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Cox Connects America
00:01:31
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Children called Trump accounts. | |
| And at 2:30 Eastern, rapper Kid Rock testifies on concert ticket fees at a Senate hearing. | ||
| Live coverage of all these events is also available on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| We're funded by these television companies and more, including Cox. | ||
| When connection is needed most, Cox is there to help. | ||
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Bringing affordable internet to families in need, new tech to boys and girls clubs, and support to veterans. | |
| Whenever and wherever it matters most, we'll be there. | ||
| Cox deports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, Jillian Snyder from the R Street Institute will discuss the use of force in federal enforcement operations following the second fatal shooting by immigration agents in Minneapolis this month. | ||
| Then, retired Brigadier General Mark Kimmett will talk about the current U.S. policy in Venezuela and other Trump administration foreign policy actions. | ||
| And Florida State University history professor Ronald Dole talks about the 40th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. | ||
| Washington Journal starts now. | ||
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Senator Tom Tillis Comments
00:12:26
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| Good morning. | ||
| It's Wednesday, January 28th, 2026. | ||
| Last night at a town hall in Minneapolis, a man rushed towards Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and sprayed her with an unknown substance before he was taken into custody. | ||
| The Congresswoman appeared unharmed before continuing the event in which she called for Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam to resign. | ||
| Meanwhile, in Washington, two Republican senders joined Democrats in calling for Noam's ouster. | ||
| And President Trump was in Iowa yesterday focused on economic issues in the Midwest political battleground just south of Minnesota. | ||
| We'll talk about all of it on the Washington Journal this morning. | ||
| As we do, we want to hear from you on phone lines split as usual by political party. | ||
| Democrats, it's 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can also send us a text, that number, 202-748-8003. | ||
| If you do, please include your name and where you're from. | ||
| Otherwise, catch up with us on social media. | ||
| On X, it's at C-SPANWJ on Facebook. | ||
| It's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN. | ||
| And a very good Wednesday morning to you. | ||
| You can go ahead and start calling in now. | ||
| Here's where we are on Capitol Hill today. | ||
| The Senate returns at 11 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| At about 10 a.m. Eastern, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to testify before a Senate committee on the future of Venezuela. | ||
| Oh, and by the way, we're about 65 hours away from a partial government shutdown that would hit at midnight on Friday. | ||
| But we'll begin at that town hall event in Minneapolis. | ||
| Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was speaking to constituents. | ||
| This was the scene about 30 minutes into that event. | ||
| ICE could not be reformed. | ||
| It cannot be rehabilitated. | ||
| We must abolish ICE for good. | ||
| And DHS Secretary Kristi Noem must resign or face impeachment. | ||
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I don't know. | |
| Oh my God. | ||
| Oh my God, he's brave. | ||
| I need an armor. | ||
| I need a napkin to know like his nails on the ground. | ||
| No, we won't continue. | ||
| No, no, no. | ||
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unidentified
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You need to go get checked. | |
| We won't continue. | ||
| These fucking assholes are not going to get away. | ||
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unidentified
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To go get checked. | |
| No, I don't know what he wants. | ||
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unidentified
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No, no, no. | |
| That's what everybody smells so bad. | ||
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unidentified
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She needs to go get checked. | |
| I don't know what that is. | ||
| Please don't let them have the chance. | ||
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unidentified
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It's not about him, Johan. | |
| It's not about him. | ||
| It's about your safety. | ||
| No, he sprays somebody on you. | ||
| You need to go get checked. | ||
| Yeah, and it smells terrible. | ||
| We're going to keep talking. | ||
| Just give me 10 minutes. | ||
| Just give me 10 minutes. | ||
| I beg you. | ||
| Please don't let them have the show. Please don't let them have the show. Please don't let them have the show. Please don't let them have the show. | ||
| Here is the reality that people like this ugly man don't understand. | ||
| We are Minnesota strong, and we will stay resilient in the face of whatever they might throw at us. | ||
| Everybody settle down. | ||
| I'm going to finish my remarks. | ||
| It is important for me to continue to lead my Democratic colleagues in demanding her resignation. | ||
| Congresswoman Ilhan Omar would continue with that town hall for about another 30 minutes. | ||
| You can watch it in its entirety on our website at c-span.org. | ||
| She was speaking there about Christy Noam, the Homeland Security Secretary, being removed from office, calling for that to happen. | ||
| And she's not the only one in the Democratic Party and in the Republican Party as well. | ||
| Senator Tom Tillis, the Republican from North Carolina, making these comments yesterday on Capitol Hill. | ||
| Jamie Dupree, congressional reporter, catching those comments on his cell phone. | ||
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I think that what she's done in Minnesota should be just qualifying. | |
| She should be out of a job. | ||
| And I mean, really, it's just amateur. | ||
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unidentified
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It's terrible. | |
| It's making the president look bad on policies that he won on. | ||
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He won on a strong message about immigration. | |
| And now nobody's talking about that. | ||
| They're not talking about securing the border. | ||
| They're talking about the incompetence of the leader of the Homeland Security and the other people. | ||
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Levino, whatever his name is, he needs to go back to California, get his retirement papers, and go. | |
| These people are amateurs. | ||
| They've got to de-escalate there and treat these communities with some respect. | ||
| That was Republican Tom Tillis yesterday, and he wasn't the only Republican calling for the ouster of Christine Own. | ||
| Lisa Murkowski, the Republican from Alaska, also making comments to reporters yesterday as she was walking through the United States Capitol. | ||
| This was from Michael Schnell, congressional reporter with MS Now. | ||
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Senator, do you have faith in Christine Noam as DHS secretary? | |
| I've already made a statement on that. | ||
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Oh, I wasn't there for it. | |
| Yeah, I said that I've lost confidence in her. | ||
| Do you think that President Trump should remove her from the position? | ||
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unidentified
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Do you think she should resign? | |
| It's obviously up to the president. | ||
| I think we would be interested with new leadership. | ||
| And if she doesn't leave on her own volition or if the president doesn't fire her from the position, would you support something like impeachment? | ||
| I have expressed my lack of confidence in her. | ||
| And my voice is out there. | ||
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unidentified
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And we'll see what happens. | |
| And one more question. | ||
| Is it just the, you know, is this just because of how she handled the Alex Predi shooting, or do you think that it's a greater issue I mentioned to just that reporter there? | ||
| I think that there are other issues. | ||
| I supported her. | ||
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unidentified
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I supported her the nomination. | |
| I had great hopes for her in the department, and I've been disappointed. | ||
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unidentified
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Do you regret that vote? | |
| I just said I have been disappointed. | ||
| Thank you, Senator. | ||
| Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska there. | ||
| Of course, the most important voice when it comes to Christy Noam keeping her job would be President Trump. | ||
| And President Trump was asked yesterday about Christy Noam's future at Homeland Security. | ||
| This is what he told reporters at the White House. | ||
| She's doing a very good job. | ||
| I think she's doing a very good job. | ||
| The border is totally secure. | ||
| You know, you forget we had a border that I inherited where millions of people were coming through. | ||
| Now we have a border where no one is coming through. | ||
| They come into our country only legally. | ||
| So you have to remember those things. | ||
| You know, people forget as soon as you accomplish something, it goes into history and nobody ever wants to talk about it. | ||
| President Trump yesterday from the White House, he would go on to Iowa yesterday where he would talk about economic issues. | ||
| The headline from the Washington Times today, Trump hails his economic victories in Iowa and kicks off his midterm campaign by touting his wins on inflation and the border, the picture from the Washington Times there, the Associated Press photo to go with it. | ||
| We're taking your phone calls about all of it this morning on the Washington Journal. | ||
| Phone numbers for you to call in: 202-748-8000 for Democrats. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Mark is up first out of Silver Spring, Maryland, line for Democrats. | ||
| Mark, good morning. | ||
| Excuse me. | ||
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Good morning. | |
| Also, anyone who's shoveling out there, please take care of your health. | ||
| Now, three American role models whose value systems and actions are worth remembering at this time. | ||
| One was Senator Joseph Lieberman, who was the architect of the Department of Homeland Security. | ||
| He was a moderate, but he introduced the Immigration Reform Act amendment in 2007 that required due process for all asylum seekers. | ||
| That's the architect of DHS, and it was adopted by unanimous consent. | ||
| What would the late senator think of Christy Noam's reign of terror? | ||
| The second is General Smedley Butler. | ||
| He was the most decorated Marine at the time of his death in 1940. | ||
| And believe it or not, American industrialist tried to recruit him as a figurehead to overthrow FDR's government. | ||
| Butler went to Congress and there were hearings, and those plans evaporated, and he said he believed in American ideals. | ||
| And obviously, he wasn't an insurrectionist. | ||
| And last but not least, was General Anthony McAuliffe, who was the acting commander of the 101st Airborne at the Battle of the Bulge. | ||
| And when the Nazi officer told him to surrender, he said nuts. | ||
| And now the tables are turned. | ||
| Mr. Trump is giving Greenland the ultimatum. | ||
| And Europe has to move its resources from Putin to deal with these threats regarding taking over Greenland. | ||
| The Europeans are right in more ways than one in providing the answer of nuts to Mr. Trump. | ||
| That's Mark in Silver Spring, Maryland. | ||
| This is John, Mission Hills, California, Republican. | ||
| John, good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I would like to just add my, you know, the media is so focused on body counts from ICE and these obstructionists that get in the way of law enforcement, and we just lionize their names like they are some kind of heroes. | ||
| So let's put this all in perspective and let's mention the names of American citizens who were murdered by known illegal aliens within this country. | ||
| Let's say their names. | ||
| Lake and Riley, Jocelyn Norregan, Rachel Moran, Molly Tibbetts, Katie Staling, Joshua Wilkerson. | ||
| Most of these were teenagers murdered by illegal aliens. | ||
| These obstructionists need to realize what they are doing to this country. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's John in California. | ||
| This is Dennis in North Carolina, Lexington, North Carolina, Democrat line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning, sir. | ||
| Thank you for having me on the phone. | ||
| I'm a disabled veteran that I served this Army, United States Army for 21 years. | ||
| This country is going down to a police state where you are killing civilians on the street for no reason. | ||
| So peaceful protest. | ||
| We're going back to the time of George Floyd, Rodney King, all that stuff. | ||
| Our president wants to be a dictator. | ||
| All the thing he cares about is making money for his family, his well-being. | ||
| So when he get out of office, he can sit on an island all by himself and don't even care about the American people. | ||
| The American people, all American people, Republicans, Democrats, independents, we need to put a stop to it. | ||
|
Bills on Capitol Hill
00:14:59
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| Because right now, we don't have no allies. | ||
| If we go to war right now, it just be our military against the world. | ||
| And that's not going to end wheel. | ||
| So that's all I got to say. | ||
| I know I want to get a lot of feedback negative. | ||
| But to all my American people, please stop this nonsense. | ||
| Stand together and fight against this. | ||
| That's Dennis. | ||
| That's Dennis in North Carolina. | ||
| Again, here's the phone numbers: 202-748-8000 for Democrats to call in. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| All of the stories that we're talking about this morning taking place against the backdrop of what's happening here on Capitol Hill, the potential for a partial government shutdown that would happen at midnight, technically 1201 on Saturday. | ||
| If a package of six appropriations bills don't move through the Senate and gets signed by the president before then. | ||
| Again, that's less than 65 hours from now. | ||
| Here's what Democrats are looking for. | ||
| They want to pull out the appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security and renegotiate that bill, put in new guardrails, especially when it comes to ICE actions, to immigration enforcement actions. | ||
| Republicans don't want to do that because separating that bill would mean it would have to go back and get renegotiated in the House as well and passed in the House again and then passed by the Senate again. | ||
| So the potential for a government shutdown, a partial government shutdown, very real this week. | ||
| When I say a partial government shutdown, that's because the full government is funded by 12 appropriations bills. | ||
| These are six bills that have yet to be passed. | ||
| Among the ones that have been passed, so if there is a shutdown, there's still appropriations that have been passed for the Departments of Justice, Departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs. | ||
| All those have already got funding bills in place for this fiscal year. | ||
| This is the remaining six appropriations bills. | ||
| So that's what's happening on Capitol Hill. | ||
| The Senate is in at 11 a.m. Eastern today, if you want to watch it. | ||
| It was yesterday on the floor of the Senate that Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer talked about the ICE reforms that he wants to see from Congress before these bills get passed. | ||
| This is what he had to say. | ||
| This week, the Senate will step into the breach. | ||
| In a few days, the Senate will consider a package of six funding bills sent to us recently by the House, and five of those bills are ready to go and should quickly pass. | ||
| I'll say more about that in a moment. | ||
| But in the wake of ICE's abuses and the administration's recklessness, the Senate must not pass the DHS budget as currently written and must be reworked to rein in and overhaul ICE to ensure the public's safety. | ||
| The fix should come from Congress. | ||
| The public can't trust the administration to do the right thing on its own, and Republicans and Democrats must work together to make that happen. | ||
| In the meantime, I will vote no on any legislation that funds ICE until it is reined in and overhauled. | ||
| And Senate Democrats are overwhelmingly united on this issue. | ||
| ICE should meet the same basic standards of accountability and due process that any law enforcement agency is asked to meet. | ||
| Now, separately, to finish the appropriations process, Leader Thune should split the funding bills and move forward with the five that already have broad support from both parties. | ||
| If Leader Thune agrees to split the bills, just as Speaker Johnson split them in the House and puts the five on the floor, I'm confident they will sail, sail through the chamber. | ||
| And we will have funded 96% of the federal government. | ||
| But if Leader Thun insists on holding a vote on DHS legislation that he knows will not pass, then he will guarantee yet another unnecessary government shutdown this Friday, and the shutdown will be on Leader Thune's shoulders. | ||
| Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer there speaking to Senate Majority Leader John Thune. | ||
| It was John Thune who also took the floor of the Senate yesterday to talk about the path ahead. | ||
| This is what he had to say. | ||
| Mr. President, before I begin, I want to take a moment to talk about the situation in Minnesota. | ||
| The death of Alex Pretty was a tragedy, and there should be a full and impartial investigation into the shooting. | ||
| I'm glad that the President is sending Tom Holman to Minnesota, and I hope that his arrival will help restore order to the situation. | ||
| I also hope that recent tragedies have inspired some soul-searching among those who have participated in or encouraged abuse toward ICE officers and other law enforcement officers. | ||
| It's deeply disturbing that we have had public officials essentially encouraging harassment of officers simply trying to do their duty. | ||
| Mr. President, funding for a substantial portion of the government runs out this week. | ||
| And we are on the clock to pass the remaining fiscal year 2026 appropriations bills. | ||
| Productive talks are ongoing. | ||
| And I urge my Democrat colleagues to continue their engagement and find a path forward that will avoid a needless shutdown and not jeopardize full funding for key agencies like FEMA and the Coast Guard. | ||
| We need to fund these and other essential agencies and finish our 2026 appropriations work now. | ||
| Senator John Thune, the majority leader in the Senate, his remarks yesterday at the beginning of the day on the Senate floor, the Senate Day begins today at 11 a.m. Eastern, and you can watch on C-SPAN 2 to see how this plays out over the next 65 hours. | ||
| Again, a potential government shutdown, a partial shutdown, would hit just after midnight on Friday night. | ||
| Back to your phone calls. | ||
| This is Pete, Jupiter, Florida, Republican. | ||
| Pete, good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
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unidentified
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Hello? | |
| What's on your mind, Pete? | ||
| Yeah, well, I was just going to speak on the Christy Noam situation. | ||
| I think it's just like it's sad that it's her turn now to try to. | ||
| The Democrats are just trying to get a scout. | ||
| She's not going to be impeached. | ||
| She's not going to be fired because she did nothing wrong. | ||
| She's following the law written by Congress. | ||
| The one who's to blame for everything that's going on in Minnesota is the governor and the mayor and the attorney general. | ||
| And Ilean Omar, as far as I'm concerned, she could have had that whole thing staged. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because she's under investigation of how she got rich in less than two years. | ||
| Pete, do you think it's significant? | ||
| Do you think it's significant that two Republican senators have now come out calling for Christy Noam to step aside? | ||
| Well, let's see. | ||
| One Republican senator is out the door because he can't get re-elected because he went against Trump, and the other one votes against Trump 90% of the time. | ||
| Those are not Republicans. | ||
| Those are what we call rhinos. | ||
| And you know what? | ||
| Congress is full of them. | ||
| And you're never going to get rid of them. | ||
| There's always going to be somebody. | ||
| You know, look, it was unfortunate what happened, but there's a reason that it happened. | ||
| And it's not because of Christy Noam. | ||
| The Democrats fall into this all the time. | ||
| They're getting, they're going to be trapped again. | ||
| They're like wildy coyote chasing the roadrunner. | ||
