Washington Journal (01/27/2026) unpacks Trump’s abrupt ICE pullout from Minnesota after two fatal shootings, amid Senate Democrats’ threats to block $55B Homeland Security funding—risking a shutdown by January 31. Polls show 48% oppose labeling Alex Predi a terrorist, while calls reveal partisan divides: Republicans blame Democratic-run cities for enabling illegal immigration, while Independents like Ben from Minneapolis call the surge an "overreach." Meanwhile, experts debate tariffs ($1,700/year household cost hikes) and debt-fueled spending, linking affordability crises to housing, healthcare, and stagnant wages. Fitch’s Citizens Handbook reveals in-person advocacy remains the most effective tool, despite systemic challenges, as Trump pivots to Iowa’s economy—while Senate votes on anti-abortion campus policies and House races looming by September 30th. [Automatically generated summary]
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Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, Natalie Baker with the Center for American Progress and Brittany Madney from the Economic Policy Innovation Center discuss Trump administration economic policies and messaging on affordability.
Then-former Congressional Management Foundation CEO Brad Fitch talks about the second edition of his book, Citizens Handbook for Influencing Elected Officials.
Good morning and welcome to the Washington Journal on this Tuesday, January 27th.
After two fatal shootings and days of protests in Minnesota, President Trump has signaled ICE agents will begin leaving the state today.
According to the Washington Post, polls and sinking support has changed the White House's tone.
This morning, we want to know from you, has the Trump administration's immigration crackdown gone too far?
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
Minnesota residents, you dial in this morning at 202-748-8003.
All of you can text if you don't want to call at 202-748-8003, include your first name, city, and state, or post on facebook.com slash C-SPAN and on X with the handle at C-SPANWJ.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune with the headline about what will happen in Minnesota today, according to the mayor, Jacob Fry, after a phone call with President Trump, federal agents will start leaving today.
The president spoke to the Minneapolis mayor as well as the governor, Tim Walz, yesterday, and both sides said it was a productive phone call.
Also from the newspapers this morning, The Hill, with the headline that Caroline Levitt at her briefing yesterday distancing President Trump from rhetoric by the Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam and the president's top aide, Stephen Miller, on the killing of Alex Predty.
The New York Times is reporting this morning that President Trump met in the Oval yesterday with the Homeland Security Secretary, along with her top aide, Corey Lewandowski, for two hours after Ms. Noam requested the meeting with the president.
From the briefing yesterday, Caroline Levitt, when she's asked about the rhetoric from Christy Noam on Alex Predi calling him a domestic terrorist, take a listen.
To follow on Gabe's question, Secretary Noam said Alex Predty committed an act of domestic terrorism.
Caroline Lovett at the White House yesterday when asked about the rhetoric on the killing of Alex Predty this morning.
Has the Trump administration's immigration crackdown gone too far?
Take a look at a YouGov poll that was done on January 25th based on what you know.
Was the shooting of the man in Minneapolis justified or not justified?
The 20% of people polled said it was justified.
48% said it was not justified.
While 32% said they were not sure.
That is a YouGov poll conducted after the shooting.
We're asking about the immigration crackdown.
Has it gone too far?
Your thoughts on that.
Also happening in Minnesota today, the president has sent Tom Homan, the border czar, to Minnesota to be the lead there.
From Punch Bowl News, they report that the federal agents will begin to party Minnesota today after Trump's sudden dramatic gear shift on immigration.
And among them will be Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino, whose days strutting blue city streets in his faux military coat seem to be over.
His boss, DH Secretary Christy Noam, has also been sidelined.
And a new sheriff, Border Czar Tom Homan, is headed to Minneapolis today for clear-the-air meetings with Democratic leaders.
For Noam, it's nothing short of a public humiliation pushed aside from her department's highest profile operation following the fatal shooting of Alex Predty and following her ill-judged response.
Laura in Tucson, Arizona, Democratic caller, will begin with you this morning.
When they're waiting in court to pick up people who have been following the law and who have been here for years and years and are productive citizens already.
An independent in Florida and says this is a mistake for President Trump to change his tone and his actions in Minnesota.
The National Papers this morning using the word retreat on the president's decision to begin removing ICE from Minnesota today.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board on the Trump administration's deportation policy write this this morning, that it started out at the beginning of 2025.
87% of ICE arrests were immigrants with either a prior conviction or a criminal charge pending, according to ICE data obtained by the Department Data Project.
Only 13% of those arrested at the beginning of 2025 didn't have either a conviction or a pending charge.
But the criminal share of apprehensions has declined as the months have gone on.
By October of 2025, the percentage of arrested immigrants with a prior conviction or criminal charge had fallen to 55%.
Since October, 73% taken into ICE custody had no criminal conviction, and only 5% had a violent criminal conviction, according to a Cato Institute review of ICE data.
That's the Wall Street Journal's editorial this morning.
Mass deportation by the numbers.
ICE arrests aren't growing, but fewer are growing, but fewer have a criminal history.
I'd like to know when Trump abdicated the presidency to Stephen Miller.
And it is ridiculous.
It went way too far from the beginning with the ICE, with the masked ICE agents.
They look like ISIS or Hamas militants running around this country.
Of course, everybody is scared.
And when you get eight or ten of them around your vehicle, like Ms. Good did, and one says, get the F out of the car, heck yes, I'd be taken off too.
I'd be driving away.
Even in Colorado, we are told if you are stopped and you do not know who it is, you are allowed to go on because we have had police officers impersonated out here.
So, yes, I think she was justified in what she did in trying to get away from it.
They are not properly trained and they lack restraint.
With that said, please don't show up at these protests with firearms.
Even if you have a license to carry, and it's your right, it's poor judgment to do so with these goons and how aggressive they've been with the protesters.
I believe Mr. Predty would still be alive today had he not carried a weapon into those protests.
Well, Washington Post headline, as polls show sinking support, White House changes tone on ICE tactics.
Trump initially responded combatively to Predty's death by calling him a gunman and posting a phone photo of the licensed pistol.
But he did not go as far as Noam or Miller, and he sounded more equivocal Sunday when he told the Wall Street Journal, I don't like any shooting.
I don't like it.
Senator Ted Cruz and Governor Greg Abbott of Texas urged the White House to change its tone on immigration enforcement, while other Senate Republicans, including Jerry Moran of Kansas and John Curtis of Utah, called for independent investigations.
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair Rand Paul said Monday that the heads of immigration and customs enforcement, customs and border protection, and U.S. citizenship and immigration services should testify before the panel.
That's the Wall Street Journal this morning.
Listen to California Democratic Senator Alex Padilla, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety, speaking out against further funding for Homeland Security and ICE.
California Democratic Senator Alex Padilla yesterday saying Democrats in the Senate are going to refuse to support a measure that would fund the Homeland Security Department.
Now the Immigration Customs and Enforcement ICE is under the Homeland Security Department.
Washington Times with the headline this morning, ICE fight starts another shutdown showdown with Democrats demanding reworking of the Homeland Security funding bill.
You'll recall it was approved by the House last week.
It now is before the Senate.
And today, the Senate returns to Washington to begin debating what to do next on funding this Homeland Security measure.
Democratic senators appear united that they will not support the legislation to fund the Homeland Security Department unless it is reworked.
Now, the Wall Street Journal this morning says that this threat would be a partial government shutdown.
It's now more likely.
And they write, Congress is running out of time to pass a sprawling appropriations package before funding for much of the federal government expires at 1201 Eastern on Saturday.
Senate Democrats say they won't support the bill without changes to the provisions regarding homeland, raising the risk of a partial shutdown this weekend.
And you also have this headline from the New York Times.
Democrats embrace a shutdown fight they had hoped to avoid.
Has the Trump administration's immigration crackdown gone too far?
Now, in each city, each state, they have warrants.
Says like to me that I should be able to get warrants for certain people that they're going in certain states to look for.
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First, start off with the criminals.
Start off with the criminals and then work your way down to the people that overstayed the visas that I hear and then work your way up to people that are following the law.
Why you don't just go and arrest the criminals first?
How are you going to arrest a criminal when you go to a daycare center?
You go up into the high schools.
Those are not the people they're looking for.
They say they're arresting the criminal element.
Get rid of the criminals first and then go for the other ones that's been lacking, not reporting in, overstayed their visas illegally here or whatever.
Well, Melvin, let me jump in because Tim Walz, who's the governor of Minnesota, Democrat, writes today in the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journals, federal officials are lying.
My state's corrections department honors all immigration detainees.
And this is what he writes.
There is not a single documented case of the departments releasing someone from state prison without offering to ensure a smooth transfer of custody.
Some of the administration's claims are ridiculous on their face, he writes.
For example, it claims that 1,360 non-U.S. citizens are in Minnesota prisons.
The truth, our total state prison population is roughly 8,000 and only 207 of them are non-citizens.
You can read more in the Wall Street Journal this morning from the Minnesota governor.
Yeah, I think what we've forgotten is that the Democrats were the ones who created this whole situation by allowing millions of people illegally to cross into our country, which makes them lawbreakers.
