C-SPAN’s Washington Journal (02/23/2026) dissects the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down Trump’s $140–$190B tariffs, leaving refunds unresolved amid partisan demands—Democrats push for consumer rebates ($1K–$1.7K/year), while Republicans propose debt reduction or business incentives. Susan Friccio previews Trump’s State of the Union, now altered by the decision, amid Iran tensions (10–15 day strike deadline) and economic struggles (1.4% Q4 growth). Meanwhile, Nina Olson of the Center for Taxpayer Rights warns of IRS staffing cuts and $200B refund delays under One Big Beautiful Bill, while callers grapple with tax reporting chaos—like QuickBooks data glitches—and Trump’s credibility amid controversies. The episode underscores how legal battles, economic policies, and media narratives collide in a politically volatile year. [Automatically generated summary]
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Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, along with your calls and comments live, Washington Times national politics correspondent Susan Fericio on Tuesday's State of the Union, the Supreme Court decision on Trump's tariff programs and the upcoming midterm elections.
And then Ben Johansson, Politico White House reporter and West Wing playbook co-author, will talk about the week ahead at the White House and President Trump's State of the Union speech on Tuesday.
And later, Nina Olson, executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, will talk about this year's tax filing season and changes made by the passing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Washington Journal is next.
Join the conversation.
Good morning.
It's Monday, February 23rd, 2026.
The House is in at noon Eastern.
The Senate's in at 3 p.m., and we began today with the fallout after the Supreme Court struck down President Trump's tariffs on Friday.
A major question that remains up in the air is what happens to the tariff money already collected with businesses lining up with lawsuits and some Democratic leaders calling for refund checks for American consumers.
We want to know what you think.
Should the Trump administration issue tariff refunds?
And if so, who should get them?
Here's phone lines for you to call in.
Republicans, it's 202-748-8001.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
You can also send us a text, that number, 202-748-8003.
If you do, please include your name and where you're from.
Otherwise, catch up with us on social media on X, it's at C-SPANWJ on Facebook.
It's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN.
And a very good Monday to you.
You can go ahead and start calling in now as we show you the headline from USA Today this morning.
Time for a refund, they asked the movement to give Americans tariff money.
Democrats have demanded refunds after the Supreme Court ruled against President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs.
They write it's the latest hypothetical plan to redistribute tariff income back to Americans.
It was yesterday on CNN's State of the Union that the Treasury Secretary Scott Besson was asked about potential refunds.
This is what he had to say.
I do want to start with the big question.
Will you refund the roughly $134 billion in revenue taken by these emergency tariffs?
Well, Dana, that's not the big question.
Let's just level set here.
What the Supreme Court did was a very narrow reading of the president's authority under the IEPA tariffs.
We have other tariff authorities which have been functioning.
Section 232 tariffs, Section 301 tariffs.
And Dana, when you say it's a big question, that's bad framing because the Supreme Court didn't even address that.
The Supreme Court remanded it down to a lower court.
And, you know, we will follow what they say, but that could be weeks or months when we hear them.
So the Supreme Court did not address refunds.
Sure, they didn't address refund.
That is clearly going to be up to you, which is why.
No, no, no, no, Dana.
It is not up to me.
It is not up to you.
Not you.
It is not up to the administration.
It is up to the lower court.
Let's just be clear on that.
Okay.
Well, the Justice Department told a federal appeals court in this very case last year, if tariffs imposed on plaintiffs during these appeals are ultimately held unlawful, then the government will issue refunds to plaintiffs.
Again, I'm not going to be ahead of the court.
We will follow the court's direction, but as I said, that could be weeks or months away.
That decision was not rendered on Friday.
The Treasury Secretary there on CNN State of the Union yesterday.
Meanwhile, President Trump moving ahead with tariffs under new authorities.
This is the headline from today's Wall Street Journal.
Trump to boost global tariff to 15% new tariff rate up from the 10% level that he announced after his high court setback on Friday when the Supreme Court ruled as unlawful the tariffs implemented under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEPA, as you've heard of it.
That debate continues, and we ask you this morning your thoughts on whether the administration should issue refunds for tariff costs, and if so, who should get them?
Give us your thoughts on phone lines split this way.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
We mentioned Democratic leaders calling for checks to individual Americans.
This was California Governor Gavin Newsom on CNN yesterday.
This is what he had to say.
The whole thing is a farce.
I talk about petulance.
It was 10% two days ago, maybe 20% tomorrow.
I mean, this is madness.
He's flailing.
He's a punch-drunk boxer.
He's just, you know, he's just trying to hit anything, a shadow.
And he's a shadow of himself.
He's lost a step or two.
Under the IEEPA, we were the first state to sue.
I was out there in the Central Valley talking about how this is going to impact ranchers and small businesses and farmers, the ag community, my state larger than any other state in the country.
And Justice Roberts, by the way, basically, our arguments were literally laid out in detail in his response.
So it was always an illegal act.
He needs to return that money, needs to refund that money with interest.
He could do that in a nanosecond.
They could do that electronically.
They could do it electronically.
They have the tariff codes.
They have the ability.
They do refunds all the time.
They have the ability to do that.
The problem is for families, it's been about $1,701 a year.
That's a different requirement that I think he has to pay the American people back.
I saw Besant out there almost gleeful.
He was gleeful that, no, we won't be doing it.
This is dumb and dumber, Trump and Bessett.
They've wrecked this economy.
1.4% GDP growth in the last quarter.
Inflation back up to 3%.
The worst jobs market we've seen since 2013.
2.2% GDP for the entire year.
He inherited 2.8%.
It's a wrecking ball presidencies, wrecking this economy.
Gavin Newsom on CNN yesterday, in terms of the numbers here of what it cost average Americans, you heard Gavin Newsom there say $1,701.
That number coming from a Joint Economic Committee Democratic report that came out that notes that the average American family has paid just over $1,700 in tariff costs as of January.
Another estimate by the Nonpartisan Tax Foundation said that in February, tariff costs each household in America an average of $1,000.
So a lot of discussion here about whether tariffs should be refunded, how much it should be.
And that's what we're asking you this morning on the Washington Journal.
What do you think?
And we have phone lines for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents as usual.
Samuel's in California up first this morning, Republican.
Samuel, what do you think?
I think that the president should give a tariff refund to Americans a rebate check.
And he should also give tariff money for disabled veterans during the Vietnam era from 1964 to 75 that fought against communist aggression for this beautiful country.
They should get money too.
The disabled veterans gave veterans a tariff check for the active veterans, but these are disabled veterans that don't get too much money every month.
They should get a check too.
And one other thing, I love this president.
He's doing great stuff.
He has done so much in everything he campaigned on and to the presidency he did.
And no Democrat can do what he can do.
Thank you very much, and have a good day.
That's Samuel in California.
Jason's in Alabama.
Democrat, good morning.
Hey, good morning.
The stupidity of American citizens is unfathomable, especially MAGA supporters, right?
Donald Trump has been saying for the past over a year that American citizens don't pay tariffs.
So why would he give you a refund for the tariffs?
You didn't pay them, right?
But now you want to check.
It amazes me.
There's so many rural people that depend on Social Security and rural hospitals that need that money from the federal government voted for Trump, even though their hospitals are closed and their health care is declined.
Farmers voted for him, even though his tariff hurt them the first time, and now they're losing their farms.
People like the previous gentleman, veterans voted for him, even though he's going through the VA system, altering the way veterans can apply for their disability benefit.
So, Jason, to the question, what do you think should happen with the money collected under those tariffs that the Supreme Court last Friday ruled were illegal?
I think Trump should take that money and put it in his bank account just like he put over like $3 billion or his net worth is going to $3 billion.
He should keep doing what he's been doing.
Trump is a scumbag, and he's proving that.
So it's crazy to have a conversation when this man has shown he don't care about nobody.
And if you think you're going to get that, if you think you're going to get that tariff check, you're going to get that the same day Donald Trump's hairline comes back and you get that double.
It's a confusing process, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh used the word mess in his dissent.
You might remember on Friday, President Trump, reading from Brett Kavanaugh's dissenting opinion from the Supreme Court decision.
This is what Brett Kavanaugh said about the idea of returning tariff money that had been collected.
He writes, the interim effects of the court's decision could be substantial.
The United States may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers who paid the IEPA tariffs, even though some importers may have already passed on the cost to consumers and others.
As was acknowledged, that the oral argument, the refund process, is likely to be a mess, and it's still being sorted out.
As Scott Bessant said, a lot of this is in the hands of the lower courts.
But as this is a question right now in the wake of that decision, we want to know what you think.
Should the Trump administration issue refunds for tariffs?
And if so, who should get them?
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
Democrats, 202-748-8000 is the number to call.
And Independents, it's 202-748-8002 having this conversation.
On a Monday morning, the Congress returns today, the House at noon, the Senate at 3.
And of course, we are in State of the Union week on a snowy day on Capitol Hill.
We are one day away from the President's State of the Union address tomorrow night, and we hope you watch it with us on the C-SPAN networks.
Back to your phone calls.
This is Damon in Columbus, Ohio, Independent.
Good morning.
Hey, good morning.
Thanks for having me on the call.
And this is my first time calling, so I want to stick to the subject matter, but I'm excited to share.
So good morning, everyone.
Just as a novice politician or a novice in paying attention to these affairs, I focus on money.
I focus on my own business.
I'm a small business owner.
I don't understand how we could even bring a refund of tariffs for countries that have been selling into America for years and years.
I don't see how there could be any confusion as to why, even though we are, you know, we're bending the rules quite a bit and how we run the country.
We got to look at it.
This is a superpower.
You know, we don't make mistakes when we charge people to do business with this.
It doesn't make sense to me how people can approach this as we need to refund all these countries that we've been doing business with for several years because of the fact that we increased the amount of money that we're charging to do business with America.
I don't see how that overall, for any of us, for any of our families, for any of our kids, for any of us, how that makes sense.
So, Damon, the question is: if these tariffs are illegal, as the Supreme Court ruled on Friday, who should get a refund?
It's not necessarily other countries.
Is it businesses that paid the import tax?
Is it consumers who may have had that cost of that import tax passed on to them?
What happens to this money now?
Or does the federal government keep that money, a federal government that's currently in the realm of $38 trillion in national debt or so?
I think we should look at the overall big picture because, you know, half of us don't know what to do with the money we bring into our households in terms of what to do.
Are we buying cigarettes or are we buying beer or are we buying eggs?
You know what I mean?
So I think overall we need to get that together before we start talking about trillions of dollars that we're bringing into the country in a way that we're not used to.
I mean, I just don't see how that could be looked at as bad.
I mean, even though there are a lot of things that I disagree with, lots of things I don't understand, I just don't see how bringing more money into the country could be a discussion point when we're bringing the money into the country from people who are already making money on us.
Gotcha.
I don't really see how we could.
Got your point, Damon.
And we're not talking trillions of dollars at this point.
The estimate's somewhere between $100 and $200 billion in tariff revenue under these tariffs that were ruled illegal on Friday.
Tariff Refunds Controversy00:15:42
Just like Governor Gavin Newsom in California, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker telling President Trump to cut the check.
That's what his ex-post read from over the weekend.
He also issued an invoice to the Trump administration from the families of Illinois.
He writes that on behalf of the people of Illinois, I demand a refund of $1,700 for every family in Illinois.
There are 5,105,448 households in my state, bringing the total damages that you owe to the state to be $8,679,261,600, saying that your tariffs have wreaked havoc on farmers, enraged our allies, and sent grocery prices through the roof.
J.B. Pritzker's letter to President Trump from over the weekend.
This is Paul in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Republican line.
Good morning.
Good morning.
First of all, this idea of refunds is not new.
The first person to actually talk about a tariff refund was Donald Trump.
And this is documented in newspaper headlines, what, going back four months, three or four months ago?
And he was telling them about the evidence check for American consumers.
So this isn't even, I mean, the Supreme Court and a Democratic Party, they weren't the first to talk about any refund.
It was Donald Trump.
Anyways, I would like to inform people, the press controlling our lines.
So I would like to show the viewers that they may be in favor of tariffs and they don't even know it.
And I'll ask you these questions.
If a country is banning U.S. goods and charging tariffs on U.S. goods and making it impossible for U.S. goods to be sold in their country, shouldn't we treat them the same way that they treat us?
If you do, then you must be in favor of Trump's tariffs.
If you thought there was a way to bring $19 trillion worth of factories to the United States and have great jobs for Americans, then you must be in favor of Trump tariffs.
If there was a way to settle differences in Eurasia and Southeast Asia that could cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, wouldn't that be a good idea?
Then you must be in favor of Trump tariffs.
Finally, if there was a way to save the social programs, and I'm talking about Social Security and Medicare, if there was a way to alleviate the emergency status of these programs in the United States without really any you feeling it that much, then you must be in favor of Trump tariffs.
So really, people are in favor of Trump tariffs.
It's just the news media in the United States won't allow people to think about them in the proper way.
So, you know, as far as the tariffs themselves, the legality, Biden was in the Democrats were in power for four years.
Why didn't they revoke the tariffs when they were in power?
The tariffs were invoked by President Trump under IEEPA, IEPA, as it's known.
But you're right that President Trump has talked about some sort of tariff rebate to Americans before in the months since invoking those tariffs.
The question has come up since the Supreme Court ruled those tariffs illegal on Friday, whether there would be some sort of rebate or some sort of check written to American citizens about it.
It was the president's trade representative, Jameson Greer.
He wasn't on ABC's this week yesterday.
He was also asked about this.
This is what he had to say.
And I want to ask you about refunds.
It's estimated that the tariffs raised $142 billion in revenue through the end of last year.
Will you refund the money immediately or wait for a court order?
Well, we need the court to tell us what to do.
They've created a situation where they struck down the tariffs and gave zero guidance on this.
Historically, as a trade attorney, in my experience, courts will normally give you some instruction on what to do when the Court of International Trade, which is a district-level U.S. court, my expectation is that they'll have to step in and give some direction on how they want that to be done, if at all, whether plaintiffs had to have made a claim or not.
We just need to have guidance from the court.
Trade Representative Jameson Greer there on ABC's this week, taking this conversation to the Washington Journal this morning and taking your phone calls on it on phone lines for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
This is Tedla out of Flushing, New York, Independent.
Good morning.
Good morning to you, sir.
I mean, well, this is 100, what, $140 billion?
And then we have a national deficit of $38 trillion.
So let's think this way.
I mean, the country is debted $38 trillion, and each one of us owes money.
So is it not a better idea to cut it?
Even if it is minor, I mean, why don't you just use it for the federal deficit?
And then that will be a common good.
Otherwise, let's each state do whatever it wants.
And most probably we can use it for our educational system, whatever.
So let's use this money for a common good rather than arguing, playing politics with it.
For me, the money is, if you give me $1,000, I will spend it.
But I would rather prefer if there is a common thing we can do in New York to help education, whatever, and then we better spend it over there because the mayor now he wants to put tax on us, local tax, common property tax.
So we are in trouble in our state now.
So I think we better use it for the common good so that we will go together alone because this country has to go a long way.
38 trillion.
What is the common good these days?
Can we even agree on what the common good is?
Yeah, for example, I'm very much worried about education in our country.
Many kids go out of college and they have no job.
And if there is any job creation, whatever, we try.
Let us try to help the young people now.
Because the young people are now restless.
Because I have college graduate kids.
They are confused.
So let's do something for the future generation, please.
Thank you very much.
That's Tedla out of Flushing, New York.
