Crew 12 are holding a pre-launch news conference this morning.
They're in quarantine ahead of their trip to the International Space Station and will be live from crew quarters at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
That's at 11 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
Back with us this Sunday morning is Steve Cortez, a former senior advisor to the Trump campaign.
He now authors the Steve Cortez Investigate Substack newsletter.
And Mr. Cortez, on immigration enforcement first, it is what we're seeing in Minnesota, what we have seen over the past couple weeks and months.
Is this what Donald Trump promised on immigration enforcement when he was campaigning in 2024?
Or is this something beyond what he promised?
Good morning, John.
I do think it's exactly what President Trump promised.
He was very clear.
He wasn't nuanced about the topic of immigration, that he wanted mass deportations.
And with that as his foundational stance, it wasn't a side issue.
It was the central issue of the 2024 campaign, at least on the Trump side, because of what had happened during the Biden-Harris era.
And so that decision was put before the American people, who effectively rendered a verdict that they did in fact want mass deportations by giving Donald Trump every single swing state plus the national popular vote, actually by a significant margin by millions of votes, first Republican to do so in two decades.
So I believe this kind of aggressive enforcement, this kind of insistence on American sovereignty is exactly what the American people wanted after decades of tolerating open borders, porous borders, and real lawlessness regarding mass migration, particularly mass migration from the third world into our country.
How does or should the Trump administration define success in an operation like this?
When do you say the job is done?
Yeah, it's a good question because, right, and it's clearly up for judgment.
That is a judgment call as to when the job is done.
And to some degree, of course, it's never done, right?
We have to continually be enforcing our immigration laws.
That's just how law enforcement works.
But I would say in terms of a measurable success that matters, the thing that I'm paying the most attention to is self-deportations.
We have about 2 million self-deportations right now.
And we know that, unlike a lot of illegal migration data, we can actually track this very well because what President Trump and the administration have done is they've taken that CBP1 app, which was basically used by the Biden administration as a high-tech way to invite mass invasion of the United States.
Well, we've now flipped that technology to use it for good, and we are incentivizing, as a country, I mean, we are incentivizing illegal migrants to say, hey, if you do the right thing, if you self-report, self-dep and self-deport out of the country, we will pay you.
We're going to give you a financial incentive, which I think is incredibly generous of the American people, $2,600 per person right now, pay for your flight home.
And in addition, you will have the ability, again, as long as you self-deport, you will have the ability to reapply to do it the right way, to come back into our country legally.
Whereas if you are forcibly removed, if you are arrested, you can never, for the rest of your life, you can never apply again.
That's U.S. law.
that's not donald trump's uh decision so uh we know that about two million we're leaving this for live coverage of a nasa spacex crew 12 pre-launch news conference the course of the four The four astronauts are in quarantine ahead of their trip to the International Space Station and are speaking from the crew quarters at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Our crew 12 astronauts are joining us virtually from quarantine ahead of their mission to the International Space Station.
We have about 30 minutes together this morning and we'll try to answer as many of your questions as possible.
With that, let's head over to crew quarters to hear a few words from the Dragon Commander, Jess Kamir.
Hello, everybody.
Thank you so much, Shaniqua.
It's wonderful to be here with you today.
As Shaniqua just mentioned, we're here in the crew quarters facility in Florida.
We arrived a couple of days ago, and this is really starting to feel like we're about to launch.
You know, we've seen the rocket.
We've been spending time out on the beach with our families.
We've been thinking about all the things, last-minute things that we need to take care of.
So it's getting very, very real.
We want to say a big thanks to all the teams that got us here: NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, all of our international partners, SpaceX, of course, for all the incredible preparation that we've received.
We are really feeling ready, and hopefully, we will be able to launch on Wednesday as planned.
Yeah, also today, I cooked traditional Russian food.
This is a borsch.
And I hope I cooked it for my crew, for teams who support us.
Support us, yes.
Thank you.
Very delicious.
Thanks, Andre.
It's been great here at Crew Quarters.
It's just a historic part of NASA's program.
From the beginning of the space program, astronauts have been staying here in quarantine before they go, doing our last little bit of training, some quality time with our families.
It's really a special place to be.
We're happy to be here at Kennedy Space Center, and we're really, really excited to launch in three days.
Thanks, Jack.
Yeah.
And not only like very serious training happens also, but daily anecdotes.
And we wanted to share the one fun anecdote that we started sleep shift in order to be ready for launch at 6 a.m. Florida time.
And so, for example, today we're going to go to bed at 2 p.m. and going to wake up at 9:45 p.m.
And in order to help us, we wear these wonderful glasses that look blue lights.
And we really like it.
All right, Shaniqua, back to you.
And we're ready to take any questions.
Thanks, Jessica.
We will now begin taking questions from our phone bridge and online using the hashtag AskNASA.
To join the queue for the phone bridge, press star one.
If your question is asked and answered and you would like to remove yourself from the crew, please press star two.
All right, operator, we'll take our first question.
Thank you.
Will Robinson Smith of Space Flight Now, your line is open?
Hi, everyone.
Good morning, and thanks for taking the time to talk with us today.
Best of luck with the mission.
Question for the whole crew, but sort of broken up slightly differently.
Jessica, if you could talk a little bit about your marine biology experience and especially your work in the Arctic and how that helped inform your time as an astronaut.
And then to the rest of the crew, you all have armed services backgrounds.
If you could speak to how your military service helps you in your daily or your mindset as astronauts and cosmonauts, that'd be great.
Thank you.
Yeah, absolutely.
As you mentioned, I did work as a scientist my previous career and I was studying the physiology of animals in extreme environments.
So that research brought me to places like the Antarctic and I was fortunate enough to go down there five times for research expeditions and later for a diving expedition as well.
And I think it does actually play in really nicely with our current job, with some of the similarities that these guys have from their military deployments and that kind of thing.
And I think that came through, you know, in my astronaut interview as well.
The things that I would point out are working in an isolated, harsh environment.
So I was working in a remote field camp in the Antarctic with a very small team of people living in a confined situation within a harsh climate.
So, those kinds of experiences really help prepare us for the confined locations like the International Space Station and help teach us really valuable lessons about teamwork and cooperation and what it's like to really spend that much time together with a small group of people.
I think there are a lot of other parallels as well.
You know, when we're down in the Antarctic, we don't bring a ton of other specialists.
We just had our small core team that was doing science.
For my research, we were studying the diving physiology of Emperor Penguins.
So, in addition to doing the science, we also had to spend some days just shoveling snow or fixing a broken down snowmobile and that kind of thing.
And that brings out these sort of operational fix-it-type skills that are also really important to our daily routine on the space station.
Since, of course, we can't call an electrician or a plumber to fix the toilet or change a light bulb.
Thanks, Jessica.
I think the question hits it on the head in the sense that we have all different backgrounds, and that's what makes the crew a success.
Throughout the 25 years we've had humans in orbit on the International Space Station and throughout our respective space agencies, we all have a different background.
We bring something different to the bring something different to the adventure and to the mission, and that helps us succeed as a crew.
For me, as an aviator, it helped me grow my mustache right now.
That's a really key part of my background.
Pretty impressive, right?
But also, when I grew up as a naval aviator, everyone around me challenged me to be the best version of myself and be as capable and work as hard as I possibly could to meet the high standard that is present in that community.
And I try to bring that here to my experience at NASA.
And I'll kick it over to Sophie.
Yeah, thank you, Jack.
And Jessica, yeah, I could only agree with what you said.
I would add as well that the background that Jack and I and Andre had in the military taught us how to deal with complex operations in the face of uncertainty.
So it's not only dealing with inside your cockpit with whatever elements happen in sometimes hostile environments, but also an ever-changing environment.
And I think Crew 12, we had a lot of a changing environment in our training.
So this is clearly something we experienced in our previous lives, and it was really very relevant for our training.
I agree with these guys.
And also, I think that it doesn't matter what experience you have, anything what you can do, it will be helpful for you.
Thanks.
All right, operator, we are ready for our next question.
Manuel Mazanti of Expación Espacial, your line is open.
Thank you so much.
Mario Masanti with Experación Espacial.
Great to see you, the four of you ready for lunch.
I have a question for Sophie.
Sophie, I know that you're bringing with you a new exercising machine to the space station, E4D.
And I saw some photos of you practicing with it, getting used to it.
I wonder if you're going to ask different crewmates to test the machine in orbit.
And what is it that you're expecting out of this machine?
Do you think it's going to improve the current exercising machine on the space station?
And what are you and ESA expecting out of this machine in the near future?
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you for this question.
Actually, all of us will be training on this machine, and we're all very excited.
It's a partnership between ESA, the European Space Agency, and NASA.
It's a great opportunity for everyone and all of the teams to test the concept of a machine that is thought to be later installed on board the Gateway, the station around the moon.
And we have many hopes that this machine is, we tested it on the ground.
It's incredible.
It brings a lot more exercise variety than the current exercise machine has.
And so we are very happy to test this all.
It's going to be interesting to see also because although we're very confident with the ground testing, now testing this in microgravity might bring us different analysis and maybe we'll have to tweak some of the exercises.
Just to give you some examples of new exercises that were not possible before with the current A-RED machine, this machine will give us the opportunity to do all of the pulling movements.
With the previous one, it was mainly about pushing, so pushing away from your body.
This one has a rope built in, and so we can pull towards our body.
So it's really more, you know, a big picture will hit all of the muscle groups, and so it will help for better health and we hope better, you know, sustainable muscle when we come back to Earth.
All right, operator, next question, please.
Bill Harwood of CBS News, your line is open.
Thank you.
I guess this is for Jessica.
I mean, you guys obviously didn't get a direct handover with Crew 11 aboard the station, but I assume you've talked to them on the ground, wondering if they gave you any hints, any advice.
And a related question: is a handover even needed, given Chris has been there since November and you and Andre are veterans?
Yeah, absolutely.
That's a good point.
Actually, in the time of my last flight, around six, seven years ago, we did these indirect handovers, what we call them.
We did those actually regularly.
It was more rare to have that direct handover where the other crew stayed on board before you arrived.
So now, since we've had commercial crew, we have been doing these direct handovers more, and it does help in order to transfer over any last-minute operations to help people get the lay of the land.
But there is nothing magic in it.
It also, during that direct handover, it actually is quite crowded on the space station as well.
So sometimes it's hard to, it can make life a little bit more difficult.
So we don't anticipate any problems.
Like you mentioned, Chris has been up there since around the time of Thanksgiving, so he is very well settled in.
We have talked to him as a crew.