| Now we're going to shut down the government. | ||
| You're going to shut down the government while FEMA is getting ready to react to this major storm, and it's going to accomplish nothing. | ||
| Oh, we're going to, they're all fundraising off of this. | ||
| Every single Democrat is fundraising off of this. | ||
| Everything they say sounds the same. | ||
| They're saying it's a victory. | ||
| Oh, he capitulated. | ||
| Oh, he won. | ||
| The reason why they're doing that is because they know that yesterday, even though they're trying to tamp it down, they can't now. | ||
| They're still out there rioting and protesting and doing whatever they do. | ||
| That's Pete in Jupiter, Florida. | ||
| This is the headline from the left-leaning political website, HuffPost. | ||
| When it comes to Christy Noam, the knives are out for Christy Noam. | ||
| Two GOP senders call for the axe and Dems turn up the heat. | ||
| No defense from Thune is the headlines. | ||
| That from the left-leaning political website, formerly called the Huffington Post. | ||
| This is Raul in Miami, Independent. | ||
| Raul, go ahead. | ||
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unidentified
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Yes, sir. | |
| Good morning, and thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I'd like to ask why nobody, in the midst of this immigration debate that's going on, why is it that they never bring up e-Verify? | ||
| It would seem to me that it would be a lot easier if they turned their attention to that thousands and thousands of large employers who knowing the employee, undocumented illegals. | ||
| And number two, as to the U.S. economy, we're now in the midst of coming up with a budget, a budget that we cannot afford. | ||
| And inflation will not stop again if we continue to overspend. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Raul in Miami. | ||
| This is Marty in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, line for Democrats. | ||
| Marty, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| I just wanted to say back when Trump was in office before that thing happened with the Capitol, my buddy's a strong Republican, and he came in my cellar and asked me what happened. | ||
| I played dumb with him. | ||
| Anyway, here's what I told him. | ||
| I said, that's just the story of us being like a foreign country, and we do not want that. | ||
| And I'm a big Bernie Sanders supporter, and he's totally against Bernie. | ||
| And Bernie's a good man. | ||
| He's done a lot of good things over the year. | ||
| And everybody says about socialists, well, we got socialist programs here, you know? | ||
| So it'd be nice for us to get our Medicare for all. | ||
| It would really help everybody. | ||
| And I wanted to tell you, John here is a terrific guy. | ||
| Everybody in this C-SPAN network does a very, very fine job. | ||
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unidentified
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And that's why I called it. | |
| I just wanted to let you know my feelings on it, you know. | ||
| That's kind of you, Marty. | ||
| That's Marty in Montoursville, Pennsylvania. | ||
| We'll go to Virginia. | ||
| This is Tina, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I'm calling because with everything going on in the United States, it's just crazy. | ||
| It's really crazy. | ||
| You know, with ICE being on the streets of the American streets, you know, them the ones with the guns, you know, and we don't had two innocent people killed by ICE. | ||
| And as far as Christy knows, Christy known needs to be impeached, or she do need to resign. | ||
| And Tina, you say that as a Republican? | ||
| You're calling on the Republican line. | ||
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unidentified
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I'm saying that because this is the only line I can get on. | |
| Well, I tell you what, it works best here if we stay focused on the lines that best represent your point of view. | ||
| Otherwise, we get out of order and it's unfair. | ||
| If you could just call on the lines that best represent you, that'd be great. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| A minute ago, we showed you the lead story, the headline from the left-leaning political website, Huff Post. | ||
| Let me show you a right-leaning political website, Breitbart. | ||
| This is what they are focusing on this morning on President Trump's change in leadership in Minnesota. | ||
| Border czar Tom Homan meets with Governor Walls and Mayor Fry. | ||
| Productive starting point is the quote that they pull out. | ||
| Walls on the meeting, there's been a tone shift, and it was progress. | ||
| That is Breitbart's focus this morning in their series of lead headlines. | ||
| President Trump was on Fox News in Iowa yesterday, and he was asked about the change in ICE leadership in Minneapolis. | ||
| This is what President Trump had to say. | ||
| The message is out that Tom Homan is in. | ||
| Commander Bovino is supposedly leaving Minneapolis along with some CBP agents. | ||
| Is this a pullback? | ||
| I don't think it's a pullback. | ||
| It's a little bit of a change. | ||
| Everybody in this room that has a business, you know, you make little changes. | ||
| You know, Bovino is very good, but he's a pretty out there kind of a guy. | ||
| And in some cases, that's good. | ||
| Maybe it wasn't good here. | ||
| But you have to understand when I watch some of the people that I've been watching over the last few weeks. | ||
| These are paid insurrectionists. | ||
| These are paid agitators. | ||
| These people aren't normal, like OG that, you know, they're incensed about anything. | ||
| How do you get incensed when you go into a state and you're taking criminals out? | ||
| You're taking monsters out. | ||
| Murderers. | ||
| You know, we had 11,888 murderers let into our country by other countries, by Biden with his open border stupid policy. | ||
| It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. | ||
| You talk about bad policy. | ||
| Open borders where people are coming. | ||
| So the whole world, the Congo, Venezuela, all over the world, they're letting people in from their prisons and they're feeding them into the United States. | ||
| And they're murderers and they're drug dealers and they're everything else you can think of, every bad name you can think of. | ||
| And they let them in by the millions. | ||
|
Open Borders Dilemma
00:15:51
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| We closed the border. | ||
| You know, we have nobody coming into our country anymore. | ||
| Literally. | ||
| It just shows how hard it is to clean up, even after you close it. | ||
| It shows the price that we paid under Joe Biden. | ||
| It's the hardest thing when you think of it. | ||
| You know, inflation we've solved. | ||
| It's done. | ||
| We have it good. | ||
| Prices are coming way down. | ||
| They were just saying in Iowa, the fuel is 195. | ||
| Did you hear that? | ||
| Somebody said 185, but it was 350, 450 just a year ago, a year and a half ago. | ||
| You look at eggs, you look at groceries, it's all down. | ||
| Everything's come down. | ||
| Do you notice they don't mention affordability anymore? | ||
| That's like an old-fashioned word. | ||
| They brought up affordability, but they were the ones that caused it. | ||
| I didn't cause it. | ||
| I came in. | ||
| Prices were way too high. | ||
| We had the highest inflation in the history of our country. | ||
| 48 years, they say, I say the history. | ||
| But we had the highest, let's say in 48 years, the highest inflation. | ||
| Prices were way high. | ||
| Now I've got the prices down, and they're going down still further. | ||
| That was President Trump on Fox News yesterday. | ||
| This is the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| One of the conservative writers there, Jason Riley, has his column today speaking to President Trump, saying Trump can quit while he's ahead on immigration. | ||
| This is what Jason Riley writes. | ||
| Control the border arguably has been the most significant accomplishment of Mr. Trump's second term. | ||
| He goes on to say, Mr. Trump might have declared victory, taken due credit for fulfilling a campaign promise, and turned to other matters and said the White House has pressed on with mass deportations that is turning his once popular effort to combat illegal immigration into a significant political liability. | ||
| Chaos on the border has been replaced with chaos in Minneapolis, where federal immigration agents can't seem to carry out their orders without killing American citizens in the process. | ||
| He says the heavy presence of immigration and customs enforcement in Minnesota of all places is hard to justify. | ||
| The undocumented populations of California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois, among other states, are far larger. | ||
| If you want to read more, Jason Riley writing in the pages of the Wall Street Journal today. | ||
| Back to your phone calls. | ||
| This is James in Harvey, Louisiana Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| First, I want to thank a gentleman that spoke a little earlier to remind us of all of the American citizens who have been murdered by illegal aliens or whoever. | ||
| They were criminals. | ||
| And nobody, I think, nobody in this country likes criminals. | ||
| We want to get them removed or taken care of. | ||
| So I want to thank him for that. | ||
| But what I think is, what's bothering most Americans is the people that we've empowered to keep us safe, to remove these people who have been imbued with the power to use deadly force, are using it incorrectly on Americans. | ||
| The government should never, ever kill its own citizens. | ||
| To me, the first thing about being government is to keep your citizens orderly and safe. | ||
| They're not doing that. | ||
| And that's one. | ||
| The second one is we need to read between the lines in news. | ||
| We have a president that can't tell the truth. | ||
| There's political lies and there's lies. | ||
| This man can't tell the truth. | ||
| Listen to him and read between the lines. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| It's James in the Pelican State to Florida. | ||
| This is Doug, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, young man. | |
| How are you doing today? | ||
| Doing well, sir. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Okay. | ||
| I will just say second time I've called this year because I am totally puzzled. | ||
| It seems like the only time the Republicans care about the law is now because, oh, people came across the border illegally. | ||
| Yeah, well, that's bad. | ||
| But the only time, like I said, they care about the law is that, and everybody wait for it when that piece of crap, Charlie Cook, got killed. | ||
| And that's the only thing. | ||
| That's Doug. | ||
| This is Virginia in Waldorf, Maryland. | ||
| Republican, good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| My concern with all of the things going on in the United States right now is it's a multiple of government taking over the state rights. | ||
| Minnesota definitely has the right to kick them out. | ||
| Maryland has the right to kick them out. | ||
| You know, the federal government is impeding on the responsibility of a state, and I find that wrong. | ||
| And as far as Christy, I do believe she should be removed. | ||
| And Virginia, did you say you say that as a Republican? | ||
| I am a Republican, yes. | ||
| How would you describe yourself as a Republican, just from your states and federal law? | ||
| Are you a Libertarian? | ||
| I lean more towards independent thought. | ||
| The Republican Party at one time, I mean, since I was 18 anyway, they've changed so much. | ||
| I can't even put in words how far they've gone. | ||
| They're extremists now. | ||
| I'm still with the party, still hoping it will change. | ||
| But I lean more towards people like Liz Cheney. | ||
| I mean, what can I say? | ||
| That's Virginia in Waldorf, Maryland. | ||
| This is Michelle Independent in Florida. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| First, I'd like to say how much I appreciate C-SPAN. | ||
| It's truly unfiltered information, and I truly appreciate that. | ||
| Now, Christy Norm, well, I want to say that she's doing her job. | ||
| She is not a puppet on a string. | ||
| She's doing her job. | ||
| Now, my heart goes out to the family of what was his name? | ||
| I forgot now. | ||
| Alex Freddy. | ||
| Yes, my heart goes out to his family. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That is horrible. | |
| But here on the other side, you don't go carrying a gun To a peaceful protesting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You don't. | |
| And then he had clips in his magazines in his pocket. | ||
| I mean, you know, God forbid he would have started shooting at all of the DHS. | ||
| Then what? | ||
| If 20, 30 of them got shot, then what? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, this is crazy. | |
| Michelle, does it change the fact for you that he was a legal gun owner? | ||
| Yes, but the thing is, you went there with your gun, knowing that these gentlemen are doing their job. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You may not be happy with it. | |
| And so, you know, but the thing is, I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought. | ||
| No, I just feel bad that he got killed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's horrible. | |
| Nobody deserves to die. | ||
| Nobody. | ||
| But don't put yourself in. | ||
| Don't interject into the law. | ||
| They're still the law of some sort, but they're the law. | ||
| I mean, my father always taught me, yes, officer, no, officer, and that's the way it should be until they decide if you're the bad guy or the good guy. | ||
| That's Michelle in Florida. | ||
| This is the editorial board of the Washington Post today talking about a show of Second Amendment principle. | ||
| That's their lead headline in today's paper. | ||
| This is what the Washington Post editorial board writes. | ||
| After the fatal shooting of Alex Predi by a Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis, the Trump administration's first instinct was to spin the killing as legitimate because Predi had been armed. | ||
| That strategy, they say, is failing. | ||
| And an important reason why is that the country's premier gun rights organizations refused to go along with it. | ||
| The Trump administration has been a close ally of gun rights groups, and perhaps it expected them to play along. | ||
| The editorial board writes, if so, it underestimated their independence. | ||
| The National Rifle Association called the post from the DOJ official dangerous and wrong. | ||
| It said officials should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens. | ||
| The Gun Owners of America, another advocacy organization, said on social media the Second Amendment protects Americans' rights to bear arms while protesting, a right the federal government must not infringe on. | ||
| The Washington Post editorial board showing their stance on the gun rights groups in this country when it comes to the Second Amendment issues in this incident. | ||
| This is Gary Urbana, Missouri, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Yes, I'm strictly appalled by what happened yesterday, told Omar, and I really truly think that this Christine Noam needs to be impeached. | ||
| I think she needs to be put in her place. | ||
| And I believe that the ICE agents need to be restrained from shooting U.S. citizens. | ||
| And I could go on and on and on. | ||
| But I'm losing my breath, and here's my wife. | ||
| She's got one comment to say. | ||
| Tell her what you feel. | ||
| I believe that Trump should be impeached immediately. | ||
| We should learn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, well, I think that. | |
| Well, I haven't. | ||
| I just got up. | ||
| So we think that the administration should do better with immigration. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| That's Gary and Gary's wife in Urbana, Missouri. | ||
| This is Chris in Milford, Michigan, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
| Good. | ||
| I just want to say, you know, I think I'm sick and tired of people bashing Christine Noams. | ||
| She's doing a very good job. | ||
| She's there to get rid of bad people that are here illegally that are criminals. | ||
| They're attacking our people. | ||
| ICE is just trying to help these people help get rid of the bad guys. | ||
| And I'm sick and tired of these people in Minnesota attacking law-abiding people that long doing their job. | ||
| That's all they're trying to do. | ||
| They're trying to help this country. | ||
| So I'm sick and tired of that. | ||
| I'm sick and tired of hearing people bash the president when the president's just trying to make this country a better place. | ||
| That's all he's been trying to do for the last two terms now. | ||
| That's all I got to say. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| That's Chris in Michigan. | ||
| We began our program today talking about that town hall last night in Minneapolis. | ||
| Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was approached, charged by a man who had been sitting in the audience for about a half an hour. | ||
| He sprayed some sort of liquid on her. | ||
| He was wrestled to the ground. | ||
| She continued with her town hall afterwards. | ||
| This is what the Congresswoman wrote on X in the wake of that incident last night. | ||
| She said, I'm okay, I'm a survivor, so this small agitator isn't going to intimidate me from doing my work. | ||
| I don't let bullies win. | ||
| I'm grateful to my incredible constituents who rallied behind me, going on to say Minnesota strong. | ||
| Plenty of support coming in for the congresswoman in the wake of that attack at that town hall, including Governor Tim Waltz, the governor saying, I'm glad that the Congresswoman is safe. | ||
| Our state has been shattered by political violence in the last year. | ||
| The cruel, inflammatory, dehumanizing rhetoric by our nation's leaders needs to stop immediately. | ||
| And it was Congresswoman Nancy Mace, the Republican of South Carolina, who also tweeted yesterday or put out on X her support for Ilhan Omar, saying, I'm deeply disturbed to learn that Congresswoman Ilan Omar was attacked at a town hall today, regardless of how vehemently I disagree with her rhetoric, and I do. | ||
| No elected official should face physical attacks. | ||
| This is not who we are. | ||
| That from Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace. | ||
| Again, you can watch the full town hall on our website at c-span.org. | ||
| We have about 20 minutes left in this first segment of the Washington Journal today talking about that incident in Minneapolis, the calls for Chrissy Noam's impeachment. | ||
| President Trump was in Iowa yesterday talking about the economy. | ||
| We're 65 hours away from a potential partial government shutdown. | ||
| And the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, set to testify on Capitol Hill today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the future of Venezuela. | ||
| There is a lot going on, and so we're taking your phone calls on all of it this morning. | ||
| Tom, Montana, Independent, good morning. | ||
| Thanks for waiting. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| The crimes being committed by ICE, the murders being committed, of course, are horrible and should not be allowed. | ||
| The fundamental violations of constitutional rights also should not be happening. | ||
| But there is a broader, deeper problem. | ||
| All of those things start not with Noam, not with Miller. | ||
| They start with Trump. | ||
| Trump, from the moment he began this term and in his last term, behaved unconstitutionally. | ||
| And every member of Congress who has not stood up on their hind feet, grown a spine, and opposed that in every way they can, is violating his oath to uphold the Constitution. | ||
| Trump is setting himself up to be a fascist dictator. | ||
| And that's the problem that I'm afraid is being ignored here. | ||
| We may not even have elections by the time election comes because Trump may have called out the troops on his insurrection act. | ||
| We may not, by the time the 250th anniversary of the independence of this nation, this republic arrives, we may no longer have a republic. | ||
| Tom, you think we're 30s of how? | ||
| You think we're six months away from losing the republic? | ||
| No, this is basic. | ||
| This is fundamental to this whole thing. | ||
| Our constitutional republic is in grave danger. | ||
| Trump must be stopped. | ||
| He must be stopped. | ||
| All right. | ||
| That's Tom in Montana. | ||
| Jonathan is in Dallas, Texas. | ||
| Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning, and thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Yeah, it's interesting to note. | ||
| I feel that the current inclimate has really been indicative of what we are seeing with the Trump administration. | ||
| Unfortunately, people who voted for Trump, he's not the problem. | ||
| The problem is people who voted for Donald Trump. | ||
| These people are delusional, and there's a sense of alternate reality that we're talking about. | ||
| I do believe that that attack on Omar was predicated on the fact that the president has made this type of behavior very, very normal. | ||
| What ICE is doing, I feel, is unconstitutional. | ||
| Let's not forget Kyle Rittenauer took an automatic weapon to a peaceful demonstration or a demonstration and shot two people and was acquitted. | ||
| The president talks about bringing criminals over or rounding them up and criminals committing crimes and killing their citizens. | ||
