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Feb. 2, 2026 09:04-10:03 - CSPAN
58:53
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House Recess Open Forum 00:03:28
30th, 2026 at 7.07 p.m.
That's the Senate passed.
Senate 3705, that's the Senate passed with amendments.
H.R. 7148.
Signed sincerely, Kevin F. McCumber, clerk.
Pursuit to Clause 12A of Rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess, subject to the call of the chair.
As you heard, the house is in recess, subject to the call of the chair.
So that gives us some time this morning on the Washington Journal to open up the phones for you to call in.
Open forum here in this final hour of the Washington Journal as the House stands adjourns.
They may come back in and we'll go there if they do.
But until then, your phone calls about what's happening on Capitol Hill, the politics, the policy, what's happening in your state.
Any public policy issue that you want to talk about, now's your time.
202-748-8001 for Republicans to call in.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
We'll also look for your text messages as well.
If you do text in, please include your name and where you are from.
Here's where we are on Capitol Hill today as the House is in recess, subject to the call of the chair.
The Senate not expected to come in today until 3 p.m.
We're currently in a partial government shutdown and it's not expected to end until tomorrow at the earliest.
The Senate passing legislation on Friday that would fund the government fully, but that legislation needs to be passed by the House.
Members of the House coming back into Washington today to take up that legislation.
There's a Rules Committee meeting this afternoon at 4 p.m. Eastern Time that we're going to be airing on C-SPAN 3 to see if a rule can be made to cover the legislation.
That will then be voted on on the floor tomorrow.
Also at that House Rules Committee hearing today, a lot of attention will be paid to the debate over whether to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress for refusal to comply with a subpoena related to the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein.
That's expected to also happen at that Rules Committee hearing today.
Other events and happenings on Capitol Hill that we'll be covering on the C-SPAN networks today on C-SPAN 2.
In just about 10 minutes from now, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States and former Republican Senator Rob Portman will convene to discuss the future of a post-war Ukraine.
Again, in about 10 minutes or so on C-SPAN 2.
Also on C-SPAN 2 at 1 p.m. today, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty McCary will join a bipartisan group of policy leaders and health care experts to announce Action for Progress.
That's a national initiative they're launching to confront mental health and addiction in America.
We're going to be covering that again at 1 p.m. Eastern, and you can watch on C-SPAN 2.
So a lot happening today on the C-SPAN networks.
With all of that, we are in open forum.
Your calls on any public policy, any political issue, now is your time to call in.
This is Reva out of Maryland, Up First Democrat.
Good morning to you.
Good morning.
Reva's Concerns About ICE 00:15:16
There are so many issues that I could talk on.
Just listening to you talk tells me how much there is to cover.
And thank you for covering it.
Sorry if I'm talking too much here, Reva.
Go ahead.
No, that was good.
That was good because commenting on anything, I think of five other things I could comment on.
Yeah, sometimes it's easiest just to do.
I'm going to what was just on and I'm responding to that.
I think the gentleman from Politico is just really off base.
And I think a lot of journalists are off base.
And I'd like to talk about why I think they're off base.
First, this has been going on for three decades, some of this stuff.
And it has not been followed through properly.
And one of the big reasons is, except for a couple of journalists, it's been shoved aside.
It is unsavory, the whole Epstein thing.
The idea that these young girls and boys, too, were vulnerable, and our society did nothing about it is uncomfortable.
And so people don't want to deal with it.
Haven't dealt with it, not really, in three decades.
And that is why the document dump was necessary.
I agree with the gentleman that it's not the best way, but it was necessary because all those investigations weren't happening.
It was just all getting archived and noted in a file, and then let's move on.
And there are clear signs that was happening.
But, Reva, his thought as a former federal prosecutor.
I have a trouble not being able to follow up on a train of thought when interrupted.
And I know you probably have a good question, but I'd like to continue.
Okay, go ahead.
Okay, so we've got these 3 million files, and there's at least 2 million more that they're not planning to release at all.
And what happens with these files?
Well, the first thing that happens is, you know, they're uploaded, and it's not easy to go through.
I've tried going through it, and so I've found that sometimes it's better to go to a second place where it's easier to go through them.
And most of them are just come to my party kind of stuff.
And is it an awful party or is it just a party party?
Because these were really social people.
But 3 million, there's some stuff there.
And there is mention of murder and torture.
And I want to know what the FBI and our Justice Department did to investigate these.
I don't want to hear these are just crazy people because when it's a claim like that, the automatic human tendency is to push it away and say, I don't want to see that.
So there's a lot more I want to know.
And it is a number one issue with American people when polled.
Considering all that's going on, that makes it news that the American people care about it this much.
And there are people on Reddit that are pulling these emails off and archiving them because they're too much to go through at once.
But they will be gone through.
It's not going to go away no matter how much the gentleman from Politico and many journalists want it to go away.
