CSPAN’s Washington Journal (03/03/2026) dissects Trump’s escalation of Operation Epic Fury—a U.S.-led strike on Iran, sinking 10 ships and targeting its missile/nuclear programs—sparking bipartisan outrage over its legality and lack of congressional approval. With $600M+ daily costs, critics like Ali Vaez (ICG) warn of regime fragmentation risks, while supporters cite decades of Iranian aggression, including embassy attacks and Hezbollah funding. The Texas Senate race pits Ken Paxton’s Trump-aligned hardline against John Cornyn’s moderation, amid $100M+ spending, while Democrats clash over Israel aid and AI policies. Meanwhile, the Clinton-Epstein depositions resurface, deepening scrutiny of elite ties as midterm primaries expose widening partisan divides. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
Source
Participants
Main
d
dave weigel
22:48
k
ken thomas
wsj10:06
m
mimi geerges
cspan31:03
Appearances
a
angus king
sen/i01:39
d
donald j trump
admin02:30
h
hillary clinton
d00:37
j
jd vance
admin01:09
m
melanie stansbury
rep/d00:53
p
pete hegseth
admin01:40
Clips
b
bill clinton
d00:08
d
don bacon
rep/r00:12
j
james lankford
sen/r00:07
j
jesse watters
fox00:02
m
marco rubio
admin00:27
r
ro khanna
rep/d00:04
Callers
abraham in new york city
callers02:32
dennis in new york
callers01:05
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Speaker
Time
Text
501 Regulations Debate00:03:59
unidentified
Have I been told that you know that was there was no real interest there and you know there was no point in being involved or connected to him and we touched on this correct me if I'm wrong you said you're not aware of Mr. Epstein donating to the foundation would you consider Let me back up
President Clinton took trips on Mr. Epstein's chat is that correct?
Yes, Would you consider offering a private jet as a donation in kind to the foundation?
Well, I don't know what the the rules are under the 501 regulations.
unidentified
You can find the depositions of Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton in their entirety on our website, C-SPAN.org.
Coming up next on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, Ali Vise, with the International Crisis Group, will discuss the latest on U.S.
And Israeli combat operations against Iran and the future of the Iranian regime.
Then semaphores David Weigel on the start of the 2026 midterm election season with primaries in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas.
And the Wall Street Journal's Ken Thomas will talk about the deposition of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the Epstein investigation after the video of their testimony was released.
Six U.S. service members have been killed so far as more troops move into the Middle East.
President Trump said that the military campaign could last four or five weeks, but said it would continue for as long as it took to leave Iran incapable of posing a threat.
He told the New York Post he will not rule out sending ground troops into Iran if necessary.
Secretary of State Rubio told reporters, quote, the hardest hits are yet to come.
The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now.
We're getting your calls, texts, and posts on the widening conflict in the Middle East.
Here are the numbers.
Democrats, 202748, 8000.
Republicans, 202748, 8001.
And Independents, 202748, 8002.
You can send a text to 202748-8003.
Include your first name in your city-state.
And you can reach us on social media, facebook.com slash C-SPAN, an ex at C-SPANWJ.
Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
Let's start with an update on the latest news from the Associated Press.
It says that Iran struck the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia's capital with a drone early Tuesday as it continued to target areas around the region.
Across Iran's capital, Tehran, explosions ran out overnight as the U.S. and Israel pounded Iran with airstrikes.
Iran and its allies have hit back against Israel, neighboring Gulf states, and targets critical to the world's oil and natural gas production.
The conflict has also spread to Lebanon, where the Iranian-supported militant group Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel on Monday, prompting Israel to retaliate.
The Israeli military said it has sent additional troops into southern Lebanon and took new positions on several strategic points close to the border, while Lebanon's state-run national news agency said the Lebanese army was evacuating some of its positions along the border.
Well, it was at the start of a Medal of Honor ceremony yesterday at the White House, President Trump made his first live remarks about Operation Epic Fury.
First, we're destroying Iran's missile capabilities, and you see that happening on an hourly basis on their capacity to produce brand new ones, and pretty good ones they make.
Second, we're annihilating their Navy.
We've knocked out already 10 ships.
They're at the bottom of the sea.
Third, we're ensuring that the world's number one sponsor of terror. can never obtain a nuclear weapon, never going to have a nuclear weapon.
I said that from the beginning.
They're never going to have a nuclear weapon.
They were on the road to getting one legitimately through a deal that was signed foolishly by our country.
And finally, we're ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.
And we thought we had a deal, but then they backed out and they came back and we thought we had a deal and they backed out.
I said, you can't deal with these people.
You've got to do it the right way.
Today, we grieve for the four heroic American service members who have been killed in action and send our love and support to their families.
In their memory, we continue this mission with ferocious, unyielding resolve to crush the threat this terrorist regime poses to the American people, and a threat indeed it is.
We have the strongest and most powerful by far military in the world, and we will easily prevail.
We're already substantially ahead of our time projections, but whatever the time is, it's okay.
Whatever it takes, we will always, and we have right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that.
We'll do it.
Whatever somebody said today, they said, oh, well, if the president wants to do it really quickly after that, he'll get bored.
I don't get bored.
There's nothing boring about this.
Do you agree with that, Pete?
I don't think there's anything, Mr. General.
I think there's nothing boring about it.
Somebody actually said from the media, I think you'll get bored after about a week or two.
No, we don't get bored.
I never get bored.
If I got bored, I wouldn't be standing here right now, I guarantee you that, to go through what I had to go through.
We also projected four weeks to terminate the military leadership, and as you know, that was done in about an hour, so we're ahead of schedule there by a lot.
And another quick update for you before we get to your calls from the Associated Press.
Ukrainian President Zelensky says he has offered to help the United Arab Emirates protect itself against Iranian aerial attacks.
Ukraine has built significant expertise in counting Iranian-designed Shahid drones that Russia has launched almost daily at Ukrainian targets since Moscow's invasion more than four years ago.
Zelensky said on X that he spoke by phone with the UAE president and, quote, discussed how we can help protect lives in the UAE.
On Sunday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that Ukrainian and British experts will work together to help Middle East countries shoot down Iranian drones.
Let's go to the calls now to Rick Columbus, Ohio Republican.
He's due to come home in May, and we're just praying that Trump isn't going to goof things up and he's going to make it back in lie.
He was guiding and guarding an embassy in Iraq, but now he is, I'm not sure what he's doing in Jordan, but he is in, they have moved him to Jordan, and we haven't heard anything from him since then.
But please, Trump doesn't care about the people.
He's got a $4 million plane that we're putting another couple million in to get for him.
His son has gotten $2 billion, and he's got, this is all money for his billion-dollar friends that are making money out of it.
This isn't anything about the people of Iran, or it isn't anything about the people.
It is just for trillionaires to make more trillionaires.
For 47 long years, the expansionist and Islamist regime in Tehran has waged a savage, one-sided war against America.
They didn't always declare it openly, except for their constant chance of death to America.
They did it through the blood of our people.
Car bombs in Beirut, rocket attacks on our ships, murders at our embassies, roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, funded and armed by Iranian Quds force and IRGC killers.
My generation of veterans carry the names of brothers who never came home.
Brothers butchered by Iranian-backed roadside bombs and well-armed militias, thousands of our own.
We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it.
Their war on Americans has become our retribution against their Ayatollah and his death cult.
It took the 47th president, a fighter who always puts America first, to finally draw the line after 47 years of Iranian belligerence.
He reminded the world, as he has time and time again, being an American means something unbreakable.
If you kill Americans, if you threaten Americans anywhere on earth, we will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation, and we will kill you.
President Trump has also been very consistent.
Crazy regimes like Iran, hell-bent on prophetic Islamist delusions, cannot have nuclear weapons.
It's common sense.
Many have said it, but it takes guts to actually enforce it, and our president has guts.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, speaking yesterday, we're taking your calls on the widening conflict in the Middle East, getting your thoughts on that.
If you have called us within the last 30 days, please don't call.
Please hold off and wait for the 30 days so that we can get other callers in on the lines.
Vincent, Middletown, Connecticut, Independent Line, good morning to you.
Well, so, Vincent, would you be more open to this if he had gone to Congress and that Congress had voted?
No, still no.
unidentified
Not at all.
Not at all.
This is Congress saying, well, you should have followed the rules because they wanted this is illegal, not because he didn't follow Congress.
It's illegal because it's illegal.
It's an illegal act.
It's an act of aggression.
Iran was no threat.
Iran was no threat to us.
And if you support this after everything that went through in Iraq, everything went through in Afghanistan, currently in a skirmish with a nuclear-armed country, by the way, then just hold up a sign that says you're a complete idiot because you've given up on life.
Let's talk to Dan, Santa Barbara, California, Independent Line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Oh, my God, that last call.
Okay, so I have two points here.
The first one has to do with what's going on over there in Israel, or sorry, in Iran and Israel.
And I think if we look back on October 7th with Hamas, do we think Hamas would have done this murderous mass rape, mass kidnapping, mass destruction of Israel if he really would have known what Israel was going to do?
Israel struck back like crazy and they disabled Hamas.
They went into Lebanon, disabled Hezbollah, and now they're doing what they're doing in Iran.
And I think we here in the U.S. are so privileged to not have that happen to our friends and family that we do not understand what's going on.
My second point is, if you see these counter protests going on right now, they're all funded through organizations called PSL, Answer Coalition, FRSO, yada yada.
And these people that the local news agencies give airtime to, they're all tankies and useful idiots.
These people are literally communists and jihadists.
I'm someone who used to be on the left, on the farther left, and I now realize that we do have an insidious movement within the West in America and Europe of people who are just like supporting Khomeini, supporting Hezbollah, supporting the October 7th attacks.
And I want everyone who's a Democrat to understand that.
I'm a three-time Trump voter, and one thing this past year has just completely shown me is that our government is completely occupied by Israel.
We've seen somehow Trump takes all of his orders.
He's pretty much just a microphone for Netanyahu, who is an ICC war criminal who has killed 21,000 children in Gaza last year, you know, pretty much using our tax dollars to do that.
And it's almost like everything Bibby calls him for, he does.
He doesn't care if the American people approve it.
I voted for Trump because he said he was no wars, and he seemed like he made good sense.
He doesn't care about us in this term.
This term is pure Israel, and it's just kind of making me sick the way that everything is just kind of falling in front of us because right now we have no choice.
Congress has pretty much cowered down.
They're absolutely useless.
The UN is nothing more than a toothless dog.
And it's kind of, we keep killing people and then calling them terrorists.
Pete sounds so evil during his press conference that I just can't hardly stand to watch it.
And we've become the terrorists.
It's like we keep killing more people, and then when they get upset about it, we call them terrorists.
And then all of a sudden, we're killing their kids, too.
And it's like then we're going to have to kill their kids.
And it's just ongoing killing and then calling them the bad guy.