| Well, let's not forget when Donald Trump lied about the COVID pandemic, they estimated at least 300,000 to 400,000 people lost their lives needlessly because that man told a lie and said that the COVID was a hoax. | ||
| Let's not forget all of the things that he's done in Insurrection Out of Capital, where people lost their lives. | ||
| The man is corrupt. | ||
|
ICE's Unconstitutional Behavior
00:11:05
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| He is cruel. | ||
| And there's no way in hell we should have someone like that leading this country. | ||
| I feel sorry for these folks that voted for him because at the end of the day, history is already proving that they are on the wrong side. | ||
| And hopefully we can get leaders that are back on track, Democrat and Republican, get this country where it needs to be. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much. | |
| C. Span does a wonderful job. | ||
| And thank you for taking my call. | ||
| That's Jonathan in Texas, the Wall Street Journal today taking a look at some of President Trump's past criticism of Congressman Ilhan Omar, starting with his social media post from Monday suggesting that Omar profited from the state's massive welfare fraud scandal. | ||
| Instead, the Justice Department is scrutinizing her. | ||
| And Congressman James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has also suggested that he might subpoena Omar's husband after the pair disclosed a significant increase in their financial assets. | ||
| Omar, they write, the most prominent member of a Somali community that is in the spotlight amid a sprawling safety net scheme in Minneapolis, said in a statement that Trump has, quote, an unhealthy and disturbing obsession with me and the Somali community, and that every time he scapegoats communities, he is trying to divert attention. | ||
| She added, for years, he has called for investigations against me, and they have found nothing. | ||
| Back to your phone calls to the Yellowhammer State. | ||
| This is Annette Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Hey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| You know, there's plenty of blame to go around. | ||
| Governor Wallace and Mayor Fry are applauding as these agitating protesters create a tense, dangerous atmosphere for ICE agents. | ||
| Protesting is fine, but what they should be doing is telling their people, don't throw rocks, fireworks, frozen bottles. | ||
| You know, don't get in front of their cars, where now ICE agents are on, you know, they have to watch their back. | ||
| And they just, they should have made these people aware that the interference is out of control. | ||
| But instead of telling them not to follow ICE, not to intimidate ICE, they should have told them to stay at least 10 feet away. | ||
| Using their cell phones to video what they perceive as negative actions is fine. | ||
| Hollering them is fine. | ||
| But when you're two feet away from them and you're calling them Nazis and nasty words, what do you think is going to happen? | ||
| And the gentleman, it is horrible that he got shot. | ||
| And I realized he had the right to carry a gun. | ||
| But use your head. | ||
| Don't carry a gun when the atmosphere is as dangerous as it is on these protests. | ||
| And stay away. | ||
| Don't interfere with them. | ||
| You're putting these agents on edge. | ||
| But, you know, the mayor and the governor should easily just work with Trump, get rid of the worst, and do something. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But anyway, it's not just Trump. | |
| That's just Trump haters. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| I love your program. | ||
| That's Annette in Alabama. | ||
| This is the headline from the Washington Times. | ||
| Melania Trump calls for unity and urges demonstrators to protest in peace. | ||
| She was on Fox News when she gave that message. | ||
| Here's some of what she had to say. | ||
| We need to unify. | ||
| I'm calling for unity. | ||
| I know my husband, the president, had a great call yesterday with the governor and the mayor, and they're working together to make it peaceful and without riots. | ||
| I'm against the violence. | ||
| So please, if we protest, protest in peace. | ||
| And we need to unify in these times. | ||
| The first lady yesterday, her appearance on Fox and Friends, the segment on Fox News being replayed. | ||
| It is about 7.50 a.m. on the East Coast. | ||
| We are in our first hour of the Wall Street of the Washington Journal this morning. | ||
| And there's a lot going on in Washington. | ||
| Taking your phone calls on all of it. | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats, Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| This is Ken waiting in South Carolina, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Please give me a little time. | ||
| All right. | ||
| I believe first the attack on Omar was staged. | ||
| And it's going to be all on the media all day, every day. | ||
| And no one cared what Donald Trump got shot. | ||
| But on illegal immigration. | ||
| What makes you think it was staged, Ken? | ||
| That's just my personal opinion. | ||
| But can I say something before you cut me out? | ||
| Just what makes you think that? | ||
| Because this atmosphere right now, it seems like everything is distractions. | ||
| It's true that this woman was worth $65,000 five years ago. | ||
| Now she's worth $30 million. | ||
| It's true. | ||
| There's no racial intent. | ||
| There's a lot of corruption going on with the Somali community. | ||
| And I feel sorry for the people who lost their lives. | ||
| It was paying protesters. | ||
| They were paid to interfere with ICE. | ||
| And most of the ICE agents are Hispanics. | ||
| There's no neo-Naxis there. | ||
| And Obama deported 5 million illegal immigrants with ICE. | ||
| They carried Tom Homman, the Congressional Medal of Honor. | ||
| And CNN did a ride along with ICE. | ||
| Congratulate him for deporting illegal immigrants. | ||
| President Joe Biden invited and flew in nearly 15 million illegal immigrants. | ||
| They let him out of prison in Venezuela. | ||
| All right, that's Ken. | ||
| Shonda's next in Bradenton, Florida. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you so much for taking my call. | ||
| I first want to say that my mom always told me it's not what you do, it's how you do it. | ||
| I don't object with ICE going and getting illegal criminals, but I do object to the barbaric and savage behavior that we see on television that I've not heard not one of your good Republican callers comment on. | ||
| That's just not normal behavior to break people's car windows and take babies and children. | ||
| That's not what they were supposed to be doing. | ||
| I don't think they're collecting many criminals down at the high schools and going and terrorizing children in schools. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That is crazy. | |
| And I have to say, as a black American, I was born here. | ||
| My parents were born here. | ||
| Their parents were born here. | ||
| What papers do I have to walk around with? | ||
| Do I have to go try and dig up some freedom papers? | ||
| What papers do we tell our children, our black boys and girls, that they have to walk around with? | ||
| When you have four or five thugs running up on you at mass demanding your papers, I don't think that that's correct behavior. | ||
| And I don't understand how anybody, Republican, Democrat, Independent, could be okay with that. | ||
| That's inhumane, and it is awful. | ||
| Yes, get the criminals. | ||
| I want the criminals to be gone, but I just don't see many criminals down at the schoolhouse. | ||
| And I don't see any reason that ICE should be at the schoolhouse. | ||
| And lastly, I want to say, when you're the vice president and you tell people that they have full immunity and they can do whatever they want to do, what in the hell do you expect to happen? | ||
| That is absolutely ridiculous. | ||
| If you tell a person it's okay to behave this way, then don't be shocked when they behave that way. | ||
| Thanks, Shonda, in Florida. | ||
| Diane is in Arkansas. | ||
| Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| First comment is on Omar. | ||
| That's awful, that man throwing something on her because you don't know what that could be. | ||
| And so they need to charge that forward because it is endangering her life or anybody that that can happen to. | ||
| But, and it's no excuse for someone attacking her. | ||
| But she spews a lot of hate, a lot of anti-Semitic rhetoric, and she keeps the whole thing, the violence and the stuff and the anti-Semitism and the comments stirred up. | ||
| And a lot of this stuff that they're feeding into that's happening is to get focused off what's going on in their state. | ||
| They're wanting the chaos because it gets people from looking in their own back door. | ||
| Now, as far as the ICE agents, they're doing a job. | ||
| They're getting attacked. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're getting cussed. | |
| They're getting everything else. | ||
| That makes them be very heightened. | ||
| It makes them be more nervous. | ||
| You know, people can protest, but when you know the atmosphere is what it is and you're going to put yourself down there with a loaded gun, you know, that's not very smart. | ||
| I mean, it's, you know, I mean, why would you get in those people's faces when they're trying to do the job? | ||
| And, you know, illegals is illegals. | ||
| You have broke the law. | ||
| I mean, yes, it's been allowed for decades upon decades, but the bottom line is they're illegals. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They broke the law. | |
| They need to be out of here. | ||
| That's Diane. | ||
| Did you want to wrap up, Diane? | ||
| Well, I just, you know, people act like that the president doesn't have the authority to go in these states. | ||
| Yes, he does. | ||
| He can order, I think, and order the National Guard. | ||
| It's within his boundaries. | ||
| If people are breaking the law in that state and the officials in that state will not uphold the law, he can override them. | ||
| I don't think civics are taught in this country anymore. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I really don't. | |
| It's Diane in Arkansas. | ||
| You began by talking about the incident at Ilon Omar's town hall last night. | ||
|
Sharon and Greg's Concerns
00:12:11
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| This is from the Associated Press reporting on that incident. | ||
| They write that Minneapolis police said officers saw the man use a syringe to spray an unknown liquid at Omar. | ||
| They immediately arrested him and booked him at the county jail for third-degree assault. | ||
| Forensic scientists responded to the scene. | ||
| Police identified the man as 55-year-old Anthony Kazmirzak. | ||
| It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney. | ||
| The County Public Defender's Office couldn't be reached for comment last night. | ||
| Omar continued speaking for about 25 more minutes after the man was ushered out by security. | ||
| There was a strong vinegar-like smell after the man pushed on the syringe, according to the Associated Press journalist who was there. | ||
| Photos of the device, which fell to the ground when he was tackled, showed what appeared to be a light brown liquid inside. | ||
| There was no immediate word from officials on what it was. | ||
| No one in the crowd of about 100 people had noticeable physical reactions to that substance, but that's the reporting from the Associated Press. | ||
| Greg in Glen Allen, Virginia, Independent, less than 10 minutes left here in this first segment of the Washington Journal. | ||
| Go ahead, Greg. | ||
| Yeah, on the U.S. economy, I think it's time maybe to try again to pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. | ||
| I know it's failed in the past, but I think it might, the American people might be ready for it now. | ||
| We keep running into these into these cycles of government shutdowns. | ||
| The Congress seems to be stuck and they can't get out of that cycle plus a $38 trillion debt. | ||
| I think this is the time to try it again because that would be one solution to the debt crisis and also to this cycle of government shutdowns that they can't seem to get out of. | ||
| Greg, if we do that, if we have a balanced budget amendment, if it came to this year's budget that we're working on, we're currently running a deficit, according to U.S. debt clock, of about $1.7 trillion. | ||
| Where do you see us cutting $1.7 trillion to get a balanced budget? | ||
| Well, it would have to be that to me, it would have to be something that would have to take place over time. | ||
| The budget would have to be spread over a 15 to 20 year, maybe even longer period. | ||
| But you have to, we got to put some constraints on what we're doing because obviously what we're doing is not working. | ||
| So there needs to be some guardrails, some constraints, because spending has gotten out of hand and the whole thing is going to crash. | ||
| To me, putting in that balanced budget amendment at least would put in some guardrails over time. | ||
| It would have to be done over time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You couldn't do it in the short term. | |
| You try to do it in the short term, it would wreck the economy. | ||
| But if you did it over a period of some years, it could work. | ||
| Greg, the biggest drivers of our federal spending each year, Medicare and Medicaid at about $2 trillion, Social Security, about $1.6 trillion. | ||
| We've gotten defense and war spending up to about $1 trillion. | ||
| And then we spend about $1 trillion each year on interest on the debt in terms of those things we can control. | ||
| Defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, are you for cutting any of those things? | ||
| Yeah, we have to bite the bullet. | ||
| The politicians have to quit worrying about their being reelected. | ||
| That's the big problem. | ||
| We have to bite the bullet and reform those entitlement programs. | ||
| They can be done. | ||
| That can be done without taking away a lot of the benefits. | ||
| They just get in there and do the hard work. | ||
| But the problem is they're worried about being reelected. | ||
| They're worried about what they're considering. | ||
| If they tell the truth, that these entitlement programs have to be reformed, they're worried that they're not going to get re-elected. | ||
| And that's part of the big problem. | ||
| That's Greg in The Old Dominion. | ||
| This is Donna in the land of Lincoln. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
| Donna, you with us? | ||
| Try one more time, Donna. | ||
| Speak into the phone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Yes, I would like to express my opinion that we can't lose sight of the real problem. | ||
| And the real problem is that Donald Trump is functioning as a dictator. | ||
| I know that sounds over the top, but I think it's true. | ||
| And if we really look at all of his actions, look at everything he does, he is functioning as a dictator. | ||
| And I think what actions specifically most concern you, Donna? | ||
| Well, the list is so long, but he is the just the way he is conducting immigration. | ||
| It's as though he is everything, the judge, the executor, all these people go to a prison of some sort. | ||
| And, you know, I believe in doing what he's doing, but not like he's doing it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's doing it as a dictator. | |
| When you say you believe in doing what he's doing, what do you believe in? | ||
| Are you talking about immigration? | ||
| I believe in getting criminals, serious criminals. | ||
| But, you know, we've always been a country of laws and court. | ||
| People have their day in court. | ||
| They don't just get shoveled off and disappear. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Those actions are the actions of a dictator who has no concern for the humanistic part of society. | |
| They just want to exercise their will. | ||
| And that's what Donald Trump is doing in so many ways. | ||
| All you have to do is just think of everything he's been doing that he's just acting like a dictator. | ||
| Got your point. | ||
| That's Donna in Illinois. | ||
| This is Dennis in New York. | ||
| Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Yeah, good morning. | ||
| What happened to Representative Walmart is unfortunate, but when you steal from the American people, that's to be expected. | ||
| My question is for you. | ||
| Why would the Democratic Party open up our borders during a worldwide pandemic, lose 300,000 children, and cost the American taxpayers $1.5 trillion? | ||
| Please answer my question. | ||
| Dennison, New York, this is Benny in Cameron, North Carolina, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Hello, good morning. | ||
| Appreciate you answering the call this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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I think there are a lot of questions that aren't being asked. | |
| We'll start with Minneapolis. | ||
| I don't think the people in Minneapolis recognize why they're a target. | ||
| In my opinion, I believe it's a thirst trap for a certain group of people to come out in droves as they did like in George Ford and the Breonna Taylor protests. | ||
| I believe that the administration in place was thirsty for that type of response, and that is exactly why they're so in the news and so much publicity on that city right now is because they're goading that same group of people to come out and protest so they can get going and things like that. | ||
| To what end? | ||
| For the insurrection to be able to actually implement the Insurrection Act. | ||
| And secondly, going to the economy. | ||
| The last president to go hard on tariffs as such was President McKinley. | ||
| If you go back, I think that was around the 1900s was that impact. | ||
| And if you time it correctly, that predated the actual Great Depression. | ||
| So if you look at the timing, if we continue on this track and this foothold of tariffs that we have on our economy, we could be headed straight into another depression, which, I mean, we were saved by the Industrial Revolution at that point and then the World War because we can invest in that. | ||
| But that's another issue. | ||
| We need to fix our economy. | ||
| One of the guys talked about the budgeting and financing and cutting what he called. | ||
| I don't know why people think Social Security is something that we shouldn't get even though we pay into it. | ||
| But we do need to cut some of our spending. | ||
| The fact that the DOD and all these agencies get pay increases or budget increases without passing audits is the issue. | ||
| I don't think any agency or any department should get the pay increase if they haven't passed the audit. | ||
| So make them stand on the budget that they currently have. | ||
| Pass the audit with what the budget that you have. | ||
| And until then, don't get an increase. | ||
| All right. | ||
| That's Benny in North Carolina. | ||
| Time for just one or two more calls here. | ||
| This is Sharon. | ||
| Been waiting in Oregon. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
| Oh, hi. | ||
| I kind of wanted to go along the same theme, which is the economy. | ||
| And I kind of wanted to deal with some facts instead of just calling names. | ||
|
unidentified
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And that is, I'm looking from 2024 to 2025, comparing the two years. | |
| In 2025, the dollar declined 9% against world currencies, the worst since 2017. | ||
|
unidentified
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The overall inflation rate did drop 0.2%, but food cost raised 0.6%, and medical raised 9%. | |
| There was a growth in income inequality. | ||
| The rich got richer, the poor got poor. | ||
| Unemployment went to the highest it's been in four years this year. | ||
| The national debt increased $2.2 trillion this year. | ||
| And that was the result of the Big Beautiful bill, where the rich got the majority and waitresses got tips reduced, but that's it. | ||
| And when you talked about, you asked the question of the last guy: well, would you cut Social Security and entitlements? | ||
| They did get cut. | ||
| 13 million people lost health care through Medicaid. | ||
| Now, what you didn't ask is the Big Beautiful bill gave big, beautiful cuts to the rich. | ||
| That cuts revenue that pays for government spending. | ||
|
unidentified
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And according to Moody's, as of December 2025, 22 states are either in recession or near recession. | |
| And so that's our blooming economy under our current president. | ||
| Now, there's one last thing. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm going to list some names. | |
| Sharon, I'm running short on time. | ||
| Can you wrap up? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| Theodore Mildor, sexual assault of a child under 16. | ||
| Keeney Lazo, aggravated sexual battery of a child under 13. | ||
| Sharon, where are we going with this? | ||
|
unidentified
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Wait a minute. | |
| I could name 33 people that rioted at January 6th and got a pardon. | ||
| And they have either, there's two people that have died from them. | ||
| There's over 10 sexual assaults by them that they've been rearrested. | ||
|
Pardoned Patriots and Their Peculiar Path
00:03:16
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unidentified
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These were the people that got pardoned and were wonderful patriots. | |
| And that's all I had to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Sharon in Oregon, our last caller in this first segment of the Washington Journal. | ||
