James Jacoby and Charlie Cook dissect the 2026 midterms and escalating U.S.-Iran war, where President Trump's $18 trillion investment claim clashes with an $11.3 billion first-week conflict cost. While Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismisses the Geneva Conventions as "stupid," Cook notes only 40-45 competitive districts remain despite Democrats leading generic ballots by 3-10 points. Jacoby clarifies Israel's "preventive war" doctrine following intelligence on replenished missile stockpiles, even as Supreme Leader Mustapha Khamenei vows revenge for the Minab school strike. Ultimately, deep partisan sorting and fixed voter loyalties suggest the party holding the White House will likely lose seats despite ongoing geopolitical volatility. [Automatically generated summary]
Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, along with your calls and comments live, Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report on Campaign 2026, the impact of the war in Iran, and other political news of the week.
And then documentary director James Jacoby will talk about his PBS frontline film, Remaking the Middle East, which includes analysis of the recent U.S.-Israel operations in Iran and how it could impact the region.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal is next.
Join the conversation.
Good morning.
It's Thursday, March 12th.
We're less than eight months from the 2026 midterm elections, and voters across the country are already signaling what matters most to them in primaries and special elections and in the conversations happening in the communities.
The economy and cost of living, immigration, healthcare, and foreign policy are all shaping the debate as campaigns sharpen their messages ahead of November.
Control of the House and Senate will be on the line this fall.
So this morning, we're asking, what is your top issue heading into the midterm elections?
What's driving your vote?
And why does it matter where you live?
Here are the numbers.
Democrats, 202-748-8,000.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
And Independents, 202-748-8,002.
You can send a text to 202-748-8003, include your first name in your city-state.
And you can reach us on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
A quick update before we get to our calls.
This is from Axios.
Trump Oil Reserves Drive Gas Prices00:02:23
Trump will tap oil reserve as Iran war drives up gas prices.
It says that the Energy Secretary Chris Wright said yesterday the International Energy Agency unanimously agreed to President Trump's request to coordinate the release of 400 million barrels of oil and refined products from its reserves.
Consumers are seeing significant price jumps at the pump, and Republicans recognize offsetting that increase is crucial ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Well, that is our topic this morning, and President Trump was at a fulfillment order fulfillment center in Kentucky.
Here's a portion where he talks about the economy.
A short time ago, under Biden and his allies at Congress, we had a dead, we were dead as a door now.
We were a dead country, I'll tell you, and it looked like we weren't going to come back.
Now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world.
This is the hottest country anywhere in the world, most powerful military.
The stock market is set 53 all-time record highs since the election, all-time.
And the typical American's 401k is up by almost $35,000 since I took office.
And in four years, Joe Biden got less than $1 trillion of new investment into the United States.
So think of this.
$1 trillion over a period of much less over a period of four years.
We got $18 trillion.
And Jake Paul knows what that means.
$18 trillion in 11 months because they haven't calculated the 12 months.
So we have 18 trillion in 11 months.
Say in a year, what difference does it make?
Compared to less than substantially less than $1 trillion in four years, you would say they're not doing, they didn't do a good job.
Taking your calls this morning, take a look at an MBC poll that was done on March 8th asking what's the most important issue facing the country and at the top, tied for the top, inflation and cost of living at 26% and threats to democracy at 26%.
Undermining Democracy Through Election Disruption00:14:06
Then, followed by immigration border security is at 13%, jobs and the economy 11%, cost of health care at 7%, and then affordable housing at 6%.
Well, here is Democratic Senator Brian Chatz of Hawaii.
He was on the Senate floor yesterday talking about Defense Secretary Pete Hegset's handling of the war.
And this one might be the most bizarre.
We're going to go on offense, not just on defense.
Maximum lethality, not tepid legality.
This is from the Secretary of Defense.
Maximum lethality, not tepid legality.
Violent effect, not politically correct.
We're going to raise up warriors, not just defenders.
This is the man overseeing the most powerful military force in the history of the world, spelling out his unique and unlawful theory of action.
He finds the Geneva Conventions and our rules of engagement not just logistically inconvenient, but to use his own word, stupid.
Stupid.
And as we're seeing in real time, there are moral and strategic consequences for the callousness and the sloppiness atop the chain of command.
We are taking your calls this morning on your top issue heading into the midterm elections.
Michael Ashburn, Virginia, Republican, you're up first.
Hi, good morning.
How are you?
Good.
Yeah, I used to, I think I called it here about a couple years ago.
And I was a huge Trump supporter.
I was behind him 100%.
And I can tell you right now that I am 180 on him after this war that he started.
I mean, there's been a few things leading up to it, but I think when you add everything up, everything that he ran on, he ran on the Ukraine war.
He ran on the Epstein files.
He ran on not starting any new wars.
And he's just been the complete opposite.
But the one thing that I have noticed is that some people that support him will support him unconditionally.
And that's fine.
They have that right.
But I just can't do it anymore.
So, Michael, what does that mean for your vote in November?
Are you going to vote for a Democrat?
I'm going to have to.
I never have.
I think the only Democrat that I've voted for before was James Webb from Virginia.
I thought he was a very decent man.
I didn't think he got a fair shot when he was running for president in 2016.
I thought he was a very centered Democrat.
And unfortunately, that's what I'm going to do.
So I've never done it before.
So, Michael, I've got a question.
I've got a question for you, because this is in today's Washington Times.
It's a commentary, and it's about Glenn Yunken.
It says, run, Glenn, run.
And this commentator is urging the former governor of Virginia, Glenn Yunken, to run against Mark Warner for his seat in the Senate.
What do you think of that?
If he were to run, would you vote for him or would you vote for Mark Warner?
What are you thinking as far as Senate in Virginia?
I mean, that's tough because I thought that Glenn Youngkin was a good governor for Virginia.
I think he did a good job.
I don't the other thing I feel about Glenn Young is he is not somebody that Trump is going to be able to pull around like a cow with a ring in his nose.
I think he's a very independent thinker.
I don't know if that's 100%, but I don't think he is.
I don't think he's a Lindsey Graham type, is what I should say.
Lindsey Graham, you can lead that guy to a bowl of crap and he'll eat it.
Or Trump.
All right, Michael, let's talk to Mitchell next.
New Jersey, line for Democrats.
Go ahead, Mitchell.
Good morning.
My issues going into the midterms.
Well, my first issue is healthcare.
The Trump administration, through their big, beautiful bill, has really decimated, and they will be decimating the healthcare system.
There are enormous cuts going on in Medicaid, almost a trillion dollars.
The spending bill triggers a half a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare, not Medicaid, Medicare.
A lot of people don't realize that because of the PAGO laws that we have in this country.
He's not funded an increase in the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.
So people are going to get knocked off with that.
And it's really just a complete decimation of the U.S. health care system, which is really our biggest driver of debt in this country.
And to pretend that he's created something is really laughable.
My other issue I think would be the big issue, actually, is what's going on with immigration.
Closing the borders is one thing.
Trying to round up every single person who is undocumented in this country for decades is absurd.
It can't be done without massive civil rights abuses and without causing tremendous chaos and pain and actually an economic demise of this country too, because we do need immigrants.
So I would say those two issues are paramount in my mind.
And this is not to say that, you know, the Democrat alternative I'm satisfied with all the time, but this is just, it's got to stop.
And we've got to wake up and try to have something more reasonable and more focused on what's really going on in this country.
And those are my issues that are moving me.
Okay, in Colorado, Independent Line, you're on the air.
Good morning.
Yes.
I'm calling the top issue I'm wondering about right now is the casualties in reference to this conflict or war that's going on in the Middle East.
I saw on DW News that the German hospital was getting ready for a lot more casualties, American casualties.
And I'm wondering, do you guys have any information or news on actually how many the death toll is for our American soldiers over there?
I read on DW News that it's like over 100 right now Casualties.
And I'm wondering if you guys have any more news on that.
I don't see anything on the local American news.
Thank you.
Okay, yeah.
The DW is Deutsche Vella.
Let's look that up for you, Kay, and see what we can find.
George in Chicago, Illinois.
Democrat, you're on the air.
What's your top issue heading into the midterms?
Good morning.
My issue is we have to start using common sense.
I know that doesn't work.
However, we also need journalists.
There is no journalist anymore.
It's a shame.
What I'm trying to say is I have more comments than really issues.
You have more comments than you have issues?
Is that what you said?
Yes.