I think one reason they want it to go away is it looks like work to go through all that.
There's a lot of different levels of journalism, and investigative journalism is harder and more time consuming.
And I think it just looks like work.
It is easier to go, oh, well, this just isn't here and people are making this up.
A thousand women have come forward, women now, young girls then, and said they were raped and abused.
That cannot be shoved under the rug.
That's Reva in Maryland.
Robert is next out of New York, Republican.
Robert, it's open forum.
What's on your mind?
I just want to know, I would like ICE to stop hurting people and for the senators to get the government reopened, hopefully tomorrow.
Those are a couple of my issues I was having because of my Social Security and my food stamps.
And Robert, those things don't stop in a government shutdown, and it's a partial government shutdown.
There's only six out of the 12 federal appropriations bills that are not fully funded at this point.
So agencies like the Department of Transportation, Homeland Security, they're being affected by this, but it's not a full government shutdown like we saw last fall.
But you say you'd like the government to come to an agreement.
Democrats are making demands when it comes to immigration enforcement operations, things that they want to see in order for the government to fully reopen and the Department of Homeland Security to be fully funded.
It was Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer on the floor of the Senate on Thursday of last week laying out the changes that Democrats want to see when it comes to enforcement operations.
These three, ending the roving patrols, enforcing accountability, masks off, cameras on, are common sense reforms.
They are reforms that Americans already expect from law enforcement.
Now, the onus now is on Leader Thun and Senate Republicans to work with Democrats to turn these goals into legislation.
They are in the majority, the Republicans are.
They're the ones who have responsibility to govern, and Democrats are ready to come to the table.
If Republicans refuse to work with us to rein in ICE and to end the violence, they're telling the American people they're choosing to protect ICE over choosing to protect people's safety.
Americans, by and large, support law enforcement.
I do.
And most people support border security.
I do as well.
But Americans do not support ICE terrorizing our streets, operating outside the law, killing American citizens.
The madness and violence must end.
Congress must act to rein in ICE and end the violence.
Rein in ICE and end the violence.
The American people deserve nothing, nothing less.
Chuck Schumer on Thursday, again, that was before the Senate passed a bill that would fund five of the six appropriations bills and pull out the Department of Homeland Security and give a two-week extension for the Department of Homeland Security funding while that debate over reforms happen.
That debate played out again yesterday on the Sunday shows on Meet the Press.
It was Speaker Mike Johnson who was asked about those potential reforms to the Department of Homeland Security.
This is what he had to say.
We didn't pull the triggers that left these two Americans dead.
President Trump has even acknowledged that ICE has made mistakes.
Do you think within that context any changes need to be made to ICE and the way it's operating on the US?
Yes, look, I think President Trump was right to acknowledge that.
I think he's operated in good faith.
He said he wanted to turn the temperature down.
He put Tom Holman in charge there.
He was right to deputize him over that situation.
He has 40 years experience in border patrol and in these issues.
So I think that this is going to happen, but we need good faith on both sides.
Some of these conditions and requests that they've made are obviously reasonable and should happen, but others are going to require a lot more negotiation.
And you'll support some of those that you say are reasonable.
Yes.
In fact, I was in the Oval Office with the president a few days ago when he was on the phone with Leader Schumer, and they agreed, and Tom Holman was on the other line, and they agreed to most of those conditions.
But the mask, for example, the additional judicial requirement for a warrant would be a whole other layer of effectively bureaucracy.
Remember, the immigration judges have already issued warrants, and that's what the ICE officials are acting upon.
So there's a lot of details in this.
We could get deep in the weeds, but we will do that over the next two weeks.
And I hope that Democrats will be in good faith, as Republicans are, to try to bring some order to all this.
Are there any proposed changes you wouldn't agree with?
They're demanding also roving patrols and body cameras be worn by ICE officials.
I think even Tom Holman has acknowledged both of those things are acceptable and what he was intending to do already.
So I think we're on the path to get agreement.
And I really hope that everybody will come to the table in good faith.
Speaker Mike Johnson on Meet the Press yesterday.
This morning, we are in open forum taking your comments on the politics, the policy of the day.
This is Christine in Gadson, Alabama.
Democrat, good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I just want to know where the last word spoken about M13.
This is to get people off the street, bad people off the street.
I am old enough to remember the Black Panthers.
There was pushback.
I remember the Sandinistas with the Patty Hearst, where there was pushback.
I remember Ruby Ridge, where there was pushback.
There has been no pushback from M13.
Where are those people?
They have scattered.
They know where not to be.
And the administration is failing with their approach to this deportation.
Thank you for taking my call.
That's Christine talking about, I believe, MS-13 was the gang that she was referring to.
This is Gray in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Republican.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I hate that I missed Mr. Kedari.
A couple things.
One, I'd like to address about his statements, and I don't really understand because he seemed like an intelligent, upright gentleman.
But he said he doesn't understand why ICE agents wear masks.