We've talked to him individually several times.
So we've traded different pieces of information.
He's doing really well and has that place running.
It's going to be in perfect shape when we get up there, I'm sure, because he's so competent and settled in.
And we did have a chance to talk to the crew 11 astronauts as well.
We ran into them several times and had a little bit of a debrief so they could pass along some pertinent things.
There are some differences on the space station from now from the time that Andre and I flew before, but overall as a whole, it hasn't changed that much.
So you're right, our experience will also help.
And Jack and Sophie will be up to speed in no time, I'm sure.
Thanks, Bill.
Operator, next question for us, please.
Thank you.
David Denalt of About Space Today News, Your Line is Open.
Good morning, and thank you for taking our questions today.
Mine is a little bit more serious, perhaps, than some.
You had two people doing numerous interviews on networks and local television stations.
One is a retired senior engineer from NASA, and the other is a former shuttle pilot.
And they've been going around saying that the heat shield is old technology.
They rated it as an app.
How does that make you feel?
And I want to direct that too to Jessica.
Go ahead.
Well, that is specific to the Artemis mission.
We are flying on a SpaceX Dragon capsule, so totally different heat shield than the one that you were talking about.
But in regard to the Artemis mission, we have thousands of engineers here that have reviewed all of those data and that are trying to make sure that we are in a good posture.
So we have reviewed those data.
We do believe that the profile that the Artemis astronauts will be flying is a safe one, and we will leave it to that team to sort out.
Thanks, Jessica.
Operator, next question.
Jonathan here of Fox News.
Morning, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.
I'm wondering if each of you could describe a personal item that you're bringing along with you to space.
Sure, we all get to bring different personal items with us to space to share with all our friends and families.
And that's pretty meaningful to a lot of us, right?
We have a lot of people in our lives that have helped us along the way.
And it's hard to really express how thankful we are to everyone that has helped us get to where we are in life.
And one of the ways we can do that maybe is sharing something that we've flown as a personal gift afterwards.
And that feels pretty powerful.
And I know I'm pretty excited to do that when I get back.
Andre?
Yeah, I think that's the same like you.
It's different photos, different small things.
And it's for gift for my friends.
Yeah, same.
Yeah, I have some mementos from different institutions, organizations, universities that I've attended before.
We won't give any spoiler alerts, we'll save some of that.
But one thing I will tell you: I do have a small stuffed rabbit that belongs to my three-year-old daughter, and she actually has two of these because one was given as a gift.
So one will stay down here with her, and one will be there with us having adventures all the time.
So we'll keep sending those photos back and forth to my family.
Thanks, yeah.
And yeah, for me, some personal items too.
I can mention one that has had a lot of meaning for me.
So I'm playing the mission patch of Claudie Henéri.
She was the first French woman astronaut, and she inspired me so much.
So I wanted to honor her path and how she inspired so many women in France.
And so many, also not only women, but people wanted to go into sciences and adventure and exploration jobs.
So yeah, that's something I'm going to find.
Next question, please.
Dennis Akish of DASS, your line is open.
Thank you for the briefing.
My question is to Andrei Sidaev.
What are your expectations from the mission?
And has Alex Platonov given you any advice after his flight with Crew 11?
Thank you.
Yes, of course, we had a chance to speak each other.
He told me different things that will help me in my first time in the flight.
But also, in the US segment, we have there are Sergei Kushushkov, Sergei Mikaev, and Chris on the US segment.
I think how to say Pilach Millie?
I think the handover should be good.
All right.
Next question on the line.
TJ Muscaro of the Epoch Times.
The airline is open.
Hello.
Thank you so much for taking the time and Godspeed.
Question for Jessica.
How does it feel now going into space as a mother?
And for Sophie, the ESA has continued to decline to build its own crew spacecraft.
And I was wondering if you and your fellow ESA astronaut colleagues would one day like to see that come to pass.
Well, to start out, a lot of astronauts and cosmonauts around the world are parents, so it's certainly nothing new.
But it is personally different for me than my first flight, since, of course, my daughter was born only in between these two flights.
So it does feel very different, and it does make it a lot difficult in preparing to leave and thinking about being away from her for that long, especially when she's so young.
It's really a large chunk of her life.
But I hope that one day she will really realize that this absence was a meaningful one because it was an adventure that she got to share into and that she'll have memories about.
And hopefully it will inspire her and other people around the world.
Yeah, thank you for your question.
So actually, I think we're living an era of spaceflight, which is very interesting and kind of hard to predict.
Of course, for now, we don't have a crewed capsule.
Maybe one day we'll have.
I don't know.
I mean, I don't have a crystal ball to predict anything.
But what I can say is things are changing very fast in the space environment.
And it's true for like all over the continent because many nations are working to develop their space program.
And I think in the future, 10 years from now, no one can predict what will happen.
But what we can all say is that it's evolving very fast and leaning towards more space programs over the world.
Thank you.
Just a reminder for those on the phone bridge: if you have a question and would like to join the queue, please press star one.
If your question has been asked and answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, please press star two.
All right, operator, we'll go to our next question.
Will Robinson Smith of Space Flight Now, your line is open?
Hi, thanks for allowing another go-around with questions.
Question for the full crew again, but split up into two parts.
For the veterans, Jessica and Andre, you know, given that station only has about a half a decade left, this may be the final time that you get to visit.
So are there things that you weren't able to do during your first flight that you're hoping to do this go-around or something that you never got a chance to do?
And then to Jack and Sophie, since you're able to visit station for the first time now, you know, has there been anything that your colleagues in NASA and ETH have respectively told you that you really should make a point to do while you have this time on station?
Thank you.
Well, I was extremely fortunate on my first flight, and I got to do pretty much everything, spacewalks, robotic arm captures, so many different types of scientific experiments.
So there aren't very many things I didn't do, but the one thing I think because we were so busy, there was a goal that I had of spending an entire orbit, so a whole 90 minutes, in the cupola and being around in that one spot looking down all the way around the earth.
I actually never had time.
I had this agenda.
I really wanted to do it, and I never found a chance to do it.
So that's definitely high up on my list.
As you know, the ISS was planned to use I think 2024.
But now we have 2026.
Yeah, who knows?
Maybe we will fly on station a little bit more than five years.
But of course, last flight, I didn't have a chance to make EVA.
But in this flight, too, in this case, I hope what I said.
Thank you.
I think the best piece of advice I've gotten about stuff to do up on station is just to slow down and smile and enjoy it.
And we can get really caught up in all the important science and all the important technical work that we're doing up there.
But it's a great privilege that we get to experience weightlessness and the beauty of the Earth from an orbit.
And it's all based on the thousands and tens of thousands of people around the world through all our international partnerships and all the work that we've kept humans in orbit for 25 years and just slow down, smile, and enjoy being a part of that history.
So I'm looking forward to that.
And I know something Jessica didn't get to do on her last mission that she's going to enjoy this time is hang out with the four of us.
Have a great time together.
Very true, very true.
Yeah, I can only concur with what was said before.
And it's very interesting.
I received this morning an email from a European astronaut who flew in the early 2020s.
And he said, Sophie, you know, your schedule will be especially busy for your increments.
But don't forget one thing.
You have to go put your eyes in the cupola to see the Earth at least once a day because it's very easy.
The schedule is sometimes crazy.
It's timed every five minutes.
We have like, it's very detailed and it's a lot.
And so he said, like, force yourself to go see from the cupola once a day.
Thank you.
Thank you, Operator.
We'll go to the next question, please.
Richard Trevue of the Orlando Sentinel, your line is open.
Great, thanks.
Thanks for taking time to take questions today.
My one question I have for Jack, and I'm glad you brought it up.
It's been a minute since a mustache has traveled to space, so I'm wondering if you talked to any other astronauts who had brought similar facial hair up in the past and if they gave you any tips.
And that might be a little lighthearted, but for the rest of the crew, a little bit deeper, this might be the last opportunity you get to actually be on the International Space Station.
And if that weigh on you at all, the things that you want to accomplish or things that you want to make sure that you take care of on this potentially last half decade of this spacecraft.
Thank you.
The mustache is a lot of fun.
The crew has enjoyed it.
We've had a bunch of laughs about it.
We've had some support.
Some of our support staff, particularly our flight surgeons, have grown mustaches as well in support and solidarity of my mustache.
And I appreciate it.
And I have mine in solidarity of all the naval officers and men and women throughout history that have worn mustaches to see, and I get to wear them into space.
I'm trying to get it as long as possible, see if I can get it to be more crazy than the hair of our fine female astronauts.
But I don't think I will.
They have more style than I do.
So I'm looking forward to seeing what it does up there, how crazy it gets.
As for our, this may be my last opportunity to go to the space station.
I'm more excited about being part of the group, part of a group of people that passes it on from group to group to group.
Maybe I'll get to go again, maybe not.
Maybe I'll do something else or not.
I don't know the future, like Sophie said earlier, but we know right now we're part of something special.
And that's part of NASA and part of ESA and part of Ross Cosmos and part of humanity.
And it's really powerful to be part of something like that.
So whether I get to go again or not, I got to be a part of this for this moment with me and my family and our families.
And we feel really blessed and honored to have that opportunity.
Yeah, I think for me, for the focus on what could be my final mission on the space station is really the mentoring aspect.
This is the first time that I've been a commander of a crew, and that to me has been the most rewarding part is being here.
It's nice with Andre and I both having experience and then having two rookies.
That part has been so fulfilling for me.
And I hope that with this mission, I will be able to have a very positive impact on them, on their experience on the space station, and on all their careers.
Yeah, and I think one thing that we can say for sure in our crew is come what may.
I mean, we've been trained for whatever happens.
And yeah, we're all very happy to go to the International Space Station as a very good symbol of what humanity can achieve when nations work together.
It's been 25 years of continuous presence.
So we've received a legacy from people who built this, flown this, and operated this.
And we just want to be, you know, one passing relay to the future generations, whatever happens in the future.
So come what may.
All right.
It looks like we have three more questions on the line, and we have time just before our time ends with the crew today.
Operator, will you go to our next question?
Jonathan Jare of Fox News, your line is open.
Thanks so much for the second question.
I know this is for whoever would like to take it.
I know you're launching a bit earlier than originally planned before Crew 11's early departure.
You've already mentioned that the handover will, or the handover took place on the ground instead of in space, but I wonder if there are other ways that your preparations or training were affected, if you could describe that.
Yeah, our schedule changed actually several times throughout our mission.
We have had A very dynamic flight schedule in recent years.
So we actually moved forward by five weeks.
