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UK's Push for Greenland
00:15:03
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unidentified
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| European leaders are reacting this morning to President Trump's latest threat to place new tariffs on countries that have pushed back on the president's efforts to obtain Greenland. | ||
| The new tariffs, the latest salvo, and the president's long-stated desire to obtain the country for what he claims are national security interests. | ||
| Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill also pushing back not only on the new tariff, some on overall acquiring Greenland. | ||
| To start the program today, tell us if you think acquiring Greenland should be a U.S. priority. | ||
| You can let us know on the lines below whether you think this is a worthwhile prospect. | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats. | ||
| 202-748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you want to let us know your thoughts about obtaining Greenland, if it should be a U.S. priority and you want to text us, you can do that at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Post on Facebook at facebook.com slash C-SPAN. | ||
| And you can also post on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| This started with the President sending on the 17th of this month on his Truth Social site posting this. | ||
| When it comes to those new tariffs, starting on February 1st, he writes 2026, all of the above-mentioned countries, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland, will be charged a 10% tariff on any and all goods sent to the United States of America on June 1st, 2026. | ||
| A tariff will be increased to 25%. | ||
| This tariff will be due and payable until such time as a deal is reached for the complete and total purchase of Greenland. | ||
| That was the truth social part portion. | ||
| There are the countries that the president specifically laid out. | ||
| Many leaders in those countries meeting yesterday and even into today. | ||
| When it comes to the latest threat from the president and not only on the tariffs, but overall on Greenland, Sky News reporting that the UK's Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, this morning holding a press conference their time in London. | ||
| Here's the headline. | ||
| Trade war, quote, not the right way to resolve our differences, says the UK Prime Minister. | ||
| Let's hear from him from early this morning on the latest from the president when it comes to Greenland. | ||
| Alliances endure because they're built on respect and partnership, not pressure. | ||
| That is why I said the use of tariffs against allies is completely wrong. | ||
| It is not the right way to resolve differences within an alliance. | ||
| Nor is it helpful to frame efforts to strengthen Greenland's security as a justification for economic pressure. | ||
| Such measures hurt British workers, British businesses, and the British economy. | ||
| And that is why I've been so clear on this issue. | ||
| A trade war is in no one's interest. | ||
| And my job is always to act in the UK's national interest. | ||
| That is why yesterday I spoke to President Trump, to European leaders, and to the Secretary General of NATO to find a solution rooted in partnership, facts and mutual respect. | ||
| Because that is how strong alliances protect shared interests. | ||
| That's some of the early UK reaction when it comes to these threats of new tariffs by the President on these countries over the efforts to obtain Greenland. | ||
| When it comes to the U.S. effort on obtaining Greenland overall, acquiring it for national security purposes, as the President wants, what do you think as far as that being a U.S. priority? | ||
| 202, 748, 8,000 for Democrats. | ||
| 202, 748, 8,000, 1 for Republicans. | ||
| And Independents, 202, 748, 8,000. | ||
| Two of those are the lines to call. | ||
| You can post on X, you can post on Facebook. | ||
| Some of you posting on Facebook this morning. | ||
| This is Alexa Bray saying when it comes to this idea of acquiring, and if it's a priority, no. | ||
| She says, because of America first with a question mark. | ||
| Patricia Garcia, also from Facebook, saying no, that there are many bigger domestic issues which need to be properly managed and prioritized. | ||
| And then Joshua Evans from Facebook 2 saying yes, for national defense reasons, it's actually more important to America than NATO at this point. | ||
| Denmark should cash in while they still can. | ||
| To that last point, when it comes to the support for this effort, one of the people on the Sunday shows yesterday supporting that effort, the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett, making these comments when it comes to Greenland on Meet the Press. | ||
| For years, for over a century, American presidents have wanted to acquire Greenland. | ||
| And what we can see is that Greenland is essential to the U.S. national security. | ||
| We're building the Golden Dome, the missile system. | ||
| And look, President Trump is being strategic. | ||
| He's looking beyond this year. | ||
| He's looking beyond next year to what could happen for a battle in the Arctic. | ||
| We are not going to outsource our national security. | ||
| We are not going to outsource our hemispheric security to other countries. | ||
| In Trump 1.0, President Trump told the Europeans, do not build Nord Stream 2. | ||
| Do not rely on Russian oil. | ||
| And guess what, Kristen? | ||
| Guess what? | ||
| Is funding Russia's efforts against Ukraine. | ||
| European purchases of Russian oil. | ||
| So America has to be in control here. | ||
| I want to delve into everything that you said, but I just want to ask you big picture. | ||
| Is this a negotiating tactic, Mr. Secretary, or is President Trump serious about annexing Greenland? | ||
| President Trump strongly believes that we cannot outsource our security because, Kristen, let me tell you what will happen. | ||
| And it might not be next year, might not be in five years, but down the road, this fight for the Arctic is real. | ||
| We would keep our NATO, our NATO guarantees. | ||
| And if there were an attack on Greenland from Russia, from some other area, we would get dragged in. | ||
| So better now, peace through strength, make it part of the United States, and there will not be a conflict because the United States right now, we are the hottest country in the world. | ||
| We are the strongest country in the world. | ||
| Europeans project weakness, the U.S. projects strength. | ||
| There's the Treasury Secretary on the U.S. efforts to obtain Greenland, making the case to do that. | ||
| You can agree, you can disagree. | ||
| Pick the line that best represents you. | ||
| Give us a call. | ||
| Joseph and Maryland, Democrats line. | ||
| What do you think about this idea of acquiring Greenland? | ||
| I think it's just really a wrong idea. | ||
| We as Americans should absolutely be upset about this. | ||
| I mean, we have all the ability to do anything we want based on the treaties that we have. | ||
| So why do we need to have ownership except to show our dominance? | ||
| And when the Treasury Secretary says we're the hottest country in the world, he's just mouthing Mr. Trump's words. | ||
| What do you mean we're the hottest company in the world? | ||
| It's crazy that they want to do these things. | ||
| Why do you think the current treaties are enough in your mind as far as Greenland is concerned and not acquiring it outright? | ||
|
unidentified
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Because the treaties give us the ability to do anything we want. | |
| We can go back to the bases that we currently have there. | ||
|
unidentified
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We can bring troops there. | |
| We can do all of those things that ownership would allow us to do except to be dominant. | ||
| Joseph there in Maryland giving us his thoughts. | ||
| Let's hear from Lucas. | ||
| Lucas in Wisconsin, Independent Line on acquiring Greenland. | ||
| If it should be a priority of the United States, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| I completely do not think that this should be a priority or anything nearing something that America needs as a state. | ||
| This is only the result of a continued expansion of empire that the U.S. is holding. | ||
| It's the same thing that's happening in Venezuela. | ||
| It's the same thing that's happening with the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians. | ||
| It's the same thing that's happening in Iran. | ||
| It's the same thing that's happened in Iraq. | ||
| It's the same thing that's happened in Afghanistan. | ||
| Sticking to Greenland, make the case for Greenland or not acquiring Greenland in this case. | ||
|
unidentified
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Of course. | |
| The national security reason for Greenland is completely farcical. | ||
| Between this, we already have Canada, who's one of our highest trading partners, and we have strict agreements and treaties with pertaining directly to national defense. | ||
| Greenland does not do anything. | ||
| Even if you're looking at potential missile trajectories from Russia or China, they're likely already going to be coming across many of our proxies, be that Japan, be that Canada, be that all these other surrounding states. | ||
| So there is no national security reason for this. | ||
| They are a sovereign state or a sovereign territory of Denmark, and that needs to be respected. | ||
| This is a long-standing position of the Greenlandic people. | ||
| The Greenlandic people are the ones that need to accept this deal. | ||
| And currently, they do not. | ||
| They don't even want the money that we're offering them. | ||
| They want to remain as their current state. | ||
| That's Lucas there in Wisconsin. | ||
| In fact, there is video across the internet, and you can find online of even protests breaking out in Greenland over efforts by the United States to obtain the country. | ||
| And you can comment on that or comment to the LART. | ||
| Some of the protests there, basing from Greenland. | ||
| We're asking if it should be a top priority for the U.S. | ||
| To the trade issues that the president put into play. | ||
| Axios has a story, has some response by EU leaders, quoting Bern Lang, who chairs the European Parliament's trade committee, blasted the tariff threat as, quote, unbelievable and unacceptable, saying that a new line has been crossed. | ||
| He also called for the use of the anti-coercion instrument colloquially referred to as Europe's trade bazooka. | ||
| As explained by the New York Times, deploying it could sharply escalate tensions and risk friction on other fronts like the war in Ukraine. | ||
| Again, that's just on the trade front overall when it comes to acquiring Greenland. | ||
| Georgia is next independent line. | ||
| This is Harry. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hello. | |
| Thank you, C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN to me is sort of an obsession. | ||
| But anyway, I'd just like to say we have a delusional president who thinks he needs to own things. | ||
| Greenland has been an ally that has welcomed our military there for nearly 100 years. | ||
| So it's foolishness to think that owning Denmark's property is going to make us safer. | ||
| No, he's making us. | ||
| This is a Putin. | ||
| He's following a Putin line, and we have to recognize this in this president. | ||
| So why do you think in this case the Allies are enough? | ||
|
unidentified
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The Allies are enough because they have always been enough. | |
| They are what made us in the first place. | ||
| To abandon allies is like saying, I'm going to go alone, you know, when you got 20 guys around you ready to kick your ass. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Harry and Georgia there. | ||
| This is an opinion contributor to The Hill, John McGillen, making the case for acquiring Greenland. | ||
| He says this in part: that Greenland matters because the Arctic matters. | ||
| Melting ice has turned what was once a frozen buffer into a contested corridor. | ||
| Shipping lanes are emerging. | ||
| Subsea cables snake across the ocean floor. | ||
| Missile paths shorten. | ||
| Surveillance gaps narrow. | ||
| Russia knows this. | ||
| China knows this. | ||
| Both are investing heavily in Arctic presence, infrastructure, and influence. | ||
| The U.S. can either treat Greenland as a distant curiosity or as what it actually is, a forward position in a region that will define future power balances. | ||
| Again, that's the case he makes. | ||
| You can make your case for and against acquiring Greenland on the phone lines. | ||
|
Prophecy Fulfilled: Greenland's Future?
00:15:33
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| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents 2027488002. | ||
| This is Frank in New York Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hello. | |
| It doesn't matter if he takes Greenland or does anything else in any country. | ||
| The prophecy is being fulfilled. | ||
| Frank, sticking to Greenland, why do you think it doesn't matter, specifically when it comes to acquiring it? | ||
|
unidentified
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Because he's there to do these things because of all the evil that you have been requiring for him to do. | |
| You out here hurting people, Destroying people, bodies. | ||
| Like I said, the prophecy is being fulfilled. | ||
| Well, specifically to Greenland, as far as the reason specifically not to acquire Greenland, why would you say specifically? | ||
|
unidentified
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It doesn't matter. | |
| We all want the prophecy being fulfilled. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's go to Greg. | ||
| Greg in North Carolina, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, good morning. | |
| Thank you for C-SPAN. | ||
| I'd just like to say Donald Trump buying Greenland or taking Greenland by force is what he does. | ||
|
unidentified
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He's a criminal. | |
| He said he wanted to go after drugs in Venezuela. | ||
|
unidentified
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It was the oil. | |
| We know that Greenland, Canada, and Venezuela has the type of oil that we need. | ||
| And it's, you know, he wants to, he's doing, like the other caller said, I think he's following a Putin play. | ||
| Well, let's stick to Greenland specifically. | ||
| You said it's oil, but are you saying it's not a national security interest? | ||
| And if that's the case, why? | ||
| I don't think it's a national security interest. | ||
|
unidentified
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It's definitely not now. | |
| And I don't think it's going to be, as the Secretary said, in near future. | ||
| And our allies have always been enough. | ||
| They've always been there for us. | ||
| And it's the way our democracy around the world is set up. | ||
| And I think that's what this president is trying to destroy. | ||
| Those are my villains. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Vicki is next. | ||
| Vicki joins us from Seattle, Independent Line, on this idea of acquiring Greenland and if it should be a U.S. priority. | ||
| Hello, Vicki. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi, I think there are a lot of more important things to worry about right now. | |
| But Trump just wants to go around and conquer things. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I think he is mad with power. | ||
| But we don't need to go after Greenland. | ||
| We can have all the benefits. | ||
| We can have all the security, anything we want there. | ||
| They're an open door to us. | ||
| They have always been very obliging. | ||
| And we need to stick with NATO. | ||
| If we lose NATO, Russia and China will be ready to attack us. | ||
| They've always, that's always been the thing that we've been out here in this part of the zone. | ||
| And we're stupid to give that up. | ||
| It was stupid to leave NATO. | ||
| And I just, I'm 75, so I'm not too worried about the world in the next 20 years. | ||
| But I do worry about what it's going to be like for future generations. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| And in this case, do you think as far as security is concerned in that part of the world, NATO is enough to satisfy it? | ||
| Instead of the president saying that acquiring it for the U.S. alone would be enough to help with national security interests? | ||
|
unidentified
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You know, we can have all the bases we want in Greenland. | |
| They've never said no. | ||
| In fact, I was in the Army from 72 to 75. | ||
| Going to Greenland was kind of punishment because there's not a lot there as far as living there. | ||
| It was very harsh conditions. | ||
| And now it's actually much better. | ||
| But the fact is, we can have all the security. | ||
| We can have everything we want there. | ||
| We don't have to buy it. | ||
| We don't have to go through all of this. | ||
| He's just trying to make, I don't know what he's trying to do, to be honest. | ||
| I think the man is actually mad with power. | ||
| I do. | ||
| I think he's gotten so much that he's possibly just too much. | ||
| But obviously, it's too much. | ||
| But no, people need to acquire Greenland. | ||
| We don't have to go through any of this. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's Vicki there in Seattle to her point. | ||
| This is an op-ed from National Security Leaders for America's Robert Loftus. | ||
| And then the recent op-ed, he said this, to say that we need to own Greenland for our own national security displays and amazing ignorance to one of the key foundations of our post-war security and prosperity. | ||
| Denmark, of which Greenland is an autonomous territory, is a founding member of the 32-member NATO military alliance that the United States has led for more than 70 years, each pledge to come to each other's assistance in case of attack. | ||
| If Greenland does indeed face a threat from Russia or China, it is far better to face that threat with the combined forces of NATO rather than by the U.S. alone. | ||
| Again, that's from Robert Loftus: the case for or against acquiring Greenland. | ||
| Should it be a U.S. priority? | ||
| That's what we're asking you in light of the latest move by the president imposing new tariffs on specific European countries that offer support to Greenland, saying that a 10% tariff will be in place later to be replaced by a 25% tariff, specifically towards these countries. | ||
| What do you think about that specifically, or this idea of acquiring Greenland overall? | ||
| You can roll the latest news into that to our question if you want to answer it. | ||
| There are the phone lines posting on Facebook. | ||
| You can also do, you can text us at 202-748-8003. | ||
| And you can also post on X at C-SPAN WJ. Sylvia in Virginia, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi there as far as acquiring Greenland. | ||
| What do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, no, I don't think so. | |
| And I think they're a sovereign country. | ||
| And I think we need to leave them alone. | ||
| I think that's why they're upset. | ||
| So I believe President Trump should just leave that alone and help us with the economy. | ||
| That's what we need the most right now. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Can I follow up and ask, what's the benefit of leaving them alone versus acquiring them for security interests, is what the president says. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, they're a sovereign country, and I feel like it's almost like we're a little bit going to go to war to acquire them. | |
| I believe they've been a country themselves for a while. | ||
| And I know we have troops there that are stationed, but we do that all over the world. | ||
| I don't believe that we need to be messing in their business. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Protests available from the internet. | ||
| This is what's taking place in Denmark, or some of the protests that have taken place in Denmark when it comes to this idea of acquiring Greenland. | ||
| We'll show you that as we hear from Micah in Indiana, Republican line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hello, sir. | |
| You're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, I think that acquiring Greenland is very, very important, strategic to our national security. | |
| If you remember in the Cold War, we have a base in Greenland. | ||
| It's only 50,000 people in Greenland. | ||
| It's only 6 million people that live in Denmark. | ||
| Greenland, with the ice caps melting, if you do the research, you've got to understand that it's strategic. | ||
| We can't have people close to our shores. | ||
| We have to protect our shores. | ||
| We have to protect our resources that are available. | ||
| Because if we let China and Russia get those resources, then we're going to be vulnerable in the future. | ||
| So I think it's a very strategic thing for our great president, who God allowed to be our president, that we must pray for, just like all of our leaders around the world. | ||
| We need Greenland, and we should get it. | ||
| Well, Micah, you've probably heard some of the calls saying what could acquiring Greenland do that NATO couldn't do at this stage if something were to happen security-wise in that part of the world. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, if you look at the history of NATO, and if you've been paying attention to NATO recently, what NATO did to Israel while Israel was being attacked by Hamas, NATO was against Israel. | |
| NATO can turn against America. | ||
| We cannot trust NATO to the extent that they're protecting us because we have been protecting NATO and we have been funding NATO. | ||