And Chuck in Pittsburgh, a Republican, with his thoughts this morning.
CBS News with the headline, Republican Chris Medell exits Minnesota governor's race, calls federal retribution on the state unconstitutional.
Republican Chris Medell is ending his campaign for governor of Minnesota, saying that he cannot support the national members of his party and their retribution on the citizens of our state.
Number one, I cannot support the National Republican stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so.
I support the originally stated goals of immigration's and customs enforcement's Operation MetroSurge in locating and deporting the worst of the worst from our state.
And I've seen many examples of ICE arresting non-U.S. citizens in Minnesota convicted of serious crimes, including murder, rape, and child sexual assault.
No reasonable person should want these people here, and I am glad that they are gone.
But Operation MetroSurge has expanded far beyond its stated focus on true public safety threats.
United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear.
United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship.
That's wrong.
ICE has authorized its agents to raid homes using a civil warrant that need only be signed by a border patrol agent.
That's unconstitutional, and it's wrong.
Weaponizing criminal investigations against political opponents is unconstitutional, regardless of who is in power.
Republicans and Democrats alike have engaged in this misconduct, and both must be held to the same standard.
First off, I take offense with C-SPAN and your verbiage, how you call it, a crackdown.
It is the federal government following legally passed and constitutionally passed laws of the United States of America, of which I've been a citizen for 62 years.
It is an governmental enforcement of the laws that are written and currently on the books, and there's nothing illegal about it in my mind.
Now, if I was to protest and go out and stand on a street corner with a sign and with a bullhorn and a whistle and whatever else, that's perfectly acceptable under the First Amendment and the rights to free speech.
Okay, the minute I step off the curb or take my vehicle or in any other way, fashion, or form, try to impede a law enforcement agent, whether it's a federal agent or a state or local agent, I am now a criminal, just like the people they are trying to apprehend and deport from the country.
I grew up in a family who has many law enforcement people that were employed in my small South City and even other parts of the state of Wisconsin.
And when you interfere, you know, it's the law.
You're no longer a peaceful protester when you're, you know, and the mask, the mask thing, Greta, and the other thing with the masks.
Well, how come all the protesters are wearing masks?
You know, I don't understand the positions, just like the representative from California, Padilla.
You know, they didn't say anything about masked people for years.
You know, there's no black and white, it seems, in government, to be honest with you.
But I just take offense with a lot of the people that are protesting.
They have the legal right to do so.
Just like that gentleman that got shot.
Two American citizens have been killed in Minneapolis.
You know, where have the Democrats been for the last five years when there's hundreds of people every single year, thousands of people, Americans, getting shot by other Americans in the streets of these Democratic-run cities, sanctuary cities, and they don't enforce the laws that they have there.
I mean, the whole thing is just, it's absurd to me, Greta.
He said he would go after the worst of the worst, and he ended up sending his agents, his rogue agents, to snatch people off the streets, stuff them into unmarked vehicles with no due process, no warrants, nothing.
And here we are, and I'm standing on the stage with my opponent, Congressman Krishnamurthy, who, as they started to attack the city of Chicago last summer, he went onto the House floor in Washington, D.C. and voted to thank ICE.
He's accepted funding from ICE contractors.
That is not the example of somebody who's going to stand up to Donald Trump and fight for all of our communities.
And unlike many of you, I've actually done the hard work of trying to hold ICE accountable.
I'm the only candidate on this stage that's been evicted by the CPD when we performed inspections of ICE facilities.
I'm the only candidate on this stage that actually inspected an ICE facility itself.
And what I learned there was shocking, that they not only target people with convictions, they go after people who are merely charged and who are collaterally present.
That means innocent civilians.
Look, I believe we have to abolish Trump's ICE.
In light of what happened with Alex Pretty and with Renee Goode, what we're seeing now cannot continue.
So this is what, these are the legislative reforms that have to happen.
One, not a single dollar more for ICE or DHS.
That's the way I voted last week, and that's the way the Senate should vote.
Secondly, impeach Noam.
And I join Robin Kelly in that motion.
Third, we have to make sure they unmask ICE, wear identification, and finally have an inspector general within ICE to make sure they abide by the rules and regulations of the land.
We need to impeach Christy Noam and we need to build an agency that people can trust.
The Department of Homeland Security is too big, too unwieldy, and not accountable.
And we need to do all this in the guise of immigration reform.
It can't be one thing or another.
We have to look at Border Patrol.
We have to look at USCIS that oversees asylums.
We have to land the plane on the DREAMers and make them American citizens.
We have to find a pathway for the over 11 million undocumented that are contributing to this city of Chicago, this state of Illinois, and to the United States.
That's all a part of dismantling, building back, impeaching Christy Noam, which we're on our way to doing, and making an agency that everyone can trust again.
You heard Congresswoman Robin Kelly talking about impeaching Christy Noam.
She has brought forward articles of impeachment on the Homeland Security Secretary.
NBC News with the headline: Democrats' calls for Christy Noam to resign or face impeachment grow louder.
Eight more Democrats have joined a resolution to impeach the Homeland Security Secretary after the latest fatal shooting by a federal agent.
The articles of impeachment against Secretary Noam say obstruction of Congress for instances in which members of Congress were denied entry into DHS facilities and for withholding congressionally appropriated disaster relief funds.
They also claim a violation of public trust for allegedly denying ICE detainees due process and violating First and Fourth Amendments and self-dealing over reports that Noam awarded $220 million in contracts to a firm run by her top spokesperson's husband.
Those are the articles of impeachment against the Homeland Security Secretary.
Jim in Wisconsin, Democratic caller, thanks for joining us this morning.
On the demand for voter rolls, New York Times reports what is behind the Trump administration's call for Minnesota voter rolls.
Nearly every state has a public version of its voter roll that includes basic information like first and last names.
Some of these roles include addresses.
But the complete unredacted voter file includes personal identifying information like driver's license numbers and social security numbers.
This list is kept private and is maintained by top election officials in each state.
Traditionally, no one can obtain it through public records requests, not even the Justice Department.
So why does the Justice Department want these files?
New York Times says Ms. Bondi has said that the Trump administration is trying to keep elections secure.
But President Trump and his allies, who tried to overturn the 2020 election and continue to deny its legitimacy, have long pushed unsubstantiated claims about undocumented immigrants voting illegally.
And last year, the Justice Department began to try to build the largest set of national voter roll data it has ever collected, raising concerns that the data could be used to cast doubt on future election results.
From the New York Times reporting, why is the Trump administration demanding Minnesota voter rolls?
I don't understand a lot of what's going on because when I researched myself, I found out that Minnesota law states that you cannot protest in the street.
So Minneapolis police should have gone down and started either arresting people and removing them from the street because the public safety man came out the very first day with Governor Walsh and said, Minnesota law says you cannot protest in the street.
I'm not a fan of ICE, but the problem is we have too many people that think they can take over the city and tell the police and the government what to do.
Doug, a Republican in Virginia, with his thoughts.
The Democrats in the Senate now this week turned their attention to the funding measure for the Homeland Security Department after it was approved by the House.
However, following the fatal shooting of Alex Predi, Senate Democrats are now united in opposing the Homeland Security funding bill.
Listen to Appropriations Committee Chair, Republican Susan Collins, on the Senate floor yesterday acknowledging the fatal shooting but asking her Democratic colleagues to support the full funding package, including the Homeland Security funding.
Let me say, Madam President, that the tragic death of Alex Petri has refocused attention on the Homeland Security bill, and I recognize that and share the concerns.
I do want to point out to my colleagues that there are many safeguards that have been put in this bill that I would encourage them to review, and that the vast majority of the funding in this bill, more than 80%, is for non-immigration and non-border security functions.
It includes, for example, funding for FEMA.
We've just gone through a horrific storm that has caused a lot of damage, and FEMA is very important.
It includes funding for TSA.
Those of us who travel back and forth through our home states every weekend are well aware of the work of TSA in keeping us safe.
It includes funding for cybersecurity and physical infrastructure protection.
And important to the states of the presiding officer in the state of Maine, it includes funding for the U.S. Coast Guard.
So, Madam President, I know that there will be many more speeches and discussions of all of the bills that are included in this package,
but let me just say that I hope we can come together in a constructive way to get this done and to ensure that we do not lurch into a dangerous and detrimental government shutdown.
The Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, on the floor of the Senate yesterday, encouraging, urging her fellow senators to vote for a spending package and avoid a government shutdown this Saturday at 12:01 a.m.
Democrats in the Senate appear united after that fatal shooting of Alex Predi in Minnesota in opposition to the Homeland Security bill.
This morning, we're asking all of you: has the Trump administration's immigration crackdown gone too far?
John in Ava Maria, Florida, an independent, we'll hear from you, John.
And once the rest of America wakes up to this, and they will, they will, everyone's going to get behind Trump on what he's doing because what he's doing is correct.
And the majority of them are Caucasian Americans, but even themselves, they're afraid to go out.
It is an overreach in every way, shape, or form.
There's no point in sending the number of federal officials into a Democratic city solely to go after immigration enforcement.