This is Annie in Lexington Park, Maryland.
Democrat, good morning.
Good morning.
Go ahead, Annie.
Good morning.
I say if we have anybody going to get any money back, it should come back to the American people, please, to the folk who hurt most about the action of this president, in my opinion, who should not be the president since he's a 34,000 victor fellow.
That's Annie in Maryland.
This is Larry in North Carolina, Republican.
Good morning.
How are you doing?
Doing well.
First, I'd like to say Gavin Newsom and J.D. Prisoners, they're people.
What do you want to add to this conversation?
This money, I think it needs to go to the national debt.
It's about $140 billion.
We're talking about close to $39 trillion national debt at this point.
Larry, do you think it's going to make much of a difference?
Listen, we've been paying these countries all these tariffs to get their product, and we can't charge.
Is this what y'all say?
That's Larry in North Carolina.
CSPN viewers are familiar with Professor author Jonathan Turley.
He also has a column in the Hill newspaper, and he took up this issue of what to do with the tariff money in one of his latest pieces.
And Jonathan Turley writes: In reality, these tariffs are not going away.
Trump will just have to rely on less nimble laws, but he can pursue the same policies in the name of other causes, such as securing greater market access and other concessions from foreign governments.
So, what about coughing up those past tariff dollars, he writes?
Newsom may ultimately be disappointed.
Unless members want to further add to the deficit, Congress should intervene and uphold the tariffs retroactively.
But that may not be possible, he writes: Democratic politicians like Newsom are not likely to want to help Donald Trump, even if that means wounding the national economy and the federal budget.
But this may offer Republicans a unique opportunity to force such a vote.
Do Democrats truly want to vote to give hundreds of billions of dollars back?
There are already more than 1,000 claimants for that money, those claimants, mostly the businesses who have lined up as claimants, and new calls now for checks for American consumers who are impacted by the tariffs.
Asking you what should happen to the tariff money?
Should there be refunds?
Who should they go to?
This is Bethany in Wisconsin Rapids.
Independent, good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Yeah, I agree with the last caller.
I just think it should be applied to our national debt.
Sort of any little bit helps, Bethany, and certainly $140 billion is not a little bit.
Absolutely.
I think that's probably spreading it around to the American population the best.
It's Bethany in Wisconsin.
This is David in Brooklyn.
Republican, good morning.
Hello, how are you?
Doing well.
Okay.
The money, the debt is just increasing.
He's spending hand over fist.
And any company that he touched or started went bankrupt.
So there goes our country if we keep letting him go.
The money should be put to the debt, but he's got to be stopped.
It's ridiculous.
That's David in Brooklyn speaking of New York.
New York sender and minority leader in the Senate Chuck Schumer was on MS Now last week with Chris Hayes, and he was asked about refund checks.
This is what he had to say.
Well, what about the people of New York?
Because J.B. Pritzker, governor of Illinois, sent an invoice to the White House today saying we would like to see a check for $1,700, a tariff refund check, for every person in the state of Illinois.
Should the people of New York State be getting something similar?
Absolutely.
And why not?
I mean, the bottom line is these were illegal.
They were always illegal.
It hurt people badly.
It's hurting Trump himself in the eyes of the American people.
He ought to, you know, once he ought to admit he made a mistake.
He ought to admit he's harming the American people.
And he ought to, he should have taken advantage of this decision to say, bye-bye tariffs.
I can't do them anymore.
The court says they're no.
But he can't do that.
He never admits he's made a mistake.
Chuck Schumer on MS Now last week, taking your phone calls this morning asking you: should the Trump administration issue refunds for tariff costs?
If so, who should they go to?
202-748-8001 for Republicans.
202-748-8000 for Democrats.
Independence, 202-748-8002.
We're talking somewhere between $100 and $200 billion in tariff money.
Some viewers have already talked about lowering the national debt when it comes to America's financial picture.
This is one of the lead editorials in today's Washington Post.
The editorial board writing amid so many cries around the world and so many crises, it's easy to forget the scale of America's debt problem.
But a new report from the Congressional Budget Office puts the stakes in sharp relief.
Even under the best circumstances, America's finances are on track to get much worse.
This fiscal year, the government is projected to suffer a $1.9 trillion budget deficit.
In 10 years, the gap will widen to $3.1 trillion, which would total nearly 7% of GDP.
This year, the federal debt is set to cross 100% of GDP, not far behind the post-World War II high of 106% in 1946.
That number is projected to increase to a staggering 120% by the year 2036.
The Washington Post editorial board taking up that new Congressional Budget Office report available on the CBO's website.
Back to your phone calls.
This is Susanna in New York.
It's Elizabeth Towne, Line for Democrats.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
I just wanted to say that I've been waiting for the ruling from the Supreme Court for a while now, and I can't help to think that our president, the 47th president, is an idiot.
He was trying to take the easy way out and impose tariffs illegally.
And to all the people that have been calling in regards to not wanting to be charged equal prices, there was a way to talk to the American people to have our input legally.
So this guy is a crook, and we got to get rid of him.
Thanks.
That's Susanna in New York.
This is Novi here in Washington, D.C. Independent.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Go ahead.
Are you there?
Okay, so I think the American people don't quite understand that only Congress has the right to impose tariffs.
That's why it's illegal.
The president does not have the right to do that.
And I also think they don't quite understand that most of those costs, most of those tariffs, get passed on to a consumer.
So Americans are actually paying for the tariffs.
The businesses aren't going to pay the money.
They're going to pass that cost right down to us.
So we end up paying the money through the tariff process.
That's all I wanted to say.
So, Novi, does it make sense for this tariff money that we've collected to just cut the check to individual American families?
Well, I think if the Americans have paid the money, it makes sense to give the money back.
That's Novi here in D.C.
This is Joshua Claiborne in today's Wall Street Journal talking about the tariff refund bait and switch.
It's a simple opening, two lines from his lead.
Hoping for a tariff refund, he asked, Don't hold your breath.
This is Anna in North Carolina, Republican.
Good morning.
Good morning, John.
Sorry, got allergies.
I think we need to look at where we have been for, I don't know, 50 years, right?
Tariff Refunds and American Debt00:15:25
We're in debt.
There's no money.
This whole globalization of our country, we're giving everything away.
We don't produce anything.
We don't, we just have outsourced ourselves into poverty, basically, in our government.
And the tariffs, it was an emergency action, I believe, because the president and his board or whatever cabinet had reviewed and had seen all the waste and all this money just flooding out of our country.
And you know what's happening in California?
All the billions and billions and billions, they can't find where it went.
And like in Illinois and like in Minnesota, all these billions and billions of dollars that are missing that have gone to NGOs and can't be found.
And we had to do something.
We're in a crisis.
You know, all these fraud fraud, the fraud that's happening in our country up under our noses.
And we have to get some income.
We've got to get businesses back in North Carolina.
We have or in the United States.
We are just a nation that was just blindly just going to go to ashes, basically.
I mean, our kids can't even find jobs.
You know, and all they, when they graduate from college, look at what their degrees are in.
You know, it just, there's no jobs available.
So I think the tariffs are a good thing, and I'm glad we can now do the 10% across the board.
And let's move forward and let's save this country.
And Donald Trump is not stupid.
He's five steps ahead of everybody at this point.
And I really want everyone to understand that.
I appreciate it, John.
And thank you for C-SPAN.
That's Anna in North Carolina.
You talk about 10% across the board.
Over the weekend, the president raising the new global tariff rate to 15%.
He said it would be 15% across the board.
From the New York Times news analysis piece on it, the Supreme Court may have ruled six to three against President Trump's use of international emergency law to impose tariffs.
But Mr. Trump seems intent on continuing the experiment that he has run with the U.S. economy over the past year, in which he's raised tariffs to levels not seen since the 1930s.
Asking for your response on phone lines and via social media as well.
This is Charlene writing in on Facebook, asking, did we get a refund for the 9% inflation during the previous administration?
What about a refund for the billions of dollars the Somalians scammed from taxpayers in Minnesota?
I would say the American taxpayers are owed a lot.
The sender Martin Heinrich writing, you paid these tariffs, not Amazon and Walmart.
Trump should refund the American people.
This is Sherry, a viewer on Facebook, saying, yes, the tariffs are a tax on Americans and they're found to be illegal by the Supreme Court.
Americans should be reimbursed.
Tariffs cost households between $1,000 and $1,750 annually with lower-income households disproportionately affected.
The price hikes on goods like furniture and electronics and food were a hardship for most people.
Had Trump listened to the economic and constitutional experts, we wouldn't be in this situation.
A few of your comments via social media this morning asking for your calls as well.
202-748-8001 for Republicans.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
This is Meg in Michigan.
Democrat.
Good morning.
You are next.
Meg, you with us?
Got to stick by your phone, Meg.
Go to Michael in New York.
Republican.
Michael, go ahead.
Hi, how are you, John?
I would like to say that, first of all, it's not hard to tell that C-SPAN is sponsored by Comcast at times, I'll tell you.
The next thing I'd like to say.
Michael, we're funded by your cable bill, Michael.
We represent about six cents a month on your cable bill.
Cable companies are around the country, people who subscribe, also YouTube, TV, and Hulu as well.
So that's how we're funded.
I see that.
Comcast is a funder of C-SPAN.
Okay.
So what's on your mind on tariffs?
Okay.
If Trump is the criminal that Many people claim that he is.
And if the tariffs were illegal, as you have said today that they are, why would we want to allow an alleged criminal to determine what is to happen with ill-gotten gains of tariff money?
So, Michael, what is your point?
Congress should figure this out?
What are you trying to say?
No, I'm saying the courts should do it.
The courts should do it.
If you go ahead and ask people on your show, you know, do you think the government should send you some money that you weren't anticipating having?
Of course, the majority of people are going to answer in the affirmative on that.
I mean, Michael, we had callers this morning.
You're right.
We had callers this morning saying that, no, we're in $39 trillion in debt.
This money should be used to help pay that off, and that might be the best way to help the American people.
It might be.
But shouldn't the courts decide that?
The courts decided that the tariffs were illegal.
So what are you going to do?
Allow someone that you claim broke the law to collect the tariff money to begin with, determine what's going to happen with that money.
Does that make sense?
It doesn't make any sense to me.
That's Michael in New York.
This is Dorothy in Waldorf, Maryland.
Line for Democrats.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I have an unpopular opinion.
I think the tariff money should go back to the companies that are suing for their money in exchange for them providing the consumers with deep cuts in their prices, that they lower their prices so that we could both win in that instead of letting them just keep the money and having more profits that in exchange they lower their prices.
Do you trust that they'll do that, Dorothy?
No.
Like I said, it's an unpopular opinion.
I hope that they would, but that's the thing that makes more sense other than giving it toward the paying off the deficit.
Where are you seeing?
Because they're not going to give the money to the consumers.
I'd love that.
I just don't think it's going to happen.
Where are you seeing the rise in prices the most, Dorothy?
Where is it hitting you where you are in Waldorf, Maryland?
Everywhere.
Every time I go to Walmart, there's something that I bought two weeks ago that's more expensive in the grocery stores.
Just about everywhere.
I'm seeing it.
I'm feeling it.
That's Dorothy in Waldorf, Maryland.
This is Paul in Palm Harbor, Florida, Republican.
Good morning to you.
Yes, I don't seem to remember.
I don't remember when Trump first proposed a refund for collecting the tariffs.
How many politicians, Democratic politicians were all for it?
I don't remember or said that was a good idea and Trump should do that.
Because now they're all saying, oh, every Democrat, how many citizens, Democratic citizens wanted the refund.
Said that was a good idea for Trump to give them a refund.
I don't remember.
But if we could find some video or something that says what the people thought at the time about it, but I am piling on right now?
Yes, of course.
But go back.
Go back and show what the people thought about this, this giving.
I'm sure you had episodes, I don't remember, talking about this issue.
And what did the people think then?
And what did the politicians think then?
What were all the Democrats saying, yes, I didn't see him on TV.
I don't remember.
I don't see him on TV and say, yes, Trump should do this immediately.
We should all get together and give the people back the money.
Why do they want the money now?
That's Paul in Florida.
This is Brian in Massachusetts, Independent.
Good morning.
Good morning, and thank you for C-SPAN.
I'm afraid that this tariff ruling proves that this administration is a total scam.
We were told that the tariffs wouldn't be paid by the consumer.
We all know that's not true.
And the reason I needed the tariffs was to pay for the tax benefits of the big, beautiful bill for the rich.
And people forget that we're on the verge of having a $64 trillion debt in 10 years.
And the president is spending money on huge pictures of himself to put on buildings.
Brian, you mentioned the one big, beautiful bill.
Do you mind talking about how your taxes are looking this year compared to previous years?
Are you going to get money back this year?
Is it going to be more or less?
I think I may do better.
I'm retired, and I'm supposed to get $6,000 off my Social Security.
But the fact is, that's only for two years.
Tax on tips and overtime is only for two years.
The tax cuts for the billionaires is forever.
And I think that's why we have this income inequality where they talk about the K-shaped.
You still with us, Brian?
Thanks.
Yes, I'm here.
We have a delay on my phone.
That's all right, Brian.
You're talking about the K-shaped economy?
Well, it proves that Donald Trump got elected to lower our prices and help the American people.
And the American people are suffering.
Just look at the prices.
We all know it costs more.
We've all lost our insurance.
There are things going on in the country, and we want to build barrooms and bomb fishing boats.
And now we're going to bomb Iraq and go to war.
And he spends, they gave $40 million to Brazil while they're destroying our economy with the trade deficits.
That's Brian in Massachusetts.
You said Iraq.
I think you meant Iran.
That is certainly the region in which we're watching to see what may happen amid the U.S. military buildup in Iran.
In the pages in the New York Times today, Brett Stevens writing about the case for striking Iran.
This is the first couple graphs of his piece today.
President Trump appears poised to order strikes on Iran.
Indeed, by the time you read this column, he may have already done so while barely bothering to spell out his reasons.
The lack of explanation is a serious moral and political mistake, he writes.
At the very least, Americans deserve to know what they're getting into and why, for how long, and for what result.
But he writes, it doesn't mean that there isn't a compelling case for action.
Three, in fact, Iran poses a threat to global order by way of its damaged but abiding nuclear ambitions, its deep strategic ties to Moscow and Beijing, its persistent threats to maritime commerce, and its support for international terrorism.
It poses a threat to regional stability, not just through its support of anti-Israeli proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah, but also by its meddling in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and until the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, Syria.
And he writes, it's a mortal threat to the life and safety of its own people, many thousands of whom it slaughtered in the last month.
There was a time not long ago when Americans both left and right cared enough about human rights to believe it could, in some circumstances, justify military intervention.
Brett Stevens writing in today's New York Times, if you want to read his piece.
This is Joyce in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Line for Democrats.
Good morning.
Hi, this is Joyce.
Thanks for taking my call.
I don't know anything about tariffs or much about the economy, but I was reading one left-leaning journal that said this could be a really good thing for Donald Trump if he would think about it.
I'm not a fan of Donald Trump, never have been.
But if he could just say to the people in the companies, I'll lower your taxes now.
And so he can sort of, you know, make a golden calf out of his mistake or maybe take it off when we do our income tax as a refund.
That would be the best way to help companies and people, you say, Joyce?
Well, I thought, you know, this was a Democrat writing like, hey, don't tell Donald Trump, but he could turn this around and say, I'm giving everybody a tax break somewhere, somehow, because of what I did.
