ||
| We need to be focused here at home, not across the world. | ||
| Carl from New Mexico, a Republican, you're next. | ||
| Yeah, the Greenland, I think that they should put some military there if it's okay with Greenland and all. | ||
| But I don't think we should go in there and take over a country because they're not ones that are sending drugs here and all. | ||
| But where they're harming our people, we should definitely go after the drug dealers and all that. | ||
| And as far as up there in Lego shot. | ||
| So you think, Carl, let me just clarify. | ||
| You think that unless Greenland and Denmark and NATO, to be fair, approve of the president trying to buy Greenland or trying to put more forces there because we already have some forces there, you don't think that the president should try to take Greenland by force? | ||
| No, that would be the wrong thing to do, I think. | ||
| That's my own feelings. | ||
| I think up in the states where the lady was shot the other day, that state and city should be working. | ||
| Their police department all should be working with the federal government. | ||
| And the other thing is we should have never went to sanction cities because We've always been a place of the law and order. | ||
| And here they're giving people where to hide out and not helping them want to come in. | ||
| And I read. | ||
| Carl, I wonder if you have any thoughts about how the president is handling the economy. | ||
| That's one of our focuses this morning. | ||
| The economy, well, I was going to bring that up to the credit cards to go down 10%. | ||
| Yeah, he has proposed that. | ||
| But why is the government going down? | ||
| You know, they want other people to go down, but the government doesn't want to hold on you. | ||
| Back in the 60s, the government had surpluses every year. | ||
| Now they're way over. | ||
| If they would have kept going the same rate they were in the 60s, we wouldn't have this problem. | ||
| And as far as auditors, pal and all, I think they should audit everybody every year all our programs because we're finding a heck of a lot of fraud. | ||
| Richard from Illinois, a Democrat, you're next. | ||
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unidentified
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This is Richard from New Jersey. | |
| Okay, Richard from New Jersey. | ||
| You're next. | ||
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unidentified
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Okay, hi. | |
| How do you, what's your view on the economy? | ||
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unidentified
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Well, this pertains to the economy and basically everything else the president says. | |
| Recently, he asked if there was a line that he wouldn't cross with regard to his foreign affairs and other things. | ||
| And he said he didn't say the law that would stop me. | ||
| He didn't say that. | ||
| He said the only thing that would stop me is my morality. | ||
| So I would appreciate it if C-SPAN would put on a professor or somebody who's a professor of ethics or morality or something who talks about that stuff. | ||
| And take a deep dive exactly into the president's morality. | ||
| We could talk about his personal morality, his business morality, his morality with talking to the American people, his ethics. | ||
| Let's do a deep dive on the president's ethics. | ||
| Of course, that's apparently what's going to rule the day. | ||
| So I think that would be very appropriate if we did that. | ||
| June from Connecticut, a Republican, you're next. | ||
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unidentified
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Yes, I agree with Donald Trump that if we don't do anything about Greenland, then China or Russia are going to move in and build a site there that's be closer to us, which would not be good. | |
| So we've got to protect our borders as much as possible. | ||
| Okay, you're going to talk about the economy. | ||
| I was just going to ask you. | ||
| We'll be talking about Greenland a little bit later in the show, but I wanted to know how you're feeling about Trump's handling of the economy. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
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unidentified
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Well, I'm on, you know, state assistance, and I'm getting everything. | |
| I mean, you know, a lot of the Democrats are saying he's going to cut this and he cut that. | ||
| And he hasn't cut anything on me. | ||
| My Social Security is burned. | ||
| I get SSI. | ||
| I get the things that I need. | ||
| And it's a matter of it's like when you're in debt, it takes a while to pull yourself out of debt. | ||
| And he came into with a major problem. | ||
| One, the country overrun by more people than our system can fix. | ||
| And then we got wasted fraud in all the states, dishonest people in each state. | ||
| And it irks me that there are people that come into the country to send our money out of state. | ||
| It irks me when I get phone calls from these scammers on my telephone. | ||
| You know, so it's there's a lot of things that he needs to, he is trying to fix a system that was already broken. | ||
| You can't stop the blood waters of all the problems that were going on in what, he banned you like 10 months. | ||
| You guys need to give him a break and give him the cash. | ||
| Everybody is like, wish that he had done it now. | ||
| Mitchell from New Jersey, a Democrat, you're next. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I want to talk about the economy vis-a-vis our health care, which is really the largest driver of debt that we're having here. | ||