If somebody would please post the numbers for the states that show the largest amount of undocumented immigrants, let's go off of that.
We know that red states have the most and that the Trump administration isn't going after them there because they're all in each other's pockets, regardless of a Democratic issue, a Republican issue.
I consider myself an independent, but yes, I will sound more like a liberal at this point in time because the overreach is astronomical.
So a judge in Minnesota yesterday asked similar questioning.
Take a look at the New York Times.
Judge Way's arguments on legality of ICE surge.
Minnesota, along with the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, filed a lawsuit two weeks ago claiming that the Trump administration's campaign called Operation Metro Surge violates state sovereignty under the 10th Amendment and should be blocked.
The surge has brought some 3,000 federal agents to Minnesota, resulting in thousands of arrests, three shootings, and tense protests.
Judge Menendez, who was nominated to the bench by former President Joseph Biden, did not rule from the bench on Monday and did not provide a timeline for issuing a written decision.
She indicated that she would move quickly.
She did, though, push back on Minnesota officials.
need for immediate action.
She had pointed questions about the state government's request that she issue a sweeping order to block the surge.
And she also asked where the line should be and wondered whether or not there were possible ulterior motives.
So this from a hearing in Minnesota yesterday with Judge Kate Menendez, who will rule on whether or not to block this ICE surge.
Has the Trump administration's immigration crackdown gone too far?
That is our question this morning.
Those are the lines for dialing in.
Take a look at the national papers this morning in the headlines.
President Trump signals ICE pullout from Minnesota chaos.
That's the Washington Times this morning.
USA Today, police improved community relations after George Floyd.
Is ICE a setback?
You also have from the Wall Street Journal, the 48 hours that convinced President Trump to change course in Minnesota.
And then you have the Washington Post.
Trump softens tone on Minneapolis violence amid calls for accountability.
And finally, the New York Times.
Trump under pressure retreats from smears in Minneapolis killing.
The change in rhetoric and actions coming from the White House and yesterday at the White House briefing, Caroline Levitt was asked if the president agrees with the rhetoric from the Homeland Security Secretary and others in the administration and how they framed the shooting of Alex Predi.
Take a listen.
To follow on Gabe's question, Secretary Noam said Alex Predty committed an act of domestic terrorism.
Stephen Miller labeled Predi a domestic terrorist.
The White House press secretary yesterday was also asked about rhetoric coming out of the White House in the immediate aftermath of the fatal shooting.
Regarding Minnesota, on Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security posted that Predty looks like he wanted to do maximum damage to massacre law enforcement.
Stephen Miller on Saturday posted that or called Predi a would-be assassin.
With regards to the deployment of Tom Holman to Minneapolis, should the deployment of Mr. Holman to Minneapolis be seen as a sign that the president is dissatisfied with how the officials on the ground had handled the incident?
No, Mr. Holman is doing an exceptional job and he has been working with Secretary Noam and President Trump over the course of the last year.
Secretary Noam still has the utmost confidence and trust of the President of the United States and she's continuing to oversee the entire Department of Homeland Security and all of the immigration enforcement that's taking place across the whole entire country.
Of course, Secretary Noam is also in charge of FEMA, and we are in the wake of a brutal winter storm where hundreds of thousands of Americans have been impacted by that.
So Borders R. Homan is in a unique position to drop everything and go to Minnesota to continue having these productive conversations with state and local officials.
And I know that he's catching a plane in just a few hours to do just that at the request of the president.
The White House Press Secretary at yesterday's briefing, the Washington Post editorial board has a to-do list for Tom Homan when he arrives in Minneapolis.
And they say that it starts with refocusing deportation operations on criminal targets instead of five-year-olds with pending cases in immigration court.
Sanctuary jurisdictions like Minneapolis' Hennepin County can help keep ICE out of their communities by directly handing over criminals in their custody to immigration enforcement officers.
The next step is to rebuild trust with the public.
You do that with transparency.
DHS is reviewing body camera footage from agents who were on the scene when Predty was fatally shot.
To help restore credibility, authorities would be wise to release a complete version of the video.
Congressional Republicans are signaling that they plan to conduct more rigorous oversight.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Gressley of Iowa announced Monday that Noam has agreed to testify on March 3rd.
Other GLP chairmen are demanding various DHS leaders appear before their own committees before that.
The Washington Post this morning with Tom Homan's to-do list.
Punch Bowl News reporting about Tom Homan being sent to Minnesota.
And Punch Bowl News says that federal agents will begin departing Minnesota today after Trump's sudden dramatic gear shift on immigration.
And among them will be the Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino, whose days strutting Blue City streets in his faux military coat seem to be over.
His boss, DHS Secretary Christy Noam, has also been sidelined.
And a new sheriff, Border Star Tom Homan, is headed to Minneapolis for clear-the-air meetings with local Democratic leaders.
That's happening today.
Yesterday at the White House, according to the New York Times, Christine Noam called for a meeting with President Trump, and she got one, along with her top aide, Corey Lewandowski.
I work in law enforcement, and this process that we're talking about is happening right now as we speak, all over the country, and it's done in an organized fashion.
Every week where I work, ICE picks up orderly about three times a week.
During the Biden administration, maybe once every four months did they pick up illegal immigrants that we stop, whether they didn't have a driver's license, whether they were speeding, whether they were drunk driving.
And it works systematically and methodically like it should.
Only in one state and one city that they are putting up roadblocks, and they are creating this havoc in Minnesota.
They are doing it on purpose.
Where I work, it works seamlessly.
There's no whistles, there's no protest, and it works like it should.
You don't have this.
And I agree with the earlier caller.
During the Biden administration, I never saw a Chiron across your screen that said, did the Biden administration go too far in their border invasion?
Everybody who legally drives a car or carries a gun is supposed to have an ID on them.
The guy that got shot the other day did not have ID, did not have his permit with him, and had 30 extra rounds on him.
I mean, this whole thing is being set up to turn your eyes away from the fraud and the corruption and all the money that's being bled out of Minneapolis.
And, Greg, on that point, I'll just say to you and others that there have been a few hearings on Capitol Hill about the fraud, the alleged fraud in Minnesota, and you can find those hearings if you go to our website, c-span.org.
Felix in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Democratic caller.
I want you to, while I'm talking, I'd like to look up something if you possibly could.
This could be a rooted problem of how they're acting.
You have a gentleman, the president of the Heritage Foundation named Eric Roberts, I believe this name, somewhere circa July 2024, he was on the Steve Bannon show, indicated that there's a second revolution coming, and it would be bloodless as long as the Democrat, or excuse me, as long as the left will allow it.
I want to know if that's part of the problem there.
Second of all, the President Trump, to me, he's just like what Bill Clinton was whenever the Ken Starr said he was just a president is just an ordinary person temporarily occupying a seat of power at the pleasure of we the people.
Later on in the Washington Journal, Bradford Fitch, former CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation and author of the quote, Citizens Handbook for Influencing Elected Officials, joins us and we'll talk about practical and effective strategies to get through to your elected officials.
But first, after the break, affordability is one of the main themes for this year's midterm elections.
We'll take a closer look at the Trump administration's records so far on that front with Natalie Baker of the Center for American Progress and Brittany Madney from the Economic Policy Innovation Center.
That conversation coming up on the Washington Journal.
Travel through the history of America's space program on American History TV all day on C-SPAN 2.
Featuring classic NASA films and historical newsreels from past space missions.
Watch Saturday, starting at 8 a.m. Eastern, as American History TV sits down with Smithsonian National Era and Space Museum Apollo curator Tiesel Muir Harmony to explore Americans in space from the creation of NASA in 1958 through the early Gemini flights to Neil Armstrong's historic first steps on the moon in July 1969.
She also looks ahead to the upcoming Artemis missions with the goal of returning astronauts to the lunar surface.
Plus, relive the race to the moon, Skylab, and the Space Shuttle program.
And hear first-hand accounts from legendary NASA flight directors Gene Krantz and Gerald Griffin.
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.
Mike said before, I happened to listen to him, he was on C-SPAN 1.
That's a big upgrade, right?
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Turning our attention to the economy and affordability this morning for the next hour, we're joined by Natalie Baker, who is the Economic Analysis Director at the Center for American Progress, and Brittany Madney, who's the Executive Vice President at the Economic Policy Innovation Center.
Thank you both for being here.
President Trump today traveling to Iowa, he'll be in Cleve, Iowa, to talk about the U.S. economy and energy.
And we will have live coverage of that today at 4 p.m. Eastern Time right here on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free video mobile app, and C-SPAN.org online on demand.
Let's begin with the president's remarks in Iowa.
Natalie Baker, what do you think the president needs to address from your perspective?
So obviously farming, big part of the Iowa economy.
But as one of several states that are currently considered to be in recession or possibly in recession, and again, these regional impacts are the sorts of things that aren't captured in the headline overall GDP growth stats.
So we're seeing differentiated impacts across the economy in different states, and Iowa is just one of those.
You have a lot of the very classic indicators of affordability.
The president is certainly looking at health care affordability, housing affordability, groceries, gas, and of course, when you get to gas, you've got to talk about biofuels in Iowa.