| President Trump just made all the participating nations to raise their GDP to pay for NATO to exist. | ||
| So NATO is not an end-all, end-all. | ||
| NATO has very little power because so does Britain, so does Germany, so does the EU. | ||
| They've been overrun by the Arabs, and they have a problem themselves. | ||
| So if you're paying attention, you got to understand America is the last nation to stand to protect civil liberties, freedoms, and the good things that are upon this earth. | ||
| And I hope we as Americans do our research and not be emotional. | ||
| And let's come together and make sense of all this that's going on in the world right now, because this is in a very important time in history. | ||
| Micah, what do you think about fellow Republicans pushing back on this idea of acquiring Greenland? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, I think the pushback is Trump is trying to do so many great things for this country. | |
| He has so much to fix that some of the Republicans that are holding off, it may be seeing that Trump is being too, they don't want to lose their seats. | ||
| But I think it's very important for our country to get Greenland right now while we have a chance. | ||
| Micah there in Indiana, Republican line making the case for acquiring Greenland. | ||
| You can do the same on the phone lines. | ||
| If you disagree, you can make the case against acquiring Greenland. | ||
| The phone lines, 202 area codes, all of them, 7488,000 for Democrats, Republicans, 7488,001. | ||
| Independents, 748-8002. | ||
| The Washington Post takes this as their lead editorial today. | ||
| A trade war won't win Greenland, they argue, saying that without firing a shot or breaking up NATO, Mr. Trump hopes to bully and cajole Denmark into selling a swath of its kingdom that is geographically larger than Mexico. | ||
| Mr. Trump, a developer at heart, sees this as a potential crown jewel for his legacy. | ||
| Such an acquisition would be slightly larger than President Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana purchase. | ||
| U.S. planners reportedly estimate that purchasing Greenland could cost up to $700 billion, though economic coercion may lower the price tag, as does U.S. refusing to rule out using military to take it by force. | ||
| The editorial adding, but Denmark insists it will never sell. | ||
| And Mr. Trump's behavior is already exacting an intangible price on the transatlantic relationship. | ||
| The eight countries put out a joint statement on Sunday to say that Mr. Trump's tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral. | ||
| They downplayed the small contingents of troops they sent to Greenland, saying it was part of a pre-planned exercise called the quote Arctic Endurance that quote poses no threat to anyone. | ||
| That's the Washington Post editors making their case on the issue. | ||
| You're invited to make your case as well. | ||
| In California, Newark, Bruce, Democrats line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Yeah, I heard a speech when he first became during his campaign that he said that Russia, China could take care of their end of their country, world, and we would take care of ours. | ||
| I think his plan is to control the waterways. | ||
| That's why he wanted Panama Canal. | ||
| He wanted Canada, and he wants Greenland. | ||
| I think this is also a, he wants to get out of NATO. | ||
|
unidentified
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He wants to retreat. | |
| He's an isolationist, and that's my opinion. | ||
| Bruce there in California, one of those Republicans that have been pushing back against this idea. | ||
| Senator Tom Tillis making his thoughts on X known after the announcement of the tariff, saying this response to our own allies for sending a small number of troops to Greenland for training is bad for America, bad for American businesses, and bad for America's allies. | ||
| It's great that Putin, she, and other adversaries who want to see NATO divided. | ||
| The fact that is a small handful of, quote, advisors are actively pushing for coercive action to seize the territory as an ally is Beyond Stupid. | ||
| It hurts the legacy of President Trump and undercuts all the work he has done to strengthen the NATO alliance over the years. | ||
| That's Tom Tillis' reaction. | ||
| Let's hear from Ron. | ||
| Ron is in Georgia, independent line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I'd like to say, do you recall the healthier talks back during the first term of Trump? | ||
| Reflecting on the talks that were not disclosed to the public and how NATO was pushed in the first term to donate more money. | ||
| All of that combined with Putin does not like NATO. | ||
| He wants NATO done away with. | ||
| I see this as a means that, hey, NATO could be done away with under Putin's influence. | ||
| So therefore, as we push Greenland and others to separate ourselves from NATO, this is a means to an end, unfortunately. | ||
| And it's going to be the undoing of NATO. | ||
| It's going to play right into Putin's hands. | ||
| Unfortunately, our president is going to be looking like, eh, not so good. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, adding this to the conversation. | ||
| When it comes to the tariffs that were placed by the president, saying these tariffs are unnecessary, punitive, and a profound mistake. | ||
| It will push our core European allies further away while doing nothing to advance U.S. national security. | ||
| We are already seeing the consequences of these measures in real time. | ||
| Our NATO allies are being forced to divert attention and resources to Greenland, a dynamic that placed directly into Putin's hands by threatening the stability of the strongest coalition of democracies the world has ever seen. | ||
| Congress must work together to reassert our constitutional authority over tariffs so that they are not weaponized in ways that harm our alliances and undermine Americans' leadership, American leadership. | ||
| That's Senator Lisa Makowski, a Republican of Alaska, giving her thoughts on the matter of Greenland. | ||
|
Acquiring Greenland for Security
00:15:36
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||
| And we're asking you as far as acquiring Greenland, where you think it fits when it comes to a U.S. priority. | ||
| Republican line in Florida. | ||
| Harry, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, my name is Terry with a T. Ah, sorry. | |
| That's okay. | ||
| And whether you're a Democrat, an independent, Republic, I feel Greenland is totally necessary for our security. | ||
| We want to acquire it. | ||
| We don't want to take it over. | ||
| It will help their people as far as most of them are concerned. | ||
| I don't think it's a political issue. | ||
| It's for our safety to help complete the dome. | ||
| I just think it's very necessary and it will be a win-win for everybody involved from Greenland to here. | ||
| You mentioned the Golden Dome. | ||
| Elaborate on why you think it's a security need, though, as far as the United States is concerned. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, we need to surround ourselves like we did Israel. | |
| We helped them with the Golden Dome and Greenland's just part of it. | ||
| Greenland's a lot closer to the United States than most people think. | ||
| A lot of people think it's way up there in the frozen tundra. | ||
| Well, it is frozen. | ||
| When you fly from Chicago or, say, New York, your path is very close to Greenland. | ||
| You can look down and see the frozen tundra, but yet it's a security for us. | ||
| And, you know, yes, we'll get some raw materials and maybe discover some more oil, but that's okay. | ||
| It's not going to, I feel it's real close and we need it for security and we need it for the raw materials. | ||
| And it's a win-win for everybody. | ||
| Do you think it's distracting the other things that the president could be doing? | ||
| I know some have made the case to that point. | ||
| What do you think about that idea? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you can look at it as a distraction, but he does a lot of things. | |
| You know, in the course of a day, Trump, God bless him, has the ability to do many, many things. | ||
| So some may view it as a distraction. | ||
| I don't. | ||
| Why would he want to distract? | ||
| From the beginning, way before he was in his second term here, he mentioned Greenland as a strategic location and the United States should look into acquiring it. | ||
| Even he laughed at the time. | ||
| He thought, well, that's a far shot. | ||
| But now, no, it's not a distraction. | ||
| It's just part of his agenda. | ||
| And I agree with it 100%. | ||
| Terry in Florida there calling on our line for Republicans. | ||
| You can do the same, making the case for or against acquiring Greenland. | ||
| If you think that's a priority for the United States, we've shown you the phone lines. | ||
| You can continue on calling those lines if you wish. | ||
| Pick the one that best represents you. | ||
| And if you called in the last 30 days, you can hold off from doing that. | ||
| If you want to text us your thoughts, 202-748-8003 is how you do that. | ||
| And you can post on our social media sites. | ||
| That's Facebook at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and exit C-SPAN WJ. | ||
| Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday. | ||
| And our C-SPAN crews are at the memorial for Dr. King. | ||
| Later on in the program, we will be talking to two people with different perspectives, not only when it comes to Martin Luther King, his legacy, civil rights in the United States. | ||
| Those conversations will be later on in the program. | ||
| Also, several events there, too, that you can see if you're interested in events featuring Dr. King and focusing on him. | ||
| At 8:30, about an hour from now, the Reverend Al Sharpton will recognize community leaders, politicians, and activists at the National Action Network's annual Martin Luther King Jr. legislative breakfast. | ||
| It'll include Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, former Attorney General Eric Holder. | ||
| That will be from D.C., 8:30 this morning. | ||
| C-SPAN 3 is where you can see it. | ||
| You can also see it at C-SPANNOW, our app, and c-span.org, our website. | ||
| And then at 9 o'clock this morning at the memorial that we've been showing you this morning, a reflaying ceremony to honor the late civil rights leader, Maryland Senator Angela Olsselbrooks, will deliver the keynote address at the event. | ||
| It's hosted by the Memorial Foundation, again, at the Martin Luther King Memorial. | ||
| You can see that at 9 o'clock on C-SPAN 2, C-SPAN Now, and our app at C-SPAN, our website at C-SPAN.org. | ||
| Again, we'll be showing you sights and sounds from the Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial, as you're seeing there, our C-SPAN crews out and about. | ||
| So this idea of acquiring Greenland, is it a priority in Florida, Democrats line? | ||
| This is Bob in Port St. Lucie. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Well, it's very obvious Putin has something on Trump that Trump can't let out. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that's what's going on there. | |
| Meaning what? | ||
| Elaborate on that. | ||
| Well, he's got some secret. | ||
| He must have been over in Russia having fun with maybe a young lady and got caught on tape and Putin's holding things over his head. | ||
| And how do you drive that? | ||
| And how do you drive that connection to Greenland specifically? | ||
| Well, Whatever Putin wants, or whatever Trump wants, he gets, and Putin's got something that he wants, and that's a secret that he pulled over in Russia when he visited over there. | ||
| So he can't go against Putin no matter what. | ||
| Okay, Andre up next. | ||
| Andre in D.C., Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hey, Pedro, how are you doing? | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Thanks for the call. | ||
| C-SPAN, you guys are the best. | ||
| Say hello to Kimberly for me. | ||
| Yeah, the gentleman, just before this one, kind of sums up a lot of what I wanted to say. | ||
| You asked him a marvelous question. | ||
| Is this distracting the president from other things that he could want to do? | ||
| And the gentleman responded, no, because he's doing all kinds of things all day. | ||
| Of course, he couldn't come up with one. | ||
| Obviously, rest of us say when he's not sleeping. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| I didn't say anything. | ||
| Keep going. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| When he's not sleeping or spewing out expletives at whatever ethnic group he doesn't like. | ||
| And ask them out in foreign country economically how everything is going, where they're going to sell their crops, who's going to drive trucks taking these things where they've got to go. | ||
| And the young gentleman as well, just before, whether Putin has something or not, things will come out eventually. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Well, let's go back to the topic at hand. | ||
| Why do you think Greenland shouldn't be a priority? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, because it may be a priority. | |
| It's not necessarily the priority. | ||
| It's how you're going about it. | ||
| If we have bases there anyway, and they are very welcoming to having more of our bases there, more of our presence there without going through all this drama, why not do that? | ||
| No one says, I haven't heard anyone say it's not a priority. | ||
| It's just how you go about, again, I'm sorry. | ||
| I didn't say anything. | ||
| You're probably watching me respond. | ||
| Just go ahead and finish your thoughts. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| It's not so much that it's not a priority. | ||
| It's how you're going about it. | ||
| Why create all, now you want another trade war to, again, achieve a goal that if he just asked them, he could achieve anyway. | ||
| I mean, it's bizarre. | ||
| Well, it's not bizarre to the extent that what else goes along with this? | ||
| Armed, mass, a paramilitary force roaming the streets of different cities. | ||
| We're, again, want to change what we're learning in museums. | ||
| We want to eliminate books. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| All of this goes together. | ||
| I don't want to call it a mass a screen or anything, but it's very interesting that none of this is happening in isolation or without these other ideological Christian nationalists. | ||
| Okay, you're getting way far from the topic, but thanks for the call. | ||
| People have talked about bases. | ||
| Wall Street Journal says as of today, or when this story was published, the U.S. has about 150 troops. | ||
| That's down from a peak of about 15,000. | ||
| The only current base, according to the Wall Street Journal, is the Pitufik. | ||
| And I'm probably saying that wrong, and many apologies if I am. | ||
| The space base is the only current base there. | ||
| They do have a number of radar and radio stations, weather stations, research stations, a marine station. | ||
| That's available at Wall Street Journal if you want to see that for yourself when it comes to what's there as far as U.S. interests are concerned. | ||
| You can add that to the conversation and mix when it comes to this idea of acquiring Greenland, if it should be a priority of the United States Republican line. | ||
| Gene in Virginia. | ||
| Hello. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
| Gene in Virginia. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| You're on. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm. | |
| Gene in Danville, Virginia. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, I've got what I have to say is that Trump does need to take Greenland because Putin is trying to get the oil out of there. | |
| And he's right. | ||
| He's stopping the oil from leaving there because if he doesn't do that, it's going to cause a problem with the United States of America. | ||
| I'm 93 years old, and I've never seen anything like it in all my born days. | ||
| We need to acquire what we need to acquire to be able to help control the world. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Gene there in Virginia, one of the other people expressing support for acquiring Greenland, but maybe questions the way going about it is the president's former vice president, Mike Pence, on the Sunday shows yesterday. | ||
| Here's some of the case he makes. | ||
| I think it's a question right now, Jake, not of what the president's trying to accomplish, but how. | ||
| And I have concerns about using what I think is a questionable constitutional authority, imposing unilateral tariffs on NATO allies to achieve this objective, as much as I had concerns about the threat of a military invasion, which apparently is no longer being talked about. | ||
| But the what here, I think, is absolutely in the interest of the United States of America. | ||
| I mean, literally, I think it was Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State who negotiated the purchase of Alaska, who first suggested that the United States also purchase Greenland. | ||
| I traveled to the region in 2019, visited Iceland to literally make the case of our national security interest as China and Russia continue to intrude farther and farther into the Arctic. | ||
| So what the president is trying to do here, I think, is absolutely in the interest of the United States of America. | ||
| I would just rather see the president use his persuasive powers and U.S. investment in Greenland to lay a foundation for ultimately achieving that goal. | ||
| That's the former vice president from yesterday. | ||
| Here's a little more about that one base there in Greenland saying the Department of Defense wants to spend as much as $25 million in major infrastructure improvements to the Pitufic Space Base runways in Greenland, the overhaul of its airfield as part of other work planned for the installation. | ||
| It's the U.S. military single base in Greenland and a major early warning missile tracking site. | ||
| Could see tens of millions of dollars in upgrades to its airfield and other facilities in a solicitation for bids opposed to SAM.gov. | ||
| The Department of Defense said it's looking for up to $25 million for new lighting systems that guide landings, a river crossing bridge, and other guidance-related signage and power generators through substantial for a small base like the one. | ||
| The upgrades are fairly routine. | ||
| And this adds that USA Today first reported on the solicitation for those bids for that one base there at Greenland. | ||
| Let's hear from Anthony, acquiring Greenland, if it should be a priority of the United States. | ||
| He's in D.C. Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi there. | |
| Yes, good morning, Pedro. | ||
| No, it's not a priority. | ||
| We're helping the health care, the brand new health care plan. | ||
| When you go and threaten all these other countries, now we're threatening Greenland, and you see how our allies are against it. | ||
| You know, we're causing more problems here. | ||
| We have $37 trillion in debt. | ||
| I can look and see that next week we might not have any China and whoever's holding that debt, who he's putting these extra tariffs on, may call in, you know, hey, it's time to collect. | ||
| And we're going to have to go to war because we don't have the money to pay that $37 trillion. | ||
| And then to piggyback on what you were just saying, all the bases that they're going to have to build. | ||
| And, you know, people act like we can push a button and it's all done tomorrow. | ||
| No, it's going to take years and trillions more dollars to get all that stuff done. | ||
| We'll never see the results of it. | ||
| And we'll never see the benefits of the, you know, if they get resources out of Greenland. | ||
| But the Greenland people say we can buy the resources. | ||
| We can build more bases. | ||
| If we had the money, we could do that. | ||
| But we don't even have the money to do health care, people. | ||
| And that's more of a priority than anything else, housing. | ||
| But I'm telling you, it's a fleecing of America. | ||
| And if we allow him to do that, it opens the Treasury. | ||
| Of course, Trump is going to take his cut and say, okay, it was an overrun, and we have to pay more than we thought for Greenland, just like they're doing in Ukraine right now. | ||
| Because, man, CIA man Pompeo is over there with his million-dollar contract, and all the money we're sending to Ukraine, Mike Pompeo gets, and he's giving it up. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And he gives the Ukrainian people, what's up? | |
| Got the point. | ||
| Let's go to Kate, Kate, in Missouri Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hi. | ||
| I do not support acquiring Greenland. | ||
| If the Greenlanders wanted to become part of our country, I would be fine with that, no problems. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But they don't. | |
| They do not want to be part of this country. | ||
| So no, I do not support acquiring Greenbook. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The other thing I thought about is: would it come in as a state? | |
| Would it come in as a territory? | ||
| Trump has talked about Canada coming in as a state, which puts it ahead of D.C. and all of the other territories, Puerto Rico, Guam, etc. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so that was my other question. | |
| Would it come in as a state territory? | ||
|
Negotiating Greenland's Value
00:11:53
|
||
|
unidentified
|
Would we be simply owners, occupiers? | |
| If it comes in as a state, we put it way ahead of all of the other territories in D.C., some of whom would probably like to be a state. | ||