| Stick around, though. | ||
| Plenty more to talk about this morning, including a little bit later, former, a little bit later, Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is set to testify on Capitol Hill today about Venezuela and the future of U.S. policy there. | ||
| We'll discuss what's shaping up for the future of that country with retired Brigadier General Mark Kimmett. | ||
| But next, R-Street Institute's Jillian Snyder joins us. | ||
| A former New York City police officer will discuss immigration enforcement techniques used by federal agents. | ||
| Stick around. | ||
|
unidentified
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We'll be right back on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | |
| Jonathan Horn's latest book is titled The Fate of the Generals, MacArthur, Wainwright and the Epic Battle for the Philippines. | ||
| The publisher Scribner explains the premise of Horn's book. | ||
| For the doomed stand American forces made in the Philippines at the start of World War II, two generals received the country's highest military award: the Medal of Honor. | ||
| One was the charismatic Douglas MacArthur, whose orders forced him to leave his troops and go to Australia. | ||
| The other was the gritty Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, who became a hero to the troops, whose fate he insisted on sharing. | ||
|
unidentified
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A new interview with author Jonathan Horne about his book, The Fate of the Generals: MacArthur, Wainwright, and the Epic Battle for the Philippines. | |
| Book Notes Plus, with our host Brian Lamb, is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| Houston, F2, 1-160 a second, for shadow photography on the sequence camera. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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 Air 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. | ||
| The crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you. | ||
|
unidentified
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Watch the history of the American Space Program all day Saturday, starting at 8 a.m. Eastern on American History TV on C-SPAN 2. | |
|
De-escalation Challenges
00:14:55
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|
unidentified
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Washington Journal continues. | |
| A conversation now on use of force and federal law enforcement. | ||
| Jillian Snyder is our guest. | ||
| She's a retired New York City police officer, lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, senior fellow at the R-Street Institute. | ||
| And Jillian Snyder, in the wake of the fatal shootings in Minneapolis, you posed this question in a column on R Street's webpage. | ||
| You asked, are federal immigration agents prepared for the unique challenges of enforcement operations in protest-filled urban environments? | ||
| How do you answer that question? | ||
|
unidentified
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Right now, I don't know how to answer that question. | |
| We're still waiting for more reporting. | ||
| The investigation in this past weekend shooting is still very preliminary, but I think the main challenge here is we're taking officers and agents who are prepared for rural border operations and working to protect our borders, but yet have never really experienced what it's like to work in major cities where you already have active protests underway. | ||
| They don't get the same training that local police officers get. | ||
| So I think we really have to examine whether their training has hurt them for what they're encountering. | ||
| You worked in a major city, New York City, a former New York City police officer. | ||
| What sort of training did you receive for incidents like this? | ||
|
unidentified
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NYPD, we have extensive training for large public gatherings, for parades, for New Year's Eve details, for the UN General Assembly, for civil unrest. | |
| We do scenario-based training. | ||
| The NYPD has an entire tactical village that they take us to yearly to make sure that we are prepared for any potential situation. | ||
| Of course, you can't prepare for everything, but they throw anything at you that they think you might face. | ||
| So because we work in a huge urban populated area, we are trained accordingly, knowing that there's probably a couple of hundred, if not a couple of thousand people on the streets around us. | ||
| So all of our use of force decisions really have to factor that in. | ||
| We're not working in isolated areas where there are not innocent victims or citizens walking by. | ||
| Every decision we make has to consider that there could be a couple of people walking or waiting for the bus. | ||
| So it's very different from what CBP agents are trained for. | ||
| Use of force rules vary across the country. | ||
| There's no standard rule for use of force, but what were you taught when it comes to use of force and specifically use of deadly force? | ||
| What are the rules here? | ||
|
unidentified
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It's not that easy. | |
| There is what's called a use of force continuum. | ||
| Most agencies do train their officers similarly. | ||
| Federal agents do receive similar training. | ||
| I know it varies slightly, but you would generally, when you encounter someone, you give them a verbal request or a verbal order. | ||
| If they don't comply, you bring it up to the next level where it could be hand-to-hand combat. | ||
| You could use your OC spray or pepper spray as it's more commonly used. | ||
| Then you would go to your straight baton or your expandable baton. | ||
| If you are equipped with a taser, that would be your next level. | ||
| All of those are considered less than lethal or non-lethal uses of force. | ||
| If, in fact, the situation turned volatile or an imminent threat of serious physical injury or death was pending, that would be when an officer would engage with their firearm. | ||
| So, bring me to federal use of force training and specifically, and you get into this in your column: CBP, the Border Patrol, and what they're taught. | ||
| What are the incidents they are most likely to encounter? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, because they are stationed primarily at the borders or within 100 miles of the United States borders, their training is really focused on conducting car stops that have gotten past the border. | |
| They don't typically drive around and engage in random car stops. | ||
| They're targeted because they feel that that person has unlawfully entered the country. | ||
| Or, as we saw in Arizona yesterday, there was an incident there where CBP agents did engage with a vehicle that allegedly was involved in human trafficking. | ||
| And what we saw afterwards was the secondary car stop gunshots were fired by the assailant. | ||
| CBP agents, I believe, returned fire. | ||
| That is more typically the scenario that they are going to face. | ||
| They're not going to be doing routine car stops in major urban areas where there's hundreds or thousands of people walking around. | ||
|
unidentified
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They're very targeted and measured in what they do. | |
| So, putting them in these unpredictable situations, that's where I fear that their training might not give them all the resources and understanding that they need to conduct these safely for themselves or others. | ||
| Engaging with vehicles, go back to the Renee Good shooting and the use of force issues that came to your mind as you watch the many angles of that incident. | ||
|
unidentified
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I will tell you firsthand, I have actually been involved in an incident where a driver tried to hit one of the officers I was working with. | |
| This was back when I worked in Brooklyn. | ||
|
unidentified
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We were trying to engage in a lawful car stop, and the individual decided to attempt to ram their vehicle onto an officer. | |
| One officer did return fire because the officer had no other means of getting out of the way before getting struck. | ||
| That officer did get struck, did suffer serious bodily harm, several broken bones. | ||
| The gunshot did not hit the assailant, but we were able to capture him. | ||
| So, I've been in a situation where I've had a car coming at me or someone that I'm standing with. | ||
| So, I understand the fear and the split-second decision-making. | ||
|
unidentified
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NYPD has very strict rules, as do most other agencies, local and state police. | |
| We are not encouraged to shoot at moving cars. | ||
| The thought behind it is even if we shoot the person driving the car, that doesn't necessarily mean the car is going to stop. | ||
| It now causes an even greater threat. | ||
| It could crash into someone else, it could cause a major motor vehicle accident, and we're not stopping the immediate threat of that driver because they're still behind the wheel of the car. | ||
| Only if that car is posing that imminent threat of serious bodily harm or death to an officer or to another person, or if there are no other reasonable means to get out of harm's way, are we then allowed legally and lawfully to engage in a firefight with that vehicle? | ||
| Jillian Snyder is our guest of the R Street Institute. | ||
| RStreet.org is where you can go to read the column we mentioned at the top and all of her work. | ||
| And she's taking your phone calls for about the next 25, 30 minutes or so here on the Washington Journal. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| I would especially like to hear from law enforcement your thoughts on these use of force issues, if you want to call in during this segment. | ||
| As folks are calling in, Jillian Snyder, a column in today's USA Today written by two members of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice. | ||
| It goes to this idea that we mentioned earlier that use of force guidelines vary across the country, that there's no uniform policy. | ||
| They write that in their research of the 100 largest cities in the United States, there's transparency into what has long been murky when it comes to use of force, saying use of deadly force, whether it's permitted or not, may depend entirely on what city that you're in. | ||
| They note that since George Floyd's murder by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020, there's been some change. | ||
| 92 departments now ban chokeholds up from 22 a decade ago. | ||
| 93 now require officers to intervene when they witness misconduct compared to 29 back in 2015, but the picture is still mixed. | ||
| 20 departments don't require officers to attempt to de-escalate a situation before they use force. | ||
| Only 41 states restrict the use of pepper spray or handcuffed people. | ||
| Just 54 cities clearly designate deadly force as a last resort. | ||
| They write when policies remain unknown to the public and murky, both learning and accountability suffer. | ||
| The question to you is, why isn't there a uniform use of force training standard here? | ||
|
unidentified
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I think it's really hard to make something so black and white, to have officers, okay, you can only do this if this happens. | |
| You can only do this if this happens. | ||
| I've been in many situations where giving someone a verbal command, if you were following this very strict continuum, if that person did not comply or they decided to come at you with a weapon, are you supposed to still go through the traditional continuum and then OC spray them and then use your baton and then use your taser and then use your firearm? | ||
| So I think that's the challenge. | ||
| And that's why a lot of major metropolitan areas, when they train their officers, they train them to use equal levels of force or the next level above to gain compliance and control of the situation. | ||
| And that's not just to make the arrests. | ||
| That's to keep everyone on scene safe. | ||
| But what you have seen in the last six years is a lot of cities are working with city council or state legislators to bring into law what the restrictions on law enforcement. | ||
| Now, NYPD, we banned chokeholds way before I even became a police officer. | ||
| That's something that was very strict and codified in our department guidelines that we were not allowed to use formal chokeholds. | ||
| We've seen a lot of other cities follow suit just because the compression of someone's airway obviously can lead to serious physical injury or death. | ||
| But we are allowed other takedown maneuvers that some construe as chokeholds, but they're clearly not. | ||
| But the point is that we have seen a lot of agencies and city leaders working with their governments to try and come up with some type of rules and regulations to restrict the use of force. | ||
| Now, I want to make sure that officers are still allowed to do what they need to do to keep safe themselves and keep safe members of the public. | ||
| Because if we start handcuffing them too much and putting too many restrictions, we're now putting officers' lives at risk. | ||
| And we're also going to see a lot less people interested in the profession of policing. | ||
| Let me let you chat with a few callers and there are some on the line for you. | ||
| This is Martha in Indiana, Republican. | ||
| Martha, thanks for waiting. | ||
|
unidentified
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Go ahead. | |
| Hi. | ||
| I just wanted to talk about the ICE officers. | ||
| You know, people seem to forget that they're just people and they were supposed to have peaceful protests and stay on the sidewalk. | ||
| They're all rushing them. | ||
| They're making all kinds of noises, throwing things at them. | ||
| I'm sure it was so chaotic before these two shootings, and they had such a split second to think about what to do. | ||
| When I watch it, I kind of think, well, they probably could have taken that guy in custody because there was six officers on him, but somebody yelled gun, and that's all it took. | ||
| And then, you know, I think people, you know, they go on about these two, but did they forget about the lady that got set on fire on the subway and that young woman that got stabbed in the chest on the train and all those kind of things. | ||
| But they want to make a huge deal. | ||
| And this is a huge deal, but it's so one-sided. | ||
| Those officers, I've seen them stand there and take getting yelled in the face right up to them. | ||
| People throw in things and they just stand there stiff. | ||
| Like they, I'm afraid they, I think they're afraid that they can't do anything. | ||
| And so then when something like this happens, it's just because it's so chaotic. | ||
| And I hate to see it. | ||
| I hate for our country to go like this. | ||
| That's Martha in Indiana. | ||
| Jillian Snyder, what do you want to respond to? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, I'm very glad that she called and said that it's so chaotic. | |
| And most people that are calling in, I'm hoping some law enforcement call in because they could at least understand the scenario that these officers and agents are facing because they themselves have probably seen something similar. | ||
| These agents are put into unpredictable and chaotic scenes, as Martha just said. | ||
| And their training is supposed to equip them with the knowledge and the tools to respond effectively. | ||
| But in that moment, and again, as Martha said, split-second decision-making, when you have protesters that are supposed to be peaceful, blocking the roadways, not complying with lawful orders, all of those things are technically illegal. | ||
| You are supposed to comply with an officer or agent's directives. | ||
| And that's for your safety. | ||
| So in this case, what we did see in the preliminary report yesterday to Congress said that the agent did deploy OC spray first. | ||
|
unidentified
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That is showing that a de-escalation attempt was made after that person did not comply with orders because that is not a lethal use of force. | |
| So if giving verbal command was not effective, and then I believe the report also said that there was hand-to-hand shoving involved, that was ineffective. | ||
| And then OC spray was deployed. | ||
| That is that officer's next level of force to try and gain lawful compliance from that subject. | ||
| In this case, we know that did not work. | ||
| And again, when someone yells gun, most law enforcement, and I'm going to say this is pretty uniform across all law enforcement, federal, state, and city. | ||
| If another officer screams gun, your immediate response is putting your hand on your weapon, drawing your weapon, because now you are expecting a gunfire at you. | ||
| So I do understand the situation that this agent was in. | ||
| When I hear the word gun, I'm at the ready because I need to protect myself and other members of the community. | ||
| Let me go to Thomas in Georgia, line for Democrats. | ||
| Thomas, you're on with Jillian Snyder. | ||
| Yes, yes, sir. | ||
| I'm a Democrat, and I can't understand why the Republican Party is supporting a murderer. | ||
| Trump is definitely a murderer. | ||
| He's not a savior. | ||
| He's a murderer. | ||
| Thomas, do you have any questions about the use of force issues that we're talking about? | ||
| Yes, the. | ||
| I ain't know them people that hate the Muslim. | ||
| He ain't a damn Muslim. | ||
| All right. | ||
| That's Thomas, and this is Teresa in Columbus, Indiana, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I just wanted to ask why when there was a rally for Trump a long time ago and there was a Wittenauer or some young man, they all brought their weapons to the rally and Trump let them all in. | ||
| Why when a man is armed, but it's it's he's thus he's not flashing his weapon or aimed at anyone. | ||
|
Whistles And Force: Protesters' Tactics
00:15:11
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| Why was it different? | ||
| Jillian Snyder, to the Second Amendment issues that have come up here at these protests. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm not going to take a position on the Second Amendment issues. | |
| What I will say is that we know that the gentleman involved was lawfully carrying his weapon. | ||
| I have not seen enough video footage at this point. | ||
| We do not have body camera released to the public, to my knowledge. | ||
| I have looked and looked online. | ||
| All of the snippets that we have seen are civilian snippets. | ||
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unidentified
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They are in the moments of. | |
| I don't know exactly what happened before. | ||
| So I cannot even say with certainty whether or not that weapon was ever displayed to officers in a menacing or threatening way. | ||
| And I'm not going to draw any conclusions yet. | ||
| Bobby on X, as we're having this conversation, asks this question this morning about other rights that people have when they're at these protests. | ||
| Are agents trained regarding First, Fourth, and Tenth Amendment rights? | ||
| So I assume freedom of speech, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. | ||
| And then there's the federalism reserving power to the states. | ||
| I'm not quite sure how that applies, but illegal search and seizure is the one that stands out to me, the Fourth Amendment rights here. | ||
|
unidentified
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Most law enforcement and federal included, they are well versed in the Bill of Rights. | |
| We do get specific training on Fourth Amendment, of course, because that really does shape the way in which we do our jobs, conduct interviews, conduct searches of vehicles or persons or homes. | ||
|
unidentified
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We do have a lot of training on First Amendment rights to be able to respect and assist in peaceful protests and be able to promote freedom of speech and freedom of religion. | |
| But 10th Amendment right, I know that I got that training when I was an undergraduate student getting my legal studies degree. | ||
| We didn't really go into the notion of federalism when I was trained as a law enforcement officer, and I'm not sure federal agents get that training, but I highly doubt it because it really doesn't impact the way in which they do their job and enforce the law. | ||
| Out to Nebraska, this is Fred waiting on the Republican line. | ||
| Fred, go ahead. | ||
| Yes, I'd like to ask the expert, what justifies arresting people? | ||
| At these protests, you see him throwing ice water or frozen water bottles. | ||
| You see him trying to run over agents. | ||
| You see people throwing fireworks. | ||
| You threw people spitting and all that kind of stuff. | ||
| And nobody gets arrested. | ||
| Now, last night, they had a representative Omar. | ||
| Some guy walked up there and used his First Amendment rights to yell at her and threw stuff on her. | ||
| And he gets tackled and arrested. | ||
| And I wanted you to explain the difference between that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Fred, you don't think anybody's been arrested in Minneapolis? | ||
| Well, that guy that threw that stuff on Omar last night, they tackled him down. | ||
| And they don't think any arrested him. | ||
| You don't think any of the protesters. | ||
| You don't think any of the protesters have been arrested? | ||
| Well, none of them have. | ||
| You know, these people calling in today, they're all complaining how people are getting mean to them and everything else. | ||
| There are plenty of protesters there who have been arrested, is all I'm saying. | ||
| Well, explain the difference between peaceful protesting and what that guy did last night. | ||
| He was just doing his First Amendment rights to peaceful yell at her and throw stuff on him. | ||
| Got your point. | ||
| Jillian Snyder, do you want to take any of that? | ||
|
unidentified
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When you start throwing things, that's immediately, it's not peaceful at all. | |
| And I do know that there have been several arrests in Minneapolis, but I want to bring up something that's important. | ||
| Law enforcement, we can't arrest every person that does something wrong. | ||
|
unidentified
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If you throw something at an officer or agent, or if you spit at them, you are subject to arrest. | |
| You can't throw things, that's assault, and that's assault with a potential weapon. | ||
| Spitting, also, that is an assault. | ||
| But because we are there to maintain and preserve the peace, we can't start arresting everyone because then those officers will have to be removed from the scene to process the arrest, which will now let the protests grow in size and scope. | ||
|
unidentified
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So, we do use our discretion at protests, and only if individuals are using extreme measures against us that could cause other harm to other people will we generally engage. | |
| But there have been arrests made, and I know a lot of those arrests have been at people who have been throwing objects over at ICE agents. | ||
| We had two Minneapolis. | ||
| This is Tav on the line for Democrats. | ||
| You're on with Jillian Snyder. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| My name is Tav. | ||
| I'm from Minneapolis, and I live just a few blocks away from the VA medical center where Alex worked. | ||
| One thing, I just have a comment and then a question for the guests. | ||
| I think the comments I say, I hear a lot of people outside of the state of Minnesota and outside of Minneapolis and the Twin Cities who are making these judgments about the people who have been killed. | ||
| You know, one thing I want to say is that we are not just protesting these actions, but we're protesting an occupation of our city. | ||
| And, you know, Alex was just going about his day when he was killed. | ||
| That's just a regular walkable neighborhood where people are doing their things. | ||
| And that's what happened when he was killed. | ||
| I want to say that the high school my kids went to, ICE camped out there after dismissal just the same day that Renee Good was shot and tackled some of the staff and students that went to that school. | ||
| My question is around the education level and the training for really being able to withhold on reacting to situations because I've personally witnessed ICE agents who don't have the emotional maturity and acuity to really engage in really stressful, difficult situations. | ||
| And I think you touched on it a little bit when you were talking about the training that you went through as a New York City police officer. | ||
| But it's really obvious that the support, the supervision, the training they're given is not adequate and working really in just any type of community. | ||
| And for those who are boomers out there, I want to remember, why don't you remember what happened in the 60s and the protests? | ||
| And those were not pretty protests, but they were important. | ||
| Minneapolis has a very long history of peaceful protests going back to the 1890s, whether it be labor-related, George Floyd, or the multiple people who have been killed by police in the Twin Cities area. | ||
| Just to remind you about what happened when you were young and the protests that happened. | ||
| And thank you so much for your time. | ||
| It's Tav in Minneapolis. | ||
| Jillian Snyder. | ||
|
unidentified
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The only response I have is I'm not in Minneapolis. | |
| I am hearing this from obviously media reports. | ||
| I do have a few friends that live in the area, so they have told me candidly what they've witnessed. | ||
| And I'm not making any judgment on anything that's happened thus far. | ||
| All I'm saying is these agents that are being deployed, they're being sent there by their supervisors and their executives of their departments to carry out a job. | ||
|
unidentified
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And my question is whether or not they've received the training that they need to handle the situations. | |
| I'm not even making judgment on the officers' actions themselves because I have been put in situations very similar. | ||
| And again, you're making these decisions under very chaotic circumstances. | ||
| In terms of the data that we get, not just on these incidents, Mr. Pratti and Ms. Good, but on all of the use of force incidents that federal agents are involved in, there's a story in today's Washington Post saying the government's accounts of shootings have reportedly proved to be inaccurate, involving border agents and federal immigration officials. | ||
| What do we know about data transparency and what we can and can't find out from what the government provides? | ||
|
unidentified
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Last year, I co-authored a paper on the use of force and the FBI's National Use of Force database. | |
| And what my colleague and I were looking at was to see the FBI was hoping that we would have a lot higher level of compliance with state, city, local, federal agents reporting their use of force incidents. | ||
| And this is not just for shootings or deadly physical force. | ||
|
unidentified
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This is for a lot of other various uses of force. | |
| Now, some agencies have gone to the extent that they, any use of force that is conducted by an officer, NYPD included, we have a use of force report. | ||
| If we use our OC spray, if we use our taser, if we use our baton, if we handcuff in some of these situations and don't make the arrest, we have to notate that as well. | ||
| All of those are uses of force. | ||
| We don't have a high enough level of compliance because this is a voluntary program across the nation to be able to make assumptions or to draw factual conclusions on the uses of force. | ||
| But what I do know is that federal agencies have not yet gotten involved as much as some of the major city and municipal agencies in terms of their transparency and reporting. | ||
| What about investigating use of force incidents, comparisons between how the federal government has done it, is doing it in these two high-profile cases in Minnesota versus what you were required to go through in an investigation if something happened when you were NYPD? | ||
|
unidentified
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NYPD does have its own use of force investigation, its force investigation division. | |
| They will come and it's separate from internal affairs for anyone that doesn't know the difference, but they will come out and they will assess every scene where an officer used force that is questionable, or if they discharge their weapon, or if they were involved in a shooting or serious physical injury of another. | ||
|
unidentified
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And then, of course, it does go up to the state level for further investigation if it's so warranted. | |
| Now, the federal agencies, when they are involved in shootings, typically, and from what I know, it was either investigated by the FBI or the DOJ. | ||
|
unidentified
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My personal recommendation would be for that agency where the jurisdictional agency should, I believe, lead the investigation or at least be working in conjunction. | |
| So now when you have federal agencies operating in local jurisdictions, I think that that locality, if they have the resources or they have a force investigation type squad, if they don't, then bring it up to the state level because I believe that would bring about more transparency. | ||
| The public would feel somewhat better if they understood that their home state is investigating in conjunction with federal agencies. | ||
| Time for just a couple more calls. | ||
| John's waiting in Zephyr Hills, Florida, Independent. | ||
| John, you are on with Jillian Snyder of the R Street Institute. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, good morning, John. | |
| We got the same name. | ||
| But anyway, my question is: we all know that this is just a bunch of crap that these people are saying about the use of force with the federal immigration. | ||
| So at the end of the day, now, according to Trump and Stephen Miller, the rules have changed. | ||
| So if you bring a weapon to a peaceful demonstration, federal officers should shoot you dead. | ||
| So for January 6th and Charlotteville, all those people should have been shot dead, period. | ||
|
unidentified
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So what is the rules now? | |
| And why haven't no one asked the president or anyone, what is the new rule? | ||
| If you come to a peaceful protest with a weapon, that means you should be shot dead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Is that the new rule and standard now? | |
| Jillian Snyder. | ||
|
unidentified
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To my knowledge, that is not the new rule nor standard. | |
| I don't believe that any constitutional amendment has been changed. | ||
| I do believe that serious contemplation should be given into when you're carrying your weapon. | ||
| And in this case, we know this was a lawfully carried weapon. | ||
| That individual had every right to carry it. | ||
| Again, because I don't know what happened in the minutes preceding the shooting, I don't know if it was menacingly displayed. | ||
| I don't have any of that information. | ||
| I could tell you that I don't believe that anyone should be afraid to carry their weapon if they're a lawfully carrying citizen, but I would urge caution. | ||
| Now, Minnesota is an open carry state. | ||
| I lived in New York my whole life. | ||
| That is a concealed carry state. | ||
| So there are vast differences between the two. | ||
| And open carry states, again, you could walk around with it openly displayed. | ||
|
unidentified
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But I would urge caution to anyone that's involved in a peaceful protest to maintain their weapon close to their body, to make sure that they are not using it, brandishing it, displaying it in any way that could even be misinterpreted as a menacing display of their weapon. | |
| To Greensburg, Pennsylvania, this is Rich Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| My question for your guests is, I see in videos of these protesters and almost riot situations where the protesters are blaring these whistles at very high decibels. | ||
| Like a lot of whistles can generate decibels up to 130, which can damage hearing. | ||
| I mean, if you worked in a situation, OSHA would not permit that, but these officers are subjected to that. | ||
| And what do you do? | ||
| Do they wear hearing like plugs to dull that? | ||
| Which I think would be bad because the officers need to hear what's going on. | ||
| My second question would be, what if people, what would it say, 100 protesters brought laser pointers that can get a Walmart for like 10 bucks and they start using those? | ||
| I mean, what does an officer do? | ||
| Could he use force to get someone to stop doing that? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'll answer the first question. | |
| The whistleblowing, yes, it's problematic. | ||
| I've been in situations where people have blown whistles or they've been using air horns. | ||
| Those are also annoyingly loud and very distracting. | ||
| But the point is they're generally considered peaceful. | ||
| Again, it's more of an annoyance than it is a danger. | ||
| I've seen officers use the small yellow rubber plugs. | ||
| So they're, I don't know the exact material, but they're coarse enough that you could still hear through them. | ||
| So you wouldn't be missing radio transmissions if something came over your radio. | ||
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unidentified
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You wouldn't be missing out if one of your fellow officers yelled for your attention. | |
| It's just kind of something to mitigate some of the loudness. | ||
| But we generally wouldn't make arrests for people blowing whistles in our face because, again, it's not putting us in serious danger. | ||
| It's more of a distraction and to annoy us. | ||
| Regarding the second question, you were talking about the, I believe, the throwing of things or that that was another caller. | ||
| Please refresh my memory. | ||
| Yeah, that's fine. | ||
| That's been brought up a couple times now. | ||
| And it's actually talking, a discussion point on our X feed where people are chatting about this segment as we go about when you arrest somebody for throwing something. | ||
| I said a little while ago, we can't make an arrest of every single person who throws something at us, even though most times we would want to, just because I don't think any officer deserves to get things thrown at them. | ||
| They are out there doing their job. | ||
|
Why Officers Can't Arrest All Protestors
00:11:41
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unidentified
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They were told where to go. | |
| They were told their objective of the day. | ||
| Work for an agency that has a mission, and I don't believe that anyone should be throwing anything. | ||
| And more importantly, if people are out there protesting, you have every right to do so. | ||
|
unidentified
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But once your actions start obstructing justice and causing danger to officers and agents and to other citizens, you have now almost given up your right for that protest, and you're also hurting your mission. | |
| If you are someone that believes in the power of protest, but you need to still comply with lawful orders given from law enforcement because that's when incivility is there, and that's where we're going to see more people getting hurt. | ||
| Two more callers for you. | ||
| Mark is in St. Paul, Minnesota. | ||
| Republican, go ahead. | ||
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I was watching Fox News with a commentator by the name of Joey Jones the other day. | ||
| He indicated that it was his understanding that, according to the rules regarding concealed carry, that in order to lawfully conceal carry, you have to have your ID with you and your gun permit with you. | ||
| It is my understanding that this Alex person did not have his ID with him. | ||
| So my question is: did he not forfeit his right to lawfully carry if he was not following those rules with regard to concealed carry? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That Minnesota is an open carry state, which is different from concealed carry. | ||
|
unidentified
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Concealed carry means that you can't have that weapon visibly displayed to the public. | |
| Think of it this way: if you are concealing your weapon, you are generally tucking it into your pants or tucking it under your sweatshirt or your jacket to where general members of the public don't even know that you have it. | ||
| Whereas open carry, it could be visible to passerbys. | ||
| We have heard in reports by the media that Alex Pretty did not have an ID. | ||
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unidentified
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I have not heard that 100% confirmed. | |
| I do know that if you are using, carrying on a permit, whether it is concealed or open carry, you are supposed to have ID. | ||
|
unidentified
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Most states issue a concealed or open carry ID card, which is separate and distinct from your driver's license or from your state permit. | |
| When you carry a weapon, you are generally issued a weapons license. | ||
|
unidentified
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I don't know if the individual had that on him. | |
| Preliminary reports are saying he did not have any ID readily available, but until a full investigation has been conducted and all information has been analyzed, I'm not going to say whether or not this is, he had it on him or not. | ||
| Jack in Baltimore, line for Democrats. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Hey, good morning, guys. | ||
| I'm afraid that your guest is really part of the problem because she's a use of force expert, but she doesn't have the temerity to look at what happened to Mr. Predty, watch that video, and just plainly state that it was wrong and it was a bad shooting. | ||
| To me, it seems like she's trying to come up with any type of rationalization of why it would be justified. | ||
| When looking at that video, there's no rational person that can watch that and say, well, yeah, I can understand why that would happen. | ||
| And if you just look at how those Border Patrol agents conducted themselves in that instance, one Board of Patrol agent took his canister of, I don't know, I guess, pepper spray and was beating Mr. Predty against the head with it. | ||
| So what level of use of force is that? | ||
| Then we had another Border Patrol agent remove Mr. Predty's weapon and back out. | ||
| And I'm assuming he knew that shots would be fired soon after just because of the way he behaved after he pulled the weapon from Mr. Predty. | ||
| And he was shot 10 times in the back, mind you. | ||
| So how can you watch that video and not just call it what it is? | ||
| I don't understand why you keep coming up with these ways to, I don't know, sort of justify why that happened. | ||
| Got your point. | ||
| Let me give Jillian Snyder a chance to respond. | ||
| I appreciate your candor, and I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but I haven't even formally taken a position on whether or not this was a justified shooting because I have not seen all the evidence. | ||
| You have seen what I have seen. | ||
|
unidentified
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You could draw your own conclusions. | |
| You've seen what the media has released. | ||
| We've seen only very preliminary reports. | ||
| We haven't yet discussed what happened beforehand, how the situation ensued, how the officers came to be talking to Mr. Predi. | ||
| From what I heard, it was two women were obstructing the street. | ||
|
unidentified
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The officers engaged. | |
| They showed the women. | ||
| The women went and got Mr. Predi. | ||
|
unidentified
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He then engaged with the officers. | |
| OC spray was deployed. | ||
|
unidentified
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And then subsequently, gun was yelled, and then he was shot. | |
| That's what I know. | ||
| I have not seen any official body worn camera. | ||
| That would give you the officer's point of view. | ||
|
unidentified
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You might not like it, but it at least would show you what the officer saw in the moment. | |
| So until I see all of that, I'm not going to draw any conclusion on whether or not this is justified. | ||
| On the pepper spray, it's been brought up a couple times now. | ||
| What are, we haven't talked about yet, the laws regarding using pepper spray, when you can use it against the protester. | ||
| We've seen the smoke bombs being thrown as well, pepper spray being deployed from out of car windows. | ||
| What do you, what concerns you, or what are the rules around how that's been deployed in Minneapolis? | ||
|
unidentified
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We, officers try not to use their pepper spray as often because most times it gets back in your face or another officer's face. | |
| But we are encouraged to use it when we are trying to disperse a large crowd because it is non-lethal. | ||
|
unidentified
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It's not going to make anyone seriously ill. | |
| It's just going to give that momentary break for officers to then break up that scene. | ||
|
unidentified
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There aren't any concrete rules and regulations on when you should use it versus when you should not. | |
| To my knowledge, at least, again, federal agents train differently than us. | ||
| I typically would not be using my OC spray if I was in a super large crowd and only trying to target one or two individuals because most likely that's going to affect a couple of hundred people, the wind's blowing and everything else. | ||
| But we do use that and rely on it because it is much less lethal than using your aspir or your straight baton. | ||
| It's less hurtful than using a taser. | ||
| And obviously it's much safer than using your firearm. | ||
| So it's one of those, it's very discretionary and it's very subjective of how that officer feels in the moment. | ||
| What's the best way in which I can disperse this crowd or gain compliance quickly without causing injury to others? | ||
| I do have a couple more calls for you. | ||
| Let me get to Paul in Florida, Republican. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Yes, my question is: how many, you know, all these people are complaining about ISIS. | ||
| Okay, I would like to know how many people that's been calling in would like to have their job to try to protect just the people out there. | ||
