C-SPAN’s Washington Journal dissects Attorney General Pam Bondi’s combative Epstein testimony, contrasting it with Trump-era executive actions on immigration—like deporting criminals and halting border crossings—that bypassed partisan gridlock. Callers debate DOJ accountability, detention centers, and Democratic inaction, while Elise Labbitt frames transatlantic tensions at the Munich Security Conference, where Rubio and Vance criticized EU policies, sparking concerns over NATO trust. Rubio’s "America-first" rhetoric mirrors Orban’s, raising questions about U.S. global leadership amid shifting alliances and domestic polarization. [Automatically generated summary]
But I actually want to start with you, Michael, about Attorney General Pam Bondi's testimony before Congress this week, before the House Judiciary Committee last week, actually, because of Sunday.
You know, I judge, first of all, I just want to disclose she's a former partner of mine at my firm.
It's a bipartisan firm in D.C., a government affairs firm.
So I look at this, and Pam and I have different politics, but she's a wonderful person.
But in judging the politics of this and her performance, you can look at it two ways.
On substance, yes, this cabinet, not just Pam, but the cabinet in general, from the moment they went through their confirmation hearings to just normal congressional review, budget review hearings, they take a very combative, very aggressive, very unique tone when they, as witnesses.
Now, Democrats have always trained our witnesses on our cabinet members or anybody giving testimony of the 80-20 rule.
So let the members talk 80% of the time.
You just talk 20% of the time.
And in that 20%, this is a test of civility, not a test of what you know.
And I think Congress, through their law that they passed requiring transparency, wanted this information yesterday.
I want to give the Justice Department the benefit of the doubt that they are trying to release the millions upon millions of files as fast as they can.
But I do think it's important to zoom out because when you look at the allegations made by victims and survivors over the years dating back to the 90s, there are only two justice departments that have actually taken action on behalf of the victims.
And that was under Bill Barr and now Bondi.
So while no one is satisfied with the level of transparency and the speed of it, I think it's important to remember that these are the only two attorney generals to actually act on behalf of the victims.
You know, there has been polling on sort of how the American people are reacting to this rollout of these Epstein files.
More Americans disapprove than approve of how President Trump is handling the Epstein investigation.
52% say Trump is trying to cover up Epstein's crime.
This is an economist YouGov poll.
30% say he isn't.
What do you think, given the latest release?
There's now a list of names that they've put out.
Bondi has said that all of the files have been released.
Where do you think this lands in terms of how the American people, will this be enough, especially for Trump space?
unidentified
Well, I think President Trump has been clear that he wants the information out there.
He wants to be as clear as possible, but not in a way that's so haphazard that folks who may have been innocent, that may have just have been accused or been implicated, are not dragged through the mud.
We saw just this week two members of Congress, Thomas Massey and Ro Khanna, go out with four names of people that were mentioned in the Epstein files who had not been convicted of a crime related to the Epstein stuff.
They were just running with names through the mud out of nowhere.
And that's the real concern that President Trump has.
And I know that that can come across as feeling as if he's not being transparent enough or he's not as urgent as he should be with getting this information out there.
But that's exactly the example of why he's handling it the way that he is, making sure that we're not getting people caught in the crossfire of stuff that is really serious and really dark stuff.
I would just say, I would echo that and say I agree.
That's always been my concern about releasing FBI files that we're going to start judging people or sentencing people for guilt by association or guilt by proximity rather than guilt through evidence that they committed a crime.
I think that's the biggest danger here.
And you can see one striking example are the photos of Walter Cronkite visiting with Epstein years after he was already pled guilty years after he left detention in jail.
But here is Walter Cronkite traveling on his plane to the Virgin Islands and pictures in his living room just chatting him up.
That doesn't mean Walter Cronkite did anything wrong, but we have to be careful about what we're implying by the nature of the transparency.
I want to switch topics a bit to what we were talking about the first hour of Washington Journal today, immigration.
Last Thursday, the Border Czar Tom Homan said that the Trump administration was going to end the enforcement crackdown in Minneapolis, which prompted the crackdown itself.
Of course, it prompted so many protests and they claimed the lives of two U.S. citizens.
There's another poll I'd like to mention to you, Chris.
49% of adults strongly disapprove of how Trump is handling border security and immigration.
What do you think this stint in Minnesota has meant for Trump's overall immigration platform?
unidentified
Well, it just shows how much this has been a distraction from the real great work that's been happening at the border, where you've seen immigration at our southern border go down to basically zero.
We are seeing negative net migration here in the United States.
That is what President Trump was elected to do.
It was one of his most strong issues on, you know, from everything from the economy to health care.
Immigration was one of the main things that he was especially strong on.
And so the fact that there are folks that are disappointed in how things are being handled, it shows how much spectacle and imagery is important and why, you know, to what Michael was talking about with some of the Trump admin folks, they do go out there for the spectacle, for a clip, for a soundbite, and that often doesn't focus itself the way that Tom Holman is focusing on outcomes and process.
That is not as exciting necessarily, but that's effectively, if you see it in the polling data, if you're seeing this massive slip on Trump's strongest issue, that should be a sign that process and outcome is fundamentally what Americans care about and not the spectacle and imagery of some of these high-profile arrests and protests.
Poll analyst Mark Trusler, who was speaking about this disapproval on Trump's immigration policy, said, in these elections that are one on the margins, particularly in the swing states, independents are a really critical group.
To see them shift so heavily on one of the president's key priorities, immigration and border security, is really telling because a lot of that decline in support for the president on this issue is coming from independents, less so a little bit from Republicans.
How big of a deal do you think this is going to be in the midterm?
I mean, it's a big deal because it should give the Republicans or should let them, you know, see some blinking red lights going on when what used to be the president's best issue is he is now underwater, you know, by, I think, 12 points at least.
But it reminds me, you know, last year I said, you know, that the midterms, I said repeatedly, the midterms are often driven, like the enthusiasm to turn out in midterms is driven by events.
Like in the 2006 cycle, you know, there was a lot of dissatisfaction because of Katrina, because of the way President Bush was handling the Iraq war.
And then there was, you know, a lot of corruption that was disclosed in Congress in the Republican Party.
And a lot of those events kind of led to the wave that we saw in 2006.
Similarly, here, I do think that there's going to be events that really drive enthusiasm.
I think the immigration policy, the ICE actions that we've been watching on television, the imagery of that is a driver, is going to be a driver of participation and enthusiasm.
I think the president knows that, which is why he was eager to get a deal with the state and the counties in Minnesota.
Now, we are in day two of a partial government shutdown related to immigration.
What prospects do you see in terms of the Democrats and the White House reaching a deal on funding for immigration and customs enforcement?
unidentified
Well, when you talk to folks on the Hill about these kinds of negotiations, they are often talking in two different ways.
One, to the public, and two, to their colleagues on the Hill.
And what they're saying to the public is playing hardball, going out there saying we have XYZ demands, we want body cameras, we want the masks off the ICE agents, all that stuff.
That is what they're saying publicly.
Behind the scenes, they know there's a deal to be made, and there's some real common ground that we can find where we believe that, like most moderate and center-left Democrats do, that we need a secure border.
We need to enforce immigration law, especially related to criminal illegal immigrants, those that have come here and committed violent crimes.
There's a lot of common ground that can be found there, and especially when it comes to fundings, something as important as the Department of Homeland Security, which mind you was founded in the wake of 9-11.
That is vitally important.
Countering terrorism, countering criminal illegal aliens, that is going to be something that's going to lead to some level of compromise.