| The other thing that is inconsistent with Trump's position is he's denying climate change, and yet he wants to acquire a big piece of property in the north because of melting seas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's an inconsistency in that. | |
| So that's my perspective on Greenland. | ||
| If they wanted to be part of this country, great. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They don't. | |
| And we've got everything that we need without ownership. | ||
| That is Missouri. | ||
| That's Kate Missouri Independent Line. | ||
| Let's hear from John, Arlington, Virginia, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| We have that one little base up there in Greenland. | ||
| And before we think about buying Greenland from the Danes, maybe we should expand our forces up there to what they were before we reduce them and then see if it's necessary to buy Greenland. | ||
| I think it'd be, I think, aside from the trouble it's causing with our European friends, I just think it's an unnecessary provocation. | ||
| We should, if Trump wants to do something, build up all those bases that we cut back and see how that works if you have a problem there. | ||
| It'll be several hundred thousand years before the ice cap melts up there. | ||
| So I don't think there's a problem with getting a lot of minerals from Greenland. | ||
| There's only about 15% of the place that you can mine out of anyway. | ||
| And the Danes already said other than uranium, we can go over after whatever we want to get. | ||
| So I think it's unnecessary. | ||
| And I just think it causes more problems with our allies. | ||
| And that doesn't seem to be an issue with the president, which is too bad. | ||
| John, in Virginia, Republican line, we showed you that base, our show's Eagle Eye producer, telling me that Bidoufik is the pronunciation of that lone base that you can find in Greenland there. | ||
| Apologies for the mangling of the previous pronunciation. | ||
| Let's hear from James. | ||
| James in Richmond, Virginia, Democrats line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I want to put to rest what everybody in America don't want to realize. | ||
| In 1980, during the 80s, there was an interview at the airport about this American citizen going to Russia to come find out about Donald Trump and his family. | ||
| Now, the caller earlier said, What is it that Trump had? | ||
| What is it that Putin has on Trump? | ||
| When Donald Trump went to Russia, he participated in an orgy, but he forgot one thing. | ||
| They got Disney. | ||
| Callers, those are allegations. | ||
| And what's the point to Greenland, please? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You can't get something that somebody doesn't want to give you, and you can't take something nobody wants you to have. | |
| You're going to start a world war with all the other countries thinking that you can beat everybody, and you can't. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| James there in Virginia. | ||
| Let's hear next from David. | ||
| David in Virginia as well. | ||
| Newport News, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I think the problem has been too complex. | ||
| The United States has no standing. | ||
| And the policy should be simple. | ||
| It's no. | ||
| We have parallels with fascist regimes, Hitler, and Czechoslovakia. | ||
| And we're on a dangerous path. | ||
| Well, let's go back to your initial statements. | ||
| When you say the United States has no standing, what do you mean by that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We don't own it. | |
| We have no international or domestic authority to procure other countries or other places. | ||
| It's opposite of what the United States, the uniqueness of the United States, to even be going down this path. | ||
| And as far as interest of security, what do you think about that argument when it comes to the president and his team when it comes to acquiring Greenland, that it's in our best security interest? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there's other ways: negotiation, collaboration. | |
| But it's like if I want something from some neighbor that I feel I need, I have no right to take it. | ||
| And basically, basically, you can negotiate it. | ||
| You can do a lot of different strategies. | ||
| We're going down a path of planning to see that we have some type of divine right to take from others. | ||
| It's consistent with the domestic policies that he's implementing. | ||
| And it's fascist. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| David in Virginia giving his thoughts. | ||
| Cindy Lambert on Facebook doing as well, starting with no, followed by two exclamation points. | ||
| U.S. priority should be the USA. | ||
| That's followed by three exclamation points. | ||
| Our aim should be to live in peace with our neighbors, our allies, and the world. | ||
| USA should strive to continue to be the leader of the free world. | ||
| Many of you posting on Facebook during the starting and during the show, you can still do that at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN. | ||
| And you can also post on X at C-SPAN WJ. | ||
| If you want to send us a text on this topic, you still do that. | ||
| 202-748-8003 is how you send that text. | ||
| Lana in Florida, Republican line. | ||
| Hello there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| You're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| I think that people are missing the point in that they are negotiating with Denmark and Greenland. | ||
| They are not going to come in there and take over. | ||
| So people are losing their minds about nothing. | ||
| Well, what do you think about the way we're posing it as far as a U.S. priority? | ||
| Do you think that's the case or not the case? | ||
| Where do you fall on that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think we have to be the priority in the world. | |
| You know, we are peace through strength. | ||
| We're not taking over countries. | ||
| We're not coming in and taking over countries. | ||
| We're negotiating. | ||
| That's what a good negotiator does. | ||
| Can I ask what you think the value of acquiring Greenland would be? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that we need it for our national security, as President Trump said, because it is a country rich in the minerals that we need. | |
| Again, they negotiate this through Greenland and Denmark. | ||
| Lana there in Florida, giving her case there. | ||
| You can do the same. | ||
| The New York Times has an analysis looking at the past days and also the acquiring of Greenland overall, saying what makes this crisis, and this is done in light of the tariffs, both remarkable and unnecessary, is that it appears so deliberately manufactured by Mr. Trump himself. | ||
| As an opening position, he has made clear he is not interested in diplomatic compromises that would almost certainly achieve his stated defense aims, more U.S. bases to monitor Chinese and Russian shipping and the expansion of his still nascent Golden Dome missile defense project. | ||
| He has shown no interest so far in looking for diplomatic off-ramps or the kind of defense partnerships that NATO has long fostered. | ||
| Every time the Europeans offer solutions, everything short of outright American ownership of the Danish territory, Mr. Trump turns them aside, demanding all 836,000 square miles of Greenland, even if most of it is covered in an ice sheet. | ||
| That's the analysis from the New York Times. | ||
| If you want to read more there, when it comes to issues of acquiring Greenland, we're asking you the priority of making that decision or acquiring the country. | ||
| Bruce in Kentucky, Democrats line, hello. | ||
| Bruce in Kentucky, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm sorry. | |
| It's okay. | ||
| There's a couple of things I want to say. | ||
| First of all, I don't think Russia or China has any interest in Greenland because if they did, we would have heard it on the news. | ||
| The news would be blown up about that. | ||
| And as far as Trump is concerned, he takes what he wants. | ||
| You know, he went down to Venezuela, took that. | ||
| He wants to take Greenland. | ||
| He even mentioned Europe that he wants to take. | ||
| Okay, as far as Greenland is concerned, I don't know if there's any value as far as minerals or whatever in Greenland. | ||
| And if it is, we already have a base there already. | ||
| And why not beef that up? | ||
| Why not build more bases on the west part of Greenland? | ||
| I don't know how much that costs or whatever or whether it takes, but if he wants to take Greenland, he don't have to take Greenland. | ||
| You know, he already got bases there in Greenland. | ||
| Okay, that's Bruce. | ||
| One more call, and this will be from Julia in Ohio. | ||
| Republican line, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I think that we could benefit from Greenland in order to, for security, to be able to build a golden dome, also to protect our waterways from Russia and China. | |
| However, I'm concerned about Denmark. | ||
| I think 20% of their economy comes from Greenland. | ||
| So I think we're going to have to negotiate more with Denmark in order to be able to acquire Greenland. | ||
| And Julia, and Julia, since you mentioned economics, have you heard about these new tariffs that the president wants to place on these certain countries? | ||
| And if so, what do you think about that move? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's a negotiating thing that Trump uses. | |
| I think that he will back off of that. | ||
| He's using it to help get his way. | ||
| I honestly think maybe he could offer to Denmark to have no tariffs and also to share the minerals rights with Denmark. | ||
| We already protect the European countries, so they should value our protection. | ||
|
Conversations Honoring MLK
00:02:52
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| Julia in Ohio, thanks for the call, and she finishes off the hour. | ||
| Thank you for all of you who participated this morning. | ||
| Again, we've shown you shots of the Martin Luther King Memorial here in Washington, D.C. | ||
| It is the day, the federal holiday that honors the civil rights leader, and we will have conversations about the leader, his impact, and the state of civil rights today. | ||
| One of those guests joining us later in the program, the first of two perspectives, is Star Parker. | ||
| She is the founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. | ||
| She'll join us later in the program to talk about Dr. King and his impact. | ||
| But next up, we will discuss the latest on the upheaval in Iran, where things go from here. | ||
| and joining us for that conversation, Quincy Institute's Trita Parsi will join us next on Washington Journal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| Shop now or anytime at c-span shop.org. | ||
| 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 own minds. | ||
| I absolutely love C-SPAN. | ||
| I love to hear both sides. | ||
| I've watched C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased. | ||
| And you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments. | ||
|
Recent Protests in Iran
00:15:34
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|
unidentified
|
This is probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country. | |
| 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. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to talk about recent protests in Iran and potential intervention by the United States, Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. | ||
| He serves as their executive vice president. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
| Thanks for giving us your time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| We heard about the conflicts. | ||
| We hear now there's a lull. | ||
| What are the kind of questions that we need to be asking collectively about what's going on in Iran when it comes to these protests? | ||
| Well, the first thing is that we need to better find out exactly what happened, mindful of the fact that the government imposed a very effective blackout. | ||
| The entire internet was essentially closed down. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You could not get a hold of people. | |
| It's not just until a few days ago that you could slowly but surely get in touch with people. | ||
| So there's a lot that we still do not know of exactly what happened, the extent of the protests, the extent of the violence, the extent of the death rate, etc. | ||
| There's still not full clarity on those issues. | ||
| At the same time, we're in a situation in which the United States is moving a lot of troops and ships to the region. | ||
| President Trump was on the precipice of attacking Iran a couple of nights ago, decided to hold off, but has now instead moved more assets there. | ||
| So it seems like he held off mainly to be able to make sure that he had more troops in the region as he was going to attack. | ||
| So we're still in a situation in which we don't know exactly what happened in Iran. | ||
| And the U.S. and Iran are on the brink of war. | ||
| Would you say that, to that last point, specifically, for what we hear of the ceasing of the protests, was it because of the actions by the president, or were there other factors in the country that added to that? | ||
| Actually, the threats that the president made that he would intervene if they clamped down on the protests was completely disregarded by the Iranian government. | ||
| Most of the clampdown happened after that call. | ||
| So it did not seem as if that had any effect at all. | ||
| In fact, it may even have led to a scenario in which the government clamped down even harsher than they otherwise would have as a way of showing President Trump that they are completely disregarding his red line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're not taking him seriously. | |
| They have the reason why the protests have ended, at least temporarily, is primarily, of course, because of the violence used by the government to clamp down. | ||
| But there also seems to be another element, which is that this time around, there were also a violent element amongst the protesters. | ||
| There's reports of about four to five hundred police officers or Besiege members, which are this pro-regime militia in Iran, that also have been killed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is unprecedented. | |
| We've never seen violence or death rates at that level before. | ||
| And that may also have been a bit of a repellent for others to come out and protest because the vast majority of the protesters are likely very, very peaceful and are repelled by seeing that there are other elements that are using these protests to pursue violence. | ||
| Remind people of what animated the protesters in the first place. | ||
| And do you think that's gone away? | ||
| Or is there another round of protests perhaps in the future because those concerns are still lingering? | ||
| So the specific spark was the fact that the currency collapsed, which then prompted currency traders and others to go out and protest. | ||
| But this is all taking place in a context in which the population, by and large, are extremely unhappy with the situation inside the country, with the government, with the regime as a whole. | ||
| And as a result, very quickly, it morphed into much larger protests that were no longer just about economic issues, but about getting rid of the government or the entire system, the regime as a whole. | ||
| None of the concerns of the population have really been addressed. | ||
| It's unclear whether they even can be addressed or there's any willingness to address them. | ||
| And as a result, it does not appear that the protests are entirely over. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, they may be over for now. | |
| They may be over for a couple of weeks. | ||
| But as long as the underlying causes are still there, unhappiness will remain and any new trigger can cause new waves of protests. | ||
| You probably saw the reaction from the Supreme Leader there placing blame initially on these protests on the United States and other countries, including Israel. | ||
| What sparked that reaction, do you think? | ||
| Well, the Iranian government has almost at all points blamed outside interference whenever there's been protests of this kind. | ||
| And it's been rather easy to dismiss many of those in the past. | ||
| This time around, however, there is a different element in the picture, which is that the Israeli government is actually openly saying that they are involved in the protests, that they have supported the protests. | ||
| They're talking about it openly on Israeli media as well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That does not necessarily mean that it's true. | |
| It could very well be part of the psychological warfare that is taking place between Israel and Iran. | ||
| But nevertheless, it makes it more difficult to just flat out reject the claims of the Iranian government, at least when it comes to Israel's involvement, different when it comes to the U.S. involvement, mindful of the fact that the Israelis themselves are saying that they have been involved and that they have been helping fuel these protests. | ||
| Trita Parsi is our guest. | ||
| And if you want to ask him about these protests in Iran and next steps, you can call the lines. | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| Our guest is with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. | ||
| Mr. Parsi, a little bit about your organization, I guess, the perspective it takes on issues like Iran. | ||
| Well, our organization is an organization, a think tank in DC that favors a U.S. national security centered on diplomacy and military restraint. | ||
| We believe that the United States should not seek military hegemony globally, that it should pursue a path of diplomacy to advance its national interests and security, rather than this approach that has oftentimes led the United States getting quagmired into these endless wars. | ||
| When it comes to Iran itself, there's a headline from The Guardian this morning. | ||
| It goes to what we spoke about previously, but saying that the leaders there saying that they're warning an attack on Khomeini, if other people attack Khomeini, it would be a declaration of war. | ||
| Parse that statement out for us. | ||
| So I think this is a reaction to the fact that there's been a lot of speculation, at least in the media, and perhaps the Iranians believe that that speculation extends into the U.S. government itself, that the United States, seeking to perhaps replicate what happened in Venezuela, but slightly differently, would go for taking out, whether it's kidnapping or assassinating the supreme leader of Iran. | ||
| And as a result, try to use the Venezuelan blueprint on the Iranian situation. | ||
| And it's a very different situation, of course, but nevertheless. | ||
| And I think this is a reaction to that and saying essentially that any targeting of the supreme leader would be seen as a declaration of war. | ||
| In general, what I think we're seeing from the Iranian government at this point is trying to signal the United States that the relative restraint they have shown, the Iranian government have shown, towards American attacks in the past. | ||
| For instance, in 2020, President Trump killed Qasem Suleimani. | ||
| The Iranians responded with strikes against an empty American base, essentially. | ||
| When Trump struck the Iranian nuclear facilities in June of last year, the Iranians again responded a couple of days later, striking a U.S. base in the region that already had been vacated. | ||
| What they're trying to signal now, however, is that their backs are against the wall. | ||
| They view their situation as existential. | ||
| And if they are attacked, they will respond forcefully rather than in the rather, in the words of the Pentagon, polite way that they have responded in the past. | ||
| So I think that statement from the president falls into that category, that they're trying to set clear red lines that if those are crossed, there will be full-scale war. | ||
| The phrase they use, attack with their back against the wall. | ||
| At the background of all this is the status of Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| How does that factor into all this? | ||
| Well, the nuclear program that Trump bombed is still there. | ||
| The Iranians say that they're not enriching uranium at the moment, but there is unclarity not only about that, but also about the whereabouts of about 400 kilos of 60% enriched uranium that was somewhere in the mountains. | ||
| It is not clear whether those were destroyed, whether they had been shipped out before the facilities were struck, or whether they're stuck there. | ||
| Because of the fact that the Iranians are at this point not allowing the IAEA to do inspections in Iran, we do not have clarity or intelligence of exactly where the status of the Iranian nuclear program is. | ||
| Now, Trump has said several times that he already obliterated the program. | ||
| That is a clear exaggeration, but it seems to be something that he's saying in order to reduce the pressure on him, primarily from Israel, to take further military action. | ||
| And even now, when he's planning to take military action, it is no longer on the basis of the nuclear program alone. | ||
| It's a one factor, but he's focusing now also on the Iranian missile program, as well as what he states as protecting the protesters. | ||
| So we've seen an expanding basis for the case of taking military strikes and in some ways setting aside the nuclear program, at least temporarily. | ||
| At the same time, the president also talking internally when it comes to the country, this was captured in headlines over the weekend saying that the president is saying on sites that it's time for new leadership within the country. | ||
| Not only talk about that statement by the president, but to what degree is that sentiment felt inside Iran, do you think? | ||