Like what?
Comments like what?
Well, PDS, stage four.
People have to take a deep breath and relax.
You know, stop listening to Boring Joe and CNN and all these people.
Like I said before, we have no more journalists.
And it's a shame.
Unfortunately, that includes you guys too.
Here's Gwen in Detroit, Michigan.
Democrat, you're on the air.
Hi.
Thanks for taking my call.
This is Gwen from Detroit.
And I'm a Democrat.
And what I'm concerned about the election is Trump trying to disrupt the election and doing all types of shenanigans.
Not just Trump, but the Republicans.
And also, they need to do something about ICE.
I'm concerned about ICE.
They have no rules that they don't have to follow any rule.
They're not held accountable.
And Trump, the same, he's not being held accountable.
He's got reckless actions getting us into a World War III, you know, and he needs to be removed from office.
So those are my concerns.
And a high price of living is cost too much to do anything these days to buy gas, to buy food, to pay rent.
So it's a lot of things.
And I think the Democrats in Washington, they need to let the people know how they can change what's going on.
So that's what I'm concerned about.
And I hope people vote blue because red is not doing it.
All right, Gwen.
And regarding casualties in the war, this is the Hill from the day before yesterday.
Pentagon says 140 U.S. service members wounded since Iran war started.
That is the official numbers from the Pentagon on those that are wounded.
And here's what Steve says on Facebook: his top issue is reducing executive power, overreach, and corruption by electing representatives that will do their jobs rather than rubber stamp anything the president does.
JS says the SAVE Act, voting or anyone against it.
Well, regarding the SAVE Act, here is Chuck Schumer.
He was on the Senate floor yesterday talking about the SAVE Act.
Donald Trump has said it himself.
He said if Republicans can pass the SAVE Act, it'll guarantee the midterms.
Let me read that again.
Donald Trump says if Republicans pass the SAVE Act, it'll guarantee the midterms.
This is outrageous.
Undermine democracy, prevent people from voting in a democracy, and that's the only way you can win.
That's not democracy, Donald Trump.
That's autocracy.
Letting you or Doge or Musk pick who's taking off the rolls and not even notifying them when they show up to vote and they say you're no longer on the rolls, you're purged.
That's not democracy.
But Donald Trump doesn't believe in democracy.
He sees he's losing the election because he's not dealing with the issues Democrats are pounding away on, costs, corruption, chaos.
So he says, let's undermine democracy.
Let's kick millions off the voter rolls, make millions that we choose.
It's outrageous.
The SAVE Act is nothing more than Jim Crow.
It could disenfranchise millions of American citizens, American citizens.
We're not talking about immigrants.
We're talking about American citizens that are going to be kicked off the rolls, lots of them.
It'll make it far more harder.
It'll make it far harder for people to register to vote.
It'll take away vote by mail.
It'll eliminate online registration.
All of these tried and true and safe ways to participate in democracy, but Trump wants to take them away.
We know what's going on.
Donald Trump knows that November is starting to look disastrous for him.
And Republicans are seeing the same thing.
So the only shot of winning in Trump's mind is to cheat.
The only shot of winning this election for Donald Trump is to cheat.
It's to undermine democracy.
This is ghastly.
This is one of the worst things we've seen in America in a very long time.
But Donald Trump has made it clear.
He's telling Republican senators, he's telling Republican House members, either help me undermine democracy or I'll take Congress and all legislation hostage.
We're taking your calls this morning on your top issue heading into the midterm elections, and we'll hear from Betty in Blacksburg, South Carolina, Republican.
Hi, Betty.
Republicans Threaten to Hostage Legislation00:16:08
Yeah.
Chuck Schubert, he just stood right there and lied.
Everything he says is a lie.
Him Jeffers too.
They just lie.
The Democrats, the one that follows them, they just lie.
They're the cause of all of this, and they just keep on.
It ain't Donald Trump.
Donald Trump was trying to save the American people.
And if I'd been him, I wouldn't have done the job.
Because he has tried to help people.
So, Betty, getting back to our topic, the midterm elections, what's the one issue that you're really thinking about?
November, anybody that all these people vote Democrats, they're the cause of this.
It was not like this when Trump came in the first time.
This was not going on.
It went on when Biden come in, like all them people come across the border.
When you find out that all these people that come across the border, like at the grocery stores, when you ain't got no food, thank Biden.
Nick in Michigan, line for Democrats.
You're on the air.
Hi, Minnie.
I have called only three times in all of 2025, and I think only once this year.
I've been a Democrat all my life.
I mean, I've been a registered Democrat since 1992 when I voted for Bill Clinton, despite everything I knew about him, and I don't regret my vote because I voted because of the economy.
That was my number one issue even back 34 years ago.
However, I'm extremely disappointed at today's Democrats.
I mean, both in my state of Michigan, there is not a single Democrat that I will vote for in November.
I think they are disgusting.
Schumer, the guy is my own age, and he looks 10 years older than I am, and I look 10 years younger than I am.
And I wouldn't buy a used car from this guy.
The other guy, Jeffries, what's the story with him?
I mean, it's ridiculous.
Okay, so back to the economy.
The problem with the economy is Medicare.
Medicare is bankrupting our nation.
And that's why the Republicans are trying to do something with Trump.
And I don't know what they will accomplish, but unless we cut to the bone health care costs without reducing further the quality of health care, the U.S. will go bankrupt.
And I say that, and I'm an optimist.
So, Nick, are you on Medicare?
Yeah, of course.
I'm in 80% on Medicare and 20% from my former employer.
And I pay an arm and a leg every year.
Now that I'm retired, I pay an arm and a leg for my health insurance.
So how do you want Medicare to be improved?
You said not harming the level of care, but making it cheaper.
So how do you do that?
It's extremely easy.
Don't let the hospitals charge $20 for a $1 piece of cotton.
If somebody else pays for your health care, you don't care.
If somebody else pays for your health care, you don't care if they charge $20 for a piece of cotton or $1.
So we have to have more participation, higher deductibles, higher co-pays, and especially reduce the costs.
Send some team there to reduce health care because it's impossible to continue like that.
You have this chart that you saw all the time, which I think is a bit scaremongering, which shows the national debt.
And when you go down that chart, you see that the total of Social Security payments is only $1.3 billion a year, and the total of Medicare is 1.7.
Now, the other way to reduce Medicare and improve health care is when Americans learn how to eat, and when they live more healthy, they exercise more, but especially when they learn how to eat properly.
And this guy, Kelly, the RFK, I don't agree with him on the vaccine issue.
I'm a big proponent of vaccines, but the guy's comments on the awful things Americans eat, both at the restaurants and at the supermarket, he's absolutely right.
And when people get educated and change their diets, then we'll have less sick people and then healthcare would be more solvent.
All right.
Well, that was Nick, a Democrat.
This is the result of the poll, the NBC poll that asked which party do you prefer to control, Congress?
And 50% of respondents said Democrats, 44% said Republicans, and 6% said they were not sure.
Let's hear from James in Maryland, a Republican.
Hi, James.
That's going to be quickly.
One second.
Thank you.
I'll shut my window so the back noise isn't.
Good morning, and thanks for taking our calls.
It's, again, just a continual cycle of messaging.
And it doesn't matter what side of the spectrum you're on, it's just messaging.
In my 58 years of life, I have a real understanding as to what our government has done for us citizens based on lived experience, not based on messaging.
The problem that I have is that the people in office today that are telling us to listen to them are the same people who told us in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s what to do.
And very and very interestingly enough, all of those people get federal pensions and federal insurance programs and privilege reimbursement programs and other entities of privilege that exist by working for state and/or federal government.
So my issue going into this election is purely this: let every person in this country eat Social Security and eliminate federal and state taxpayer-contributed pension funds because it's absolutely insane to me that I'm going to work my whole life and think that somebody that all of my money going into Social Security, the few thousand bucks they're going to give me back in a, you know, in a monthly stipend, and then they're going to tax it.
Well, thanks to this president, at least maybe it won't be taxed when I decide to take it.
But the sheer fact that the pandering messaging comes from those who profit the most.
And the real truth to the Epstein files can be seen in tracing the money to the Clinton Foundation because the billionaires and billionaires that used him for opportunity also contributed to that same opportunity.
So I hope that they dig deep.
And lastly, I want America to understand that only some victims matter because Bill Cosby raped like 41 women and nobody seems outraged about that.