That's Joyce in South Carolina.
I don't know how it would work, but I thought that's a good idea, but I'm not sure Democrats are even going to want him to come out on top on this one.
That's Joyce in South Carolina.
This is Russell in Georgia.
Republican, good morning.
Good morning.
Go ahead, Russell.
What did Ronald Reagan say about tariffs?
You tell me, Russell.
He's not in favor of it.
You tell me.
You read the article.
You've seen the video before.
He did not want tariffs.
So all you people out there are in favor of tariffs, you need to see what Mr. Reagan said about it.
He said it did not work.
So what do you think that Ronald Reagan said about it?
You got the article or you got the video?
You ought to start playing it.
That's Russell in Georgia.
This is Jimmy in Maine, Independent.
Good morning.
Yeah, good morning.
I think the money should go to the Social Security, the lowest checks that people get on Social Security.
I saw you on your screen there.
It was like $300 billion or $200 billion.
And give it to the, let's say the average check is $1,500.
Anybody that's under $1,500 for our seniors should get the rebate.
And they ought to let the man do his job.
And by the way, John, net cost for the illegal immigration in this country is anywhere from $150 billion to $300 billion a year.
They ought to let that money stop that.
Trump Tariffs Impact00:05:32
They can stay in the country as long as they don't break the laws.
Take that money and give it to all the seniors on their checks also.
And as far as Chuck Schumer saying, give the people back the, shut down Schumer.
Shut down Schumer.
Now we got, I'm in the east here.
There's going to be FEMA problems all over with the storm.
This man shuts down the government over everything.
It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life.
The Democrats get you, you can hate Trump all you want, but at least the guy's got some ideas.
I watched no Trump this, no Trump this, don't do this, don't do that.
He's been up there 50 years and we're $338 trillion in debt.
Chuck, wake up.
Come to the party.
At least work with the man.
He's not the greatest guy.
He ain't my religious leader, but my God, man, he shut down the border.
He's got peace going all over the world.
He's got Iran on their knees.
My God, the man does something.
And as far as the tariffs, let the guy do his thing and give the money to the poorest people that are American citizens in this country.
It's real simple.
Take care of America.
We only have one country.
They come over here and do whatever they want to do.
They break the law.
They come back.
They change your name and come back again.
We can't do that.
Separate from your children now.
Everybody that gets a rich country gets separated from their children.
God bless America.
It's Jimmy in Maine this morning.
You mentioned the shutdown.
We are still operating in a partial government shutdown when it comes to the Department of Homeland Security.
President Trump will be giving a State of the Union address tomorrow night amid that partial government shutdown.
Here's one of the latest stories on the impacts of that partial shutdown at DHS.
The Department of Homeland Security has suspended global entry and may do the same for TSA pre-check if the shutdown of the department continues.
The department initially announced that both fast-track airport security services would be halted effective 6 a.m. Sunday, but later reversed course on suspending TSA pre-check.
The Transportation Security Administration said pre-check lines remained operational with no immediate changes for the traveling public, but that's the latest on impacts at DHS.
We'll likely hear more from President Trump about that topic tomorrow night at the State of the Union address.
This is Lisa in Georgia.
Democrat, good morning.
Yes, just let me say this before I get started.
What Donald Trump and the Republican parties have done, they have provided racist red meat to the Madda base, and they believe everything that comes out of Donald Trump's mouth.
But let me just say this: I just got to bring this to Americans' attention.
When Donald Trump first came into office, he disrupted the government with Doge that was supposed to save billions of dollars.
Now, what I hear you saying right now, the America, the budget has gone up billions of dollars.
So, where is all that money that Donald Trump was supposed to save by having Doge come in and wreck our government and destabilize our government?
I think that Donald Trump, I shop on Amazon.
I'm sorry to tell you, I know y'all people are desktop on Amazon, and I know y'all have seen those prices double.
But Maggie, if you don't shop on Amazon, if you don't go to the grocery stores, then you don't know what the economy, you don't know the pain that people are feeling.
Yes, I shop on Amazon.
I know you American people, y'all shop on Amazon, and those prices have doubled.
I raise my right hand to God to let you know that when Donald Trump tariffs first started, and I went on Amazon to buy some dishwashing detergent that was $20 a bottle that you can go to the stores and buy $5.99.
The American people have been hurt by the tariffs that Donald Trump has put on American people.
And the Democrats and the Republicans, and Ronald Reagan, the guy that pointed out to you, told Donald Trump that tariffs do not work.
They have never worked.
Donald Trump has a mind on his own.
And let me just say this: that $40 billion that he sent to Argentini, I'm not talking about $40 million.
I'm talking about $40 billion that this man took money out of the treasury of the United States of America and sent it to Argentini.
And The Congress don't even know to this point why that money was sent other than what Donald Trump said.
The Republican Congress has surrendered their power to Donald Trump, and he got his hands in the American Treasury, treating it like it is his own personal bank account.
American people, please wake up.
MAGA, wake up.
Congress Surrenders Power00:02:40
Because I'm going to tell you something.
In the next two years, this is my prediction.
You will wake up.
And that's all I have to say.
That's Lisa in Georgia this morning.
Just about 10 minutes left in this first segment of the Washington Journal.
We've been asking you what should happen with the tariff revenue that was already brought in, these tariffs that were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court on Friday.
Should the Trump administration issue refunds?
Time for you to still call in on that topic.
But didn't want to let this first segment of the Washington Journal pass today without mentioning, of course, that hockey game that many Americans were watching yesterday.
The United States stunning Canada in overtime for its first hockey gold medal since that miracle on ice era back in 1980.
That's the front page of today's Washington Times.
It's also on the sports section, of course, of the Wall Street Journal.
Jason Gay, trying to put it in context this morning, he writes for the Wall Street Journal.
These were Olympians born long, long after Lake Placid.
Many were babies and toddlers when that Kurt Russell movie came out.
To them, the miracle on ice was a story, not a memory, something extolled by the elders about the collegiate amateurs, the mighty Soviets, Micah Russione, Al Michaels, and a game for the ages that was shown on tape delay.
Now they've got a story of their own.
On Sunday, the U.S. men's hockey team defeated Canada 2-1 in sudden death overtime to capture the country's first gold medal since that glorious run in upstate New York.
46 years to the day, since their underdog predecessors toppled the mighty red machine, the United States men's hockey is golden again, unreal and yet very real.
The Wall Street Journal today, that's Jason Gay.
I should also point out the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal with one of their lead editorials today, the headline, Jack Hughes for president.
The best moment they write was watching Jack Hughes, he of the Gap Tooth Hockey Smile, celebrate in ecstatic fashion with his teammates after he slipped a shot through the legs of the Canadian goalie for the victory on Sunday.
Mr. Hughes, who plays professionally for the New Jersey Devils, may never have to buy a drink in New Jersey again.
But they write, the 24-year-old was even more impressive in his interview after the game on NBC.
Mr. Hughes said, without a trace of cynical calculation, this is all about our country now.
I love the USA.
I love my teammates.
It's unbelievable.
USA Hockey Brotherhood is so strong.
I'm so proud to be an American today.
Imagine that.
They write an expression of unabashed patriotism from an American athlete.
They say, given who else is likely to run for president, we could do worse than Jack Hughes for president.
The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal today.
Donald Trump's Economic Narrative00:14:42
Back to your phone calls.
Charles, Fort Collins, Colorado, Independent.
Good morning.
Oh, good morning.
Yeah, what I see is two completely broken political parties.
And I see the broken American people who are not listening and they buy into everything that is sold to them.
And then they complain.
A great example is Medicare for all.
Now, if we had Medicare for all, there wouldn't be any AI bots denying coverage.
We would have coverage for all the people under an actuarial and we'd save trillions of dollars.
I mean, you have to study that, but they do.
It would.
And look at the best countries in the world are either on a single payer system or Medicare type system.
But what do we do?
We call it socialism.
And then we rail against it and we knock it down.
And I see our tax system.
We could be on a progressive or a VAT tax system, but we won't do it because the people are just arguing over Obamacare and this and that.
There's so many problems we could solve if people would just get away, their thinking, get away from the two-party system and start thinking about pragmatic reasons and things we could do in America to help Americans out.
They say it's all about the economy.
Well, just those two things.
And we could go down a list of gerrymandering and stuff would really improve the well-being of the simple American person out there and businesses.
But we won't do it.
We watch TV and we just buy into the program.
Yes, the Republicans are going to lose really bad in the midterms, but then we'll probably put back in the Democrats.
Everybody will be unhappy with them then.
And because their lot in life isn't getting better, and we'll go back to the Republicans and we'll keep doing this dance forever.
Was it Einstein that said the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, hoping for an end result that never happens?
Charles, how long have you been an independent?
Oh, most of my life.
Are we anywhere closer to breaking the two-party system today than we were 20, 30 years ago?
Yes, I think because, I mean, I'm 66.
If you look 20, 30 years ago, the Republicans and Democrats, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, we reached across the aisles.
The vitro wasn't there.
Citizens United and all these things weren't there.
And we've bastardized this whole system.
And now we're just in this mess.
And I think people are looking for an alternative.
It's just they don't know what to look for.
And it wasn't H.R. 1, the People's Act, and the Democrats.
But when it hit the news, all they said about that was, oh, it's a voter reform bill.
And it died up like a Led Zeppelin.
And people just keep, I don't understand why people keep on buying into systems.
But hey, you know, I'm glad I still drink.
That's Charles in Colorado.
This is Robert in Florida, Republican.
Good morning.
Hi.
Thanks for taking my call.
You know what?
Trump is really doing real great.
You know, Turf, they can have an appeal.
You never know what's going to happen.
And Democrats got to stop living in the 1950s and the 1960s.
This is 2026.
Come on, give me a break.
He's doing real good.
He's getting rid of people that don't belong here.
He's getting rid of drugs that don't belong here.
People are fighting against ISIS.
But you know what?
ISIS is protecting us.
Don't they get it?
They'll do anything to make Trump look bad, the Democrats.
I'm sorry.
Trump is doing an excellent job.
If he wasn't doing an excellent job, I wouldn't even vote for the guy.
But he's making up for everything he did in his past.
Right now, I'm telling you, Republicans got to work.
Democrats, they got the same old people running through office, and they really not doing nothing but arguing with the Republicans.
I mean, that's the way I feel.
You got to look at the future.
That's what Donald Trump is doing.
He's saving us.
Don't they get it?
There's a war in Iran.
He stopped the big bomb over there before them getting the nuclear stuff.
People got to wake up.
We're not in the 50s and 60s anymore.
This is 2026.
This is where we live longer.
That's Robert.
Running short on time.
Robert, let me get to Charles in Ohio Democrat.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I think it because he's so greedy, I think we ought to just give it to him if he'll resign from office.
Thank you.
Peter, Massachusetts Independent, last call in this segment.
Go ahead.
Good morning.
The old saying is that money goes to money.
Trump has told us in some of his thousands of tweets that it's going to be too complicated to return all the money if the Supreme Court says that he hasn't got the right to do it.
So he's sort of sitting on that.
And I don't think he understands how tariffs actually work.
Tariffs are to protect our companies that produce things from being overrun by companies in other countries that can do it for cheaper.
And he's tariffing things that we don't even make.
That's just hurting us and hurting us and hurting us.
The companies have to pay it on importing, and all or part of that passes on to the consumers.
Howard Luttnick, his billionaire Secretary of Commerce, has two sons who are running Cantor Fitzgerald, and they have bet against the country.
And if the courts order the tariffs to be refunded, they are going to get the money because they've already bought that.
And can you imagine that they're going to send that on down to us?
I don't think so.
My vote is yes, pay us back.
Don't wait another couple of years for courts to get to the point of saying, yes, it was illegal.
You got to pay them back.
Thank you.
Peter in Massachusetts, our last caller in this first segment of the Washington Journal.
Stick around.
Plenty more to talk about this morning, including tax filing season is well underway.
There's major changes in the tax code with the one big beautiful bill.
We'll be joined by former taxpayer advocate Nina Olson to let you know what you need to know this tax season.
But first, after the break of conversation with Washington Times National Political Correspondent Susan Ferricio on the follow-up from that Supreme Court decision on Friday, the stakes ahead for the president in his State of the Union.
We'll be right back.
Members of the United States Congress thank you very much.
And to my fellow citizens, America is back.
Watch C-SPAN live Tuesday as President Donald Trump delivers the annual State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress.
Our coverage begins at 7 p.m. Eastern with a preview of the evening from political reporters.
Then, at 9, the president's address, followed by the Democratic response given by Virginia Governor Abigail Spanbergson, will also take your calls and bring you reaction from lawmakers.
Over on C-SPAN 2, experience the moments leading up to the speech and the address itself as if you're there, uninterrupted.
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Washington Journal continues.
Susan Ferricio is back with us this morning.
She's been covering Washington and politics for three decades.
She's currently national political correspondent for the Washington Times.
And Susan Furiccio, start with the follow-up.
After the Supreme Court struck down most of President Trump's tariffs on Friday, we saw the President boosting what he said was going to be a 10% global rate to a 15% rate.
Now, what more are you watching for out of the White House this week?
Well, the President first announced the 10% and then he upped it to 15% global tariffs in response to the Supreme Court 6-3 ruling striking down his use of the 1977 trade law.
Now that that has been set aside, the president is going to refocus his trade policy on other authorities that he can use to impose tariffs.
And there are several and some that will keep tariffs ongoing, such as the aluminum and steel tariffs and other tariffs that can be associated with national security.
I think we'll see those tariffs continue.
And the next shooter drop in this will be what happens to the tariff revenue that's already come in.
There's upwards of $140 to $190 billion in tariffs now that are in question.
And how will those rebates go back to the sellers, the people who are sending items into the United States?
I know that we heard yesterday from the Trump administration that they're waiting to hear from the trade courts on this, on how to deal with this revenue.
How will they refund this revenue?
So that's going to be a really important component of the fallout of this Supreme Court ruling.
And then next, I think we'll just hear more about how the president will try to jam through tariffs going around the Supreme Court ruling.
They've had a backup plan in place, they claim, kind of realizing the Supreme Court might vote this way.
And I think you'll hear the president talk more about ways that he'll try to impose these tariffs going around the Supreme Court.
This 15% tariff has a time limit on it.
He can only do it for a few months before he would need congressional approval.
I don't anticipate that the Trump administration will realistically expect Congress to vote to approve tariffs, which is the only way he could go forward again with these reciprocal tariffs that he had imposed over the past year.
So I think they're going to try to do the unilateral approach where they're not relying on Congress, which is what the Trump administration has done with a lot of his policies since taking office.
And so I would be keeping my eye on more things that the Trump administration could do with existing authorities in the law to try to impose these tariffs and to keep these trade deals in place that he's already negotiated with many different countries.
How many answers do you think we'll have or get from the president on these trade topics by tomorrow night's State of the Union at 9 p.m. Eastern Time?
How much do you think this decision is impacting or restructuring how the president will give that address?
That's a really interesting question because we know who will be in the audience.
At least some members of the Supreme Court will be there.
And we can recall back to the Obama administration where he famously rebuked the Supreme Court from his position in Congress addressing Congress at the State of the Union.
So one wonders what will President Trump have to say with the Supreme Court sitting there?
He's already criticized them for the ruling.
Some of them were his own appointees who ruled against him on this.
So I'm curious to hear how he responds.
He's not happy.
We know that.
He may talk about his plans to keep using tariffs as a central part of his economic agenda.