| I think there's an overwhelming sense inside of Iran that they want to see change and they want to see change that is profound. | ||
| We've seen an evolution of the position of the majority of the population, I would say, which is that before they wanted reform. | ||
| This is what at the center of the protest in the 2000s, in 2009, they were protesting against Fraud in the elections. | ||
| But then by 2022, with the Massa Amini protest, the demand was from the outset very clearly that they wanted to see a completely different regime. | ||
| The confidence, the hope, the belief that reform could work had essentially been completely dashed, particularly amongst the younger population who looked back in the past 20 years, they essentially saw two lost decades. | ||
| All the effort for reform, in their view, had failed, and they did not want to live through another two decades of their own lives as they were growing into adulthood and not having the freedoms that they believe that they deserve or the economic prosperity that they deserve. | ||
| But now we see at least some elements, some, and I want to really emphasize some elements of the protest movement, particularly on the outside of the country, that are now reaching the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that this regime cannot be removed by the Iranian people, but as a result, they want to see foreign military intervention. | ||
| So that's a significant radicalization from a position of seeking reform to regime change to now go all the way for foreign military intervention. | ||
| I want to emphasize there's no evidence that this is the majority view. | ||
| In fact, I don't believe that it is, but it is noteworthy that that is a voice that, you know, three years ago would absolutely not have been heard at all. | ||
| And I think there's several different reasons for it, and we can go into that as well if you want to. | ||
| Let's talk to a viewer before we do that. | ||
| This is Modesto in North Carolina, Independent Line. | ||
| You're on with Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'm calling about the protest out there in Iran. | |
| These protests are formatted by Massoud and CIA. | ||
| And then you got banks in places like London and Brussels that causes the collapse of the currency. | ||
| That formats protest. | ||
| And you got people that, you know what I'm saying, spies and antagonists from CIA and Mossoud that gets inside the country and they format protests. | ||
| And then this is what's causing the government to react and respond. | ||
| And all these people getting killed, you know what I'm saying? | ||
| Because they destabilize. | ||
| Okay, that's the view of one. | ||
| Mr. Parsi, what do you think? | ||
| I think that these protests, at least at the outset, were sparked by completely indigenous factors. | ||
| Now, it is true that when it comes to the collapse of the economy and the occurrence, that is very much tied to the sanctions that have been imposed on Iran. | ||
| But I think there is a genuine protest taking place inside of Iran. | ||
| I do think at the same time that there are elements within the protest movement, perhaps elements that were not there before, that are taking advantage of the protests in order to pursue a different agenda. | ||
| Again, seeing, for instance, the very large number of fire trucks that were destroyed in the beginning of the protests, that made it much more difficult to put out the fires that then some of these elements also had started in Tehran. | ||
| It is a pattern that we simply have not seen before. | ||
| And of course, you have the situation in which the Israelis are saying that they are part of this and that they have trained people, they have sent in people. | ||
| But we still need to see more evidence to be able to draw conclusions as strongly as the caller put forward. | ||
| We've been showing our viewers a video of these protests. | ||
| Is there a generational aspect of those who are out in the streets protesting? | ||
| Well, one of the things that is very different about these protests, at least starting on January 8th, is that they're all almost taking place at night, which then makes it much more difficult to be able to assess size, assess exactly what's going on, but also to be able to assess demographics, age, et cetera. | ||
| But it seems to be driven by younger people, but it doesn't seem to be exclusively young people. | ||
| Overall, however, I would say there is a very strong sentiment inside the country that they want to see change. | ||
| The question is, what type of a change and in what manner? | ||
| There are those who want to just completely get rid of the regime, of course, at any cost. | ||
| But there are also those who want to see that same change, but not willing to go for it at any cost. | ||
| They want to see it in some sort of a gradual controlled form. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They don't want to see the country destabilize. | |
| They don't want to risk war. | ||
| And they don't want to risk the same thing that happened in 1979, which is that the demand just for change led to a scenario in which one dictatorship was replaced in many ways by an even worse dictatorship. | ||
|
Iran's Desperate Divide
00:14:43
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|
unidentified
|
And they don't want to have to live through that. | |
| And then you have a small element, I would say 10 to 15% of the population that still fully support this regime as well. | ||
| So this is in many ways a split country. | ||
| The current president, Masou Pakesh Kian, give us an assessment of the importance he plays currently pre and post protest. | ||
| Well, Pazeshkian is probably one of the weakest Iranian presidents in recent memory, who specifically adopted a position of seeking to completely be on the same page as the supreme leader while pushing for some of his agenda items, particularly on the social front, etc., but without taking on a confrontational approach versus the supreme leader. | ||
| And we've seen other presidents that at times have ended up in very, very clear clashes with the supreme leader. | ||
| President Ahmadinejad, for instance, on one occasion refused to go to work for more than a week because of some of the confrontations, some of the challenges that he had with the supreme leader. | ||
| Pazesh Kian has taken on a completely different approach, but it also led to him being a much less significant figure than what the Iranian president otherwise could be. | ||
| Let's hear from Kurt. | ||
| Kurt in St. Louis, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning to you. | |
| You're on with our guest. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, you were talking about the Iranian rescue hostage thing. | |
| That was going on. | ||
| That whole operation, well, not the whole, but it was DC as well. | ||
| But it was run out of Arizona at March 1. | ||
| Max 1 is Marine Navy, Buckingham Squadron 1. | ||
| Okay, Kurt, what's the question about these current protests for our guests, please? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I just killed them in what got all this started and how we try to get out of it. | |
| If that's not of interest, I'll let you go. | ||
| Okay, we'll let our guests respond. | ||
| Sorry, I didn't quite understand how the protests got started. | ||
| I think he was claiming other things, and I'm not too sure exactly what he was talking about myself. | ||
| But let me ask you another question and follow up of leadership. | ||
| One of the voices that we've heard in the last couple of days in light of this is a gentleman named Reza Pahlavi, the former crown prince of Iran. | ||
| A little bit about him and why I guess he's reasserting himself in these days. | ||
| So, Reza Pahlavi is the son of the former Shah of Iran. | ||
| He resides in the Washington area in the United States. | ||
| He has emerged as a figure in the last couple of years that has gained a bit of support inside the country. | ||
| You do hear slogans in his favor in some of these protests. | ||
| This is not necessarily what we tended to see before, and has also definitely a strong support base in the diaspora. | ||
| He has tried to present himself as the alternative to the regime in Iran, but he has approached it in a manner that is much, much more similar to what the Venezuelan opposition has done, which is his main effort is not necessarily to build a movement inside of Iran that would do a revolution bottom-up and overthrow the government from that direction, | ||
| but rather to try to get the blessing of the United States and Donald Trump in the hope of being installed by the United States in Iran through a U.S. military intervention in the country. | ||
| And he, in fact, explicitly called for that type of an intervention just a couple of days ago. | ||
| I want to go ahead, please. | ||
| And I personally don't know if that is an approach that is necessarily the most successful one. | ||
| In some ways, it indicates a lack of confidence of an ability to actually build the type of coalition amongst Iranians that is necessary in order to overthrow the regime if it's supposed to be done by the people for the people. | ||
| I think you were referencing a post he did on X last week in light of these things. | ||
| I want to play a little bit of it, of our audience, and then we'll get your response. | ||
| So let me be clear about how a free Iran will act towards its neighbors and the world after the fall of this regime. | ||
| In security and foreign policy, Iran's nuclear military program will end. | ||
| Support for terrorist groups will cease immediately. | ||
| A free Iran will work with regional and global partners to confront terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking, and extremist Islamism. | ||
| Iran will act as a friend and a stabilizing force in the region. | ||
| And it will be a responsible partner in global security. | ||
| In diplomacy, relations with the United States will be normalized and our friendship with America and her people will be restored. | ||
| The state of Israel will be recognized immediately. | ||
| We will pursue the expansion of the Abraham Accords into the Cyrus Accords, bringing together a free Iran, Israel, and the Arab world. | ||
| A new chapter will begin grounded in mutual recognition, sovereignty, and national interest. | ||
| Mr. Parisi, quite a list there. | ||
| What do you think, and what is the reality there? | ||
| Well, there are several different things that are said that I think a lot of people in Washington will be strongly welcoming, of course. | ||
| A different Iran that has normalized relations with the United States. | ||
| This would be in the interest of the U.S. Of course, a different foreign policy approach would be strongly welcomed by elements in the U.S. as well. | ||
| The fact that the emphasis was on immediately recognizing Israel, I think, is interesting. | ||
| I wrote a book about the Shah's foreign policy towards Israel, and even the Shah actually did not recognize Israel. | ||
| There was a de jure, sorry, de facto relationship between Israel and Iran at the time. | ||
| But the Shah was very careful never to actually go for full recognition and open recognition of the Israeli state until there first was a peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. | ||
| But I think, again, part of the reason why this is part of Mr. Pallavi's agenda is because of an effort of getting the support of the United States to be his backer in all of this. | ||
| And I think there's a tremendous fear in his circle that he may Face the same fate as the Venezuelan Nobel Peace Prize winner did, in which she thought that she was going to be installed by the United States, but instead the Trump administration chose to go to Maduro's number two. | ||
| And the argument for that was because they believed that she would better be able to retain stability in Venezuela. | ||
| And I think this is something that has concerned Mr. Pallaby tremendously. | ||
| And as a result, he's doubling down in his effort to try to get Trump support. | ||
| Let's hear from Reed. | ||
| Reed joins us from Des Moines, Iowa. | ||
| Democrats line for Trita Parsi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm really enjoying the show. | ||
| And I'd like to ask your guest what the consequence of a return of the heir to the Shah in any way seen in a very young population in Iran. | ||
| They're mostly people who don't remember the Shahs weren't born in the Shah's reign. | ||
| How that return might affect the current status of affairs there and how it might be perceived by the Iranian population. | ||
| And more power to him. | ||
| They need all the help they can get. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I think there's an element in the population that has that nostalgia for the era of the Shah. | ||
| There's also an element in the population, the younger population, that has that nostalgia but has no memory of it because they weren't born then and, as a result, also don't remember why there was a revolution in the first place, because that was also a brutal dictatorship that the Shah ran. | ||
| I think that the likelihood of a takeover by Palladi is actually rather limited. | ||
| The most likely scenario, unfortunately in many ways, is that if this regime were to fall, it would be replaced by other elements from that same regime coming from the security establishment, and that is just because of the realities on the ground and who actually wields power in that system, and we've seen a similar scenario in other countries as well. | ||
| For there to be a democratic transition uh, there's a lot of other uh factors that need to come into play, but if there's a sudden change, most likely the next government of Iran will come from this very, very same regime. | ||
| Uh, you've referenced mr Uh Parsi about previous actions by the United States. | ||
| Who do you think is guiding the president's ear on these approaches? | ||
| It's not entirely clear to me uh, exactly who it is, but I think also, to be frank, I don't think the president is particularly concerned about the protest etc. | ||
| I think there's larger geopolitical factors. | ||
| That is, Uh taking up his time and, and particularly the pressure that he's receiving from the Israelis. | ||
| Prime minister Netanyahu was at the White House on december 29th and then stayed on Uh for a couple of days in Mar-a-lago, and at top of the agenda was that the Israelis wanted the United States to go to war with Iran again, because the war back in june was unfinished. | ||
| From the Israeli standpoint, they had not achieved their key objectives and it was very clear from the outset that there would be another round of war. | ||
| But the Israelis do need to have the United States more actively involved in that war because, as powerful as Israel is, of course, and more powerful than Iran, it turned out that the Iranian missiles were very, very effective in damaging Israel and, mindful of that, the Israelis would like to see the United States to play a much bigger role in the next war with Iran, and that is the key thing, the key point of pressure that he is under right now. | ||
| One more call. | ||
| This will be from Indiana Independent LINE, Shah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, go ahead, Good morning, gentlemen. | |
| I just want to challenge your guest a little bit. | ||
| He has been part, and you can do your own research. | ||
| He's been on your C-SPAN program for 25 times at least. | ||
| He has been a in effect, he has been a pro-Islamic republic propaganda machine in the United States. | ||
| He can change himself in a different way, and he can try to be objective and give his own opinion. | ||
| But he's an anti-Semite, and he is anti-Iranian people. | ||
| Caller, we invite him. | ||
| Caller, caller, we invite him on this program to talk to people like you. | ||
| Address your question specifically to him, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would like to ask him to specifically say if he's again he is for the regime change in Iran, the entire Islamic Republic of Iran. | |
| Is he for it or is against it? | ||
| Okay, thank you, caller. | ||
| Mr. Parson. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much. | |
| Let me first start off by saying that I completely reject those false accusations. | ||
| But as to the specific questions, I would like to see a completely different regime in Iran. | ||
| I think the Iranian people deserve a much better regime, a democratic regime that is secular, that is not religious. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The question is the manner in which you achieve it. | |
| I do not believe that foreign military interventions will work. | ||
| Looking at what happened in Syria, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya, these are not blueprints that I think are worthy of replicating. | ||
| I think it has a huge risk of destroying the country as a whole, of destabilizing it, and potentially even ripping the country apart, mindful of the fact that already right now you see that there are elements, secessionist elements in the border areas of Iran, that are trying to take advantage of the instability in order to be able to break free. | ||
| I think the struggle for democracy in Iran is more than 100 years old and needs to come from the inside. | ||
| It is very, very difficult, undoubtedly. | ||
| I do understand why a lot of people have lost faith in that process and believe that some sort of a foreign intervention is needed because it's been so difficult. | ||
| But I think it's important to understand why it also has been so difficult. | ||
| We've seen sanctions by the United States for more than 25 years that have decimated the Iranian middle class. | ||
| The Iranian middle class and middle class in any country is the engine for democratic change from within. | ||
| When the middle class is weakened, it makes it much more difficult to be able to have that type of a push. | ||
| And the intent of many of these different sanctions by some of the elements that have pushed for it is precisely been to drive the situation towards such a level of desperation so that people see no other option but to call for foreign military intervention. | ||
| Now, I think the Iranian government is mostly responsible for obviously the repression, but also for the economic mismanagement. | ||
| But in the absence of sanctions, the situation wouldn't be as bad as it is right now. | ||
| Making the situation so economically desperate may increase the risk, the likelihood of protests, but increases the risk of those protests failing to actually drive change in a democratic direction. | ||
| It could be a change, as we saw in 1979, but not a change that is democratic. | ||
| To be able to have that democratic change, you need a stronger civil society. | ||
| You need a stronger middle class. | ||
| And the fact that we have seen this policy of sanctions decimate the middle class has just made that work much, much more difficult. | ||
| Now, when we're in this very desperate situation, I think we should take a look, step back, and look exactly why did we end up here and what can be done to make sure that the Iranian people can get their freedom, but that that freedom comes at not at the cost of this instability, but it comes from within and in a manner that ultimately leads to democracy and not just to change. | ||
| Trader Parsi is the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible State Craft, QuincyINST.org, the website if you're interested in the organization. | ||
|
Ceasefire on Fridays
00:03:43
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| Mr. Parsi, thanks for giving us your time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much for having me. | |
| Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday to honor the civil rights leader. | ||
| We've been showing you scenes from the memorial throughout the day and two guests joining us to offer different perspectives on the day. | ||
| Later on in the program, we'll be joined by the University of Texas at Austin's Peneil Joseph to talk the legacy of Dr. King. | ||
| But first, we'll talk about the impact of the famed civil rights leader with the Center for Urban Renewal's founder, Center for Urban Renewal and Education's founder, Star Parker. | ||
| That conversation coming up next on Washington Journal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| And pass precedent nomination. | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is a kangaroo quarter. | |
| Fridays, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity. | ||
| Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| Politico Playbook chief correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns is host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue. | ||
| Ceasefire on the network that doesn't take sides. | ||
| Fridays at 7 and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| To discuss Martin Luther King Jr.'s impact on his federal holiday, honoring the civil rights leader, Star Parker, of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. | ||
| She serves as their founder. | ||
| Ms. Parker, welcome. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And I'm glad that you said as their founder, because I retired from CURE a year ago and went back home to California. | ||
| People might not know the organization. | ||
| What is it? | ||
| Okay, so CURE is a policy institute where we promote market-based solutions to fight poverty. | ||
|
Resetting the Country's Course
00:15:36
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| And about a year ago, we found a wonderful new president to lead up our three programs: our policy program, our media program, and our clergy program. | ||
| So I went home. | ||
| I went home, and seven months into retirement, realized there are things I still need to do here in Washington. | ||
| So I'm running for Congress from California, coming back to Washington, D.C. We'll talk about that a little later. | ||
| We talk about poverty. | ||