So Lamar Jackson, congratulations on your big payday again.
I'm James Lester in Alabama, aligned for Democrats.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mami.
How are you?
Good.
Mami, probably in that last caller, it seems like Republicans have some serious issues with them.
I was at the hospital last night at the emergency room talking to this young lady.
She had just had her first baby, and she was telling my wife about the complication she had and what she didn't have.
Her insurance did not pay for certain things that the insurance should have paid for.
I'm 69 years old, and I can tell you, when I had our first child, insurance paid for everything.
Nowadays, they don't pay for anything.
Women's rights is a big issue nowadays.
I see these Republicans, they cutting everything.
I mean, how do women supposedly live in America, the greatest country in the world?
We can drop bombs all day long, but we can't take health care for our citizens.
Something is very wrong with this picture.
This administration, since they came into office, looked like they should be running a China shop, not even this.
This is a miracle.
And for the American people, especially the lady just calling from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham down there, them two should sleep together because they are two of a kind.
Lizzy Graham, God bless your soul, sir, but you're screwing this country up and you did it from day one.
Mami, y'all have a great day.
And regarding the cost of the war, the Pentagon is saying, according to reporting from the AP, the first week of the war with Iran cost the United States $11.3 billion.
The Pentagon provided the estimate to Congress in a briefing earlier this week, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Also, regarding Iran, the new supreme leader, Mustafa Khamenei, hasn't yet made a statement or been seen since being chosen to succeed his father.
However, the Iranian president said that for the war to end, the world would need to recognize Iran's, quote, legitimate rights, pay reparations, and offer guarantees against future attacks.
This is Ken, Staten Island, New York, Republican.
Hi, Ken.
Hi, Halliou.
Good morning.
Thank you for the call.
The concerns I have for this midterm elections are very simply this.
It's a conditioning of America.
People speak with authority about stuff that they are just echoing.
They're echoing left or right, mostly on the right, the MAGAs.
I'm a Republican.
I'm a Cheney Republican.
The Kinsa Republican, better known as Constitutional Republican.
And it's a lot of echoing from people.
They don't realize they're the ones that are getting hurt.
Okay, number one.
Number two, integrity of messaging.
Everyone's lying.
Trump is just a water hydrant of lies that go unchecked.
Nobody, is anybody speaking to the man?
We've known about closing of the Straits of Hormone since the 70s when Iran was our ally and the adversary was Iraq.
We built up the Iranian military.
We had phantoms, fast attack boats and everything.
So it was an ally.
We know the results of closing the straits.
So the imperative and top strategic and economic mission of the United States is keep that straight open, regardless of who's in power.
Now, Trump had to know, because I know, I'm not even in the circle.
By attacking Iran, they have the ability to close the straits.
And by choking off 20% of the oil's economy, it's going to come home to roost.
The Iraqi war sent us into a ridiculous deficit.
And this is going to do the same.
And there's no end in sight for this.
If you slap somebody in the face and say, now, don't slap me back and slap them for five minutes.
Going back to the midterm elections, what are you going to do as far as your vote?
Are you going to go with a Democrat?
Are you going to stick with a Republican?
What are you thinking?
Well, obviously, the Republicans are compromised.
It's not the same Republican Party that Reagan.
You know, Putin is not our friend.
China is not our friend.
Iran is a regional problem for Israel, not America.
And this is the first time in American history where a foreign nation has dictated when America goes to war.
Even Churchill couldn't do that with FDR during World War II.
We had to go to Congress and ask for a declaration of war.
This guy's just starting a war on nearly grilled.
So it's unconstitutional.
It hasn't been looked into.
This is going to be an endless money drain and a lives and America prestige and interests.
All right, Ken.
That was my comment.
Thank you.
And let's go back to Facebook.
Joanelle says that the top issue is the economy, as always.
She says Republicans always mess it up, start wars, inflate debts, and so on.
Time to take the country back from special interests.
Kurt says it was affordability until very recently.
I believe it's the Iran war now.
I'm really worried that our president has no idea what he's doing, and he's doing far too much of it.
And Daniel said, the fact that there still aren't any investigations looking into anyone alleged in the Epstein files.
Steve says, avoid having a Democrat-led House solely focused on impeachment and obstruction.
It would be worse than a shutdown.
We have too much to do to play politics.
And Tony, Independent Line, Connecticut, you're on the air, Tony.
Morning, Meanie.
What a topic again this morning, huh?
Boy, as it gets going.
A couple of things.
First off, let me answer your question about my top issue heading into the midterm election, and that's the economy.
I'm retired.
My 401 has been just going bonkers.
It's going great.
I'm making more money, just like in 2016 to 20, I made more money.
I'm afraid that these Democrats are going to screw it up.
A couple of questions here is I noticed for the last couple of weeks, you haven't put down the partial government shutdown in your lower right-hand corner.
That happened to be the same day that CNN stopped Thursday.
I wonder why we did that.
We kept up the 42 days for the government shutdown, and I'm channel surfing in between things.
And TSA is incredible.
I mean, the lines that people are, TSA people are quitting.
There's not a peep.
I don't hear a peep out there.
When it was the 42-day shutdown, oh, my God, it was the end of the world.
Things were going to go haywire because the TSA was down.
Now you don't talk anything about that.
The other thing is $1 billion a day for what we're doing for safety in the world and get rid of Iran.
We gave about $345 billion under Biden.
We just gave it away to, and they didn't even know where the heck all that money went to.
Nobody raised a peeba about that.
I didn't hear that on the Democrat side or ISA.
All right, well, let's take a look at a portion from the Senate floor yesterday.
This is Democratic Senator Patty Murray talking about the partial government shutdown and funding for Homeland Security.
But I'm here today to give Republicans another opportunity to do the right thing and ask my Republican colleagues to put politics aside for a moment.
Work with us to get TSA and FEMA funded now and press ahead to rein in ICE and Border Patrol.
Mr. President, my colleagues know me.
They know I will talk to anyone who is serious about getting results.
But the problem right now, the reason we are here at an impasse, is not because Democrats don't want a deal.
That's ridiculous.
It is not because we aren't willing to talk.
I've been talking to my colleagues across the aisle all week.
The problem is that Republicans are still refusing to agree to basic measures that we need to protect Americans' basic rights and their safety, the same measures we have been demanding for weeks as part of these negotiations.
Look, this just isn't complicated.
Democrats' position here is simple.
Protecting Voting Rights Against GOP Plans00:17:45
We want reforms to rein in ICE and Border Patrol.
We also want TSA and FEMA funded, but we are not going to be blackmailed into cutting a blank check for ICE to get it done.
So I hope Republicans stop listening to Stephen Miller and start getting serious about reform or at the very least stop blocking the funding for TSA and FEMA and Coast Guard and more while these negotiations on ICE and Border Patrol continue.
And the last caller did mention $345 billion from the Biden administration to Iran.
That is on Snopes.
If you would like to take a look at that fact check, it says claims Biden unfroze $16 billion for Iran are missing contacts.
It says that they're rating that as a mixture.
They said what is true is that the Biden administration enabled Iran to access $6 billion in frozen assets through a prisoner exchange deal.
That was August of 2023.
It also renewed 2018 sanctions waiver for Iraq on November 2024, allowing Iraq to continue to purchase energy from Iran, which provided Iran access to approximately $10 billion in Iraqi payments.
What's false?
The sanctions waiver was a routine renewal that has occurred nearly two dozen times since 2018, including during the first Trump administration.
Additionally, U.S. and Qatari officials agreed to restrict Iran's access to the $6 billion prisoner exchange funds following Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel.
So that's at Snopes.
If you would like to take a look and learn more about the money that was released to Iran.
Eric, Buffalo, New York.
Democrat, you're on the air, Eric.
Yeah, what worries me about the midterms is these Republicans just will not face the fact and will take us down this new world because if they let Donald Trump do what he wants to do with the voting situation, there will be no looking back.
They will destroy this country.
But I don't understand how you can follow a man that has lied about every single thing he has done.
And the amazing thing to me is the Republicans will listen to anything.
If gas prices are high during Democrat, it's the end of the world.
If he runs the gas prices up, it's okay.
Accept a little pang.
This man is taking us down a direction that there may not be no return if these Republicans don't wake up.
They talk about this God.
It's not God is not giving this man and doing what they think this man is doing.
God might be revealing to the Republicans.
If you call yourself a Christian, God said, judge a tree by its fruit.