Now, remember, the president's doing this for a multitude of reasons that he's already made clear.
And we may hear more of this tomorrow night.
That is bringing jobs back to the United States, balancing trade deficits so we're bringing revenue into the U.S. that we weren't getting before, securing deals that are fair to U.S. producers, thus helping our economy in that effect.
We're able to sell more goods overseas.
So he's just secured a lot of good deals for the U.S.
So he does have a lot to brag about on that part of it.
But tariffs are, you know, an increase in prices for U.S. American consumers, and they've been a pain, obviously, for other countries as well.
So he's got that problem because we know that there is that people feel like prices are too high and tariffs have contributed to that.
So he's got to deal with that issue as well.
But I do expect him to promote what tariffs have done for the U.S. right now in terms of also national security, bringing back production to the U.S.
I mean, he's had a lot to say on that, and we'll probably hear him brag about that too on Tuesday night.
And we may hear more about how he'll move forward, even though the Supreme Court has struck down his use of many of those tariffs.
And what other major themes are you expecting him to hit on?
The president coming into the State of the Union address amid a partial government shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security, amid a major military buildup in Iran, the most U.S. planes and forces in that region since the time of the Gulf Wars.
What are you expecting him to start with when he stands before Congress on Tuesday night?
I think if I had to take a wild guess, he'll start with the economic gains that he believes he's accomplished since taking office.
And it's a theme we've heard throughout the administration where he talks about the good things that are happening with the economy.
And of course, we know that that's different than what polls are telling us.
So he's going into the State of the Union with a couple of big polls that have just come out saying that people are not happy with the way things are going in the country.
The White House is really aware of this, obviously.
Economic Gains and Partisan Messaging00:05:28
And I believe they think that their messaging isn't strong enough on this.
So I do expect him to make a central theme of his speech to be about the economic gains.
The things that he's accomplished since taking off is sort of a promises made, promises kept part of the speech where he talks about bringing down prices on some products.
Energy prices, a big deal.
That's come down quite a bit since the beginning of his administration.
And other things, the price of eggs have dropped pretty significantly.
That was a big part of the campaign, right?
Bringing down the price of eggs.
Well, he managed to pull that off.
Some dairy has gone down in prices.
He can talk about things that have improved with the economy in terms of inflation slowing dramatically, the stock market doing well, steady improvements that he can talk about in the economy that sort of defy what people are feeling and that are showing up in the polls, basically, which is that they're still paying too much at the grocery store.
But he's got things to tout.
There's no question.
His problem is, and this is important in his messaging, is that the public's not feeling that enough.
And it's showing up in the polls.
And of course, we have this very critical midterm election coming up here in 2026.
I imagine one of those polls that you're referring to is this.
It's the front page of today's Washington Post.
As President Donald Trump prepares to address the nation on Tuesday, Americans remain generally sour about his performance.
That's according to a new Washington Post ABC News Ipsos poll.
The president's approval rating stands at 39% positive, 60% negative, including 47% who say they are strongly disapproving of his job performance.
The last time President Trump's disapproval touched 60%, that was shortly after the January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
That new poll out today.
We're talking with Susan Friccio this morning ahead of tomorrow's State of the Union, ahead of a very busy week here in Washington, D.C., and a very good person for you to ask your political questions.
She's been covering Washington for three decades, more than that, and often has been with us on the Washington Journal.
202-748-8000 for Democrats to call in.
202-748-8001 for Republicans.
Independents 202-748-8002.
Susan Friccio, you've seen enough of these state of the unions over the years.
What makes a good one?
They're all good in their own way.
Something will happen at every one.
Either some, you know, the speech will have some important elements that make it different and exciting.
The past few State of the Union addresses, I think they've just gotten wilder and wilder as Congress has gotten more partisan.
I mean, Congress has gotten, I think, viciously partisan over the past decade.
So I'm thinking back to some real, to me, some fascinating State of the Union addresses.
Think of the one where I think it was Trump's final State of the Union address of his first term, where the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, famously or infamously tore up the copy of his speech when he concluded his address that went viral.
And people still talk about that moment.
And then, of course, this very past address that the President gave, it was his first address of his second term.
We had a Democratic lawmaker get up and shout at the president in the middle of his speech, and he had, you know, he was removed from the chamber.
You're talking about Al Green.
So, yes, Representative Al Green.
And, you know, he was rebuked for that by Congress.
You know, these things are becoming more demonstrative.
You know, I think years ago, people did not bring in these paddles, holding up signs, et cetera.
That didn't happen.
It was very respectful.
And the ugliest you'd see is the one side or the other not standing up and clapping with the other.
And I think there have been attempts at bipartisanship.
There's one, I think they still do this where in the Senate where they sit next to an opposite party lawmaker and they try to make it more bipartisan.
But it's really gotten more vicious.
And this year will be interesting because there is a move afoot to try to, for the Democrats, no public demonstrations in the chamber because they don't want to detract from Trump or whatever missteps Trump might make.
So the leader of the Democratic Party in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, has told, said, look, if you either don't go or be silent in your protests, but don't get up and make any public demonstrations in the chamber the way Representative Green did last year.
So anybody who's watched Al Green speak on the floor over the past year, he almost always has a poster that's a picture of himself from that very address, pointing his cane at Donald Trump.
He's standing there on the House floor with that picture of him from that speech behind him.
Right, with pride.
You know, it's sort of the resistance.
He's been resisting President Trump since the beginning of his first term.
So there are some Democrats like the idea of that because it gives them a lot of attention.
And there's a lot of people in the party who would cheer that on, right?
People in the Democratic Party.
So this time around, I think there are a lot of Democrats who are going to go to this alternative programming.
They may not be in the chamber.
Lot of Democrats Missing00:03:19
There's other events planned that are sort of counter-messaging events.
So you might see a lot of Democrats not there in the chamber.
And there is the message that's out there.
Nobody get up and yell anything.
So I'm curious to see if that is how everything is carried out.
But I think you'll see a lot of Democrats missing.
You're already hearing Democrats saying that they're not going to go, or they're going to watch it on TV or not show up.
So you may see that happening.
We'll all see it together, 9 p.m. tomorrow night.
And yours can watch here on C-SPAN.
A lot of callers for you.
Before we get to, there's one other topic that I know that you've written a lot, covered a lot, the Epstein files.
Want to know what your thoughts are on the Clinton depositions later this week?
What are you going to be watching for as you cover that?
Right.
So they're not coming to Washington.
The House Oversight Panel is going to go to them at their home in New York.
But I do believe they'll be talking to the press.
And what I'm looking for is: I know there's a, we all know that President Clinton, in the years following the end of his second term, he was establishing himself as leading his foundation.
And he was associated with Jeffrey Epstein, traveled around with him.
It's well known now.
He took many a trip on Epstein's private jet.
There's photos of him that have shown up in the Epstein files.
Now, Clinton has always maintained that they hadn't even been in touch for decades.
So he doesn't have a lot to say.
Secretary Clinton said she's never even met Jeffrey Epstein, but we know she knew Ghelane Maxwell because Ghelane Maxwell was at Chelsea Clinton's wedding.
There's a photograph of that.
So they know the two of them in some capacity.
We know that.
And I am actually just very curious to hear his answers to these questions.
I assume we'll get the transcripts relatively quickly.
But I just, I think a lot of us want to hear how they became friends, what he knew about Epstein, because there are some pictures that have the former president next to these victims.
So what did he know?
I think that's just my general question.
And I think people in the public want to know that as well.
I think Hillary Clinton is less of an subject here other than we know she knew Ghelane Maxwell and in what capacity.
So the question to a lot of people who are showing up in the Epstein files is: what did you know?
If you were around Epstein, you saw these young ladies, these girls, these underage girls, what did you know?
What did you think?
What was how, you know, did anything raise your suspicions?
I think those are the questions, some of the questions that lawmakers are going to have for the first former first couple.
And I think many in the public are also curious to know because that's part of the accountability aspect of this that I think the public is demanding.
Plenty for a political reporter to cover this week, Susan Furicio, starting the week with us on the Washington Journal and taking your phone calls online for Democrats, Republicans, and independents.
Darren's up first for you out of Lando Lakes, Florida.
Public Concerns Unveiled00:07:17
Independent, good morning.
Hello, sir.
How's it going?
Doing well.
You're on with Susan Furiccio.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I just want to say that the Trump administration is completely failing on the tariff front.
You see a lot of issues regarding GDP.
There was virtually no job growth last year.
And I just want to say that why is Trump continuing to blame Biden for his own problems, right?
It was a complete.
All right.
In terms of where we are on the economy, Susan Ferricio, that question does get asked before.
When does an economy become the president's economy?
And when can a president stop saying this is the impact of the previous president?
Well, it's really interesting that the caller said he's an independent.
And if you look at, there's a second poll that came out in addition to the post-Ipsos poll, and that is the NPR Maris poll that came out today.
And that has an interesting number where 57 to 43% say that the State of the Union is not strong.
So that's 57% say it is not strong compared to 43% who say it is.
And among that group, two-thirds of independents say that the State of the Union is not strong.
So the caller is an independent.
And he's probably reflecting the feelings of a lot of independent voters who, by the way, helped President Trump win his second term.
And they're saying that this president isn't doing enough to fix the economy.
And, you know, he's citing that economic number on growth.
And tariffs have been partly to blame for that because tariffs, people believe, can stifle economic growth.
So it's one of many economic, so many of these numbers make up the picture of how the economy is doing.
And the president has had some good numbers and some bad numbers.
And the bad numbers are what people are really feeling.
So I think this caller is reflecting what a lot of people are feeling.
They're saying it's been a year.
The thing is, though, is that inflation, you know, the rate of inflation has slowed down quite a bit from the post-COVID years.
And the post-COVID years were complicated by massive amounts of government spending.
That made those prices shoot up.
And once they go up that high, I think the problem is, is that politicians say, well, I'm going to bring those prices down.
They can slow the rate of inflation and they can slow it way down to nearly nothing.
That doesn't necessarily lower prices.
And that's deflation.
And that's different.
And that, you know, deflation is not necessarily a good thing for the economy either.
So you have this expectation.
People are like, well, how come I'm still going to the grocery store and paying such high prices?
I can barely afford it.
And the president said he was going to lower prices.
It's so hard to get the prices come down.
What you want to do is stop the rate of inflation so they stop increasing so rapidly.
And I think that that was a big fail on the part of the Trump administration.
They set up this expectation that you were going to go and see prices back to pre-COVID levels, which is definitely not happening.
On that NPR Marist poll for our visual learners out there, let me show viewers what's on the website for it this morning.
It's the information that you pointed out.
Among all respondents to the poll, 57% said that the State of the Union is not strong, not very strong or not strong at all.
43% saying it's very strong or strong.
79% of Democrats, probably no surprise, saying it's not very strong or not strong at all.
But also 68% of independents with that answer.
Also, no surprise, 77% of Republicans say that the economy right now under President Trump is very strong.
Rick is next out of Boston.
Line for Democrats.
Good morning.
Yeah, good morning.
Well, I basically want to say a couple of things about Trump that the guy don't listen to nobody.
The Supreme Court just told him he can't do what he was doing.
And now he jumped up, jump up, another 15%.
This midterm got the really time for the Democrats, and they got to take over the House and the Senate.
They need like 15 seats in the Senate.
They got to get rid of that Supreme Court, too.
They're a bunch of clowns up there.
I mean, they basically watch this behind all the way to the presidency by saying, you're giving them all these delays before you're going to have to go to court.
He shouldn't even be in there.
We got a criminal running the country.
And like I said, you looked at, look at Iran.
We shouldn't be in Iran.
We had a treaty when President Obama was in there.
He don't tell the people, the public, oh, the public don't see what we had a treaty before we went there.
You call ourselves sneaking all those aerial planes and tanks on it, whatever.
He was sitting over there.
The goal in Iran to make it seem like he's some big shot.
The guy don't know nothing.
He don't listen.
Got your point.
Susan Ferricio, let you pick up on what you want to pick up on.
I would just note on the caller's math on the Senate, a lot closer than 15 seats in the Senate, and the House is even closer than that in terms of switching control to party.
Yeah, he's talking about 60 votes in the Senate.
The caller is aware that if they were to get that many seats, then they could stack the Supreme Court.
Now, stacking the Supreme Court is a special kind of action where you take the nine justices and you increase their number.
You add new justices, and that's stacking it.
And that way, you can change the right now.
You have more Republican appointees than Democratic appointees.
And we call it a six to three court.
So, say you stack the Supreme Court, you can add two, three justices that match the Democratic Party or Democratic appointees.
Well, then you would change the outcome of a lot of cases if that happened.
And I think that's what that caller was talking about.
But I will point out that this court has not always gone along with President Trump.
Now, he's gotten his way with them on quite a few things, but this very recent ruling on tariffs did not go his way.
Not everything has gone President Trump's way with his appointees on the Supreme Court, even though he's appointed a third of the court himself.
He has not gotten his way by any means.
So I would say that the 6-3 ruling was, you know, it basically destroyed the central part of his economic plan, which were to be able to impose this broad array of tariffs.
Now, he has a much narrower way to go at tariffs.
So the caller was saying that the president is just overstepping the Supreme Court.
He's not overstepping that ruling.
He's going around it because there's other laws.
The first law he used that was struck down by the Supreme Court is called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.
The court said you could not use that to impose tariffs.
It's not written that way.
Now he's going for the 1974 Trade Act, which has several areas underneath that that he could use to impose tariffs.
And those are, I think, all temporary.
So he's not really getting his way with this high court.
But now on foreign policy, people are, you know, he did promise to end foreign wars and to get us out of foreign entanglements.
Debbie's Housing Concerns00:11:35
And of course, we've been going into the Middle East now with a huge number of our military assets.
We're poised off of Iran with the possibility that we will take military action if they don't agree to a deal.
And what's that deal about?
It's saying they're not going to have a nuclear program because when Iran has a nuclear program, they tend to use it for what people believe is to develop nuclear weapons and not for peaceful means, which means for nuclear power.
And it's true that the president throughout the agreement with Iran that was put in place by President Obama.
And part of the reason for that is the administration and other critics of that plan will say that Iran was cheating and that they were enriching uranium and doing things that were clearly on the path to developing a nuclear weapon.
And of course, we went in and struck two of those sites, two or three of those sites last year.
But this deal has not come together on preventing further development of nuclear weapons.
And I think that that's what the caller is talking about.
We've got a lot of our tensions are really building up there in the Middle East.
And the president's moved a lot of our assets there.
And the public is obviously watching very closely to see what's going to develop there.
Just about 15 minutes left with Susan Ferricio of the Washington Times this morning taking your phone calls on phone lines, split as usual, Republicans, Democrats, Independents.
We'll put those numbers on the screen as we go to Spring, Texas.
Cynthia, Republican, good morning.
Good morning.
I think as we're talking about cost and refunds, and let's think about, I have thought about this so often, about the four years of illegals being allowed to come across our border.
We paid to put them up in five-star hotels, paid for their meals, their education, health care.
And that was in the billions.
And while we're calling for or even thinking about refunds, perhaps we should start there.
That's just my thoughts.
Susan Fauricio, will President Trump start there when it comes to immigration enforcement at the State of the Union tomorrow?
That's another issue where he can talk about his successes.
This is his first State of the Union.
He gave an address when he first came in office last year, but this is his first State of the Union of a second term.
He will be able to say that he has shut down illegal immigration across the southern border, that he has stopped the flow of millions and millions of illegal immigrants coming to the U.S.