Yeah, I saw that article and I thought to myself, well, this is no surprise to the individuals who are purchasing their health care.
Sure, it might be headline news out in Washington, D.C., but I think to the president's visit to Iowa, you really understand why this is top of mind, because out there, Iowans are thinking, yeah, of course this is a problem.
The subsidies that are inherent in the ACA and the Affordable Care Act are directly sent to insurers.
This is a problem for the president.
He's mentioned it multiple times and it's a hallmark of his new agenda that he's put out the parameters for his Great American Health Plan.
Joe, as you start thinking through what do the people really want to hear him talk about in Iowa, they want to hear him talking about kitchen table issues and I think that's why he chose to go to Iowa of all places.
Natalie Baker, on health care costs, you've heard the president talk about, let's get this money directly to the consumers and bypass the insurance companies.
Is that something that the Center for American Progress can get behind?
Look, I think at the moment we haven't really seen that in terms of health policy.
So that would be the first point I would make there.
The second point is that when we're thinking about policies of the last year from this administration, we've seen massive cuts to Medicaid.
We've seen the premium tax credits, which are subsidies to help folks with their health insurance premium costs.
We've seen those expire.
So we're already seeing people roll off marketplace coverage because it's getting too expensive, thousands of dollars of increase in premiums, and that number of folks who are no longer able to afford that marketplace coverage is just going to go up.
So in terms of what policies we're actually seeing for healthcare coverage, my concern is that there has not been enough movement to address any of these issues.
So I think one thing that Brittany touched on is housing costs.
That is absolutely an issue when we think about what's happened with rents over the last five years, with mortgage payments, people looking to buy their first home.
These are serious issues that Americans all across the country are facing and we've seen little by way of support for those folks.
We're yet to see really tangible action in terms of legislation or other actual actions by the federal government to support on housing costs.
Those announcements, I will say, the key issue with those announcements is they've been focused on demand side policies and they're doing nothing to address the fundamental issue that is driving America's housing crisis, which is America is not building enough homes.
So as soon as we see movement on the supply side, which we haven't yet, you know, right now, all that's going to do is push up prices in the short term.
So I think the primary work that the president and this administration have been doing on housing is really the deregulatory side.
They've blown their 10-to-1 commitment out of the water in terms of removing onerous regulations and this is going to help the building issue that Natalie touched on earlier.
I mean at this point we're looking at a scenario where a regulatory budget is certainly within the framework of possibility and as that continues to be rolled out by the different agencies as they're promulgating the new rules or removal of rules, then you'll see builders be able to move more expeditiously through the process and sidestepping some of these concerns like long waits for permitting, unnecessary,
duplicative studies on environmental impacts, etc.
I haven't seen that bill that you mentioned particularly, but I certainly think it's an issue that's top of mind for a lot of members of the House.
I'm a little surprised to hear that education came in first at 58% as well, simply because I don't think that there are quite as many differences on that side.
Is childcare and similar options listed as well, or is that, I wonder, rolled into education?
Yeah, no, I was thinking about this this morning as I was driving in here and trying to figure out child care because our daycare is closed from the snow out here.
So the first thing I'll say there is that the affordability issues that folks are facing have been made worse over the course of the last year because of tariffs.
This is the signature economic policy of 2025 and they're driving up the cost of living for households, whether it's groceries or home building costs.
Tariffs are having a significant impact on the prices that people are facing every day.
Now, this is not to say there aren't things to look at on the spending side, on the tax side.
There's always opportunities there.
But what we have seen over the last year is significant debt finance tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the top 1%, all to cuts to critical services like Medicaid and SNAP, which are things that help people with the cost of living.
So, you know, when you take those together, the one big beautiful bill and tariffs, we have not seen from this administration policies that address the issues that people are worried about.
And I think you're right about worrying about people getting into the housing market.
It is tough to buy a home and especially that first home.
On interest rates, we have seen the Fed really struggle to manage risks in the economy, both on the inflation side and on the labor market side, and that makes it really tough when it comes to interest rates.
So, you know, we don't know where things will go in 2026.
As expectations are unclear, really, in terms of where the Fed will land in upcoming Fed meetings.
But ultimately, there are a lot of factors that feed into what determines that mortgage.
I think you've got an interesting idea.
It's similar to things that have been talked about, you know, on both sides of the aisle.
But I would just add that at the end of the day, what we really need in the long term is increasing supply of housing.
So, you know, I think there's more that governments can be doing to support mortgage holders and especially those coming in trying to buy their first home.
On the Fed, the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will hold his quarterly news conference after the board meets this Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time.
This will be the first public appearance by Jerome Powell with reporters since the Justice Department started their investigation into him.
So 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time, and look for the C-SPAN network's coverage of the Federal Reserve Chair.
There's also speculation this week that the President will announce his replacement for Jerome Powell when his term expires in May.
That announcement could come this week from the White House.
Brittany Madney, the President has talked about a 50-year mortgage.
Well, I think one of the challenges with a 50-year mortgage is that it's potentially locking people in now when rates are pretty high and things are unsustainable in a lot of different parts of the economy.
So there are challenges with that.
Now, I understand why the administration might be interested in it because it does present the opportunity for folks to enter into An early home, a first home.
But even going back to one of the challenges that Steve mentioned with rates changing over time, if we look at something like portability, then you start getting into questions of: okay, well, where are the portability lines?
What are the impacts of different emergency standards?
For example, are we in a flood zone?
Are we in some other disaster area?
So, portability on mortgages as well as 50-year mortgages are something that we really need to be looking at carefully and making a decision about: are there regional impacts here?
Is it something that can be done with a broad stroke on the federal level, or do we need to be taking a little bit more of a federalist look?
Well, Mike, let me jump in because the president from Davos said that he wanted to sign an executive order that would prohibit corporations from buying single-family homes.
This might be the story in northern Wisconsin, but it's also the story across the country.
I'll go back to the president going to Iowa this week.
I think that's why he's going to the heartland and not staying on the East Coast or in this DC bubble where it's just a bunch of math on a piece of paper.
No, going out into the community is really how we're going to make sure that we are understanding the affordability crisis.
Mike mentioned his mom passing, first of all, Mike condolences and not being able to get a reasonable amount for the house that they had to sell off.
I think that what we're seeing here is that we don't have enough supply in the housing market.
That's really a problem here.
Now, what that looks like in northern Wisconsin may be related to the rural communities.
I think it may be related to some of the building expenses that are stamped on top of regulations and the federal and local levels.
Again, I think rolling back some of those regulatory burdens is going to help that marketplace.
In terms of the trade and tariffs challenge, I do think that it's important for us to look at the long-term effects of this.
So, I just want to start with the point first that really tariffs are a tax on American households, especially in the way that we've seen them implemented.
And that's to the tune of $1,700 a year that folks are paying because of these tariffs.
So, that was the first point I would make there.
But the second point is that we saw those tariffs in 2025 push economic uncertainty to unprecedented levels.
That is sending shockwaves through the global economy over the course of 2025.
And even here in 2026, we've seen things have not really changed much at all.
So, you know, this is creating additional financial instability.
It makes it difficult for businesses and firms to invest, as well as those household impacts at the checkout and when you're paying your rent and all those other issues that we see.
So, in terms of the cost-benefit analysis of what we see from the tariffs, we've gotten very little as a country from these tariffs, and we're paying more every day for it.
But these things can happen, you know, maybe not overnight.
We see spikes and dips, sure, but over the long run.
And what we're seeing is investors overseas, whether it's the stock market, the bond market, or even the U.S. dollar, folks around the world are seeing the U.S. as less of a safe haven like they used to.
And that makes this economy more risky.
It means that the sort of position that the U.S. has held in the global economy, its stability is under threat.
But homes are built for people, not for corporations, and America will not become a nation of renters.
We're not going to do that.
That's why I have signed an executive order banning large institutional investors from buying single-family homes.
It's just not fair to the public.
They're not able to buy a house.
And I'm calling on Congress to pass that ban into permanent law, and I think they will.
One of the biggest barriers to saving for a down payment has been surging credit card debt.
The profit margin for credit card companies now exceeds 50%, one of the biggest.
And they charge America's interest rates of 28%, 30%, 31%, 32%.
Whatever happened to usury.
So to help our citizens recover from the Biden disaster, all caused by this horrible, just horrible president, I'm asking Congress to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for one year.
I think that this is really speaking to the president's understanding that interest is unsustainable across the board and that Americans just can't handle the interest rates.
It also means that the president's really looking at the fact that Americans are putting more on their credit cards.
And that, again, when we're spending all of our money, whether it's the household or the country, on interest payments, then we're paying off yesterday's choices rather than making productive choices either on the individual level for the economy today and in the future or for the entire government.
So I'll bring us right back to Americans at home are feeling the same thing and it's happening widely across the nation.
So when our interest payments are what they are, again, $270 billion in interest payments just in the first quarter of this year, that's going somewhere.
That's going to paying off the choices that policymakers made in previous terms.
Now, what does that look like in terms of context?
Once we get to these numbers, they're so outrageous.