Now, where would Donald Trump do he bear any fruit when you were poor?
When you're poor, he's selling you sneakers, fakes, jeans, watches, ties.
I mean, come on now.
This man is for self, self-only, and he only picked people that bow down to him.
So we need a change, a change.
Here's Mark, Republican, Hampstead, Maryland.
Good morning, Mark.
Hey, good morning.
So I was actually going to save my call until you guys had an open forum because I was thinking about calling in and giving the Democrats a little history lesson on the evils of socialism, which killed more than 100 million people in the 20th century in the name of social justice and equity.
But after you played that clip of Chuck Schumer carrying on about the Save Act and democracy, I got to point something out.
They stopped teaching civics in the 1960s, and it's very intentional that Hollywood and the media and our school teachers have been telling us for a very long time that we live in a democracy.
If you listen to Chuck Schumer talk, he's going to ruin our democracy.
We do not live in a democracy.
Democracy is a hellhole.
If you read the Federalist papers, you'll find out exactly what the Founding Fathers thought about democracy.
We're a constitutional republic.
We do not have a majoritarian system.
If we actually lived in a democracy, 51% of the population could decide to seize 49% of the population's private property.
You could do that in a democracy.
Thank God we don't live in one.
The thing about the SAVE Act is, it's not ruining democracy to insist that people show ID to vote.
Democrats are constantly bringing up Jim Crow.
They're saying, oh, the Republicans are going to bring back Jim Crow.
And the implication, of course, what they don't say, but what they imply is that it was Republicans that must have been responsible for Jim Crow the first time.
So, Mark, let me ask you about the SAVE Act.
You did mention the provision about showing ID, picture ID, but there's also getting rid of mail-in voting, except in certain cases like military overseas, things like that.
Yeah.
You agree with that as well?
Yeah.
Mimi, I'll answer that as soon as you give me a moment to finish my thought.
I was just about to say it was Democrats who actually did Jim Crow.
No Republican legislator ever passed any segregation laws in this country.
That was 100% Democrats.
Number two, Jimmy Carter did a study years ago on mail-in voting.
No civilized country on the planet does mail-in voting.
Even the Carter Commission figured out that mail-in voting is the most insecure way to vote.
The only reason we did it is because we had a psyop going on called COVID, which was meant to fearmonger and make people stay in their houses.
And the Democrats milked it for all it was worth because they wanted to say, oh, well, you can't go stand in a line to vote.
Yet it was perfectly okay to go out and burn and loot things in the name of social justice.
These Democrats are demons.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, we're not calling Democrats demons.
That's evil spirits.
We're not doing that, Mark.
Sorry.
This is another Mark, Floral Park, New York, Independent Line.
Go ahead, Mark.
Hello, Mimi.
Good morning.
Yeah, this is another Mark.
I think there are three things we have to worry about here.
Number one is protection, economic protection, and protection from our enemies.
We have to worry about the economy, and we have to worry about corruption.
President Trump protects himself.
That means he's going to protect America.
He's going to protect a country like Israel, which he has proved, and he has uncovered that Iran would have had the power to ruin Israel and beat Israel easily.
As good as Israel is, they wouldn't have stand the chance against Iran.
The fact that Iran's still standing.
So I think protectionists against the economy and our foes are most important in 2026.
All right, Mark.
Let's talk to Susan next.
Lady Lake Florida, Republican line.
Good morning.
Good morning.
The biggest issue that I have is this Save America Act.
I am afraid that it's not going to get passed.
The Democrats are holding so far, and it is such a shame that I heard Chuck Schumer's rant earlier saying that the president does not know what democracy is.
I'm afraid that he shows that he does not know what democracy is.
They are so concerned about the wrong things.
They really need to be concerned about just making sure that the right people are voting.
And the fact that they say that it's racist for people to have to show an idea in IG is absolutely unbelievable.
And there have been many people of color who have said that they are offended by that way of thinking.
So that's just something that concerns me.
It should pass, but I don't think it will.
Thank you.
All right.
And this going back to Facebook, Wendy says that her biggest issue is the debt and the interest on the debt.
The deficit is still running at $2 trillion a year, $39 trillion, and climbing.
And Eric says his biggest issue is doing everything in my power to retake gun rights in New York State, organizing, also reducing the cost of living.
Grant, Democrat, Rochester, New York, good morning.
Yeah, good morning.
It's three things from you.
It's Maine, Florida, Ohio, keep Georgia, get Michigan back, get Alaska, and win Texas, and make D.C. Puerto Rican statehood so we could make Idaho and Wyoming irrelevant.
And one more thing, back in 2000, what was the purpose for voting for George Bush?
Republicans keep talking about deficits.
Couldn't have a surplus.
Soon as you get Republicans in there, you screw stuff up.
You're screwing stuff up now.
But in a way, I like it because America wants chaos.
This is what they want, and this is what they got.
And for me, it was just not voting for a black lady.
Seriously, because this don't make sense what this guy's doing here.
He's not doing anything.
They only passed the what? Make America bill, whatever that is that they passed.
They didn't pass anything.
Biting passed mad legislative stuff.
You know, because infrastructure, he passed college.
He got the college thing done.
Supreme Court shot that down.
It's just like, I don't know, the country like chaos.
And I don't know.
But this is United States of America.
All right, Grant.
Let's hear from House Speaker Mike Johnson.
He spoke at the House GOP retreat earlier this week in Florida talking about immigration enforcement.
We got a little hiccup with some of the Hispanic and Latino voters for certain because some of the immigration enforcement was viewed to be overzealous and everybody can describe it differently.
But here's the good news.
We're in a course correction mode right now.
We're going to have a new Secretary of Homeland Security, Mark Wayne Mullen, is going to be doing a great job in that role.
I'm sure that he'll be confirmed by the Senate.
He's a thoughtful guy.
He'll bring a thoughtful approach.
You have somebody like Tom Holman, who has 40 years' experience in the field and was decorated by former Democrat presidents for his acumen and expertise.
And he went into Minneapolis and brought calm to the chaos there.
That's what you're going to see.
And I think that the Hispanic and Latino voters who came to us came for a number of reasons.
They were very animated about the open border and all the negative secondary effects that came from that.
But they also concerned about the cost of living and the lack of jobs and all these other things that everyone's concerned about.
So we have a great record to run on, Scott.
The reason we're going to win the midterms, the reason we're going to defy history and do it, is because a number of factors.
I have a very boring 90-minute slideshow that I could show you this morning, show you all the reasons we're going to win.
But we have great candidates.
We have a fundraising advantage right now.
We have much better policy and a strong record to run on.
And all these demographics of people are going to feel the positive effects of that.
We're anticipating extraordinary economic growth going into this year in the midterms.
All boats will rise.
Salaries and wages will go up.
You have bigger tax refunds and bigger paychecks, and the average family, $10,000 more money in their pocket because of Republican policies.
I think these people will see that we did what we said we were going to do.
We calmed down the immigration enforcement concern.
We uphold the rule of law, but we do it in a way that honors the dignity of everyone, and they'll understand that our party is with them, cares about them, and this is the permanent home where they should be.
So, Speaker of the House, we are asking you, what is your top issue heading into the midterm elections in November?
Ken in Queens, New York, Independent, what do you think?
Yes, I'm just wondering, since the beginning of this war, we have bombed with pinpoint precision thousands of targets.
If there are people in the Strait of Hormuz attacking our boats so they can't go through, why can we not bomb them out of existence?
Problem solved.
Is that your top issue, Ken, for the midterm?
Is the warning run?
Yes, absolutely.
And how are you feeling as far as how that's going, besides the Strait of Hormuz issue?
How is what going?
The execution of the conflict in Iran.
Are you feeling confident about it?
You feeling good about it?
Honestly, I am not confident with anything Trump does.
All right, let's talk to Debbie, Republican, Columbia, Missouri.
Good morning, Debbie.
Hi.
My most important issue for the midterm is having an honest election.
We need to re-register everyone with proof of citizenship.
Everyone has a birth certificate or naturalization papers, marriage licenses, if they've changed their name.
And we need to have in-person voting with ID proof of citizenship.
You want absolutely everybody to re-register to vote, the entire U.S. population?
Because the voter rolls are extremely dirty and fraudulent names of non-existent people and addresses.
Schumer is a complete liar.
Democrats want illegals to vote and just they just get names and addresses on these online voting and these motor booter things.