And that has been a resounding success.
There's no question he stopped that.
And that now, of course, are all those people who came here illegally, many of them are still here.
But he can also lay claim to the fact that millions have left the country either through deportations or through self-deportation where they have elected to leave on their own.
And what has that done?
He can maybe take a victory lap on lower rents.
Some rents have gone down in major cities.
And I'm told by real estate experts that part of that is due to the fact that there are fewer illegal immigrants who need the housing.
And so it's supply and demand.
So there's more available and the rents have prices have stabilized or gone down.
So that's a big housing issue.
It certainly is a big issue in terms of people affordability, which is the buzzword right now.
So he can take a victory lap on immigration.
And I fully expect him to talk about that tomorrow night in terms of what he has done to enforce a border and the Department of Homeland Security, the critical role they've played, even as while he's addressing Congress, the funding for the Department of Homeland Security has lapsed and they're not going to get paid this week.
And so I think we'll hear from the President on that because Democrats are holding back their vote on that funding.
There have been talks back and forth between the White House and Democrats.
They haven't come up with any kind of deal yet though.
So I expect him to talk about that as well tomorrow.
By the way, if you want more on falling rent prices, a good piece in the Washington Times on that from February 16th, the author Susan Fauricio.
Anna is in Connecticut.
It's South Windsor.
Democrat, good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Well, as far as affordability and housing, all of these facilities that they're trying to take to house the immigrants, that could be used, I almost thinking that could be used to house people in the America, in the USA.
And as far as taking the money from us for tariff, I think we'd like to start a conversation on taking monies from us through the penny that he started producing.
The other day, my change was 29 cents.
She says to me, the salesperson, I have no more pennies.
She has no pennies.
So she took my four pennies, she gave me a quarter, took my four pennies.
Why not give me a nickel and let me owe her a penny?
If a million people get owed four pennies, that adds up.
And everybody's not going to take that lightly on Owen giving the money, giving money, giving pennies add up.
Thank you.
That's Anna in Connecticut.
Susan Friccio, any thoughts on the penny?
Well, the Trump administration did stop the production of the penny in order to save money because it costs too much money to produce the penny and it's not worth it.
And that's why they got rid of it.
And also, you know, we've gone to a more of a cashless kind of society where people just pay with their debit cards or their credit cards.
But there are a lot of people who still pay cash.
And you're the caller, you're not the first person I've heard this from where people don't like the fact that it's rounding down the other way and they're not getting, they're losing out on money when they pay for things.
And speaking of which, I do the thing, the last thing I do believe the president will talk about, it is tax season.
And I think that we'll hear from him tomorrow about what Americans can expect as they file their taxes.
And there's some big things in there that with Congress, President Trump has accomplished to lower taxes for people.
And those include they've increased the standard deduction for people filing taxes.
They've eliminated taxes on some overtime pay, some tipped income, and some Social Security income for retirees.
And that will add up, in some cases, you know, hundreds of dollars for people or even $1,000 for some individuals who are filing their taxes.
So I do think the president will talk about those savings that Americans can expect.
And that, of course, all comes through the big tax cut bill that the president signed into law in July and that was passed through the Republican-led House and Senate last year.
This is Debbie, waiting in Williamsburg, Ohio Independents as we hit the bottom of the hour here this morning, 8:30 a.m. Eastern.
Debbie, you are on with Susan Friccio.
Good morning.
I have a couple of issues, but one of the main issues that I am seeing is that all the people that are covering Trump's actions that are considered illegal by the courts, even the Supreme Court, are using other words like, oh, well, he can get around it, or we'll see what he'll do.
But what I would like to know, and the man is breaking the law.
He's breaking the laws of our Constitution.
He's breaking away from the rules of Congress.
He's imposing his own views on the way he's spending our money, the government's money, the people's money.
He's doing things that go against our own principles.
What's an example of one of those, Debbie?
One of those things.
One of the things, okay, just the tariffs in itself.
The fact that the Supreme Court had to rule against him that what he was doing was illegal.
The killings with ICE, that's illegal.
These laws that he is letting go.
Congress is letting these things slide.
And I don't know who it is in Congress.
Somebody up there knows the truth about what's going on.
I mean, he's taking and establishing his family's fortunes in these other countries.
And in the meantime, it's like it's a bribe.
It's like extortion.
Well, you know, you all are having these problems and we'll come over and you give us your minerals and stuff.
And then we'll say it's okay.
It's Somebody has to know what's going on.
And I just like with Johnson the other day when that ruling came down on the Supreme Court instead of him saying, well, this was illegal and we'll try to get it straightened out.
He says, well, he has been bringing in this money.
So it's like that makes it okay to break the law.
Debbie, got your point.
Susan Furiccio, what do you want to pick up on?
It's kind of interesting how presidents will push the limit and sometimes they'll be pushed back by the Supreme Court.
And certainly President Trump is not the only one.
I think another example would probably have been the student loan forgiveness program under the Biden administration.
So you had a lot of people saying, well, he can't do that.
That's against the law.
And it did end up at the Supreme Court.
I struck it down.
And then what the Biden administration did is they found other authorities under the law to keep that program going in some capacity.
And so what they do is they look for other laws.
The federal books are just full of laws that you can, thousands of them.
And so they found another law that they could use to get around that.
And so in this sense, so President Trump will no longer use the 1977 law to impose these tariffs.
In that sense, he won't be able to impose the same number or sleeping type of tariffs that he imposed before.
He'll be limited now, but he can impose tariffs under other authorities.
So in a sense, that's not breaking law.
He is following the law.
He's following a different law.
And presidents will do that sometimes.
They don't like what the Supreme Court has to say, like, well, how else can we pull this off?
You know, they don't just give up.
And I think that you will see that increasingly in future administrations as well.
They're just trying to find a way around a Supreme Court ruling to keep their agenda going.
And I think that's becoming more of a common practice with presidents.
Just a couple minutes left with Susan Furiccio.
Celebration Controversy00:02:24
I want to get your thoughts on, we talked about in our last segment, the celebration in the United States on the gold medal game, the win yesterday by the United States, some political controversy in the wake of some of that celebration.
Just want to get your thoughts as a political reporter.
This is the headline from the New York Times.
FBI director celebrates hockey victory as the Bureau stares down crises.
Kash Patel's trip to Italy came at a fraug and frenetic time for the FBI, one of those crises that they mentioned when an armed intruder was killed at Mar-a-Lago yesterday.
This is the video that emerged of Kash Patel in the U.S. men's hockey team locker room there celebrating with them.
Paula Reed of CNN posting it on her ex feed.
What do you think about this story?
Well, I know that the FBI director posted on social media that he was unapologetic about it and just said he was invited back there and he was proud to celebrate with the Americans.
It's not as though he was at a Bruins game or something.
He was with the USA hockey team and celebrating with a big American victory.
And he's a huge patriot.
We know that.
So in that sense, it doesn't seem like it was a very harmful thing to do to go celebrate what's the big deal, right?
But then you could say, well, look at all the things going on here in the United States.
Could he have known that there would be this incident at Mar-a-Lago handled by the Secret Service, not the FBI.
So I think that Kash Patel has been sort of a sort of, I guess, a controversial figure within the Trump administration.
And there's been lots of stories written about him.
But he's also had a lot of successes, too, as a leader within the FBI.
And I think he is well liked by the Trump administration as well.
So, you know, it's one of those issues where, you know, he's a public figure.
People are always watching him and criticizing him and his leadership.
And he's really in the public eye.
And I think that you would expect to see criticism like this, even though it doesn't see, it seems kind of benign.
You know, he's just celebrating with the USA team, but then you could say, what's he doing in Italy?
And of course, the media is going to, as they say, pounce on that when he was spotted in Italy.
I'm not surprised at all on the reporting on this.
Time for just one or two more calls.
Let me get to Bill.
It's been waiting in Florida, Republican line.
Bill, good morning.
You're on with Susan Friccio.
Susan, you're doing a great job.
And you make a point that we don't often hear, which is the difference between inflation, which accumulates, and the rate of inflation, which is the rate of the accumulation.
We're putting $2 trillion deficit every year, and that adds to the money supply.
And when you add that borrowed money to the money supply, by the way, $1 trillion is an interest, and we're borrowing the trillion dollars to pay the interest.
And that's not sustainable.
But when you print this money, when you print this money, it's like adding a quart of water to a gallon of gasoline.
You've got more total, but it doesn't have any punch.
We've lost, just in the last administration, the value of the dollar has lost 20%.
That's not coming back.
Our money is deflated.
And I really, it's a failure of the education system that the general populace does not understand money supply, the source of inflation, and that there's a cost to borrowing all this money, it deteriorates the power, the buying power of our dollar.
And I think that you make that point.
I think it's a shortcoming of the Trump administration by not making that point and not educating people that inflation is cumulative and the rate of inflation is the rate at which our dollar declines.
That's Bill in Florida.
Susan Friccio, anything you want to add?
Right.
And this was part of the debate when, now, don't forget, both parties are responsible for dumping all that money into the economy.
During COVID, the Trump administration was spending a lot of money.
They were signing a lot of bills.
Republicans are passing bills, spending bills, to try to accommodate the closures.
Small businesses and individuals who are affected by the COVID closures and spending on health, et cetera, during the pandemic.
Right after that, then there was a new debate on additional spending.
And that's where you saw a lot of Republicans say we need to hit the brakes now because they weren't exactly what this caller was talking about.
And of course, it all came to fruition.
But this was mostly Democrats who voted this spending.
And again, I'm not casting blame.
I'm just pointing out this is how it happened.
They said, we need to spend this.
This is our opportunity to fund all these programs and kind of just spend all this money to help people we think need help.
And what that did was not only did it increase inflation, but over time it led to higher interest rates because that's how that's the balancing act that has to happen when it win with inflation.
So the interest rates are now much higher than they were.
So that compounds the problem.
So all these people who couldn't afford anything and paid for it with credit cards now have much higher interest rates on their monthly payments.
And of course, if you're trying to buy a house or buy a car, that adds a lot of money to your monthly payments.
Is a lot of this is what really, really hurt consumers, I think, and hurt Americans was again then the higher interest rates on top of the high inflation.
That's really what the economy started to hurt people.
And how you get all that back down.
That's part of the reason why you hear the president fighting with Jerome Powell at the Fed, trying to get him out of there, which is that's a whole nother story.
But he wants them to lower interest rates, and the Fed's going to lower interest rates when they think it's economically the right thing to do.
And that's the state of the economy right now.
And that's why you're seeing people really being pained by the sticker shock at the grocery store.
And then they got to pay higher interest rates on their credit cards.
They can't buy a house because the interest rates are so high.
Really tough.
But as the caller was pointing out, a lot of this stems from heavy government spending or just dumping cash into the economy like that.
And that's where a lot of it, that's where a lot of the blame lies.
Not all of it.
Tariffs, of course, are part of it.
The higher energy prices that are now coming down, they were part of it as well.
But that's just how the economy works.
And that is how we got to where we are today, largely.
Heavy Government Spending Impact00:03:08
And that's where we'll end it today with Susan Ferriccio.
But for much more on her writing, her stories, WashingtonTimes.com, easy enough to find and find her stories.
We always appreciate your time on the Washington Journal.
Thank you.
Coming up just a little bit later this morning with tax season underway.
We'll be joined by Nina Olson, the former Center for Taxpayer Help.
She currently runs the Center for Taxpayer Rights, and she was an advocate for U.S. taxpayers for years in the federal government.
She'll be joining us to talk about the latest changes to the filing system.
But first, it's open forum.
Any public policy issue, any political issue that you want to talk about, now's your time to call in.
Go ahead and start dialing.
Numbers are on your screen and we will get to the calls right after the break.
On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
For his book, Five Bullets, Attorney Elliott Williams wrote 95,720 words.
On the back of the cover of the book, writer Garrett Graff sums up the story this way: quote: Never has a book about the 1980s felt more like current events than Elliott Williams' journey back to one of America's most notorious shootings when Bernie Goetz opened fire in a crowded New York City subway.
Unquote.
Then Garrett Graff continues his analysis.
Five Bullets is a haunting examination of our nation's complicated fascination with vigilantes and the politics of crime.
Close quote.
A lot of the people who were instrumental to this story are deceased.
However, the man at the center, Bernie Goetz, is still alive at 78 and still lives in New York City.
A new interview with author and attorney Elliott Williams about his book, Five Bullets: The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York's explosive 80s, and the subway vigilante trial that divided the nation.
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Washington Journal continues.
Here's where we are on Capitol Hill today on a snowy day here in Washington.
The House is in at noon Eastern.
The Senate is in at 3 p.m. Eastern.
You can watch on C-SPAN and C-SPAN 2, respectively.
Also, today, this morning, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty McCary will announce new approval guidelines for drug therapies.
You can watch that on C-SPAN 2 live 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
Designating Political Lies00:11:46
And of course, we hope you'll join us for the Stay of the Union address.
That's happening tomorrow night.
And live coverage begins at 7 p.m. Eastern, two hours ahead of the scheduled address.
You can join C-SPAN's Peter Slen, C-SPAN's Greta Bronner for that pre-show and your phone calls leading up to the 9 p.m. Eastern Stay of the Union address.
Stick with the C-SPAN networks afterwards as well for your reaction, for members of Congress' reaction.
It's also all available at c-span.org.
And of course, on the free C-SPAN Now video app.
That is tomorrow night, a big night here on Capitol Hill, the Stay of the Union address.
But for this morning, it's open forum.
Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, the phone lines are yours to do so.
Democrats, Republicans, and Independents will put those numbers up on the screen as we hear from Kathleen in the Buckeye State line for Democrats.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I have a, first of all, I so appreciate Washington Journal, but I'd like to make a request of Washington Journal.
Your guest, your previous guest, Susan, made a completely inaccurate statement about Iran and enrichment of uranium, which anybody who has followed this issue for decades knows that Iran signed the non-proliferation treaty, the International Atomic Energy Agency's non-proliferation treaty, and have a right to enrich to a certain level for peaceful purposes.
And that P5 plus 1 deal that Obama made, you know, kind of assured that they would stay at that level.
And then we had Netanyahu, Israel, who have been pushing the U.S. for decades to go to war with an overt war with Iran.
We've done plenty of things behind the scenes with Israel and their killing of nuclear scientists.
And Israel, we know, has refused to sign the non-proliferation treaty for decades.
They have refused to open up to international inspections.
The last president to challenge them was John Kennedy.
He demanded that they open up Daimona, and they refused to do it.
Yet Israel comes to the U.S., Netanyahu talks in front of Congress and tries to destroy the Iran deal.
Kathleen, what do you think?
What do you think happens in Iran here in the coming days and weeks with this enormous military buildup that we all know about that's happening over there?
What do you think happens?
Well, I will say my theory or thoughts from reading a lot about this circumstance is, in many ways, doesn't matter.
I'm requesting that you guys inform the public by having former CIA Middle East analyst Flint and Hillary Mann Leverent on, Scott Ritter, who was a former head inspector in the Middle East.
Your job, I would hope, is to inform us and widen the public spectrum about the history of the nonproliferation treaty and have guests on that can widen people's scopes because Israel, again, has been pushing us to go to war with Iran for decades.
And, you know, past false intelligence in regard to Iraq.
The people that I mentioned are the ones who led us down the path, you know, questioning the validity of the Bush administration's false WMD information, or I don't want to call it information, it was false information.