And I think the only thing we need to point to that explains why they wear masks is what happened in the city's church in Minneapolis Sunday before last, where you had a group of people who targeted a specific official within ICE who was on the board of this church, and they go to the church and they disrupt the church service.
This is what certain elements of folks who are opposed to the operations of ICE would like to do to garden variety ICE agents who have families and who deserve to have a life of anonymity while just doing their job like we all do to some degree more or less.
And the second thing is his statement about that cities are not purposely refusing to honor ICE detainers.
And the question I would ask Mr. Kedari is: what does it mean to be a sanctuary city?
Because a sanctuary city, that's exactly what they do.
They do not honor ICE detainers.
If the law enforcement officials in a particular town, county, or city interact with a person regardless of immigration status, once the trial situation for that person has been adjudicated in that jurisdiction, they release them rather than holding them for 24 hours as ICE requests.
And the way that you can see this is true, the only place where we have ICE people, ICE agents on the street doing things that result in the tragic accidents or tragic events of the killing of the two individuals and what have you are in cities where they are sanctuary cities.
This does not happen in the rest of the country where law enforcement cooperates with federal officials.
And that's what I have to say.
Thank you so much.
Gray, hang on for a second.
You still with us?
Sure.
So Ankush Kadori, to your first point, he was saying on the masks issue that we give these police officers extraordinary powers as federal agents.
Why does that mean that they should have anonymity?
And his concern is that anonymity might be used as a way to push those powers too far or as a way to not have restraint on some of those extraordinary powers that we give policing officials in this country.
What would you say, or what did you think about those statements that he said?
Well, so if you had invited me on and it was me sitting across from Mr. Kadori and he had said what you just said to me, I would say to the folks who want to stop this action, which is supported widely, even a plurality of Democrats support removing illegals, particularly dangerous, violent illegals from our streets.
If it weren't for people trying to stop that, they wouldn't need to mask up.
These people, this idea that it would make ICE agents more aggressive is a feature, not a bug to them.
They want there to be mistakes made by ICE agents.
And these people who follow, track, and otherwise harass ICE operations in these sanctuary cities are looking for that.
Literally, these ICE operations are followed by people in a coordinated fashion using signal chats.
You might recall signal chats from Secretary Hedgekiss, I can't even say his name correctly right now, earlier in the administration where they had a signal chat going with the folks in the Department of Defense or Department of War, whatever we're going to call it today.
And it was not a secure thing.
They used this same signal chat app, which is encrypted, to communicate ICE sightings and then go to those places and harass them with rape whistles, horns.
You know, even the two individuals who were killed, tragically, they were actually interjecting themselves in the path of law enforcement conducting their law enforcement business.
I'm not here to say justified, not justified.
That's for somebody else, beyond my capability there.
But that's what I would say to that.
Protest and Harassment 00:15:12
That's Gray in North Carolina.
This is Alan here in D.C., Independent.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Yeah, I have two questions or a couple questions, and then I guess a bit of a bone to pick with C-SPAN.
I guess the first question is: has C-SPAN had any articles that illustrate or that talk directly to the notion that people have been let out of prison or countries that have let their prisoners out of the country or out of prisons and they're rapists and trial molesters and pedophiles and have as I have do you have the articles that speak to that?
I've never seen one.
The second one is if they did do that, how'd they get in the United States?
All right.
So, are you saying that we just said, hey, rapists, criminals, murderers, drug dealers, come on in and we're going to let you run rampant until Trump shows up and then we're going to do something about it at that point?
And if there aren't any evidence, there's no evidence that illustrates the fact that these folks have been, in fact, let into the country or allowed to come into the country or another country allowed them to come in, then why are you guys continuously perpetuating that mythology?
You know, because what this sounds to me more is this is a racist, xenophobic approach to trying to marginalize the community to get folks up in an uproar to maintain a certain nonsense policy that has no real merit.
But again, where is the country that have done this?
Let's talk about them.
Let you show me the evidence and then I'll go along with some of the noise that Trump and his clonies are talking about.
But if there's no evidence, then why do you guys continue to let folks come on and say that this is happening?
That's Alan in Washington, D.C.
This is Dorothy in St. Louis, Missouri.
Democrat, good morning.
Good morning.
How are you?
Doing well, Dorothy.
Go ahead.
I have two statements.
I would like to start by saying to the House of Representatives: they come on in the morning and they pray, and the chaplain uses the word righteousness.
And then they say the Pledge of Allegiance.
I said it also, haven't said it in a long time.
And then, so then, what is their day for?
To what?
Represent the people?
Oh, yeah.
We the people.
We the people.
No, no, it's not.
So now we need a 2026 word for the United States of America, which is kindness.
We do not have it.
We have sold our souls to the devil, and everybody's walking around talking crazy, repeating themselves, blaming the journalists, blaming this.
No, it's we the people.
Okay, so then ICE.