| Dr. King message largely dealt with issues of poverty. | ||
| What do you think about that message? | ||
| Where do you think it stands today? | ||
| I think it was a little bit later in his movement, if you will. | ||
| And I'm so glad that you're having me on to discuss this very, very important topic because as a society, we've gotten way off track from what he wanted and why he came to Washington, D.C., and now has his honor over there on the mall. | ||
| When you think about where Dr. King made that I Have a Dream speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and he said, you know, America, you're a little bit away from your founding principles. | ||
| The progressive movement has hijacked Dr. King and all that he was attempting to do. | ||
| When you look at why he said he came to Washington, it was for freedom. | ||
| It was remove the governmental barrier so that we can live free as African Americans. | ||
| At that point in history, they were called Negro. | ||
| And what we saw was a moral movement. | ||
| Many of the people that were early on with Dr. King were about Christianity. | ||
| They were about making things equitable for all people living up to our Declaration. | ||
| I mean, let's look at the speech, for instance. | ||
| He called these magnificent words when you look at the Declaration and the Constitution. | ||
| He talked about sacred obligation when you think about what he was addressing in the first part of his speech. | ||
| The speech, in my opinion, is broken down into three parts. | ||
| You have the one where he talked to the country. | ||
| He said, you know what, this is not going really well for one particular people group that are citizens of this country. | ||
| Number two, he talked to the Negro at the time. | ||
| He said, look, what we want to do, I really believe that we're getting to the place where we are going to be incorporated into this society the way that we should be. | ||
| But do not build bitterness and hatred, anger, which is where we are today. | ||
| And then the third party appealed to the country. | ||
| He said, you know what, okay, here we go. | ||
| Mostly in the country, those that believed in the fundamental principles of the country, that Judeo-Christian ethic that not only secured our country, but that was brought from the European countries. | ||
| When you think about Western culture and civilization, it comes right down to scripture. | ||
| We're a long way from the biblical truths because the progressives hijacked that movement in the 60s. | ||
| When you say hijacked then, where do you get from what Dr. King initially started to what you say is hijacking and what do you think those causes are? | ||
| Well, when you think about the 60s, a whole lot of activities were going on at the same time. | ||
| While he was and the blacks were moving toward freedom, the country was moving away from those founding principles. | ||
| We had a feminist movement that decided that marriage was no longer important. | ||
| We had Johnson himself, when he started putting into place during that same time that blacks were saying, let us live free, he started putting in place the great society which said government should have a bigger role in people's lives, it started to unravel. | ||
| Five years after King's death, we saw Roe v. Wade as national law. | ||
| And while it is really a horrible opportunity for that we are now discussing even this week, because the March for Life this week, but when you think about the impact on family life, in particular on black family life, so when we look at what's going on today in current affairs, whether it's poverty, which is what you asked about, or whether it's who should we be as a people, should we as a society now dismantle all of that structure that came in for government involvement to fix what had broken down in our country, | ||
| we can point to that moment in history in the 60s, that the progressive movements had a different agenda than where Dr. King was going. | ||
| Ultimately, the 60s would produce the Civil Rights Act, or at least later on. | ||
| What do you think the impact of that, even in the modern day? | ||
| Well, we did have a Civil Rights Act, and you're right. | ||
| It was rewritten, and we had it incorporated a year after Dr. King came here and made that infamous speech. | ||
| When you think about I Have a Dream, he was seeing us united as a society, not more divided. | ||
| And after his death, the progressives picked up that baton and took us in a different direction, built out hatred. | ||
| You know, there's a difference between desegregation and forced integration. | ||
| So next thing you know, we're forcing people to do things they not necessarily wanted to do. | ||
| We're forcing people to share spaces that they don't necessarily want to share. | ||
| And then we used an arm of government and big government at that to force people to pay excessive taxation to take care of other people's lives. | ||
| We really did get lost in those 60s. | ||
| And now we're correcting. | ||
| Now we're starting to see, especially with Donald Trump and his administration, say, can we get to a place where we can reset? | ||
| Can we get to a place in our 250 years to see, can America work? | ||
| So they're dismantling all of that DEI, which would grow out of that whole multiculturalism movement, which grew out of affirmative action. | ||
| These were government actions that forced people to do things that they perhaps should not have done and or did not want to do. | ||
| Dr. King said it himself when he was talking about what he was trying to accomplish. | ||
| He said, you can't legislate morality. | ||
| You regulate behavior through law. | ||
| I can't make a man love me, but I can keep them from lynching me. | ||
| So what we've been doing as a society over the last 50 years is trying to force people to behave the way progressives think they should behave. | ||
| And yet we have a moral outline in our Declaration of Independence that was rooted in the scriptures to say all of us can self-govern if we want to. | ||
| Star Parker with us and if you want to ask her questions on this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday 202-748-8000 for Democrats, Republicans 202748-8001 and Independents 202748-8002, you can text us thoughts at 202-748-8003. | ||
| It was a year ago that you wrote this about the president in an op-ed. | ||
| You said, common ground between the appeal of Donald Trump in 2025 and the appeal of King in 1963 is that both were about the pressing need to be faithful to the founding principles of the country. | ||
| Trump's MAGA message in 2025 is that the nation has destructively strayed from these principles. | ||
| King's message in 1963 was that the country failed and was failing to live up to those founding principles. | ||
| What do you say about that sentiment a year later in the first year of the second term of Donald Trump? | ||
| I think that we're moving in that direction, but it's sloppy. | ||
| It is actually very noisy when you think about trying to self-correct, trying to get back on a real track. | ||
| You know, you think about when you get lost on freeway or so, you got to turn around sometimes or you have to take another exit. | ||
| So what has happened in our society? | ||
| What are those founding principles that we've so strayed from? | ||
| Well, we know biblical truths. | ||
| When you start saying that all choice is the same, there are no real absolutes, people are going to get very, very lost. | ||
| What are some of those other founding principles? | ||
| Limited government. | ||
| The government is not supposed to be picking winners and losers. | ||
| It's supposed to be protecting our interests, not plundering our interests. | ||
| And so now we have a whole lot of heat just based on government trying to get monies to give to somebody else. | ||
| And the people don't want to give up that money, nor should they. | ||
| When you think about open markets, we're having those discussions. | ||
| He's using a little bit of tariff to make us have those discussions. | ||
| But capitalism is good. | ||
| It's profit that we love because profit is what creates the jobs we say we want. | ||
| But it's also the engine to help in charity. | ||
| And so if people are really concerned about poverty, then we shouldn't have government, one size fit and all, which doesn't fit any, handling all of these areas. | ||
| This is for charity work to do. | ||
| And of course they publishing them. | ||
| You want to talk about how lost we are right now? | ||
| Everybody is in an ethnic corner instead of out of many, one. | ||
| These are the founding principles. | ||
| This is what King was appealing to. | ||
| And this is what Trump's administration is appealing to. | ||
| I suppose you'll hear critics saying that the president has dismantled DEI programs on the federal level. | ||
| They may even point to events in Minnesota or the use of ICE to round up certain people. | ||
| Some would say those are direct attacks on civil rights. | ||
| How would you respond to those things? | ||
| Well, we know that that's what they're saying. | ||
| That's why I want to point to the lies of the left, the progressivism, because they've hijacked this particular movement. | ||
| First of all, when you get to the ICE question, people broke into our home. | ||
| ICE is getting them out. | ||
| Now, people want to pretend that, well, we shouldn't, you know, isolate certain people. | ||
| If someone broke into your home, you would want the police to come in with a heavy hand to get them up out of that household. | ||
| It's sloppy because we all have camera. | ||
| We can see what's going on. | ||
| But law is law. | ||
| And every time you have an encounter with any law official, you're supposed to just put your hands up. | ||
| Okay, I've been arrested a couple of times. | ||
| Just put your hands up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's over. | |
| The party is over. | ||
| But when it comes to DEI, we need to dismantle all these programs. | ||
| This is an opportunity for African Americans to show up with merit, to show up with integrity, to show up with their character. | ||
| This is a real reset for us as a country. | ||
| 250 years, are we going to survive it? | ||
| Of course we're going to survive it. | ||
| We've survived worse situations in our country, but it is difficult because we're so far off track. | ||
| You take away DEI. | ||
| You mentioned the DEI program. | ||
| Some would say you take away the guardrails, you take away the potential for equality, at least the assurance of equality. | ||
| How would you argue against that? | ||
| Then we're saying that we don't trust mankind to be good. | ||
| And so the same people who keep insisting that situational ethics are a good thing are the same people that are arguing that we as a society can't self-govern. | ||
| I just, I dismiss it. | ||
| And we have an opportunity to see. | ||
| Now we have an opportunity, that third part of Dr. King's speech to say, okay, it's going to be difficult. | ||
| He said it. | ||
| It was really three parts. | ||
| He said it's going to be hard. | ||
| But he appealed to his Christian brethren. | ||
| He appealed to those that really wanted a civil society and said, let's make this happen. | ||
| So now it's up to us unique individuals to see if we can make this right. | ||
| How do you gauge success on that front then? | ||
| Well, I think that the society has already gauged success because we are multicultural and we are multi and we're very diverse in everything that we do and our friendships are wide. | ||
| It's a lie out of the left that we just can't seem to get along with each other. | ||
| We can't live near each other. | ||
| We can't go to school with each other. | ||
| We can't play with each other without government force. | ||
| That is a lie. | ||
| What was your first experience with Dr. King? | ||
| Well, I didn't have an experience with Dr. King. | ||
| In fact, my dad was in the military. | ||
| So we were stationed in Japan while he was in Philippines during the Vietnam era. | ||
| So the first time I even heard of Dr. King was when my parents were watching it on Japanese TV and they were crying and we didn't know why. | ||
| Why were they crying? | ||
| Did you ever find out? | ||
| Well, yeah, they were crying because he had gotten killed. | ||
| He had gotten killed. | ||
| They are from the Jim Crow South. | ||
| And when they left, my dad left with his bride from his high school, they never looked back and they ever mentioned it. | ||
| So I kind of grew up in an environment to get really lost. | ||
| And boy, did I get lost because when we came back the following year and every city in the country was on fire, it excited me as a 12, 13 year old. | ||
| And next thing I know, I'm in criminal activity and drug activity and sexual activity and unraveling the way that we have concentrated this type of philosophy in our urban core. | ||
| I got lost in all of that. | ||
| And it wasn't until a Christian conversion that I was able to really change my life and start living like an individual with the uniqueness that God had given me. | ||
| Because you deal with the issues of poverty, what is the approach best that the government, United States, or the government should take towards addressing poverty? | ||
| Get out of the way. | ||
| Remove these barriers that they've put in place. | ||
| Every department here in Washington, D.C. is rooted in a philosophy that poor people can't self-govern. | ||
| We need to stop. | ||
| We need to stop pouring a trillion dollars a year into programs so people can, based on a philosophy that people can't help themselves. | ||
| Let's give opportunity. | ||
| Now, can everybody do the same thing? | ||
| We know they can't, but we should at least give people the opportunity to get out of their broken schools, get out of their broken health care, get out of their broken housing. | ||
| All of these things that government thinks that they are supposed to do for others, just get out of the way. | ||
| This is our 250th anniversary. | ||
| Let's see if we can self-govern. | ||
| Let's see if people can prosper. | ||
| Let's see if they can discover their own purposes and live. | ||
| Let's hear from Abraham, who joins us from Virginia, Republican line for Star Parker. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yes, good morning. | ||
| Ms. Parker has a very positive message. | ||
| I wish that all African Americans could understand it. | ||
| Martin Luther King also said that for every dollar that goes to the poor, the poor gets five cents, and the people who are giving it to the poor gets 95 cents. | ||
| That's the same thing that happened up in Minnesota. | ||
| So, how can, and it seems like there's a lot of white liberals that continue to push these programs on black America. | ||
| How can we stop the white liberals from pushing these programs on black America, which is destroying black America? | ||
| And I thank you for your time. | ||
| Well, you're pointing to the progressive movement, if you will. | ||
| And sitting in the House of Representatives right across from us, there's 100 members in this progressive movement, and they're multi-ethnic. | ||
| So we can't say that this is just white liberals. | ||
| And in fact, coming out of the 60s, you saw a whole lot of black leaders at the time identifying with Cuba, the same way we do today, seeing them identify with Cuba and Venezuela. | ||
| There are progressives that really believe that socialism is a good idea, that really believe that we can micromanage a pure society and utopian society. | ||
| And it's not true, but you're absolutely right. | ||
| In the investment of government to destroy people's lives, it's been a long time. | ||
| I don't know specifically that those numbers are correct, that this 95-5, but I do know that seven out of $10 that comes into Washington, D.C. goes out immediately to a person through a program, and none of them have worked. | ||
| I've said over time, we don't need to go to Cuba to see what happens when government takes over people's lives. | ||
| We can go to Camden, we can go to Compton, and now we're starting to see the unraveling because people are upset that they still don't have control of their own lives. | ||
| The reason they don't have control of their own lives is because of big government. | ||
| From Virginia as well, this is William, Democrats line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, how are you doing? | |
| I'd like to ask you, Guess, about the, he said, we're going to leave it up to the people to do the right thing. | ||
| We can't think, we don't think people are good. | ||
| Are people good when we was bonded in slavery for hundreds of years? | ||
| We left it up to the people. | ||
| That's the reason we have these programs in place because we've dealt a bad hand from the beginning. | ||
| And we're still being dealt a bad hand. | ||
| And it's people like you got your opinion. | ||
| I respect that. | ||
| But you, hello? | ||
| You're on. | ||
| Finish your thought, please, sir. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But when a black person comes up and they legitimize this stuff, okay? | |
| And that's what you're doing. | ||
| You're legitimizing this stuff. | ||
| I served 20 years in the Marine Corps. | ||
| My mother was a single mother. | ||
| She never got a government program. | ||
| She worked every day, seven days a week. | ||
| She came home with migraine hey X and used home realm niggas. | ||
| We did not have medical care. | ||
| She raised six kids on her own. | ||
| She did not get any government. | ||
| When I got old enough to work, I worked in 500 house. | ||
| So just broad brushing, everybody, black, is wrong. | ||
| And you're a hypocrite. | ||
| All right. | ||
| We'll leave it there. | ||
|
Fighting for Personalized Solutions
00:15:45
|
||
| I agree that broad brushing is wrong. | ||
| That's why I think that we should dismantle one size fits all programs. | ||
| Everybody knows whether you're buying a car or clothing that one size does not fit all. | ||
| And I did not say that I believe people are good. | ||
| And in fact, I believe the exact opposite. | ||
| I said that progressives have rooted their philosophy in the fact that people are basically good, but because of other things, other situations, they misbehave. | ||
| And this is inconsistent with scripture. | ||
| When it comes to African Americans who decide they want to live free, I really don't have a problem with African Americans that want to decide that they want to live free. | ||
| What I do have a problem with is African Americans who think that other African Americans should not want to live free. | ||
| What we have done over the last 50 years with the legacy of Dr. King is wrong. | ||
| And we need to be able to discuss where we got off track, even as an African-American people, and why it is that we keep buying this philosophy that somebody else has to fix our problems, that the country is inherently racist and can't self-correct. | ||
| No, why you have a rule of law and why it has been built out in this wonderful country of ours and how it is built out in the Constitution is a good thing for people to live free. | ||
| The government's role is to protect our interests so that we can live free. | ||
| Just like your children, you put a fence around your house, they can now play freely because the fence is around the house. | ||
| So I just am not going to continue to buy this philosophy of African Americans that think because I think for myself, because I built my own business, because I really like freedom and I love my country, that I should feel bad about those things, that all of a sudden I'm a sellout or whatever else it was that you called me. | ||
| I've just, I've been called some of everything. | ||
| I've been in this business 30 years. | ||
| And frankly, I appreciate how many now younger African Americans are starting to get new information about freedom. | ||
| They're four generations away from the slavery that he talked about. | ||
| And that group said, maybe we should put a little bit of our equity into Donald Trump to see can we live free? | ||
| And I don't see any of the African Americans that supported Donald Trump in that last election saying we did wrong. | ||
| What they're seeing is an opportunity to grow and develop their lives. | ||
| Is it hard? | ||
| Of course, individualism is hard. | ||
| Freedom is very difficult, but at least you get an opportunity to try. | ||
| Let's go to Kendall. | ||
| Kendall, Republican Lion Cincinnati. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, my great-grandfather was a slave, and our people have worked hundreds of years without being paid. | |
| And Dr. King even said that America gave the black Americans a check that was marked NSF. | ||
| My question is, do you think that in order to make up for this as far as reparations would be federal tax-exempt status for descendants of slaves? | ||
| You don't give us anything, just stop taking. | ||
| There's a book called Economic Revolution on Amazon, and that was the premise of that book, that you don't give us anything, just stop taking to help us to catch up. | ||
| Well, I think the best thing you can do for that scenario as opposed to reparations is to personalize Social Security. | ||
| If everyone had a stake in America, all of a sudden we would all grow together. | ||
| When you think about Wall Street, you're not going to burn down Wall Street if you own Wall Street. | ||
| So to that concept that you're talking, what do we do in tax benefit so that people can learn how to live free and get along with each other? | ||
| Is you connect us by having our payroll taxes go into equity, go into your own private or personal account. | ||
| I don't know that we would ever sell anything like reparations in this society, nor do I think that we should. | ||
| And in fact, I joke with my nephew often. | ||
| I say, you know, if they ever get to the debates on reparations and we're having our hearings, I'm going to go in the hearing room with his little son because his little son, I mean, which line would he get in? | ||