And those guys knew it was, and they told the public prior to.
You guys need to have guests on to widen the scope.
But I think Israel's going to have their way, and the U.S. is going to bomb the hell out of Iran, and Israel just will fly by the seat, continue to just not abide by international agreements or sign the non-proliferation treaty.
I think we're going to bomb the hell out of Iran, and it's horrific.
That's Kathleen, and this is Joe in Dayton, Ohio, Republican.
Good morning.
Good morning, John, from a cold and snowy Dayton, Ohio.
John, you're my favorite host.
I love Washington Journal.
I've got just several things to tell you here.
But, John, I want to tell Washington Journal, thank you, and you, John, of course.
And last week, Donald Trump respected the wonderful black community with Black History Month at the White House.
And Washington Journal covered 100% of it.
It was fantastic.
Of course, CNN and MSNBC or MSNOW, whatever name they want to choose this month, does not cover it at all.
Donald Trump's life was threatened again.
And CNN, MS-NOW, they don't cover it.
It's pathetic the amount of hatred for this man.
But in saying all that, John, the other thing I wanted to tell you is that I guarantee there's one guarantee I can make that you and I have never been on the Epstein Island or Epstein list, but it seems like everybody else has.
Joe, do you think that's a topic that in terms of coverage by the media, that universally, that it's, at least since the files have been released, has been covered well by the media?
Is this a story that the media has done its job and dug into and revealed things?
Or do you think they haven't handled it well?
I don't think the media has done well except for Washington Journal.
I don't think the media has covered it well, and that goes for Fox too, because if people want to call after me and say, oh, well, you know, he's a Fox guy, you know, whatever.
You've got to be fair and open and complete, okay?
Because why is it, as far as the Epstein files go, why is it that you don't want to hear about Hucklemy Jeffries having dinner with Epstein and taking donations from Epstein?
You got Stacey Plaskett taking donations from Jeffrey Epstein and communicating with Jeffrey Epstein via text messages on a House Oversight Committee.
So if we're going to target, and by the way, why don't we cover that Donald Trump did call the local authorities in Florida and had Jeffrey Epstein arrested?
So we're not telling the whole truth.
Okay, now Washington Journal does.
Got your point.
That's Joe in Ohio.
This is Mike in New Jersey.
Independent, good morning.
Hi, good morning.
Mike from New Jersey.
We're suffering from this winter storm, and it continues.
But I have a procedural question about Washington Journal.
First of all, I enjoy the coverage.
I think everybody who calls in has to designate where they lie in the political spectrum, Democrat, Republican, Independent, myself.
The politicians who get on, Democrat or Republican.
The question I have is you have a guest on who associate with their organization.
I think in most cases, or in many cases, let's put it like this, they have a biased political view.
Whether it's right or left, I don't really care.
But it's kind of almost a hidden agenda when you have a guest on.
The question I have is, why can't you designate their political party, i.e., In the last presidential election, who they voted for, or whether they freely admit whether they're Democrat or Republican.
So the audience, me, knows exactly where they're coming from.
I think you impose this on everybody else, but for some of these guests, you do not.
And I think that would be important in terms of clarity of opinion.
I tell you, one thing we often do, Mike, is we say, you know, if you're from an organization, what's your mission?
How are you funded?
And that's often a question we ask those folks just to kind of give people a sense of transparency on who these people are.
But you want a specific question: are you a Democrat, Republican, or Independent?
Is the first question sort of out of the gate for each guy?
I mean, and they're going to walk on it because, you know, they're going to say essentially, well, you know, I can't really say blah, blah, blah.
But if you ask them a question like, who did you vote for in the last election?
I mean, that clearly will tell you where they stand.
Now, I don't really care where they stand.
I just want to know where they stand.
They can't come on with some air of objectivity when, in fact, they're a closet supporter of one party or the other.
That's the point I'm trying to make.
It would enhance the credibility of your guests and essentially the free flow of what I would call information and how it's tainted one way or the other.
Mike always appreciates suggestions to make this program run better.
This is John in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Democrat, good morning.
Hello.
My name's John Johnson.
And I would just like to know how come there's so much things going on about everybody calling and all the trouble that they started.
But we have never had a president just stand before people and use the words to use curse and swear.
Not his cabinet.
Also, when they call talking about some, they call people the bomb.
They call them radic.
They call them everything.
So sort of just saying, this person did that.
And they never give credit.
But how come as a president called all these nasty words and no other president have ever done that?
Why can't they just call no matter what the person's done?
They're still a human being.
So we're all God's servant.
I'd like to know why he used these dirty words, but they so down on the Democrats when they use the word.
And I would just like somebody to explain why he can use those words like that and do everything that he wants to, send people out of the country that's not born here.
His wife wasn't born here.
His vice president, his wife wasn't born here.
So why don't they send their wives back to where they come from?
All right, that's John in Virginia.
This is Stephen Bloomington, Illinois, Independent.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thanks for having me.
I just wanted to add a little bit to the comments made by your last guests.
She mentioned Republican, or excuse me, Democrat Congressman Al Green standing up and, I guess, breaking decorum, you might say, in the State of the Union last year.
She did not mention that the first, to my knowledge, interruption of the State of Union happened back in 2009 when Republican Congressman Joe Wilson shouted, you lie during Obama's 2009 State of the Union.
And then there was another instance in 2022, Representative Lauren Boeber shouted during President Biden's State of the Union that I can't remember what she shouted, but she did shout, breaking decorum.
Divide and Conquer Politics00:03:14
And in 2023 and 2024, State of the Unions by President Biden, she Marjorie Taylor Greene shouted out during Biden's State of the Union in 2023 and 2024.
So, Steve, your point is that this goes back a ways now.
Do you find state of the unions to be important events?
Do you say the unions worth it for all the pomp and circumstance that they get, for all the attention that they get?
No, they have developed into basically a campaign speech, in particular with the current president.
But they have been like that in recent years.
But, yeah, they really don't result in anything except trying to recruit the voters to come to their side.
And with that in mind, I believe most of the voters in this country might consider themselves independent.
But this, what do I want to say?
This form of government that we had basically makes it easy for the politicians to divide and conquer, basically, because we only have two parties.
But most Americans are in between that, and I guess it's a sales pitch to go one way or another.
But myself, I vote for the party that I see, in my opinion, that's going to help the country as a whole.
Life of liberty and the pursuit of happiness is in the Declaration of Independence.
And I think I'm right on that.
That's the Declaration, yep.
Yeah, yes.
And, you know, the last how many years, you know, I voted for President Reagan twice.
And, you know, as I got older, as I, you know, learned more about our political structure and process, you know, it's just not, it's really not a democracy.
You know, it's divide and conquer, divide and conquer.
And, you know, the Republicans hate the Democrats, vice versa.
You know, that's, we have a government where we just have a forced choice between two options.
Steve, got your point.
This is Evan in Del Mar, California, Republican.
Evan, good morning.
Good morning.
Traveling While Shutdown00:07:31
I just came back from Switzerland yesterday, and I was in, and I flew into LAX, and this DHS shutdown is horrible.
I had to stand in line for an hour because they shut down global entry.
Congress needs to get it together and stop these shutdowns.
There's been like two shutdowns in the past couple months, and this is ridiculous.
The information yesterday from the Department of Homeland Security suspending global entry and may do the same for TSA's pre-check if the shutdown of the department continues.
The Washington Times story noting that the department initially announced that both fast-track airport security services would be halted effective 6 a.m. yesterday, but later reversed course and on suspending specifically TSA pre-check.
The TSA said pre-check lines remained operational with no immediate change for the traveling public.
But again, we'll see what happens as this partial government shutdown continues.
More of your calls.
This is Michael San Diego, Democrat.
Go ahead.
Good morning, John.
I saw that you had on David Becker the other day, and I wish people would read the book that he and Major Garrett wrote about the 2020 election, how it was the most secure election ever in our history.
There was no cheating or anything like that.
And when Donald Trump talks about how he loves the uneducated, I saw a stat the other day that I understand how he was able to get elected.
130 million Americans, which is 54% of the people ages 16 to 74, read below a sixth grade level.
And out of that number, 45 million read below a fifth grade level.
And nationwide, there are 21% of our adults are functioning illiterates.
That's the problem.
There's too many uneducated Americans out there that believe the lies out of this liar's mouth.
Michael, on that book that you talk about, just want to point out it's called The Big Truth.
Major Garrett and David Becker were actually on this program back in October of 2022, and they took questions.
They talked about the book, A Place Bureau Can Go to Find It, c-span.org.
Just type in David Becker or Major Garrett at the top of the page, and you'll be able to find what Michael is talking about.
Michael, thanks for the phone call.
It's just after 9 a.m. on the East Coast.
More phone calls in just a minute, but now we head to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue for a look at the preparations for tomorrow's State of the Union address.
Ben Johansson is a White House reporter for Politico joins us.
Ben Johansson, what do we know today about the speech that the president will give tomorrow night?
We know the president enjoys feeding on a crowd, but how does he feel about the unique crowd that is provided by a State of the Union address?
Yeah, thanks, John.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, I mean, so to say to you, the Supreme Court decision on Friday, it really could not have come at a worse time for the White House.
I mean, we're calling people on Friday, people close to the White House, people within the administration, and they were quite animated.
You know, a former senior administration official said that Tuesday's game plan for the speech has been completely changed.
The speech will be completely changed now.
It's a completely different speech.
Obviously, State of the Union speeches get tinkered with until the last minute, oftentimes.
But we know that over the weekend, the speech writers were in the rooms and they were tinkering with the speech, after arguably the most devastating loss of the last year for Trump.
And so it should be interesting.
I'm going to be watching personally.
This is going to be the first time the justices will be sitting front row, court side.
And will he go scorched earth?
Will he call them out by name?
Will he call on Congress to act?
But I think it'll be a really interesting moment for him as arguably the biggest, his favorite tool to enact tariffs on European allies has been taken away from him.
So it should be a really interesting speech tomorrow.
Traditionally, after a State of the Union, the President takes his message from Congress onto the road and goes out into the country to sell that message.
What do we know about the President's travel plans after Tuesday night?
What's he doing the rest of the week?
And is he going to be doing this, taking the message on the road?
Yeah, I mean, for the rest of the week, we don't see any domestic travel in his plan.
As we've heard from the White House, that's going to be in the next coming months, heading to November.
That's going to be a major point for Trump to get on the road, head to these swing states, head to these districts where the control of the House, the control of the Senate will be up to some of these districts.
It will be really tight.
But we don't see any travel this week so far planned for the president.
I'm sure that will change in the next coming weeks.
But it's interesting.
I mean, he's, like you said, this is going to be an opportunity for him to explain to voters how prices are down for them.
But at the same time, he's going into it with a lot of negative news.
I mean, the Commerce Department just released a report that said growth in the fourth quarter was only at 1.4%.
And polls are showing that Americans are not feeling, are having a tough time with their wallet.
And so it's going to be interesting to see how he decides to address these concerns.
He initially was calling affordability a hoax and then a couple days ago he was saying he won the issue of affordability.
So we'll see.
I mean I'm sure he's going to be traveling.
We saw him in Georgia last week.
He's really trying to get out there but he doesn't have any plans for the rest of the week in terms of domestic travel.
And I'm sure that will change, but we shall see.
And then finally, just the latest on Iran out of the White House.
What are you hearing heading into this week?
And what did you hear out over the weekend?
Yeah, I mean we're really in crunch time.
Obviously last week he said that maximum 10 to 15 days.
So we're looking at about a week and a half window.
We have really not heard any clarity on the timeline on whether or not they're going to strike.
But U.S. officials will be heading to Geneva on Thursday for a new round of talks after talks did not go too well last week or the last time they spoke.
And so I mean we're looking at what will likely be unless there's some sort of breakthrough in nuclear peace negotiations we're looking at what will likely be a smaller initial strike to say to these to you know to the Iranian leaders, hey, we're serious.
We're going to push you.
And if they don't come to the table after that, it could mean some larger wide-scale attacks.
Educating America Through C-SPAN00:11:29
Benjo Hansen is Politico's White House reporter and West Wing playbook co-author joining us on a snowy and cold morning at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Thanks so much for taking the time.
Thanks, John.
And back to your phone calls in open forum that time of the show where we turn it over to you, any public policy or political issue that you want to talk about.
Got another five to ten minutes to do it.
This is John in Minnesota, Independent.
John, thanks for waiting.
Hi.
Thanks for taking my call.
I listen to C-SPAN quite often, enjoy the variety of guests that you have on.
I had a suggestion of a guest and then actually a comment.
And it kind of goes back to your previous speaker.
I forget her name.
I think her first name was Susan.
Susan Furiccio of the Washington Times.
Yeah, I guess my comment is this.
And I know you've got a lot of callers, so I'll try to keep this short.
But, you know, our president, you know, I don't understand why there's not more information, or maybe you can find a guest or someone that can speak to this, why he would post pictures of Michelle and Barack Obama with heads on monkeys.
You know, there doesn't seem to be a lot of why this is happening with him.
There's a clear-cut pattern.
He did it with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries.
And each time, there always sees, you know, there's always a denial with him.
You know, I didn't do that.
A staffer did it.
You know, and I wish we could find somebody to talk about why he does this because in my lifetime, and I could be wrong, I can't think of any president that's ever done this, any sitting president.
I think his explanation on this one was that he didn't watch to the end of the video, and that's where it was.
Do you believe that explanation?
No, I don't.
And the only reason I say that is, and I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I mean, if he didn't watch it to the end, and I know there's been other information about it, then why is it there in the first place?
I mean, this is the type of stuff that's gaslighting.
I mean, if you are the leader of this country, you have to lead by example.
And when he does this, then it's okay.
He rubs stamps for anybody else to go out there and name call like he does, and et cetera, et cetera.
The other comment that I suggest I have is that I hope you can get a gentleman on by the name of Clay Kane, and maybe he's been on before, but he's on the New York's Best Times list for a book he's just published called Burned Out Master's House, and there was a previous book that he had called The Grift.
And he's an excellent guest, if you could get him on, and really talks about a lot about history and stuff like that.
So thank you for taking my call, and you guys have a great day, and keep doing what you're doing.
John, we'll check him out for C-SPAN's Book TV and American History TV every Saturday and Sunday, respectively, on C-SPAN 2.
24 Hours American History Television, 24 Hours of Books, nonfiction book television.
That's where you can see on C-SPAN 2 every weekend.
This is Dawn in Springfield, Mass, Republican.
Dawn, what's on your mind?
Well, thank you for C-SPAN, Brian and Susan.
It's great.
I called to talk about the state of the unions.
And I think state of the unions are very important.
All the governors do them.
But everyone is different dependent on where the president is in his term.
So if you've just been elected, you talk about what the plans are.
If it's your last term in office, it's your farewell speech.
And with respect to the justices, not all the justices go.
Certain ones pick not to be there.
Do you think there'll be less this year, Dawn, in the wake of Friday's decision?
I haven't thought about that.
It's possible.
That's possible.
Also, it has, I always watch them, the presidents, not the governors, because the message goes to not only U.S. citizens, not only the Congress, not only U.S. citizens, but it's also international.
So I believe everybody is watching, and I think it's important for the U.S. to speak to the world, our friends and our enemies, and also To speak to the Congress and say, here's where we're going.
That's it.
That's Dawn in Massachusetts.
This is Joe in New Orleans, Line for Democrats.
Joe, good morning.
Good morning.
I'm calling to inquire or to find out from you if C-SPAN will have a black history segment this year.