Okay, so I noticed that some of the guys did take the mask off, but the United States of America, part of it, is still riding around on black ice.
I don't see any black ice people.
I don't see any black ice.
What is that?
The January 20th insurrectionists that make up that organization.
All right.
That's Dorothy in Missouri.
This is Benny in Minnesota, in Minneapolis.
Republican.
Benny, what's your view from Minneapolis this morning?
More of a libertarian, but I'll take it.
You know, I've lived here my whole life, and the Somalian community was concentrated at Riverside Apartments, and that was it.
We called it Little Somalia.
And when they allowed the, you know, the sanctuary status to kind of take over the whole state, they just started flooding everywhere.
And I got to tell you, most of Minnesota is not happy about it.
And many of them are illegal.
I don't care what they say.
Most of them are illegal.
And if they're not, they were, you know, they're committing fraud.
Pure and simple.
They've stolen a lot of money.
And, you know, people depend on that.
A lot of families, kids, people that actually need the help.
And, you know, so that, so ICE came here because of that.
And, you know, they're talking about masks, body cameras, warrants.
I think the warrants will just allow them to have a little more, you know, legitimacy when it comes to arresting these people.
So I think the warrants are good.
I think the masks, what they're doing is they're to protect the, you know, protect the people's family.
You know, the mask is for protection.
And, you know, with all the doxing that's going on and everybody outing these mask agents or these ICE agents, they need protection.
And the body cameras, why not?
You know what I mean?
It'll just make things a whole lot easier for proving things.
And I don't know.
I'm just not happy about ICE being here, but I'm not happy about people being here illegally and taking advantage of a system that's meant to help people that truly need it.
Immigrants are fine.
Illegals, no.
So, as for ICE being too aggressive, that might be fair.
But, you know, maybe if they dialed it back a little bit.
Benny, are things been dialed back in the six days since Tom Homan has taken over operations in Minneapolis?
What have you seen?
What'd you see this weekend?
What did you see at the end of last week?
People kind of, they calmed down a little bit, but now they're starting to go inside Target, singing songs, clapping.
They're getting in front of the blue line, the rail system here, and people can't travel because, yeah, okay, people dialed back to protesting a little bit because ICE dialed back a little bit, but still they're in the way.
I mean, let ICE do their job and they will go home.
They will leave.
That's all it is, is if they do their job, the quicker they do their job, the quicker they'll leave.
And these people don't get it.
The more they fight, the more ICE is going to get aggressive.
I've even heard legal immigrants talking about that.
A very nice man from Liberia, a cab driver, said, you know, if ICE was able to do their job, you know, they would leave.
Why fight them?
It's just going to make things worse.
You know, and those protests are just ridiculous.
They're making things worse.
And it's just, you know, it's just going to cause trouble.
You know, it's, you know, protest peacefully.
You know, do it the right way.
Don't riot.
Don't burn down the city.
Keep everything cool.
And they'll leave.
Got your point.
That's Benny in Minnesota to the Keystone States as we hit the bottom of the hour here.
Jim in Pennsylvania, Independent.
Good morning.
Yes, sir.
Good morning.
How are you?
Doing well.
Good.
I'd just like to make a couple comments regarding the guest from Politico, Mr. Corvath, I believe.
Ankush Kadori?
Yeah, Ankush Kadori.
Okay.
Number one, he was whining and moaning about the ICE agents being spit on.
Not only were they being spit on, the Politicos, the governor, the mayor all referred to them as Nazis.
Called them all kinds of horrible names, and the protesters stand there and yell the F-word at them.
Now, give me a break, folks.
The Constitution does not say you have a right to protest.
It's nowhere in the Constitution.
We have a right to peacefully assemble.
And for Mr. Corvath, he's in bed with all the journalists in Washington.
They hate President Trump.
They hate his administration.
They hate ICE.
They hate law enforcement.
That's all I have to say.
Jim, just with your comments on journalists, what news outlets do you trust?
What news?
I don't trust any of them.
I read Newsmax online.
I'll read Breitbart.
I'll read some other conservatives, but none of the liberal press because y'all are in the tank for the Democrats.
That's Jim in Pennsylvania.
This is Ted in New York, line for Democrats.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
I have a couple of points I'd like to make.
One, how long is Mike Johnson going to wait to swear in the new Democrat from Texas, I believe?
We're expecting it to happen today, Ted.
Okay, we'll see if that happens.
Two, I think this administration is very one-sided.
If it's this easy to get an indictment against Don Lemon, I think it would be real easy to get an indictment against the cops that killed Mr. Predty.
Okay, that's Ted in New York.
This is Tim back in the land of 10,000 Lakes, Republican line.
Good morning.
Good morning.
How are you?
Doing well.
Good.
Just a couple comments.
You know, you talked to the previous caller about who do you watch and who do you trust?
And I kind of mix it up a little bit.
You know, I'll watch CNN.