Adam, has your disappointment with President Trump extended to the rest of the Republican Party?
Because you're in North Carolina.
I know you've got some primaries going on today.
unidentified
Yes, and we do.
Now, it's pretty mixed.
It's like we've got this older group that was really raised in believing that if you don't die for Israel, you are going to hell.
And I was raised that I'm a Christian and Israel is in us.
There is no body of land called Israel.
And to me, it's almost blasphemy saying that some place is called Israel and there are chosen people, but yet they are killing children because Jesus does not kill children.
The only people I see killing children is the GOP and Israel.
And I don't want no part of it.
It's like we need a new party.
We don't need Democrats want this war.
They just won't say it.
Republicans will sacrifice every American in the country to appease Israel.
That was the Secretary of State saying the hardest hits are yet to come on Iran, and we're getting your reaction to the events of the Middle East, the widening conflict there.
The numbers are on your screen.
Here's Crystal, a Democrat, West Palm Beach, Florida.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
The last two callers made two points that I'd like to speak to.
First, the gentleman asked the question if the Gazans knew on October 7th of what would happen with the backlash, 70,000 people dying.
So the question is, yes, it's a liberation struggle.
It's all about liberation.
That area was an apartheid state, 65 laws on the books in Israel that apply unequally to the citizens.
So why is it okay for the president to encourage the people in Iran to strive for liberation, to go up against their government, to go to war against their government?
But that same standard is not available, completely removed for people that have been living under apartheid since 1967, having their land taken away from them.
The second thing is I want to say that the president looked like he was being held hostage behind a microphone hours after the war started.
He repeated Israel's talking points, all propaganda.
He completely is carrying out Netanyahu's agenda, who visited the White House seven times in one year just to, I mean, they're saying that the meetings in the War Department do not even happen unless the IDF and Netanyahu and his agenda is there and they're following it.
They said that the date to attack Iran was already determined weeks ago.
This was a public statement made by this White House.
On the Republican line in Ruffin, North Carolina, Vinny, you're on the air.
unidentified
Yes.
The Middle East, these people have been killing each other for thousands of years.
They have no regard for human life.
Diana, Stacey, Fred Debate War00:15:26
unidentified
Do the people in America who sit on their butts and cry, this is wrong, this is wrong, do they not realize if these countries got themselves a nuclear weapon, they would not be afraid to use it?
Why are these people pitying everybody?
Wake up and smell the roses, people.
This president here is trying to do something correct.
You just touched upon, and I'll echo what Jason Crowe just said as a member of Armed Services and Intelligence.
I have seen no intelligence, A, that the Iranians are close to a bomb, or B, that they were planning any kind of attack.
So one of the things I'm going to be looking for in these briefings is why now?
What provoked this?
Because the argument that there was some going to be a preemptive attack or they were weeks away from a bomb, that appears to be completely untrue.
The second question is, why not?
And what I mean by that is, why not go to the American people and the Congress in order to discuss, understand, identify the risks?
Because the decision to take our country into war is probably the most important decision that can be made.
And the people that wrote our Constitution realized that, and that's why they gave it to the Congress, the people's representatives, so there would be debate and discussion, not the decision in just one hand.
In August of 1787, Roger Sherman of Connecticut in the constitutional debate said it's not a republic if the monarch, if the chief magistrate, that's what they call the president, can single-handedly decide to go to war.
And so this idea that you have to go to Congress is not because my feelings are hurt because I haven't been consulted.
It's because this is an essential safeguard to how our country is supposed to work.
And then the third question, which we can discuss, is what's next?
Because they're not going to be able to achieve true regime change and do something for the people of Iran, which I'm totally sympathetic with, from the air.
Let's talk to Mike, Cleveland, Ohio, Independent Line.
Good morning, Mike.
unidentified
Good morning.
How are you?
Good.
Good, good.
I would like to remind the people that when the attack on Iranian military installations occurred, Iran turned around and started shooting ballistic missiles at their neighboring countries in populated areas.
Is that any kind of response of defense?
I do not think so.
Part of this is we have to look at all of the years of the troubles that have happened worldwide.
It's a very big step.
It was a very big step for the president administration to go in and do this.
The outcome may be good, but as the president said, for all people, we have to do our part to make things how we want them, how we think they should be.
We have luckily a constitution that we can fall back on.
And so let's not get too lost in what is happening, though it is very important.
And remember that we have lots of work to do here.
I just want to, I just want this, this is my first question.
What is in those Epstein files to make Trump and his administration do what they're doing right now?
First of all, second of all, at the end of the day, you have a war over there in the Middle East between Israel and Iran and all those other countries over there.
You have a war that is a religious war.
Some things that you just can't stop.
Some things that you just got to understand.
That's something that they got to figure out.
And Trump didn't put his nose in his business because it's simple fact, though, that people that he has this Epstein files that he don't want to turn over all the files.
And just, and one thing about it, one thing for sure, two things for certain, though, is that one thing that the Ayatollah, he's gone, and that's appreciated.
I don't like nobody that's just sitting over their country and just running amok and just running their people into the ground, just like Trump doing us right now.
He needs to get out of that office.
The Republican Party in America need to really stand up.
Stand up.
We need a Congress.
We got the House.
Please stand up.
Stand up.
Somebody say something.
Somebody do something.
What do we have a Congress for if nobody's doing anything?
If nobody is putting no checks and balances on this man, what are we doing today?
What are we doing to these people that's on the station?
I appreciate you calling in and just giving your opinions, though.
But just think about what's going on.
Americans are going to die today.
Americans are going to die around the world.
If this guy, if we continue to let this person run a month in the White House, thank you.
60% of Americans aren't on board with this military campaign.
It's a continuation of Trump creating chaos.
Prices continue to escalate, sorry, accelerate in the U.S.
So those who voted for Trump enjoy the spike coming in gas prices.
And this is from Bird who says, it's always excellent news when we are informed that the best action in a highly successful operation already is yet to come.
Only the most repressive individuals imaginable would side against individual freedoms for free peoples, yet somehow that warped mindset still exists.
And we got this from Mary on Facebook.
Thank God we have a strong administration to protect our troops and country.
The people of Iran are dancing in the streets, peace through strength.
And this is Bob, who's calling us from Massachusetts.
What I'd like to say is I'm very glad that the president did this.
And I'm very sorry for all of the Democrats that have lost another dictator and another really horrible human being that can murder people.
It's amazing how they will stand up for the most vile human beings on the planet and hate on Donald Trump.
TDS is incredible.
And would you guys please at least do one thing?
I know you love to fact-check Republicans left, right, up, down, backwards, forwards.
How about Stacey, who, you know, when she's not out shoplifting calling up today, saying that Trump said something about other people being our military people being losers and stuff.
He didn't say that.
That was a lie.
Okay?
That was a lie.
It's a proven lie.
And I wish you would at least fact-check some Democrat someday.
Before I start, I just want to go ahead and say thank you so much for what you do personally.
We over on our last lease panel on Reddit are huge fans of you specifically.
On the topic of Iran, regarding what the last guy said, I was born in 2004.
So I was born three years after 9-11.
Everything that I have been alive for when it comes to U.S. wars has been majority wars in the Middle East.
We aren't, Us Democrats aren't saying that we support the Ayatollah or the Iranian government, but we are totally against forever wars where they say it's going to last four to six weeks, when in reality, we're probably going to be in Iraq for another 20-ish years because of the military, the military-industrial complex.
Donald Trump saying that American lives are worth sacrificing for a war that are 80% to 80% disapproval rate, honestly, when it comes to the general public.
We've already had three F-15 friendly fire mishaps happen.
Like, that's unheard of.
If you've seen some of the videos, it's startling.
Sleeper Cells Threat00:15:34
unidentified
I can't understand it.
I just can't understand it.
And like, this is mostly, this doesn't affect you or me or anyone that's watching this at home.
This affects the people that are in the Epstein class.
And I want to go back to Jesse, I believe that was his name, who was born after 9-11.
And I was born in 1991.
And that gave me a, this gives me a certain aspect of where we are in this country to this demographic from 20 to 35.
And war in the Middle East and American intervention has been around since the 40s and before that, when we recreated Israel.
And for some of the callers that are saying that we're just bombing Iran for because Israel has requested, that's not true.
There is Intel that's saying that there's thousands of sleeper cells within America, and it absolutely is in our best interest to show and reflect our feelings towards radical extremists.
And I believe it's in our best interest as a country to educate ourselves from past conflicts and all the way to current conflicts as well.
And the previous caller talked about sleeper cells.
This is Fox Business that says Abbott, that's a Texas governor, warns Iranian, quote, sleeper cells must be taken seriously after deadly Texas shooting.
It says the comments follow the Dudley Austin shooting where gunmen wore, quote, property of Allah sweater.
This is at Fox Business.
He says, this is his quote: You oftentimes see when there's a war breaking out like this, where the U.S. may be going against a country like Iran, that you could have either sleeper cells or lone wolves acting.
And Susan, Quorum New York, Independent, you're on the air.
unidentified
Hi, Mimi.
Thank you for what you do.
I really appreciate it.
I am a recovering Democrat, and I have decided not to just watch liberal stations and believed everything they say.
So I watch everything.
What upsets me, and I suggest to the other callers, is to please, please educate yourself.
I was watching all stations yesterday, and you get different views on the IRN war from whether it's a conservative station or otherwise.
You spoke about the sleeper cell, which is very important.
I heard that on the conservative side, but I didn't hear all day on the liberal side about this.
We have to look at all sides.
We have to look at all sides.
It's very, very important.
We're talking about the president taking over, doing everything, listening to everything that Netanyahu says.
We have to keep our heads out of the sand.
It is a very, very, very liable threat that Iran can develop intercontinental missiles that can bomb the United States.
This was tried.
This was in the Obama era.
He gave them cash to not to subside getting nuclear weapons.
Trump tried in all his might to try and make a deal with them.
They didn't want to do it.
They didn't want to do it.
So does Israel have influence?
Of course they have influence.
But this is about America.
This is about America.
And I appreciate the call that spoke about our interests.
They're clearly educated.
But we have to worry about America.
If America doesn't worry about themselves, we can't help anyone else in the world.
And there are things, sleeper cells all over the United States.
Susan, let me move on to Gail in New York, Republican.
Go ahead, Gail.
unidentified
Hi, good morning.
I say kudos to Trump.
He did what other presidents should have done.
And the lady from Quorum, she's absolutely correct.
As somebody who lived through 9-11, okay, and who went to 20 to 25 wakes and funerals, and 20 years later, still going to people that have cancer to their wakes.
Okay.
I don't want a nuclear bomb.
And I'm afraid every time I go through the Midtown Tunnel, I go over the Verrazano, I go over the Whitestone.
Do you know I look around, I panic when I'm in the Midtown, I'm saying, oh, God, if the water comes, you have no idea what New York has lived through if you haven't lived through it, okay?