| A couple of points. | ||
| First of all, to think that I'm concerned about our national debt. | ||
| I mean, as a Democrat, I know the Republicans think that Democrats don't care about that. | ||
| I do. | ||
| But to think that we're going to tackle our debt by just cutting taxes and ignoring revenue is really laughable. | ||
| And control with administrative costs and the boomers are needing more services. | ||
| We just don't have the money to cover a lot of that. | ||
| And what has the administration done? | ||
| Well, they've cut over 10 years Medicaid by almost 100 cuts that were put into the bill that passed last summer, the one big beautiful bill. | ||
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unidentified
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Yes, I am. | |
| Yeah, and as a result of that, too, which a lot of seniors don't realize, because of the sequester, there's going to be almost over $500 billion of cuts to Medicare. | ||
| And then we're talking about cutting subsidies to the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| I agree with Republicans. | ||
| The Affordable Care Act is not a great system, but it is a better system than having millions of people uninsured. | ||
| I think it's laughable also that they say that because people aren't accessing their benefits, that that necessarily constitutes frauds. | ||
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Nurses' Strike: Health Care's Messy Situation
00:07:23
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unidentified
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I don't access my driver insurance benefits if I'm not in an accident, and yet I have to pay for my insurance. | |
| So it's not necessarily fraud. | ||
| And then people drop in and out of the system. | ||
| And some of the people who are claiming that there's massive fraud there are not counting those people as part of their statistical data. | ||
| So we have kind of a whole messy situation here. | ||
| But I think that we really have to look seriously at our medical system. | ||
| I'm very disappointed in what the Trump administration is doing. | ||
| I think they're damaging the system in general, which is really going to affect everybody. | ||
| And also, even through the Health and Human Services and Robert Kennedy and kind of the ridiculous vaccine information that's being propagated on the American population. | ||
| We have to really get serious, and we really have to start looking at facts. | ||
| And to my Republicans, I'll just say this in closing got these things together because it's really going to affect all of us. | ||
| I thank you very much, and have a good day. | ||
| So some news, since that comment was mostly about health care, that came out of that speech yesterday from the president at the Detroit Economic Club. | ||
| I point to this USA Today article. | ||
| The headline is: Trump says he'll soon unveil framework to lower health care costs. | ||
| The plan comes as lawmakers continue to negotiate on health care after Obamacare subsidies lapse for millions of Americans at the start of the year. | ||
| The president said his administration will release a framework to lower health care costs later this week. | ||
| The announcement that Trump made yesterday has the potential to influence ongoing bipartisan negotiations in Congress since the record-breaking government shutdown last year. | ||
| Lawmakers have been searching for a politically viable option to soften the blow of the recent expiration of Obamacare subsidies, which have been relied on for years by Americans, by millions of Americans, to lower their health care premiums. | ||
| Since subsidies went away at the start of the year, GOP lawmakers with large numbers of constituents facing rising health care costs have been put in a tough political position. | ||
| Even longtime Trump acolytes like Majority Taylor Greene, who resigned from Congress amid a spat with the president, broke with other members of the party over the issue. | ||
| And we know that the House voted to pass an extension of those Obamacare subsidies that has not yet been taken up in the Senate. | ||
| Tom from Georgia, an independent, you're next. | ||
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unidentified
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Yeah, hi. | |
| I think Trump is doing a very good job with the economy. | ||
| It was broken almost beyond repair by the Fed and the Democratic Party, which were basically in collusion under Biden. | ||
| And the other thing is, I don't trust the Fed, you know, the so-called independent Fed. | ||
| It's not independent. | ||
| And it did everything it could to raise up the Democrat administration. | ||
| And they're only interested in money, the Fed, and milking the American people and increasing inflation. | ||
| And I just don't trust them at all. | ||
| Look at all the rate drops that they did in the last one or two years of Biden, and you can see what the purpose of those was. | ||
| It wasn't to help the economy. | ||
| That's the last thing they want to do. | ||
| But that's my basic comment right now on this topic. | ||
| Thanks for calling in, Tom. | ||
| I want to invite more folks to call in and join our conversation when we're talking about Trump's handling of the economy this morning. | ||
| Democrats, your line is 202-748-800. | ||
| Zero. | ||
| Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, your line is 202-748-8002. | ||
| Russell from Georgia, a Republican. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| Hello. | ||
| Hi, Russell. | ||
| We can hear you. | ||
| You're on the line. | ||
| How do you, what's your view of the president's handling of the economy so far? | ||