I'll watch Fox.
I'll watch you guys.
And it's hard to know what the truth is, and it's hard to trust anybody.
What else?
You know, the mess here in Minnesota, it's a nightmare for the people in Minneapolis.
And I just think.
Whereabouts in Minnesota, are you, Tim?
I'm in White Bear Lake, so I'm in a pretty conservative, well, it's kind of a purple city.
How far is that from Minneapolis?
Maybe 15, 20 miles.
But the Sanctuary City is going to destroy Minneapolis.
It's going to take some time.
And if you go downtown Minneapolis now, you can kind of see that it's not as vibrant as it used to be.
They say it is, but it's not.
So that's my comment.
Sanctuary City is an experiment and it's not going to work.
It's going to take some time to implode, but it will.
It is.
That's all.
Tim in Minnesota out to California.
This is John Independent.
John, good morning.
Hello.
You're on the air, John.
Oh, hi.
Just three quick things.
There's an interesting comment about one of the previous callers, how he said there's nothing in the Constitution about being able to protest.
I wonder what the real difference is between peaceful assembly.
I know, like, there's a lot of people who claim they're protesting, but then you see this guy kick a car and everything.
I don't think that's peaceful.
Peaceful assembly, that's a good thing.
We should encourage that if you want to do that.
Masking, the other guy said masking should be okay because they're trying to protect your families.
My thoughts: if you believe in God, God will protect you.
You don't need a mask if you're doing the right thing.
Pedro is the best host.
Praise the Lord.
Have a good day.
I'll let Pedro know you said that, John, to Jill in Pennsylvania.
Democrat, good morning.
Yes.
In terms of protesting, I am going to be going out protesting at noon today, and I'm a firm believer in protesting.
In terms of the mask, I'm firmly against anybody really wearing a mask except for health reasons.
And that's it.
Thank you very much for your public service.
I really appreciate it.
Jill, tell me about this protest today.
Where are you going?
What are you doing?
How many people you expect there?
Well, I'm in Allentown and I'm going to Representative McKenzie's office over on Cedarcrest.
There are usually about anywhere between 50 and 100 people every Monday from noon to 1, sometimes more on big protest days.
But I got to go.
I've got to resist this.
I got to do it.
It's my right, and I'm going to do it.
How many Mondays have you gone?
I would say probably 20 to 30.
I try to go every Monday, regardless of the weather.
I'm debating about today, but I think I got to get out there.
And what do you do when you're there?
I hold up signs.
It's a very peaceful group.
There's no, you know, it's not a rowdy crowd or anything.
It's just everybody holds up a sign.
And we hope that the people who drive by toot their horns to support us.
And I have to say the number of horns that are tooted has gone up.
So I'm very pleased with that.
And this is Congressman Ryan McKenzie's whose office you do this to?
That's correct, yeah.
And to the comments from the other callers, I don't know if you were listening, but two other callers were saying that the right to peaceably assemble, the First Amendment right to assembly, is different from protesting.
And what they see in Minnesota is not peaceable assembly.
What do you think about that as somebody who protests, who assembles?
I have seen a whole different bunch of people, you know, people who are more provocative than other people.
But I believe strongly that this is a country that supports people speaking out about public issues, and this is definitely a public issue in terms of what's going on.
I mean, I have heard comments made on C-SPAN and elsewhere about, you know, people who are citizens, for example, people who've been shot and killed.
The idea of not objecting to that is abhorrent to me.
Somebody has to stand up and protest and say this is not right.
I can't imagine that there are many people in this country who think it's right to go out and shoot and kill somebody, shoot 10 times, which I think is ridiculous.
I mean, it's horrible.
Have you, in all your times protesting, Congressman McKenzie is your congressperson, correct?
Doomsday Clock Protest 00:07:30
Correct.
That's correct.
Have you had a chance to talk to Congressman McKenzie?
No, I have not.
I went to his office and it was less than a satisfactory visit.
Actually, I probably call and send emails to Ryan McKenzie on an almost daily basis.
I'm just extremely upset about the direction that this country is headed in.
You call and email your congressman on a daily basis?
Just about, yeah.
And not only that, there's also Senator McCormick.
He also receives my phone calls and emails.
What is today's phone message going to say?
Basically, once again, saying that the country is headed in the wrong direction, that we should not be arresting people who are citizens.
We should, you know, if Trump wants to go after criminals, fine.
But ICE is not going after criminals.
We all know that.
I don't care which news source you listen to.
You know, he's just going after everybody.
And the idea that these ICE agents can mask, to me, I mean, one of my favorite expressions is even the Nazis did not wear masks.
They were willing to stand up and let people know what they were doing.
The idea that these ICE agents are hiding, I think, is horrible.
So that's going to be the basic message to what I now call Dave and Ryan, because I'm just incessant in expressing my views.
That's Jill, a Democrat in Pennsylvania.