I don't want that to happen again on American soil.
Guess what?
Trump is doing the right thing.
And I feel sorry for those servicemen.
Absolutely.
I mean, but they knew what they signed up for, and they're heroes.
And if we could knock this guy out, you know, if we could knock out the regime in Iran, then they didn't die in vain.
It says President Trump told CNN the big wave of the U.S. attack on Iran is yet to come.
Trump laid out his war objectives for reporters, saying he wanted to destroy Iran's missile capabilities, annihilate its Navy, end its nuclear ambitions, and stop it arming militant groups.
It says that Iran and its proxies are continuing to strike U.S. allies in the Gulf.
The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia hit by suspected Iranian drones, booms heard in Iraq, and sirens sounding over Bahrain.
Israel, meanwhile, is striking Hezbollah targets in Beirut.
Jamal in Dearborn, Michigan, you're on the line for Democrats.
You're on the air.
unidentified
All right, good morning.
Thank you for taking the call.
I just wanted to say that the president went into this war without the authorization of Congress.
That's a violation of our Constitution.
I'm not so much opposed to war when it's for the right reasons.
I do believe there should be a separation of government and religion and politics.
But what is happening here and what has been happening in the Middle East for the past 40 years or so, there's one common thread through all of this.
And unfortunately, that runs through the state of Israel.
They told the U.S. and the American public for 20, 30 years that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
He had nuclear.
We all know history says that they went in, they killed over a million people, and there was no weapons of mass destruction.
They've been crying the same thing about Iran, that they're trying to get nukes, that we need to make sure that they don't get nukes.
No one in this world should have nukes.
That's one of the worst inventions of man.
The couple of times that they were used, there was devastation in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Look what happened to those people.
They're still paying the effects of it now.
But nobody mentions the fact that it's almost certain that the state of Israel has over 90 nuclear warheads.
It's okay.
Let's not be hypocritical.
It's okay for them to have nuclear warheads and be able to destroy anybody in the entire region, but it's not okay for anybody else to have nuclear warheads.
The hypocrisy is just too great.
And all these fallacies that we've been sold throughout the years, we fought in Afghanistan for no reason for 17 years, one of the longest wars we've had.
Nuclear Double Standards00:05:49
unidentified
We went and destroyed Libya.
I mean, the list goes on and on and on.
And geopolitics is a lot more than what we're seeing.
This country was trading oil in something other than the dollar.
They're being punished.
Libya did the same thing.
They're being punished.
So it's, and there's other, Venezuela tried to do the same thing.
It's been terrorizing this regime in charge for 47 years.
I was around with the hostages.
They were holding 50 hostages, hundreds of military men in the region, being bombed and killed by Iranian proxies and that.
This is great.
Not to mention that they're bombing the drone bases that are supplying Russia in the Ukraine war.
20% of China gets their oil from Iran.
I mean, what he's doing right now is brilliant for national security for the U.S. Unlike the Democrats who want globalization, open borders, that's the big scary thing now.
Without the open borders, we don't know who came in from Iran.
So for the listeners out there, get educated before you call in and just ramble on about how bad this man is.
And here's that post on X from Senator Dave McCormick, Republican Pennsylvania.
He says, 35 years ago, almost to the day I was in Iraq during the first Gulf War.
Today, Operation Epic Fury shows our military at its best, greatly reducing the threat Iran poses to the U.S. and our allies.
Iranians must choose their own destiny.
We stand with them.
Well, that's the time we've got for this segment.
There's more to come because later this morning we have semaphore politics reporter David Weigel.
He'll join us to discuss the start of the 2026 midterm election season with today's primaries in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas.
But first, after the break, we talk to Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group to discuss the latest on U.S. and Israeli combat operations against Iran and the future of the Iranian regime.
unidentified
We'll be right back.
Best ideas and best practices can be found anywhere.
So can you just start by telling us about your role at the International Crisis Group and your background when it comes to Iran?
unidentified
Well, the International Crisis Group is a conflict prevention organization working based on the concept that prevention is always better than cure.
Conflicts produce all sorts of instability, refugees, reconstruction, radicalization.
And it's always better to try to find solutions before war starts.
So that's the raison d'être of this organization.
Iran's Complex Revolution00:15:06
unidentified
And my involvement in the 2015 nuclear deal was precisely to advance that goal, that a diplomatic solution had more staying power and sustainability than trying to pursue a military option.
And I think we have actually seen this play out now.
You know, in 2015, the U.S. and its allies agreed to a deal with Iran that put Iran's nuclear program in a box for 15 years without firing a shot and at no cost to U.S. taxpayers.
Last year, President Trump bombed Iran's nuclear facilities and told us that the program had been obliterated.
Eight months later, he's bombing Iran again out of fear that Iran could have a nuclear weapon.
And this has already cost U.S. taxpayers at least a billion dollars.
All right, so Ali, let's go back, if you don't mind, to the 2015 agreement during the Obama administration.
Since you were involved in that, I want to ask a little bit more about that.
Was Iran fully transparent when it came to their nuclear program during that agreement, during the time that that agreement was in place?
Did they abide by all the parameters of that agreement?
unidentified
It's a very good question because there is an international UN agency, a technical organization called the International Atomic Energy Organization, which was verifying Iran's compliance with its commitments.
So we didn't need to trust the Iranians.
This was mistrust and verify.
And the IAA was doing the verification on the ground.
And Iranians did comply with all of their commitments for even a year after the U.S. withdrew from the agreement and reimposed sanctions on them.
The criticism of that agreement also was that the U.S. essentially gave Iran $150 billion.
Now, this wasn't American money.
This was unfreezing their own money.
However, they could still use that money for all kinds of nefarious purposes around the Middle East, including funding proxy groups.
What do you say to that?
unidentified
Look, I think anyone who's in the deal-making business of any kind understands that only deals can work in which both sides would benefit.
It's hard to imagine that we could get Iran to subject its nuclear program to the most transparent and rigorous inspection mechanism implemented anywhere in the world and accept limits that no other country has accepted on its nuclear activities for a long period of time in return for nothing.
Of course, the U.S. did allow Iran to access its own money, but the reality is that that was always the core of a bargain: nuclear restrictions and transparency measures in return for sanctions relief and economic incentives for the Iranians.
What is the current situation, the current domestic situation in Iran?
Who is running the country right now?
unidentified
Look, after the Supreme Leader was killed in the opening act of this conflict, there is now a three-member council which has assumed the responsibilities of his office.
That council is comprised of the president, the head of the judiciary, and a member of the Guardian Council.
But that's not really where the power lies.
The power lies with two individuals: Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani, who is a former Speaker of the Parliament, and the current Speaker of the Parliament, Mohammad Bager Khali Buff.
Both of these individuals are former commanders of the Revolutionary Guards and have long experience in statecraft.
It appears that Larijani is running the day-to-day management of the country and its strategic direction, and Khalil Buff is running the war effort.
And as far as we know, those two gentlemen are still alive and are still active and are calling the shots right now in Iran?
unidentified
That seems to be the case.
Of course, at some point, the system would have to choose, if it survives, of course, it has to choose a successor for the Supreme Leader.
But my sense is that that is unlikely to happen until the dust on this conflict settles, because otherwise they would be painting a target on that individual's back.
Well, let's talk about the possibility of regime change.
This is what you said in an article you wrote for foreign policy titled Trump's Iran Gamble.
You said this about regime change: quote: Bombs can degrade infrastructure, they can weaken capabilities and eliminate leaders, but they do not manufacture, sorry, they do not manufacture organized political alternatives.
The Iranian public is unarmed, fragmented, and facing one of the most securitized states in the region.
Even a weakened regime retains coercive institutions, the revolutionary guards, intelligence services, internal security forces that are built precisely from moments like this.
Explain that.
unidentified
Yeah, look, the Revolutionary Guards, which is primarily responsible for repressing the Iranian people, is about 200,000 strong.
It has about a million strong militia, in addition to additional security forces.
So we're talking about one to two million men with arms.
These are ideological hard men who have no hesitation to kill.
We saw in the crackdown against the protests in January that this regime killed about a few thousand people of its own people, right?
And the IRGC is under the direct control of the supreme leader, whoever that might eventually be?
unidentified
Technically speaking, the supreme leader was the commander-in-chief of the IRGC.
That's true, but IRGC has become so powerful now that it is basically in charge of its own destiny.
And the point I was trying to make in that article is that the massacre that the IRGC committed against the Iranian people in January was done with small arms.
It wasn't done with tanks and fighter jets like in Syria in 2011 to 2024.
It was done with small arms.
And if you are to completely neutralize a force of this size, only from the air, without forces on the ground, without boots on the ground, it requires destroying huge parts of the country of 92 million.
And even then, the Iranian population are unarmed, leaderless, and would not be able to face the remnants of this regime who are still able and willing to kill to remain in power.
Ali Vaez is with us, joining us during the segment, and we'll take your calls so you can start calling in now if you've got a question for him.
Democrats are on 202748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
We'll get to your calls very soon.
Ali, you mentioned when talking about the IRGC, what kind of role have they played historically since the Iranian Revolution in 1979 attacking either Americans or American interests overseas?
unidentified
Well, the IRGC basically morphed from a ragtag militia which started learning the art of war during the Iran-Iraq war to a massive bureaucracy that has an economic conglomerate, it has TV, it has social media networks, it is involved in all aspects of life in Iran.
And of course, it has an expeditionary force that operates outside of Iran's borders.
And it created this network of proxies and militias in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Yemen, to try to project power and deter an attack on Iranian soil.
Of course, in the process, they did arm groups that targeted Americans, whether that was Hezbollah in 1983 killing 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut, or hundreds of Americans who fell victim to IEDs that the Revolutionary Guards provided to Iraqi militias.
And even the Houthis in Yemen today, if they fire rockets towards Israel or towards the U.S. naval assets in the region, they are empowered by Iran and by the Revolutionary Guards.
Ali, you mentioned that the opposition is leaderless.
It is unarmed.
What are the chances that there could be a democratic transition in Iran?
Or are we going to just end up with a status quo once all the bombs become silent again?
unidentified
So look, as much as I hope that what President Trump said could materialize, which is that after this war ends, Iranian people could come to the streets and take over the institutions of governance.
Again, I think it's a mirage.
It's very unrealistic.
Everywhere else that we've done regime change, there have either been American boots on the ground or indigenous boots on the ground.
But in this case, there are none.
And so I don't see the possibility of a transition to any kind of Jeffersonian democracy.
The likelier scenario is that either some of the remnants of this regime would try to reach out to the Trump administration and end up with a Venezuela type of scenario in which they would agree to subjugate themselves to the United States in order to preserve power,
or that Iran would descend into chaos and civil strife because Iran has the same fault lines, ethno-sectarian fault lines that have resulted in civil wars in countries like Syria, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, Iraq, and so on.