It's almost difficult to even imagine them.
Right now, we're at $1.22 trillion for our interest payments annually.
That's more than the GDPs of every country in the world except for 16.
Only the 16 largest global economies are bigger than our credit card bill.
It's not really getting at what are the reasons why Americans have this credit card debt in the first place.
And again, I want to bring it back to cost of living here because we're seeing increasingly a growing number of households, millions of Americans, that are going into debt.
Partly, we've seen growing debt in utilities costs.
So this is just one example, but it's one of many of the reasons why American households are struggling.
And that is part of the reason.
But we haven't seen anything from this administration in terms of addressing those underlying issues on cost of living.
My question is around the other things in the article you had, which were cars, affording a family.
I studied agricultural economics in college.
I believe this really comes down to the Gini Index, which some people would also call the wealth distribution factor.
In a perfect world, it's a regression line with an upward slope, but really it looks like a canoe and the disparity of poverty exists at the belly to the top.
I've never seen a corporation, food, vehicle, or utility give money back that they're already getting in.
Automization technology leads them to operate at a lower overhead, most generally, in the idea, but yet I don't see the money come back.
Kyle, thanks for your question, and great to hear we've got a fellow economist among us as well.
So, you know, I hear what you're saying in terms of costs, but also your point about inequality.
And I think you're absolutely right that we have seen, and especially over the last year with things like the One Big Beautiful bill, policies of the government specifically going to benefit the top 1%, the very top of taxpayers in this country, with very little in terms of support for the majority of Americans.
So I think you're absolutely right to talk about inequality.
I love you throwing out some economics there.
And I just wanted to affirm that point that that is a major issue as well in all of this cost of living debate.
Claude, I think you make a good point about some of the challenges you're facing in your state, particularly.
A lot of these are state and local decisions.
For example, the property tax-that's a decision by your state government or your local government or both to be increasing the taxes that you have to provide the government for resources that you may not choose as the best use of your tax dollars.
So if we go back to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, one of the wins in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was really refocusing the spending on where it's needed most and trying to realign that with Americans' priorities.
So Natalie earlier talked about cuts to Medicaid.
What I would argue is that Medicaid is still increasing a dramatic amount, well over where we were in 2019, increasing continuously so that the amount that we're spending next year on Medicaid is still higher than the previous year.
The reason that's relevant is because the changes in the programs are to reassess who is in need of these dollars.
You mentioned there's always going to be some sort of inequality or inequity.
Unfortunately, that's part of the way the government has to deal with functions of our tax dollars.
Where do we need to spend them?
What are the priorities of the American people?
And if you're going to spend dollars on things like welfare, let's make sure that they're going to those who need them the most, rather than those who perhaps could be working if they had that little push.
I wanted to first say that I've got a little different perspective on some of these things, and I believe that regardless of government policy, left, right, Democrat, Republican, there's an underlying issue that not only is being missed much of the time, but allows the problem to be circumvented or allows the solutions to be circumvented.
And it really has to do with the fact that people in government, in private business, all through have the concept that they can get over on everybody else and it's acceptable.
It's a matter of underlying dishonesty.
I could explain how I've experienced this and seen it.
I'm 71 years old.
I run a business.
I have for well over 30 years.
In any case, we're nibbling around the edges only when we are looking at government policy the way we are doing it now fighting Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative.
There's underlying graft corruption, not only in government, but in the majority of businesses.
So, you know, I just wanted to quickly address, you know, Terry's comment, which is that, you know, the data supports this.
You know, Terry's is just one experience that many are feeling, that economic systems are not working for people in the way that they should be.
They're becoming disenfranchised from the economic systems, and part of that is also the politics and the policy as well.
So, you know, Terry's experience is just one, but I think a lot of folks around the country feel this.
You know, I think it's fair to say that there is a lot more that the government could be doing in terms of regulating corporations, particularly when we're thinking about tax policy and where we've seen huge tax cuts going to corporations over the last decades that have very little benefit for everyday working people.
So, you know, we think about tax as an instrument of redistribution.
It supports the government, supports the economy, sorry, in terms of making sure we have an efficient economy working the way that it should.
But the tax policies of the last decade have not been prioritizing either of those things.
I think that this comes back to a fundamental disagreement we have.
This is about spending tax dollars inappropriately.
When we talk about corporate profits, well, the number one thing that the government could be doing about that is stopping giving tax dollars directly to major corporations.
The seven biggest health insurance providers outpace the S ⁇ P 500.
The corporate profits that are being supported by tax dollars are the first step in addressing some of the challenges that our friend Terry just mentioned.
What we really need to be doing is looking at some of the things that the president has identified.
So, for example, if we're talking about health care, as you mentioned, the president's been drilling down on, corporate profits are often directly tied to how they perform in the ACA subsidy market, or excuse me, in the ACA market.
The subsidies that they receive for the marketplace are tied to a structure called their medical loss ratio.
They basically have to spend 80 to 85 percent of all of their revenues from the federal government subsidies for health insurance on medical expenses in order to allow 20 percent to go toward what most people would think are profits, and that's including their administrative costs, their CEO salaries, et cetera.
But the thing that people are missing here is that it's not actually a cap on corporate profits.
All that does is increase the costs associated with that 80% so that they can keep spending or getting more on the 20%.
So, the more expensive health care is for the average patient, the more that the company gets to bring in in subsidies and the more their ratio allows them to make in profits.
Look, I think at the end of the day, when it comes to healthcare, we have not seen actions actually address some of the cost drivers underlying these issues.
So, you know, we've, and over the course of the last year, we've seen cuts to healthcare.
And that's in terms of affordability.
It's also in terms of access.
So, your access to Medicaid or other health programs.
So, you know, we've seen billions of dollars of cuts in those areas.
And at the end of the day, that is not going to benefit American families.
I think it's fair to be concerned about prices continuing to increase.
What I would say is that we are still unburying ourselves from the massive spending in ARPA and all of these other so-called Inflation Reduction Acts, all of these other COVID programs that in fact didn't actually spend on COVID.
So for example, you had $350 billion in the state and local fiscal recovery fund supposedly for COVID.
The vast majority of that didn't actually go to any sort of COVID spending.
Instead, what we found was massive waste, fraud, and abuse.
So, tackling some of that waste, fraud, and abuse is going to start reining in overspending.
When we're reining in overspending, we're addressing the debt, the deficits, and starting to consider how we dig out of this interest hole.
So, you know, again, when we think about the Trump administration campaign on issues about cost of living, they were going to bring down the cost of groceries on day one.
We haven't seen that.
And what we have seen, as you mentioned, is tariffs.
And it's a new announcement every day, every second day.
But all of this translates to increased costs for American households.
So, you know, when you're at the grocery store, imported goods, that can be the result of tariffs.
But it can also be on non-imported goods as well because of the inputs that come in from manufacturing, but also the way that corporations may readjust their pricing to absorb the cost of tariffs.
And more of that is going to come, likely, over the course of 2026.
So, you know, it might be a good time in this economy if you're a corporate executive, but if you're, you know, a single person, if you're a working parent trying to afford groceries, rent, childcare, this is not a good economy for you.
And it's also thinking about competition, it depends in which industry or sector you're looking in as well.
So some industries, very, very competitive.
There's not so much you can do there, but in others, there's probably room in margins that you might see in terms of profits.
So competition, definitely one part of the story I would point to.
You know, particularly when you think about in the agricultural sector, for example, or processing on meat packing, that sort of thing, potentially issues in terms of competition.
But there's more that we can look at as well, all through the supply chain and more that we can do to help consumers.
Taxes have gone up on our houses, gas prices have gone up, live bills have gone up, food prices have gone up, a pound of hamburger right now is costing maybe $8 to $9.
And this is hamburger.
Chucksteak sometimes is cheaper than hamburger.
But my question is, what I'm kind of confused about is tariffs, they come in, supposed to bring the legit walleye all the government down.
And I think that's the same thing we're seeing here.
What makes Folters the coffee that you want to purchase, want to drink, want to sell?
Well, the answer would be Maxwell House or Starbucks, right?
Because they're always being pushed to have a better product, but also to have a more affordable product.
So if you want the price to go down from $17, what you need is a competitive product that is at least $17, if not lower than that.
So I should say a maximum $17.
So if you can get a good cup of coffee or a good canister of coffee for a dollar or two less, then that's when you're going to start seeing the market forces naturally push that down.
So again, I just want to go back to the tariff impact here and cite some of the academic studies that we've seen.
You know, we've had really persistent, sticky inflation through 2025.
Inflation was coming down before that, and it's been sticky through 25, and likely we'll see some more impacts in 26 as well.
We don't know.
But what some of those studies do tell us about the inflation that's above where we would typically like it to be and where the Fed would would aim for, which is 2%, most of that inflation is because of the tariffs.
Now, how those tariffs filter through across the economy as a whole is sometimes in the background, and we're likely to see more of that happen over the course of the year as businesses face additional pressures to pass those costs through.
So, you know, I think in some ways there were rollbacks on tariffs on some kinds of groceries.
That's a good thing.
I think that's going to help.