This is Esther out of Arkansas, Republican, Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Go ahead.
Good morning.
I basically have one question to ask today.
I have many thoughts and many reasons that I might call, but I'm basically interested in knowing why are they doxing these lawmen?
What is their next step when they find them?
Why don't they say out loud their plan for these families?
Those men don't just live at an address by themselves.
They have wives.
They have innocent children, just like we all do, that we want to be protected.
Why do they want to risk hurting children?
Go ahead.
Say it out loud.
What you want to do to these families when you find them?
That's my question for the liberals today.
Thank you.
That's Esther in Arkansas.
This is Kevin in Texas, Independent.
Good morning.
About 20 minutes left in our program today.
John, to me, this seemed more like a distraction.
You know, the nuclear clock is what, 48 seconds for doomsday?
Doomsday clock.
Is Obama?
I'm sorry.
The doomsday clock, I think, is what you're referring to.
Yes, yes.
And you got war that's going to start over in Iran.
And you got Venezuela.
I mean, you got Canada being pressured.
It seemed like this is the biggest distraction that we've had in a while.
And nobody's paying attention.
The ICE problem is a serious problem.
I understand that.
But this major war that's pending, it seemed like it's going to trump that.
You got North Korea today is launching missiles.
You got Japan and South Korea is having meeting to counter that.
So I think this war is going to put all of this local stuff aside because the news media is not covering.
We're only covering ICE.
That's Kevin in Texas on the doomsday clock.
Here's the Reuters story on it.
If you feel like we're inching nearer to the end of the world, you are not alone.
The bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Tuesday of last week set their doomsday clock closer than ever to midnight, the metaphorical point of human annihilation.
The latest adjustment, 85 seconds to midnight, marks the third time in four years that the scientists have ticked the clock towards catastrophe, and it is the latest in more than a decade of steady advances in that direction.
Since 2020, we have been closer to the precipice than any time during the Cold War arms race, according to the bulletin.
It's a Chicago-based nonprofit.
Nuclear threats remain a key factor, and we have compounded the risks ranging from climate change and adversarial world leaders to artificial intelligence and disinformation campaigns.
The doomsday clock is what the caller was talking about by the bulletin of the atomic scientists.
This is William out of Houston.
Democrat, good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning, C-Span.
You're looking at a veteran, not only a military, but a veteran of the Jim Crow area.
The only difference between now and Jim Crow to use and Hispanic and non-white people speaking that you haven't been putting dogs on your water hose, but that's probably going to be next.
But I say this.
Why aren't I stopping white people in that papers?
And they assume all white people here are here legally.
This is racist.
And until more white people start getting killed by ICE, they're not going to stop.
Have a good day.
That's William in Houston.
This is John in Goreville, Illinois.
Republican, good morning.
Good morning.
I would just like to ask the people that's complaining about all these ICE agents wearing their mask and stuff, who are they going to call when we let all millions of these illegal aliens into our country and they come after one of their families?
Who are they going to call?
The ICE agents?
That's who they'll call.
They're all against them.
And also, I'd like to make a comment to the gentleman that racist, racist.
That's all you want to call is racist.
There's white people, black people, Asian people, all kinds of people in this world that's affiliated with this mess that we are in.
Our last administration let millions of people into this country, and we have got to get them out.
If we don't, you people are going to be crying to ISIS and everybody you can cry to if something happens to your family.
That's all I really have to say.
Thank you.
That's John in Illinois, about 15 minutes left in our program today, this February the 2nd.
It is Groundhog Day in this country.
Groundhog Day with Puxetani Phil earlier today seeing his shadow predicting six more weeks of winter.
We take you to that ceremony in Pennsylvania.
Puxitani Phil.
It is my job this February 2 to look to the skies and report back to you that there is a shadow here on my ground.
Six Weeks of Winter 00:04:04
Six more weeks of winter abound.
The scene today from Puxatawney, Pennsylvania, this Groundhog Day, that was the ceremony earlier this morning.
Congress is in today.
The House gaveled in at 9 a.m., but continues to be in recess subject to the call of the chair.
The Senate is in at 3 p.m. today, and there's plenty happening on Capitol Hill, including a rules committee hearing at 4 p.m. today, in which a rule will be voted on that may end the partial government shutdown that we are currently in.
It is a shutdown that began just after midnight on Friday with Congress not having passed six of its annual 12 appropriations bills before its deadline.
And so agencies like Transportation, the Department of Homeland Security are shut down today and have been since late on Friday night.
Though as Susan Page writes in the pages of today's USA Today, another shutdown, meh, says many in D.C., she says, the partial shutdown that started at midnight on January 31st created less buzz over the weekend than the early and almost entirely negative reviews of Netflix Melania.
This, even though parts of the Pentagon and Health and Human Services Department and Transportation Department left without the regular funding, were ordered to begin an orderly shutdown for at least a few days.
It will go on as long as this current impasse lasts.
Congress trying to find a way to fund five of those six appropriations bills and then fund the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks as negotiations take place over possible changes to immigration enforcement rules.
That's where we are today on Capitol Hill.
This is Rachel in Texas Independent.
Good morning.
What's on your mind?
Good morning.
Hi, I was calling because I was wondering if you happen to know what the status of the Credit for Caring Act is.
Is that a bill that they're going to be that Congress is deciding now?
Or, you know, what is going on with that?
So, Rachel, I'm not familiar with the details of that one, though Congress.gov is a great place to go to track individual bills and see where they are in the process.
So, I'd recommend you go there, but I don't want to speak to something I don't know much about, and that's not a bill I've been following.
But why are you following that bill?
Well, that is a bill for family caregivers who could receive up to $5,000 in tax credits.
And as a caregiver, that would be extremely helpful.
And so, that is one bill I am interested in.
And I'm also hoping that Congress is going to pass a bill to refund telehealth for Medicare patients, because that has apparently stopped.
The Credit for Caring Act is in Congress.gov.
The best way to track the latest on it is just go to Congress.gov, type the name of the bill at the top of the page.
You can see the House version of the bill, the Senate version of the bill.
Both have been introduced and yet to be passed according to the latest tracking of it.
But you can see them throughout the entire legislative process.
A helpful website as you track legislation.
Rachel?
Oh, well, thank you so much.
If I can just add one other thing.
I really appreciated C-SPAN showing the program about the history of space and NASA.
My father is a retired NASA engineer, so it really hits home.
You watched on Saturday on American History TV?
History Of Space And NASA 00:10:23
I did.
And, you know, especially since yesterday was it marked the anniversary of the Columbia disaster.
And I think C-SPAN showed another version of that previously, like maybe the week before.
So last week on this program, we talked about the 40th anniversary of the Challenger explosion, but also showed that on American History TV on Saturday.
It was a 24 hours on the history of the U.S. space program for viewers who missed it.
But if you did miss it, you can watch all that programming on our website at C-SPAN.org.
Just click on the American History TV tab.
Rachel, thanks for watching it.
Thanks for watching all of our programs here on the Washington Journal and on American History TV.
Oh, thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Lorenzo, Leesville, Louisiana, Democrat.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Yes, I have a couple of things.
One is about them releasing all of these Epstein files.
I think that's going to be a problem if someone else was to get prosecuted.
Then they have a way out to say, well, they have released all my information.
So I don't have, you know, they don't have a standard chance in court.
And the other thing is that about all of these immigrants coming up here, people forget that that was the governor of Texas that put these people on buses and sent them throughout all over the country.
And I think the governor in Florida helped put these immigrants throughout the nation.
And on the explosion of the challenger, I had seen it.
I heard the first boom and I stepped out my door and I looked up in the sky and I've seen the rest of it.
We had parts of this spaceship all over this Burnham Parish here in Louisiana.
But anyway, those are my comments.
Thank you.
That's Lorenzo from Louisiana.
This is Ed in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Republican.
Good morning.
Open forum here for about another 10 minutes.
Yeah, good morning.
Just real quickly.
Now, peaceful assembly is part of our Constitution.
That's fine.
But these protesters are protesting.
They're not peacefully assembling.
They're getting up into ISIS face.
They're charging them with cars.
They're bringing guns to peaceful assemblies.
Now, come on, man.
Biden started this thing by open borders, allowing criminals and so forth in our country.
ISIS' job is to go out and round up these people and get them out of our country.
Why interfere with that?
We don't want criminals, rapists, murderers in our country.
Give me a break, peaceful protesters.
Do it in a peaceful manner.
Ed, describe what you would like to see, the line between peaceful assembly and what you think crosses that line.
Absolutely.
You know, peaceful assembly is part of the Constitution.
It's the American way.
Come on.
You know, I have several sites on Facebook.
One, that's my opinion.
That's what I'm saying.
Almost everyone there agrees.
Peaceful assembly is fine.
Getting up into ISIS face, interfering with the getting out of our country, the criminals and illegal aliens, rapists, murderers.
How about Lake and Wiley?
Nobody's ever mentioned that, child.
Now, come on, people.
Let's do this thing peacefully, okay?
Let these guys do their job and get out of the way.
That's Ed in Tennessee.
This is John, back in Pennsylvania, Independence.
Good morning.
Hey, good morning.
I'd also like to, you know, speak to my fellow American there about the right to peacefully assemble is obviously in the Constitution, but nowhere in there does it let you gather to violently storm churches.
In fact, we do have federal laws protecting that.
It appears that Don Lemon and his cohorts have violated that law by breaking into a place of worship and interrupting their service and creating all this commotion.
And that's really what I think it is.
Like, it's a lot of commotion to cover up for the fraud that's going on at the state level.
The governments and the people in charge are not being honest with us.