| You know, everybody's complaining about them, but the way I see it is we need this. | ||
| If we don't have this, what's going to happen to our laws? | ||
|
unidentified
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That's it. | |
| What's going to happen? | ||
| That's Paul in Florida. | ||
| I'm not sure there's a question there for you, Jillian Snyder, unless you want to take it up. | ||
|
unidentified
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I can give a quick comment. | |
| I mean, any position in law enforcement is a calling. | ||
| You don't take it because you expect to make the big bucks. | ||
| You do take it because you want to protect and serve. | ||
| And whether it's with ICE or CBP or DEA or working with your local or city police departments, that's a calling to you. | ||
|
unidentified
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You wanted to do something to protect and serve and preserve the humanity of your community. | |
| And I really do respect everyone that takes the oath and goes into law enforcement. | ||
| Is that why you went into law enforcement as a New York City police officer? | ||
| What was your story? | ||
|
unidentified
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My story quick. | |
| I grew up in New York City and my dad actually was in prison for a long time before I was born. | ||
| And when I was growing up, he was very much like, you have to be good and you have to do the right thing and you have to follow the law and don't be like me at all. | ||
| So I was probably about 11 or 12 and I thought about a career in law enforcement, but what really drove me into it was 9-11. | ||
|
unidentified
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I did live in the city when 9-11 happened and seeing the heroism of both FDNY and the NYPD and everyone else that was down there, that's what really drove me into a career in law enforcement. | |
| And what brought you to the R Street Institute? | ||
| So when I retired in 2020 from the NYPD, I had already gotten hired at John Jay College to teach there as a professor. | ||
|
unidentified
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And I had that whole like theory, research, research policy of Agvil going. | |
| So I just got really invested in using the expertise that I have and the career I had in law enforcement to work in conjunction with my academic history and try and bring forth smart policy recommendations. | ||
| And whether people agree with them or not, I'm trying my best to do anything I can to preserve public safety or uphold public safety. | ||
| RStreet.org. | ||
| All right, last call here is Crystal in Maryland Democrat. | ||
|
unidentified
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Go ahead. | |
| Hi, I'd like to know, first of all, if they were patrols, what on border were they patrolling? | ||
| And also, if they had a warrant to arrest a specific person, why were so many agents just roaming the streets? | ||
| And also, after they pepper sprayed Alex, he was essentially disabled. | ||
| So why didn't they just leave him alone and let him just deal with not being able to see or whatever? | ||
|
unidentified
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They sprayed him in the eye and then they tackled him. | |
| So what was the purpose? | ||
| And then once they, so he was actually disabled, then they disarmed him by taking the gun. | ||
| Then they shoot him and shot him point blank. | ||
|
unidentified
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So and that's the first shot. | |
| And then the other nine shots, actually, the agent and able, I mean, endangered all of the people, all of the other protesters and all the agents and everything. | ||
| And they consider that good training. | ||
| I consider that very poor training. | ||
| That's Crystal. | ||
| Jillian Snyder, give you the final minute here. | ||
|
unidentified
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There were a lot of questions in there, so I don't know which one to answer first. | |
| But what I'm going to say is what this woman is accounting is basically some of the anecdotal information people are saying after they watch some of the bystander videos. | ||
| I have not yet heard when they took the gun off of Mr. Predi. | ||
|
unidentified
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I have no idea when that occurred. | |
| I know that the gun was removed and it was placed in a CBP agent's car. | ||
| So again, the timeline still needs to be figured out before we come to any reasonable conclusion. | ||
| But what I will say is regarding your very first question, you asked why CBP was there to begin with. | ||
|
unidentified
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Now, with CBP, we know differs from ICE, but ICE has an operation, this Metro Surge operation. | |
| And because they don't have enough personnel, they are now taking CBP agents who, yes, customarily would be working at borders or within 100 miles of a border, but they're taking them to aid in ICE operations because they also have the training for immigration laws. | ||
| But ICE does not have the personnel levels to be able to sustain all of these operations. | ||
|
Kimmett Joins Book Club
00:02:36
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| Jillian Snyder is a senior fellow for criminal justice and civil liberties issues at the R Street Institute. | ||
| RStreet.org is where you can find more of her work. | ||
| And we appreciate your time this morning on the Washington Journal. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you, John. | |
| Have a great day. | ||
| Same view. | ||
| Coming up this morning, a little bit later today, today marks the 40th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. | ||
| Later in the program, we'll be joined by Florida State University's Ronald Dole to discuss that incident and how it affected space exploration. | ||
| But up next, retired Brigadier General Mark Kimmett joins us to discuss U.S. operations in Venezuela as Secretary of State Marco Rupio testifies today on that topic before the Senate. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
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Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series, Sunday, with our guest Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author John Meacham, who has written numerous books chronicling American history. | |
| His books include And There Was Light, Thomas Jefferson, and the prize-winning American Lion, Andrew Jackson, in the White House. | ||
| He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein. | ||
| Watch America's Book Club with John Meacham Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| In a divided media world, one place brings Americans together. | ||
| According to a new Maggot Research report, nearly 90 million Americans turn to C-SPAN, and they're almost perfectly balanced. | ||
| 28% conservative, 27% liberal or progressive, 41% moderate. | ||
| Republicans watching Democrats, Democrats watching Republicans, moderates watching all sides. | ||
| Because C-SPAN viewers want the facts straight from the source. | ||
| No commentary, no agenda, just democracy. | ||
| Unfiltered every day on the C-SPAN networks. | ||
| Best ideas and best practices can be found anywhere. | ||
| We have to listen so we can govern better. | ||
| Democracy depends on heavy doses of civility. | ||
| You can fight and still be friendly. | ||
|
unidentified
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Bridging the divide in American politics. | |
| You know, you may not agree with a Democrat on everything, but you can find areas where you do agree. | ||
|
unidentified
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He's a pretty likable guy as well. | |
| Chris Kins and I are actually friends. | ||
| He votes wrong all the time, but we're actually friends. | ||
| A horrible secret that Scott and I have is that we actually respect each other. | ||
| We all don't hate each other. | ||
| You two actually kind of like each other. | ||
| These are the kinds of secrets we'd like to expose. | ||
|
Debathification Debate
00:05:30
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| It's nice to be with a member who knows what they're talking about. | ||
|
unidentified
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You guys did agree to the civility, all right? | |
| He owes my son $10 from a bet. | ||
| He'll fork it over. | ||
| That's fighting words right now. | ||
| I'm glad I'm not in charge. | ||
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unidentified
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I'm thrilled to be on the show with him. | |
| There are not shows like this, right? | ||
| Incentivizing that relationship. | ||
|
unidentified
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Ceasefire, Friday nights on C-SPAN. | |
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Retired Brigadier General and former George W. Bush Administration Assistant Secretary of State Mark Kimmett joins us as our guest this morning. | ||
| And general, in a little over an hour, Secretary of State Marco Rubio set to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the future of U.S. involvement in Venezuela. | ||
| What questions do you think he should be expecting from senators at that hearing? | ||
| Well, I think he's going to obviously get hit by a number of questions. | ||
| Let's not talk about the acrimonious questions he will be asked because I think what's really important is what is the future of Venezuela? | ||
| We've taken a different approach towards Venezuela than we have for, say, Iraq, Afghanistan. | ||
| It's more like what we did with Panama when we brought Noriega out, left the government in place, and then worked with Panama to sort of restore its democracy. | ||
| So I think the real issues that would be brought up is how quickly will the country transition to free and fair elections? | ||
| How are we going to control the oil industry when the oil executives have said at this point it's not an investable environment? | ||
| What is going to happen if Darcy Rodriguez, who is already starting to push back, just refuses to work with the United States? | ||
| Are we going to take another set of actions in regards to that? | ||
| And of course, they're going to be the acrimonious question. | ||
| Why do you think you need to do this? | ||
| Why Venezuela? | ||
| Explain to us the Don Road doctrine. | ||
| So there are a lot of questions that will be asked, and they're legitimate questions that the executive branch has a responsibility to answer. | ||
| If Panama is the roadmap here and not Iraq, what are the pitfalls that we should be worried about here so we follow one road and not the other? | ||
| Yeah, I said that Panama was an example, but I don't think it's an exact analog. | ||
| The issue, of course, is what are we going to do with the military and the paramilitary forces if they decide not to work alongside with us? | ||
| I don't think we're going to try to change them, but they need to be supportive of Darcy Rodriguez. | ||
| And if that doesn't happen, then we've got a problem. | ||
| They've got a long-standing administration. | ||
| I don't think we should go through any kind of debathification program. | ||
| I hope we don't want to put any litmus tests on those senior administrators, but that could be a problem as well. | ||
| And of course, doing this with somewhat of a 6,000-mile screwdriver, how are we going to be able to, are we going to be able to fine-tune our objectives in Venezuela without interference? | ||
| And the other problems I would expect to see is what's Russia going to do about this? | ||
| What's Iran going to do about this? | ||
| There's a Hezbollah presence inside there. | ||
| How are we going to handle if the Chinese try to block our actions there? | ||
| So there are a lot of questions that he will need to answer. | ||
| You used the term debathification in your answer there. | ||
| Explain what that means and explain your experience with that term. | ||
| Yeah, I wrote an article about this for Politico EU talking about the missteps from Iraq that we didn't want to replicate inside of Venezuela. | ||
| The Iraqi government was, if you wanted a job, you had to belong to the Bath Party. | ||
| It was a nationalist party organization that came originally from Syria. | ||
| So if you wanted to be a teacher, if you wanted to be a doctor working for the federal health system, if you wanted to be a senior official, you had to belong to the Bath Party. | ||
| Well, the Bath Party and under Saddam was responsible for the genocide, attempted genocide of the Kurds, and the attempted takeover of the Shia South. | ||
| So when the expats we brought in, such as Ahmed Chalabi, took over, they established an incredibly, incredibly thorough debathification program down to the fourth or fifth level of the administration. | ||
| So we fundamentally just pushed out all the experts. | ||
| We pushed out all of the experienced teachers. | ||
| And we did that in the military as well by pushing out most, if not all, of the army because they had been responsible for the repression. | ||
| So it's generally known under the broad term of de-baffation. | ||
| didn't work inside of Iraq, and it wouldn't work inside of Venezuela, in my estimation. | ||
|
NATO Shifts Focus
00:15:27
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| Retired Brigadier General Mark Kimmett is our guest with us this morning and taking your phone calls on phone lines as usual. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| A special line for current and former military. | ||
| 2027-8003. | ||
| Go ahead and get your calls in, having this conversation ahead of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. | ||
| That's set to take place at 10 a.m. | ||
| And you can watch that on C-SPAN too. | ||
| Earlier this month, Secretary of Rubio laid out a three-part plan for the future of Venezuela. | ||
| Let me flash back to that from January the 7th. | ||
| This is about a minute and a half long. | ||
| Step one is the stabilization of the country. | ||
| We don't want it descending into chaos. | ||
| Part of that stabilization, and the reason why we understand and believe that we have the strongest leverage possible, is our quarantine. | ||
| As you've seen today, two more ships were seized. | ||
| We are in the midst right now, and in fact, about to execute on a deal to take all the oil. | ||
| They have oil that is stuck in Venezuela. | ||
| They can't move it because of our quarantine and because it's sanctioned. | ||
| We are going to take between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil. | ||
| We're going to sell it in the marketplace at market rates, not at the discounts Venezuela was getting. | ||
| That money will then be handled in such a way that we will control how it is dispersed in a way that benefits the Venezuelan people, not corruption, not the regime. | ||
| So we have a lot of leverage to move on the stabilization front. | ||
| The second phase will be a phase that we call recovery, and that is ensuring that American, Western, and other companies have access to the Venezuelan market a way that's fair. | ||
| Also, at the same time, begin to create the process of reconciliation nationally within Venezuela so that the opposition forces can be amnestied and released and from prisons or brought back to the country and begin to rebuild civil society. | ||
| And then the third phase, of course, will be one of transition. | ||
| Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Capitol Hill back at the beginning of the month, listening to that description, General Kimmett, does that sound like a plan like the one you're calling for? | ||
| One with a lighter hand, a shorter timeline, a healthy dose of humility, and lower expectations. | ||
| It really does, except we've got to ask the question: what happens if those phases are interrupted or blocked? | ||
| What is the U.S. plan for that? | ||
| What he also needs to answer, and he doesn't answer that in his objectives, what are the second and third order consequences within the region? | ||
| For example, Cuba, which is going to be significantly affected with this, what's China going to do, who desperately needs the oil to maintain their economic engine over there? | ||
| On your political article that we've been referring to on what's next for Venezuela, a healthy dose of humility. | ||
| Can you dive into what you mean on that one? | ||
| Yeah, listen, I was part of the first military forces that went into Iraq, came in a little bit after Baghdad had fallen. | ||
| And the sense that I think the administration conveyed was a bit of hubris that somehow we were going to try to not only change out Saddam Hussein and the top leadership, but also change the society inside of Iraq from a Bathist, somewhat backward 70s-era administration and society. | ||
| We were going to bring them in to the modern world. | ||
| Oil was going to feed an industrial boom inside the country, and this was all part of the Democracy Project. | ||
| Oddly enough, the democracy has held inside of Iraq. | ||
| They just finished their seventh set of elections. | ||
| They're arguing about who's going to be the prime minister now since parliamentary system. | ||
| But I'd say the hubris that I saw and experienced from both the U.S. government and candidly some expats that we probably should have screened a little bit closer when they were saying we will be greeted as liberators. | ||
| I think that's the kind of humility we ought to consider as we work with Venezuela to recover and prosper as Secretary Rubio was suggesting. | ||
| General Mark Kimmett, our guest taking your phone calls, and Michael is up first out of Florida. | ||
| Independent, Michael, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| My question, well, two questions are, why do you think the United States has the right to violate the sovereignty of another country and kidnap its leader? | ||
| And further, what right do we have to determine the use of Venezuelan oil? | ||
| It's their resources. | ||
| They should be able to determine for themselves the use of their own resources. | ||
| Well, let's not spend too much time on that. | ||
| The fact remains, the oil was designated not only by the United States, but I suspect, if I remember, also by the United Nations in terms of how it was distributed and the government that was distributing it. | ||
| The other part about it is that's the patrimony of the Venezuelan people. | ||
| It's money that needs to go back to them, not to bolster an illegal and for the most part corrupt regime that is benefiting the regime, benefiting from the oil more so than the people that it belongs to. | ||
| A question from a viewer watching and tweeting along on X, asking about how we defend our carrier group that is down there, which speaks to a bigger question of how long you expect the military presence that we have off the coast of Venezuela, how long can we keep that up? | ||
| And what limitations does that bring for other U.S. operations around the globe? | ||
| Well, the group has reduced considerably. | ||
| And as we know now, the Navy is able to surge a force back to the Persian Gulf. | ||
| The United States does have a worldwide mission. | ||
| We talk about the aircraft carriers being 50,000 tons of diplomacy. | ||
| The view right now is that the ability to move those forces all around the world means that we're going to pull some out of Venezuela as it's no longer as much of a threat as perceived before and move some of those assets and that capability over to the Persian Gulf. | ||
| So I'm not too worried about the military capability. | ||
| If we needed to keep a full carrier task force off the coast of Venezuela, we'd rotate new troops and new carrier task force after a while. | ||
| But we've got a pretty good military that can basically juggle many responsibilities at the same time. | ||
| What are your thoughts about another potential U.S. strike on Iran? | ||
| President Trump hinting at that, talking about it amid those protests. | ||
| That has died down since the crackdown on those protesters in Iran. | ||
| But what are your thoughts on our ability to carry that out right now? | ||
| Yeah, I think, well, first of all, I'm not worried about the ability for the U.S. to carry it out, probably with some other allies. | ||
| Who they go after and how they go after it, I would suspect part of it will be against their nuclear facilities, which they're rebuilding. | ||
| I'm far more worried about miscalculation on the part of the Iranians that they use this as a provocation to do a preemptive strike. | ||
| One of the reasons we're getting that carrier task force back in the region is primarily because of the missile and rocket capabilities that the Iranians have. | ||
| And what that carrier task force brings with it is a significant capability to augment the air defense capabilities of not only the regional powers, our allies, but also the U.S. troops that we have on the ground in places such as Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and so on and so forth. | ||
| So I hope we're going in there primarily as a demonstration of deterrence. | ||
| It's certainly the case that the president makes a decision to go in. | ||
| I think that if the riots were still going on, the likely target would be against those that are repressing the Iranian people. | ||
| But let's simply hope we get that task force back in place because we routinely have a military force in the water there. | ||
| And let's hope that it provides the deterrence that is necessary at this point until the Iranians give us reason and hopefully they don't, but give us reason to strike. | ||
| You served in Iraq alongside NATO partners. | ||