Previously, our flight was supposed to not launch until the end of March, so we already had that acceleration.
So another four days wasn't that big of a deal.
We had already adjusted our training templates to account for that.
And all the teams on the ground had to do a lot of work to figure out what was essential, what could be cut, and that kind of thing.
It was a little bit more hectic for us than it normally would have been, but we fit everything in that we needed to.
And then we also have a lot of other things in place to prepare for situations like this.
Some of the previous crews that have had extra time on orbit, for example, they recorded different videos of how to do different things of where things are located so that you can, if you have a situation like this where you don't have a handover, we have the material we need from a crew actually in space doing it.
So we have a lot of materials like that.
And of course, the incredible ground support that we have in the Mission Control Center, they are there all the time whenever we're working.
So it's not as if we have to operate completely autonomously or anything on the space station.
They're always there to help us out through any activity.
Yeah?
Next question, please.
Anna Kramer of Space Up Close.
The Irvine is open.
Hi, thank you.
Thank you for doing this and good luck in your launch.
We look forward to seeing you guys.
My question is for Sophie, please.
You mentioned, and I've read that you were inspired by the first female French astronaut.
I wonder if you could tell us a little background about how that came to be and what did you do then to become an astronaut and what are you planning, if anything, on the station during your time there?
Outreach sessions to inspire future women.
And maybe, Jessica, you could talk about any future spacewalks that your crew will be doing.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you for this question.
So, yeah, I actually had this little girl's dream of becoming an astronaut, but I was very young and it was like a faraway dream, kind of unachievable, like a dream, basically.
And I saw the other French astronauts launch and yeah, fine, I read their biographies, but I actually the launch of Claudie, the first French woman to launch to space, had a really big impact on me.
And I, as if I allowed myself to say, okay, well, she made it happen for herself.
Now I can allow myself to think that this can become possible.
So I hope that I will pass this message also to people, not only women, but men also, who have maybe doubts on their journey to their dreams or their objectives or wherever they want to go.
Yeah, sometimes you need to find some inspiration, you know, when especially, for example, students are working on math equation and it's very boring and you don't see the end of this.
But yeah, everything has a purpose and when you have a little inspiration, it helps.
She helped me a lot, so I hope I will be able to help a lot of the young people in France.
As far as EVAs or spacewalks, we do have some EVAs that are planned in the upcoming months.
Of course, you never know what is going to happen.
It's always a dynamic schedule.
And some of the spacewalks that are planned for a few months from now depend on pieces of hardware arriving on cargo vehicles.
So it's always dynamic and ever-changing.
But we do have some slated as early as March.
And those spacewalks will be to upgrade, to finish with these upgrades.
We've been doing them for years now, upgrading some new solar arrays that will help augment the power system on the International Space Station.
So a couple of those, some other small repairs and upgrades, and then we'll see what comes after that.
And I don't know if, Andrei, do you know any of the planned Russian spacewalks during our mission?
Yeah, we have, but yeah, we have Russian EVAs, but without my participation, yeah.
But I think we will have in during the our EVA, I will operate ERA, you know, European Robotic Arm.
Yeah.
Yeah, so what Andrei is referring to, normally the cosmonaut that flies on the U.S. commercial vehicles doesn't receive all of the training, doesn't actually participate in the spacewalks.
The two cosmonauts that are on the Soyuz will be performing those.
But yeah, sounds like he'll be helping out with the robotic arm.
All right, and we're to our final question for today.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Your line is open.
Thank you so much, Mario Masante, Crash and Pacio.
Thank you for giving me the chance for a second question.
This one is for Jessica.
I know that you're going to be performing or doing this very interesting activity, which is manual piloting, these landing simulations before, during, and after missions.
And I understand that astronauts in a long-duration and short-duration missions are going to be involved in the future.
Is this a NASA astronauts activity only, or is the agency open to other agencies doing this exercise like ESA and ESA and JAXA?
Thank you.
It is open to all of the, what we call the USOS, the U.S. operating segment.
So to ESA, JAXA, and the CSA, all astronauts that are flying during those expeditions.
I don't think we have any partnership offer that one with Ross Cosmos.
But Sophie and I will both be doing that experiment, the manual piloting.
And we have already both done a lot of sessions on the ground where we are in a special simulator that was built just for the experiment at the NASA Johnson Space Center.
And it's not actually based on the design of one of the landers that is being built right now by SpaceX or Blue Origin.
It's a different kind of design, like a reference design.
But it has controllers that you're flying.
You're monitoring a display.
You're looking at your fuel.
You're steering over to your landing site.
And the goal of that experiment is to understand what these gravitational transitions will do to a human's ability to perform those kinds of activities.
Of course, we have data from the Apollo missions because they did exactly that.
But now we know more.
We're trying to learn more with these kinds of advanced systems.
So Sophie and I did those sessions before the mission.
We'll do some on board using the controllers that we have to fly the Canada Arm, the Canadian Space Agency-built robotic arm.
And then we'll do some upon landing as well.
So we'll have those transitions from 1G to microgravity through an extended stay in microgravity, and then from that transition right back to having full gravity again.
Of course, it won't be exactly the same as the 1.6 gravity of the moon, but it'll help gather more data to see if there is any impact on our skills.
All right.
All right, and thank you so much for joining us today.
If you would like to learn more about Crew 12 and their mission, please follow along on www.nasa.gov forward slash commercial crew.
Godspeed crew 12.
You've been watching live coverage.
We return now to our scheduled program.
We join it in progress.
Remann was told when he was preparing for this mission, and the schedule is short.
He said, he was told, the broadcast will be on Christmas Eve, and more humans will be listening to your voice than have ever listened to a human voice in history.
Say something appropriate.
Those are the instructions he got.
And he thought, you know, what should I say?
In the beginning, God createth the heaven and the earth.
The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's Tiesel Muir Harmony tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q ⁇ A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Washington Journal continues.
Some time now this morning for open forum.
Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, now's your time to call in 2027-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
As you're calling in a couple stories on the crossover between politics and football on this Super Bowl Sunday.
This story from the front page of the Washington Post focuses on the halftime show.
Bad Bunny's show may tell a story about a cultural divide in America as millions await his Super Bowl performance.
Others pan his politics, taking a focus on that halftime show in Santa Clara, California today before a global television audience expected to top 100 million people.
And then there's this column by Paul Putz this morning.
This also from the Washington Post, but it's about Christianity at the Super Bowl defining, defying a trend in America.
Paul Putz writes, when the contest starts, players will be found at various points kneeling in prayer and pointing upward to God in celebration.
Meanwhile, for the fourth straight year, fans watching at home will see the latest Jesus ad from the He Gets Us campaign.
And during the post-game interviews, they'll hear the winners give glory to God while the losers try to make sense of the disappointment, perhaps turning to the Bible for solace.
Paul Putz writes, it's a remarkable shift over the course of a century.
Christian athletes have successfully turned pro-sports and pro-football in particular from a space in which Christians were rarely present into one of the most prominent arenas in American life for Christian witness and self-assertion.
For all the success of the Christian sports movements, he writes, it remains a subculture within the larger ecosystem of pro-sports, talking about Christianity, the Super Bowl, and politics in America today.
Paul Putz in his column.
You may want to read it today.
Open forum, though.
Anything that you want to talk about?
This is Helen in Long Beach, California.
Republican, what's on your mind?
Yeah, I was trying to call earlier.
Okay, on immigration, your prior speaker.
First, I have one thing to say.
I have this.
During the Obama administration, Obama deported 3 million illegal aliens, non-citizens, and there was no outcry, no ICE protests.
So, you know, I'm wondering the current protest, because it's under the Trump administration, could be a lot of inflammatory rhetoric stirred up by the Democratic Party.
I live in California, and I live in Los Angeles County.
They both proclaim themselves as sanctuary states.
In 2017, Governor Brown declared California a sanctuary state.
And I think about two, three years ago, maybe Karen Bass, the mayor of LA, she proclaimed Los Angeles to be a sanctuary city.
Well, let's take a look at Social Security.
I'm looking at the website for supplemental security income.
When someone enters in, and this isn't stated in the SSI I'm reading from, but when a person comes into this state illegally, it is immediately implied that they are a refugee because California has labeled itself a sanctuary state.
When an illegal alien comes into the city of Los Angeles, it is immediately implied that that individual is a refugee.
When you come into the country as a refugee or you're an asylum seeker, these people will receive Social Security income up to seven years.
So you get seven years of income and you may receive food stamps, health care, so forth, without paying for it.
And you get paid on top of it.
So Helen, bring me to your point.
Okay, the dilemma is with all this immigration coming in, they're double dipping and they're pushing United States citizens out of the labor market and out of the rental market, out of the housing market, because they're working under the table and receiving government benefits paid for by the very people they're displacing.
So Helen, you may want to read Steve Cortez's column.
It was from the Daily Signal.
It was last week.
And he talks about these issues that you're bringing up.
Daily Signal.
You can find it online in his column, I think, was from Wednesday or Thursday last week.
But go ahead and check it out as we go to Wendell in Delaware.
Democrat, good morning.
Oh, good morning.
How are you doing?
Doing well.
I was calling yesterday, but the picture they had, but Obama, I don't know what's wrong with people.
There's no goodwill.
That man's been racist all his life.
back there in the 70s he would need rent places to the black people and they always that's wendell in delaware This is Jim in Kissimmee, Florida, Independent.
Good morning.
Morning, Erin.
I just want to talk about the last phone that talk, you know, that you had as a speaker on there.
He said that they're giving $2,600 to send people back to their country.
No.
And I was wondering if Democrat, Republican, whatever you are, if you get people like on Social Security at $2,600, $11, they're making them $1,000 a month, $1,200 a month, some of them, then all vote for you.
And you want to have no trouble getting the other people out of the country instead of paying them to get out of the country.
It just doesn't make sense to me.
Okay?
That's all I wanted to say.
Thanks.
Beth, also in the Sunshine State.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Yeah, I'm going to go back to your first hour when you were talking about voter IDs and kind of give you a history.
I got my first voter ID in the state of Florida in 1972.
It was a little piece of cardboard paper.
So was my Florida driver's license, which I got at 15.
And so was my Social Security card, which I got from the federal government when I was 13.
In later years, I've lived in Florida, I've lived in Texas, I've lived in Ohio, and I've had an ID on my driver's license with a photo ID from the state that I lived in.
But when I went to vote in Florida, up until I, I think probably about 20 years ago, in Texas and in Ohio, when I went to vote, I gave them my paper voter's ID card.
And that's how I voted.