| He looks like the mom, and yet he has some of the features of my nephew. | ||
| So we are too complex as a society to keep talking about what others should do for us. | ||
| What we ought to do is grow up into the era that we're in right now and take our talents and build on them. | ||
| But I really do think that personalizing Social Security is something we should consider. | ||
| One of the things Dr. King advocated later on in life was this idea of a universal basic income. | ||
| They're testing out that too. | ||
| And in fact, even see now Trump has Trump accounts. | ||
| Why are we trying to micromanage other people's lives? | ||
| You know what? | ||
| The real challenge was going back to the 60s is when we allow for family life to collapse, when no longer were the virtues inside of a household and we had heavy emphasis on getting married and settled down and self-correct in a household, you begin to have to have all these elder kind of programs. | ||
| No, I don't agree that we should now take from me to help somebody else who's having a child pay for their life or get a start. | ||
| We all start with nothing and then we start building with that from that. | ||
| And so if you really want to help people get ahead, then we should get the government out of our education and where that money goes to these government actually funded and then union controlled schools. | ||
| You really want to start building people's lives or helping them build their lives, then allow for school choice. | ||
| All of these things connect to a philosophy of the progressives that people can't self-govern. | ||
| So it's up to us to say, can we? | ||
| Do we really know how to manage our own lives, whatever that life looks like? | ||
| And the beauty of America is where you start is not where you end. | ||
| That's why people call us exceptional. | ||
| That's why we call ourselves exceptional. | ||
| The progressives are even offended by us saying that America exceptionalism is golden. | ||
| But what does that actually mean? | ||
| It means for the first time in the history of the world, you had a country that if you're born poor, you don't have to die poor, that we were exceptional in that we were the exception to the rule. | ||
| There was no other country that was rooted in a pluribus unim where everybody gets an opportunity to grow. | ||
| Were there challenges? | ||
| Of course there were. | ||
| I mean, 20% of the people in the country when we founded our country were slaved. | ||
| And it took them 100 years to figure out what they need to do about this question, including a civil war to get to 100 years later, as Dr. King pointed out in his speech. | ||
| We're still having these challenges because you just keep insisting as a society that certain people don't qualify for just living here in the free country. | ||
| The one viewer, however, described all that being dealt a bad hand, and why shouldn't the government be responsible for some of that? | ||
| Because Dr. King didn't say the government should be responsible. | ||
| He said we've been dealt a bad hand, remove these barriers. | ||
| Jim Crow were government barriers. | ||
| It wasn't everywhere in our society, and free people were able to get along with each other. | ||
| When you start looking at what happened to get us so divided, it was all rooted in government. | ||
| That's why it fascinates me today that so many blacks keep calling for more government. | ||
| This was government. | ||
| This is not the first time we've seen the National Guard from the federal level have to go into a state. | ||
| The federal government came into the states of the South because they wouldn't behave in local law. | ||
| So I, yeah, I understand what you're saying, but I don't see, and I've not studied fully Dr. King. | ||
| In fact, many of his later years, it looked like he was being convinced that there were government programs that would help us get out of our dilemma. | ||
| But I don't see that consistency in what he believed. | ||
| He was a Christian man, and Christianity is about personal responsibility and growing with the talent that you have and the gift that you've been given. | ||
| This is the Center for Urban Renewal and Education Star Parker joining us for this conversation. | ||
| Let's hear from Antonio in Maryland, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Hey, I just wanted to say some of the rhetoric around Dr. King's beliefs and whether or not liberals are wrong and conservatives are wrong. | ||
| I think the one irate speech that I remember him giving was about the different farm grants and all the things that was used to help white immigrants and white people sustain a quality of life in this country and how he absolutely felt that was unfair or pretty much held that as the standard for all. | ||
| And I think it's a little bit of a reverse psychology to try to continue to hit liberals over the head to say that even the things that Donald Trump is doing for white America today is somehow immoral or against the American way. | ||
| Antonio, thank you. | ||
| I think here we are with the question again of the role of government. | ||
| When you're talking about grants and arguing over who gets a grant, you're going to have conflict. | ||
| And that conflict can break down ethnically, and it certainly did in our country. | ||
| I'm one that most of my friends think I'm more libertarian than I probably should be, that says, get the government out of these businesses. | ||
| Render to Caesar what Caesar is to God, what's God. | ||
| And when you think about personal life and decisions, this is in the God area. | ||
| This is not for Caesar to decide. | ||
| This is not for society to say, okay, I'm going to pick this winner and I'm going to pick that loser. | ||
| Government is supposed to be blind justice. | ||
| That's what Dr. King was appealing to. | ||
| It wasn't at the time. | ||
| He was fighting against excessive government. | ||
| And now, here we are, including in the African-American community with many of our leaders fighting for that same government that he was actually fighting against. | ||
| He campaigned for economic justice. | ||
| Do you think safety net programs, as they're called, fall into that idea? | ||
| I think that safety net programs are a challenge for all of us as a society. | ||
| When you think about government's role in people's personal lives, you have to have means test. | ||
| Who qualifies? | ||
| That's why it's out of hand right now, including what we're seeing in Obamacare debates right today. | ||
| Who qualifies? | ||
| Are we going to have a threshold of $90,000 or is it $9,000? | ||
| What does each community look like to determine that a federal hand should say, you should get this, but you should pay for that? | ||
| Remove all of these barriers. | ||
| This is the role of charity. | ||
| If somebody has need in our society, then they should go into the nonprofit world. | ||
| And there's not a community in our society that there is not a nonprofit there to help in whatever that area of need is. | ||
| That should be the first recourse. | ||
| And we need to remove barriers, which including governmental barriers, which means taxation, to keep people from giving to their local charity as opposed to sending it to the government for their one-size-fits-all safety net programs. | ||
| You know, I used to live on their safety net program seven years in and out of the welfare state, three and a half years consistently. | ||
| You know what the rules were? | ||
| Don't work, don't save, don't get married, and we'll keep you enslaved to this poverty plantation. | ||
| That's the rule of our so-called safety nets. | ||
| Don't worry about it. | ||
| Get on a list for a housing project. | ||
| And while you're on that list, we're going to force businesses to do something they ought not do. | ||
| You know, this test that we're getting ready to experiment up in New York is going to be fascinating to see now a major city in our country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
With the election of Mayor Mondamba, with Monday, run by a socialist. | |
| He calls himself a democratic socialist. | ||
| Dr. King did not call us a democracy in his I Have a Dream speech. | ||
| He said we are a republic. | ||
| Now we have these progressives that are labeling themselves democratic socialists. | ||
| And what they're doing is building out the coffers of government on somebody else's experiment, monies, if you will. | ||
| So we're going to see what happens. | ||
| Money is so fungible, it moves to make more of itself because that's its nature to make more of itself. | ||
| And it's colorblind. | ||
| Money doesn't care what color you are that has it. | ||
| It's just going to go make more of itself. | ||
| So if you ruin New York City, that money is going to jump somewhere else. | ||
| And so when you think about housing and all of these other so-called safety net programs, while they are trying to take from one to give to another, the government role in giving to that other one is not where it belongs. | ||
| That's why every government housing project is in the ghetto. | ||
| That's why all of it is dilapidated. | ||
| And it's going to be fascinating to see what happens in New York as they start trying to do all this free rent and free buses and free everything. | ||
| Let's hear from Phil in North Dakota, Republican line, for our guest. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, y'all. | |
| Ma'am, I don't know who you are. | ||
| I've never heard you speak anywhere. | ||
| Oh, no. | ||
| But I will tell you one thing. | ||
| What? | ||
|
unidentified
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I would love to have every paper you've written, and if you've written some books, wrote some books, I would love to have those too. | |
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
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I have never heard anyone come on C-SPAN and speak like you. | |
| I've listened to C-SPAN for 20 years. | ||
| I've never heard anyone come on here and speak like you listen to them. | ||
| Well, now I have been on with it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| You missed it. | ||
| And in fact, I have the 25-year cup. | ||
| I have the 30-year cup. | ||
| Actually, Star Parker is my name. | ||
| Yes, I've written four books, and I have a syndicated column that runs every single week in over 100 outlets across the country. | ||
| Collard, do you have a question for our guests specifically? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Basically, you know. | |
| No, I just wanted to comment this lady on the wonderful job she's doing. | ||
| That's all I want to do. | ||
| You are a wonderful lady, ma'am. | ||
| Okay, I appreciate that. | ||
| And I have written, you know, now 25 years, almost syndicated columnists with creators. | ||
| I built Cure here in Washington, D.C., so that we could really have a discussion about market-based solutions to fight poverty. | ||
| We've tried everything else. | ||
| We've been pouring money into the poverty question for so long that people are exhausted and the poor is just growing in our society. | ||
| And government dependency is running people's capacity. | ||
| So I built out a policy institute here in D.C. 30 years ago, and now it's grown and has a new leadership. | ||
| And Donald Easton, the pastor, is doing an incredible job to build out that concept so that we can get deeper into the hardbroken parts of our society and help people recover their own lives. | ||
| And then, yes, I write every week. | ||
| And now I'm running for Congress. | ||
| I'm actually running to get inside so that I can work on some of these areas that I really think need more attention than just progressives constantly saying, nope, can't do that. | ||
| Nope, can't do that. | ||
| When you stop believing that people have ability to live their own lives, you have problems. | ||
| And I really just think that someone needs to challenge this progressive philosophy that's now taken root in our law. | ||
| And it's stealing people's worth, dignity, and their agency. | ||
| They don't even try anymore because they think that life is stacked against them. | ||
| So I'm looking forward to that. | ||
| What prompted you running for Congress? | ||
| Well, Mike Levin, my sitting congressman, I live in Southern California in Little Beachtown, San Clemente. | ||
| We are not progressives. | ||
| We're Semperfi. | ||
| Camp Pendleton is in my district. | ||
| We're surfers. | ||
| And in fact, in 2028, we actually have the surfing of the Olympics. | ||
| And so we're very proud of that locally. | ||
| But he's a progressive. | ||
| When you think about sitting in this area, Mike Levin is a progressive. | ||
| And he's hanging out with people like Omar and Khalib and all of these philosophy. | ||
| Oh, I see, people that are destroying the very lifestyle that we have in our society, in my community, we're trying to just live free. | ||
| And yet we have someone that's experimenting their ideas on us and nobody knows that he's experiencing. | ||
| When you look at what they are doing, progressives, in our law, national law today, somebody needs to challenge it. | ||
| And so when I had a realization that this was my sitting congressman, I said, oh no, I just can't do this, Lord. | ||
|
Medicare's Market-Based Future
00:03:05
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| And I heard in my gut, God say, then take them out. | ||
|
unidentified
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So I filed in August last. | |
| I was retired. | ||
| I wasn't doing anything. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I filed. | |
| And now I'm running. | ||
| And now I'm excited about running because there are specific areas that I want to work on, not just for my community, but for all of our society. | ||
| Because where we live, we're house poor for sure. | ||
| Most of us live in million-dollar houses, but when you can't buy gas or groceries and the way that the progressive left treats our military, and he's sitting there with Camp Pendleton, these are good guys. | ||
| And yet we're as a society spend more money on the interest of the debt, the interest of the debt, than we do on our entire Defense Department. | ||
| Something has really gone wrong in the society. | ||
| So I want to address these things. | ||
| I want to finish with this. | ||
| This is a text from a viewer saying, I'd like to push back the guests if I could. | ||
| I hear lots of ranting about the ineffectiveness of government, some of which may be true. | ||
| But can she tell us what has done more to alleviate elder poverty and health and Social Security and Medicare? | ||
| Benefits the most by cutting taxes and social programs. | ||
| That's Eddie in Arizona. | ||
| Well, it's interesting, Eddie, because whether you think these programs have helped people over their lifetime, and many will conclude that they do. | ||
| I remember my mom, when she got her little Social Security check for $700 a month, it was the first time she ever voted for a Republican, was George Bush, because he said she could work because she knew she couldn't live off $700 a month. | ||
| But let's think about what happens when you put that money in the marketplace. | ||
| This is where we haven't tested ourselves. | ||
| And I think that in this 250th year, we should allow ourselves to see: can we build a free society, even when it comes to how we do our seniors and our care? | ||
| Should we put that money instead in the marketplace for Social Security? | ||
| Well, absolutely. | ||
| She would not have had $700 a month. | ||
| She would have had $7,000 a month. | ||
| Now, can we just do it arbitrarily? | ||
| Of course not. | ||
| However, we should at least experiment with market-based solutions to do these things that we have insisted government do. | ||
| Medicare, oh, I'm getting my Medicare now and my Social Security. | ||
| And I'm finding out even more so how flawed these programs are and how they're not doing the benefit programs that they say they are or have the advantage that they say. | ||
| If you don't have extra resources to buy a supplemental plan, you're really in a socialist plan and you're not going to get the care that you need over time. | ||
| So I just really think that this is a reset opportunity for us to say, all right, we're looking at yesterday's programs. | ||
| No other program other than these have we still had 100 years later. | ||
| No other business. | ||
| You know, even Sachs is saying, okay, 100 years later, you know, we have to do a different model. | ||
| So I think that as a society, we should think about new models. | ||
| We're not the same people we were in the 30s, and especially when it comes to private equity and/or our gains. | ||
|
Ben Freeman's Book Discussion
00:03:19
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| Purepolicy.org is the website for the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. | ||
| Star Parker, the founder, joining us on Washington Journal today. | ||
| Thank you for your time. | ||
| You're welcome, Pedro. | ||
| It's been good being with you again. | ||
| We're going to hear another perspective on this Martin Luther King Day from the University of Texas at Austin's Peneil Joseph as he discusses the significance of Dr. King and his impact on civil rights. | ||
| That conversation coming up on Washington Journal. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Say hi to Michael. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am. | |
| On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | ||
| The Trillion Dollar War Machine is the name of the book. | ||
| The co-authors are William Hartung and Ben Freeman. | ||
| They both do work for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank in Washington, D.C. | ||
| It's a non-profit research organization whose stated purpose is to oppose the military-industrial complex described by President Eisenhower in his farewell address. | ||
| We will talk with co-author Ben Freeman, the Quincy Institute Director of Democratizing Foreign Policy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
A new interview with co-author Ben Freeman about his book, The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home. | |
| BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb, is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| I saw you interviewed the other night. | ||
| I watched it about two o'clock in the morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There was a little thing called C-SPAN, which I don't know how many people were watching. | |
| Don't worry, you were on prime time too, but they happen to have a little rerun. | ||
| Do you really think that we don't remember what just happened last week? | ||
| Thank goodness for C-SPAN, and we all should review the tape. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Everyone wonders when they're watching C-SPAN what the conversations are on the floor. | |
| I'm about to read to you something that was published by C-SPAN. | ||
| There's a lot of things that Congress fights about that they disagree on. | ||
| We can all watch that on C-SPAN. | ||
| Millions of people across the country tuned into C-SPAN. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Speaking! | |
| That was a major C-SPAN moment. | ||
| If you watch on C-SPAN, you're going to see me physically across the aisle every day, just trying to build relationships and try to understand their perspective and find common ground. | ||
| And welcome forward to everybody watching at home. | ||
| We know C-SPAN covers this a lot as well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We appreciate that. | |
| And one can only hope that he's able to watch C-SPAN on a black and white television set in his prison cell. | ||
| This is being carried live by C-SPAN. | ||
|
King's Letter from Birmingham Jail
00:15:32
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| It's being watched not only in this country, but it's being watched around the world right now. | ||
| Mike said before, I happened to listen to him. | ||
| He was on C-SPAN 1. | ||
| That's a big upgrade, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Washington Journal continues. | |
| Peniel Joseph is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. | ||
| He is the founding director of the Center for Study of Race and Democracy. | ||
| Joining us here on Washington Journal on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day. | ||
| Professor, good morning. | ||
| Hey, good morning, Pedro, and happy MLK Day. | ||
| I want to take you back 10 years ago. | ||
| You wrote an op-ed, but you said this about Dr. King in the middle of May of 2016. | ||
| You said the full measure of King's legacy requires nothing less than to honestly wrestle with the hard truths that he publicly confronted a half century ago and that remain perhaps even more fiercely urgent in our own time than this. | ||
| That was 10 years ago. | ||
| How does that hold up today? | ||
| Well, it holds up extraordinarily well. | ||
| I think that King, who was born January 15th, 1929, is really born in an age where people are struggling against totalitarianism. | ||
| They're struggling against colonialism and imperialism, racism. | ||
| But they believe that a new world can be built and can be, is possible. | ||
| And that's coming out of the Second World War, the freedom surges, the anti-colonial movements happening globally, and of course the civil rights insurgency happening in the United States. | ||
| And not just the South. | ||
| It's happening in the North. | ||
| It's happening in the Midwest and the West Coast, all over the country. | ||
| And I think that his legacy is more important now than ever. | ||
| But we have to remember that King is helping and collaborating and helping to lead a civil rights movement amidst the unfolding of the Cold War. | ||
| So he is also in an authoritarian age where there are blacklists and books are censored. | ||