But we still see very high tariff rates across the economy.
And so that is not going to do anything in terms of helping cost of living pressures this year.
There are revenues coming in from tariffs, that's true, but there's not a situation in which we can possibly use tariff revenues to pay off our government debt if we continue to spend at the rate that we're spending.
So every dollar coming in, even if it's being used to reduce government debt, is still going to be up against the problem of exponential spending.
So as I mentioned earlier, on the discretionary spending appropriation spending side, we're increasing our spending by $55.2 billion just for about a quarter of the government, because that's all that's funded through appropriations.
So if we're increasing $55 billion for a quarter of the government, it doesn't really matter how much in tariff revenues you could potentially bring in if you're always going to outspend what you're taking in.
So that's what ought to be the first step is reducing some of the spending if we want to tackle the debt.
And I think what your question points out in all of this discussion, you know, Americans are paying more for less.
That's partly a cost story, but it's also a wages story, too.
And we've, over the course of the last year, seen real wage growth slowing, particularly for working class folks.
So that's a problem.
And, you know, in terms of the wages that folks, if you're on a minimum wage, for example, you know, that is not, that's not going to get you very far when you think about the cost of utilities, of rent, of groceries.
One of the challenges that Virginia has pointed out is that there are so many different methods across the country, whether there's a minimum wage discrepancy from one state to another or some of the other issues that she's mentioned, toll roads, for example.
Well, Congress needs to reauthorize something called the Highway Trust Fund.
There's the surface transportation bill that's coming up in Congress this year.
Really, if you want to look at some of the differences state to state, those are state decisions, not necessarily the federal government's decision, but there are some areas where the federal government can have influence.
So the highways are certainly part of that conversation.
Right now, a lot of the surface transportation highway dollars are being redirected away from paved roads that you might think of as a highway or a toll road or just a major thoroughway.
Those dollars have been redirected toward some local projects, including things like bike paths, for example, or walking trails.
Now, I'm not saying that a local community may not love their walking trailer or bike path, but that's something that the local community can and should be spending its dollars on, rather than taking away from federal highway dollars.
When that happens, then you're certainly going to have some challenges with road upkeep for some of the most traversed roadways, and that's what leads to tolls.
My basic comment, well, there's a comment and a question probably at the end, but I really believe that this is a philosophical question.
And I'll point it out that after the Second World War, the United States was, I believe, $90 trillion.
It was trillions of dollars in debt.
I can't give you the exact number.
But the philosophy was to build the economy back to a middle-out economy, which not only created the interstate highway system, created thousands and thousands of construction jobs because of the housing billed out and the guaranteed loans from the U.S. government.
Fast forward to the 1980s, the philosophy changed to a trickle-down economy, which meant that the emphasis was on competition and profits.
And the result is, even today now, is that CEOs make thousands, I think it's 1,000% more than the average worker.
And the credit card and consumer debt has risen just completely out of control.
So my question is, you know, what is your opinion about the conflicting philosophies in the economy and managing an economy?
You know, you talk about something like an investment agenda.
I think that's a great idea.
We saw some of that from the Biden administration, but unfortunately through 2025, we've seen a lot of that rolled back.
So if we're thinking about the role of the federal government in creating a sustainable, durable, resilient economy, there's a lot more that could be done.
And the actions that were taken, unfortunately, we've seen rolled back.
I think this comes down to the federal government not picking winners and losers and using your hard-earned tax dollars to align the pockets of CEOs.
So for example, Blue Shield of California is the largest health insurance provider of the Affordable Care Act in the state of California.
They're registered as a nonprofit.
That means they have special tax statuses that allow them to not have to pay the same level of tax as other companies.
Well, it's a little concerning when you hear that they're then making $27 billion in revenue.
So how a company that makes $27 billion in revenue can be registered as a nonprofit, I think, is a little concerning to the average American.
So it's time to re-evaluate exactly where the government is spending its dollars.
Should it be subsidizing directly companies like that, or should it be reprioritizing and removing dollars from areas of unnecessary expenditures and thinking about our dot picture?
Later on on this morning's Washington Journal, Practical and Effective Strategies and How to Get Through to Your Elected Officials with Bradford Fitch, who's the former CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation and author of the book, Citizens Handbook for Influencing Elected Officials.
But first, it's open forum after this break.
Your chance to weigh in on any topic in the news this morning.
Start dialing in now.
We'll be right back.
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Here's a headline to share with you this morning from the Washington Post.
U.S. Judge orders ICE Chief to appear in court and threatens contempt ruling.
Here from the Washington Post reporting, Minnesota Chief Federal Judge has demanded that the acting head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personally appear in court Friday to explain what the judge described as repeated failures to comply with dozens of court orders amid its enforcement efforts in the state.
The court's patience is at an end.
U.S. District Judge Patrick Schultz wrote in a remarkable filing late Monday, summoning acting ICE Director Todd Leonz to his courtroom.
The judge threatened possible contempt proceedings against Leonz over several instances in which Schultz said the agency failed to grant detained immigrants bond hearings that had been ordered by judges in Minneapolis.
That is the latest on ICE actions in Minnesota.
As we told you earlier, President Trump has decided to remove ICE agents from Minnesota starting today.
He has sent his border czar Tom Holman to sit down and have meetings with the officials in Minnesota.
The president speaking to the governor Tim Wells yesterday, Democrat, along with the Democratic mayor, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry, and decided to take those actions after those phone calls.
Also, the headlines today indicating the rhetoric has changed from the White House as well.
You can respond to that news in the papers and any other news as well.
Richard in Staten Island and Independent, we'll hear from you first, Richard.
Pete, a related headline this morning, here is the Associated Press website: Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Yemen threaten new attacks as U.S. aircraft carriers arrive.
Two Iranian-backed militias in the Mideast are signaling their willingness to launch new attacks, likely trying to back Iran, as officials acknowledged the arrival of a U.S. aircraft carrier to the region Monday.
President Trump ordered the carriers to move to the Middle East as he threatened military action over its crackdown on nationwide protests.
Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels on Monday hinted they were ready to resume attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
That came just after Iraq's paramilitary group, long supported by Iran's paramilitary revolutionary guard, issued a direct threat late Sunday toward any attack targeting Iran, warning a total war in the region would be a result.
I'm retired from the New York City Police Department after 30 years.
And I can tell you in all my time on patrol or dealing with other police officers and supervisors, none of my guys have ever felt the need to wear a mask.
You know, we worked in some pretty hairy situations.
And the other point I wanted to make was as far as what happened to Mr. Predty, I mean, wasn't it Donald Trump who paid reparations to Ashley Babbitt's family, who was, you know, the old saying, play stupid families won stupid prizes.
So that's kind of what I and the last point I want to make, and I apologize, is, you know, the DHS and White House are very quick to call out what they call domestic terrorists.
But how many people, how many of the people in the White House call the gentleman who sets fire to the synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, who confessed to it, a domestic terrorist?
That's my point, and I appreciate you taking your time.
In news this morning, Axios.com reporting, Alexander Vidman announces Florida Senate campaign as a Democrat.
He's the former National Security Council official who testified against President Trump during his first impeachment trial, and he's running to be the Democratic nominee in Florida's Senate race.
Vidman's entry into the Senate race gives Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer another high-profile candidate to try and force Republicans to spend heavily to defend a seat.
He is seeking to challenge Senator Ashley Moody, who was appointed to fill Secretary of State Marco Rubio's seat early last year when he joined the Trump administration.
Here is Mr. Vidman announcing his campaign as a Democrat.
Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official who testified against the president during the impeachment hearings, has been fired.
Jim, the president has been fuming about Vindman apparently ever since he testified.
Alexander Vinman, who testified against President Trump in the impeachment trial, announcing he is running for the Florida Senate seat.
Axios notes that when his brother, Eugene Vedman, announced his run for Congress, he then quickly emerged as a fundraising juggernaut, pulling in 800,000 in his first 24 hours.
He went on to win his Virginia congressional race in 2024 and continued to post strong numbers and announced a total of $7 million in his first year in office.
Back to calls, Kelvin in Georgia, Democratic caller.
Kelvin, what in the news today is making you call in?
I just continually see the hate rhetoric and the hate speech, and it makes these young people that are protesting, it riles them up and it infuriates them.
And then they take it out on the poor ICE agents that are just trying to withhold the federal laws of the government.
3,000 were sent to the state after a phone call with Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fride, both Democrats.
The president said that they would make that change.
He also sent Tom Holman, the Borders Are, to Minnesota.
He had a meeting yesterday requested by Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam for two hours in the Oval Office with the Secretary along with her top aide, Corey Lewandowski.
According to the New York Times, it was requested by Ms. Noam and they met for two hours.
There's also headlines today saying calls for impeaching Christy Noam have increased and eight more Democrats have signed on to articles of impeachment against her.
Punch Bowl News say that she was sidelined by the president and instead sent Tom Holman to Minnesota instead of her to be the face of what happens next in that state.
Related to that, the political this morning, politico.com, capital agenda, no shutdown deal in sight.
Democrats are demanding changes to the DHS funding bill and Republicans are reluctant to engage.