And I think we're going to get a deal relatively soon.
Republicans can call in at 202-748-8001, Democrats at 202-748-8000, and Independents at 202-748-8002.
Before we go to our callers, Michael, I want to ask you about some legislation that actually is moving in Congress, the Save America Act, narrowly passed in the House.
A little bit about what this legislation would do.
It would require individuals to present an eligible photo ID before voting.
It would require states to obtain a proof of citizenship in person when registering someone to vote.
And I should mention that it's already illegal for undocumented immigrants to cast ballots in federal elections, but this would add this additional requirement.
And it would also require states to remove non-citizens from existing voter roles.
Now, there was already a version of this that passed in the Senate, but it needs to go back to the Senate.
Well, I think Democrats would tell you, first of all, that there's no daylight between Democrats and Republicans on whether non-citizens should be voting or not.
Nobody believes that non-citizens should be voting in the elections.
In fact, there's state and federal laws that already protect against that, and they are felonies.
But I think the problem here, the concern Democrats have, is that the SAVE Act makes it, throws up a lot of red tape and creates burdensome regulation for eligible voters.
And I think there's more risk in creating more red tape around the voting process that you will hurt registered voters, eligible voters, people who are eligible to vote, than there is a likely chance that you will uncover, frankly, a solution in search of a problem, which is how Democrats feel about the SAVE Act.
Not that we're against voter ID.
We're largely united, and Democrats around the country are united.
There should be some form of voter ID, but we shouldn't be making it harder for people to vote.
The president and several administration officials have floated the idea of nationalizing voting and taking more power from the states when it comes to voting and holding that in the federal government.
There's polling that says most Americans say states should have vote counting responsibility in national elections.
How important of an issue do you think this is for Republicans?
unidentified
I think it's a really big issue for the base, who's very concerned about the election security that has been an issue for decades.
It's not just a 2020 thing.
I think because the 2020 election was so bizarre due to COVID, that people think that that's driving most of the concern.
But this has been a long-standing issue, the desire to see voter ID, to see, you know, making sure non-citizens can vote.
And I do have to push back a little bit.
I mean, when we're talking about voter ID, this is something that Senator Chuck Schumer has called, you know, Jim Crow 2.0 just in the last week, asking for voter ID.
They've talked about allowing non-citizens to vote in local and state elections.
This is something that is not, there's something that there's no daylight between the parties on.
And Republican voters, especially primary voters that are vitally important to members of Congress and heavily gerrymandered districts, that's what they're responding to.
Unfortunately, this is something that can be used as a wedge issue, and we can have 80-20 support for voter ID.
But as long as we can have an issue that we can drag Chuck Schumer or whoever to come out, Hakeem Jeffries, and have these hysterical responses to it, it's a good issue for Republicans.
Now, with nationalizing the elections, I think President Trump is talking about a few states that have election processes that he disagrees with.
Most Republicans want elections to be handled at the most local level possible.
That's the best way to fight against fraud.
It's impossible to steal a local election 300, 400, 500 times across the country.
It's much easier to steal one big election.
So we want to keep it as far away from federal hands as possible.
His name has not been redacted throughout all of the files.
His name appears clearly in thousands of places.
unidentified
Well, I mean, if you redact the files, if you have the same person who's in the files, which is the leader of this nation, redacting them, they're only going to show you what he wants them to show.
He's gotten away with his mother's killing, his ex-wife's killing.
Yeah, well, fellow Ohioans, that's great to hear from the great high school football city that is Maseline.
There is a real incentive to fix this issue.
I mean, we saw early in the Trump administration the numbers of support for his immigration policies when he shut down the border.
People were ecstatic.
They had watched four years of constant chaos at the border, where we had seen so much just outrage in response to it from left, right, and center.
This was not a just conservatives thing.
And when he shut down the border, and that was the focus, was decreasing the mass migration that was coming to this country, his polling numbers improved significantly.
There is a clear political incentive to solve problems, especially problems where there's literally just a button that says fix everything.
And that's basically what he did with shutting down the border.
Now, with the deportations, it's a little bit more complicated, but ultimately, this is something that people still desire: to get criminal legal aliens out of the country.
That is a priority for the president.
There's always the adage about people don't like watching how the sausage is made.
That's what's happening here.
But the idea that they're not incentivized to do something, if they weren't incentivized to do something, they wouldn't be taking the political risk of these ICE raids.
The fact that they're doing it tells you that they are responding to their voters and trying to do what they think is the will of the people.
I tend to think that there's less incentive, at least from one side, not to fix the system.
We're still operating under a law that was passed in 1986 by a Republican president, Republican Senate, and a Democratic House.
And there's been several attempts to change that law.
In 2007, I remember one, in 2013.
And again, at the last year of President Biden's term, there was a bipartisan, another bipartisan attempt to fix the law.
Now, that is the question that the caller had.
Do people want the politics of the law or do they want the actual law changed?
Democrats would tell you they want the actual law changed.
And I think what Barack Obama would say is he had to enforce the laws that were on the books, but he wanted a law changed as well.
He wanted those laws changed.
I think that's the problem Democrats face right now is we have to follow the laws that are on the books, but we need to convince the other side to work with us when it comes to changing the law as it exists right now.
Okay, let's go to Homer in Florence, Massachusetts on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Homer.
unidentified
Yeah, you want to work with the law and the books, but you didn't want to do that when Biden was in and let all those people pour over the border.
Everybody says they want people that have been here a long time to stay or whatever.
Well, those people have only been here four years.
There's 20 million of them.
They got to go.
And I want to say you want to use biased Google for your searches all the time.
You should get duck, duck, go so that you can actually find some of these things because Google was fined millions of dollars for having biased searches against conservatives.
And I want to point out that Hunter's laptop was verified, and you guys said that no, no, it wasn't, because the government lied to us, and you said that the Russian dossier was good.
Sorry, Homer, did you have a question for Michael or Chris?
unidentified
Yes, I had a question about, hold on one more second, just a second.
I want to make sure that these are the same Democrats that are crying about conservatives and what they're doing or what the government's doing to them and wearing masks for the agents when they forced people to wear masks.
They forced people to get vaccinations.
And then they were worried about people that are leading law enforcement only on January 6th.
They don't worry about any of the people that have been traumatized during the BLM riots or any of those other ones.
So I don't understand why suddenly they care about the police one day in their entire careers for the Democrats.
I guess I would try to remind the caller that the Hunter Biden laptop was, you know, which occurred, which was revealed during the 2020 campaign.
He said the government lied.
Well, the government was in charge of, was led by Donald Trump at the time.
The same deal with the masks and COVID.
People kind of want to forget that there's a little bit of selective memory about the last entire year of the Trump presidency, which masks were not mandated, but we were provided science that said, and scientists that said we should use masks.
And it came from the administration at the time, and that was the Trump administration.
I'll point out there has been some recent polling from Rasmussen that a year into Trump's term, voters say Biden was better.
This is a Rasmussen poll that said President Trump has become so politically toxic, this is a story in Axios, that voters now say Joe Biden, whose unpopularity forced him into early retirement, did a better job as president, according to three new polls, actually.
So there was a Harvard Caps-Harris poll finding that 51% of voters say Trump is doing a worse job than Biden.
The Rasmussen poll that said 48% of likely voters said Biden did a better job as president compared to 40 who chose Trump.
And a YouGov Economist poll that says 46% of U.S. adults say Trump is doing a worse job than Biden compared with 40% who say he's doing better.