And they're using us to fight each other and create these divisions where it's pretty easy to see what's going on.
I mean, they've always said follow the money.
Okay.
Well, if millions of dollars are going to daycare and transport companies and there's no good receipts and these businesses aren't even open or have any clients, well, something's going on there that doesn't meet, you know, doesn't pass the smell test, right?
Like, it's pretty easy to say, oh, this is a legitimate business or these people are probably doing something shady.
We should investigate it.
It'd be real easy for Governor Waltz and these people to come out and say, hey, we need to work with law enforcement.
They're government employees.
They're here to carry out federal law.
But they don't do that in that state.
And that's why you have these issues.
John, let me ask you on First Amendment issues.
Does it matter to you that Don Lemon will say he's an independent journalist and that he was practicing his First Amendment right to freedom of the press in that situation that you're referring to?
Well, of course, that matters in the sense if you could articulate and prove that you weren't conspiring with those people beforehand.
If a bunch of people go, if I know my friends are going over to rob a bank and I take my camera and I interview the bank teller why it's going on and asking her, you know, have you listened to them?
They're poor.
They need money.
Go talk to them.
Is that make me an accomplice in that crime or am I protected by the First Amendment?
That's John in Pennsylvania.
This is Russell in Burr Oak, Kansas.
Republican, good morning.
Yes, I would like to let you know that everybody's getting sidetracked nowadays.
If Waltz and Frey would have done their job years ago, we wouldn't be in the situation we're in now.
Those two would still be alive.
Waltz and Frey conspired to commit a felony.
They kept the fraud out of the public.
All the people in the United States needs to know what's going on.
And what was the felony you're referring to?
They conspired on the fraud to keep everybody unaware of the fraud in Minnesota.
And by doing that years ago, we lost two people, two American citizens, because of their negligence.
They knew about it prior to the riots and all this miscellaneous stuff going on right now with ICE and everybody.
But you know what?
What they don't realize is that if they would have done their job, Waltz would have done his job when he was announced with the fraud.
Both Good and Alex would be alive.
That's Russell in Kansas.
Time for just one or two more phone calls here.
Uriah in Houston, line for Democrats.
Go ahead.
Yeah, hi.
I just want to say that this whole thing could be solved without them showing us, throwing us all this bait by just prosecuting the people that hire the illegal immigrants.
We wouldn't have to go after them, millions of people.
You know, they shouldn't be here, obviously, but we could go after the employer.
No job, no illegal immigrant.
Case solved.
We're not talking about that because we're getting stuff thrown at us by the very people who initiated it, our politicians.
So just go after the employers.
Tell them: hey, if you hire an illegal immigrant and we find out you're going to jail, not a fine, they can afford a fine.
You're going to jail.
Problem solved.
That's Uriah in the Lone Star State, the Bluegrass State is last.
Ray in Melbourne, Independent.
Good morning.
Ray, you with us?
Yes, sir.
Good morning.
Go ahead.
Sorry about that.
Sorry about that.
Yeah, I would just like to talk a little bit about the immigration.
I really don't have a problem with people coming here legally.
The problem I have is when you release millions of undocumented immigrants into the country, there's going to be a part where they use SNAP, they use Medicaid.
They have to because how else are they going to make it?
And meanwhile, you know, you can go to a local Walmart and you can literally see them cashing some kind of a card where they get $2,000 at increments.
I've seen this three different times waiting to get a money order.
And then they'll send each of them $1,000 back to Mexico, Walmart.
And Ray, how do you know that the people that you're talking about are illegal immigrants?
Do you ask them?
They talk amongst herself, and I do have a friend that speaks Spanish.
And this is what they say.
And it's not only me.
There's hundreds of thousands of people that I know see this going on.
Government Shutdown Update 00:02:31
All right.
That's Ray in Kentucky, our last caller in today's Washington Journal, but we will, of course, be back here tomorrow morning.
It is 7 a.m. Eastern, 4 a.m. Pacific.
In the meantime, hope you have a great Groundhog Day.
And the House today is considering several pieces of legislation related to veterans as the federal government enters a third day of a partial shutdown.
As soon as tomorrow, members are expected to consider a Senate-passed package to fund multiple government agencies till the end of September.
That includes the departments of defense, education, health and human services, housing, state, transportation, and treasury.
The package will also cover funding for the Homeland Security Department for an additional two weeks.
But before the package can be considered on the floor, it will be debated by the House Rules Committee later today, along with the Republican effort to hold former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena related to the investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The committee meeting is set to begin at 4 p.m. Eastern.
When that happens, be sure to watch our live coverage on C-SPAN 3 on our free C-SPAN Now mobile app and online at c-span.org.
Democracy.
It isn't just an idea.
It's a process.
A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles.
It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted.
Democracy in real time.
This is your government at work.
This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy, unfiltered.
C-SPAN's Democracy Unfiltered 00:00:26
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.
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