| And what's so interesting about King, especially for our time, one of the reasons why King is able to be such a visible symbol of leadership is because he is a Christian minister and a theologian with a PhD from Boston University, | ||
| a seminary degree from Crozier Theological Seminary, and of course, an undergraduate degree, which he starts at the age of 15 at Morehouse College, which is one of the most important institutions of black education ever created. | ||
| So when we think about King, King is able to speak more truth to power than people who were professional organizers and political activists, people who were connected to labor movements. | ||
| So people like the A. Philip Randolphs and the Claudia Jones and the Paul Robesons and Ella Bakers, all activists who are older than King, who had deep experience, but the Cold War and the authoritarian turn during the Cold War had really silenced those voices. | ||
| Just like we have ICE now on the streets of Chicago and New York and Austin and other places, we had folks who were deported during the Cold War, people like Claudia Jones and the writer and activist C. L. R. James, many others. | ||
| Paul Robeson's passport was revoked unconstitutionally and illegally. | ||
| W.E.B. Du Bois, the first black PhD at Harvard and the co-founder of the NAACP, he was disallowed from traveling overseas during the Cold War. | ||
| So this authoritarian turn that the United States has taken when we think about what's happening in our streets and also globally Venezuela, talk of taking Greenland. | ||
| This is something that King faced in his own time. | ||
| And certainly King becomes the most articulate spokesperson and critic of the Vietnam War by the mid-1960s alongside of other activists like Stokely Carmichael and Ella Baker and others. | ||
| So in certain ways, King's legacy is more resonant now than ever. | ||
| And this idea of the fierce urgency of now is more resonant than ever. | ||
| And we have to remember that Dr. King is an activist who was imprisoned and put in jail. | ||
| One of the most important pieces of philosophy in American history is Dr. King's letter from Birmingham Jail, because that letter is a theory of justice. | ||
| And what does a just society look like? | ||
| And what should people who are willing to sacrifice for a just society do, right? | ||
| And in Letter from Birmingham Jail, he excoriates not just the racial segregationists, but he excoriates those who presume themselves to be allies of the civil rights movement by saying that they are not being passionate enough in trying to end the moral evil of racial segregation and injustice and white supremacy. | ||
| And he's talking about young people who are being arrested in Birmingham. | ||
| And he says in that letter from Birmingham Jail that one day these young people are going to be hailed as heroes for bringing us all back to those great wells of democracy dug deep by the founding fathers. | ||
| So when we think about King and that legacy, we have to remember that King is incarcerated dozens of times. | ||
| King fears for his life in prison. | ||
| And in 1960, he's arrested in Georgia and then taken hours away to rural Georgia. | ||
| And if not for the intervention of Harris Wofford and Bobby Kennedy and Senator John F. Kennedy on his way to being president, King would not have been released. | ||
| And it is John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy and Harris Wofford. | ||
| It is that intervention that leads Martin Luther King Sr. to say that, you know, he's for JFK and the black vote 70% for JFK in the 1960 election. | ||
| So King was somebody who was imprisoned. | ||
| He's somebody who was incarcerated. | ||
| We never think of King as a prison intellectual, as somebody who was a political prisoner in the context of the United States. | ||
| And so that legacy is more important now than ever when people are being whisked off of streets. | ||
| ICE agents are shooting American citizens in the head. | ||
| All in public view, King would have found this obviously abominable and deplorable, but King really faced an authoritarian United States that he was trying to bring into a different light, which he called the beloved community. | ||
| Let me invite viewers to call the program if they want to ask questions of our guests. | ||
| 202748-8000 for Democrats, Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents, 202748-8002. | ||
| Professor, it was a year ago about where the president, during his inaugural address, it was on Martin Luther King's holiday, referenced the leader. | ||
| I want to play a little bit of what he had to say back then and then get your thoughts now. | ||
| To the black and Hispanic communities, I want to thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love and trust that you have shown me with your vote. | ||
| We set records and I will not forget it. | ||
| I've heard your voices in the campaign, and I look forward to working with you in the years to come. | ||
| Today is Martin Luther King Day, and his honor, this will be a great honor. | ||
| But in his honor, we will strive together to make his dream a reality. | ||
| We will make his dream come true. | ||
| Professor, that was a year ago. | ||
| Your thoughts as of today? | ||
| Well, I mean, I think Dr. King, Donald Trump is not the first person to try to subvert Dr. King's legacy by, in Dr. King's name, proposing policies and proposing a vision of American society that is antithetical to everything that Dr. King stood for. | ||
| So he's not the first person. | ||
| And one of the ironies or paradoxes of American history is that the King holiday was ushered in by many people who were political adversaries of Dr. King. | ||
| It was signed into law in November of 1983 by Ronald Reagan, who was a political opponent of Dr. King, who thought that King was a communist, but knew in the context of 1983 that if he vetoed the holiday, that Congress in 1983 would have overridden the veto. | ||
| So, Donald Trump, what Donald Trump is saying about Dr. King is really mendacious, it's false. | ||
| But King faced that in his own time. | ||
| He used to talk about meeting with big city mayors who, once he won the Nobel Prize, Nobel Peace Prize in 64, he was Time magazine's man of the year at the end of 63. | ||
| He'd get all these meetings, but they still practiced segregation in their city. | ||
| So they were willing to get a photo op with King at the height of his popularity, 1963, 64, 65, but it was really business as usual in terms of racial segregation. | ||
| And it's important for us to remember that King was extraordinarily unpopular at the end of his life because he was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. | ||
| He called for a poor people's campaign, a multiracial poor people's campaign that he started in Marks, Mississippi. | ||
| And he connects with poor whites and Hispanic and Indigenous and African-American and folks across the racial and ethnic spectrum to lead a campaign for dignity and citizenship for all Americans, including a guaranteed living wage and income. | ||
| He advocated for health care and decent housing and the end of violence, both domestically and internationally. | ||
| So King is a very difficult figure for all presidents to genuinely embrace because the presidency in many ways contravenes ideas that King held sacred, right? | ||
| Including King wouldn't have supported drone strikes and drone wars. | ||
| He wouldn't have exported, supported extra-legal renditions or enhanced interrogation that's really just another name for torture. | ||
| So all presidents really have a hard time truly supporting Dr. King, but certainly in the case of the current president and the authoritarian turn that the country has taken, the turn towards open racism and white supremacy that the country has taken, that administration and the president who supports that certainly cannot in good faith claim to be a supporter of Dr. King or his legacy. | ||
| Let's hear from some viewers. | ||
| This is from David, David in Washington State, independent line for our guest Penil Joseph of the University of Texas at Austin. | ||
| That administration. | ||
| Paula, you're on, go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
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Certainly should not. | |
| Yeah, I was wondering how come every time black people get together, start a city, and be thriving together, no problems, everybody's working economically, it's coming together, then the white people show up, burn it down, kill the people, men, women, kids, and burn the town down and kill everybody, and then want to say that we don't want to live with them, but they don't want to live with us, and we really don't care. | ||
| We can live by ourselves and thrive. | ||
| We don't need them. | ||
| It's been proven. | ||
| But every time we start something, they want to kill it, bury it, burn it, or flood it. | ||
| Why is that? | ||
| Why can't white people just get along with everybody? | ||
| They are not supremists. | ||
| I mean, supreme to anybody. | ||
| And if they really want to smoke, they're going to end up getting it from every nationality on the planet. | ||
| Okay, that's David in Washington State. | ||
| Professor, what do you think of that assessment? | ||
| Well, I think historically there have been racial pogroms against African Americans. | ||
| Really, we can go back to Reconstruction and Hamburg Massacre, Mississippi, South Carolina, New Orleans, 1866, 1875, Wilmington, North Carolina, 1898. | ||
| And certainly there were black sections of East St. Louis, Elaine, Arkansas, Atlanta, very infamously Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921, Rosewood, Florida in 1923, | ||
| that were terrorized by both law enforcement, vigilante groups that really felt jealous of black success and started rumors, created false accusations, and murdered at times hundreds of people. | ||
| So that has happened historically. | ||
| I think that in our current 2026, we should think about those historic racial pogroms as a metaphor for efforts to destabilize and efforts to turn back visions of black progress, right? | ||
| So the backlash that we're seeing, a president who's saying the Civil Rights Act of 1964, one of the signal achievements of America in its quest for multiracial democracy, unfairly discriminated against white people, a Supreme Court that really turns back the Voting Rights Act starting in 2013 with the Shelby v. Holder decision. | ||
| What we're seeing is that those racial programs are a metaphor for efforts that are systematic, historic, and unfortunately enduring to really end any aspect of black people achieving full citizenship. | ||
| But I would add that paralleling those efforts are those efforts to achieve dignity and citizenship institutionally, politically, culturally. | ||
| So, we do, we should remember, and I would remind the caller that so much of American history is divided into a narrative war between supporters of Reconstruction, and we think about Reconstruction after the Civil War, this idea of multi-racial democracy, dignity, and citizenship, not just for black people, but for all citizens, versus a vision of redemption. | ||
|
Deeply Misogynistic Hate
00:04:28
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| And when we think about the Redeemer South was the white supremacist South. | ||
| It was vicious, it was violent, it was mendacious, but it also was self-righteous, righteous, and narcissistic and pathological. | ||
| And that Redeemer South continues into the 21st century. | ||
| It's more than just the Confederate flag, Pedro. | ||
| It's more than people screaming the N-word. | ||
| It's the replacement theory. | ||
| It's anti-Semitic. | ||
| It's saying that the Jews did it. | ||
| It's saying that the blacks are unworthy. | ||
| It's saying that Muslims are terrible people. | ||
| It's xenophobic. | ||
| It's deeply misogynistic. | ||
| It hates women. | ||
| It practices misogyny noir. | ||
| It hates black women. | ||
| It's deeply homophobic and queer phobic and transphobic. | ||
| It doesn't want us to read and learn. | ||
| It's censoring. | ||
| It's against freedom of speech except for its own hate speech and mendacity. | ||
| So those are the twin parallels, the twin routes of American history. | ||
| But we have to remember it's not just one or the other. | ||
| And I would argue in our own time, we actually have more Reconstructionists in the United States and around the world than we ever had before. | ||
| It doesn't mean that they've been able to consolidate political power, but I'd say we have more in our own time than we've ever had before, which should give all of us hope. | ||
| This is from North Carolina, Stephanie, Republican Line. | ||
| Hi there, you're on. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi, good morning, Pedro. | |
| Good morning, Mr. Joseph. | ||
| I really appreciate you for being here with us today. | ||
| I do want to push back a little bit, though, and I'm kind of nervous. | ||
| So my question is, especially to you, sir, since you're the person on the TV right now, obviously, I guess you're a black man as well. | ||
| And I find it, you know, almost frustrating that we have a lot of successful black people in this country. | ||
| And especially today, with it being Martin Luther King Day, there are a lot of successful black people on the TV. | ||
| And I find it funny that while y'all are being successful and living a successful life, you're also telling other black people that this country hates them. | ||
| So what I would like to know is if this country is so against them, then how did you get so successful? | ||
| And I also think that instead of y'all constantly pushing this narrative of inequality and injustice, perhaps you should be pushing a narrative of how you yourself became so successful and then distributing that information inside of your black community. | ||
| My second question is: do you live in a predominantly white community or do you live in the ghetto? | ||
| And sorry to leave. | ||
| Okay, caller, let me leave it there. | ||
| Dr. Joseph, go ahead. | ||
| Well, I'll answer the first one because I don't think if somebody lives in a black community that it's somehow a ghetto. | ||
| Well, I think we do both. | ||
| I think that America has never been just one thing. | ||
| It's multiple things simultaneously, and it's still an unfinished experiment. | ||
| So I think you can talk about the areas of institutional racism, injustice, discrimination that are happening all around us when we think about what's happened with efforts to ban black history, | ||
| ban really the teaching of Tony Morrison, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr., ban the teaching of Plato and Socrates all across the United States, including in states like Texas and Florida and others. | ||
| I think you can, and Dr. King reminds us that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. | ||
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Sadness Of Post-Reconstruction Exploitation
00:11:05
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| I think you can do that and simultaneously talk about the areas of progress that the United States has made. | ||
| And that's what I actually, I don't know if the caller had heard, but that's what I was alluding to earlier when I talked about Reconstructionists versus redemptionists. | ||
| I think one of the saddest parts of our current period is the fact that so much of the progress that had been made during America's second Reconstruction, and this is the period from arguably 1954 to 1968, where folks like Dr. King are right in the spotlight, but it's also the period of the Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas desegregation decision. | ||
| It's Little Rock Central High School. | ||
| It's the lynching of Emmett Till. | ||
| It's Dr. King, but really led by Rosa Parks and E.D. Nixon and others, the Montgomery Improvement Association and the 382-day Montgomery bus boycott in 1955-56. | ||
| And when we think about all that, the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC, in 1960 and the sit-in movements, the Freedom Rides, James Meredith becoming the first black student in Ole Miss and the rioting that occurs in September of 1962 there, and then certainly 1963, and I've written a recent book on 1963 about the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, | ||
| but the Birmingham movement, the March on Washington, John F. Kennedy's finest moment as president, June 11th, 1963, coming out firmly in support of civil rights, the activism of Medgar Evers and eventually the assassination of Medgar Evers, the powerful moral witness of James Baldwin, the fire next time. | ||
| These are all parts of this heroic period of the civil rights movement and then culminating in the 1964 Civil Rights Act being passed on July 2nd by Lyndon Johnson and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 being passed on August 6th. | ||
| We live in a time where those victories, which were really victories for all Americans, unlike what the president has said about the Civil Rights Act, Civil Rights Act bars discrimination based on race and gender and other attributes for all Americans. | ||
| So these were not acts that were passed and legislation that was passed for black people. | ||
| The narrative says that. | ||
| The narrative is erroneous. | ||
| Black people led a movement for dignity and citizenship for all people. | ||
| It was a movement for multiracial democracy. | ||
| But because of the country's original sin of racial slavery and the distorted worldview that the country has had ever since, people still think about the civil rights movement as something that was just for black people. | ||
| The only reason we have an Americans with Disabilities Act, the only reason why we have gay marriage, the only reason why we have so many different things for so many different people all across the United States is because of that movement. | ||
| And that was a movement for multiracial democracy that started even before the Civil War. | ||
| So black people have been the greatest purveyors of democracy that the country has ever seen, more than the founders, right? | ||
| Black people have been the greatest purveyors of dignity than anyone in the history of the Republic. | ||
| Black people have been the greatest purveyors of citizenship, a compassionate, ethical, morally centered citizenship for all people, but especially as Dr. King articulated, the least of these, because black people are coming out of a radical Christian tradition in the United States that even during racial slavery, black people believed in abolition democracy. | ||
| They believed in freedom and liberation for all people, especially those who were marginalized and considered underdogs in society. | ||
| Dr. Joseph, I do want to get another call in, if I may. | ||
| This is Loretta in Ohio Democrats line. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| You're on with our guest. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning, Professor. | |
| Good morning, America. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I just wanted, I wanted to say that I saw the QA program with Peter Flynn, and you were absolutely fantastic. | ||
| And I wrote Peter a post on X and I let him know that I thought that that program was great. | ||
| It was absolutely wonderful. | ||
| But I do have a question. | ||
| We were watching a Black History Program on PBS, and my nephew asked, he said, Auntie, how did Black people get like this? | ||
| How come we can't have and go places and do things like the white people can? | ||
| And I really didn't know how to answer him, but the question stuck with me. | ||
| And I kind of looked things up and did a little research. | ||
| And I found, and they don't talk about this, but the average Black Foundational person is an original Black Native Indian. | ||
| And black people, the Black Indians were reclassified. | ||
| They took away our identity. | ||
| And they made us, first they made us Negroes, then they made us color, then they made us black. | ||
| No, then we were African Americans, and then we were black. | ||
| So we've had four or five different classifications as a people. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And Caller, thanks for watching the QA program, which you could still watch. | ||
| Dr. Joseph, go ahead. | ||
| Yeah, so when it comes to Black America and where we're from, we're a melting part and we're part of the African diaspora. | ||
| So most of the original black people who came from West Africa were transplanted in the South during the transatlantic slave trade. | ||
| But there was also other immigration from the Caribbean and West Africa as well. | ||
| And I would push back against the idea of just foundational black Americans. | ||
| My people historically are from Haiti, and you had Haitians who fought in the Battle of Savannah during the Revolutionary War. | ||
| So, this idea that somehow unless you can trace your ancestry back to racial slavery, you're not part of this struggle is completely erroneous and false. | ||
| We are, like Stokely Carmichael Kwame Touré reminded us, we are all African people. | ||
| We are African, Caribbean, and yes, we're Black American, but we're part of this African diaspora that has struggled for dignity and citizenship for all of us. | ||
| So, black people were inspired by the Haitian Revolution. | ||
| Haiti in 1804 becomes the first independent black republic in the history of the Western world. | ||
| It goes from a colony of enslaved Africans and Caribbeans in 1791 to a republic of black citizens, right? | ||
| So, that's extraordinary. | ||
| So, there's no way. | ||
| Frederick Douglass understood this, and so did Denmark VC and Nat Turner and Gabriel Prosser and so many different others. | ||
| So, we have to think transatlantically. | ||
| And certainly, the folks like Marcus Garvey, Amy Jacques Garvey, Coretta Scott King, Dr. Betty Shabazz, these are black women and men who understood that black identity was global in scope. | ||