And there's no reason I shouldn't be there because illegals are voting.
What's your question?
Oh, here's Russell in San Jose, California.
Democrat, go ahead, Russell.
Good morning, America.
I just wanted to say immigration is number one for me.
And the reason why I say that immigration is number one for me is because I feel like our country has so many issues, and everybody's worried about the people that came here illegally with the so-called, I came here with $5 and I made this and I built the business.
And that's a lie.
Nobody can come into this country with $5 and build a business.
You have to have help from the taxpayers like me to give you free grants and food stamps and everything else.
Another issue I have for the midterms is people should not vote for people who don't back American citizens.
All this nonsense about, you know, I'm this, I'm that, what a former president did, that doesn't mean anything.
What means something right now is we're spending a billion dollars on the war.
How about we take that billion dollars?
We take care of the homeless people.
We take care of the people that can't afford to take care of their family.
We take care of the teachers.
We take care of the people in this country.
We shouldn't be worried about all these other countries.
It's upsetting to me to hear people talk about Biden this and Clinton this and Trump this.
How about we stop saying Republicans, independent Democrats?
How about we start saying let's take care of the American citizens first?
So again, for me, it's immigration.
The law is the law, it's the law.
So if you cannot take care of our citizens first, then we need to have term limits, get rid of everybody, and start over fresh.
Prioritizing American Citizens Over Foreign Wars00:04:57
All right, Russell.
Here's Doug in Forks, Washington, Republican.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Hey, you just showed that clip of Patty Murray talking on the floor, but what you didn't show was John Thune's response to her, plus a couple other Republicans that were in the chamber there.
So to get the full context, you should show what John Thune said back to her, that the White House has sent an offer and they haven't responded, and they won't talk to anybody like she says she wants to.
And anyway, I just would like you to play Thune's response.
But as far as the war, if they were going to have a nuclear weapon pretty soon that could hit the United States, well, you don't have to worry about the homeless or teachers or anybody if they throw some nukes at us.
And I don't care if they spend $50 billion on this war or $100 billion.
We blow so much money anyway, the government does on all this weird stuff.
And how much money have we spent in Ukraine?
So we don't have to worry about a few billion because it gets spent anyway.
And you would have thought that the military would have it on hand anyway when they got, what, a trillion dollars.
But anyway, that's all I have for you.
Thanks.
Alexis, Detroit, Michigan, Independent, you're on the air.
Yeah, another brilliant caller before me, real brilliant, had a really good point.
I'm being sarcastic.
My big issue is the debt.
And it has to do with what the earlier call, the person right before me said.
It does matter the billions that we're spending.
We are so far in debt in this country.
People just have no idea how this is going to impact us in a very short time.
And yet we go out and how much are we spending each day on the war?
And we're just going deeper and deeper in debt.
And I think this is the biggest, this is will be, this will be how the American state collapses.
And that's the last word for this segment.
Later on the Washington Journal, we'll have a conversation with James Jacobi.
He's the director of the PBS frontline documentary, Remaking the Middle East.
But first, it's the founder of the Cook Political Report, Charlie Cook.
He joins us for a deep dive into campaign 2026.
We'll be right back.
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Washington Journal continues.
Joining us to talk about the midterm elections is Charlie Cook.
He's the founder and a contributor to the Cook Political Report.
Charlie, welcome to the program.
Thanks for having me on, Mimi.
Midterm Elections: Party Losses in Congress00:09:13
So midterms, just over seven months away, historically, the party that holds the White House loses seats in the House and the Senate.
How are things looking in general for this one?
In the House, the House and Senate are different animals, but in the House, as you know, 90% of the midterms since the end of World War II, they've had losses.
The only exceptions were 1998, Bill Clinton impeachment in 2002, 13 months after 9-11.
And what happens in these midterm elections, it's two different things.
One, the supporters of a party, members of a party that won the White House, they tend to be satisfied, complacent, disappointed, disillusioned, but they're really pumped up.
But the side that lost, they're angry and they want payback.
And so they tend to be a lot more motivated.
And then the little bitty slice of voters in the middle, we're really talking 5-10%, they tend to be fickle.
They tend to get buyer's remorse.
And they'll vote for one side.
And then for whatever reason, they're disappointed and vote the opposite way.
So between those two things, the House very reliably switches.
But the Senate, keep in mind, the last four elections, the House and Senate have gone different directions, where one party picked up seats in the House and actually lost seats in the Senate.
It depends on which seats are up and where.
Let's take a look at an Economist YouGov poll.
This came out on the 11th of this month, and it was just asking for President Trump's approval rating among independents.
So this is just independents.
And it came out to be at 62% disapproval, 31% approval.
How did those numbers look?
Because really it's the independents that decide these elections.
You're exactly right.
And that typically we see the presence approval rating among Republicans in the mid-high 80s approaching 90, among Democrats, single digits, and generally in the 30s among independents.
And, you know, it varies slightly from one poll to another, but that's, yeah.
And the thing about it is in red states, red, solidly Republican states and districts, a lot of these, a Republican can win with like no independent votes, certainly no Democratic votes.
And the same thing the other way with blue Democratic states, districts.
But the swing states and districts where the big races are, they tend to be disproportionately independent, and that's where that job approval rate among independents becomes so important.
Now regarding the polls on the Iran war, so the New York Times is reporting that the polls are showing kind of some fluidity there.
27% approval in a Reuters-Ipsos poll, 50% approval in a Fox News poll.
This is what the Times say is, quote, the wide variation suggests that public opinion is still taking shape as more Americans learn details of the attacks and the aftermath.
What do you think?
You know, I think they still are soft.
It's still new.
It takes a while.
But the other thing is, and I want to say this very carefully because, you know, with an enormous amount of compassion for the families that have servicemen, women that are either in the region or could go to the region, you know, we had a son that was in Afghanistan on combat unit 14 years ago.
So I know it.
But I don't think it's going to have that big of an impact on the election because basically 47, 48% of the electorate is baked in for Republicans and 47, 48 baked in for Democrats.
So we're talking about really a slice, and that's between party members and independents who, people who claim to be independent, but lean one way and vote that way very reliably, so that there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of malleability that presidents now, it's true with Biden, true with Trump, they have high floors, low ceilings, because their party members are not going to abandon them no matter what.
And the other parties not going to support them no matter what.
And so we don't have the plunges down into the 20s that presidents used to have.
But they can't, first of all, hard to get into the 50s, but certainly not in the 60s or where presidents used to be.
So it's not, and if you're in a party, you're sort of with your president right or wrong.
And if you're disillusioned, the odds are you're more likely to not show up than to vote for the other party.
If you've got a question on the election for Charlie Cook, you can go ahead and start calling in now.
The lines are biparty.
Democrats are on 202, 748, 8,000.
Republicans 202, 748, 8,001.
And Independents 202748-8002.
I want to show you a generic congressional ballot.
This is for 2026.
And that is showing that Democrats are at 47.7%, Republicans are at 43%.
That's from real clear polling.
What do you make of those numbers?
First of all, I don't look at anything with a decimal point because it implies a level of accuracy that simply does not exist.
But we're seeing Democrats ahead on the generic by, say, anywhere from 3 to 10, 3 to 9 points, that sort of thing.
But keep in mind, there are only going to be about 40 districts, 40, 45 districts in the country that are in play.
So if you did a thousand sample poll, that means fewer than 100 interviews would be in districts where there's any chance of them doing, you know, of it of it becoming competitive.
So that the generic, okay, it tells us that Democrats have a wind at their backs.
Well, hell, I knew that.
I didn't need a poll to tell me that.
Well, then let's talk about some of the toss-up races.
I want to talk specifically about the Senate.
We'll put a couple on, these are the toss-up races.
So Senator John Ossoff in Georgia, a Democrat.
He's running for reelection.
There's an open seat in Michigan due to Senator Peters' retirement.
Susan Collins in Maine, a Republican.
And there's an open seat in North Carolina for the departure of Senator Tom Tillis.
Which one of those do you think is most interesting that you want to talk about?
Okay, I'll pick one.
But the thing about it is, I just want to reiterate, the Senate is a different animal.
And as I said, we've had four elections in a row.
They've gone in different directions.
And so these aren't midterms, but when Richard Nixon's winning 49 states in 1972 over George McGovern, his party lost two seats in the Senate.
Same thing with Reagan in 84.
I mean, the Senate seats are their own animals.