This is the last week of February.
And if you are, I certainly hope that you will use this as an opportunity to educate.
I agreed with a previous caller saying that we watch C-SPAN to educate ourselves and to use that opportunity to educate the public as to the good things, the inventions that we use every day that black men and women have invented to make our lives easier.
In the past, you have always had segments that were of controversy, of negative connotations of my people.
But I have never seen one where you emphasize and educate us as to the accomplishments of black people to the United States of America.
So, Joe, I asked.
How we have overcome the transgressions and the inequities and the inequality that my people have had to overcome that no other immigrant or segment of individuals had to deal with to be looked upon as human, as good people, as striving people.
And I give an example of whenever we talk about black young people, even on local news, we always emphasize the negative of them being in jail or with drugs.
You never emphasize the part where or show the various universities where thousands, thousands of young black people are educating themselves to be productive, to be productive as individuals.
I would encourage you to watch more C-SPAN because on every topic that you've talked about, we've had programming on that.
This Black History Month, we've had a lot of programming, black history celebrations at the White House, but also on American History TV and book TV.
There is literally a program.
There was a program yesterday.
Joe, there's a program yesterday called When Trees Testify, Science, Wisdom, History, and America's Black Botanical Legacy, talking about contributions by black scientists to the botanical sciences in this country.
That's one, I think it also aired this morning.
It aired yesterday on book TV, but we also had Will Haygood on yesterday talking about the experience of black soldiers in Vietnam.
That was on our Q ⁇ A program.
So there's a lot there.
Also, the Frederick Douglass Book Prize was an award.
It is an award that's given each year for coverage of nonfiction books about the history of slavery and emancipation.
And we covered that award ceremony and aired it yesterday on book TV.
The book about the Black Savings and Trust, Justine Hill Edwards, her book called Friedman's Bank was the book that was honored in their shares Frederick Douglass Book Prize.
So that's just some of our programming, but it's all available at c-span.org.
So if you missed seeing it, Joe, you can go back and watch it online.
Let me go to Frank before we finish this segment in Alabama, Republican.
Frank, good morning.
Good morning.
The part that I wanted to address this morning is immigration.
I'm uncertain and it's kind of throwing me in a whirlpool in regards to what this country is looking at.
I came to the United States in October of 1978 and I knew as an immigrant with a green card that I had certain requirements that I had to fulfill as being an immigrant to this country.
And it was always understood as I was taking my immigration card that it was a privilege to live in this country as an immigrant and to come here, work hard, and get ahead in life.
Now, 40 years later, I'm retired and this country has given me everything.
But the questions that I have, and really what Republicans, since they're in power right now, need to pay attention to, is why is nobody pointing out that immigration is a privilege?
Just like Marco Rubio stated, it is a privilege to be here, whether or not you're a student or whether or not you're a worker.
Now, one of the things that I've seen the other side, the left side or the Democrats saying, is that it's unfair to what we're doing to the immigrants that are coming into this country.
And I have to agree with that, partially, because they were invited when Joe Biden became president into the United States to come and get a job and live in America.
Okay.
Now, we do definitely need to root out the people that are criminals.
There's no doubt about that.
And we know pretty much where they are.
And so we need to vet the various different states to ensure that we get rid of those people.
But I think that an injustice is being done to the people that have migrated here on an invitation by America.
And it specifically happened right after COVID as well, if we all remember that.
Okay.
Frank, let me take your point.
That's Frank, our last caller in this open forum.
Stick around, though.
About 40 minutes left this morning.
In that time, it's Nina Olson, now with the Center for Taxpayer Rights.
We'll talk about this tax filing season, what you need to know.
Stick around for that conversation.
We'll be right back.
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Watch C-SPAN live Tuesday as President Donald Trump delivers the annual State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress.
Our coverage begins at 7 p.m. Eastern with a preview of the evening from political reporters.
Then, at 9, the president's address, followed by the Democratic response given by Virginia Governor Abigail Spanbergson, will also take your calls and bring you reaction from lawmakers.
Over on C-SPAN 2, experience the moments leading up to the speech and the address itself as if you're there, uninterrupted.
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On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
For his book, Five Bullets, Attorney Elliott Williams wrote 95,720 words.
On the back of the cover of the book, writer Garrett Graff sums up the story this way: quote, never has a book about the 1980s felt more like current events than Elliott Williams' journey back to one of America's most notorious shootings, when Bernie Goetz opened fire in a crowded New York City subway, unquote.
Then Garrett Graff continues his analysis.
Five Bullets is a haunting examination of our nation's complicated fascination with vigilantes and the politics of crime, close quote.
A lot of the people who were instrumental to this story are deceased.
However, the man at the center, Bernie Goetz, is still alive at 78 and still lives in New York City.
A new interview with author and attorney Elliott Williams about his book, Five Bullets, The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York's explosive 80s, and the subway vigilante trial that divided the nation.
BookNotes Plus with our host Brian Lamb is available wherever you get your podcast and on the C-SPAN Now app.
Washington Journal continues.
With 51 Days Until Tax Day 2026, we are joined once again by Nina Olson.
She's the executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, an organization whose mission is what, Need Olson?
Well, we're a nonprofit, nonpartisan, and we basically work on taxpayer rights issues, trying to educate taxpayers about their rights as taxpayers, trying to improve both U.S. and international tax administration to better meet the needs of taxpayers and be more fair and just.
A nonprofit?
Does that make your tax status a 501c3?
Yes, we are 501c3.
So how are you funded?
How do you go about funding this work that you do?
Yeah, we get work from different foundations to do projects.
We also run a low-income taxpayer clinic.
So we're funded by the federal government, by the IRS, to represent low-income taxpayers in disputes with the IRS.
So we actually do represent taxpayers, but they're low-income.
And we get involved in a lot of litigation on systemic issues, filing amicus briefs in the courts on taxpayer rights issues, raising concerns that would affect all taxpayers.
And advocating for taxpayers is something that you have long done.
Our former national taxpayer advocate, what is that?
So the taxpayer advocate is a position that's created by Congress, essentially, in the IRS.
And the National Taxpayer Advocate heads an organization called the Taxpayer Advocate Service.
And the Taxpayer Advocate Service has offices throughout the United States.
And their job by law is to help taxpayers solve their problems with the IRS and also advocate for systemic change to, you know, make those problems go away or at least become less so.
One of the things also created by Congress and the Trump administration, the one big beautiful bill, and this is our first filing season since the passage of that bill.
Is that going to make it easier or harder for people to file their taxes?
Well, there are a lot of new provisions in the law.
And so it remains to be seen how the filing season will really go as it goes along.
You know, I think people are expecting to see more money in their paychecks because of provisions like no tax on tips, on no tax on overtime, you know, loan interest for vehicles, new car purchases, the senior deduction.
And it really remains to be seen how that will work out and how it will affect people.
For people trying to file their taxes, all these bills in Congress are so big, but the one big, beautiful bill was very big as well.
Where would you recommend they go to learn the provisions that would apply to them?
As people are trying to get a handle on this thing now, that it actually affects their bank accounts and their filing.
What should they do?
Yeah.
Well, I do think that going to IRS.gov, you're going to get very dispassionate explanations of the different provisions.
I think that, you know, we're actually testing software right now.
We're doing some scenarios on software packages to see how they're explaining some of the new provisions.
So we'll see how that works.
We're talking about like a turbo tax type thing.
A lot of them.
There are a lot out there, and we're including the free file alliance, the free packages that you can get to through the IRS website, but also the free products that the different software companies are promoting, really to see how they're asking the questions to ferret out whether someone is eligible for these provisions and how they're actually explaining them to taxpayers.
Do you feel like they're doing a good job so far?
It remains to be seen.
One of the things we've also talked about in your time on this program in the past is your concerns over staffing at the IRS and how that impacts people getting a refund check and getting their taxes processed.
Where are we today?
Have we fixed that problem?
No, we're in really bad shape.
The IRS overall, according to the current national taxpayer advocate in her report to Congress that she just issued, the IRS from January 2025 to the first week of December 2025 was down by 27% overall in staffing.
And taxpayer service was down about 21%.
So that's almost a quarter, which means that taxpayers calling on the phones trying to get tax advice or to find out where their refund is or they got a notice and they're supposed to do something, so can they talk to somebody about it?
There are just that many fewer people available to answer the calls.
Were these doge cuts?
Pretty much, you know, as part of the deferred retirement and then some people just deciding I'm done, I'm not going to be here anymore.
So it's just a really significant cuts.
And it's been throughout the IRS in all sorts of areas.
And also the IRS just announced that in order to pick up some of the calls on the phone during the filing season, they were moving people, reassigning people from information technology and human resources to pick up the phone, you know, to answer the calls on the phone.
And you just have to think like, what kind of training were these people given on the complex tax issues or the account issues that taxpayers are calling about?
And so I'm really worried that you're just moving people there to pick up the phone and say, aha, we answered the phone, rather than, and did you give meaningful advice to the taxpayer calling?
There is at least one new position over at the IRS.
What's the difference between an IRS commissioner and the CEO of the IRS?
Well, I don't know what the position of the CEO does.
It's a made-up position.
The statutory position overseeing the IRS is the commissioner of the IRS who is charged by statute, by law, by the Internal Revenue Code to administer the tax laws.
And I don't know what the CEO does.
And the new CEO is Frank Bizignano, is his name.
He spoke about his expectations on this year's filing season.
He was on CNBC.
This is about 40 seconds or so.
What's your guesstimate on how big the refunds will be?
Well, it's pretty anonymous.
We think there was going to be, you know, let's call it, these are different estimates out there, but, you know, call it $200 billion more of refunds.
$500,000 individuals will get, you know, $1,000 or more.
Some would argue $9.36, but it's all stimulus now.
Also, remember, this is going to reduce people's deductions for this year, 26.
So it's a double effect.
You should expect us to have the best filing season ever.
IRS CEO Frank Bizignano is his name.
Nina Olson, what should we know about him?
What do you know about him?
I've never met him, so I really don't know, you know, other than what I've read in the press.
Why did we need a CEO, or at least what was the explanation?
I don't know.
I don't know whether they were concerned that nominating a commissioner through the normal process, which would go to the Senate and would have hearings, would open the IRS and that nominee into all sorts of questions about what's actually going on there.
And maybe they felt like they needed some executive leadership since they didn't have executive leadership there.
They'd gone through seven commissioners in a very short period of time since January of 2025, that maybe they needed to put somebody to be over it in a traditional CEO kind of role, an executive officer role.
So that's how all I can speculate about.
In terms of the refunds, part of the thing is these provisions in OBBA were retroactive to the beginning of 2025, but it was enacted very far into the year.
And the decision was made not to change withholding schedules, for example.
So people's payroll paychecks were withheld as if the law didn't exist.
So one reason why you're getting a bunch of refunds is because you were over-withheld.
You know, they increased the standard deduction, and a lot of people claim the standard deduction.
So, you know, and I can understand why they didn't want to change the withholding schedules because that's disruptive to payroll.
You know, it's just a lot to happen.
But that's one reason.
And then there are a lot of other provisions, but what we're sort of hearing from is that some of the provisions are not affecting people in the lowest decile of income or the lowest two deciles of income.
So when you talk about a thousand dollar refund more than you would have expected, that may be at the higher income levels, and at the lower income levels, it might be about $200, which is not to say it's chump change.
It's just a little bit of expectation setting.
We're talking with Nina Olson this morning.
If you have questions about the IRS, the filing process, the one big beautiful bill or act, I guess we should call it at this point, it is a great time to call in on the Washington Journal.
And you've got more than 50 days until filing day, so a good day to get your questions answered.
202-748-8,000 if you want to call in if you are a Republican, 2001 for Republicans, 2,000 for Democrats, 8,003 for Independents.
We'll get those numbers right.
We'll put them on the screen so you can see it.
Nina Olson always gets her numbers right, despite what I do.
Well, I don't know about that.
Jan is in Florida, independent.
Jan, go ahead.
Yes, my question is: if you use TurboTax as a senior, I'm 85, will I automatically get that 6,000, I believe, extra off?
Well, I can't speak specifically to that particular software, but most of the software companies ask for, for example, your date of birth, et cetera, and so would have that in their system so that they would know to plug it in.
And what I would recommend that you do is that you, before you file, that you print out or you look at a copy of your return so that you can see whether that extra deduction shows up because on the form there's like a box that would say, here's your extra, your extra senior deduction.
This is Anthony in Hyattsville, Maryland.
Democrat Anthony, you're on with Neil Olsen.
Yeah, good morning.
I was wondering, James Diaz, who is an IRS worker, he was fired by Doge.
He voted for Trump three times.
And he was invited to the State of the Union last year by Democrat Representative Eric Sorison.
I wonder if we can get him on and see if he was rehired by the IRS.
Trump fired a lot of people, you know, without thinking to go through and check and see who voted for him and who did not.
And I also wanted to say that, you know, with the I'm sorry, we'll just leave it there.
I'm 65, and I was wondering that if they are this deduction for the seniors, is that if you actually are working and getting Social Security, that you won't be taxed on that money?
Anthony's question.
Yeah, thank you for that, that last piece.
It's basically a function of, you know, your age and your income.
And so you really just need to, you know, as you put your information in, and if you're using software, they will actually calculate whether your eligibility, because it does phase out at a certain income level, at the higher income levels.
I do want to note, you know, in the beginning of your conversation, you know, you noted about, you know, being invited, you know, being an IRS employee and being invited to a state of a union or being fired because of who you might have voted for.
You know, this is what's particularly concerning with the IRS is that, you know, you don't want your tax agency to be politicized.
And so it's always been incredibly careful to have it be nonpartisan.
Directfile And Itemized Deductions00:15:05
And that's one reason why Congress, in the law, we were talking about the position of the commissioner going forward.
The commissioner is normally appointed for a five-year term.
And it was designed so that it would cross whoever was nominated and confirmed as commissioner would almost by definition cross a different presidential administration.
So you would have a commissioner that was nominated and confirmed by a Republican president and confirmed by a Republican Senate, but would serve under a Democratic president and senate.
And I think that that was designed and by having so many commissioners hired and fired essentially or resigning, you get a lot of discomfort and confusion and instability in the tax agency, which is not something that you want and partisanship in the tax agency.
Your group, it's again the Center for Taxpayer Rights.
You've been involved in lawsuits against the IRS.
What are your thoughts on President Trump's lawsuit against the IRS?
Yeah, we filed.
I joined in my personal capacity, not as the executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, but as a former national taxpayer advocate.
I joined three other former IRS and Department of Justice officials and Common Cause in filing an amicus brief in that case, which is what's known as a friend of the court brief.
And what we recommended was that the court appoint an advisor, essentially, an amicus, a friend of the court, to advise the judge on some of the issues that are arising in that case and some of the conflict of interest issues that might arise in that case.
And just by this case, Trump v. IRS is arising from, and this is very important, arising from the fact that President Trump's tax returns were unlawfully leaked from the IRS by an IRS contractor who is currently serving a prison term of five years, the maximum sentence he can get.
It is a criminal violation to leak information without having the statutory authority to do that, or to even look at a tax return without having the statutory authority to do it.
And Congress has passed a very important law that says that taxpayers whose information has been unlawfully inspected or disclosed can sue the federal government if a federal employee has done that or sue that person, any person who has done that unlawful inspection or leaking, disclosing.
And so you can sue for damages, and that's what this suit is about.