Senators are scrambling to avoid a partial government shutdown later this week after Saturday's fatal shooting of Alex Predty by a federal agent has members of both parties debating what guardrails they can place on President Trump's immigration enforcement agenda and there's no deal in sight.
Today, senators gather in Washington to begin debate on the immigration funding bill.
That's money for the Homeland Security Department.
Immigration customs and enforcement falls under the department.
Democrats in the Senate appear united in opposition to funding the agency unless there are changes to their actions.
Take a listen to California Democratic Senator Alex Padilla.
California Democrat Senator Alex Padilla yesterday on opposition to the Homeland Security funding bill.
Now, Susan Collins, who's a Republican from Maine and the chair of the Appropriations Committee, on the Senate floor yesterday, encouraging her colleagues to support the full funding package.
The tragic death of Alex Petri has refocused attention on the Homeland Security bill, and I recognize that and share the concerns.
I do want to point out to my colleagues that there are many safeguards that have been put in this bill that I would encourage them to review, and that the vast majority of the funding in this bill, more than 80%, is for non-immigration and non-border security functions.
It includes, for example, funding for FEMA.
We've just gone through a horrific storm that has caused a lot of damage.
And FEMA is very important.
It includes funding for TSA.
Those of us who travel back and forth through our home states every weekend are well aware of the work of TSA in keeping us safe.
It includes funding for cybersecurity and physical infrastructure protection.
And important to the states of the presiding officer in the state of Maine, it includes funding for the U.S. Coast Guard.
So, Madam President, I know that there will be many more speeches and discussions of all of the bills that are included in this package.
But let me just say that I hope we can come together in a constructive way to get this done and to ensure that we do not lurch into a dangerous and detrimental government shutdown.
Senator Susan Collins on the Senate floor yesterday, her colleagues returned to Washington today.
Tune in to C-SPAN 2's gabble-to-gabble coverage of the U.S. Senate as they turn their attention to a spending measure for the Homeland Security Department.
Mike in South Dakota Independent, we're an open forum this morning.
The two young people you had on earlier in your panel, you know, I guess if I'm going to listen to somebody about economics, I'd like to have somebody that's been around a few decades telling me what is going on.
But the main thing is supply and demand.
When Joe Biden let 20 million illegals into the country, the demand for groceries went up.
So less groceries, higher prices.
Housing, same thing.
Some of these taxes, gas prices are down.
South Dakota, we're around 225, 235.
Depends upon what part of the city you're in.
But you look at that, it doesn't cost any more to get that gas to South Dakota as it does to California.
Yet, California, half of that price of a gallon of gas is taxes.
Then I heard him talking about some nonprofit insurance company out there.
I worked in insurance for 20 plus years.
They are for profit.
So why would you give tax breaks to an insurance company that is collecting Obamacare money?
Whoever did that, well, thank God they're not in office anymore, but something needs to be done and it has to be fixed.
Happening over on C-SPAN 2 this morning, live coverage of the National Transportation Safety Board holding a meeting on that mid-air collision near Ronald Reagan National Airport that killed 67 people in January of last year.
Board members will vote on the probable cause and safety recommendations to prevent similar crashes in the future.
Happening right now on C-SPAN 2 is our live coverage.
You can also watch on c-span.org as well as C-SPAN Now, our free video mobile app.
Also, to let you know at 3 p.m. Eastern Time, Maryland will hold a hearing in Maryland.
One of the state committees will hold a hearing on congressional redistricting.
That's the House Rules and Executive Nominations Committee happening in Annapolis today, 3 p.m. Eastern Time.
And you can watch that on C-SPAN 3, C-SPANNOW, and C-SPAN.org.
Okay, Crystal, you'll be able to watch The President as well everybody else right here on C-SPAN.
Live coverage at 4 p.m. Eastern Time.
Download our free video mobile app, C-SPAN Now, if you can't watch your television or online on demand at c-span.org.
Up next, Bradford Fitch, former CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation and author of the book, Citizens Handbook for Influencing Elected Officials.
He'll join us to talk about practical and effective strategies on how to get through to your elected officials.
Stay with us.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
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He's the author of Citizens Handbook for Influencing Elected Officials.
Mr. Fitz, in 2010, your first appearance on the Washington Journal for the first edition of your book, you said that Americans have more influence over their elected officials than they realize.
The book is in two parts, and the second edition is twice the size, and all the changes came in the second part, which is about how to influence them.
Congress, in terms of how it interacts with constituents, hasn't changed that much in terms of what motivates them, what influences them.
And I realize this is a bit of a counter argument from what people see, but the challenge is that most people don't see most of what the Congress does.
Because you see the big debates over taxes and immigration and abortion and sometimes health care.
Most members of Congress are meeting with constituents to determine whether or not to increase funding for research on Alzheimer's or whether horses should be transported on double-decker trucks or whether ophthalmologists or optometrists get to use laser surgery at VA hospitals.
That's what most of constituents and most advocacy that's happening on Capitol Hill.
And when it comes to those issues, Congress very much listens to constituents who matter to them.
Well, interestingly, one of the things that has changed in the last 15 years since the first and second edition is they've continued to open up more doors and be more accessible.
Once again, I know that flies in the face of popular belief, but the two big technological changes to how Congress interacts with constituents are first the adoption of social media.
Members just jumped into that swimming pool with both feet with Twitter, now X, Instagram, and Facebook.
And then the other major development is telephone town hall meetings, which is especially during the pandemic was one of the only ways that constituents could interact with them.
And the reason I see so much promise in telephone town hall meetings is they're scalable.
In 2021, more than 3 million Americans participated in a congressional telephone town hall meeting.
And I generally support that move because our in-person town hall is nice, it's intimate, but 25 to 50 people is the average number of people going to a telephone town hall compared to an in-person town hall.
In a telephone town hall, you get 3,000 to 5,000 constituents in there.
Most of these emails are facilitated and generated by trade associations and nonprofits who are exercising their First Amendment right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Sometimes people will see things that will get them upset and they'll email in.
Usually the members get these reports, usually on Fridays, and they'll say what mail has come in.
They'll keep track of that.
But individualizing communications, all the research that I did when I was at the Congressional Management Foundation shows that that is much more powerful than a form email.
When you localize it, talk about it personally, how it's going to affect you, your community, your family, you have much more influence.
We want our viewers to join us in this conversation this morning.
Have you tried to influence your elected official?
If so, we want to hear from you this morning.
If you're looking for recommendations on how to influence your elected official, call in this morning as well.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
And Independents, 202-748-8002.
You can text if you don't want to call at 202-748-8003.
Just include your first name, city, and state.
Brad Fitch, is there a success story of constituents, either a constituent solely influencing an elected official or a group who have come together to change the minds of their elected representative?
There's a great case study in the book that I heard about when I was doing research for the second edition.
There was a woman, Manya Cholinski, who lived in Boston and was at the Boston Marathon in 2013.
when the bombing happened.
And, you know, people were killed, hundreds of people were injured.
She was fortunate, she felt, because she had not been physically injured, but she realized within a very short period of time that she was suffering from PTSD.
When she went to try to get support from the government for help to manage her mental wellness, she realized that FEMA, while they had grants for people and communities that were hurt physically due to natural disasters or terrorism, there was nothing for mental wellness.
Well, Manya told her congresswoman, Ianna Presley, who said, you're right, there ought to be a law.
And in December of 19, in 2022, Joe Biden signed into law a new grant program to help people who are injured mentally with mental wellness issues as a result of that one woman's story.
On the group side, one of the most successful group stories, I also did a case study in this is the Alzheimer's Association.
Alzheimer's is a devastating disease, dementia or Alzheimer's.
Two out of five Americans are either going to have dementia or Alzheimer's or are going to care for somebody who dies.
In the last 10 years, they have organized what they call an ambassador program where they get one person who's very educated, who's connected to the disease in some way, and they go talk to their member of Congress and say, there's thousands of your constituents that are affected by this.
It is one of the most successful grassroots efforts in decades.
In the last 10 years, the amount of money that the federal government spends to try to find a cure to Alzheimer's has increased by 700%.
And you don't read about these stories in the local news.
You know, success stories like this don't usually get the type of news coverage, and they should, because they really are our democracy working the way it's supposed to.
And some years ago, I was in the private sector and had an opportunity to work with a publishing house and said, hey, I've got these ideas on how to influence Congress and how Congress works.
From the handbook, by design, the American Congress is slow and deliberative.
Individual legislators must wrestle with this deliberative system, blending their own beliefs into a legislative melting pot that ideally produces positive societal outcomes.
They use a kind of political math to make decisions, weighing multiple factors when determining whether to vote for a bill, co-sponsor legislation, or support funding for an initiative.
When all the details are burned away, legislators generally follow three voices when making a decision.
One member of Congress called these voices the three H's, heart, head, and health, meaning political health.
Once again, I was interviewing a member and asked him about a difficult decision.
And he said, I was torn on what to do on whether or not to support or oppose research for stem cell research, which is very controversial at the federal level.
It's my hope that this research one day might lead to a cure to me and others like me.