He's from Indian Trail, North Carolina, Independent Line.
Go ahead, Carl.
unidentified
Yeah, I was just wondering, why are we expending all of our military resources in an area that really we've had really bad history with, i.e. Iraq war.
And so we should be in Asian Pacific because that's where the next hot area is going to be.
And we're spending a lot of Americans' resources and treasure in this area.
And it's going to be quite difficult to rebuild when we have a deficit that it's outrageous.
Ali, you mentioned the price and the national debt.
Do you have an idea of how much this is costing on a daily basis?
unidentified
Well, the deployment of U.S. forces to the region did cost around $600 million.
And of course, now that the campaign has started and we're only in day four of it, it is definitely more than a billion.
And who knows how much it will be by the time that it ends?
Day three saw Kuwait mistakenly shooting down three American F-15s, each costing tens of millions of dollars.
So this is definitely a costly undertaking.
And, you know, all of it could have been worth it if it was clear what the objective here is and what would be the measure of American success.
If we create another failed state in that region, it will create the kind of radicalization that we would be paying a price for for years to come.
And if this war spills over into a wider regional conflagration, again, the price that even ordinary American citizens would pay would continue to mount.
I'm not privy to that kind of information of what kind of weaponry the U.S. has in its position.
Of course, as the most advanced army in the world, the U.S. has all sorts of technology that always can take its adversaries by surprise.
But I think Angelo's point about nuclear weapons was pretty accurate.
Here we have a case of two nuclear weapon states, the United States and Israel, bombing a country that didn't have nuclear weapons.
And even last year, the president claimed that we had destroyed the nuclear program that it had.
So that seems, in my view, more of a pretext for this war than a real reason.
I mean, Secretary Rubio said yesterday that the reason that the U.S. entered this war was because Israel was going to bomb Iran because of its ballistic missile capabilities.
And the U.S. was, because the U.S. knew that Iranians would retaliate, the U.S. followed Israel into this conflict.
So the reason doesn't really even seem to be Iran's nuclear program.
We got this question from Patricia in Irvine, California.
She wants to know: is the answer to arm Iranian civilians?
What do you think of the United States sending arms to Iranians?
unidentified
That is a very dangerous option because, as I said, Iran has the same fault lines that have resulted in civil war elsewhere in the region.
The Islamic Republic has mistreated its minorities, whether they're the Kurds or the Baluchis or the Azeris or the Arabs, more than anybody else among its citizenry.
And so there's a lot of anger and frustration within those segments of the society.
If they are armed and we end up with a civil war in a country of 92 million, it would have implications that would be very difficult for us to control.
And also remember, the U.S. doesn't have necessarily a good experience with this kind of activities.
Of course, we armed the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s.
And then that was eventually the seed that was sowed that turned into al-Qaeda and they started targeting America as of 9-11.
It's a very important point because this war is, we have to be clear about it.
It doesn't have the consent of Congress.
The president would have to make a case to the American people about why we need to go to war, what are the objectives, what's the measure of success, and none of that has happened.
In addition to the fact that this is against international law, because there was no imminent threat from Iran.
As I said, even according to Secretary Rubio, the imminent threat was that Iran was going to retaliate for an Israeli act of aggression against itself.
So Iranians were not starting this war.
They didn't have nuclear weapons.
They were not even close to it.
Or their missiles, according to Defense Intelligence Agency, would not be able to reach the United States before 2030.
So there was no imminent threat, and this war is illegal on every front.
Okay, Mr. Vaez, I'd like to point out that the Negotiations of 2015 that you're defending would have allowed Iran to eventually have a free hand in doing whatever it wants after 11 years.
I remember that specifically.
It's one reason why Netanyahu came to the United States at that time and pleaded with the U.S. government not to get into that kind of a deal.
It's also the main reason why President Trump got out of it because he knew it was a lousy deal.
Second of all, I'd like to point out to you, sir, that despite the negotiations that you are talking about, it is Iran that continued to assist the terrorist organizations that have constantly been hitting not just Israel, but also other parts of the world.
A good example would be the murder of Jews in Buenos Aires, Argentina, about 20 years ago.
You probably don't remember that, but I do.
This country has murdered so many people that they're up there with the SS of Nazi Germany as far as random indiscriminate murder is concerned to anybody that doesn't agree with them.
So you seem to be pretty knowledgeable in many things, but what you're suggesting is, in my opinion, is exactly what we have been doing all along,
with the results being the Hamas attacking Israel just a couple of years ago with the deaths of so many people resulting in this continuous war in Gaza.
Look, Nelson is making very important points, but let me just add a few layers of nuance to it.
So, he's absolutely right.
The nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 was a time-bound agreement, but almost all arms control agreements are.
All the agreements we had with the Soviet Union were for 10 years and they were renewable.
So, there is no deal in this field that is forever.
The question always was: did we need to really get out of that deal, destroy trust, and then end up where we are today?
Or could we go back to the Iranians and say, let's renew the agreement or let's add to it, let's make it a better for better kind of arrangement for both of us?
And of course, that would have been a much better approach than tearing an agreement that we had committed to.
It doesn't matter which administration, it was signed in the name of the United States.
And we could have built on it instead of destroying it and again ending up in the middle of a war that, as I said, doesn't provide with a long-term solution.
That's number one.
Number two, of course, the Iranian regime, we had, in terms of the nuclear deal, a narrow transactional agreement on just one issue.
But again, if we had worked on that agreement, had made it productive, then we could have started addressing other dimensions.
And again, as was the case in the Soviet Union, we could have even confronted them on other fronts while we had agreements with them on some issues like on the nuclear issue.
These two are not contradictory, but we have now ended up in a situation that we're breaking a country of 92 million and we're going to own the consequences.
MLB posted this on X. How good is Iran at cyber espionage or other nefarious activities?
Should we be worried about this now?
unidentified
So the Iranians are among the top five when it gets to cyber attacks and cyber capabilities after of course the US and Israel and China and Russia but they have important capabilities.
Now they have shut off their own internet since the beginning of this war in order to prevent Israel and the US from being able to conduct cyber attacks against them.
What I'm worried about the most to be honest with you is because of the kind of radicalization that high number of casualties and also killing of religious leaders could produce is lone wolf kind of operations similar to what we saw in Austin, Texas yesterday.
That worries me more than cyber attacks at this moment.
Michael in Wheeling, West Virginia, Democrat, you're on with Ali Vaez.
Go ahead.
unidentified
Hi, Ali.
First, I want to thank you for your knowledge and giving out some information for what's currently occurring in Iran with their regime.
My point is we had a congressman, you showed a congressman earlier, say, why now?
Well, why now is because Israel has Gaza and Gaza has all that beachfront property and you're not going to get people to invest in that if you have Iran able to throw a bomb over that way.
So to me, I only see here that this is all about business.
It has nothing to do with America being threatened.
I've never felt threatened with Iran.
I'm 67.
My whole life, I never had a problem.
What we know about 911 was it was done by the Saudis, not by any other country.
So I wanted to thank you.
And what do you think about it making it a better investment for Gaza?
Well, it's an interesting angle.
But look, the reality is that even if Iran is not there to support whoever wants to undermine the plans that the Trump administration has in Gaza, there will always be someone else, right?
Because the key point here is that as long as dignity of the Palestinians is not observed, they will continue to resist and fight back.
And there will always be someone who would fund those activities.
One thing that one has to remember, you know, President Trump had put a deal on the table for the Iranians.
He has put similar options on the table for the Gazans, which basically amount to capitulation and to subjugation.
That creates anger, hatred, plus frustration.
And then that takes different forms.
When it boils over, it turns into terrorism and violence.
So this is why unfair deals beget unfaithful and angry dealmakers.
And if we want to stop this pattern, at some point we have to stop the cycle of violence and pursue solutions that are mutually beneficial and mutually tolerable.
Ali, what are the chances that Iran could end its support for proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas?
unidentified
So this is one of the ironies of this moment because Israel after October 7th had significantly degraded Iranian proxies in the region.
Hamas almost completely destroyed.
Hezbollah, very much weak and also incapable of receiving Iranian support because the fall of the Assad regime in Syria meant that Iran lost the logistical route that it had to Hezbollah.
So, the problem had resolved itself to a great extent at the time that Israel and the US decided to go after Iran.
And I do believe that if a fair and equitable deal was put on the table, it would have been possible to also get the Iranians to agree to stop arming or financing these groups because, again, arming them is no longer really an option that is possible physically for the Iranians.
And financing them, given how broke the Iranian system has become, is also not no longer affordable for them.
But if there was a deal, there would be financial incentives and there would be sanctions relief, and they would maybe have the finances to start supporting those nefarious actors again.
unidentified
That is true, although there are mechanisms that could have been put in place.
For instance, in 2023, we did a prisoner swap deal with the Iranians, and as part of it, we also released $6 billion of their assets, moved it from South Korea to Qatar.
And in Doha, we created a so-called humanitarian channel through a bank that is monitored by the U.S. Treasury Department.
And we had to approve every single transaction that the Iranians wanted to do to buy food and medicine and medical equipment, which are exempt from U.S. sanctions.
But we had this oversight mechanism.
So again, diplomacy can always provide solutions.
They're not perfect.
They require a lot of patience, but they are much less costly and much more predictable.
It was well televised when it happened back in 1979 when the revolution happened.
Jimmy Carter just sat there and wouldn't do a thing, wanted to wait him out.
You can't wait these people out.
You have to do something.
Even Ronald Reagan, when he came in and forced them to give up the hostages, had a perfect opportunity to take them out.
And they weren't as well equipped back then.
This is a perfect time to do it.
I can't stand Trump for many reasons, but I'm 100% with him on this issue.
And he's got to keep pounding them and keep pounding them and help the millions of people over there who wanted to have a decent country.
These people over in Iran are not Muslim hillbillies like Afghanistan.
I think they can put together a viable government and can bring a lot of peace to the region over there and stop this out-of-control Iranian government that's in there now, if you can call them a government.
All they are is well-organized terrorists wreaking havoc around the world.
I think what your guest is doing is trying to make excuses to keep these terrorists in place.
Look, I can't wait to see the back of this regime so that I can also visit my family in Iran, where I haven't been able to go back.
But the reality is that it's always a question of what's the best path.
There is a direct line between the 1979 revolution and the hostage crisis that he mentioned and the 1953 coup that we organized to topple the democratically elected government of Iran.
So sometimes these things have a long tail.
And when we go into countries, we break things, we kill people, we kill a lot of innocent people.
It doesn't always end well.
I mean, I remind you that we spent 20 years and $2 trillion in Afghanistan to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.
And so, you know, again, we have a huge hammer in our hands, which is the U.S. military might.
Mike in U.S. Virgin Islands, Democrat, you're on the air.
unidentified
Yeah, more is you.
My thing is basically this.
Where are we voting for people as president who can't negotiate with people?
You know what I'm saying?
Nobody should run any country.
What is here?
Afghanistan, Iran, or any place where they can't get together and peacefully talk.
You know, they're sending our children and their children out to lose their likes.
Trump is not sending his children out.
The vice president is not sending his children out.
None of them are sending their children out.
Why don't they send ICE over to Afghanistan?
My thing basically is this.
You go back to Woodrow Wilson in 1913, one of the biggest racist presidents you ever had.
He gave basically the money printing in the United States to somebody else outside the country.
Now, America is controlled by whom?
They're controlled by Israel.
The Mossad.
No, I could sit from right here and look at Jeffrey Epstein's island.
And the sad part about it is, guess what happened?
He's been controlling the politics of the United States, not the people that go out to vote.
I live in the United States, Virginia.
We got a delegate to Congress.
She can't even vote.
She's just symbolic.
I'm basically endorsing a guy here in Brazil by the name of Shelly Moorhead from St. Croix.
My thing is basically this.
They got to stop doing what they're doing.
These guys are wamongos.
All they're doing is going out there and having the military complex make more money when you got homeless people in the United States and it's protectorate.
I don't think wiping Israel off the map is in the Constitution, but it is supporting Palestinians and other people who are suffering under subjugation.
That is in the Iranian Constitution.
But if the Iranian Constitution, by the way, was fully complied by, it would not have been such an authoritarian state.
The point I want to make is, don't look at their slogans.
Look at what they had done.
What they had done was that they had created headaches for Israel, but they would never were able to pose an existential threat to Israel.
It's 47 years into this regime, and Israel is stronger than ever before.
And Iran, of course, is not a nuclear weapon state.
Israel is, and could not really pose an existential threat to Israel.
So yes, I do agree that Iran posed a threat to Israel, not an existential one, because Israel is the biggest military power in that part of the world, and of course, backed by the world's sole superpower.
We are not disputing about the threat Iran poses to the U.S. and its allies in the region.
The question here is what is the best approach?
And my point is we've repeatedly tried to find military solutions to these complicated problems.
And in that part of the world, it has almost always never worked for us.
And before you go, Ali, I just want to ask you about your thoughts on Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last Shah of Iran as a transitional leader.
He wrote a piece in the Washington Post where he says, many Iranians, often despite facing bullets, have called on me to lead this transition.
What do you think of that and how much support he might have?
unidentified
It is true that there is more and more support for the former crown prince, especially within the diaspora, but also to a certain extent back in Iran.
The real problem is that we don't know the extent of that support.
And he also doesn't have any organizational capacity on the ground.
It is very difficult to do these things and to manage a transition or a revolutionary upheaval and take over the task of governance if you don't have a ground game.
Later this morning on the Washington Journal, we're joined by Semaphore politics reporter David Weigel.
He will talk about the 2026 midterm election season with today's primaries in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas.
But first, right after the break, it's open forum.
Start calling in now.
202-748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
C-SPAN, official media partner of America 250, commemorating 250 years of American democracy.
America 250 is traveling the country to honor the voices that define our nation.
Stories of identity, service, and community.
Here's one of them.
Coming from a religious black background, my mom always told us, put God first, whatever you do, and he'll direct your path.
He had five songs in the top ten.
Show some love for my man Sugar Bear.
And that's what's going on now.
That's why I'm here today.
Yeah, let's do this.
Let's do this.
Go-go music is the sound of Washington, D.C. Period.
When you go to New York, you expect to hear a lot of hip-hop and rap.
You go to New Orleans, you're going to hear a lot of jazz.
So when you come to Washington, D.C., or the DMV, as we call it, you're going to hear a lot of Go-Go music.
This is our home.
This is our capital.
It's homegrown in Washington, D.C.
It's a party, a great party source of music.
Call and response.
You automatically become a part of it, but you got to see it live.
Hearing a recorded version of a Go-Go song, it don't really do nothing for you.
But if you see it live, then you can automatically embrace it.
Because Go-Go music is a live field.
You're right there with it.
You're right there with it.
And you can't stay still.
Especially when I look around the world by me traveling so many places, I can see that living in America has been a blessing to me.
People living in poverty, people are poor.
People don't have water.
They don't have clothes.
They don't have food and shelter.
I'm free.
So it means a lot to me.
Whatever your dream is, go get it.
Nobody can stop you but you.
Believe in yourself, apply yourself, and be the best you can be.
This is Sugar Bear.
This is our American story.
Trump's Enrichment Push00:04:27
unidentified
Tonight kicks off C-SPAN's campaign 2026 primary coverage, live across the C-SPAN networks.
First up, North Carolina and Arkansas.
But all eyes are on Texas.
The Lone Star State could decide the balance of power in Washington, shaping control of the U.S. Senate and influencing redistricting battles that could redraw America's political map for years to come.
We'll also bring you high-stakes House and Governor's races across all three states.
Our live coverage begins at 7 p.m. Eastern.
Watch as voters in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas head to the polls.
We are going to be taking your calls shortly, but here is something for your schedule.
This is an event coming just in about 20 minutes.
Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam will be testifying at an oversight hearing as the agency she heads, which is DHS, is partially shut down.
Secretary Noam is also expected to be asked about the recent mass shooting in Austin, Texas, and possible links to terrorism.
You can watch her testimony live from the Senate Judiciary Committee at 9 a.m.
So just about 20 minutes on C-SPAN 3.
That is also on our app, C-SPANNOW and online at c-SPAN.org.
Let's get to calls right away to Annie and Tampa, Line for Democrats.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
Great calls this morning.
One caller just told Mr. Vaez that Iran kills and just gets rid of anyone that doesn't agree with them and attacks them and so forth.
That describes Trump perfectly.
So I'm sure he was talking about Trump just killing votes and everybody who doesn't is in his way or whatever.
Another caller said that business deals between war criminal Trump and war criminal Netanyahu cannot commence with Iran in the way.
So that's a really, really good point.
But my point is just for Republicans specifically, if Republicans could just grab a pen and jot this down, Trump killed the goodbyes and border security bill over two years ago.
Remember, Trump said he wanted to use it for his campaign.
Trump wanted to run on that issue and win on that issue.
And he did.
Remember, he called Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gates and all that and said, kill the bipartisan border security bill, kill it, because I want to use this chaos for my campaign.
Anyway, if Republicans could just look that up, if they don't remember, thank you for your time.
Not just that they're trying to enrich Jesse, and this is one of the almost comical elements of the diplomacy that we've been engaged in for the past month, the past few, the past year, I should say.
You know, Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio, Jared Cushman, they did such a good job, such a deliberate job.
But the Iranians would come back to us, Jesse, and they'd say, well, having enrichment for civilian purposes, for energy purposes, is a matter of national pride.
And so we would say, okay, that's interesting.
But why are you building your enrichment facilities 70 feet underground?
And why are you enriching to a level that's way beyond civilian enrichment and is only useful if your goal is to build a nuclear bomb?
Nobody objects to the Iranians being able to build medical isotopes.
The objection is these enrichment facilities that are only useful for building a nuclear weapon.
Even some international organizations that usually don't agree with the United States were very clear that Iran's only purpose in building these underground, highly enriched facilities was to build a nuclear weapon.
It just doesn't pass the smell test for you to say that you want enrichment for like medical isotopes while at the same time trying to build a facility 70, 80 feet underground.
I'm sitting here and I'm an old combat veteran and I've been on this earth for 70 plus years and I realize that the only thing you can do is be the best person you can be.
We look to this government and everybody gets so ideological with the Republic and the Democrat.
Remember, these people aren't with you.
It's all about business and money.
You go to the polls, you vote, and you move on in life.
And we just have to learn that, like, if you want your politician to be a certain way, be that way.
Hold the door for somebody.
Be kind.
Laugh at yourself.
Laugh at others.
Turn off all your electronic devices in your pods and being screaming and yelling about things you can't change.
And be the person you want to be.
And whatever's going to be is going to be.
And I just find it as everybody gets so wound up, it's like a drug.
And then they go blah, blah, blah.
And then they yell, blah, blah, blah.
And they're miserable and angry people.
I got a cup of coffee.
I got a pond in the backyard with some geese in it.
And I'm golden.
And I know the difference between what you can do and you can't do.
So after you vote, that's it.
Your job there is done.
Move on.
And just take a breath.
And there's more that unites us than divides us.
And we just got to get rid of all of this.
Everybody has to be right.
It's okay to be wrong, and it's okay to say you're sorry.
Love people the way you want to be loved.
Treat people the way you want to be treated and have a great day.
And that's all you can do in life.
And I wish you a great day, and God bless you and your family, okay?
Yes, when they overthrew the Democratic elected government and put in the Shah, the puppet.
And it turned out that he was a cruel and oppressive leader, even though he looked like a modern society.
That's all well and good.
But if you go back farther, let's say 1916, the UK and their allies decided it would be a good idea to carve up the Middle East and make sure that the resources would be allocated quite favorably to the ruling elites.
And obviously, that wasn't working out very well for the people of Iran.
And I think that's why Mossadeh decided he wanted to get a bigger piece of it for his people.
And obviously, that didn't sit well with the, again, the elites.
Well, for right now, I think it's kind of been that there's an asymmetry between the incentives for all the regular people, whether it's the Iranian people or the American people and the elites.
And even beyond that, there's the fact that we find ourselves always divided.
But again, I think that's more due to the asymmetries between people who find themselves with a lot of access and people who find themselves without a lot of access to resources, essentially.
Access Divide Dialogue00:03:12
unidentified
All right.
I don't know that any of this conversation is going to have any long-term effect because it seems like if you look at the arc of history, people are still, you know, short-term, long-term, people are still, we're still talking about the same issues that always remain unresolved.
So, Jody, we're going to be talking about those videos that came out of the depositions of Hillary and Bill Clinton.
They have been made public.
We've got them.
We have been airing them on C-SPAN across our networks and our platforms.
So we'll talk more about that later in the program.
So be sure to stay with us for that.
Regarding Congress, Punch Bowl News says Republicans back Trump's war on Iran.
It says that Republicans on Capitol Hill are about to give Trump a major boost, a green light to conduct a war against Iran without worrying about Congress.
It says it continues.
I'll show you more of that later.
But let's talk to Barbara first in Oklahoma, Independent Line.
Yes, I do want to check on that because it was that, high Barbara, during the, during the Biden presidency in February, when he had they hand, he handed it to him.
unidentified
But you read that.
Go back to the headlines when he handed it back and it said he handed him the best economy in the world.
First of all, if we're honest about the Middle East, the Middle East is on fire, or Iran is supposed to be sponsoring terrorists.
It's because of the Israel situation, how they've treated the Palestinians.
You know, you put on it on TV.
I watch C-SPAN and MSNBC or MS-NOW.
I switch over to Fox.
If it wasn't an apartheid situation with the Palestinians in the Middle East, I think none of this would be happening.
And Iran wouldn't be sponsoring terrorists of course throughout the Middle East.
That's one of the questions.
Now, the other thing you said on C-SPAN, Jury and this other guy was over here back and forth, and Secretary of State was back and forth trying to negotiate something.
And in the meantime, Trump and Benjamin was plotting to bomb Iran.
So you have to look at, put everything in together.
And not only that, I like to be honest, tell both sides.
The Palestinians during the time, Hamas shouldn't have bomb killed the people like 125 or 1,200 people of Palestinians.
It was at the concert, blah, blah.
No, that was wrong.
But they turned around what did Israel do?
They killed about 45,000 of Palestinians, innocent ones, bomb hospitals, bomb schools, like Russia is doing in Ukraine.
And this is what I wanted to show you from Punchbowl News about what's happening in Congress regarding the war with Iran.
It says that the House and Senate are on track this week to vote down a pair of bipartisan war power resolutions aimed at limiting Trump's ability to conduct the Iran campaign.
Rank-and-file Republicans are prepared to back Trump, giving them co-ownership of the conflict that's already unpopular with Americans.
The Senate likely to vote Wednesday, House set to vote on Thursday.
House and Senate will receive separate briefings on Iran this afternoon from top administration officials.
And we are in open forum.
Secretary Noam has just arrived at that hearing.
You can continue to watch that once that gets underway over on C-SPAN 3, or you can stay with us for open forum.
We've got more on the program to show you, but there she is, Secretary Christy Noam, having arrived for that hearing at the Senate.
Tay in Texas, Republican, you're on the air.
unidentified
Hey, all right.
Good morning, Bemini.
I think what Barbara was trying to tell you about Biden's inflation number is I'm a Romney Republican.
Okay, I'm buying to run these policies.
What Barbara was trying to tell you was if Trump had not managed COVID, the mismanagement of COVID, when he handed over to Biden, the logistic, the logistics was so bad.
The company wasn't able to move anything.
There was scarcity of products.
He couldn't even buy toilet papers.
So all of those was the consequences.
All of those was a lagging indicator.
By the time Biden got in office, the inflation went up.
What Trump has done to Iran is Trump has been able to buy Iran some sympathy across the world.
Even highlights like UK, they don't want to get involved.
Canada does not want to get involved.
This is completely different from what we saw during Judge Bush-Iraq war.
Now, Trump is telling the other countries that does not have a nuclear weapon that you better hurry up and get a nuclear weapon because if you do have a nuclear weapon, the United States will not mess with you.
Case in point, North Korea.
The United States does not mess with North Korea, even though we know all of the atrocities that is happening within North Korea, as close as the society is.
The United States does not mess with them because just because they have nuclear weapons.
What Trump is doing right now, and if you look at this war, it seems like Iran is holding up their own end of the war.
They're not doing too badly.
And I think Israel is going to pay the price for this war at the end of the day.
This war is nothing but because of Israel.
This is not what Trump told us he was going to do when he was campaigning.
He said he was not going to drag America into war with Iran.
This is not a promise kept.
This is a promise broken.
And I feel sorry for the servicemen that lost their lives.
I think they lost their lives for Israel.
They did not lose their lives for this country.
And I think Trump has shot Michael Rubio and Vance chance in 2028.
I don't see how they come to America to American people and tell them they want to continue the policy of Trump because Iran right now, a lot of countries all over the world, a lot of people all over the world are now sympathetic to Iran, which was not like that before.
And later this morning on the Washington Journal, we'll turn our attention to the Epstein investigation.
We've got Wall Street Journal national political reporter Ken Thomas to discuss the latest on the release of the videos of depositions of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
But after a quick break, we'll talk with Semaphore politics reporter David Weigel about the start of the 2026 midterm election season.
There are primaries happening today in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas.
unidentified
Stay with us.
Best ideas and best practices can be found anywhere.
They are probably breaking turnout records by the end of the process.
They beat Republicans in turnout.
Obviously, Texans could just go to the polls and choose which party they're voting in.
And Tallarico got in fairly early, built a national reputation as a religious Democrat, very progressive, but religious, comfortable talking about his faith, popular with podcasters, popular with magazine profilers.
Jasmine Crockett got in the race on the final day of filing with some goading from Republicans.
And if you covered both candidates on the trail, Crockett's argument is that Republicans, one, are more afraid of her.
She's more combative.
She has viral moments where she humbles Republicans in hearings or says very memorable things.
I was covering her and people had t-shirts with some of her sayings on them.
Whereas Tallarico, his argument is not that he's not a pure Democrat progressive.
It's that he can reach across the aisle to more Republican voters and convince them that at this moment with this president, the election is a choice of up and down, not a partisan choice between Republican and Democrat.
That's an important part of the story is that the National Republican Senatorial Committee took a poll last year, months before the filing deadline, that found she would beat any Democrat in a primary.
She would lead at least any Democrat in a primary.
Crockett had her own numbers and was tempted to enter the race because she has been rising very quickly.
She was elected state rep in 2020.
She's elected Congress in 2022.
And she becomes one of the most well-known members of the House from her work and oversight hearings.
She has more than 2 million followers on TikTok.
She draws huge crowds.
And I saw this on the trail.
She would announce an event late Thursday evening.
By Friday morning, there'd be 200 people out to see her.
Very passionate fan base.
And she saw that.
She saw that reflection.
She's also argued she has the loyal Democratic base.
She's a black woman who's very supported by black women, by black men, by Latinas, by a lot of white progressives.
The Tallarico argument, again, is more, and it's not really ideological.
It's more about electability.
Tallarico saying, I'm also progressive, but I'm not somebody that Republicans would prefer to run against because I'm less combative.
I can maybe appeal to your neighbor who stopped listening to Democrats because I talk differently to them.
But in Crockett's telling, Republicans are more, whatever they're doing, whatever money they're spending, they're more worried to run against her.
And I found that from her voters who think if she is in the race, if she's on the debate stage, she's going to steamroll the Republicans.
So Texas had been moving since 2012 toward Democrats.
It moved back in the 2024 election, and that was a lot of lower turnout in some of the big cities in Texas and Republican gains in the Rio Grande Valley, Latino areas there.
I wouldn't say fool's gold, but it's been a challenge for Democrats to get to even 48% of the vote in Texas.
Their hope this cycle is that, one, Trump is not going to hold those Latino voters he gained because of his immigration and NICE policies and because costs have not gone down, which was very appealing there.
And two, that they will have a new post-Biden approach.
They're not encumbered by the policy of the administration, that there are going to be voters who do want to check on the president.
The turnout will be different without Trump on the ballot.
This is going to be the first election where he's president, he's endorsing people, but he's not driving turnout in the same way.
So there's a lot of money behind Tallarico, a lot of national interest.
There are Democrats certainly who say, we've heard this before.
We heard Beto O'Rourke could do this.
We heard that Hillary could compete in Texas.
But there is more optimism, and you do see this in a lot of the suburbs that Republicans have redrawn in congressional maps.
You saw high Democratic turnout in places that were Republican just 10 years ago.
How much of that is frustration with whether Donald Trump has delivered on his agenda?
It's much more about their style and their approach.
And they have this has been manifested in their supporters, that Crockett supporters believe that Tallarico was too compromising.
He will criticize the Biden administration, say Biden failed on the border.
Crockett is a much more loyal Democrat.
Crockett is one of the arguments you'll see her make on the trail is that voters voted for a felon.
Kamala Harris was more qualified than Donald Trump.
It's ridiculous that he won.
The Tallarico argument is more, well, no voters have chosen Donald Trump several times, and we as a party need to adjust to why that is.
So it's much more style in how they reach out to people.
And talking to Tallarico's voters, I found a lot who said that their relatives were sharing memes or asking them how they can be a Christian and a Democrat.
They haven't talked to them in years.
And this is something he appeals to a lot.
He talks about even the fight over the Super Bowl halftime show and says the country has gotten very divided because of culture wars driven by billionaire company owners.
Whereas her argument is more that Donald Trump is corrupt and he's been leading a corrupt administration and Democrats need to passionately go and prove to voters that that's the case.
They all canceled their schedules to be with Trump on Friday.
He didn't really do anything for the candidates.
They showed up.
But there's Senator John Cornyn, who is seeking a fifth term.
It would end when he's celebrating his 80th birthday if he wins it.
And Ken Paxton, the Attorney General, who is a reliable Trump ally, which has helped, he was the leader of the state AG's effort to overturn the 2020 election unsuccessfully.
Paxton has run against Cornyn as a disloyal Republican who has not been, who did not want Trump to run again in 2024.
He's criticized some of the compromises he's made with Democrats.
There's an ad where he points out that Cornyn has worked with Crockett.
And Crockett will point this out, that she could actually work across the aisle sometimes.
In Paxton's view, we're a red state.
We're a pro-Trump state.
You need a loyal senator who's going to work with the president.
There's also Wesley Hunt, the congressman from the Houston area, in the race.
His argument is that unlike Ken Paxton, who was impeached and survived in the Texas State Senate, who is an affair that he had an affair that he does not deny, Wesley Hunt's argument is that I'm an upstanding citizen and a veteran and a man of faith who is a loyal Trump Republican.
And Republicans have spent more money in this Texas Senate race than any to defend John Cornyn, more than $80 million.
It started with ads defending Cornyn and attacking Paxton.
They ran some at the end attacking Hunt just as somebody who doesn't show up and support the Trump agenda.
They want a runoff, which would be 10 weeks, where, well, they want to win.
But what is more likely is that they would get a runoff between Cornyn and Paxton.
Would Trump weigh in on that?
And this is a factor throughout every Texas race we're talking about that's competitive.
The key factor is did Donald Trump endorse you or not?
Have you said something in the past or cast a vote in the past that was anti-Trump?
He had staff that claimed that he was very technically get all the details, but staff that claimed he was basically taking bribes.
It was unrelated to his barrel situation, but he was indicted in Travis County, Liberal County where Dallas is, throughout his tenure.
He's elected in 2014, and he is embroiled by scandal.
He almost loses his reelection in 2018.
But basically, he had staff leave his office turn on him and said he was corrupt.
Republicans, enough Republicans in the state House agreed with that.
A lot of the Republicans who voted to impeach him over these bribery allegations from former staff lost their primaries in 2024 because Paxton campaigned against them.
And so Paxton's very confident.
His supporters are very confident that the base believes that allegations made against him by whoever they were are just like allegations made against Donald Trump.
If you're Republican, that means they're not real.
That he is so effective and he's so conservative and he's so MAGA that people are making stuff up about him.
Is that what the record shows?
Not really, but that is a consistent thing I heard from Republicans in Texas.
Trump vouched for this guy, not in this race, but he's endorsed him before.
He fought for Trump when it was hard.
Therefore, I don't believe anything the establishment, quote unquote, says about him.
Dave Weigel is in the studio with us from Semaphore, and he is answering your questions about the primary season.
We want to hear from you.
You can go ahead and call us.
Democrats are on 202-748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
Especially if you're in those states that are holding primaries and you want to share with us how you're feeling about that, please do call us and let us know.
So the primary in Texas is open, so you don't have to declare whether you're a Democrat or a Republican ahead of time.
And so that is something that Republicans have sounded the alarm about in the last week to drive up their own turnout.
That a lot of people who have not voted Democratic recently or ever are definitely showing up and voting in the Tallarico Crockett race.
Now, there's some down ballot races, but that is the competitive one.
The worry for some of Cornyn supporters is that there might be people who'd be inclined to vote for the senator.
It's not that he's a moderate, but that's somebody that they know, somebody who has resisted Trump just a little bit, although he runs on how he's voted with them almost 100% of the time, that they might cast a ballot for a Democrat today, then they're not going to be around if there's a runoff in May to bail out Cornyn.
It's more than $100 million for all Republicans in the Republican primary.
Cornyn has vastly outspent.
It's PACs in D.C., basically, Senate leadership PACs that have been supporting Cornyn, Zone PAC, that are on the air consistently.
There is less money for Paxton.
There's less money for Hunt.
Hunt has some supporters who funded very early ass before he got in the race, just trying to build his name ID up statewide.
But this is a frustration for conservatives around the country that they're not, right now, are they worried they're going to lose the Senate?
Not that much.
But every dollar spent in Texas where they have not lost a Senate race since the 1990s is a dollar that didn't get spent in Michigan, didn't get spent in Alaska, where there's a strong Democratic candidate.
The most that Republicans have ever spent in a Senate primary, they have spent in Texas, which find a map of the media markets.
It is very expensive to run any kind of race in Texas, and no senator has had to do this much in a primary to bail himself out.
Well, in North Carolina, there is a rematch between in the Durham area, the 4th District.
Republicans drew gerrymandered seats, safe seats for Democrats.
The one around Duke University, Durham, has been represented since 2022 by Valerie Fouché, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
She won in 2022 against Nida Alam, who is a Durham County commissioner, much more progressive, a younger Muslim woman.
In that race, pro-Israel groups, APAC, and PACs that it created funded, helped Fouché a lot, and she won by single digits.
Alam got back into this race because I wouldn't say because, but with more of an angle because Democratic support for Israel since the war in Gaza began in 2023 has collapsed.
It's collapsed with all Democrats in this district.
This is a combination of African-American voters and highly educated white liberals, Asian voters in the Durham area.
It is no longer popular to be a supporter of Israel and whatever it does.
And Fouché said earlier in the campaign, yes, she had supported, she had taken APAC support in the past.
She won't anymore.
She's co-sponsored the Block the Bombs Act in the Congress to limit aid to Israel.
She was not getting support from pro-Israel groups until the very end of this race.
Alam's also been running against data centers, and Fouché has been getting support, crucial support, millions of dollars from pro-AI PACs, which have been intervening in some primaries so far.
Bernie Sanders endorsed Alam, as he did the last time.
So it's a progressive race versus a not a not a moderate, not a right-wing Democrat, but a Democrat who was not out there early against AI and against funding for Israel.
And that has definitely tightened.
Progressive groups took that as an offensive opportunity.
There's a new PAC that's meant to be sort of an antidote to APAC that went in for Alam early.
The sense there is that Alam came on very strong, and Fouché has needed help to even this out.
But there is concern that just in New Jersey, where progressives won Mackie Sherrill's open seat in a very divided primary, that one, the energy of Democratic voters is against funding for Israel.
And two, that progressive voters are angry that the party is not fighting harder.
Fouché is not as visible a member of Congress in terms of being on TV, in terms of fighting Trump, in terms of having key moments, casting memorable votes.
Alam is her final ad, which she ran yesterday, she cut in her home on Sunday, put it on TV immediately, is saying she's against the war in Iran.
Fouché was slower to say that she is against what the administration is doing in Iran.
So it's a combination of the Israel and AI issues, but also this theme we're seeing among Democrats of do you fight hard enough?
Let's talk to Alan, Cincinnati, Ohio, line for Democrats.
You're on with Dave Weigel, Alan.
unidentified
I'm a retired military, retired attorney.
I like to see more military people get involved, the lawyers and things, because it seems like we have a lot of people in Congress that got there for whatever reason, because of affirmative action or they just spent a lot of money.
This seems like the people that spend the most money, millions and billions, they're the ones who win.
And again, we need to have everybody in our country serve in the military like these other countries do.
And I think the Independent Party will be bigger than all the other two parties because not everybody wants the same thing from both parties.
You know, people have different ideas and things like that.
These are mostly going to be partisans who are voting.
But the frustration you're talking about that is driving a lot of people to become independents, that's manifesting inside the parties too.
And the last midterm 2022, generally Democratic voters who would show up and vote in these sorts of races, they liked Joe Biden.
He was president.
They supported their congressional leadership.
Their leadership, led by Nancy Pelosi in the House and Chuck Schumer in the Senate, was passing big legislation.
They're now out of power, and there's a lot of anger at the Democratic Party's leadership in D.C.
It is not necessarily an advantage if Hakeem Jeffries says, I'm endorsing this candidate, or Chuck Schumer lets it be known that he prefers one candidate or another.
There's been vivid anti-leadership, anti-D.C. leadership, anti-establishment sentiment in the parties.
So what you're talking about when it comes to people wanting choices beyond them, that's intense.
That's growing.
Also, the anger inside among people who consider themselves Democrats or consider themselves Republicans and are frustrated that Republican members of Congress are not supporting Trump even more fully.
These are all factors working together.
A lot of people are, as you're saying, watching that and saying, why are these parties becoming so partisan, so divisive, so ideological?
So after the Evalde shooting, and this is a factor in Cornyn's race, also in Tony Gonzalez's race in West Texas, other factors there, that Cornyn supported, was part of the negotiations of this very minor gun safety legislation that got momentum from that aftermath.
That is a key argument for the Paxton campaign is that when the, and Brandon Herrera is the one running against Tony Gonzalez, that these guys were spooked by the media, spooked by the news cycle, and they were willing to pass gun regulation.
Republicans don't support any of that.
Republican voters in Texas don't support any.
It's a very pro-Second Amendment state, very open carry state, constitutional carry state.
That is a powerful argument against Cornyn that he can be convinced to work with Democrats on any sort of gun regulation at all.
And I did not meet many voters who said that was their top issue, but it has been the most damaging thing in Attacks on Cornyn is that why would he work with Democrats?
Why would we as Republicans who elect Ted Cruz, who didn't do that after Ruvalde, why would we take the risk of six years of a guy who might compromise the Democrats on another gun bill someday?
So Texas Republicans last year put in a new map designed to eliminate five Democratic seats, several in South Texas in the Rio Grande Valley, and then around Houston, around Dallas.
Crockett had one of the safe Democratic seats around Dallas.
They got rid of that, but Crockett could have run for and won her old seat, a version of her old seat, safely Democratic.
She actually has an ally, Pastor, who she knows who's running to fill that seat in Congress.
She could have stayed in.
She has argued as she's been running that Republicans were so scared of me that they eliminated my seat, and I had to run for Senate.
I had to move up or out.
Also, her supporters, her somewhat, her supporters have said there were these very high-profile debates about redistricting.
There was one in 2021.
There was one in 2025 that we just talked about.
And Tallarico did not resist as long as possible, did not stay out of the state to stop that map from being passed.
Tallarico came back.
The map was passed.
If he's that kind of senator, can we trust him to fight Republicans?
So redistricting has actually played a pretty big role in the Democratic messaging around the race.
But there is a world where Crockett just runs for hold seat again.
Colin Allred, who was running for Senate and got out when Crockett got in, has endorsed her.
He's running for a version of his old seat in the Dallas area against Julie Johnson, an incumbent Democrat.
That's the position that Democrats were put in by redistricting.
Al Green, who I think is best known for not just protesting at the State of the Union, but supporting the impeachment of Donald Trump, having resolutions that do that, he's been forced into a new district with a young member who just won it in the Houston area.
And so Democrats are already reckoning with two safe seats, and they could be losing members of the Congressional Black Caucus who are rising in the party, whose rise has been stopped by this new map.
Now, Tallarico would dispute that he's running on unity and he's running on kumbaya.
His argument is that Americans have been distracted and forced into a cultural fight that was unnecessary by corporate owners of the mainstream media and by Republican politicians.
And at the very start of early voting, I think it's pretty well known.
He went on Stephen Colbert's show on CBS.
Colbert told his viewers that the FCC was warning him not to air it on TV.
He ran it online.
It went very viral.
And this is part of Tallarico's stump speech, is that this is the sort of corporate cancel culture, as he calls it, that is driving people who could get along, who probably agree on taxes, agree on good schools, agree on many issues.
They could get along.
They might agree with Democrats, but they're being distracted by the Murdochs, by the Ellisons, by the people who own mainstream media.
That's his argument.
He's not been running and saying, here are the bills I would pass with Republicans.
And he has.
The idea that he's not a fighter has been very important for Crockett, a little confusing for Tallarico and his supporters, because one reason he was rising before this race as a Democratic star, he was very, I wouldn't say combative, but a very effective debater in the Texas legislature where Republicans have had the majority for decades.
They would be passing a bill on LGBT rights, on whether to display the Ten Commandments in schools, et cetera, et cetera.
He, as a seminarian, would make this Christian, biblically influenced argument, and it would go pretty viral.
People would share this argument, not that Tallarico found a way to agree with Republicans, but that he was out debating them and making them look bad on the floor of the legislature.
That has been lost a little bit in this primary because that's Crockett's argument that my opponent is softer than I am, and I am the one that will go up to Republicans and call them, as he said, I'm not going to use the whole thing she said about Marjorie Taylor Greene, but then I'm going to call them out.
I mean, there was one, I noticed when she was campaigning one day with her, she referred to rich M EFers instead of the billionaire class.
I mean, she just talks in a way that I've seen Democrats associate with fighting.
Just more harsh language, more four-letter words.
And the argument has been that is the combativeness that Democrats are not putting up right now.
There's a time zone with two counties in the west of Texas, but polls close at 8 Eastern, most of the state, and then 9 Eastern in that part of Texas.
It tends to count pretty fast.
Polling has shown that the Senate race for Democrats is pretty close, and the Republican race, no one is very close to 50%.
Both parties, you need 50% to avoid a runoff.
And so we will know if there is a runoff probably pretty early in the Republican race.
One question is, because there's a third candidate who's not really campaigning, who's on the ballot, if there are, let's say, 100,000 Texas Democrats who vote for that third candidate, not Crockett and not Tallarico, and it's very close, they could be forced into a runoff and spend 10 more weeks debating and campaigning against each other.
But we should know pretty quickly.
I mean, another issue that Tellarico has been part of the legislature that Crockett's been part of is the tighter election rules that Texas has been passing on Trump's suggestion.
So it is not the California.
We're going to have to wait weeks to get all the ballots.
And I have a question for Mr. Weigel, and this is strictly his opinion, but it refers to voter ID.
And if the voter ID legislation that's going through now with all of its requirements became law before this primary, does he have an opinion about how the voter ID restrictions and requirements would have affected the Republican primary in Texas?
I'd be interested to hear his thoughts because if it's no impact, then the legislation really isn't carrying much weight.
But if it does have an impact, this might be worthwhile legislation that needs to become law.
I'm not sure who it would benefit if it had passed before this because the SAVE Act that you're talking about would require proof of citizenship for voter registration, would require a real ID.
Generally speaking, people are more likely to have a real ID if they're college educated.
They're more likely to have a passport if they have a little more money and they travel.
I would guess that if that was in place, it would probably boost Cornyn because there are more working class voters, more irregular voters who vote for Trump that Paxton's appealing to.
That has also been an issue in the race, though, because Cornyn supports the SAVE Act, and he's argued that Wesley Hunt, because he's been skipping votes to run for the office, pretty common, but they've tried to make that a scandal in the race, that he would be less reliable.
But they all support it.
They all support some version of this.
I think if it was enforced in this race, it probably would help the Cornyn Coalition more than anybody else's.
But it's a good issue to bring up because Cornyn, when Republicans don't have the presidency, even now, he is not support getting rid of the filibuster.
One demand you've seen from the president sometimes and from conservative influencers from MAGA is that in order to pass the SAVE Act, we should change the filibuster, maybe not get rid of it, maybe do a talking filibuster.
This has been one of the defining dynamics of the race, that is Cornyn, who is a bit more of an institutionalist, going to get in line with a much more aggressive, let's just do what it takes to beat Democrats attitude that is more popular on the right.
And he really hasn't been.
I'm recommending Jonathan Martin of Politico spent time with him on the trail, and he does not give the answer that lands the best on a Tucker Carlson show or something.
He gives a old-style Republican answer.
He's maybe five minutes behind the passion of Republican voters.
Next up on the Washington Journal, Wall Street Journal reporter Ken Thomas on the release of the videos of depositions of Bill and Hillary Clinton in the Epstein investigation.
That's right after this break.
unidentified
Seat span is as unbiased as you can get.
You are so fair.
I don't know how anybody can say otherwise.
You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country.
I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices.
You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds.
I absolutely love C-SPAN.
I love to hear both sides.
I've watched C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased and you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments.
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We are joined now by National Political Reporter for the Wall Street Journal Ken Thomas to talk about those Clinton-Epstein deposition videos that have been released.
The committee wanted to get more information on any knowledge they might have about Jeffrey Epstein and his activities.
The House Oversight Committee is doing an investigation into how the government investigated these cases.
And so there was a long-standing legal battle here between the Clintons and their lawyers and members of the committee on whether or not the Clintons should have to testify.
There was a threat to hold them in contempt.
And then finally, the Clintons agreed to do this deposition, which we saw on Thursday and Friday.
They wanted to have a public hearing, and the agreement was that it would be videotaped.
It's edited in the sense that there were moments when they had to go off the record.
But for the most part, any viewer who watches these videos start to finish will get a real sense of what it was like in the room, beginning with introductions, with an opening statement from either Clinton and then a questioning from both the majority and the minority.
Well, I think the majority of the committee felt like it was in their best interest to simply do it this way.
And I think the agreement was also that this would allow the Clintons to just simply do this in their hometown, that they wouldn't have to come down to Washington and have a big production.
But I think from the Clinton standpoint, they felt like the Republicans didn't want it to be a public forum because they were afraid that the optics would be bad, that it might conjure up the Hillary Clinton-Benghazi hearing of more than a decade ago, in which the Republicans on that committee didn't really come out that well.
I think if you start with Hillary Clinton's testimony, she went first last Thursday.
She was adamant that she really had no relationship with Jeffrey Epstein at all.
And I think her posture was just, why am I here?
You know, there's a moment early on.
It was much more of a tense hearing, I would say, deposition.
There was a moment about an hour into the session in which the Clinton legal team learned that photographs of Hillary Clinton from within the deposition room had been leaked to a social media influencer.
It was out on social media, and that was in violation of the rules.
And I think as a result, you saw this very strong reaction from Hillary Clinton.
She was very upset that these photos had been leaked.
And so it was much more of a tense hearing.
She really did not feel like she could add much to the committee's understanding.
Whereas with Bill Clinton, Well, so before we go into Bill Clinton, let's actually show that part that you were talking about of former Secretary Clinton at the deposition.
Here it is.
unidentified
And this is an email.
This is an invitation to the fundraiser where you were there.
You're showing me an email from someone who I don't recall knowing about a fundraiser that wasn't for me but was for Congresswoman Lowy.
I have no information.
I went to the fundraiser to support my friend Nia Lowy.
unidentified
All right.
Excuse me, can I interrupt?
I have another photos that are being released of the Secretary as she is testifying from inside this room.
Can you please advise me as to whether or not that's permissible and consistent with the rules, particularly given that we have asked for a public hearing?
If there are photos that are being released of the secretary as she is testifying, can you please explain how we're going to do that?
So now on the Bill Clinton side of things, I think there was a lot more material to work through.
You know, Bill Clinton talked about that he first became connected to Jeffrey Epstein in his post-presidency through Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary.
Summers said, you know, that this is someone who has a large plane and could take you and your staff and the Secret Service to the places you need to go to establish your foundation.
And really all he wants in exchange is this is after his president.
And in exchange, really, Summers said you just have to sit with Jeffrey Epstein for an hour, talk politics, talk economics, that kind of thing.
And so, you know, for a foundation that was just getting off the ground that was interested in doing work to reduce the cost of AIDS medication around the world, this seemed like a nice arrangement.
And, you know, the thing that Clinton said throughout is that there was nothing that he saw or learned that would have indicated that Epstein was involved in any of this malfeasance.
And he also, during the testimony, I thought was interesting, he talks about a conversation he had with Donald Trump at the time.
Trump was, this was in around 2002, 2003.
He talks about being at a charity golf tournament and Trump brought up, hey, I heard you have flown on Jeffrey Epstein's plane.
And what Clinton said about the conversation is that Trump said, you know, we used to be friends, but we had this falling out over a land deal.
And so it seems to establish that this, you know, there was a real estate deal that had gone bad, and that's what led to Trump and Epstein having a breakup.
But the thing Clinton did say is that there was nothing that Trump said that indicated Trump knew of anything, you know, any criminal behavior or anything like that.
Moving on to Virginia Roberts Duffrey, are you familiar with her?
As has already been established, she has stated in numerous sworn statements, including a sworn deposition in the deposition in the Maxwell trial, that she saw you on the island with Jeffrey Epstein.
And in fact, this morning, her family shared her diary with me.
And in it is a quote wherein she writes, quote, Bill Clinton met two times island with two girls, C T G M and J E. What is your reaction to that?
It's one that we heard from the Clintons throughout that they feel like all of the files should be released, that you should just simply allow the public to see this information.
Obviously, some things would have to be redacted just given the nature of these crimes.
But, you know, I think that's something that the Clintons would agree with.
Jimbo in Bakersfield, California says, can Mr. Thomas speak about the betrayal so many MAGA Republicans feel about the clear violations of the Epstein Files Transparency Act by the Trump Justice Department?
Wasn't learning the truth about all of this a cornerstone of the MAGA movement?
It speaks to how divisive this issue has been within Trump's coalition.
There were a lot of people who voted the president, who consider themselves part of the MAGA movement, who feel like this Epstein case has not been handled as well as it should have been, and that there should have been more transparency.
And part of what attracted them to this movement was this idea that A populist movement, that the idea that the president would take on these powerful elites who often got away with things that they shouldn't have been able to.
And one thing that they did produce was this idea that Ghillene Maxwell's, one of her relatives worked for Hillary Clinton at the State Department, had also worked for her on the campaign.
And Hillary Clinton said, actually, I didn't even know that this person was related to Maxwell.
So the ties to Hillary seemed very specious.
And you have to remember that, you know, when President Clinton was setting up his foundation in 2001, 2002, she was a new senator from New York.
So she didn't really have any dealings with any of these people because she had a day job here in Washington.
The caller identifies a really interesting point here in that Democrats on the House Oversight Committee feel like a precedent has now been set in which a congressional committee can call a former president, a former first lady under subpoena and have them testify before the committee.
And so as a result, I think Democrats are going to say that we should be able to depose President Trump or perhaps the First Lady in the future.
I think it's probably a long shot that this could happen while President Trump is in the White House.
I'm sure it would be a huge legal fight over separation of powers and that sort of thing.
But I think certainly Democrats feel like a precedent has been made here.
I mean, she doesn't really recollect ever meeting him.
You know, there was this one meeting, this event, this White House Historical Association event while Bill Clinton was president, in which Jeffrey Epstein appeared.
There was a photo.
But what Hillary Clinton would say to that is, you know, when you're first lady, you meet thousands of people.
I mean, just in the holidays alone, you know, those holiday parties have huge crowds each year.
And so she just doesn't remember meeting him.
And then once President Clinton was, you know, associated with him in 2001, 2002, she was in the Senate.
They said that Maxwell was a plus-one, that she was, you know, involved with someone who was a donor of the Clinton Foundation who went to the wedding.
So I think the relationship, the relationship with Maxwell seemed to be more extensive with Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton than Jeffrey Epstein because of this relationship she had with a donor.
And we will be airing the full deposition for you.
It's going to be on C-SPAN 3.
That starts tonight, 8 p.m. on C-SPAN 3.
Again, C-SPAN 3, also on our app, C-SPANNOW, C-SPAN.org.
It starts with former President Bill Clinton.
After his deposition, we will air Hillary Clinton's deposition.
You can watch all that.
If you can't watch tonight, you can go ahead and start watching on our website as well.
Bill in Alabama, Independent Line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Yes, good morning.
Mr. Thomas, just my call was to bring up about the fact that Ghillen was at Chelsea's wedding.
And a gentleman just said that, well, Hillary knew Ghelene really well.
And she never met Jeffrey Epstein.
As good of friends as she was with Ghelane, she didn't have any idea who Jeffrey Epstein was.
I find that really interesting that if you have a friend and you know their wife really well, nine times out of ten, you know the husband or their partner, boyfriend, whatever the case may be.
And Bill Clinton didn't realize that Jeffrey was there 17 times.
We need to look at the records on who visited him when he was president.
And did Epstein go in and meet with the president?
Not the White House, the president.
And Hillary, I think she's lying, but we all find that kind of interesting, don't we?