| What are your thoughts on the state of the NATO alliance right now in the wake of President Trump's threats to take Greenland? | ||
| Yeah, well, let's just talk about the NATO. | ||
| I've served in NATO far more than I served in the Middle East, both on NATO operations and actually in the NATO military headquarters. | ||
| So I know the organization quite well. | ||
| You know, there's a joke about the purpose of NATO originally. | ||
| It was to keep the Russians out, keep the Americans in, and keep the Germans down. | ||
| And it's been successful in that for over the years. | ||
| But every president since the founding of NATO has argued that our NATO allies are not pairing their fair share for their own defense, for their own contributions to NATO. | ||
| The United States has been burdened with more of its GDP than any other country for defensive capability. | ||
| And in the minds of many and in the verbiage of President Trump, he's not going to allow any free loading anymore. | ||
| For example, Canada enjoys a wonderful social welfare system because the money they save on defense can be used for that social welfare system because they got the United States providing in many ways defense of their country and the NATO contributions. | ||
| So look, he was threatening, President Trump was threatening to pull out in his first term. | ||
| I think he is pretty verbose about how he feels about NATO. | ||
| But interestingly, I think Secretary General Ruta is the Secretary General of NATO, agrees completely with President Trump on his goals, perhaps not his ways and means he's going about to get it, | ||
| his accomplishment, get NATO as a much stronger security organization, but he certainly agrees with the goals, which is a cohesive, capable deterrence to enemies and threats against the North Atlantic. | ||
| More callers for you. | ||
| This is Patricia waiting in Maryland, line for Democrats. | ||
| Patricia, you're on with General Kimmett. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| You were talking about debaffing. | ||
| My question is, what you described, hasn't Trump done that already? | ||
| Inside of the military? | ||
| Inside. | ||
| Patricia, go ahead, General Kimmett. | ||
| I'm sorry, debaffification in Venezuela? | ||
| No, I don't think he's done that at all. | ||
| He's brought out the two, you know, the president and his wife, and he's left fundamentally the entire Venezuelan administration in place. | ||
| And what are the risks of doing that? | ||
| The risks of doing that is a perpetuation and continuation of the Shavista ideology down there, which is primarily socialist, communist, one-man rule. | ||
| But as I say in my article, if that's what the people of Venezuela want in a free and fair election, I think our humility ought to say we can work with that. | ||
| We need to work with that. | ||
| We don't need to go in and bring in some well-spoken expatriate who's been out of the country for 25 years. | ||
| And I'd say the same thing for Iran. | ||
| To Michigan, it's Vicksburg, Michigan. | ||
| This is John, Independent. | ||
| John, good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I just got a couple of comments. | ||
| First comment is that I think that the foreign policy of a few administrations, including this one, have been short-sighted at best and almost polyana-ish at worst. | ||
| As far as the policy in Venezuela, I mean, what I wish is I wish that the United States would concentrate more on having our oil industry, our energy industry, benefit us as opposed to how it's going to benefit the Venezuelans, because we're getting gouged by the oil and gas industry constantly, and it's been going on for years. | ||
| That's all I got to say. | ||
| General. | ||
| Well, I appreciate the comment, and there's some merit to that. | ||
| But the whole idea is if you can get the Venezuelan oil on the open market, the supply increase would lower oil prices. | ||
| I think if you take a look at our gas prices, I'm not an expert on it, but if you take a look at what the American consumer would be paying at the gas pump, net of all taxes, of all taxes that were put into the gas prices, you probably, I would estimate, we'd be paying $1.50 a gallon. | ||
| I may be wrong, but I certainly know that we pay a pretty hefty tax at the gas pump. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Well, certainly the case, something's got to pay for the roads, something's got to pay for the bridges. | ||
| That money doesn't appear from anywhere. | ||
| And if the gas is in our vehicles that beat up our roads, then we need to bear some of that infrastructure cost. | ||
| I've lived overseas over half my military career. | ||
| I can tell you, compared to other countries in Europe and elsewhere, our gas is much, much cheaper. | ||
| Just about 10 minutes left with retired General Mark Kimmett joining us this morning ahead of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's testimony on Capitol Hill about the future of Venezuela. | ||
| General Kimmett, also the former Assistant Secretary of State in the George W. Bush administration, taking your phone calls. | ||
| For Democrats, it's 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
|
Messaging in Venezuela
00:11:17
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| Active and retired military. | ||
| 202-748-8003. | ||
| Coming back to that politico post that we've referenced a couple times in this conversation, General Kemet, you write that messaging will be key in Venezuela in persuading the people of that country that the U.S. is a force for good, an agent for change, and committed to returning the national patrimony to its rightful owners. | ||
| What sort of messaging are we talking about here? | ||
| Well, first of all, it's got to be the counter messaging from our historical operations inside of Central and South America in the past, the banana wars, in many ways, the expropriation of land. | ||
| And it's just generally the whole idea about what we're down there for. | ||
| To this day, I spent a lot of time in Iraq. | ||
| To this day, my friends are still convinced the United States came into Iraq simply to steal all their oil. | ||
| So I think we've got to not only message, but demonstrate to the people through actual cash transfers back to the government and tell the people of the government, the people of the country through television, through radio, through print media. | ||
| This is how much money we've returned to the people. | ||
| And if you want to know where it is, oh, by the way, talk to your government. | ||
| And I think this whole message about all we're trying to do is help you. | ||
| We don't want to mess with your military. | ||
| We don't want to mess with your administration. | ||
| We don't want to make the missteps we've done before and hold us accountable to it. | ||
| So I think those are the types of messages that we need to be given to the Venezuela people, candidly bypassing the current Shavista government, because of course they will try to twist the words. | ||
| You mentioned your friends in Iraq still. | ||
| How would you describe the current relationship between the United States and Iraq? | ||
| Very interesting because that's a 24-hour old question. | ||
| We've insisted on free and fair elections inside of Iraq. | ||
| They have successfully transitioned governments, I think, seven times through what have been considered free and fair elections. | ||
| Nobody has disputed them. | ||
| Nobody said that there was cheating involved. | ||
| It's a parliamentary system. | ||
| So once the voters have voted for parties and people, those parties then elect a prime minister by majority vote of the parliament. | ||
| Yesterday, President Trump put out a message that the likely prime minister is going to be Nuri al-Maliki, and we will not work with him. | ||
| So I think there may be some people in Iraq that are glad that Nuri al-Maliki will not return again. | ||
| He has somewhat of a jaded history. | ||
| But there's very little doubt in my mind that there are a significant number of Iraqis that are saying, wait a second, we picked this guy. | ||
| You didn't pick this guy. | ||
| You don't get a veto on who we pick. | ||
| And of course, the concern I have is Tehran is delighted with our view that we should be picking winners and losers in Iraq. | ||
| So that's what I mean. | ||
| What should we know about the history of Nouri al-Maliki? | ||
| Well, again, he had two terms, and during his first two terms, there was a significant politization of the military, which in many ways led to the military falling apart when ISIS invaded. | ||
| So I think that's the major concern, that he will again politicize many of the institutions well beyond what we expect. | ||
| You know, when a president comes in, he gets to pick some of his people. | ||
| But It seemed like Nuri al-Maliki, in the impression of many, drove a wedge back into Iraqi society where he showed preference towards his parties, his people, his sect, his religion to the detriment of the Sunnis and the Kurds, primarily the Sunnis. | ||
| Do you think President Trump's statements on Maliki will change enough votes in the parliament to have a different outcome? | ||
| You know, that's a great question and one that I can't answer. | ||
| There are a lot of people that don't want Nuri al-Maliki to come back. | ||
| They were very, very happy with Prime Minister Soudani, who's finishing his term, a very successful term. | ||
| Most people agree with that. | ||
| But will this change the needle? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Either those that say, good, we didn't want Maliki in the first place, this gives us the excuse to change our vote, or does it in fact create more parliamentary members who are saying, I don't like Nouri al-Maliki, but telling us who we should pick is an affront to us. | ||
| And I'm going to pick Nuri al-Maliki simply to show the Americans that they don't control us anymore. | ||
| Just a few more calls for you in this segment. | ||
| General Kimmett, this is Raymond in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Independent. | ||
| Raymond, thanks for waiting. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Thank you, sir. | ||
| I appreciate your commentary. | ||
| I want to mention that Venezuela, obviously, is a different story with the invasion. | ||
| It was needed, and it's because of the facts speak that the military and the government is corrupt, as you said. | ||
| And the people, vast majority, have voted against the system in previous elections. | ||
| So what's the plan to get the opposition involved? | ||
| The opposition, there's been a brain drain in Venezuela. | ||
| A vast majority of those that are professional think and so forth, they're out of the country because of this whole collapse of the economy. | ||
| And I don't see anything stretching any hands out to the opposition leaders working with that opposition in the country and the expatriate community, which again, as I said, there's been a vast brain drain. | ||
| They're out here in communities in Florida and New York. | ||
| There's one guy, Diego Arias. | ||
| I spoke to him. | ||
| He was the ambassador, UN, for some years for Venezuela. | ||
| And there's people like that. | ||
| So I think that it's not like you're trying to set up a new regime. | ||
| It's a very different story. | ||
| This is all wanted by Venezuelans. | ||
| You know, you're not coming in there and doing a regime change. | ||
| But it needs to be done steps that may look overt and as though it's another puppet state or something, but it's not. | ||
| The people want it. | ||
| So I just want to ask you about that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| General. | ||
| Well, yeah, thanks for your comments. | ||
| I mean, the fact remains is the Shavistas have run the richest country by natural resources in the region into poverty and hyperinflation because of their policies. | ||
| In the last election, the party represented by Maria Colchado and other officials were said to, in fact, be the winners of the election, but the votes were manipulated and kept the current Maduro party in power. | ||
| So as I said, I think the United States, and we should listen to what the Secretary of State says today about free and fair elections. | ||
| Are we going to push them? | ||
| What's going to be our timeline? | ||
| Is this going to be a UN program? | ||
| Hopefully we can get the UN in there to administer it and to declare it free and fair as we do around the world. | ||
| So the timeline for that is going to be important because I think if they parachuted in all the opposition today, we wouldn't hear from them in a couple of weeks, a number of them. | ||
| But I think that ought to be part of that recovery that the Secretary of State is talking about. | ||
| And I agree with you completely. | ||
| Free and fair elections and leadership inside the country that represents the people, not the Shavistas. | ||
| Or if the Shavistas win, let them stay in place. | ||
| But there should be legitimate opposition that is not suppressed or stepped on the way we're seeing with the protesters inside of Iran. | ||
| Last call, this is Nancy in Florida. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was wondering if you could give an objective history of Cuba before Fidel Castro got there and the U.S. involvement and like the United Troop Company and the casinos and mafia and how the United States participated in that corruption. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| I don't want to have your book on that, but go ahead, sir. | ||
| Very quickly. | ||
| I mean, after the Spanish-American War, the Spanish sort of pulled their hands out of Cuba and the United States, because of the proximity, had a pretty close relationship with Cuba. | ||
| Now, one could argue, up until the time of Fidel Castro, whether that was innocent, pure, and purely in the benefit of the Cuban people. | ||
| Fidel would not have taken root inside of Cuba had the people there not believed that he offered a better alternative. | ||
| I think what has happened since then, of course, speaks for itself. | ||
| Yes, Cuba may graduate more doctors than anyone else in the Caribbean, Latin America, or South America. | ||
| But I think anybody that's been to Cuba realizes the potential for what that country could become. | ||
| But the United States does not necessarily have an uncheckered history inside of Cuba, particularly around the time that Fidel was trying to come into power. | ||
| So let's hope that the Cuban people eventually lift themselves from the communist regime that they're living under and enjoy the fruits that all the other, most of the other Caribbean nations enjoy. | ||
| Retired General Mark Kimmett is the former Assistant Secretary of State for the George W. Bush administration. | ||
| His recent column that we've been talking about throughout this segment appeared in Politico. | ||
| If you want to read that column, it was January 7th. | ||
| And we always appreciate your time, sir. | ||
| Thanks for stopping by. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Just clarification, it's in politico-EU, not in politico. | ||
| Polito. | ||
| Thank you for having me. | ||
| EU. | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I appreciate it. | ||
| Sure. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Bye-bye. | |
| Coming up in our final 30 minutes this morning, it is the 40th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. | ||
| We're going to talk about the Space Shuttle Challenger, the history of that program, and what it meant in the weeks, months, and years to the space travel after the Challenger explosion. | ||
|
Donate Today
00:02:51
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| We'll be joined by Florida State University History Professor Ronald Dole for that conversation. | ||
| Stick around. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
| C-SPAN is as unbiased as you can get. | ||
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unidentified
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You are so fair. | |
| I don't know how anybody can say otherwise. | ||
| You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country. | ||
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unidentified
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I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices. | |
| You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds. | ||
| I absolutely love C-SPAN. | ||
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| I've watch C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased and you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments. | ||
| This is probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country. | ||
| You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions. | ||
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unidentified
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Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark. | |
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
|
People on the Moon Fire Test
00:06:42
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| Today marks 40 years since the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart and exploded 73 seconds after takeoff. | ||
| It was 1139 a.m. Eastern on January the 28th of 1986 when the seven members of the crew, as Ronald Reagan would later tell America, slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God. | ||
| Joining us to discuss the anniversary is Florida State University History Professor Ronald Dole. | ||
| And Professor Dole, it was one of those days where people remember where they were when it happened. | ||
| Where were you when it happened? | ||
| What do you remember about that day? | ||
| It's indeed a flashball memory event. | ||
| And I was lucky in one way to be a member of the Press Corps and as a historian at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, one of NASA's main facilities. | ||
| But I was there for the Voyager 2 spacecraft, the unmanned spacecraft encounter with the planet Uranus, the first time that any spacecraft had reached there. | ||
| It was an extraordinary time for discovery and then an absolute tragedy when the news broke in the press room at JPL. | ||
| What was your immediate reaction? | ||
| There was shock and there was powerful emotion. | ||
| NASA is in some ways a large community. | ||
| Certainly 40 years ago, people, if they didn't know others, they didn't know that the astronauts on board the shuttle, some of the planetary scientists who were at JPL had trained some of the astronauts who were part of the Apollo program. | ||
| What would it be like to do geology on the moon? | ||
| So it was the kind of tragedy at JPL that we experience when there's a loss, an unexpected loss within a family. | ||
| What was the Challenger's mission that day? | ||
| Why was it going up? | ||
| Among all the shuttle missions had a number of components and goals, but one of the key ones was to bring the first civilian into space, the first teacher in space, which was something that President Ronald Reagan was going to announce in the State of the Union address. | ||
| And it was clear that one of the main strengths of that particular mission would be to demonstrate the reliability of the shuttle, access into space, the ability of a civilian, a teacher coming out of our school system, to be doing a classroom from space. | ||
| Her name, Kristen McAuliffe. | ||
| How did she get chosen for the Challenger mission? | ||
| Apparently, 15,000 teachers applied from around the country. | ||
| And Kristen McCullough had a lot of energy, was able to share her enthusiasm particularly well, was suited for the physical rigor of doing astronaut training. | ||
| All those factors came together. | ||
| When that moment happened and the country saw the tragedy of the Challenger exploding, you mentioned you were shocked. | ||
| What was the history to that point till 1986 of NASA and the U.S. losing astronauts to tragedies as we tried to explore the final frontier as it was known? | ||
| Back in the 1960s, the second half of the 60s, people remember the Apollo 1 fire. | ||
| It was a test of the capsule that would take people to the moon. | ||
| And a spark on board the spacecraft when it was at the Cape ignited a fire and killed those astronauts. | ||
| It was also an enormous tragedy, but it was not a launch event. | ||
| There weren't people expecting a particular outcome. | ||
| Then came the successful Apollo missions. | ||
| Apollo 8, Christmas Eve on 1968, the first orbit of the moon, the photographs that came back of Earthrise that became iconic. | ||
| And then in July 69, the landing of Apollo 11, the first humans on the moon. | ||
| Apollo 13, there was a problem with the spacecraft, but all the astronauts came back safely. | ||
| So there was a growing sense that NASA had figured out how to operate safely in space. | ||
| And we'll be exploring the history of space travel at NASA on C-SPAN's American History TV on C-SPAN 2 for our viewers throughout the day on Saturday, this coming Saturday, starting at 8 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| Encourage viewers who want to watch eight hours of the history of NASA, tune in throughout the day. | ||
| Professor Dole, as we focus on the Challenger, what was the space shuttle? | ||
| Why was it built? | ||
| What was its purpose, especially in the wake of the Apollo missions and the successful dozen Americans who ended up walking on the moon? | ||
| It's a great question. | ||
| And as you so well put it, we've reached the moon. | ||
| We've explored what do we do now? | ||
| Where do we go from here? | ||
| And one of the ideas that emerged, could NASA figure out a way to get people and material into space cheaply, reliably, in a vehicle that could be launched but then flown back to Earth, be reusable. | ||