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unidentified
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Smoking, Mayors. | |
| What's happened to Ukraine and Russia? | ||
| We're not hearing no more about that. | ||
| Are they still fighting a war or what's going on? | ||
| Yeah, the war is still being fought in Ukraine. | ||
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unidentified
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The people that's calling in talking about how great it is, they need to call those nurses in New York and find out they work for a hospital, but they don't even have health insurance. | |
| That's really good, isn't it? | ||
| 15,000 nurses. | ||
| So that kind of tells you the view of the economy. | ||
| I don't think this health insurance is ever going to get any better until the government takes it over. | ||
| It's just a deal right now where nobody can get together on anything. | ||
| The Congress can't get together. | ||
| So they're not getting nothing done. | ||
| That's my opinion. | ||
| Goodbye. | ||
| Goodbye. | ||
| Since he mentioned a nurse strike in New York, I point to a New York Times article. | ||
| Nearly 15,000 nurses go on strike at major New York City hospitals. | ||
| Workers are demanding more robust staffing levels and higher pay. | ||
| The strike comes three years after a small job action, after a smaller job action, won significant gains. | ||
| The union representing the nurses say a strike is necessary to force hospitals to ensure minimum staffing ratios so that nurses aren't overwhelmed with too many patients. | ||
| They are also demanding higher wages and more security at hospitals to reduce violent episodes and shootings. | ||
| The strike is targeting some of the city's leading medical institutions: New York Presbyterian, Columbia, Medical Center, and Maine, in the main campus of the Mount Sinai Hospital, along with two other major hospitals within the Mount Sinai system. | ||
| Oliver from California, a Democrat. | ||
| You're next. | ||
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unidentified
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Hi, thank you for taking my call this morning. | |
| Just to stay on topic about the economy, I guess if you had a single issue to vote for, whether you're a Democrat, Republican, or Independent, I would say let's get money out of politics. | ||
| That might just solve a lot of the issues with health care and housing and education and all that. | ||
| But so disturbed by what I heard personally from a friend, you know, like me. | ||
|
War Zone Minneapolis
00:02:16
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unidentified
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He's a 50-something-year-old father, a husband, a hardworking American. | |
| And like me, grew up believing that this country we were safe from our own government, at the very least, terrorizing us in the streets. | ||
| And, you know, he texted me, and I'm going to read you. | ||
| He's in Minneapolis, where he's from. | ||
| And he says, it's literally a war zone here with SUVs full of heavily armed and armored ICE agents abducting anyone who is brown randomly off the street. | ||
| No exaggeration. | ||
| That's a direct quote from his text. | ||
| And he said, you know, sorry to unload on you, my friend, but this is an effing situation. | ||
| The city has been invaded by the federal government in full force. | ||
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unidentified
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He said, I used to go protest and demonstrations in the townships of South Africa in the early 1990s, and it was nothing like this. | |
| This is way more intense. | ||
| On Sunday, they had their guns drawn. | ||
| License plates of vehicles from all over the country, big SUVs from Texas, Illinois, Oklahoma, New York. | ||
| It's an invasion, and they don't even look like they're government vehicles. | ||
| They just look like they pulled out of their driveway. | ||
| Anyway, he went on with some also some details about some encounters. | ||
| It just sounds really sketchy. | ||
| It's really sad. | ||
| I know this guy. | ||
| He's a good, smart man who cares for his family, his community. | ||
| And I just want him and everyone there to know that the good people of California are with you. | ||
| We'll be out in the streets protesting all weekend, and it's just really sad. | ||
| So it's all going to go to hell if we let our government do away with due process and basic respect for Jim from Florida and Independent. | ||
|
Slow Comeback
00:05:47
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| You're next. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| Yeah, I approve of the economy because I've been around for over 65 years. | ||
| And what it was in the last four years was horrendous. | ||
| Many people lost their jobs. | ||
| You know, the biggest thing was closing down the government. | ||
| A lot of governments closed down, and it kept the COVID going for a couple of years. | ||
| People went bankrupt, destroyed their credit ratings. | ||
| I just heard it before I listened to this since November, the inflation rate was 0.2%. | ||
| Biden never had anything like that. | ||
| I think, you know, it's a slow comeback. | ||
| It's going to be slow. | ||
| You can't fix things in just 10 months. | ||
| And there's things you can't fix in four years. | ||
| It's going to take just decades to get back to where we'll be a rich country when it comes with no debt. | ||
| Jim, I wonder if you would support the president's proposal to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for a year. | ||
| That has been criticized by some banks like JPMorgan. | ||