I think for Democrats, I think they have a real good chance of picking up the Michigan open seat that you mentioned where Senator Gary Peters is retiring.
I think they have a pretty good chance in Maine against Susan Collins, although it does matter which candidate they nominate, whether it's Janet Mills or Graham Plattner.
But after that, it's just long shots.
I mean, real long shots.
And on the other hand, you know, Michigan, that open seat is an open Democratic seat.
That one may be hard to hold on to.
And there's New Hampshire, which is technically a blue state, but I think it's probably the least blue of the blue states.
There's an open seat there that Democrats are going to have to kind of work hard to hold on to.
Democrats are saying they could take Texas with the win of Tallarico in the primary.
They're going to six foot and have red hair tomorrow.
But you're saying no chance.
But it's not, is it possible?
Yes.
Does it require certain things to happen before that could happen?
But keep in mind, the last time Democrats won any Senate race in Texas was 1988.
Long time ago.
Yeah.
The last time they won this Senate seat was LBJ in 1960, when he was also John Kennedy's running mate.
Texas is a state that they're going to have to get some people that haven't voted Democrat in a long time to suddenly vote Republican.
Now, if John Cornyn is the Republican nominee, it's just not going to happen.
If it's Ken Paxton, it's plausible, but still requires different behavior than we've seen there in a very long time.
But whether it's Alaska or Florida or Iowa or Nebraska, a lot of these red states that Democrats are talking about, we're not seeing Democrats capture red states anymore.
We're not seeing Republicans capture blue states anymore.
The action, it's all been purging, if you're Republican, purging Democrats out of red states, like you saw with John Tester, Montana, Sherrod Brown, Ohio, and Joe Manchin's open seat, or Democrats purging Republicans out of blue states.
Small Donors Fuel Emotion-Driven Tyranny00:15:16
But for the most part, the action is just in the seven states of Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and then Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia.
All right, let's see what callers want to talk about.
We'll start with David Auburn, New York, Republican.
Hi, David.
Good morning.
I have a question I've wanted to ask for a long time about the campaign industry.
And I think Mr. Cook, he'd be one of the guys that would give an answer or have an explanation.
And I just got to give you a little backstory.
I've been giving donations to political parties and candidates for about 25 years.
I started back in 2000.
And at this point right now, I must get some days I'll get 25 or 26 solicitations in my mailbag.
I'm not kidding you when I tell you.
I get maybe 100 a week right now, and it's heavier and heavier.
Every year it's grown.
And I don't give big money.
I give 100 here, 100 there, maybe 200, 300.
I've given as much as 500 in my state race for governor, but nothing beyond that.
But again, again, I'm not a big giver, maybe a few thousand dollars a year, but I must get right now.
I'm getting over 100 solicitations a week.
So, David, are you worried about the cost of those solicitations?
Yeah, I want to know how big of an industry is this campaign industry.
How many people are involved in this?
And would they just blindly send this stuff out?
I can't read it all.
Most of it just goes right into the wastebasket.
I don't have the time.
Not that it's not informative.
It's not.
I say this.
You find stuff out.
All right, David.
I say this with affection and respect.
It's your fault.
Because if you never gave anybody any money, you wouldn't be on the list.
But they trade and sell lists back and forth so that every time you make a contribution, other people from that party are going to get your name and address and email and all that and are going to pummel you again.
So the more you do it, the more lists you're going to be on, the more you're going to get hammered.
But that's also not a good solution because we want small donors like David.
We don't want the big PACs and the billionaires to run politics.
What do you think?
I think there's some truth there, but there's also some tyranny in lots of small donors that are emotion-driven and will go for, that get moved for relatively frivolous reasons.
I'm not sure it's that.
So how succeed?
Well, to succeed in online fundraising, you have to throw red meat to your constituency.
You've got to get them riled up.
And that pulls the parties off into different directions.
How should campaigns be funded then?
The money's going to come from somewhere.
Financing, but what I'm saying is that, first of all, the system is awash in money.
And in the competitive general elections, nobody's losing because of money.
I mean, like, you know, five years ago, we moved the Washington area to Maine.
The Maine Senate race in 2000, we're talking about a state with 1.4 million people in it, okay?
$200 million was spent in the 2020 Senate race.
This one is going to be between $300 and $400 million.
All sides, both sides, super PACs, everything.
That's a lot of money per voter.
Right.
In swing states, there's money.
I mean, you can't efficiently spend that much money.
In fact, the losing Democratic candidate from 2020 in Maine, she still has money left over.
So, you know, the thing is, if you like people, you know, contacting you and urging you to give, if you enjoy that, give.
But if you don't, if you don't want to get on the list.
Don't give them any money.
Yeah, I mean, it just perpetuates itself.
Patrick, Nashville, Tennessee, Democrat, you're on with Charlie Cook.
Come in, and thank you for having me.
I want to address just numbers.
In 2020, basically 178 million people voted.
Then when Biden got elected, they say the Republicans and Trump said that Biden allowed 20 million illegals into the country under Biden.
Then in 2024, 174 million people voted.
And then Trump and Republicans constantly state that these illegals had false identities and they were allowed to vote.
So I don't understand the math and statistics and the lies that 178 million people voted in 2020, 20 million people enter the country under Biden, and less people voted in 2024.
It's constant, but they never do the math and they constantly lie about it.
All right.
What do you think, Charlie?
Well, I'm not sure which side you say is lying about it, but it's been a violation of federal law to vote for a federal office if you're not a U.S. citizen for a really long time.
And the cases in any election, I don't care whether it's Democrats or in the Justice Department or Republicans, the number of cases they find each election, they're minuscule, absolutely minuscule.
So that this is, you know, this country is facing a lot of problems and there's a lot of things that government doesn't do very well.
But administering elections, actually they do do reasonably well.
And people say, well, we need to restore integrity to our election process.
Well, the reason why their questions is because some people are raising wild accusations and don't stick around for any answers or explanations and they never back it up.
And it's really kind of frustrating.
But the cases of illegal people voting in, you know, at least let's talk about federal elections.
We're talking about, you know, way, less than like 1% of all votes.
Chucky and Columbia, Maryland, Independent Lion.
Go ahead.
Good morning.
Yes, I am from Maryland, a state which I think shortly will have nothing but one party as representatives in Congress because of gerrymandering.
So people here say, well, you know, what's the sense in even voting, even bothering to vote, because it's already set up that the majority is the one particular party that has locked in everything.
And what gets me is that I have not heard recently the term about our heroes who are buried in the ground, as once known as the silent majority.
They used to throw that term around, the silent majority will do this and do that.
How can the silent majorities do anything?
They're underground.
We have had gerrymandering as long as there's been a country.
I mean, the term goes back to the 1700s.
But it's only been the last, say, 30 years that it has gotten to this point.
And the thing is, when Democrats gerrymander, it's horrible.
When Republicans gerrymander, it's horrible.
And guess what?
They're both doing it.
Now, you live in Maryland, Democratic state.
It's Democrats that are trying to purge the last Republican out of the congressional delegation.
But look what's gone on in some of these other states.
And the thing is, this mid-decade redistricting, where did it start?
Texas.
And then California responded.
And the thing is, it's horrible when either side does it, but when one side starts, the other side's going to return fire.
And we talked about the Senate.
Let's talk about the House.
There is the 4th District of Kentucky.
Tom Massey is facing a challenger for the primary who has been endorsed by President Trump.
The Jewish Coalition Victory Fund released this ad, and I want to show it to you and then get your comments.
America is at war with a fanatical regime that seeks nuclear weapons.
American hero Ed Galrine stands with President Trump, our country, and our military.
Thomas Massey, he stands with Iran and radical leftists in Congress opposing Trump, just like he did on the border and taxes.
Now, Kentuckians have a choice, Galrain and Trump or Thomas Massey.
The RJC Victory Fund is responsible for the content of this advertising.
What do you think of that?
Well, it's somewhat unusual to have a president attacking a member of their own party in a primary, but lots of unusual things happen.
I don't know what's going to happen in the Kentucky primary.
I know that it doesn't matter.
Either one of them would win a general election in a heavily Republican district.
But it's just one of the many unusual things that happen in the New World Order is presidents traveling on Air Force One to go and campaign against members of their own party because they haven't been sufficiently loyal or because they've been disloyal.
That's sort of where we are today.
Let's go to New Hampshire in line for Democrats in Raymond, New Hampshire.