What do you think of that polling, Chris?
unidentified
Yeah, everybody is always looking to, you know, what could be, what could have been.
I think President Trump, because of his penchant for being very bombastic, often promises a lot and it becomes really, really hard to deliver, especially in the first year of a presidency.
So I'm not surprised that there are folks who had expectations that inflation was magically going to go down overnight, that we were going to see these massive changes in policy from the previous administration.
And that takes time.
And so I work in the energy space, trying to get gas prices down has been a real big priority.
But that has a lag time.
Even if we drill baby drill from day one, it's going to take some time for that to get refined, get into the system, get gas prices down.
And so I think it's a lot of people who are going to be hopefully encouraged by the gradual process of these things getting changed that they feel like they voted for.
There's an old line in politics that you campaign in poetry and then you govern in prose.
I think President Trump is finding that out the hard way, as I think Mayor Mamdani is finding that out the hard way, as one of the big headlines today in the New York Times is that he's reversing a lot of campaign promises.
It's much harder to govern than it is to campaign.
Well, guys, I'm telling you what, I'm so glad to see young strategists out here in the twilight because a lot of older strategists is just, I don't know.
But anyway, it's good to see young people.
They need to represent people that's out here.
My first question is, why is it that China is running Smithfield Farms and nobody said anything about it that it's foreign-owned, along with a lot of our farms that are here in our country that are now being taken over by China?
If we hate the foreigners so bad, why are we taking their money?
And another question was, we've always known that we've had foreign workers in our country picking our fruits and produce.
Is that true or false?
And another thing, Biden asked for more money for immigration, and the Republican Party didn't give it to him.
Yeah, I think the immigration negotiations that were happening in the last year of the presidency, I think the argument that was made by Republicans is this doesn't need a new law.
It doesn't need new funding.
I think that there was an acknowledgement that there probably needs to be more judges for immigration adjudication.
But what we saw in the first year of the Trump administration is you can shut down the border with the power of the executive.
You do not need new laws.
And so that is a big reason why they were fighting back against that bipartisan bill, a bipartisan bill that I thought had a lot of good stuff in it that Senator Lankford from Oklahoma put together.
But it was clearly true from the Trump folks that President Trump could come in and undo a lot of what was happening in the previous advent.
And I think what President Bush, President Obama, President Biden were advocating for and believe, strongly believe, is that we're never going to change the immigration system or the up and down influxes at the border if we don't fix the immigration law.
And there's no executive solution to immigration reform.
You have to pass a law.
And I think that was the intent.
Now, did President Biden make a mistake in hyper-over-correcting for some of what he saw were the excesses of the Trump border policies?
Yes.
And you know what?
It was perhaps a political mistake and a policy mistake.
And according to the reporting we know from the New York Times, is that he was warned that there would be an influx of migration if we overturned some of those Trump era border executive actions.
Deanna referenced the Chinese ownership of Smithfield Foods, which is mostly owned by China.
But I do want to point out that back in July, the Trump administration unveiled a plan to ban Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland and agriculture.
This is from the Western Ag Network reporting it, but it was widely reported at the time that the Trump administration is pushing to ban new Chinese ownership of American farmland and increased scrutiny of Chinese ownership of major agribusinesses such as Smithfield Foods and Syngenta.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins led a team of other cabinet officials, Republican governors, and members of Congress at USDA's headquarters in Washington, D.C. to announce a new national farm security action plan that will target China and other foreign adversaries.
Rollins said at the time that the effort will address one of the most significant national security threats facing our nation.
unidentified
Yeah, and there was a case of agroterrorism that was stopped by American officials, by Chinese nationals, and I have to mention it as an Ohio State Buckeye that happened at the University of Michigan.
These folks were trying to genetically engineer something that basically a disease that would be used to kill American crops.
And so this stuff is happening on our soil.
This is a really big concern.
And Chinese are going to continue to use these ways to buy land near military bases, buy agricultural land.
Conflict of Interest Concerns00:05:44
unidentified
They are not doing it purely for economic reasons.
There is a geopolitical effort being made, and it is going to put Americans at risk if we don't take this seriously.
John is in Mount Laurel, New Jersey on our line for independence.
Good morning, John.
unidentified
Hey, how you doing?
I have questions for both the guests.
So first with the Republican strategist.
I was going to ask him, who are you actually strategizing for?
Are you strategizing for traditional fiscal conservative Republicans?
Are you strategizing for the Tea Party, MAGA people?
For me, they're one and the same.
Came into power due to the vacuum left after became the Rodney.
Are you comfortable that the strategy for the Republican Party has moved so far to the fringe?
And are you proud to be part of the continuance of the movement to the far, far right?
And then for the second guy, the Democratic strategist, excuse me.
I was very disappointed to hear that you're a partner with Tam Bondi in the intro.
I feel like it's kind of a conflict of interest.
But I think people talk about the law on the books and things of that nature.
But Pam Bondi and the Trump administration continually push the reach of the particular laws to the extent that they can go, where it's kind of like a gray area in terms of legality.
And only months later, they reign back in.
Can you kind of talk about Pam Bonnie or Luce Leash on the law at federal agency policies?
A lot of us on the right are trying to build that big tent.
That's why I'm mostly focused on energy policy because the two things that really bring Republicans together of all stripes, from the Tea Party to Libertarians to MAGA America First Conservatives, is the energy dominance agenda and a focus on China.
And so we need to build as much energy as possible as quickly as possible to meet our demands, to out-compete China, to win the AI race, all those kind of things.
So that's where I'm at on this stuff.
Regardless of my personal feelings on specific issues or specific ideologies, I'm an evangelical Christian first, I'm a dad, I'm a husband, and then I'm conservative in that order.
Well, I would just say I was just trying to be transparent about my previous or my existing previous relationship with Attorney General Bonnie before she became Attorney General.
There's no conflict because I don't work with her now.
So other firms, partners at my firm consist of former Democratic members of Congress, former Republican members of Congress, former Democratic staffers, former Republican staffers, a former aide to Gavin Newsome, a former aide to Marty Walsh, former aides to all kinds of Republican members of Congress and senators.
John, does that get at the questions that you had?
unidentified
Well, I understand what a partner is in terms of a law firm, and I understand broadly what a conflict of interest is.
But to me, it just feels like, you know, a lot of D.C. folks, they run in the same circles.
Folks are kind of wary of talking about other people or the policies they may kind of enact.
I mean, honestly, you look at Pam Bonnie's hearing the other day, and it was disgraceful to me.
And for me, when I hear that you kind of run in the same circles, to me, it kind of leads me to think that you're going to take it easy on her when, you know, we all kind of saw what happened there, I guess, last Wednesday or Thursday, I forget.
And, you know, I just, I really wanted you to talk about, you know, just how these folks in the White House, they push everything to the limit.
And then I was like, you know, they put a story out about the two guys that supposedly were attacking people's shovels yesterday or the other day, and then the case gets dropped.
But also, if you look at their kind of regulatory policies and, you know, just the way that these federal agencies hold each other accountable, they're not, you know, Pam Bonte's not holding ICE necessarily accountable.
Pam Bonnie's not holding some people in FBI, maybe Cash Catelle on his improper use of funds accountable.
It's all kind of like they're just running together as a pack.
So I guess I would say that we're right to people are free to judge the performance of the Attorney General.
And we have different politics.
Pam and I would spar on television occasionally over politics.
She supported one campaign, I supported the other.
But we can work together in private life and be civil to each other.
And I think that's important for our politics.
The other thing I would say is to keep in mind that while there might be frustration with the speed at which this DOJ is turning over or releasing these documents, it's also important to ask the question why, for 12 years under Democratic presidents, under Democratic Attorney Generals, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, and Merrick Garland, why they did nothing with those files.
They did nothing for transparency, and they did nothing to help the victims or the survivors get that justice that they're looking for.
Now, I'm just going by what I've seen in public, but there's no evidence that the other attorney generals did anything to lift a finger for these victims or survivors.
You might be critical of Pam, and there are many people who are, but I do think we have to take a look at it in context.
Yeah, I mean, I think, first of all, with the concerns about the ICE activities, getting folks who are here illegally and moving them into these facilities, yeah, I have real concerns about humane practices.
We need to make sure we treat every human being with dignity, no matter where they're from.
Every person is made in the image of God.
But if they are here illegally, they did commit a crime, and that does have consequences.
And often that is deportation.
And then for a lot of the folks that have been here illegally that came in the last four years, as a previous caller mentioned, there was a massive increase in immigration, largely under laws that were changed, like Michael mentioned, under President Biden allowing a massive expansion of the asylum program that was clearly abusive and clearly led to some really sketchy claims of asylum.
If you're coming from a country that has no war issue, no serious concern for your public safety, but you come here, you have to be heard if you just say the word asylum, even though as a previous caller also mentioned, you should be doing that in your home country.
And so those two things are going to lead to a lot of people getting pulled in and arrested and are going to need to be adjudicated.
That's going to require massive infrastructure.
That's going to require warehousing and all sorts of stuff that may look bad, right?
But it ultimately is all very above board.
A lot of these folks are genuinely here illegally.
A lot of them did commit serious crimes.
And the idea that this is somehow going to catch a bunch of American citizens or that there's some insidious plot to get American-born people out of the country is really unfair.
Yeah, I don't think that there is tension between enforcing, or that there should be tension between enforcing the laws as they exist and having compassion for human beings.
And I think President Obama really tried to thread that needle and did it the best.
I think that if you go back and look, what President Obama said throughout his eight years is that deportation is not going to be a painless process.
Good people who are here for the right reasons are going to be sent home.
Families are going to be separated.
He said this very openly, very open in the public in many speeches he made on immigration reform, but that he had an obligation to enforce the laws as they are written.
And part of those laws include ICE.
And ICE's job is to enforce the interior illegal immigration.
And that's why Tom Homan was his border czar and why he was celebrated by President Obama.
And under Homan, during Obama's tenure, 3 million people who were here illegally, only 40%, I think, I believe, from the press release from DHS back in 2016, said that they were here as non or as criminal offenders.
So that means 60% were here, who were here illegally, were not criminals.
I think President Obama understood that push and pull.
And I think Democrats need to get to a space where we can say it is not a sin to enforce the law.
Now, what I would suggest is we take our anger out at the people who write the law and can change the law, the people who give the orders to the ICE agents.
unidentified
And I do just have to say, 40% is a lot.
If 40% of American citizens were committing crime, we would be in the dystopic movies from the 80s.
So 40% is a lot.
And I think that's of serious concern to a lot of people.
And Tom Homan has been doing a great job.
And I want to mention he was given the Medal of Freedom by President Obama.
Yeah, and President Obama's point in all that was That there are a lot of great people who are coming here for the right reasons, are here for the right reasons.
But as he said it in his own words at the time, they cut the line, they broke the law, and it's not insignificant.
So he has to enforce the laws as they are written.
But the best way around it is to change those laws.
So, David, I just want to make sure that we understand your questions clearly.
The first one is about the Trump administration moving away from green energy projects.
And then the second one is, is what exactly?
unidentified
The Republicans were saying the border was wide open under Biden, and Biden kept telling them to quit saying that because it was just inviting people to come.
And if Trump would have been in charge, he would have threw him in jail.
Yeah, on the first one, a lot of these projects that are getting shut down, this is exactly why we need permitting reform.
The executive having this kind of unilateral power to shut down energy projects of all kind is a great example of why we need permitting reform in the United States, because the process it takes to get these projects licensed, permitted, and built takes years, regardless of what type of energy it is.
And so we need, and all the above approach, we need to make sure that if there's a Democrat in office, if you're a Republican at home and you're worried about them shutting down natural gas plants or pipelines or LNG terminals, we saw in the previous Biden administration a pause on LNG exports purely unilaterally from the Biden administration and his Department of Energy.
So this is why we need the kind of permitting reform that we're advocating for, so that the executive doesn't have that kind of authority and we can meet our energy needs no matter what kind of energy it is, as long as the market will bear it, that we can get that stuff built.
On the second part, you know, it's true that the rhetoric got really excessive, and I understand why the Biden folks were frustrated with Trump saying the border was open, and there's that viral clip of Kamala saying, you know, do not come here.
That is, it was an unfortunate aspect, but there was real concern from the Trump folks that the border was functionally wide open because of the asylum rules, and the criticisms that they were making were totally valid.
And if it encouraged more people to come, obviously we've seen this year that there was an opportunity for the Biden folks, if they really wanted to stop this problem, they could have unilaterally done it through executive action, and they specifically chose not to.
And Biden folks have acknowledged that that was politically disastrous for them.
I agree with what Chris said about the political error that was made in overturning some of the Trump border executive actions.
I would also say that Democrats are coming.
There are some Democrats who are coming around to the idea of permitting reform or joining the efforts.
You see Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania joining with Governor Stitt from Oklahoma and talking about permanent reform.
I think it's important.
I think it's important for Democrats.
More and more Democrats are actually publicly saying, yes, burdens from regulation and red tape is a problem for a lot of our employers and job creators and for the people who are trying to bring natural resources, make them available to all of our constituents.
Well, Democratic strategist Michael LaRosa and Republican strategist Chris Johnson, thank you both so much for your time and your sharing your expertise this morning.
And we are going to renew unlimited promise of the American dream.
Every single day, we will stand up and we will fight, fight, fight for the country our citizens believe in.
unidentified
Watch the C-SPAN Networks live Tuesday, February 24th, as President Donald Trump delivers the annual State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress.
The speech will mark President Trump's first State of the Union of his second term.
The State of the Union Address.
Live Tuesday, February 24th.
Our coverage starts at 7 p.m. Eastern on the C-SPAN Networks.
C-SPAN, bringing you democracy unfiltered.
Tonight, on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A, White House Historical Association President Stuart McLaurin, author of The People's House Miscellany, on the history of the White House and White House-related trivia.
He'll also talk about the changes that presidents and first ladies have made to the White House's interior and exterior, going back to President Thomas Jefferson.
The president never and his family never had a place to go outside and enjoy like we have a deck or a patio.
And so Truman broke up that colonnade of the South Portico and right in the middle, put a balcony off the residence level of the White House so the family could go out there and enjoy fresh air.
And very controversial.
People thought it ruined the look of the White House.
Marshall is in Nashville, Tennessee, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Marshall.
unidentified
Hey, good morning, Kimberly.
First, I want to make a comment about one of the screeners.
She wanted to know my question, and this was for your last guest.
And when I told her it was about the 2026 election, she still pushed for my specific question.
Now, and I just want to make that aware.
Now, since I wasn't able to talk to them, my concern is what the strategy is for Republicans.
You had the whole 2024 presidential election where Democrats tried to assert the Constitution by taking Donald Trump off the ballot.
All nine justices said that was unconstitutional.
They then also, pushing that he was Hitler, never came out with a statement or a text where he's building concentration camps to run blacks, gays, and illegals into, or gas chambers.
And yet, the Republican strategy does not bring any of these facts up.
Right now, you have politicians in Minnesota who purposely fomented the violence that was going on, and now they're demanding the federal government, which they incited, pay back for damages done in Minneapolis when it was their own rioters who did the damage.
What is the Republican strategy?
You have all the facts.
You may not have the news media and you may not have the education system, but you have the facts.
You need to put them out because this is no longer the Democrat Party.
This is socialism on steroids.
And it's proven by the mayor of New York, the mayor of Seattle, and the governor of Virginia.
I appreciate you taking the time and listening to my call.
Mustafa is in Jackson, Mississippi, on our line for independence.
Oh, excuse me, in Michigan, Jackson, Michigan.
Good morning, Mustafa.
unidentified
Good morning.
Good morning, Kimberly, and thank you for taking my call, and thank you for the correction there.
So my open forum subject this week highlights foundational black Americans, descendants of freedmen, the very people whose ancestors built this nation, now breaking free from the Democratic political plantation.
Now, this comes in sharp contrast to recent news stories and false narratives from Mamdani and the Democratic Party claiming that immigrants like Somalis built America.
As a proud U.S. Army veteran and a proud foundational black American whose ancestors built America, not immigrants, FBA are not immigrants.
I've personally broken away from the cultural conditioning that kept me voting Democrat for years.
I will never again support the Dixocrat legacy of benign neglect, anti-black racism, and anti-black spandry towards FBAs.
And then finally, Kimberly, I urge you and your audience to stop referring to FBAs as African Americans.
That misnomer erases our unique lineage and fuels ethnocide against black American descendants of freedom.
Michael is in Illion, New York, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Michael.
unidentified
Yes, good morning.
Thank you for allowing me to say what I want to say today.
I've been a Democrat for 50-some years.
I grew up in a community that's basically always been Republican.
However, I did successfully run for four terms in our village government and won as a Democrat.
So there is promise for people that live in certain districts that are limited by their party.
But I firmly believe that if we're going to come to an agreement in this country, we need to allow for more independent party kind of representation because there's people that feel both ways on both sides of the politics and they don't want to be labeled one way or another.
So I really think that the insurgents and the beginning, the upscales belief that an independent candidate can provide more leadership than either other party.
Next up is Chez in Wisconsin on our line for Republicans.
Good morning.
Excuse me.
Good morning, Chez.
unidentified
Good morning, Kimberly.
I have a few things written down, but before I get to that, I appreciate you having Michael DeRosa.
That's a sensible Democrat that you need to have back constantly.
No more Cornell West, no more that Mistahl guy, heavy set, guy looks like Don King.
They are not helping us come together.
So now that I got that out of the way, I have a couple ideas for your show for some topics.
One is you're seeing that around the country, schools are allowing protesting during school hours, and it's being perpetuated by the teachers and the principals of these schools without the knowledge of the parents.
You're seeing parents go to school board meetings really heated about this and I think you should have that as a topic, have parents call in so we can actually get to the bottom of what's really happening.
That would help this country out.
These kids should not be in the streets protesting.
There's videos of them going after parents with no repercussions, and the cops just stand there sometimes if you're out in the West Coast.
Another topic: the effects of these hormonal therapy drugs on the trans kids that are still developing their brains and their body.
You could have on two different doctors that think on the opposite side of each other, one that pushes this kind of crap, one that says we need to slow down.
Because we just had a school shooting up in Canada, and everybody's so scared to misgender the person because, you know, but they're on these drugs, and it's not healthy for them.
Let's try and help these kids be happy with who they are, not try and change everything.
And then once they turn 19, 20 years old, they regret chopping off their breasts and all that stuff.
I want to talk about the bias on this show that you guys put forward.
Now, when I say bias, it's not 100%, but you're not 50-50.
All right.
It was either Mimi or Greta.
You know, you guys talked about voter ID laws or the voter ID laws for 30 minutes this week or last week, but you didn't show once the CNN poll of how the American people feel about voter ID laws.
71% Democrats, 95% Republicans, 83% of the total voter each side.
Now, let's break that down by race.
85% whites, 82% Latinos, 76% blacks.
And you got the Democrats calling it Jim Crow 2.0.
You know, we need to start thinking for ourselves, people.
When we agree, we agree on this topic, and the Democrats are pushing us away from it.
But you guys preach that the bipartisan border bill, when they agree on things, that's when you need to be scared.
What is their angle behind that?
When we agree, they don't care, and they don't talk about it.
Let's hear from Michael in Connecticut on our line for independence.
Good morning, Michael.
unidentified
Good morning, Kimberly.
Good morning, America.
My issues is that the problem with immigration, why our American government is bullying countries in Latin America, like right now, in Cuba, they told anybody not to sell oil trade with Cuba.
That's bullying.
I mean, you overthrow government.
You wonder why people are leaving their country to come to America.
Stop bullying those small countries.
They want partnership.
They want investments.
They want to work equal in America.
But when you stop bullying those countries and threaten them, Iran, you threaten them about the nuclear.
They told you we don't want nuclear bomb.
And now you threaten other countries.
And Washington is so corrupt.
And you're talking about threatening other countries.
That's why you see America declining.
But I mean, if you look at what, I mean, look at the problem of immigration.
Why are they leaving?
And then you force those people leaving their country.
A lot of them don't want to come to America.
They know how racist this government is in this country.
I think it was a Republican talking about, you know, and I keep seeing this all over the internet with people posting saying, why didn't the Biden administration go after Epstein?
Why didn't Obama go after Epstein?
Well, the fact is, the files, because of the Maxwell ongoing court case and the appeals, the files were actually locked down and nobody could get to them until 2025 when Trump was back in office.
I don't know, but I can see if I can find something quickly on it.
But go ahead with the rest of your question.
unidentified
Anyway, so the other thing is, I don't know if you know yet, but Fox News in the middle of the night last night announced that Pam Bondi has sent a letter out saying that it's all over.
No more investigations.
They found everything they're going to find, and it's closed.
It's amazing that that hasn't made the Washington Post yet or the New York Times.
I always looked at this program, and you represent yourself as being neutral.
However, all your news sources that you seem to quote are all left-wing papers.
Example, New York Times, Washington Post, AP, including that survey that you showed this morning.
There are other surveys out there that you could use, but it seems like G-SPAN continues to use left-wing outlets as their news source or their outlet.
Patricia is in Stratford, New Hampshire on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Patricia.
unidentified
Hi.
Good morning.
I think that there's, you know, the division in this country.
I think that sometimes this two-party system contributes to that.
And that people should run independently.
And if there are, if there are groups of consensus, right, you don't have to name that as a group like under Democrats, Republican, Independent, you know, left-wing, right-wing, that it would force more cooperation across lines because you would eliminate some of those lines, right?
Not, and you wouldn't necessarily have to identify as like the party of the president, right?
This president, obviously problematic, has difficulty with the truth, is kind of grandiose.
And I, you know, narcissistic, I really don't care.
I think he's corrupt.
And I think that's a difficulty.
The amount of money that they've accumulated, that he's accumulated during this presidency, you know, vote for me or give me money and I'll sway votes or I'll write an executive order.
I think that is just baseline corrupt.
And I think we didn't have political parties that we would have more consensus on that, right?
I also, I think that, you know, the Senate, Congress, making their own rules is absurd, right?
If you close down the government, then, you know what, Congress, the Senate, you know, you don't get paid.
You don't get paid.
You sacrifice that, right?
I think they should have the same medical care that we have for Medicaid, right?
Or Medicare, instead of Cadillac policies.
I do like the idea of professional politicians.
I think that somebody like Pelosi and some of these long-term people, you know, Senator John McCain, I mean, you can go across lines.
Again, it's not about, it's not, it's not about the party.
Patricia, we're out of time for open forum, but thank you for calling in and to everybody who called in for open forum.
Up next, we have global affairs journalist and Cosmo Politics Substack author Elise Labbitt, who is going to join us to discuss themes from the Munich Security Conference with an emphasis on topics related to U.S. foreign policy.
Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, White House Historical Association President Stuart McLaurin, author of The People's House Miscellany on the History of the White House and White House Related Trivia.
He'll also talk about the changes that presidents and first ladies have made to the White House's interior and exterior, going back to President Thomas Jefferson.
The president never and his family never had a place to go outside and enjoy like we have a deck or a patio.
And so Truman broke up that colonnade of the South Portico and right in the middle, put a balcony off the residence level of the White House so the family could go out there and enjoy fresh air.
And very controversial.
People thought it ruined the look of the White House.
We're joined now by Elise Labbitt, who is a global affairs journalist and also the author of Cosmo Politics on Substack and a professor at the American University School of International Service.
Well, it's an event of kind of world leaders and big newsmakers on the international stage to talk about the big events of the day, the big issues of the day, and try to give their countries, you know, it's like a world forum, but it's a little bit different than Davos, which is more like of the elite and, you know, talking about, you know, very big concepts about technology or global warming.
This is really about leaders kind of trying to put forward ideas on the world stage and try to get some kind of international consensus.
And, you know, it took, you know, historically over the years, you really have the big newsmakers coming there to really talk about serious, important issues.
There was a report that came out ahead at the beginning of the conference from the conference organizers, and in it, it said that Trump is a global wrecking ball.
This is from the organizers of the Munich Security Conference, which is saying that Trump was helping to destroy the post-war international order.
I'll read it in detail.
The world has entered a period of wrecking ball politics.
Sweeping destruction rather than careful reforms and policy corrections is the order of the day.
The most prominent of those who promised to free their country from the existing order's constraints and rebuild a stronger, more prosperous nation is the current U.S. administration.
As a result, more than 80 years after construction began, the U.S.-led post-1945 international order is now under destruction.
Well, even more than that, I mean, we'll talk a little bit about Secretary Rubio, but the message really here and the message that European leaders are, I think, kind of coming to this realization, Kimberly, is that the world order as we know it, the rules-based international order, is dead.
Okay?
Now, a lot of people in the developing world and such might say, well, the rules-based international order really didn't help all the world.
It just helped the West or it just helped the top countries, which is true.
I mean, it did need, let's say, some refreshing, right?
But what they're saying here is the rules-based international order was really an international order of values that everyone thought a lot about, human rights, about sovereignty.
And now what they're saying and the message that's coming, they're getting from the United States is this is no longer an order based on values.
It's an order based on interests.
And we're going to do what's best in our interests, and we want you to do what's best on our interests.
So, you know, it's getting a little bit of a mixed message on the interests, but clearly this idea that the U.S. and the Europe, the transatlantic alliance that we talk so much about, really is in a lot of, you know, I'd say tatonic shifts right now.
And I think European countries over the past year during President Trump are trying to take into account what this means.
I don't think it's about four years of one president.
I think it's been gradually shifting and it's really going to shift this transatlantic alliance.
You mentioned Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who's representing the United States there.
President Trump is not attending.
Let's listen to some of what he said at the Munich Security Conference.
He was speaking about the importance of the transatlantic relationship while at the same time kind of marking some of those differences between Europe and the United States.
Under President Trump, the United States of America will once again take on the task of renewal and restoration, driven by a vision of a future as proud, as sovereign, and as vital as our civilization's past.
And while we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe.
For the United States and Europe, we belong together.
America was founded 250 years ago, but the roots began here on this continent long before.
The men who settled and built the nation of my birth arrived on our shores carrying the memories and the traditions and the Christian faith of their ancestors as a sacred inheritance, an unbreakable link between the old world and the new.
We are part of one civilization, Western civilization.
We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.
And so this is why we Americans may sometimes come off as a little direct and urgent in our council.
This is why President Trump demands seriousness and reciprocity from our friends here in Europe.
The reason why, my friends, is because we care deeply.
We care deeply about your future and ours.
And if at times we disagree, our disagreements come from our profound sense of concern about a Europe with which we are connected, not just economically, not just militarily.
We are connected spiritually and we are connected culturally.
We want Europe to be strong.
We believe that Europe must survive.
Because the two great wars of the last century serve for us as history's constant reminder that ultimately our destiny is and will always be intertwined with yours.
Well, listen, I think a lot of people are comparing this to Vice President JD Vance, which basically said, you know, your civilization, Europeans, is going to be erased.
It's saying, we don't want to go it alone, but we want you to get in line.
And if you don't get in line, we'll go it alone.
I think what's really interesting about this is, especially when you look back at what Vice President Vance said last year, is look at how many times in that short clip he talked about Western civilization, Christian faith, Europe spiritually and culturally.
He's not talking about values.
Again, he's talking about a Western Christian founded in Christianity.
Mostly, you know, when he's talking about civilization and Western civilization, they're really criticizing the Europeans' migration policies, that they think they don't want migration to Europe.
This is a Christian white nationalist, if you will, idea of what the U.S. thinks Europe should be.
And so while the tone was different and they definitely championed this new tone by Marco Rubio, I think when you check back and I've been talking to officials overseas, European officials, they say, yes, the tone was different, the rhetoric is different, but the message really isn't.
And that's why you're hearing from a lot of Europeans about the need for strategic defense, autonomy, sovereignty.
They're really not buying this message that the U.S. is pushing.
And that's what that values is really what is upsetting the Europeans.
They're not going to feel any differently about climate, for instance, which, you know, Secretary Rubio did say this is like, you know, based on what President Trump has called it a hoax.
He said that this is like a climate fraud, no climate, no migration, didn't talk about human rights.
So again, you know, the Europeans are saying this is not the transatlantic alliance that we've known since World War II.
Well, I mean, look, to President Trump's credit, numerous presidents, okay, over several decades have tried to get the NATO allies to do more of their burden sharing.
And it wasn't until President Trump really got tough on NATO allies that they finally started doing it.
So when he says we're doing our part, they're starting to do their part.
But to President Trump's credit, they're starting.
But I think what they're saying is the idea that we're taking advantage of the United States, they say that collectively, 28 nations together fighting these global threats is better than one nation.
What President Trump is trying to say is, you know, NATO would be nothing without the United States.
Both can be true at the same time.
NATO would not be a very strong organization at all without the United States.
I mean, it is not only the biggest financial contributor, but militarily and intelligence, it really is.
But the Europeans are saying we have something to offer this relationship, and let's re-examine what that means.
But I think the idea of trust, they just feel the Europeans feel they can't rely on the United States.
Like they had President Trump being very tough on NATO in the first administration.
Then President Biden came back, said a lot of things, but didn't really move on a lot of the promises that he made.
He did get the world a little bit more united on Ukraine, but now President Trump is back and he's really looking for NATO to take a bigger role, the European nations of NATO to take a bigger role.
And Ukraine, for instance, the U.S. wants to take a step back, and the Europeans are stepping up again because of President Trump's tough approach.
But the Europeans are saying this has been a wake-up call for them.
They really do recognize this new reality, but they also don't want that underlying message of we're not defending the world order, the MAGA culture, that these shared interests may be one thing, but it's not shared values.
Do you think this relationship between the Trump administration, or I should say the United States and its European allies, is improving or continuing to deteriorate at this point?
I would say that it's, I think, you know, Secretary Rubio's speech did calm some, give some reassurance, but I think instead of saying it's improving or deteriorating, I'd say it's changing.
I'd say, and now you're going to see a lot more about the Europeans trying to get together and be more collective about a European defense.
There's talk about Germany going under France's nuclear umbrella instead of the, you know, most of the NATO nations have been under the U.S. umbrella.
But, you know, France is a nuclear power, so maybe they should start to think of another nuclear deterrent.
I think it's really changing.
And you see, the Europeans are making new trade deals because of President Trump's tariffs.
The Europeans are making new trade deals with India, with China.
I think it's changing.
And the idea of one global superpower and the Europeans kind of hiding under the skirt of the U.S., I think it's going to be, is no longer going to be like that anymore.
Eric, I don't think we're saying two dramatically different things.
I think you're totally right.
I mean, it's time that the Europeans take more responsibility for their own defense.
The U.S. does need to look at China.
We've seen a lot in the last few months, especially with Venezuela, about the U.S. and with this new national security document, the Don Road doctrine, about the U.S. looking more towards the Western Hemisphere.
I mean, it is time for the Europeans to take more of their own burden.
I think that there are some values, though, that the Europeans are like, we can't, you know, we are from the same civilization, but we can't give that up.
We're saying, what the Europeans are saying is we're not MAGA, which is more of, you know, they say MAGA means anti-EU.
It means anti-liberal word order.
It means anti-climate change.
It means anti-human rights.
And that's what they, the message they're feeling coming from the United States.
I mean, like I said, Secretary Rubio's speech was popular on the ground.
He did get a standing ovation.
But when you talk to Europeans behind the scenes, they say, look, the tone is different.
And they do feel that Secretary Rubio is trying to repair some of this distaste that Kimberly was just talking about from Greenland and Denmark and those kind of issues.
But if you look at the through line, the message coming from the Trump administration isn't that different, even if the words on the tone are.
You referenced the National Security Strategy, which came out last year, and it's sort of the Trump administration's overall foreign policy document.
And I want to read a portion of what it says about Europe specifically.
The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birth rates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.
Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.
As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.
Yet Europe remains strategically and culturally vital to the United States.
When they talk about censorship, a lot of it falls back to that the United States has been dealing a lot with populist, extreme right governments and groups.
And the Europeans are cracking down on some of this speech because they feel like it's inciting hate.
I'm not making a judgment on whether it is or not, but that's what the Europeans are saying.
And so when they say that it's about censorship, that's what they're going against.
They're cracking down on the Europeans' criticism of far-right extremist parties.
And if you look at where Secretary Rubio is leaving his travel at the Munich conference and then going to Hungary and Slovakia, which had drifted into a more nationalist and pro-Russia direction.
So it's really about the Europeans are fighting back against that message, and the Trump administration is saying this is free speech.
And that falls into a lot of free speech issues here.
Some say it's a hypocritical message because they're only cracking down on censorship of one type of message.
Thanks, Zachary, for your call, and thanks for your service.
I think that, you know, listen, the kind of right-wing media is more of a, you know, I won't say isolationist, but more of an America-first type of message that they're putting out.
And that's the message of the Trump administration, which is, you know, America, their allies take advantage of them.
I agree that we're better with our allies, you know, collectively.
Again, 28 nations of NATO are better than just the United States.
The United States, again, is the most dominant one.
But I think these relationships in the world order, I think, are very much changing.
And on your talk about, you know, the deportations and such, look, I think what's going on in the United States is concerning a lot of allies.
You know, I was meeting with a very top-level official from Europe a few months ago.
This wasn't in Minnesota.
He came to the U.S. Washington and he saw the National Guard in the street.
And he said, this isn't America.
This isn't the America I know.
So, you know, I think both what the U.S. is doing overseas and the message it is sending overseas, but also the policies here at home are just, again, causing European allies to say America is changing.
Maybe this isn't the America that we knew and we rely on.
America was very kind of consistent over decades, good or bad.
And now it's changing.
And they don't, the one thing that they can say is, you know, we can't rely on the fact that America is going to go back to the old America.
You know, we are not in a good place either domestically or internationally.
To start with, Marco Rubio is referred to as a man child, a person with very limited perspective of the world as a whole, and nowhere close to giants we had secretaries of state such as Kissinger and the like.
And that's really sad.
On the other hand, you're seeing people, maybe forces behind changing the language.
You know, English is the language that is being used across the world by people who want access to scientific literature and to literature of any kind.
And in this country, we are even advertising on TV merchandise by Using other languages and also providing services at our cost at our own taxpayers' expenses to provide, for example, translation and translators for immigrants who cannot speak English.
You know, we are really in a bad position to be as a country.
I think President Trump is doing certain things the right way, but certain things are not being done the right way.
Marco Rubio being an example.
Are you telling me we don't really have any more qualified people as the Secretary of the State, that we have to have folks such as him in place?
And I think when he was first appointed, there were a lot of people who said out of all the people that President Trump could have appointed, this was, you know, someone with a lot of experience on the foreign policy field.
Not only is he the Secretary of State, he's the National Security Advisor.
And I think that's less a factor.
And also, I think some of your, I assume that maybe some of your problems, Ken, with him are that he's following a lot of, he doesn't seem to be having his own independence in advising the president.
He's really going with the president's line.
Because when you say man child, that's what President Trump used to call him, right?
Little Marco.
But, you know, give him a chance.
I think that, you know, when you see a lot of what's going on in the hemisphere, I think that that's good or bad.
I'm sure this lady, Elise, is very, very well learned.
Democrats And Shutdown Cancellations00:03:06
unidentified
But my questions aren't about the attitude of the Europeans right now.
I have a lot of relatives all over Europe.
And many, many years ago, when Trump first came into first term, people were not so excited about him.
And that was mostly because of the media slant.
But now in Europe, they do appreciate much more many of the things he has done and his foreign policy.
But my comment this morning is it's very important to see the Democrats spouting off about our country sitting in Europe in Munich and acting very, very pompous as if they know what they're doing when they voted for the second time to shut down our government.
There are people who have no paycheck right now who are working and they're flitting over Europe enjoying luxury hotel, luxury meals, the top-notch security of this country.
And how dare they?
A responsible parent would not allow a child to go outside and play unless the homework was finished.
These are supposed to be the people who make decisions about our laws.
And what attitudes do they have sitting in Europe?
How dare they?
Nobody, nobody, no matter what their political stripe, should ever, ever, ever vote for these people for anything.
There were several members of Congress who were scheduled to go to the Munich Security Conference that canceled because of the shutdown.
I'm just going to read you a little bit from the New York Times about this, but it was reported elsewhere.
The partial federal shutdown shrinks congressional presence in Munich in a moment of fraud at transatlantic relations.
Speaker Mike Johnson abruptly canceled the House delegation to Europe's biggest annual security summit.
So much of the deal abruptly canceled the official delegation of dozens of House members.
It's standard operating procedure to call off congressional travel during a government shutdown.
Top Democrats warned that the cancellation was the wrong decision in this moment.
I'll skim forward and say there were several senators who departed Capitol Hill on Thursday for Germany.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina, is leading a bipartisan convoy of 11 senators, along with Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat of Rhode Island.