Now, in the last 20 years, I've been back in Florida.
Actually, I've been back for 30 years.
But in the last 20 years, I have gotten a voter information card is what my supervisor of elections tells me it is now.
So that's what system works the best.
Well, you had a lady call in yesterday that was from Florida questioning the voters and illegal voters voting in elections.
And I'm going, how does she live in Florida and not have a state-issued Gold Star driver's license or state-issued ID card?
Because the last 10 years that I have been voting in Florida, they don't want my voter's ID card.
They want my driver's license.
Now, when I went on Social Security, when I went on Social Security, I had to take my first name on my birth certificate back that I had not used since I was 13 years old.
And so I couldn't have any name that I had ever been known by because I could take my first name, my middle name, and either my maiden name or my married name.
I couldn't have my middle name, my maiden name, and married name that I have used for the last 50 years.
All right.
That's Beth.
This is John, Tampa, Florida, Democrat.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Hi, John.
And thank you for this opportunity.
I called to speak to Mr. Cortez, but I was dropped when he left.
And I think C-SPAN is great, but you have a problem, and that is you don't fact-check your callers or your guests.
Mr. Cortez made a lot of misstatements.
And I'm thinking that in the age of AI and all this intelligence, that there could be something done to address that issue.
I know it won't be easy, and I know it may not be real time, but maybe at a later time you could do that.
The other thing that I'd like to point out is that C-SPAN does nothing to do in-depth research on issues.
A lot of the callers call and they think they're stating facts, but they're not.
If you had somebody, let's say you took a week to deal with this immigration issue, we've been talking about it since January.
If you had experts who actually understood immigration law and they could point out things to you, you would know, first of all, like Republicans call all the time and say people should come in legally.
Well, we have asylum laws.
And so if somebody uses an asylum law, they are technically in the country legally.
But that doesn't stop ICE from rounding up anyway.
ICE is picking up green card holders.
They're picking up U.S. citizens at this point.
So, I mean, if C-SPAN wants to really advance the discussion and make people actually know what's going on, they should have a forum, maybe a week-long forum on immigration, and have experts who actually understand what's going on.
And John, I tell you, we have experts on this program every day, every week.
And what we try to do is present opinions.
Experts don't always agree with each other, even on the same topic.
And we try to give you a sense of their opinions, their expertise across the spectrum, and then let you call in and ask questions.
And so that's the forum we try to create.
But I'll take your point.
We've done that before on other topics of spending full entire three-hour shows or a couple days in a row on a certain topic.
And maybe it's time to do that again.
I remember during the Affordable Care Act debates, we would occasionally do an entire three-hour show on it.
So I'll take your point on that.
But running short on time.
Was there something else you wanted to say?
Yes, all that is well, John.
But what happens is when somebody like Mr. Cortez or any caller comes in and states something which is patently untrue, and there is no feedback, there is no pushback on it at all.
It allows people to come back the next day and say the same thing.
You know, and that's not pushing the ball further at all.
It's just, we're just regurgitating the same thing over and over and over again.
Every day I listen to C-SPAN and the same points are made.
Well, they should come in legally.
Well, if asylum is part of the legal thing, why doesn't C-SPAN say, well, actually, when somebody comes in and they apply for asylum, which is part of the law, they are technically legally present in the country.
John, you said we've never made that point.
I can tell you, I've made that point several times to people that this is a legal process.
And then there's also political debate of whether that process should change.
That's the whole discussion about whether the asylum process is broken in this country, debates that rage on the House and Senate floor and have for years.
And yet here we are still with a system that it would seem that everybody says is broken, but has yet to figure out a way to come together and fix it.
The system isn't really broken.
It's just that some people like Donald Trump insist on spreading things that are untrue.
And if C-SPAN doesn't counter vigorously and often whatever is untrue, I mean, you could do it.
You could publish and say, well, this claim that people who don't have this status or whatever is not factual.
That way, at least the guests and the callers would know, I can't just come in and just say something that I heard on Fox.
John, I appreciate the feedback, always do.
And we try to create this forum every day for people to call in and be able to give that real-time feedback.
So it's not just us telling you everything, but you having a conversation.
But I appreciate it.
And let's continue to have that conversation as we move down the road.
That's John in Florida.
We have about an hour left in our program.
We'll have a little bit more open forum at the end of our program today.
But up next, we're joined by David Becker from the Center for Election Innovation and Research.
And he's joining us to talk about what it means to nationalize an election, Donald Trump's calls for that this week, some of the election acts that are moving through Congress, all that with David Becker after the break.
We'll see right now.
We'll see you then.
C-Span is as unbiased as you can get.
You are so fair.
I don't know how anybody can say otherwise.
You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country.
I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices.
You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds.
I absolutely love C-SPAN.
I love to hear both sides.
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.
Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark.
Best ideas and best practices can be found anywhere.
But we have to listen so we can govern better.
Democracy depends on heavy doses of civility.
You can fight and still be friendly.
Bridging the divide in American politics.
You know, you may not agree with Leo Crown on everything, but you can find areas where you do agree.
He's a pretty likable guy as well.
Chris Coons 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.
It's nice to be with a member who knows what they're talking about.
Les did agree to the civility, all right?
He owes my son $10 from a bet.
He's never paid for it.
Fork it over.
That's fighting words right there.
I'm glad I'm not in charge.
I'm thrilled to be on the show with him.
There are not shows like this, right?
Incentivizing that relationship.
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C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered.
Washington Journal continues.
David Becker is back with us this Sunday morning.
He's the founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, an organization whose mission is what, Mr. Becker?
We work with election officials of both parties all over the country to support them in their work to ensure elections that voters should trust and do trust.
The should trust part is the good news.
Our elections are more trustworthy than ever before for a variety of reasons that we've talked about before.
But unfortunately, there's still many in this country who doubt the outcomes of elections they don't agree with and are obviously fed a lot of disinformation about those elections.
So the public servants who run those elections just do such an important job.
They're working constantly, even when we don't see them working way before in elections like right now, trying to ensure that the voting process is going to be convenient, safe, and secure.
And I want to talk about the voting process this year, but just explain a little bit more.
When you say you're working with those officials, state and local officials around the country, is it in an advisory capacity?
How do you do that?
What are some ways that you've done that?
So first of all, we do a lot of research out there that helps them with their work, research that talks about things, for instance, cybersecurity, issues relating to voter registration databases and voter registration efficient processes.
We put out research that talks about the prevalence of early voting, for instance, and mail voting without an excuse, as well as real innovations in voter registration that has made voter registration so much easier now than it used to be about 20 or 30 years ago, where the vast majority of states have things like online voter registration available now.
And then I also go around and speak with election officials all over the country.
They have a lot of questions and in many cases concerns about what's happening here in Washington.
And so I'm able to discuss that with them, inform them about that, and also just provide them with some support.
I just admire their work so much.
The work they do is often thankless, and they've been abused, threatened, and harassed for many, many years.
I should also add one other thing we do is we support the Election Official Legal Defense Network because of that abuse and harassment that's occurred now for over five or six years.
And all of this costs money.
So who funds a project like this?
Large foundations, foundations like the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, and others, and also donations from individuals.
And just as a project worth doing for America as well.
Yeah, we are a 501c3.
We're a nonprofit.
We're rigidly nonpartisan.
I work with Republicans and Democrats all over the country.
And our work is not to advocate for particular election policies that maybe the Democrats or the Republicans like, but really to advocate for the election officials.
So here this Sunday, because Donald Trump started a conversation last week about nationalizing the midterm election.
What does that mean?
Well, I can't say what he meant by it, of course.
I mean, I can tell you that members of Congress, Republican members of Congress, came out and said they don't believe in nationalizing elections.
Republican election officials, secretaries of state said they don't believe in nationalizing elections.
Many of his allies don't believe in nationalizing elections, and there's good reason for that.
Our founders, when they wrote the Constitution, had just gotten out of a war with a monarch.
And one of the things, one of the themes that flows through the entire United States Constitution is the limits on executive power, the checks and balances that exist between the branches of government.
And they were particularly concerned an executive might try to accumulate more power through the election process.
And so they wrote something into the Constitution called the Elections Clause, Article 1, Section 4.
The times, place, and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.
But the Congress may at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations.
That's right.
So the states have the primary responsibility for administering everything around their own elections.
Some states do more male voting, some states do less.
Some states have same-day registrations.
Some states have a deadline before the election date.
There's a variety of different things that different states do.
And the founders were so wise to do that because they created, first of all, that helped support our federalist system, but they might not have even realized this.
That decentralized system that the Constitution mandates is such a security strength of our system.
It is really hard to tamper with any national election in the United States because we don't run a single national election under a single national authority who says everyone uses the same machines, everyone does the same thing at the same time.
We run about 10,000 little elections in our communities run by our neighbors, members of our community who know us best.
And that is a strength.
It's one of the reasons that our elections have withstood scrutiny every single time and proven to be accurate every single time.
But there are some national ways that we have changed the manner or the registration of elections, right?
I'm thinking the Help America Vote Act or the National Voter Registration Act.
There are national laws that applies to the voting process.
So when is it okay to make a law like that?
And when does it have to be deferred to the state?
When does that first clause of Article 1, Section 4 conflict with the second sentence, the second part?
So I don't think it conflicts at all.
And I think, again, the founders were very wise in how they did that.
The default is that the states get to decide how to run elections.
If Congress chooses to act, they can act and that will preempt state law.
And it has in various circumstances.
pointed out the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, which affected military and overseas voters, and perhaps most famously, the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
But it happens rarely.
It's almost always bipartisan, which is good.
And you can tell both parties really respect that the primary responsibility resides in the states because those states know their voters best.
People in Washington state and people in Florida might not want to vote in exactly the same manner in terms of whether they do mail or the number of early voting days or whatever it is.
And so Congress can always act if it chooses to.
The Democrats tried in 2021 to pass a wide-ranging election reform bill that did not pass, did not get through the Senate.
The Republicans have some bills now that I think there are some questions as to whether or not they'll get through the full Congress.
But regardless of whether they move or not, if President Trump wants to dictate election policy to the states, he has one choice and one choice only, and that is to go through Congress and have Congress pass a bill.
So what is going through Congress right now, or some Republicans are attempting to move through Congress, the Save America Act.
It requires individuals to present an eligible photo identification document before voting.
It requires states to obtain proof of citizenship in person when registering an individual to vote, and it requires states to remove non-citizens from existing voter roles.
Do you think those are good national provisions for this country?
So I think first of all, we should take a look at the extent to which there's a problem that needs to be fixed.