| It was transatlantic, it was cosmopolitan, it was international. | ||
| And that's what I would tell your nephew, that this whole idea of this was done to us, why did this happen to us? | ||
| This happened because of extractive capitalism. | ||
| It happened because extractive capitalism racialized black people. | ||
| It did to indigenous people as well, but it used black people as collateral. | ||
| It used us as mortgage securities. | ||
| There's a great book, Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton, but I would also say read Vince Brown's Tax Revolt, you know, and that really allows us to look at race and capitalism and why black people historically and contemporaneously continue to be exploited in terms of capitalism. | ||
| We continue to be super exploited, not just for our labor, but for what we represent. | ||
| So, police departments, law enforcement, the culture industry with music, sports, we are always super exploited, whether it's through lure or through loathing. | ||
| Sometimes we're super exploited by saying, hey, black people are hip and they've got the fashion and the style. | ||
| And then the kids on TikTok and Instagram use it, but they use it in a way they whiten it up and lighten it up and make a bunch of money because of that. | ||
| Sometimes we're exploited by saying black people are the criminals of society and black people are the folks who are stealing your jobs and stealing everything that you deserve, right? | ||
| And you get people elected and you get law enforcement and you get SWAT teams and you get all kinds of different things because of that. | ||
| So it's important for us to remember that history and that we also have a deeper history. | ||
| It's not just a history of conquest and the transatlantic slave trade. | ||
| We were from West Africa. | ||
| We were from the Caribbean. | ||
| We have an origin story that goes beyond our connection to the West. | ||
| And it's important to acknowledge that and acknowledge the full humanity of that. | ||
| And we are now actors in this idea of not just the United States, but the global society that has emerged in the 21st century. | ||
| And it's important for us to own that and be proud of the history that we are connected to because we've shaped that in ways that have enhanced the dignity, the citizenship, the humanity of the entire world. | ||
|
Holding On To Truth
00:08:40
|
||
| Even paradoxically, a lot of times we are accused of having done just the opposite. | ||
| So it's important for us to hold on to that truth, especially in times like these, which are anti-fact, which are anti-history. | ||
| And when you're anti-fact and anti-history, you become misanthropic, you become anti-human. | ||
| And I think that's the lesson of Dr. King. | ||
| It's the lesson of James Baldwin. | ||
| It's the lesson that we need to hold on to now more than ever. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| This is Penil Joseph of the University of Texas at Austin, the founding director of the Center for Study of Race and Democracy. | ||
| He has a book, Freedom Season: How 1963 Transformed American Civil Rights Revolution, that full interview on that book on our book TV channel if you want to check it out there. | ||
| Dr. Joseph, thanks for your time and thanks for participating today. | ||
| Thank you, Pedro. | ||
| We'll finish off with Open Forum. | ||
| And if you want to participate in that, 202748-8000 for Democrats, 202748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents, 202748-8002. | ||
| We'll take those calls when Open Forum continues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. C-SPAN is as unbiased as you can get. | ||
| You are so fair. | ||
| 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 own minds. | ||
| I absolutely love C-SPAN. | ||
| I love to hear both sides. | ||
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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. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Again, open forum is available. | ||
| You can pick the lines that best represent you, and we'll take those calls in just a second over on our sister channel C-SPAN 3, a reflaying ceremony taking place at the memorial for Martin Luther King Jr. | ||
| Maryland Senator Angela also Brooks speaking at that event. | ||
| We'll give you a little bit of that now. | ||
| The old spiritual beams of heaven as I go. | ||
| Harder yet may be the fight. | ||
| Right may often yield to might. | ||
| Wickedness a while may reign. | ||
| Satan's cause may seem to gain. | ||
| But there's a God that rules above with a hand of power and a heart of love. | ||
| And if I'm right, he'll fight my battle. | ||
| I shall have peace someday. | ||
| We're right about it. | ||
| And justice will come. | ||
| Happy birthday, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. | ||
| We love you forever. | ||
| That is a wreath-laying ceremony at the site of Martin Luther King's memorial. | ||
| Angela also Brooks, the Maryland Senator, just finishing up thoughts there. | ||
| You can see the rest of that over on our sister channel C3. | ||
| And you can also watch it later, C2, C-SPAN 2, and you can watch it later on our app at C-SPAN now. | ||
| Let's take some calls. | ||
| John in Florida on this open forum. | ||
| Republican Line, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, Pedro, good to see you. | |
| Can you hear me okay? | ||
| You're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Go right ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| So I'll continue on with this, with your last speaker. | ||
| I feel that we in the U.S., we've come so far, and we elected a black president twice. | ||
| That couldn't have been done without white people or people that are not of color. | ||
| And I feel personally that there's still slavery happening all around the world, but it's as if the United States is not being given the credit. | ||
| Things like BLM and affirmative action make it more of a divisive issue instead of celebrating the fact that we've come so far. | ||
| And I was hoping when Barack Obama was elected that he was going to put this behind us. | ||
| Instead, I would say, if there's statistics that you have, that discrimination and hostility has gone up since then. | ||
| And I'm sad that we've given up President's Day, Washington's birthday, Lincoln's birthday. | ||
| These are people who should have been celebrated instead of just a generic President's Day. | ||
| Martin Luther King, when he marched, the Jewish people marched with him. | ||
| And every year, the Jewish people celebrate Passover to remember when we were slaves in Egypt. | ||
| All right, let's go to Al in Pennsylvania, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, you're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-SPAN. | |
| I like to say I grew up in the projects, and I was raised by a grandmother. | ||
| I felt as a poor white child that the black struggle was also my struggle. | ||
| And when I listened to speakers like Jesse Jackson, I used that kind of motivation to help myself. | ||
| I feel that concentration on younger personal people and for them to understand that they have to pull themselves up. | ||
| And by doing this, they have a way out of their situation. | ||
| And like I said, and when I heard people like Jesse Jackson talk in those days, I took it to heart. | ||
| And that's all I wanted to say. | ||
| You have to have concentration on the youth. | ||
| And they have to pull themselves up to where they want to be. | ||
| Democrats line in Texas. | ||
| This is Michelle. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Michelle in Austin, Texas. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, hello. | |
| Can you hear me okay? | ||
| You're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, my goodness. | |
| This is great. | ||
| I haven't called C-SPAN in so long, but I love it. | ||
| I get merch. | ||
| So, today I appreciate the conversation between the two last speakers. | ||
| I think Dr. Joseph came with a lot of knowledge, and I appreciate his perspective. | ||
| I also appreciate Ms. Parker, but what I observed or heard was that in her early years, she talked a lot about how the wearful system really held her back, and that in spite of it, she was able to surmount that and pull herself up by her bootstraps and all that. | ||
|
Conservatives and Government Aid
00:03:42
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|
unidentified
|
So, that's fine, but once you have that perspective, how is it? | |
| Because I heard her say that, you know, she's qualifying for Social Security and all that. | ||
| I'm like, I don't understand how these conservatives who talk so bad about the government as a safety net, yet, man, do they take advantage of it? | ||
| I don't think that's a principled stand. | ||
| I think if you feel that way, you should just send your check back and put it towards the debt if you really, really feel that way. | ||
| I think it's very similar to those people who rail against the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, maybe specifically, yet they actually get to have the benefit. | ||
| Maybe not so much now because of all the vets that's going on. | ||
| But what Carla said earlier about hypocrisy, I did not understand. | ||
| I did not realize until she herself said twice at the beginning of her life, and now in the golden years of her life, she is using the government. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's Michelle there in Texas. | ||
| Let's hear from Bonnie in Iowa, Republican line. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| The two biggest issues harming the black community are both very relevant this weekend. | ||
| Yesterday was Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, which laments the murder of millions of babies in the womb. | ||
| Unfortunately, the black community is hit particularly hard. | ||
| In New York City, for example, the number of black babies killed in the womb exceeds that of those born alive. | ||
| You can check that statistic. | ||
| So it's a very unfortunate black-on-black genocide, and it's obviously true: babies of all races are aborted. | ||
| But I just wanted to point out that statistic. | ||
| The second unfortunate thing is that the Civil Rights Act has had good consequences, but here's a bad one: Because the government is so helpful in providing aid, the majority of black children now grow up in a household without a father and mother present to give guidance. | ||
| And that has certainly not played out well. | ||
| There is an increase in crime. | ||
| If you look at statistics, the majority of those incarcerated of every race, but certainly in the black community, are those who are raised in a home without a father and a mother and without the stability that provides. | ||
| So those are my comments as we celebrate Sanctity of Human Life Sunday on Sunday and Martin Luther King's birthday today. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| William up next in Brooklyn, New York, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| I have two comments. | ||
| One is for the lady that called a minute ago that she was saying that black people are, we came so far from back in Diggs. | ||
| We're so successful. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I can't hear you. | |
| Nope, I'm not talking. | ||
| Go ahead and finish your thoughts. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello? | |
| Carla, you're going to have to stop paying attention to the television. | ||
| Just finish your thought into your telephone, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But I'm sorry. | |
| I'm sorry. | ||
| But she doesn't realize that black people haven't just came far like that. | ||
| We were never given anything. | ||
| Other races were born into money and things like that. | ||
| We weren't, you know. | ||
| And I'm going to just call, she's saying that, well, black people have so much violence, things like that. | ||
|
Why We Must Fight
00:02:28
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|
unidentified
|
White people are mass murderers. | |
| They do the worst. | ||
| And that's all I have to say. | ||
| Ann is up next in Wisconsin Democrats line. | ||
| Hello on this open forum. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Hi. | ||
| Thanks for C-SPAN. | ||
| I just wanted to say that people need to be aware that we no longer are a democracy. | ||
| We are being occupied by an illegal army in Minnesota. | ||
| I know they're coming into Wisconsin. | ||
| It's going to go everywhere, and they're not going to leave because this is the kind of thing they want to do. | ||
| They want to destroy the United States, this administration, and create something different. | ||
| Talk, you know, listen to Peter Thiel and all these others. | ||
| They don't believe in democracy anymore and they want to repurpose us. | ||
| And if we want to keep our country and keep our freedoms, we're going to have to fight for it. | ||
| The reflaying ceremony taking place at Martin Luther King Jr.'s Memorial here in Washington, D.C. Show you a little bit of that. | ||
| And as it still goes on, you can watch it play out on our networks, and you can always catch the ceremony later on our app at C-SPAN Now, our website at cspan.org. | ||
| The Associated Press reporting as of this morning, the Pentagon ordering about 1,500 active duty soldiers to be ready in case of a possible deployment to Minnesota, where federal authorities have been conducting a massive immigration effort. | ||
| According to defense officials Sunday, the officials, speaking on anonymity, said two infantry battalions of the Army's 11th Airborne Division have been given prepared to deploy orders. | ||
| The unit is based in Alaska, specializes in operating in Arctic conditions. | ||
|
Public Perception Debate
00:07:17
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| It was yesterday on the Sunday shows, particularly CBS's Face the Nation, that the Homeland Security Secretary, Christy Noam, was responding to back and forth about polling when it comes to the public's perception and the public opinion on what's going on in Minnesota and other states. | ||
| Here's a bit of that exchange from yesterday. | ||
| 54% of Americans think the ICE agent shooting of Renee Good was not justified. | ||
| 60% say the Trump administration responded to the ICE agents' actions unfairly. | ||
| These numbers show you do not have the American public on your side. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Does that concern you? | |
| Well, the facts are that this individual weaponized her car and threatened the life of the law enforcement officer and those around him. | ||
| And that is what the media needs to cover. | ||
| People understand is the truth when they have the chance to hear the facts around the case. | ||
| And this individual was impeding law enforcement operations for quite some time before this incident happened. | ||
| It's a tragedy that this situation has happened in this country. | ||
| And we hope there's never another situation like this before. | ||
| But this officer relied on his training to defend his life and to defend those around him. | ||
| And we're grateful that we're in a situation where we hope that more people don't weaponize their vehicles like this. | ||
| We're seeing it happen over and over again. | ||
| We've seen over 100 different vehicles weaponized and attacking law enforcement officers. | ||
| I would hope that Mayor Fry, when he's on here, that he'll announce that he's going to start working with us to bring safety to the streets. | ||
| If he would set up a peaceful protest zone so that these individuals can exercise their First Amendment rights and do so peacefully, we would love that. | ||
| Because then we could work together to make sure we're getting criminals to justice and letting people still express their First Amendment rights. | ||
| Well, you know that it is in dispute about weaponizing a car versus driving forward, but I'll put that aside. | ||
| No, it's really not. | ||
| Everybody can watch the videos. | ||
| Again, that was from yesterday. | ||
| CBS also reporting that the Justice Department is investigating Minnesota officials, including Governor Walls and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry, over an alleged conspiracy to impede federal immigration agency agents. | ||
| You can read more there at the CBS site and others. | ||
| Let's go to Jeff. | ||
| Jeff in Virginia, Independent Line. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir, Mr. Tregirill. | |
| How are you this morning? | ||
| I'm well, thank you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have watched both of your guests, Ms. Parker and Mr. Joseph. | |
| And I really have a simple question that I wish that I could have asked either one of those guests. | ||
| And it would be black, white, red, yellow, brown. | ||
| Are we all the same? | ||
| Or are we all different? | ||
| And I'd love to hear the reasons for their answers to that question. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Matt in Kentucky, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Matt, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm here. | |
| Okay, go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Matt, you're breaking up. | ||
| Either you're going to have to get closer to a better signal or speak more closely to your handset. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| I'm sorry. | ||
| Is that any better? | ||
| It is. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Now, if I may be wrong or maybe I'm right, I don't know. | ||
| But, you know, I'm a Democrat, but now I don't know what I am anymore. | ||
| This Tim Wall, it was, and he's not going to go to court and do nothing. | ||
| It just took something to suddenly make our time. | ||
| The man will never face no jail time. | ||
| And I'm concerned about these people. | ||
| I'm a Democrat, used to be, but I don't know anymore. | ||
| Wait, are you a Democrat? | ||
| Do you find yourself as a Democrat or an Independent? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Republican now. | |
| Okay, I'm going to pause you there. | ||
| So let's go to Philip, Phillip in Mississippi, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day we celebrate. | ||
| Just wanted to try to stimulate the listeners a little bit outside of the norm. | ||
| I've been interested in race relations all my life. | ||
| And I can honestly say 16 years old, honestly, all my life. | ||
| I was 1688 and coming from the city of Alexandria, which had a tremendous integration movement when I was a young kid. | ||
| I learned a lot by being selected to attend a private school for boys about race. | ||
| And basically, I learned that you don't force race on people, but you got to have people educated enough to learn the history and not to be making up things based on their own intellectual levels. | ||
| And so I've always tried to engage people to look at the things that I could see that could say we could do better, we can improve. | ||
| But there are groups that come to the United States outside of being forced as African Americans were, that really don't want to learn about race relations. | ||
| They will put it off and basically say that they have it together. | ||
| Now we can see ultimately that it wasn't all together. | ||
| And so I feel a little bit like just recommending a book, run in my shoes, that may explain the history for those who just haven't taken the time to really delve into understanding how race works in this country. | ||
| And I just think it's a pretty good book for people to read. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And let's go to Joyce. | ||
| Joyce in Nevada, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| It's so great talking to you. | ||
| I've called before, but I've never spoke with you. | ||
| I've been watching C-SPAN so long, but I wanted to make a comment about what's happening now. | ||
| I'm 77 years old, and in high school, I remember working with several people trying to, something like what's going on for civil rights. | ||
| And it was quite a few in my area where I graduated high school in Texas. | ||
| Several white people were there. | ||
| But right now, that's not what I want to talk about. | ||
| I just wanted to mention that I don't understand why the Democrats are so hated now. | ||
| They feel they're not doing anything. | ||
| And one other thing about the comment about the shooting of the late Miss Good, well, everybody see that she wasn't trying to run over him. | ||
| And I don't understand why they're saying it, that she was trying to kill him. | ||
| Well, and another thing, I don't understand why, even though I believe in immigration and people that are not, you know, come in illegally should not be, should come in legally. | ||
|
Last Call Apologies
00:01:37
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|
unidentified
|
And then I remember when I was younger, the country, the companies used to hire a lot of illegal people coming into the United States. | |
| And then even today, I have friends that have illegal family members working at companies. | ||
| And I was so surprised. | ||
| They have companies, they get paid, they pay insurance and everything. | ||
| I don't understand what's going on except that I was in a store buying something, and one lady said, oh, thank God for Trump giving me the money. | ||
| And so I could buy my home. | ||
| And one other thing I want to say to people. | ||
| Oh, you're going to sorry. | ||
| I can't. | ||
| I apologize. | ||
| I appreciate the call. | ||
| Thank you for calling because you're the last call and we're out of time. | ||
| And for those of you who participate in this open forum, thanks for doing. | ||
| So that's it for our program today. | ||
| Another edition of Washington Journal comes your way at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning. | ||
| We'll see you then. | ||
|
unidentified
|
C-SPAN, democracy unfiltered. | |
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