But at least on the House side, a lot of them aren't going.
I think I know what Marianne is talking about, though.
There were some Democrats, particularly Gavin Newsom, governor of California, and Representative Alexandria Ocresio-Cortez, who really criticized the administration and in fact, talked about that this is the most dangerous administration.
My personal opinion on this issue, Marianne, is I think when you go overseas, you present a united front about the United States.
You don't criticize the government.
You try to, we have this, you know, I covered diplomacy for a long time and you should talk about diplomacy being at the water's edge.
That's not to say that you can't say what your idea for policy is, but, you know, I kind of feel like there's a it's been happening for many years though that you know the Democrats or the Republicans, depending on who is office, you know, goes to these world forums and trashes the administration in Davos or at the Munich Security Forum or others.
And I think that's inappropriate.
I think if you want to go to one of these nations and listen, you know, what happened with Greenland and President Trump and Davos really did shake a lot of allies.
So if you want to go say this is not how we feel, you know, that's one thing.
But to air the U.S. dirty laundry overseas, I think, is not helping, is not really helping matters.
Private meetings, sure, but on the world stage, that's an opportunity to present a positive message about the United States.
Not to sugarcoat it, but there's a way to do it, I think.
Thank you for the call, William, and thank you for your service.
Can't say it any better than that.
You know, we can't say it any better than that.
I think, you know, we're better with our allies.
And, you know, clearly, what, look, when you talk about NATO, the NATO Charter, Article 5, which is an attack against one is an attack against all of us.
That was only invoked once.
And that was after 9-11 when we were after the 9-11 attacks.
And NATO went to Afghanistan with the United States.
And I think that's a perfect example of we do need our NATO allies.
And in fact, I'll give you a little anecdote.
The ambassador at the time, Nicholas Burns, the U.S. Ambassador in NATO, called up Secretary of State Condi Rice and said the Canadians suggested that we invoke Article 5.
And the Secretary said that's a good idea.
We should go ahead and do it.
And she said, it's nice to have allies, isn't it?
And I mean, I couldn't say it any better than William.
Dan is in Cherry Hill, New Jersey on our line for independence.
Good morning, Dan.
unidentified
Good morning.
It's hard.
Conclusion: Influence and Admiration00:07:51
unidentified
It's hard to watch what's been going on with President Trump when he first became president and not come to the conclusion, the only reasonable conclusion, that he's always had something going with Putin.
He's the only president of the United States, as far as I can see, that has ever had secret meetings with the largest, worst adversary of America in history, 80 years, under a nuclear standoff, that now Putin, who's the worst individual to come along in the world based on what he's doing,
and Trump has slowly retreated from a facade of trying to aid and join with NATO to stop them in Ukraine.
To now, Trump is his goal, apparently, is to stop the killing.
This idea that that's his driving force to stop the killing was made up by him to justify the fact that he would like to and is using every opportunity to let Putin continue to succeed in by everything he does.
That's what it looks like.
The other thing is, yes, American government, through Trump, has attempted to join up with others in Europe to see that the Northern Hemisphere remains free from much migration and too much coming from the Southern Hemisphere.
Orban has stated that he doesn't want Hungary to be a mixed nation.
Trump has said in so many words that he doesn't want to destroy the blood of America and has taken on that banner, and that's the reason for the connection between Trump— So, Dan, I do want to give our guest a chance to respond to some of these points that you've made about— I hear you on Trump sort of shifting the United States policy towards Russia and also about immigration and migration policy.
Listen, I think President Trump always had this affection for President Putin.
I think he admired him.
He wanted to, he saw himself in his image, a strong man.
And I do think, you know, over the years, and certainly as the president has tried to end the war in Ukraine, he's seen that, you know, maybe President Putin isn't who he thought he was.
You know, he hasn't been able to change Putin's mind.
He said, and he's pretty much said so, you know, numerous times, maybe Putin's playing me.
Maybe, you know, so he goes back and forth.
He really wants that admiration of President Putin, but at the same time, I think he's starting to see Putin for who he is.
And look, I think Orban is another one that President Trump has admired, and he's really taking from the leader of Hungary's playbook, which I think the last time I was here, we talked about this, that a lot of the things that President Trump is doing is in line with the Orban-Hungary playbook.
Rich is in Pennsylvania on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Rich.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
Happy Valentine's Day, ladies.
Listen, you know, there's so many things that you can talk about with Trump and the European relationships.
How, you know, when he says that NATO, they may not come to help us 9-11, pal.
You know, and the whole this Monroe slash Trump doctrine, you know, you gotta remember that America is three continents.
It's not just North America.
There is three continents.
There is a Central America and there is a South America.
And Trump needs to stop, you know, thinking that he's going to be able to control all three continents.
Another thing I just want to mention that since this Greenland fiasco, France and Germany have both put new embassies in the city of Nuuk.
And one last thing I'm going to try to share because there's so much to go by.
You know, what we saw this week, we're supposed to be a country of justice, law and order.
And what do other countries see when they see that AG acting like the girl that you wouldn't want to talk to at a party, put a show on, whatever that was?
I mean, this is how the world sees us and what our reputation is within the world.
And I just finished with saying, I really wish Denmark would have meet the U.S. in the cockpit yesterday.
Well, Rich, on the Western Hemisphere idea, I mean, listen, we're going back to what is considered a kind of sphere of influence type of world order, I think.
What the U.S. is saying and what I think President Trump is saying and his advisors is that they want kind of this influence over the Western hemisphere.
And then, you know, maybe when we talk about Russia, that Russia has a sphere of influence in Europe and China has a sphere of influence in Asia.
And so I think that's how President Trump might see it.
But it's true.
I mean, it's a very big hemisphere.
And we used to, actually, there's been a lot of good progress done in the hemisphere.
Everything, but a lot of good progress towards democracy in the hemisphere over the past several years.
And I think now there's a lot of instability with what's going on.
And there have been some leftist leaders that have not been helping.
And so the U.S. is paying more attention to the hemisphere.
And I mean, we talked about how the Europeans or whoever are just looking at the United States and what's going on.
And to the extent that it affects them, I think they'll talk about it.
I don't think you're going to hear them talking about Pam Bondi or whatever, but I think it goes back to the whole idea that, you know, they're letting the U.S. kind of sort itself out right now politically.
But, you know, this idea of the values-based relationship is over, and they're kind of letting the U.S. just figure it out themselves.
Elise Labbitt is the founder of the substack Cosmo Politics, which you can find online.
Also, a global affairs journalist and a professor at the American University School of International Service.
unidentified
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Walter Isaacson's America00:03:01
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Coming up Monday morning, author and presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky on the role of the presidency and President Trump's use of executive power.
And then Matt Briney, Chief Communications and Marketing Officer for the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, will talk about the building of the new presidential library and plans for a July 4th opening.
And later PBS Frontline's Juan Ravel will talk about his new documentary on the aftermath in Venezuela following the U.S. capture of Nicolas Maduro.
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Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, White House Historical Association President Stuart McLaurin, author of The People's House Miscellany on the History of the White House and White House Related Trivia.
He'll also talk about the changes that presidents and first ladies have made to the White House's interior and exterior, going back to President Thomas Jefferson.
The president never and his family never had a place to go outside and enjoy like we have a deck or a patio.
And so Truman broke up that colonnade of the South Portico and right in the middle, put a balcony off the residence level of the White House so the family could go out there and enjoy fresh air.
And very controversial.
People thought it ruined the look of the White House.