And again, my organization has done a lot of research on this.
You can find it on our website, electioninnovation.org.
But we know the extent of voter fraud in the United States is extremely rare.
It's not zero, but it's pretty close to zero.
And that's the reason, there's a variety of reasons I think Americans take voting very seriously.
The penalties are very severe for election or voter fraud.
But even more so, we have so many checks and balances and redundancies in our process that detecting voter fraud is actually rather easy.
It's one of the easiest crimes to detect, and the penalties are very, very firm.
So if we look at things like voter impersonation fraud, which is what PhotoID is designed to address, it's extremely rare.
It's one of the more foolish ways that anyone could ever commit election fraud.
You're literally presenting yourself in front of someone who would be a witness.
It's very likely that the person you're impersonating might come in and try to vote, which would be a red flag, and that would be investigated right away.
That's just one of the ways that could be caught.
Similar signature faking a signature on a mail ballot, that's caught when it happens.
It happens rarely, but it does happen, and that can get caught and it will be prosecuted.
And then with regard to non-citizens on the voter list, which is something else the SAVE Act tries to address, there's extensive research on this.
We've done some of this research looking at exactly what the states have found.
And the states, even states allied with President Trump, states that are led by Republicans, have looked for non-citizens on their voter lists using every tool at their disposal.
And during the campaign period of time before the 2024 election, they might have said there were hundreds or thousands of potential non-citizens.
But when they actually started investigating, every single state found tens at the most of non-citizens on their entire list.
You look at a state like Ohio, which claimed hundreds over a course of more than 10 years, and then when they actually investigated it, it referred only six for prosecutions.
In Texas, it appears that there's only a few dozen.
In states like Idaho and Utah, the numbers, you can count them on two hands.
So even with that, what about the Belt and Suspenders argument that why not just have this as another layer of security?
And on the voter roles issue, why not have this as a way to make sure ballots don't go out to people who are deceased and are still on voter rolls?
So there is a really important national conversation that could be had, led by election officials who know this best, about how to keep ineligible people off the lists while at the same time ensuring you don't accidentally take eligible people off the lists, because that's one of the big problems here is you definitely want to keep non-citizens off the lists.
You definitely want to find people who moved or who died and get them off the lists.
But on the other hand, you don't want to do it in such a way that you get it wrong.
and take some eligible people off the list at the same time.
Now, there are answers to that.
That's not the conversation we're having in Congress right now, unfortunately.
Sure.
But if you talk to election officials, they will tell you, I don't care, the most conservative election official in the country, the most liberal election official in the country, they will agree that they don't want any ineligible people on their lists, but they also don't want to take an eligible person off their list accidentally.
So on the get-it-wrong aspect of it, though, I come back to Brad Rathensberger, the Secretary of State for Georgia, his comments about photo ID as a way to add trust to the system, that this is a system that people have lost some trust in, and having a uniform photo ID system nationwide would just help rebuild that trust.
What do you say to that?
Well, first of all, I don't know whether it would rebuild trust or not.
There's research that suggests it doesn't in the states where it exists.
And the majority of states do have voter ID in place.
And there are states that do it in such a way, again, it is entirely appropriate to try to talk about keeping those rare cases of individuals voting illegally from preventing them from doing it, but also doing it in a way that won't prevent an eligible person who, for whatever reason, doesn't have an ID, can't get an ID.
That does happen in the United States.
And trying to figure out a way to balance those two things.
I think there are states like Michigan, for instance, that has an ID requirement that work really well.
Louisiana enacted a similar one back in the 90s that was actually approved by the Clinton Justice Department that said, you've got to show ID, but if you don't have ID, in those rare cases, those few people who don't have ID for whatever reason, you can fill out an affidavit, put out all of your information on it, sign it under a penalty of perjury, and those affidavits can be investigated after the election to determine whether or not there was any potential election fraud.
There's balances that can be made.
Right now, we're not having those substantive conversations mainly because the election officials aren't being part of the conversation.
It's the politicians, whether it's about the Democrats trying to push H.R. 1, the Freedom to Vote Act, the For the People Act in 2021, or the Republicans trying to push the SAVE Act or the MEGA Act that they're trying to push in 2026 now.
We're leaving out a lot of the election officials who actually know how elections work and want to make sure that all eligible voters can vote and only eligible voters can vote.
Come to the MEGA Act and your concerns.
It has many of the same provisions of the SAVE Act, but also it would ban vote by mail, ranked choice voting, a couple other issues.
I mean, any attempt by Congress to radically change election law in this country has to be informed by the election officials and not by conspiracy theories about mail voting or non-citizens voting, which we know the actual data on this.
Mail voting is something we've had since the Civil War in the United States.
It gained more prominence and prevalence starting around the 1990s, largely in Republican states, largely in states run by Republicans, because they were worried many of their voters who might have been more rural, more property-owning, older, could really benefit from, or they thought that they could benefit from mail voting.
It was only in 2020 for the very first time that you saw then President Trump as a candidate complain about mail voting as a possibility for fraud, and you started to see Republicans retreat from that really important way of voting because they were listening to disinformation about that.
The simple fact is mail voting is secure.
We know this.
We've got a ton of experience with it.
Different states do it in different ways.
That's entirely appropriate as well.
But I think Congress, Washington isn't the place where election policy is going to come from best.
It's going to be from the states.
Why aren't those voting officials, and maybe they have, we just don't hear about it, proposing their own draft to Congress of reforms.
Hey, this is something that we as election officials have come up with that we think works.
Have they done that?
They haven't because they don't think Washington is the place where they should be mandating election laws.
They know their states best.
They do this in their state legislatures every single session.
They work closely with their state legislators.
They work to ensure that the election laws and procedures in their state are what work best for their citizens and provide the most secure environment.
Why would they come to Washington and say, hey, you should go ahead and mandate something that all of us have to do that maybe doesn't work in our state and actually might be more political than it is process-oriented?
David Becker, our guest, we're talking about elections, election integrity, a great person to have that conversation with if you have questions, especially with all of this in the news and expected to be in the news again today with several of those folks who had concerns about the president's comments about nationalizing the election on the Sunday shows via Fox News or CNN or Face the Nation today.
So likely a lot of these topics coming up in the news today and in the papers tomorrow.
Dee's up first for you out of Calhoun, Georgia.
Republican Dee, good morning.
Good morning, John.
Thank you for taking my call and love C-SPAN and Mr. Becker.
But I wanted just to say that in Georgia, they are so good.
You know, we are so precise with our voting.
Mail-in.
We have to put our driver's license number on there.
First, we request, and then we mail it, and then they mail it back and request all sorts of info with our driver's license number.
Then we have to mail it in.
Then we get a ballot.
So, I mean, and they're just so on top of it.
Georgia is really, really good and fair.
But also, Mr. Becker, I wanted to ask, Trump sometimes talks that he wants to do a third term election.
My question is, if he could do that, of course, you know, it's not plausible really at the present time.
But could other presidents have had a two-term, such as Obama, Bush, could they also do a third term?
And I will hang up and listen to your answer.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
If they did, I would assume they would have to overcome the 22nd Amendment.
Yeah, I mean, the answer is a simple no.
I mean, Donald Trump can't run for a third term.
No president can run for a third term.
There have been kind of clever theories that have been posed about how someone like President Trump could run for a third term.
But I'll just tell you, I think this is very clear.
I have no doubt that the Supreme Court would rule in this way.
And also, I think the states would prevent this.
Because you remember, the states are the ones who determine the candidate's eligibility to run for office, to put them on the ballot in a primary, for instance.
I think this would be determined in a primary before it ever got to the general election.
And I think it's a simple question, just as if someone who was 18 years old tried to run for president, it's very clear you have to be 35 to serve as president in the United States.
So I think this is a fairly cut and dried issue.
I do want to talk about Dee's point about Georgia elections and how well they're run.
Georgia's elections are actually run extremely well.
I usually point to states like Georgia run by Republicans, Michigan run by Democrats as states that run their elections extraordinarily well, very clean voter lists using all the tools that are available to them to keep those voter lists as clean as possible.
They have so many checks and balances in place to make sure that their election systems are secure.
They use paper ballots throughout the states and do outstanding state-of-the-art audits on those ballots.
We remember in 2020, Georgia actually counted their presidential ballots three times, three different ways, once entirely by hand, under observation from the parties and the candidates.
So we know what happens in the states.
You've been on this program before, and we've talked about Georgia and Michigan before, but I don't think, I think I've asked you, what state are you most concerned about?
Who runs their elections not so great?
Well, I've got to tell you honestly, I'm not worried about any state.
I mean, the states really are different.
But if Georgia and Michigan are up here, who's lower than that?
I think when you see, first of all, you're not going to get me to tell you which states I have.
I think trials, I'm sorry.
But I mean, look, there are states that politicize this stuff more because in some cases, the secretaries of state are more political actors.
And that's never really constructive because you're serving all of the voters in your state.
There's not an election official, you know, a good election official in the country that wants Democrats or Republicans to doubt the outcomes of their elections.
Our processes are very transparent.
We've talked about this before.
One of the best things, if anyone has any doubts, I'll probably say this again during this hour, is volunteer to be a poll worker.
Go work in the polls.
And we had a poll worker call in in our first segment when we're talking about this, and she makes the same point.
I mean, you learn about all the protections in place.
You learn how impossible it is to steal an election, to tamper with an election on any kind of scale.
There are mistakes that sometimes happen.
A big national election is an instance where we have about 150 million Americans doing something they don't usually do in a process run by about a million volunteers in about 10,000 jurisdictions.
It's never going to be perfect.
But the process is designed knowing that.
And that's why there are so many layers of transparencies and redundancies and checks and balances.
So even if there was a problem, we would catch it later on and we'd get the right outcome.
I remember one of the interesting points that you made on that is that when it comes to Americans' trust about the electoral system, the people who have the most trust in how the elections are going to work, a subgroup is poll workers themselves.
That they have, on average, just a much higher level of trust because they see it and have worked in it.
Yeah, and people tend to have trusted voters generally.
Trust goes up as you get more local, as you ask them, you know, who do you trust?
Do you trust Congress less?
Do you trust your state election officials much more?
Do you trust your county and local election officials much more?
Poll workers much more.
This is one of the reasons decentralization works so well.
It's one of the reasons when I vote, people should vote whatever method is legal and available in their state that they find most convenient and they like.
But I choose to vote early in person because I like going to a polling place.
I like seeing those poll workers, thanking them for their service.
I like seeing how the place is set up and having that community moment where you get to cast your ballot and put it in the tabulator.
We've somehow forgotten that great community aspect of elections.
It's become so political and we're told this is everything is riding on this.
The state of our nation is riding on this.
It's the most important election ever.
We hear that every two years.
But we forget this is this moment where 120, 150, 160 million Americans are all going to go to their polling place in a process run by their neighbors.
My son, who even though was not old enough to vote, served as a poll worker, and get to experience that.
And then we all collectively sit around our televisions or radios or the internet and wait for the results.
And sometimes the results take a little while because elections can be really close now in our closely divided nation.
But it's hard not to get kind of excited about that moment in American history where we have those elections.
Would you agree with the point a caller made in our, again, we talked about this in the first hour of our program today.
He was making the point that two weeks of counting ballots is too long.
Would you agree that trust goes down the longer it takes to count the ballots from Election Day?
What I would say is that we've been taking two to four weeks to count ballots since 1789.
That is the way it's always been.
But we've had better technology today than 1789.
But we still take that long.
And the reason we take that long is because we want to get it right.
I will give the example of California, because California is often used as a state that takes too long.
But think back in the presidential races.
When does media call California?
Media calls California at 8.01 p.m. Pacific time when a minute after the polls close in California.
Why is that?
Is that because they counted the presidential ballots first?
No.
It's because there's enough data to call the race because we don't need to count very many votes in California to know who won the race because the margin is so large.
The reason it seems like it's taking longer, because it isn't taking longer.
It's actually going faster than ever before.
The reason it seems like it is because we have a lot more close elections.
And when you have close elections, you need a lot more data before the media has the ability to call the race.
When the media calls the race, it does not mean counting is over.
In every state, there are states where they're calling the race on election night within a couple of hours.
Those people are still counting ballots.
I guarantee you, seven days, 10 days after the election, there are military ballots still coming in.
There are provisional ballots that need to be verified and confirmed.
There are late-arriving mail ballots that came in in the last minute that they have to make sure the signature matches and that everything is okay before they open the envelope and count that ballot.
They're doing that job.
That's why certification of the election, which is when the states finally say, yes, this is the final election.
This is who should take office.
In every single state, that takes weeks, and that's appropriate.
So remember when you hear the media call a race, that is not, that has nothing to do with the counting.
That is just telling you the media has enough data at that point.
We had this New Jersey election this past week, right?
And I saw some calling the race for Malinowski, who was one of the candidates in that race.
It was pretty close.
And it turned out as they were counting more ballots because it takes time to count the ballots and report them up, that his challenger had started gaining ground and actually overtook him.
That's entirely normal.
That happens in close races all the time.
And it's going to take them some time now.
I don't think they've declared a winner yet because they're still getting military ballots in.
They're still looking at provisional ballots.
They're double checking.
They're going to audit the paper ballots to make sure the paper ballots match the counts of the paper ballots, confirm the machine counts.
So they're going to get this right, and that's appropriate.
That's the way it should happen.
A lot of callers waiting to talk to you.
This is Jerry Pittsburgh, Texas, Republican.
Good morning to Pittsburgh, Texas.
I had a question.
Are you familiar with Judicial Watch?
I am.
And then finding 5 million people on the voter rolls that were made or moved.
And on mail-in ballots, absentee ballots, you're talking two different ballots.
Absentee ballots have been around forever, but mail-in ballots only came in in 2020 election for the first time.
David Becker, I'll let you.
Yeah, I'm sorry, that's just not true.
Some states call them mail ballots.
Some states call them absentee ballots.
The big difference is whether or not you need an excuse to get a mail ballot, or if they call it an absentee ballot, or you don't need an excuse.
The vast majority of states, two-thirds, allow mail ballots without an excuse.
Red states, blue states.
It's a wide mix.
And how many states are mail-in only?
And when was the first time that happened?
I actually don't know the exact name.
Washington and Oregon were the first states to kind of move to mail-in only.
In Washington, at least, it was under a Republican Secretary of State.
California and Colorado don't in other states, Utah has a lot of mail voting.
They're not mail-only.
They offer mail predominantly, but there are in-person voting options in those states.
Arizona has widespread mail voting as well.
They happen to call it early voting instead of mail or absentee.
But it's all the same thing.
We have indeed had mail voting and absentee voting since the Civil War.
In other words, blank ballots that were sent to voters and returned by the Postal Service.
Now they're often returned by drop boxes by the voter themselves to be counted after they're verified.
His other question was about Judicial Watch's concerns about voter rolls and clean voter roles.
Yeah, I think one of the really important things, we're going to hear a lot of disinformation about elections coming out.
It's an election season.
That's what happens.
Whenever you hear claims about this, ask if they've shown them to a court and what has happened.
Because it's easy to make claims on social media.
It's easy to make claims that aren't going to be checked and scrutinized and cross-examined.
But I can tell you, every time these claims have been looked at, they've failed.
Yes, it's true that voter lists need to be constantly maintained.
That is a federal law.
We talked about the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act before, which require voter list maintenance, which is a really good thing.
I led the effort to create one of the most useful tools to help voter list maintenance, the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, which half the states are in.
And that tool helps them identify people who might have died, who are on their list, people who might have moved out of their state and moved to another state.
That's very difficult data to obtain.
And so whatever, when states can use tools like that, Michigan and Georgia, I mentioned it again, they both use those tools.
They have very good integration with the data that they get from their motor vehicles agencies, which is really important because when people have a life event, they change their name or they move or they come of age.
They go to their motor vehicles agencies most.
And so having great integration with that data is important.
But we have so many checks and balances in place.
I can't even begin to hope the caller will go and volunteer to be a poll worker and see this.
If every time someone has claimed there are massive numbers of dead voters who have cast ballots, every time that's been disproven.
And I think back to Secretary Raffensperger in Georgia, who's done a remarkable job, I think, under a very challenging circumstance and with really close elections.
You see, he actually investigated every single claim of dead people voting because they were wild claims made after 2020.
And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, they found one, and it was a person who had passed away after they sent their ballot in, but before Election Day had occurred.
So at the time they cast their ballot, it wasn't a crime.
Different states have different laws as to whether or not those ballots should count if the person dies in between when they cast in a win when Election Day comes.
David, Wisconsin, Democrat, good morning.
Thanks for waiting.
Good morning.
Mr. Becker, I'm honored to speak with you today.
I just want to let you know I became a poll worker for the first time last year.
And I learned a lot about how the elections are run.
I always thought it was so simple.
You just came in, everything went smoothly, but there's a lot more behind that.
For one thing, I had to leave my political orientation at the door.
And probably a lot of the people around me probably voted different than me.
But we are, the poll workers, they have checks.
They check each other.
And we had a circumstance where we had a massive ice storm.
We didn't have any electricity, so everybody had to vote on paper.
And it was a long day.
In fact, we didn't get done until midnight that night, but we got through it.
And we have also, we have voter ID laws in Wisconsin, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to have a driver's license.
There's certain things that qualify.
And people that, you know, these mail-in ballots, they don't get colored if there's no registration there.
They can send in that ballot, but if you're not registered, it doesn't count.
So there's a lot of things going on that people have the wrong idea about.
But I learned a lot, and I was very proud to go through that process, and I'm going to do it again.
And I think it's really a good idea.
A lot of the people that were election workers there are getting along in age, and I'm 73.
But I'd love to see younger people involved in it.
And, you know, it's a great thing.
Our elections are, there's not the fraud that they talk about.
It's just non-existent.
So thanks a lot for listening to me.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks for the call.
John, I got to tell you, this happened last few times.
A poll worker will call in during this segment.
It's one of my favorite things to hear these people because I don't often get to see them outside of my polling place.
David, thank you so much to all of anyone else who served as a poll worker.
Thank you.
It is hard work.
You have to go through training.
It's a long day.
Most poll workers get there like at 5 a.m. or so to set up, and it's not unusual there until midnight or later.
How many Americans will volunteer to be a poll worker in a midterm election or a presidential election?
It's really hard to get an exact number.
I think give or take about a million for a major federal general election is about right.
There's counties like Los Angeles that have 5,000 different precincts.
Although many vote by mail, many also vote in person, either early or on election day.
There are many places where voting in person is the primary way of voting.
But there's hundreds of thousands for sure that we rely upon.
And again, my teenage son volunteered before he could even vote.
What I've heard from poll workers time and time again, one of the most meaningful, fulfilling aspects of their job is actually when they can facilitate voting for maybe someone they don't agree with.
It's what makes us such a great country.
We don't understand, although we hear about Congress every day and the partisan battles that are going on.
And oftentimes there are those here in the United States and certainly overseas that are trying to divide us.
They're trying to make us hate our fellow Americans.
And I just challenge any of you, be a poll worker.
I guarantee you, you're going to facilitate the vote for people you agree with and people you disagree with.
And it's going to be incredibly rewarding.
And you're probably not going to do it just one time.
The poll workers who call in tend to be ones who do it year, every two years.
Yeah.
And if you're a parent of a teenager or just a parent of anyone, in many states, if you're 16 or older, you can volunteer to be a poll worker, even if you can't vote yet.
Certainly 18-year-olds can volunteer to be a poll worker.
David is exactly right.
It would be great to get more young people doing this.
More young people are doing this.
Young people often have language skills and tech savvy that maybe those of us who are older might not have.
So it's really important.
And oftentimes they get bit by the bug too.
And they become repeat poll workers and start doing it throughout their entire lives.
It's really wonderful.
Humble Texas, Thomas, Independent.
Good morning.
You are on your topic.
Hey, listen, being a poll worker is funny because a lot of times you see your neighbors come in and vote.
Yeah, which is a great thing.
But what I was telling about is how did Dominion win a case against Fox News for bad information?
And my second question is, during the 60s, the states had to call in the troops to make sure that black people could vote.
I mean, should they do that again or should you just pass the John Lewis bill and cover today?
And one more thing.
It's really hard to get your birth certificate nowadays because they don't want the one from the hospital.
They want it from the state.
So everybody who's going to vote, make sure here in Texas you have a state seal on it.
Thank you, guys.
Sure.
Thanks, Thomas.
So first of all, let's start with the Dominion cases.
And I think broadly, there were several defamation cases brought by those who were harmed by lies about the 2020 election.
Dominion is, I think it's still, it doesn't exist anymore under that name.
It was purchased by someone else.
It's now called Liberty Vote.
I believe it's the second largest voting machine manufacturer.
Their machines, just like the other manufacturers, are certified federally.
They're tested.
They're tested before every election.
We have paper ballots, again, which is a key security mechanism.