| But I wonder as a Republican, excuse me, as an independent, whether or not you believe that proposal, which some would say is more populist, obviously it's something that Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, would want to see happen too. | ||
| If that's something that you think the president should try to push Congress to approve. | ||
| Yes, of course. | ||
| I mean, it's just common sense. | ||
| Why pay 30%? | ||
| My credit cards are all at 29% around there. | ||
| And my credit rating was destroyed, and I can't get it back up. | ||
| It's just not available to do because it's a lot harder to climb up that ladder than it is to fall down. | ||
| You fall down that ladder in a matter of 60 days, and there's nothing you can do to bring it back. | ||
| 10% would save people so much money. | ||
| They use their credit cards to buy everything now, to pay their bills, everything. | ||
| And then they get charged 30%, not a month, but per year. | ||
| I understand that. | ||
| But it's a lot of money, a lot of money that almost every single American will save money on that. | ||
| And I know that Obamacare, which I had to get on to because I lost my job because there was no work, and it didn't pay anything. | ||
| I had to pay 30% of the bill. | ||
| I had to pay them $6,000 a year for the insurance. | ||
| I had to have a deductible. | ||
| I had a deductible, I believe it was $5,800. | ||
| Together, you put that all together on a $20,000 bill. | ||
| I'm paying over $15,000 for that bill. | ||
| And then Obamacare is going to do what? | ||
| Pay what? | ||
| Oh, that's right. | ||
| They get discounted. | ||
| They hardly even pay anything. | ||
| So it's not that great. | ||
| I know that. | ||
| It's not that great. | ||
| I'm on retirement now. | ||
| I got off of the old Obamacare. | ||
| And also, what they're trying to do, people aren't mentioning this. | ||
| They're trying to get rid of the Obamacare Emergency Act that happened when they closed down for COVID. | ||
| They want to get rid of that. | ||
| They want to know. | ||
| The subsidies you're talking about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Extra subsidies, everything they added on. | ||
| And we know there was a lot more fraud going on then, of course, it takes a while to find out. | ||
| But that was an emergency just for COVID, nothing else. | ||
| And they want to keep that going. | ||
| It's been years. | ||
| It's over. | ||
| So how do you think that lawmakers should try to bring down prices for Obamacare? | ||
| Obviously, I think that there is some bipartisan agreement. | ||
| You just heard a caller earlier, a Democrat, say that he agrees that the Affordable Care Act isn't that great, in his own words. | ||
| So how do you think lawmakers should be trying to bring down the prices of health care, if not extend those subsidies? | ||
| That is so hard. | ||
| And it's a hard question. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| I mean, they're already making trillions of dollars on it. | ||
| I read a report that out of 24 million people, 12 million people haven't used Obamacare. | ||
| I find it hard that almost 12 million people haven't gone to the doctor. | ||
| Well, those are typically like healthy people, young people. | ||
| Then why? | ||
| Yeah, but Young people, most young people don't buy health insurance because they don't use it. | ||
| Or younger people are still covered by their parents, too. | ||
| Yeah, over under 26, you're still covered. | ||
| But over 26, you could technically face tax penalties if you're not enrolled in some sort of health care. | ||
| Well, no, you don't pay tax penalties anymore at all. | ||
| And if it's not great, why did they force it on people and say, you need to do this or you're going to pay us? | ||
| And anything that's good, you don't have to force people onto it if it's good. | ||
| But they were forcing people. | ||
| And like you said, you don't get Obamacare, then we're going to charge you taxes. | ||
| That sounds like the mafia. | ||
| You either get our protection or you're going to pay us more money. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| That's a red flag. | ||
| There's something wrong with it. | ||
| Brian from Westport, Georgia, an independent. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
Economic Moves Addressing Unemployment
00:15:44
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unidentified
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Yeah, good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| In terms of the economy, I think that what we see the administration doing is about as well as we could possibly hope for. | ||
| I mean, first off, you want to see that the administration is doing something and is trying things to make moves with the economy that's trying to address unemployment, that's trying to address affordability, that's trying to address housing issues, that's trying to address health care costs, that's trying to address food and energy prices. | ||
| And I see the administration making moves and doing things in all of these different areas and facets of American life. | ||
| And so I don't know how we can, and folks can necessarily take such a negative approach when we're getting numbers back that are showing less than projected TPI expansion, less than expected inflation. | ||
| We're getting greater than expected GDP report numbers. | ||
| We were talking about a four-something in Q3 GDP growth and the Atlanta Fed here in Georgia is projecting above a five in Q4. | ||
| Now you were talking about, you brought up to several people the issue of credit card interest rates. | ||
| Yep, his proposal to cap it at 10% for a year. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I think that that's another one of President Trump's administration's inventive ideas and it's doing something. | |
| It's not just ignoring a problem. | ||
| However, one, you're dealing with contract law and the fact that all of the debt that people have accumulated on their credit cards prior to any kind of cap from the federal government would have to remain still being under that prior interest rate. | ||
| I don't think that the government can do anything to retroactively change what the interest rate is on previously acquired debt for people according to their contracts with their credit card companies. | ||
| So you're looking at anywhere from 22.5% to 30% interest. | ||
| Now, what that might do for the accumulation of future debt that might free up people to take on more debt or to use their credit cards more freely if there is a 10% cap on interest rates. | ||
| However, I don't think that there's anybody in the United States right now that isn't already Taking advantage of and using the credit that they have access to. | ||
| We've talked for several years now about the number of people that are using their credit cards and using their access to credit to pay for gas, to pay for food, to pay for daily living expenses to survive, essentially. | ||
| So what that does for previously acquired debt is not going to, I think, have a real effect. | ||
| It could have some kind of effect in the short term. | ||
| But then again, if you're talking about a 10% cap that only lasts for a year, okay, so what is how much good can that really possibly do? | ||
| Again, I like the idea that administration is attempting to do things, that they're coming up with ideas, that they're tossing stuff out there. | ||
| It's a lot better than sitting back and twiddling thumbs and waiting for the world to end or waiting for something to just magically get better. | ||
| But I don't think that the credit card interest is certainly any kind of a magic bullet. | ||
| I'd like to see where the administration goes further with tariff rate adjustments and whether or not there's any kind of movement forward with this dividend discussion. | ||
| You talk about the $2,000 tax refund that the president said would come from tariff revenue. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, there's discussion of that. | |
| And now that we're getting into tax season, we will see what people actually realize in terms of gains from the changes in the tax code, the folks that are going to get tax returns on their overtime, and the folks that work off the tips that are not going to have that amount taxed on. | ||
| So, you know, here in the first and into the second quarter, we're certainly going to see whether or not the administration's moves during 2025 have done anything to get us on a better track. | ||
| Take a listen to House Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday at a press conference when he was asked about Trump's proposal to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for one year. | ||
| The President is the ideas guy. | ||
| And what he's doggedly determined to do and laser-focused upon doing is the same thing that we are, and that is reducing the cost of living, bringing down prices for the American people. | ||
| And he's looking at every idea under the sun to do that. | ||
| It's one of a long, large menu of ideas that have been proposed is something we ought to think about and investigate. | ||
| Since I had the conversation with him, I've talked to a number of colleagues about that and what that would mean. | ||
| And are there unintended consequences of that? | ||
| And it's a complicated area. | ||
| So I don't know, like everything else, you would need legislation to do something like that. | ||
| And we'd have a lot of work to build consensus around it. | ||
| But you've got to be very careful if you go forward in that. | ||
| In our zeal to bring down costs, you don't want to have negative secondary effects of that. | ||
| So, for example, one of the things that the president probably had not thought through and others at first glance, it sounds great. | ||
| We should bring down interest rates to 10%. | ||
| It would help everybody, all borrowers. | ||
| There's a lot of Americans who have a lot of credit card debt. | ||
| But then what some of the experts have said is, well, but the problem is if you do that, then the credit card companies, the negative secondary effect is that is that they would just stop lending money and maybe they cap what people are able to borrow at a very low amount. | ||
| And then that would have a negative effect on a lot of people who work on revolving credit. | ||
| So it's something that we've got to be very deliberate about. | ||
| The president understands that. | ||
| He wants us to do the right thing by Americans. | ||
| When he says America first, it comes from a sincere place in his heart and all of us. | ||
| And what I love about this president is he's willing to think outside the box and propose ideas for us to work through to see if it will actually achieve the desired objective. | ||
| And that's what we're in the process of doing every day around here. | ||
| So again, I wouldn't get too spun up about ideas that are out of the box that are proposed or suggested. | ||
| The thing about this president is he's totally transparent, and he says often what he's thinking out loud. | ||
| This is unusual because most presidents like Biden, we couldn't get anything out of him for four years. | ||
| We didn't know what he was thinking, if he was thinking at all. | ||
| So it's jarring for some Americans to hear a president who just says, go, 24 hours a day to help the American people. | ||
| And we're working through those ideas, and that's one I'm going to work through. | ||
| That was House Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday, appearing to be hesitant about the president's proposal to cap interest rates on credit cards at 10% for a year as he tries to address some of these affordability issues. | ||
| Paul from Massachusetts, a Republican. | ||
| Your line is open. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Thank you for C-SPAN. | ||
| You know, your main question, yeah, I think Donald Trump, President Trump's doing a good job on the economy, especially with tax cuts. | ||
| And, you know, you had a previous caller, a Democrat, who started talking about taxes, and he was talking about the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| And he made the caller that was talking about the cuts to some of the services inside of the One Big Beautiful bill you referenced. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right, and he insinuated that tax cuts, you know, he was concerned about the deficit, and he seemed to insinuate that tax cuts are going to make the deficit worse. | |
| The thing that makes a deficit worse is the increase in spending. | ||
| Under four presidents, you can look back in history, we've had four presidents: Calvin Coolidge, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump in his first term all got tax cuts through the Congress, got them passed, and he signed them. | ||
| Every time that happened, revenue to the government increased. | ||
| And you consistently have Democrats call in and talk about tax cuts reducing revenue to the government and talking about deficits. | ||
| Well, if you increase revenue to the government, that's not affecting deficits. | ||
| What's affecting deficits is the spending. | ||
| And, you know, I just saw the other day GAO reports $200 to $500 billion a year in fraud in all the different programs the government runs. | ||
| Well, you know, you want to reduce the deficit? | ||
| How about going after that fraud? | ||
| They don't seem to be doing it. | ||
| And another thing you could tax if you want to tax something, how about taxing the fraudulent money that goes overseas from entities in this country that are sending money overseas, and most likely it was fraudulently obtained through some government program like a GAO or something like that. | ||
| So, you know, I really wish when Democrats call in and talk about deficit spending and tax cuts and blame deficits on tax cuts, you know, they're just wrong. | ||
| And I wish you'd push back on them a little bit and explain to them what really causes deficits. | ||
| So that's what I have to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thanks for calling in, Paul. | ||
| Linda from Mississippi, a Democrat. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| Linda, are you on the line? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can you hear me? | |
| I can hear you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Okay. | ||
| What's your take on the Trump's handling of the economy this morning? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam. | |
| Thank you, Maddie. | ||
| Linda, we're having some interference on your phone line. | ||
| Do you want to try again? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can you hear me now? | |
| I can hear you now. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| I think this economy is lousy. | ||
| And those Republicans that praise this, they know so. | ||
| Unemployment is up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's so busy trying to conquer the world that he's forgetting about housing, unemployment in this country, food substances. | |
| Well, the president has said that he'll unveil some housing reforms next week. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He says a lot of things. | |
| He says a lot of things, but he does absolutely nothing. | ||
| He'll get up, he's got to read off a piece of paper. | ||
| And as soon as he walk his old behind off the stage, he's not thinking about what he just said because he don't know what he just said. | ||
| He's over there trying to interfere in the rand about their folks when he got people in this country beating, dragging, pregnant folks, killing folks in this country on our streets. | ||
| I wonder on the economy, Linda, what you're most concerned about. | ||
| Some people have mentioned health care, others have mentioned, I mean, I know you just mentioned the unemployment rates, but what would be your top problem you think that's going on with the economy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The cost of living, affordability, affordability. | |
| You can't find houses. | ||
| If you do find their price out of your reach, food at grocery stores. | ||
| You can't afford to feed your family. | ||
| And he said he was going to kick food affordability when he came in. | ||
| He said he had been at groceries. | ||
| That's how much, that's how in touch he is with what Americans need. | ||
| But he's ready to throw somebody as a child into a fight around the world, but he's not worried about what the fight is in this country to survive, to live, and to be free. | ||
| This democracy is on the teeter, and he's talking about interfering in Iran business over there. | ||
| He needs to interfere in America's business right now today and get his goons off the street. | ||
| Douglas from Mississippi, a Republican, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| You're doing all right this morning. | ||
| I am. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How about you? | |
| Well, we've seen better days, seen worse. | ||
| All right. | ||
| What's your take on the president's handling of the economy this morning, Douglas? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, I think maybe if people give him another year, I think stuff might be okay. | |
| There again, a year from now, I don't know. | ||
| You know, maybe so, maybe not. | ||
| But, you know, just starting off the presidential election or his first year, you know, you have to sit here and listen to people, you know, talk, talk, talk. | ||
| And I understand he, you know, he's doing a lot of talking, not really doing much, I don't guess, but he's trying. | ||
| And, you know, won't they give him this next year, too, you know, half of his term, and then you really get on him. | ||
| But two, as far as the hospital stuff, the insurance, I don't see why, like automobiles, why can't we go back to 1987? | ||
| You know, it seems like insurance is doing a lot better than cost of it and all that. | ||
| You know, so instead of worrying about what's in the future or right now, why don't we go back then and get it started all back the way it was then? | ||
| Douglas, what would you say is your biggest concern about the economy right now? | ||
| Or what is one thing that you would like to see the president focused on addressing? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there are so many things. | |
| I mean, you know, like I said, the food prices, but there again, you know, it don't take, it takes, you know, 10 or 12 steps to start doing something. | ||
| You can't do 10 or 12 steps in two days. | ||
| I mean, you know, once you start doing stuff, it takes a little while for it all to come through. | ||
|
Fuel Prices and Equipment
00:06:36
|
||
|
unidentified
|
Like washing the car. | |
| If you start washing the front, well, you can't wash the back and the front at the same time unless you have two or three people. | ||
| And to me, it seems like he's trying. | ||
| But there again, you know, I just think that the automobiles and everything else, if they would just go back the way it was, you know, we don't have to put all this stuff on the cars. | ||
| I mean, you know, they say the air and stuff. | ||
| And of course, I'm going places where I shouldn't because this ain't what it's talking about. | ||
| But anyway, I hope everything goes good and just give them time. | ||
| That's all I'm naming. | ||
| Just give them time. | ||
| Janelle from Dover, Delaware, a Democrat. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| Hello. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| We can hear you. | ||
| What's your view of the president's handling of the economy, Janelle? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm not happy with it. | |
| And also, you know, who's going to pay for all this ICE? | ||
| We are. | ||
| What I hear is these people are getting $50,000 as a bonus just to sign up. | ||
| Who's going to pay for this? | ||
| This is paying our deficit way up. | ||
| We know who's going to pay for it. | ||
| It's going to be us. | ||
| Paul from New Hampshire and Independent. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Oh, I'm fine. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| My view on the economy situation is horrible. | ||
| I've been working in a grocery store for 25 years, and I'm seeing products shrink in size and the price is going up. | ||
| That's awful. | ||
| I think he ought to take care of America first, like he promised. | ||
| Try lowering fuel prices. | ||
| Maybe that'll help lower food costs because you have to transport the products from A to B. | ||
| And the last thing I got to say is stop being disrespectful. | ||
| You're the president of the United States. | ||
| You're our president. | ||
| And what you're saying, like calling people stiffs and jerks, that's not presidential. | ||
| That's a child. | ||
| That's not deflecting from the actual problems. | ||
| You're getting everyone all hopped up about ICE and everything else, and you're not solving the real problems. | ||
| ICE is nothing but the SS, as far as I'm concerned. | ||
| Hitler had his own private army. | ||
| Well, so does Trump. | ||
| He needs to stop. | ||
| Paul, I want to ask you about fuel prices since you mentioned it. | ||
| Prices for fuel are relatively down. | ||
| They're down some places in the country more than others. | ||
| According to a 2026 outlook from Gas Buddy, I'm reading it here. | ||
| The national average for gas prices is projected to be around $2.97 per gallon, down from $319 per gallon in 2025. | ||
| I mean, do you think that the president needs to do more to bring down the gas prices of absolutely? | ||
| Obviously, he's talked about. | ||
| So then I guess my question would be: do you support his actions in Venezuela, which he says will bring down the prices more in the U.S. by taking that oil or taking some profits that Venezuela makes and the partnership that he says that Venezuela will have with the U.S. when it comes to oil? | ||
| I think that that oil in Venezuela is going to take a long time to do anything for us. | ||
| What happened to Drill Baby Drill? | ||
| I ain't heard a word about that since he ran for president. | ||
| All of a sudden, it's like, yo, let's just go to somebody else's country and say, look, you're not doing the right thing. | ||
| We're going to make up an excuse to come and invade you. | ||
| Then we're going to take over and take your oil. | ||
| We look awful. | ||
| I'm embarrassed to be an American when I see stuff like that. | ||
| I mean, come on. | ||
| Then he's after Columbia. | ||
| He's after the Panama Canal. | ||
| He's after Greenland. | ||
| The only thing he's not after is reducing prices here to help people in the United States. | ||
| Will from South Carolina, a Republican, you're next. | ||
| Hello, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm going to try to be quick. | |
| I have a few things I want to try to hit on. | ||
| First, I'm a truck driver. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I travel the whole country. | |
| Fuel prices are dropping. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm literally about to pick up our stop here in a couple hours, and I'm getting $2.66. | |
| Are you on the road right now, Will? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| Don't tell nobody. | ||
| But I sell agricultural and farming equipment. | ||
| It's rocking out here, and I'm talking $40 million to a million dollars pieces of equipment. | ||
| I've got equipment on here right now that I'm hauling literally $200, some quarter million dollars worth of equipment on my truck now. | ||
| This economy, I think Trump's doing a great thing. | ||
| It's slowly moving. | ||
| It goes up, it's stagnant. | ||
| It goes up, it's stagnant. | ||
| I think we're kind of stagnant right now. | ||
| This next quarter, first, I'm really, it's about to blow up out here. | ||
| I bought my truck in April, and I paid for it cash in December. | ||
| $78,000 paid for cash money because it's good out here. | ||
| As I go around the country, okay, I see these different places. | ||
| I was just in Minneapolis, beautiful country or city, excuse me. | ||
| But what I see is a lot of people don't see what I see. | ||
| There are a lot of people in their little bubbles in their little towns and cities. | ||
| They don't get out and actually see what's going on. | ||
| Fuel prices, infrastructure being built. | ||
| And there's a lot. | ||
| The big businesses that are building, again, a lot of construction equipment and building materials as well. | ||
| And I'm taking it to these facilities. | ||
| And these are infrastructural that is building back here in America and it's creating jobs for America. | ||
| I don't think it's perfect, but it's getting better and it's going to be better. | ||
| I 100% support it. | ||
| The ICE thing, a lot of people hating on ICE. | ||
| You know what? | ||
| I'd rather my money go to American citizens and here to support America and keeping America strong and our national security strong instead of going over to fund foreign nationals, terrorists, all these other foreign entities that our money is going to. | ||
| I'd rather it be spent here 100%. | ||
|
Nancy's Economic Complaint
00:02:51
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|
unidentified
|
But I think, like I said, I think it's not perfect. | |
| It's definitely better than what it was the last four years. | ||
| And I'm telling y'all, just be patient. | ||
| It's going to be rocking and booming. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Drive safe. | ||
| Well, Nancy from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Democrat, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Jasmine. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Good. | ||
| How are you, Nancy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just a little, I got stressed out and upset with what's going on in our country, especially with the economy. | |
| Trump said from day one, he was going to fix the economy. | ||
| And it's been a year. | ||
| And I just want to remind the Republicans, they need to admit that they've been bamboozled, hoodwinked, and lied to because the Democrats has told them time and time again that Trump's first term, the economy was based on President Obama. | ||
| He's the one that dug us out of the recession that another Republican put us into president put us into. | ||
| And so Trump took that economy that was that was booming and claimed it was his. | ||
| And we told the country that was not Trump's economy. | ||
| But still, they believed what Trump said. | ||
| And Trump got us into COVID. | ||
| And COVID brought us down. | ||
| And President Biden dug us out of COVID. | ||
| And they still forgot all about that. | ||
| They're saying, oh, give Trump time. | ||
| It's been a year. | ||
| Trump has put in tariffs, all these taxes, has brought the economy to where it is now. | ||
| And he has no intention of getting us out. | ||
| He's still all over into other countries trying to claim their resources and trying to make it as though we're going to help them. | ||
| And he's not even helping us. | ||
| I don't see any time soon that we're going to get out this economy until a Democrat president or we take the House or something to stop this madness. | ||
| Later on this morning on the Washington Journal, the first of two lawmaker interviews. | ||
| In about 30 minutes, we'll speak with Republican Mike Hardiopoulos of Florida, a Republican of the House Financial Services Committee. | ||
| We'll talk about the criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and other news of the day. | ||
|
I Love C-SPAN's Unbiased View
00:02:09
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| But first, after the break, the Trump administration is holding high-stakes meetings with officials from Greenland and Denmark today. | ||
| We'll get a preview with Evan Blum, an expert on the Arctic policy from the German Marshall Fund. | ||
|
unidentified
|
C-SPAN is as unbiased as you can get. | |
| You are so fair. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know how anybody can say otherwise. | |
| You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country. | ||
| I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices. | ||
| You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their minds. | ||
| I absolutely love C-SPAN. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I love to hear both sides. | |
| I've watched every morning and it is unbiased. | ||
| And you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments. | ||
| It's probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruption. | |
| Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark. | ||
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