Ted, you're on with Charlie Cook.
Yes, Mr. Cook, I have a question about this control at the voting booths that is a proposal I've seen on the Channel 9 news here that the Republicans want to kind of control who votes and who doesn't.
It seems to me that's a major threat to democracy.
Another point is if we have a Republican president, we better have Democrats in the Senate or the House to keep all of them in check.
When you have somebody in the presidency that put in some people in the Supreme Court and they own the Congress, the Senate, and themselves, that's a domino effect.
And this is why we're in havoc because one can't check the other.
And I feel that should be that.
And this battle between Republican and Democrats got to stop because we're all Americans.
Well, first of all, I share your feelings about the importance of separation of powers between the branches of government and federalism.
What are state responsibilities like holding elections and versus federal responsibilities?
And I think that's awfully important.
The Constitution is pretty explicit that it's the states that handle the time, place, and manner of election, sort of the details of it.
On the Fed level, you basically decide what the uniform date.
There was a call in the previous segment.
A caller was talking about ID.
And there was a time when Democrats used to oppose, or they do oppose, having to produce an ID.
But the thinking was that a lot of poor people, disadvantaged people, didn't have photo, government-issued photo IDs, therefore it would disenfranchise them.
First of all, I think the day when that was true is kind of long since past.
You know, that it's pretty hard for anybody to get through life now, any adult to get through life without an ID.
But the thing is, Democrats have still sort of dug in their heels and not when I think what they ought to do is say, okay, we'll do that, but some of the other stuff that is a little wilder, you know, cutting back on mail-in voting or trimming down the amount of time that people can vote early, that sort of thing.
In other words, give up something that isn't that big of a deal anymore, but fight more aggressively on the things that you really do think will tilt the battlefield.
But there are very, very few adult U.S. citizens that don't have government-issued IDs for some reason, you know, and whether it's to fly on airplanes or get food stamps or, you know, it's pretty much a necessity to get through life now.
Portland, Connecticut, Republican line, John, good morning.
Yes, good morning, Mr. Cook.
My question is: I agree with a caller before saying that all the mail you get regarding donations.
And yeah, I know we've done that in the past.
You know, you sign up or you send a donation, you're inundated with mail and stuff like that.
But I have a question for C-SPAN and Mimi in particular.
In an earlier segment, a caller was calling in, called in, and started calling the Democrats demons.
And you straightened them out pretty quick.
But every day, people call in.
Yes, demon is an evil spirit.
We're not calling people evil spirits.
I also, if you remember, somebody called said the word maggot, and I said, that's an insect.
We're not going to call people insects.
So I draw the line there.
And thank you for reminding people of that.
Mimi's tough.
Anthony, Sierra Vista, Arizona, Independent Line.
Go ahead.
Good morning.
I want to just put out three words, and then you can look these words up: caregiver, caretaker, and undertaker.
Those words can apply locally in your household.
They can apply in your state and globally.
If you look up the definition of those words.
Caregiver, Caretaker, and Undertaker Roles00:12:52
Does this have something to do with elections, Anthony?
Yes, because a caregiver is supposed to be someone who's taking care of someone.
That's like your representatives, your senators, your governors.
Your caretakers take care of property and nations.
And Undertaker is where we all end up.
Now, personally, I believe only 2% separates anything when we have a disagreement.
If you sit in a room and two people are the only ones arguing, no one wants to listen.
But if you bring in a third person and it makes a difference.
And so I believe the author's doing a book on remaking of the Middle East.
Well, guess what?
That's caretaking.
That's another country trying to decide how to take care of the Middle East.
So, Anthony, do you have a specific question for Charlie Cook?
Yes.
Yeah, go ahead.
I believe, Mr. Cook, I believe we should look at how we talk about independence.
In Arizona, you can't be an independent.
You have to be unaffiliated.
It's the same thing, though.
It's the same thing.
They have different terms in different states.
And, you know, some states it's called unenrolled, but it's the same thing.
And I agree.
And so when you're unaffiliated to me, like if you put it on C-SPAN, you're saying, if you want my vote, you have to come to me.
You have to make me want to put you in a caregiver status where you're taking care of me and then you can take care of others.
Because in the end, we're all going to leave this world at some point.
All right, Anthony.
Yeah, let me defend C-SPAN here.
I mean, I've been on since some of your first years back in the 1980s.
They have three lines: Democrat, Independent, Republican.
Why do they do that?
Not to disenfranchise anybody, but to try to have some balance in the calls.
And it doesn't work precisely, but you know, it does try to attempt to have some even-handedness in coming in.
But, you know, independent, non-affiliated, unenrolled, and different states have different, like we're an independent can vote in a Democratic or Republican primary in some states, some states they can't.
State of Virginia just doesn't even have a registration at all.
It means different things, different places.
But one other thing, though, is you do a sample nationwide, a third of people will be Democrats, a third Republicans, and about 95% of each of those groups is going to vote that way.
And of the third that consider themselves independents, three-quarters of them aren't independent.
They will tell you, well, I leaned more to the Democrat side and vote that way 85% of the time, or I lean more to the Republicans.
I vote that way 85%.
So it's only 5% to 10% that really are legitimately independent.
And there's a decent slice of those folks who read, watch, listen to news less than partisan Republicans or partisan Democrats.
And they tend to be more cynical, fickle.
They get buyer's remorse.
And oh, by the way, they vote at lower levels.
So, you know, it's, but they're, you know, between enthusiasm in the two bases, voting, and how that little slice in the middle, that's what determines, you know, who wins and who loses competitive elections.
Well, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Democrat, good morning.
Good morning.
I'll tell you, this is the problem that we have right now, Mr. Charlie Cook and people like this.
I don't know how many people follow the guy, but he's getting a national audience.
But the problem with our country, he keeps segmenting Republican, Democrats, and undecided.
And everyone in this country knows the real problem is the haves and the have-nots.
I mean, how can we have a whole election and we get a guy in office and we go to war, we don't even have a vote on him?
How can we not have a vote on him?
Because we're talking about Democrats, Republicans, the guys in the haves.
I mean, how can we have money shift off to offshore accounts?
And nobody says, well, who's the money going to?
You know, we have lost this country, people.
And you're going to keep letting these guys like Charlie Cook and some of these total bureaucrats keep us in this bureaucratic maze.
It's got nothing to do with Democrats.
Half the people in this country believe in this.
I say 90% of the people in this country believe in the same things.
They want the same things for their kids.
They want the same things for their neighbor.
But these guys keep us fighting each other.
See, I'm an older adult, and I came up in a time when things were a lot simpler.
And, you know, matter of fact, we only had about, I'm black.
We're only about 12, 13% representative of black people in an electorate.
Still only about that.
All right.
What do you think?
Well, if we have an offshore account, my wife hadn't told me about it.
Yeah, the thing is that there's a tendency in American politics, and we see this among people on the left and people on the right, that I'm a common sense person, and anybody who disagrees with me isn't.
And so we sort of normal, we weight everything on that way.
And, you know, the whole concept of that people could agree to disagree, we don't really see that much anymore.
And I used to say that.
Did we used to have that in American politics?
Was it really different?
Tell us about how it was.
Well, the thing is, there was a time when a sizable group of people could honestly say, I vote the person, not the party.
Now, we're talking about a tiny fraction of people that you could accurately say that.
And let me give you an example.
The last election, 95% of everybody that called themselves a Democrat voted for Kamala Harris.
And 95% of everyone who called themselves a Republican voted for Donald Trump.
It was 95, 95 in 2020.
In 2016, it was 94% voted for Hillary Clinton.
92% voted for Donald Trump.
Or you look at how House districts vote and how they vote for Congress and for president.
I think there were, what, nine different districts out of 435 that voted a different way than had voted for Congress?
Is that nowadays people, they vote a party line.
And it didn't used to be like that?
No.
No.
Why not?
Like, what changed?
You used to have two broad-based, geographically, and ideologically diverse parties.
And you had a decent number of conservatives in the Democratic Party, oftentimes from the South or, you know, the farm ruler.
You had plenty of liberals that were in the Republican Party, New England, Northeast, Great Lakes, West Coast.
But you had this overlap.
And starting in the 80s and 90s, you basically saw all conservatives basically left the Democratic Party, and all liberals left the Republican Party.
And then you started seeing a lot of the centrists, moderates, or people that were just less ideological in each party, just sort of pull back and withdraw.