98% of all Americans in the United States vote on paper.
They have since 2020.
Louisiana is the only state that doesn't currently have paper, but they're moving towards it.
That paper is recountable.
It's verifiable.
It's audited to confirm the machines work properly.
But back to the defamation claims.
Dominion sued Fox News.
They've sued others.
There have been lawsuits for defamation for lying about the election against Rudy Giuliani, against Kerry Lake, against Mike Lindell.
And in every single circumstance, those who lied about the elections were held liable.
In the case of Fox News, that case never went to trial because Fox News settled the case for $787 million prior to going to trial, prior to having to present any evidence that what they said was true, which would have been a defense, which they did not.
In the case of Mike Lindell, he stood outside the Denver courthouse and claimed he was going to show that everything he said was true.
And then he got inside the Denver courthouse and literally said nothing, presented no evidence that what he said was true, and was found liable for millions.
In the case of Kerry Lake and Rudy Giuliani, before they even got to the point where they could have presented evidence, they both conceded liability.
They both said, fine, I committed defamation and went right to damages phases.
So the lies have had some accountability, which is good.
And the courts have consistently found that these false statements about the 2020 election were lies.
We had dozens of courts confirm the outcome of that election.
So hopefully that answers that question.
On that for a second, do we have a sense with federal investigations into voting machines in Georgia, Puerto Rico?
We heard.
Do we have a sense of what federal investigators are looking for?
Tulsi Gabbard being involved and seen taking a part in those investigations.
Do you know anything about that?
I mean, I know it's been publicly reported, and of course I keep up on it.
But I mean, this is a case of, you know, the president doesn't like the fact that he lost the 2020 election.
He did lose the 2020 election.
We know that.
He did win the 2016 and 2024 elections, and we know that.
2020 was the most scrutinized election in American history, the most recounted, the most confirmed and verified election in American history.
We know who won and who lost.
And yet there are people who are loyal to him that are trying to make it seem as if there's enough questions out there to make those lies somehow true.
I can tell you if they look at the ballots in Fulton County, they'll find the same thing that the election officials found when they counted those ballots multiple times in 2020, and they'll confirm that Joe Biden won the election in Georgia in 2020.
If they look at the machines as they apparently are, I mean, interesting, they chose Puerto Rico because Puerto Rico has no vote for president.
It has no voting member of Congress.
Those machines are no longer being used in Puerto Rico.
But if they look at those machines in Puerto Rico, they might find that those machines have some vulnerabilities.
That's what we're hearing.
But literally every single technological device has vulnerabilities.
My phone has vulnerabilities.
The laptop has vulnerabilities.
The TV you're watching this on right now has vulnerabilities.
The question isn't whether or not a device has vulnerabilities.
It's whether or not you can protect against the vulnerabilities, detect them when they occur, and mitigate against them.
And this is where the paper ballots become so important.
Because if anyone tried to tamper with the voting technology, or if it malfunctioned, which is probably even more possible, although very, very unlikely, because of the audits, again, these are hand reviews of the ballots, looking at the machine counts and confirming they match.
Because of those audits, it would be caught.
A hack can't get at a piece of paper.
And so that is one of the reasons that states over the course of the past 15 years have moved to paper.
Georgia did not have paper ballots in 2016.
In fact, they hadn't had paper ballots until back to 2000.
In 2020, thanks to the legislature, majority Republican, and the leadership of Secretary Raffensperger and Governor Kemp, they moved to paper ballots in advance of the 2020 election.
And thank God, right?
Because that election was very close.
And they needed to be able to show the evidence to people to say, yes, we know how people voted.
We know what the count says.
This is who won.
And they did that several times.
They counted 5 million presidential ballots in Georgia, having not had paper ballots before for 20 years.
They counted 5 million paper ballots in Georgia in about five days in the middle of November during a global pandemic with observation from both campaigns and candidates watching them.
That work has withstood scrutiny every single time.
It's really remarkable.
What election officials accomplished in 2020 is still one of the great achievements of American Democratic history, and yet they're still being accused of having been engaged in a mass conspiracy to steal an election.
Time for just a couple more calls with David Becker this morning.
Anthony in Greentown, Pennsylvania, Republican, thank you for waiting.
Go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, John.
Good morning, David.
I've got a couple of things.
I'll be really quick.
You mentioned, I'm glad you mentioned that the Democrats tried to nationalize the election with H.R.1, with Nancy Pelosi.
That's one thing that you said that I agree with.
The other thing is that James Madison, when he wrote the Constitution, did a great job, but he did put that clause in there that the Congress can change it.
And he also put a clause, he didn't get a clause that he wanted to get in, which was a federal negative, which prevented states from passing unjust legislation.
Now, during the 2020 election, there was a lot of stuff that went on that was not normal.
And the chain of custody of these envelopes were not kept 100%.
And that's where a lot of people don't trust the 2020 election.
The ballots coming in after the deadline and whatnot.
Anthony, what would it take for you to finally trust the results of 2020 election?
What more do you need to see?
We care about the 2020 election, John, anymore.
But I'm just pointing out, he's saying it was the most safest election or purest election ever.
Nobody agrees with that.
What I would like to see is the voter ID laws.
I like the Congress, the Bill of Congress is trying to get through the Senate.
And I hope they do a standing filibuster.
But, you know, it's just not true.
And one question I have, when they take the ballot out of the envelope, can they identify it back to the voter?
Because a lot of stuff was taken out before anybody had any chance to count or whatever down in these places like Atlanta and Detroit.
And, you know, there was a lot of mistrust.
That's all I'm trying to say.
Anthony, let me take your questions for David Becker.
Yeah, look, there's a lot of disinformation that flows around there.
And just I go back to the point that I made earlier, which is what has actually happened when evidence is presented in front of a judge and had to be considered.
And the fact is, mail ballots across the country were confirmed before they ever opened that envelope.
They confirmed the signature matches.
If it doesn't match or if there's a question, they put it aside for additional review.
The people who review these signatures are not doing it just one-off.
There's multiple people looking at these.
There are people from different parties looking at these.
They're confirming that these ballots have come in.
Every ballot that was counted in 2020 was counted consistent with the state laws that existed.
There are some states that allow grace periods for ballots to come in after Election Day, but every single ballot that's counted was cast on or before Election Day and postmarked or otherwise confirmed to have been delivered prior to the close of the polls.
In other words, if you put it in a mailbox on Election Day in a state like California or currently Mississippi and it gets there a few days later and has a postmark on it of election day, you couldn't have changed your vote.
It's in the mailing process.
So this is actually a really big point.
One of the things, I hear this quite a bit from people who have been targets of disinformation for quite some time, and it's always supporters of losing candidates.
Sometimes it's Democrats, as in 2016 and 2018 or 2024.
Sometimes it's Republicans as in 2020.
And they'll often hear these claims like fishy things were going on in the states.
States changed rules.
States didn't follow their rules.
But the fact of the matter is, we knew what the rules were in 2020 and in every other election before.
Not everyone liked the rules.
I'll concede that.
There are Democrats who don't like it that some states require mail ballots to be in on Election Day or not get counted.
There are states where Republicans don't like that there's a few days where they can come back later.
There are places where people like early voting more and don't like early voting as much.
But in every case, we know those laws.
We had more pre-election litigation in 2020 than any presidential election ever.
And those laws were heard by courts.
Some won, some lost.
There were restrictions on drop boxes in some states like Ohio and Texas that Democrats didn't like.
There were facilitations for mail voting in other states that Republicans might not have liked.
But courts heard them and they ruled.
We knew what the rules were on Election Day.
I think your answer is going to be it's whatever works best for states.
But let me try here.
Is this one place where a uniform standard might work on when mail-in ballots need to be in?
If every state, you can run mail-in ballots how you want, but they have to be in by election day, because that just helps build trust for the entire system.
Is that something you'd recommend to states?
This is one way we can all set one standard?
I'd love if we were having that conversation, right?
And you and I are having this conversation right now, but that's not the conversation that's happening anymore.
But is that something you'd recommend?
Which is why states don't trust Congress.
I think there are many states, blue states, Colorado, other states that require mail ballots to be on Election Day.
But they also match that with extensive early and in-person voting options on Election Day and lots of drop boxes.
So if someone is still holding their mail ballot on Election Day, they can find a place to put it that day and not have to entrust it to the mail.
That conversation could be very good.
And by the way, we don't necessarily need Congress to rule.
There are best practices that occur, and often we, my organization, helped facilitate these, where states get together and kind of say, yeah, this makes a lot of sense.
Let me go back to my state and talk to my legislators about it.
Need to wait for Congress to act.
We can just get this kind of thing done in our state.
As you may know, this might happen anyway because there is a case before the Supreme Court now, RNC versus Watson, where Mississippi's grace period is being challenged as to whether or not that violates the Constitution or the law.
I have my own opinion on whether or not the Supreme Court should dictate that to the states.
I think.
Are you of the opinion that they should not?
I think the Supreme Court should not dictate.
I think the Constitution and federal law does not mandate that ballots be received by Election Day, whether or not that's a good policy.
I think that it does mandate that ballots be cast and out of the voters' control by Election Day.
And I think putting it in a mailbox, just like we've done for 150 to 200 years, does that effectively and states have made that choice.
But whether I think that's a good idea or not won't matter.
It's going to ultimately be up to five justices in the Supreme Court.
And they may rule maybe sometime soon that mail ballots have to be in by election day.
I will say if they do that, I hope they do it very soon because for the states that have to change their policies and educate their voters to make sure that ballots don't come in late, they're going to have to work at that.
That's going to take some resources.
So better to get that ahead of time.
Back to my point about litigation.
Figuring this stuff out ahead of time, whether you like the rules or not, is always a good idea.
The more ahead of time, the better.
David Becker, always short on time.
We could come in even when we go five minutes over.
But if you want to learn much more about the work that David Becker does, electioninnovation.org is where viewers can go.
Always appreciate your time, especially on Sunday.
All right, thanks a lot, John.
About 15 minutes left in our program.
We'll end in open forum.
Any public policy, any political issue you want, it'll be your calls to end our program.
Go ahead and start calling in.
We'll get to them after the break.
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People come to you and say you've changed their views on certain social issues because of your books.
That's why I write.
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Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's Teasel Muir Harmony on the history of the U.S. space program.
From the creation of NASA in 1958 to Neil Armstrong taking his first historic steps on the lunar surface in July 1969 and NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon.
She also looks back on astronaut Frank Borman's Apollo 8 Christmas Eve broadcast in 1968.
Frank Borman was told when he was preparing for this mission and the schedule is short.