And the congressman told me how he did further research, and he ended up co-sponsoring legislation that would provide federal funding for stem cell research.
You know, usually if I try to contact Congress, I don't try to call them.
I email them.
But I'll be honest with you.
There's two reasons I think we're just wasting our time.
One is Citizens United.
I mean, you have people like Elon Musk that contribute $271 million to Donald Trump's last presidential bid here.
The other thing is Congress, so many of them now are doing the insider trading that I don't really think that they, I think everything we tell them goes in one ear and out the other.
That's one complaint I have with my members of Congress is they are a little robotic in how they respond, but they do read everything that comes into the mail.
Yeah, I do agree with that strategy of reaching out and communicating.
I will offer a couple other pieces of advice.
One, going in groups helps.
So if you're with a homeowners association and you want to meet with your local county council member or city council member because you're concerned about property taxes and you pull together five or six people at your home in someone's living room or go into their office, that's going to make more of a difference than just one person.
I mean, I want to show this YouGov poll that we were talking about earlier today, based on what you know was the shooting of in Minneapolis of the man there, justified or not justified.
And you can see the answers there.
20% said not, was justified.
48% said not justified.
32% said not sure.
How influential, not this topic, but how influential are polls like this conducted in snapshot of time on politicians?
At the national level, when we're talking about these big federal issues like the one you just talked about, immigration reform, they definitely shape members of Congress's thinking and behavior.
And I'm speaking as someone who worked intimately with members of Congress and was literally in the room when the decisions were made to do certain things.
It could come from someone they met at their kids' Little League game.
In fact, one of my most famous stories I heard was a member of Congress was coaching first base at his son's Little League game and a woman, mom from the other team came over and gave him a lecture on Middle East peace policy.
Again, one of the myths out there is there is a huge dividing line in congressional offices between their official activities and their campaign activities.
Now, often they're looking for influencers or people at the highest level, but they don't have consistent systems for reporting that data out as they do with email messages coming into the congressional office where they have better, more sophisticated technology to tally what those pros and cons are.
In fact, I'll give you an example from C-SPAN on how I saw it happen once.
I was waiting to come on the show, Washington Journal, some years ago, and a congresswoman was on Washington Journal and was taking questions on the debt ceiling.
And her press secretary and I were in the waiting room.
What do you think about them coming on a program like this where they get to hear from real people, sit down and do an interview and take questions and comments from the public?
That's why they like telephone town hall meetings, is because they get a very raw assessment of what's going on.
And that's why many of them like in-person town hall meetings.
If they're doing in-person town hall meetings, then they're doing it because they like it.
And if they start hearing the same thing in different parts of their district, they feel like that's the tip of the iceberg and they're capturing it.
I remember I was working as a communications director for a House member, and we're in Glen Bernie and we hear a question in Glen Bernie, Maryland, and then we go to Annapolis the same week having a telephone town hall meeting.
Mine says 102nd Congress has all the contact information for all the politicians.
And I haven't heard you bring that up, but I know the people that do this show, the host, Ms. Greta and Mr. John, especially, they have a love and a respect for the politicians, which just I can't understand because I personally wouldn't shake hands with a politician.
Oh, I don't think they're hearing from them less and less, but I do understand the sentiment with what people see in the media that the coverage is so negative.
Most members of Congress are really decent, hardworking public servants.
And let me give you another data point that shows that they're listening to constituents.
When I worked at the Congressional Management Foundation, we did surveys of congressional staff between 2003 and 2023.
We did five major surveys, and we always ask this question: if your member of Congress has not arrived at a firm decision on an issue, how much influence might the following advocacy strategies directed to the Washington office have on his or her decision?
So, hundreds of staffers answering this question.
In 20 years of surveys, the number one answer always was in-person visit from constituents.
Now, you contrast that with the cynicism people have.
They think they're not listening, but they really, really are.
I joke, members of Congress are the best pollsters in the world because they're the only pollsters who, if they get the answer wrong, they lose their job.
They're actually, most of them are representing a disease or a doctor in Washington, D.C., because we have a lot of diseases in a lot of different medical professions.
Because if you get a lobbyist who starts BSing their member of Congress or their person that they're meeting with, they're not going to get invited back.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Fitch, for taking the question, and thank you, Greta, for being with C-SPAN.
C-SPAN does a wonderful job.
I always support him.
Mr. Fitch, I live in Texas, and we had horrible flooding over the summer.
Dozens of young children marched away and lost their lives.
And when they called a special session to deal with it, the phone rang from the White House, and Donald Trump called and said, I need five more congressional seats.
I need it gerrymandered even worse than it is.
And so they pushed all of that discussion they were going to have about all of that flooding and the horror that it had caused.
And they pulled out the maps.
They literally pulled out the maps the next day and they had them up there and they started redistricting for five more seats.
And the Democrats left the state and they stalled it as long as they could.
But the bottom line is they gerrymandered Texas again.
It's been gerrymandered for a long time in favor of it, but they gerrymandered it again for five more seats for Republicans.
And then they went back to the normal business that they said they were there to do.
How much influence does the president or leadership of their own parties have over them and how they react and vote on legislation, topics of the day, versus their constituents?
Well, let me separate the leadership with the president.
The president has as much influence related to how popular the president is at any given time.
You know, the president's very popular, Ronald Reagan, I think of the Reagan years and the first four years, five years of the Reagan presidency, had an enormous amount of influence on both Democrats and Republicans.
People have to remember that during the entire time that President Reagan was president, he had a House of Representatives allegedly controlled by the Democrats.
But he still got his agenda passed in part, and that was in part because of his personal popularity.
Leadership, on the other hand, in the United States Congress has less influence than constituents do, unless it's one of those super big, major issues like the Affordable Care Act or taxes or something like that.
But most of the issues that people are contacting their lawmaker about aren't those major issues.
And members of Congress are free to support or oppose their constituent views.
Leadership doesn't really care whether or not you support more funding for Alzheimer's research or whether or not you're going to propose a bill that's going to change how the EPA regulates ponds on farms.
I mean, that's just not something leadership cares about.
And I will tell you, one other area where leaders are matter to members of Congress in voting is when a particular leader, let's say a committee chairman, is seen as a subject matter expert.
I remember looking at a member once, and he would always look to this one particular Armed Services Committee chairman and ask his staff, how is he voting on this?
And that's where leadership and it was not because of influence or power, it's because the lawmaker respected the chairman's views as an expert.
What about when you have a national debate and it's a tight vote in the House or the Senate and leadership is twisting arms behind the scenes?
And that lawmaker, especially from a swing district, is saying to themselves, I do not want the headline in my local paper to say, I saved X or whatever it is.
I was just curious, with all the gerrymandering going on, does it really matter for most of these Congress people what my opinion is?
I mean, I've got a Democratic congressman in my district, and I've called him once, and I felt like the people that the Democrats were actually rooting him on to not really pay attention or care about my concerns.
I'm not an expert in gerrymandering, but when I see states like North Carolina or Virginia disenfranchise a significant portion of whether it's Democrats or Republicans, I'm just appalled by it.
I'm not going to mention who it is because I'm a Virginian and I'm in the district next to you.
They do listen.
They do pay attention.
Most members of Congress, when they get elected, feel that they represent all of their constituents, not just 50% plus one in a primary.
They really do have that both moral and political will to try to listen to you.
It doesn't mean they're going to do what you say.
As I said, they factor a lot of different things into their decision-making process, but they do feel it's their responsibility to listen.
And that's why they have telephone town hall meetings, and that's why they go to constituent meetings and spend most of their time that they can with constituents.
For Tony and others, Maryland is considering redistricting today at a House Rules and Executive Nominations Committee at the Capitol in Maryland, Annapolis.
And we're going to have live coverage of that at 3 p.m. today, 3 p.m. Eastern, right on C-SPAN 3, C-SPAN Now, our free video mobile app, and online on demand at c-SPAN.org.
Brad Fitch, author of the book, Citizens Handbook for Influencing Elected Officials.
We'll be back tomorrow morning, 7 a.m. Eastern Time.
enjoy your day.
unidentified
The U.S. Senate returns later today to vote on whether to begin work on legislation to require colleges and universities that receive federal funding to inform pregnant students about campus resources to help them carry a baby to term and to care for the baby.
The House passed a similar bill last week ahead of the March for Life annual rally against abortion.
Lawmakers are expected to spend most of the week working on the remaining six spending bills funding major parts of the federal government through September 30th, the end of the fiscal year, to avert a shutdown on Friday.
It includes funding for the Departments of Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and housing, as well as the labor, state, transportation, and treasury departments.
The U.S. House is out with members in a district work period not scheduled to return for votes until Monday.
Watch live coverage of the House on C-SPAN, the Senate on C-SPAN 2, and of course all of our congressional coverage is available on our free video app, C-SPANNOW, and at our website, c-span.org.
Today, President Trump is in Clive, Iowa to talk about the U.S. economy, affordability, and energy.
Watch live at 4 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-SPAN.org.
Democracy.
It isn't just an idea.
It's a process.
A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles.
It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted.