CSPAN - Washington Journal Open Phones
Aired: 2026-01-30
Duration: 03:46


=== Government Shutdown Negotiations (03:46) ===

[00:00:00]  In response to demonstrations at health care facilities and places of worship.
[00:00:04]  Earlier this month, Mr. Lemon was filming a group of protesters who were disrupting a church service in protest over immigration enforcement policies.
[00:00:12]  Following the reports, Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the arrest was at her discretion and accused Mr. Lemon and others for coordinating an attack on the church.
[00:00:21]  Coming up shortly, we'll take you live to the Justice Department, where we're likely to hear more from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch.
[00:00:28]  You can follow our live coverage when that begins here on C-SPAN.
[00:00:33]  Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
[00:00:35]  We have some breaking news for you this morning, and that is President Trump has announced his pick for Fed chair.
[00:00:45]  He just sent out a Truth Social.
[00:00:46]  So here it is.
[00:00:47]  It says, I am pleased to announce that I am nominating Kevin Warsh to be the chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
[00:00:56]  Kevin currently serves as the Shepherd Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution and lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
[00:01:08]  We will get more into his background later in the program.
[00:01:12]  But before we get to your calls, we are joined by a Capitol Hill reporter to update us on what's happening there.
[00:01:18]  That's Al Weaver, staff writer at The Hill.
[00:01:21]  Al, welcome to the program.
[00:01:23]  Thank you for having me.
[00:01:24]  So explain to us this deal and what does it entail?
[00:01:27]  Sure.
[00:01:29]  The White House and Sun Democrats came out lately or early evening yesterday, said that they have a deal to split off the DHS portion of the six-bill mini-bus.
[00:01:37]  So now basically it'll be a five-bill mini-bus that funds things like the Pentagon, labor, health and human services, those type of departments.
[00:01:46]  That'll be through the end of the fiscal year through the end of September while peeling off this DHS portion.
[00:01:51]  The timeline for that now is a deal by Valentine's Day weekend, February 13th.
[00:01:57]  And that's going to be an uphill climb for legislators to try to nail down a deal on that.
[00:02:02]  But right now, things have kind of hit a snag.
[00:02:04]  Late last night, Senator Lindsey Graham made clear he has a hold on this bill over the Arctic Frost provision that is being repealed by House members.
[00:02:14]  It was a House-led effort.
[00:02:16]  And just remind us, that was the ability of lawmakers to sue the Justice Department if their phone records are taken.
[00:02:24]  The phone records were seized in Jack Smith's probe, yes.
[00:02:27]  And he is one of the only ones that has said, yes, I would take money and I would put it in my bank account and that type of thing.
[00:02:32]  And it's been a bit of a lonely journey for Senator Graham.
[00:02:36]  But he's holding this up and he can do it for many days if he so chose, just like any other senator.
[00:02:40]  And is he willing to shut down the government over this?
[00:02:42]  It remains he's making a stink about it now.
[00:02:45]  Whether he's willing to shut down part of the government, it remains unclear.
[00:02:50]  And tell us about who was involved in this negotiation.
[00:02:54]  I know that Senator Schumer was involved.
[00:02:58]  Did he meet directly with President Trump on this?
[00:03:00]  It doesn't appear so.
[00:03:01]  I mean, I think they had some backtail negotiations.
[00:03:04]  I haven't seen, there's not been reporting that they have met face to face on this.
[00:03:08]  But those were the two main principles of this.
[00:03:11]  Leader Thune had made clear that the negotiation needed to happen between those two.
[00:03:16]  Trump can also bring along House Republicans eventually when this bill reaches the House in the coming days, because that's going to be a mountain to climb of its own.
[00:03:24]  So that's why there was those two.
[00:03:26]  Let's talk about the House because they are not in session today.
[00:03:30]  They were out all week.
[00:03:32]  Does that mean that the government is going to shut down over the weekend because they're not going to have, they're not going to come back until Monday to vote?
[00:03:40]  We're going to leave this to take you live to the Justice Department, where Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch is speaking to reporters.