He said, he was told, the broadcast will be on Christmas Eve and more humans will be listening to your voice than have ever listened to a human voice in history.
Say something appropriate.
Those are the instructions he got and he thought, you know, what should I say?
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's Tea Selmuir Harmony.
Tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's QA.
You can listen to QA and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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.
Bridging the divide in American politics.
You know, you may not agree with Le Dovecrown on everything, but you can find areas where you do agree.
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.
It's nice to be with a member who knows what they're talking about.
You guys did agree to the civility, all right?
He owes my son $10 from a bed for a year.
He is never paid for it.
I'll fork it over.
That's fighting words right there.
I'm glad I'm not in charge.
I'm thrilled to be on the show with him.
There are not shows like this, right?
Incentivizing that relationship.
Ceasefire, Friday nights on C-SPAN.
Washington Journal continues.
Just about 15 minutes left in our program today.
Open forum for you to call in with your comments in about an hour and 15 minutes at 11 a.m. Eastern.
Did want C-SPAN viewers to know about a press conference we'll be covering.
It's the four astronauts that are part of NASA SpaceX Crew 12 mission.
They're holding their pre-launch news conference.
They're quarantined ahead of their trip to the International Space Station and will be live from their crew quarters at NASA's Kennedy Center Space Center in Florida.
That's again 11 a.m. Eastern for you to watch on C-SPAN.
You can also watch on c-span.org and the free C-SPAN Now video app.
With that ending in your phone calls today, and Barbara's up first out of Oregon, Lebanon, Oregon, Democratic Line.
Good morning.
Good morning, John.
It's I want to commend you and the rest of your reporters for your professionalism.
I just want to say that I'm a proud member of an Oregon state that was the first of mail-in voting since 1969.
And I appreciate the fact that I can sit down and look through the items and check people off.
But I want to make note of something that has kind of troubled me is the fact that the U.S. Postal Service has decided that they have changed for your local post office and it doesn't get, at least here in our state, is that it's not getting the data on it at the local.
It has to go all the way to Portland, which there could be an accident and the mail ballots could get damaged or lost or whatever.
There are drop boxes in town at the local police station, at the substation for the sheriff's office, and at the local library.
And I just wanted to let everybody know that they need to check with theirs, you know, as far as their district or whatever, that if their post office has made any changes.
Hey, Barbara, can I recommend a book for you?
Yes.
We interviewed Stephen Grant about his book, Mailman.
And we did it on C-SPAN's book TV, but he talks about his year working as a mailman in rural Virginia.
And one of the things he talks about is he did it during the 2020 elections.
And he talked about the importance of the mail-in ballots and how sacred those were for the postal workers that would pick them up.
And when those were in the mail, it's an interesting chapter in his book, but it's a great read about life as a mailman.
Well, thank you very much.
I do have a friend whose daughter is a postman, and I do appreciate the professionalism that they do also.
Barbara, thanks for the call from Oregon.
This is Guillermo in Philly, Republican.
Good morning.
Hey, John, how are you?
You okay?
I'm doing well, sir.
Yeah, I'm here again to put in my two cents.
This is it.
This guy that was before talking to you about innovation and research, if there is no problem, why would we need an innovative?
Why do we need innovation if there is no problem?
The other thing is, everybody knows that there is a problem.
Everybody knows there is a problem.
Nobody does anything about it.
However, when somebody tries to do something about it, they all become geniuses.
They all become technicians and architects and engineers, and they all want to do it this way, and they all want to do it that way instead of just helping the person who did start to do something about it.
May peace with you all.
That's Guillermo in Philly.
This is Sue, Grand Rapids, Independent.
Morning, Sue.
Good morning.
Say two thoughts from this guy that I just listened to that you had as a guest.
Yeah, I mean, what he's really avoiding is the fact that it isn't the paper handling.
We all need the paper, and we all want the paper documentation, but it is the digitizing from there on, where all of the contracts that are made through states and companies like brings up the past EDS before Dominion and Michigan problems.
That's where that occurs.
And then regarding presenting, let me finish, please, if I may.
Regarding the evidence that was presented in court systems, are we really going to start to think now that these judges didn't have political affiliation, even though they suggest otherwise in their previewing evidence or rather not previewing the evidence so that nothing could be ascertained?
I mean, come on.
We all know.
And yes, it was stolen.
2020 was stolen.
Absolutely.
I just didn't.
What are the digital contracts that you refer to?
I think we lost Sue, so we go to Norma in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Democrat, good morning.
Good morning.
Yes.
Hello.
Yes, ma'am.
I wanted to say a couple of things.
When I was a little girl, I went with my mother to the polling booth where she had pulled down a lever.
And when my great-grandchildren were visiting me, I took them with me to the polling booths.
So that's always been very important to me.
But what I wanted to say, a couple of things.
One, there were four cases of fraud in Florida.
It turns out that they were convicted felons who were given their right to vote.
And then that was contested.
And they made them crazy, but the judge threw it out.
And I also wanted to say that I think the presidential election should be nationalized by eliminating the 12th Amendment so that everybody who votes for president's vote is counted.
No matter what state you live in, the person who gets the most votes becomes president.
And we don't have situations like Al Gore, who lost, Hillary Clinton lost, and Samuel J. Tilden lost, although they won the popular vote.
So it's the Electoral College that's unfair.
It's the Electoral College that you don't like, Norma?
That process is to repeal the 12th Amendment.
Thank you.
That's Norma.
This is Robert in Middleton, Mass.
Republican, good morning.
Yes, I agree with the woman who just called in.
I vote in Massachusetts for president, and it means nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Because I don't think any president, I don't know how far back you have to go, hasn't won in Massachusetts ever, I don't think.
So I like the idea.
I think Trump, when he talks nationalized elections, does he mean popular vote?
And I'd feel better going to the polls if I knew when I pulled a lover that the popular vote would count when I vote.
And even though it still won't mean anything in Massachusetts, but it may mean something for the Democrats in another state that's close.
But I believe if Trump means popular vote when he says nationalized, I agree with that strongly.
So, Robert, he's talking about when he said nationalized, he's talking about the midterm election, and there wouldn't be a obviously the president's not on the ballot in the midterm.
So he's talking about just Senate and House elections when it comes to midterms.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Okay.
I'm talking about the presidential election.
Gotcha.
That's Robert, Massachusetts.
Angela is in D.C., independent.
Good morning.
Yes, good morning.
I just wanted to mention that it just seems impossible for an election to be stolen mathematically.
And it doesn't seem like people who don't know each other or work at the polling stations in the 50 states would be able to collude and get themselves brought up on federal charges.
None of that seems likely.
So I voted, for example, for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
And when they lost the election, I had no doubt that it was a fair election.
You can't always win, you know.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that I'm concerned with President Trump saying that he wants to do a total rebuild of the Kennedy Center.
And I'm wondering if he doesn't want to tear it down.
So I hope the Commission on Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission are paying attention and are ready to go to court over this.
And Angela, why so concerned about the Kennedy Center?
Well, I mean, I'm a great lover of the arts.
I've been to the Kennedy Center about 200 times in the last 35 years.
And I mean, just look at the president didn't have a permit to tear down the East Wing, but he had it done.
So I don't feel like he really respects their process of getting permits.
Angela, when was the last time you were at the Kennedy Center?
Have you gone in the past year?
No, the last time I was there was in April of 2025.
And what's the best show you've ever seen at the Kennedy Center?
I think it was that show with a band from Puerto Rico named La Sonora Ponsena.
It was their 70th anniversary, and it was a packed house.
You ever watch any of those Kennedy Center honors shows?
I have.
What's your favorite one of those?
I think it was the one where Carol King was honored.
I forget who were the other honorees.
And Aretha Franklin was playing one of Carol King's songs.
And she's also one of my favorite artists, so I really enjoyed that.
Angela, thanks for the call from here in Washington, D.C., and we will end it there today.
Of course, we'll be back tomorrow.
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series.
Today, with our guest, best-selling author Jody Pico, who has written 29 books about a wide range of controversial and moral issues.
Her books include The Storyteller, 19 Minutes, and Her Latest by Any Other Name.
She joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein.
People come to you and say you've changed their views on certain social issues because of your books.
That's why I write.
You know, it's to start a discussion.
And you can't always have a discussion with people.
Some people just aren't ready to hear it.
But there are a lot of minds that you can change one mind at a time.
Watch America's Book Club with Jodi Picoult today at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's Teasel Muir Harmony on the history of the U.S. space program, from the creation of NASA in 1958 to Neil Armstrong taking his first historic steps on the lunar surface in July 1969 and NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon.
She also looks back on astronaut Frank Borman's Apollo 8 Christmas Eve broadcast in 1968.
Frank Borman was told when he was preparing for this mission, and the schedule is short.
He said, he was told, the broadcast will be on Christmas Eve, and more humans will be listening to your voice than have ever listened to a human voice in history.
Say something appropriate.
Those are the instructions he got.
And he thought, you know, what should I say?
In the beginning, God createth the heaven and the earth.
The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's Tieselmuir Harmony.
Tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's QA.
You can listen to Q&A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics and public policy from Washington and across the country.
Coming up Monday morning, Cliff Young of Ipsos Public Affairs shares the latest public opinion research on President Trump and issues voters say are top of mind for midterm elections later this year.
Then Bloomberg government senior White House reporter Mika Solner previews the week ahead at the White House.
And Dennis Shea of the Center for Housing Policy, the Bipartisan Policy Center, discusses Senate and House packages aimed at addressing housing affordability.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal.
Join in the conversation live at 7 Eastern Monday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-SPAN.org.
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Next, President Trump delivering remarks at the 74th Annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.
He focused on his administration's support of Christians and faith leaders.
Well, thank you very much, and thank you to Pastor Paula.
Paula's incredible woman.
She's been with me a long time, right from the beginning.
This is a beautiful American tradition, and it's a true honor to be back with so many incredible leaders and people of faith at the National Prayer Breakfast.
I think I've been here just about every time.
It's hard to turn it down.
I don't have the courage to turn it down.
Sometimes I want to.
Come back from a horrendous trip fighting people that can't stand us, keeping us out of wars and seeing things that nobody would believe that anybody would see.
And last time I came, I got in at four in the morning.
They said, sir, you're going to be speaking at seven?
They said, really?
Oh, that's wonderful.
They said, where?
National Prayer Breakfast.
I said, I'll be there.
I'm afraid not to be.
I need all the help I can get.
And you know, I never get a fair break from the fake news, which is back to, that's a lot of fake news.