| It's a bit of a crude term, but at the time, some people were thinking of the shuttle as a kind of space truck or space bus, an easy, fast way to return to space, to help build space stations. | ||
|
O-Ring Vulnerabilities
00:02:42
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| So the focus became how to get these shuttles built, launched quickly, refitted, sent back into space. | ||
| And in contrast, and this is something that's become much clearer over the decades since then, the numbers of redundancy systems that helped make Apollo such a robust technology that made it work in the way that it did were not as deeply engineered into the space shuttle program. | ||
| There were vulnerabilities, call them red flags, deviations from expected behavior of a particular part of the technology that increasingly became accepted. | ||
| Perhaps it wasn't going to be that big a risk. | ||
| And in January 1986, one of those risks that had been identified came to claim the shuttle itself. | ||
| What was the specific vulnerability after a very long investigation in the wake of the Challenger explosion? | ||
| What went wrong? | ||
| The shuttle launch had both a liquid rocket in the center and two solid rocket boosters, all needed to get a heavy spacecraft into space. | ||
| And the solid rocket boosters, they're huge and they couldn't be transported as a single piece. | ||
| They were joined and at the joints was what was called an O-ring. | ||
| Easy to imagine. | ||
| It was the way to seal all the segments of this long tube that held the solid propellant that would be burning. | ||
| And you needed a seal to be kept quite strong to prevent any flame from leaking out the side. | ||
| Engineers at the company that designed and built the solid rocket boosters, Morton Thiokol, the engineers realized it was cold at The Cape that day, much colder than the design specifics for the kind of material, the rubber, that was used for the O-ring. | ||
| And they said there's a danger. | ||
| If you fly the space shuttle at this temperature on this frigid day, there's a possibility that seal won't hold. | ||
|
Columbia Tragedy Remembered
00:10:48
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| And that's exactly what unfolded. | ||
| And as we said, it was a moment that if you were alive, you probably remember where you were that day. | ||
| Happy to hear those stories from callers, what you remember about that tragedy that the nation watched together. | ||
| Here's how you can call in this morning. | ||
| If you're in the Eastern or Central time zones, it's 202-748-8000. | ||
| If you're in the Mountain or Pacific time zones, 202748-8001. | ||
| Professor Dole, as folks are calling in, that day was supposed to be the day, as you mentioned, that President Reagan would give his State of the Union address. | ||
| That address was postponed, and President Reagan addressed the country from the Oval Office about five minutes. | ||
| He spoke about the tragedy and about what it meant for the United States and for space travel. | ||
| This is about a minute and a half of what he told the country. | ||
| We'll continue our quest in space. | ||
| There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews, and yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. | ||
| Nothing ends here. | ||
| Our hopes and our journeys continue. | ||
| I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA or who worked on this mission and tell them your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. | ||
| And we know of your anguish. | ||
| We share it. | ||
| There's a coincidence today. | ||
| On this day, 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. | ||
| In his lifetime, the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said he lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it. | ||
| Well, today, we can say of the Challenger crew, their dedication was, like Drake's, complete. | ||
| The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us for the manner in which they lived their lives. | ||
| We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God. | ||
| That was President Reagan 40 years ago this evening in the wake of the Challenger disaster. | ||
| Professor Dole, what did that speech mean to the country? | ||
| It wasn't a speech. | ||
| It was a five-minute statement. | ||
| But what did it mean and what did it mean for the future of the space program after that disaster? | ||
| The speech was important given the shock and just sadness that was in the country in that moment. | ||
| And it was probably reassuring to many people to hear a framing that exploration isn't going to end with any one particular tragedy. | ||
| There's still a national commitment to continue to get humans into space. | ||
| Viewers writing in about their experience and what they remember from that day, here's a couple. | ||
| I was in elementary school. | ||
| The teachers combined a few of the classes into the same room for us to all watch live. | ||
| They wheeled in the box TV and we gathered excitedly. | ||
| And when it exploded, it was terrifying. | ||
| And the teachers' reaction, I will never forget. | ||
| I will never forget that day ever. | ||
| This is MLB saying, I was sitting watching the space launch with my children when that tragedy happened. | ||
| I remember her father's face, and it was apparent that something had happened. | ||
| And one more from Clown, who writes, was this event the biggest turning point in NASA? | ||
| How is this event the beginning of granting money out of NASA and into the hands of people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk? | ||
| How would you answer those final two questions? | ||
| Was it the biggest turning point for NASA? | ||
| Really good questions. | ||
| There probably are numerous turning points. | ||
| The decision early on in NASA's history when President Kennedy committed NASA and the country to get humans to the moon by the end of the decade, that was certainly a pivotal moment. | ||
| The shuttle program and the tragedy and then the later tragedy of the space shuttle Columbia were also turning points perhaps back in 1976 when the Viking landers reached the surface of Mars, transmitted photographs. | ||
| One can think of many, many points that were pivotal for future directions. | ||
| On the good question of private investment, there are patterns we can see in history that areas that are remote initially require the resources of a state of a nation to reach. | ||
| Once technologies advance, once opportunities emerge, private ventures start to become more and more significant. | ||
| And it's 40 years since the time of the Challenger loss. | ||
| And of course, private contractors were already building key components of NASA's spacecraft and the vehicles. | ||
| And it's been an evolution since that point. | ||
| You mentioned the Columbia disaster. | ||
| That was about 17 years after the Space Shuttle Challenger. | ||
| What happened there? | ||
| And was that the end of the space shuttle program? | ||
| You know, it was clear that the shuttles had a shelf life. | ||
| They weren't going to be operating continuously for the longest haul. | ||
| But when pieces of foam insulation from the main tank, the liquid tank, fell off, broke, hit the wing and damaged it, caused it to not be sealed. | ||
| And when Columbia went back into the atmosphere, in effect, there wasn't a heat shield intact anymore. | ||
| And the spacecraft burned, disintegrated as it flew, descended over the United States. | ||
| And I think I'm dropping a second question, John, that you were raising. | ||
| Whether this was the end of the shuttle program, the Columbia disaster, and when the shuttle program actually ended. | ||
| It helped accelerate the end, but it wasn't a turning point in the sense that it would have continued indefinitely had there not been that accident. | ||
| Shuttles that by that point, generally NASA and the broader space community had come to understand the ambitions for that technology just couldn't be reached. | ||
| The shuttles couldn't be launched that frequently needed care and attention between launch attempts and new ideas for getting into space were already in view by the time the Columbia disintegrated on re-entry. | ||
| On this, the 40th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, viewers writing in to say where they were and what they remember about that day. | ||
| Here's another one, Steve in Tampa, saying, I was in Orlando watching it on TV. | ||
| I went outside and I saw two plumes going in different directions, and I thought it was the boosters dropping off. | ||
| Four hours later, it was still a cloud in the same location, which I found to be quite eerie. | ||
| Steve's memories from Tampa, Florida. | ||
| Happy to hear your memories from that day from 40 years ago of the space shuttle Challenger disaster. | ||
| 202748-8000, if you're in the Eastern or Central time zone and you want to call in, 202748-8001, if you're in the Mountain or Pacific time zones, this is Amy in California. | ||
| Amy, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, good morning. | |
| I just wanted to make a comment. | ||
| I was home that day. | ||
|
unidentified
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My son was sick. | |
| He was nine at the time, so I was home from work and he was out of school. | ||
| And we were just here in California and we were watching that as it unfolded. | ||
| And it just, it was so shocking, you know, because we started out watching it as an exciting event on TV. | ||
| And you just, it was just unimaginable. | ||
| It took a couple hours to process what really happened. | ||
| And I still remember to this day, you know, watching it. | ||
| It's just shocking. | ||
| Amy, thanks for the call. | ||
| Professor Dole, from these memories from folks that we've read and from Amy there, what do you take from everybody sort of having that reaction that you had the shock of the thing? | ||
| You know, when Amy mentioned that, and yes, it took hours for people in the press room at JPL to recover enough to some were crying. | ||
| Some of the reporters who were there to cover the Voyager encounter with Uranus were immediately sent elsewhere in the country to cover the Challenger story. | ||
| You know, Amy, you were watching television in the press room. | ||
| There were monitors set up to project the newest images that were coming back from the Voyager spacecraft. | ||
| They were even at light speed taking over two and a half hours to get down to Earth. | ||
| Line by line by line, images of Uranus and the planets, the moons orbiting Uranus became visible for the first time. | ||
| And then that same television set switched to show exactly what you remembered. | ||
|
Jury Duty and the Challenger Disaster
00:03:10
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| The launch, the explosion, the solid rocket boosters tearing away from the spacecraft. | ||
| All that was very much a shared memory. | ||
| A little earlier, you talked about the red flags when it came to the space shuttle itself and the concerns about launching in the bitter cold that day. | ||
| When the final investigation happened, was there any blame assigned here? | ||
| What did the Rogers Commission, as it eventually was known as, what did they determine was wrong and who made the mistake? | ||
| Initially, there was concern was somehow at the lowest levels of NASA information about the vulnerability not communicated upward. | ||
| Looking back now, knowing much more about what happened, it's easier to look at the kinds of pressures that exist for any large technological systems where the state, in this case, | ||
| the federal government is a key patron doing what seemed necessary to make certain that the federal government was happy with the progress NASA was making with the shuttle program and all of NASA's programs. | ||
| It influenced the thinking of people at higher levels of NASA to minimize risks that in a different environment might have been taken far more seriously. | ||
| So in the end, I think the best perception and perspective on what happened is we need to be careful when we are developing these complex systems to find ways to try to really value the expert opinion, | ||
| the engineer's opinions, and figure out ways to weigh that against the larger concerns about survivability of institutions and agencies that occur at higher levels. | ||
| Is it your opinion that that is more likely to happen when it comes to private space travel as opposed to NASA leading the way? | ||
| It could, and again, it will depend on a range of factors, including the larger funding environment. | ||
| I think we all know that if we sense we might risk something important, we may overlook some of the concerns in taking a particular action. | ||
| And I don't think the vulnerability is unique to the government program or to the civilian and private ventures. | ||
|
Jury Duty Release
00:09:22
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| Another memory from a viewer. | ||
| This is Daoud in New York City saying, yesterday I was released from jury duty. | ||
| The day of this tragedy, I was serving jury duty. | ||
| I was late that day. | ||
| I walked into the jury room and it was empty and silent. | ||
| And I heard a gasp coming from the TV room. | ||
| Everyone's there watching the replay of the event. | ||
| It was a chilling moment, Daoud in New York City. | ||
| Taking your phone calls, if you want to share your memories from that day. | ||
| Again, one of these moments in U.S. history where people remember where they were 40 years ago today, the Challenger disaster. | ||
| 202748-8000 if you're in the Eastern or Mountain, Eastern or Central time zones. | ||
| If you're in the Mountain North Pacific time zones, 202748-8001. | ||
| This is Patrick in Norfolk, Virginia. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I was a supply officer on board USS Guam LPH-9, and we were doing an exercise with Marines off of Onslow Beach in North Carolina. | ||
| And so we were close enough to get a TV signal. | ||
| And I went into the wardroom for lunch that day and saw this tragedy unfold on TV of the Challenger exploding. | ||
| And then a number of days later, as we were making our way to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, we got vectored to pick up one of the shuttle booster rockets because we had a boat and anchor crane that was strong enough to lift that booster rocket. | ||
| And then we placed it on another Navy ship so it could be taken ashore. | ||
| So that was a very momentous moment. | ||
| Something I'll never forget for the rest of my life. | ||
| Patrick, what was it like seeing a piece of the Challenger after watching the explosion in the sky? | ||
| It was very eerie. | ||
| We had to put our rescue swimmer in the water so that he could hook up the slings to pick the booster rocket up. | ||
| It was just very eerie to watch it. | ||
| And then the other weird thing was we were given a medal, actually not a medal, a ribbon, called a Coast Guard Meritorious Unit Commendation with Operational Device. | ||
| And it came with it a big long scroll from NASA thanking us for our efforts to help advance space. | ||
| It's a very strange situation. | ||
| Do you still have that ribbon, that scroll? | ||
| I still have that. | ||
| Yes, and it was one of those ribbons. | ||
| People would see it on my chest, and they go, what the heck is that? | ||
| I've never seen that before. | ||
| And then I would say, well, that's the Coast Guard Meritorious Unit Commendation with Operational Device, which we received for picking up the shuttle booster rocket when I was on board USS Guam. | ||
| Do you have kids or grandkids, Patrick? | ||
| I do. | ||
| I have two children. | ||
| Have you told them the story of the Challenger? | ||
| Do they know this history? | ||
| Yes, I did. | ||
| They were not born yet. | ||
| My daughter was not born until 87. | ||
| My son was not born until 1990. | ||
| But for many of us on board USS Guam, it was probably our most memorable moment. | ||
| Patrick, thanks for sharing that story this morning. | ||
| 40 years since the Challenger explosion. | ||
| Frank is in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Frank, go ahead. | ||
| Yeah, John. | ||
| This is related to your topic today. | ||
| Your author may like this or may use this in a book. | ||
| My dad worked at Johnsville, NADC, in Warminster Township, Bucks County, just outside Philadelphia, for approximately 35 years. | ||
| He was a seven-year active duty Navy that got a job there from 53 to 86. | ||
| I bring this up because in the late 50s when they were training monkeys and whatnot to go into space and the Mercury astronauts, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Johnsville was the high-tech capital of America because they had the only centrifuge that these astronauts could train in. | ||
| And basically they all trained. | ||
| When we were growing up, we would be going over there for Armed Forces Day and see these people over there. | ||
| But it was the high-tech capital of America. | ||
| And a lot of these guys, like John Glenn and Gus Grissom, ended up going into Apollo and later on. | ||
| So I thought I just threw that out there that people don't know the history. | ||
| I say it to people that Johnsville was the high-tech capital of America with the space program. | ||
| They look at me like I'm crazy. | ||
| But it was. | ||
| The centrifuge is still in existence right on Jacksonville Road. | ||
| And the base closed in 95. | ||
| And now it's a, believe it or not, it's a nightclub now called the Fuge. | ||
| But that was, it was a high-tech capital of America when I was growing up. | ||
| We moved up from Philadelphia in 1964. | ||
| And I lived, you know, in, our whole family still lived, except for me, still lives in Warminster area. | ||
| But just to let you know, that's where John Glenn and Gus Grissom trained. | ||
| Thanks for talking about it, Frank. | ||
| Professor Dole, your thoughts on that history that Frank brings up. | ||
| Frank, thanks so much. | ||
| And I grew up near Philadelphia, so I was familiar with that story. | ||
| And it's a good reminder. | ||
| There are so many local connections to NASA across the country. | ||
| And that was in part a deliberate strategy, not only to take advantage of the best resources, and Pennsylvania had many of them. | ||
| Other states also did. | ||
| And it built support for NASA when there were so many local connections across the country. | ||
| We're coming up on 10 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| Just a reminder for C-SPAN viewers: we are going to head over to Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State's testimony on Capitol Hill. | ||
| He's before the Foreign Relations Committee today, testifying on the future of Venezuela. | ||
| That's where we're going to head after this program ends. | ||
| We're waiting for him to enter the hearing room there on the Senate side before the Foreign Relations Committee. | ||
| So we'll stay with this conversation on the 40th anniversary of the Challenger disaster until that hearing begins. | ||
| And we will hear from Jerome in Wisconsin. | ||
| Thanks for waiting. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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I can't remind us. | |
| Go ahead, Jerome. | ||
| Turn your television down. | ||
| Just speak through your phone, please. | ||
| Yes, thank you for taking my call. | ||
| My name is Jerome Johnson. | ||
| I'm a former student athlete at South Carolina State University. | ||
| And Eric McNair was my roommate. | ||
| And when he first became my roommate, he would tell me about his brother. | ||
| And me and the guys on the football team, we really didn't believe him because you got to think that in 1973, I think that was, in South Carolina, that just wasn't something that we were thinking about. | ||
| But he was. | ||
| That was Eric's brother, Ronald McNair. | ||
| And I'd like to give them my condolences and all my love for the sacrifices that he made. | ||
| Professor Dole on the crew of the Challenger. | ||
| Yep, thank you so much, Jerome, for that memory. | ||
| Yep, this was also a moment when the crews of the space shuttle began to reflect America better than had been the case, and certainly more than in the Apollo era. | ||
| So really good to be reminded of a personal story of Ron McNair. | ||
| John is in Illinois. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
| Hi, this is Turk from Hegwish. | ||
| I'd just like to remind everybody what a good time it was in 1984 or 86, excuse me. | ||
| We had just dedicated the Vietnam Veterans Memorial a couple years before. | ||
| The country was in a really, really great mood, and everybody was excited about the Challenger. | ||
| What I remember most is, of course, the media we were all watching. | ||
| And after everybody realized what happened, the media panned to the grandstand and focused in on the family. | ||
| And if that memory doesn't grab your heart and squeeze your heart real tight, hey, God bless us all and let's keep having a happy day, huh? | ||
| That's John in Illinois, and that's going to do it for this morning on the Washington Journal. | ||
| I want to thank you, Professor Ronald Dole, for joining us on this 40th anniversary of the Challenger disaster. | ||
| Thank you very much, and thank all the folks who contributed memories. | ||
| And for much more on the history of the U.S. Space Program, C-SPAN's American History TV on Saturday, starting at 8 a.m. all day long. | ||
| We will talk about the history of the space program and hope you join us over on C-SPAN2. | ||
| We're now going to take you up to Capitol Hill. | ||
| It is the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing room. | ||
| The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has just sat down before the gathered media, taking their pictures ahead of his hearing today. | ||