But the law does say you have to come in, you have to sue within two years of discovering this unlawful leaking.
And by most calculations, the president's lawsuit is too late.
The calculation asking for 10 billion damages is, I think, calculated incorrectly.
And just the very fact that he's the president of the United States and he said that, you know, the Justice Department is his Justice Department.
And he's even said this is an unusual lawsuit because he's both the plaintiff, but he's going to be the one deciding it, brings some conflict of interest issues.
So we were just basically saying to the court that you may not have a Justice Department that's raising all these issues about the suit that need to be looked at.
And so the court should appoint someone who will speak for the taxpayers of the United States to say, wait a minute, is this suit timely?
Wait a minute, how are you calculating the damages?
You know, wait a minute about this conflict of interest.
And I just want to say, I don't want to discount in any way the seriousness of the leakage of the information.
This leak from a contractor for the IRS, it brings up the question, how many contractors work for the IRS?
What do they do?
I guess I get what a defense contractor does.
What does an IRS contractor do?
Do they look at my tax returns?
Right.
Well, a lot of them are working in information technology more than ever.
Palantir is a huge contractor of the IRS.
This particular contractor was Booz Allen.
They have often done consulting for the IRS, looking at their processes.
But my understanding is this was information technology.
So in that case, they're given all this confidentiality training.
They are only supposed to work on IRS laptops and within our systems.
But obviously that didn't work in this case, which raises questions about the oversight.
And that's something that the Inspector General for Tax Administration has really looked at for years and said, there really needs to be more tightening there.
Just about 20 minutes left with Nina Olson this morning.
For CCPN viewers who stick around on this network after the end of this program, about 10 or 10.05 or so, we are going to take you over to the White House, an event that's happening today.
President Trump said to honor Lake and Riley, other angel families ahead of the State of the Union, talking about families of those who've been killed by illegal alien criminals.
The White House is holding a vigil this morning, and we're going to show you that when it happens.
Again, 10, 10.05, so about 20 minutes left.
Get your calls in for Nina Olson until that happens.
This is Tony in Oakland, California, Republican.
Tony, go ahead.
Hey, Nina, thank you so much for helping us out with your expertise.
I had a question on Social Security, and it's a little confusing.
I keep hearing no tax on Social Security, no tax on Social Security.
Now, is that 100% true, or do you just get a deduction?
Yeah.
Go ahead.
It is a deduction.
And I think where they came up with the number was trying to figure out that if you were receiving Social Security and you had other income and you had to pay tax on part of your Social Security, that this extra deduction would basically zero out that extra tax.
I mean, remember that I don't know the exact cutoff, but a certain amount up to a certain level of overall income, Social Security is not taxable.
But when you get over a certain amount of income, you have to go through a whole calculation, and it comes up that the maximum of Social Security that would be taxable is 80% of your Social Security benefits.
So I think what they've done with this deduction is to try to figure out a way to make it so that if you ended up having to pay tax on Social Security, it would, for most people, be eliminated.
You know, now, once you're over a certain income level, that deduction phases out, so you wouldn't get it.
But, you know, it's a misnomer about no tax on Social Security, but it is an important deduction.
Can I ask a basic question?
The difference between deductions, rebates, refunds, just credits.
Run through the basics for us.
So, you know, first of all, I try to think about, you know, what are deductible expenses?
And that can be when you're self-employed or you're in a business and you have expenses that you incur in the cost of doing business.
And then you have itemized deductions.
You know, you have the standard deduction, which is which Congress has been making higher and higher because they want to give a benefit to everybody.
And so everybody gets to claim it.
And that's based on your filing status, whether you're single, married, filing jointly, if you're a head of household, you're maintaining, you're paying for the cost of a home with a child, you know, those sorts of things.
So the standard deduction is a set amount.
And then you have, you know, things like this senior deduction, which is on top of it.
And that goes what we call above the line.
Before you, it's what you do in calculating what your taxable income is.
And then you have your itemized deductions.
If you don't, if your itemized deductions like mortgage interest, state, and local taxes, which have been the cap on that has been raised this year from $10,000 to $40,000, so that's significant.
If those are more than your standard deduction, then you can claim itemized deductions.
And then credits are actually: here's what your tax is, and you can claim a credit against your tax bill.
So the deductions are what you do in order to calculate your tax.
And then once you know what your tax is, you apply your credits against it.
So maybe you don't have to shell out so much money, or you get a refund.
How was that?
Very helpful.
Always helpful.
DJ in Blackstone, Virginia, Independent, DJ.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you all so much for this program.
I feel like I'm in a maze every tax season.
But I have a question for someone who is a senior citizen over, let's say, over 75.
And you were owed something back to the IRS which you did not get back or file for about, let's say, three years ago.
And then you didn't file last year.
And I think probably you didn't know anything, but we'll see.
And you have to file this year, of course.
So I was wondering what advice can she give me to get some expert help since there has been such a reduction in tax services and businesses everywhere.
So thank you for this.
So the first thing is that there's a program called Tax Counseling for the Elderly, which is free tax return preparation for senior citizens.
And on the IRS website, you should be able to look up a place that will show you where you can go for tax counseling for the elderly sites.
And I know AARP runs a lot of the sites for tax counseling for the elderly, and often United Way does as well.
So that's a place to go.
And they'd be familiar with the kinds of issues that seniors would have.
So it's a dedicated program, a little different from volunteer income tax assistance, which is for lower income people.
So not filing a return, if you think you're expecting a refund or you think you filed it wrong in a past year and you think you could correct it, you have three years from when you, from the due date of that return to claim a, file an amended return and claim that refund.
Otherwise, you may be limited in how much money you get back.
So, you know, look at the due date for that year.
Like if it was 2023, that return is due April 15th, 2024 generally.
And so you have until April 15th, 2027 to claim a refund.
And if you haven't filed your return last year, you still should file it so that you can get a refund.
And if you think you owe a little bit, sometimes what happens is that if you have a refund due you this year, but you owe in a past year, the IRS automatically takes that past debt out of your current year refund.
It's called a refund offset.
But you can get help from tax counseling for the elderly.
What is or was IRS DirectFile?
So IRS DirectFile was an effort congressionally directed by the IRS to create a filing app directly with the IRS rather than through all these software companies.
And it was really geared and designed so that people could file on their phones.
It was really mobile friendly.
And it was also an experiment.
They were building new pieces to it each year.
So it also integrated with about 22 or 26 state taxes so that you could just dump your information from the direct file federal return into your state return.
But also for certain taxpayers, because they were just trying this out, you could have your W-2 information downloaded into the app itself.
And that was really important because, you know, people lose W-2s.
They move from the beginning of the year to the end of the year and they don't, you know, it doesn't get mailed to them.
And then they're stuck communicating with the IRS.
You left in W-2 off.
And so this way the information is just downloaded in and you can check it.
But it was stopped.
You know, people, the software industry is very protective of their business.
I have always said there are 155 million U.S. taxpayers, individuals.
There's a lot of people out there and people have different preferences.
So many people will want to go and buy a product that has all sorts of bells and whistles, links to their brokerage account, those sorts of things.
But a lot of people can do their return very simply and should be able to do their return filing directly with the IRS for free, not paying anything, not having any bells and whistles, but it needs to be easy for them.
And DirectFile really made it easy.
Do you think we'll ever see DirectFile again?
I hope so, because I personally believe that it is a fundamental taxpayer right to be able to file directly with the tax agency.
Now, whether you do that or not is personal preference, and I respect everybody's personal preference, but I think the federal government has an obligation to make free electronic filing directly with the agency available to its taxpayers.
About how many people get audited every year?
I think that we're down to about 1.2% individuals, you know, maybe even less 0.6% of taxpayers, I think, was the last number.
The highest income taxpayers get audited more, and the lowest income taxpayers get audited more.
And then in between, it's very low auditing.
Now, auditing is kind of a misnomer because that doesn't, audits are a very specific thing.
The IRS is actually looking at your books and records.
But there are millions of taxpayers who receive notices every year from the IRS saying, you made a mistake on your return and we adjusted it.
Hurricane Katrina's Tax Legacy00:11:11
And if you don't agree with us, then call back within 60 days or write us within 60 days.
But that's not an audit.
But that's not an audit.
That's what's called a math error or a clerical error.
I remember a lot of this after the stimulus tax went out.
Exactly.
It was tens, it was like 10 million of these notices.
It was just a huge number of these things.
And people got them and thought that they were being audited, but it wasn't counted as an audit.
Rebecca's waiting in the Keystone State Line for Democrats.
10 minutes left with Nina Olson, maybe a little bit longer if this White House event gets started a little late.
Rebecca, go ahead.
Good morning.
I had a situation with my sister-in-law.
She gave me a call and said she was doing her taxes on an electronic site.
And her income has been steady every year.
And so her refund has been steady over the years.
And this year, she had a loss of $700.
So it concerned her a little bit.
She called me.
I do my taxes on paper.
And I normally use the 1040, which I did again this year.
Between the two of us, we found that I was losing money because I should have been using the 1040SR, which would give me a bigger deduction.
However, on the 1040 form, there's no place that said, if you're over this age, definitely use the 1040SR.
So I came out ahead a little bit.
She, on the other hand, found that the electronic system had basically taken her information and her The taxable amount that they were giving was actually,
or excuse me, the electronic system failed and her taxable amount was actually the amount of her was being considered the amount of her income.
So instead of the larger number of her income being used to calculate, they were using her taxable from the from the form and saying that that was her income.
Rebecca, let's take this up.
Right.
Well, I think this is what's, this is one of the challenges with software.
And I have to say, I do my own return by hand on the 1040s, and then I put it into free fillable forms, which is a site that is just a fillable PDF, and it does the math, so it checks my math.
Because I just really want to know what's going on in my returns, but I'm also a tax lawyer, and I've been in tax for 50 years.
People rely on the software, and that's one of the reasons why we're doing some testing to see how, in different scenarios, how accurate the software is.
But the other thing about the software is that it depends on how you're entering information into it.
So some of the forms, like the W-2 or a 1099, for example, a 1099R, which is an annuity retirement income, you know, IRA, things like that, pension form, if you don't fill the right amount into the right boxes on the screen, you could get a really different result.
And I can't speak to whether the software was programmed incorrectly, but that's also part of the reason why we're testing.
And I will say we've been talking about the OBBBA.
We kind of call it OB3.
That one of the reasons why we want to test all these different software packages, the free packages, is because years ago when Hurricane Katrina happened, Congress passed all sorts of provisions for people who had been harmed by Hurricane Katrina, and they were in the tax bill.
And you were able to claim things that would really lower your taxes if you were someone who had been impacted by Hurricane Katrina.
And my office at that time, the Taxpayer Advocate Service, we tested several Katrina scenarios during the filing season.
And many of the free software programs did not include any of those provisions.
So people didn't know about those provisions to say, why isn't it there?
They just didn't get the benefit that Congress tried to pass for them to help defray the costs of the damages that they were experiencing.
You've been doing this for 50 years.
Yeah, it's pretty.
How'd you get into it?
Well, my undergraduate degree is in fine arts.
And I was painting, but I needed to make some money, so I started preparing returns for fellow artists and small businesses in North Carolina, and one thing led to the other.
And here I am.
How many years were you the National Taxpayer Advocate?
18.
And currently with the Center for Taxpayer Rights, it is taxpayer-rights.org if you ever want to check it out.
Question from John in Omaha via text.
Where is the no tax on overtime supposed to show up?
Is that supposed to increase my refund?
Or is that something that my employer is supposed to do in my paycheck?
How do I tell?
And what I'm hearing from people who are preparing returns now is that although employers don't have to put this in this year on the W-2, they are putting in information in one of the extra boxes on a W-2 because they're being able to calculate it themselves.
Information on how much you earn online.
How much you earned in these overtime or how much you earned on tips.
But the thing about the overtime is that it's not all your hours of overtime.
So if you worked, you know, six hours of overtime, it's not the 150, total 150% of your pay.
It's the 50% more.
If you're paid time and a half for overtime, what the deduction is for is the half, the 50%.
It's not the 150%.
And that gets lost in the translation.
Huh.
Was that, how much was that talked about when this was happening?
How much do we know that that was the way it was going to be calculated?
Well, I think it was definitely talked about.
It was understood.
That's how it's written.
I just think how it's branded, how long did it take me to explain that and people want to go no tax on overtime?
To Patty in Belfast, Maine, Republican line.
Patty, go ahead.
Hi.
I'm a small micro business.
We file as sole proprietors, me and my husband jointly.
And we use QuickBooks, which they upgrade every year.
And they don't have the QuickBooks merging data with QuickBooks Online.
We tried QuickBooks Online for a quarter in 2022, and we did not like it.
It wouldn't hold any customer information so that we could look up what a personal customer's personal desires were.
Anyway, we could not merge data from those three months with our desktop version of the software.
And it's begun a cascade of being unable to calculate any of our taxes at all.
And part of the problem is also I'm now full-time caregiver for first my father six years ago and then my mother who just died and I'm and I cannot leave these people alone.
They have to be there 24-7.
So I don't have time to do the hours of scanning, for instance, to send it off to somebody online just to fix this stuff.
I can't get a local tax tax CPA.
So I'm just in a hole.
And now I'm finding out that the IRS has real-time access to my bank account.
Why am I even bothering to do paperwork at all?
It's not clear to me how the IRS would have real-time access to your bank account in terms of being able to see what your transactions are.
They would have access to pay a direct deposit.
I don't know about that.
You would have to give them access or if they would have to issue a subpoena, a summons in order to get your bank records.
I hope that someone from Intuit is listening.
This is just a pragmatic suggestion from someone who's done way too many accounting and books over the years.
Is perhaps you could export the online stuff into a CSV file, like a Google Numbers file, and then you could also export the same information from your regular QuickBooks account, you know, in a CSV file, and you could combine them and just have a total column.
I don't know whether that would help.
I'm just throwing that out there.
I feel for small businesses that just keeping track of things is a real challenge.
And that's where software is enormously helpful.
But yeah.
For taxpayers who want to learn more about their rights, what would you suggest?
I think you start with the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.
That's an achievement that I'm very proud of, getting the IRS and Congress adopted, has enacted the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.
So there are 10 rights in the Internal Revenue Code, and the IRS has a publication called Publication 1, which if you Google Publication 1, Taxpayer Bill of Rights, you'll see.
And it goes through the 10 rights and the description of those rights.
And then on the Taxpayer Advocate Services website, one of the things that we built when I was there was a webpage that actually talks about each right and then goes through the statutory provisions and the administrative provisions that make that right meaningful.
So for example, you know, if the taxpayer bill of rights says you have the right to an independent appeal, you know, of an IRS decision, well, what does that mean?
Well, you do have, you know, you have the right, if the IRS is auditing you, you have the right to request an appeal with an independent IRS appeals officer.
And that can be before you go to court.
You can also go to court without having to pay the tax in most instances.
Another place to learn about your rights, taxpayer-rights.org.
That is the Center for Taxpayer Rights.
Taxpayer Rights Explained00:00:51
Dina Olson is the executive director, and we do always appreciate you stopping by.
Thank you.
That's going to do it for our program today.
We'll, of course, be back here tomorrow morning, though.
It is 7 a.m. Eastern.
It's 4 a.m. Pacific.
In the meantime, we hope you have a great Monday.
On this Monday morning, a live picture here at the White House, where President Trump is hosting families of victims of foreign criminal organizations.
The president is expected this morning to sign a proclamation designating February 22nd as Angel Family Day.