And they started running for office less, giving money less, working in campaigns, losing influence, so that the two parties, they moved further apart.
You know, Democrats more left.
Republicans, it was sort of this combination of right, but also populist.
And that as the party started moving further and further away, they each got narrower and narrower.
So that, for example, on the Democrat side, the distance between the most and the least liberal elements of the Democratic Party, it's narrower than it ever used to be.
And the same thing on the Republican side, between the most and least conservative.
But it was the people that are most likely to defect or say, I don't like the candidate for my party, but huh, they nominated somebody pretty good.
I'll vote for them.
That doesn't exist anymore.
It just doesn't.
Let's talk to Gordon, Kansas City, Kansas, Republican.
Hi, Gordon.
Hi.
Hi, Charlie.
Appreciate you being nonpartisan today or bipartisan.
And a question about Lois Frankl's seat in West Palm Beach.
Do you think President Trump could run for that seat and get it?
Lois Frankl.
And a question is of.
Could who run for it?
Lois Frankl.
Yeah, I know who she is, but could who run for her.
She's a seat right now in West Palm Beach.
Could Trump beat her if he ran against her?
Or the Democrats could look at him every day.
And why in this country do so many people not pay taxes?
That's ridiculous.
And someone needs to tell the black callers that call in and say, we didn't vote for Kamala Harris because she was a black woman.
She was an airhead.
What do you expect us to vote for?
Charlie.
Well, I don't remember exactly where Lois Frankl's district and where the lines precisely are, but last time I checked, it was an extremely Democratic district.
And I kind of doubt if President, I mean, but, you know, I kind of doubt that he'd win there, but there are a whole lot of districts that, you know, former President Obama could run in that, you know, that he would have a chance of winning.
So, I mean, the thing is that so many of these districts are either because of natural or just who tends to live in certain places, as well as gerrymandering, that they're kind of off the table.
I mean, the caller from Maryland earlier, Maryland, they're enough Republicans to probably want a couple districts, but when Democrats are trying to like zero them out, just as Republicans tried to zero out Democrats over there, you know, that's where you're really disenfranchising, you know, maybe 35,
40% of the people in a state by ensuring that they have basically no real representation in the House.
Nate, a Democrat in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you for having me.
I was going to point out what I thought were a couple important details.
I can add in a history lesson when we came to the idea of liberal Republicans, because we actually had a good liberal Republican from Wisconsin many years ago, Bob LaFollett, Jr., and the Republican Party bosses kicked him out with Joe McCarthy as his replacement.
And I think that was a bad thing for the rest of the country and Wisconsin.
But going to the gerrymandering, I would point out that it's not just a situation of both parties doing it anymore.
The Democratic Party or Democrats in the House passed a bill under Nancy Pelosi to ban gerrymandering nationwide, as, frankly, any honest voter would probably want to happen.
And unfortunately, Republicans filibustered into the Senate.
I think neither party should have the ability to do it.
But Republicans in the Supreme Court also prevented lower-level federal courts from banning gerrymandering by saving it at the request of the Republican, I apologize for not remembering the name, but Republicans across the U.S., including in the Organization for Republicans in the U.S. Senate.
Taxing Political Contributions and Campaigns00:08:58
And I want to touch on the SAVE Act.
Yeah, I mean, what the caller is referring to is the bill that Democrats had H.R. 1.
And, yeah, it had in there some limitations on gerrymandering.
But it also had, oh, campaign finance reform.
I mean, it was an everything but the kitchen sink bill so that it wasn't a clean shot, a clean call at gerrymandering or anyone.
It was all kinds, all kinds of stuff.
And the thing is, it never had the slightest chance in the world of getting enacted into law.
And lots of times, a lot of these things that both parties do are messaging bills.
They're not designed to change law because the way they're designed could never pass, could ever get enacted.
And Nate, you wanted to say something about the SAVE Act?
Yeah, it's basically a bill that makes it so your photo ID doesn't work anymore.
I mean, I can use a state photo ID to get a bar, a beer at a bar.
I can use it to open a bank account.
But for a lot of people, the SAVE Acts, which I think it ought to be called the Stealing Americans Votes Early Act, would not allow them to get a ballot.
And the reason is because the state ID doesn't supposedly say if you're a citizen or not, even though the state has to check the records when they start issuing IDs.
And they certainly double check you when you register to vote.
And the idea of having to prove American citizenship.
Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, come up with some kind of documentation to show that, you know, whether it was a birth certificate or whatever.
But I mean, the thing is, I don't know an adult.
Okay, maybe there's some folks in their 90s.
But generally speaking, I don't know an adult, U.S. citizen, that does not have a government-issued photo ID, whether they drive or whether they don't drive.
But the ID doesn't prove citizenship.
Well, if you have real ID, I mean, actually all of them now to fly.
I mean, actually, that is being implemented.
In fact, you can't get on an airplane unless it's, you know.
But a lot of Americans don't fly.
Right.
But they drive.
They get food stamps.
I mean, this, I don't think there are many people that don't have or couldn't very easily get.
I don't think you're disenfranchising a bunch of people by requiring IDs, a government-issued ID that may reflect citizenship.
But at the same time, some of these other things, though, I mean, I think Republicans, I don't think they're wrong by taking that position.
But at the same time, then they throw in some other things that make it a lot harder to, or getting rid of vote by mail for anybody.
it's not in the military things like no that is restrictive but all right both sides have it is it is real easy to find fault with both sides on a lot of these issues Let's talk to Doug in Alaska, Republican.
Hi, Doug.
Yeah, good morning.
Go right ahead.
You're on the air.
I wanted to know if there's a tax on political contributions because I'd like to see some kind of a tax money set aside to help out, for example, homeless people.
Do you think there is one or should be one?
He's asking if there is a tax on political contributions.
No, no.
But there's a fair chance that you paid some taxes on your income that eventually you may or may not use for a political contribution.
But no, there's not for a direct political contribution.
Now, sometimes if you're giving to organizations that are not tax exempt, That group may have to pay.
It would end on what kind of a, you know, what their legal status is.
But no, there is no tax on political contributions.
Anything interesting happening in Alaska politics?
Well, there's a Senate race.
Democrats have really good chances at two places, Maine and North Carolina.
And then they have very small chances in about five states, and Alaska's one, where Dan Sullivan is the Republican incumbent.
I wouldn't say he's rock solid, but I don't think he's terribly, I don't think he's terribly vulnerable.
Democrats were able to get Mary Petola, who was a former member of the House, to run against him.
But keep in mind, you know, say, hey, she's a Democrat.
She won election to the House in a special election.
And then the regular election, it was a few weeks, month or so later.
But wait a minute.
The Republican vote in those elections was split between Sarah Palin.
I mean, there were a whole bunch of camps, but Sarah Palin and Mark Beggett.
I guess, Mark, I get all the beggars confused.
So that the Republican vote was split.
The Democratic vote was pretty unified.
And so that wasn't necessarily a reflection that she is really strong as much as the Republican vote was all split up, with one of them being Sarah Palin.
But that's a real, I think it's a real long shot.
Presidential voting is the best predictor of how a state is going to vote these days because people are voting straight tickets.
Alexandria, Virginia, line for Democrats.
Aaron, good morning.
Good morning, and thank you so much for having the guest on.
And as we know, C-SPAN is fair and balanced.
So I have a couple of things I want to ask, but then I also have to make a statement regarding what another caller said.
For your guest, we know that there's been roadblocks placed up for people of color to vote.
People of color have died in order to vote, and the civil rights movement was not more than 100 years ago.
So there is no taxation without representation, but there are people who are representing us who do not pay their taxes.
We have people who have criminal records and felons who are running for political office while you have prisoners who do not have the right to vote.
So I want to, my question for you, sir, is do you believe that there should be people who can run for office who don't pay their taxes?
But also I have a statement for the caller who said we should tell black people about Kamala Harris.
Kamala Harris was in the previous administration and she has a background in criminal justice and does not have a criminal record.
And all black people did not vote for Kamala Harris.
I voted for Joe Biden, even though I did not necessarily want to vote for Joe Biden, but he was not Trump because anyone who has lived in the Northeast area understands what his background was and we see where we are today.
So even if Nikki Minaj happened to run for office, I'm not voting for her.
And as the black people, we did vote, Mimi, for you to have her black card, so you're coming to the cookout this summer.
But my main point is that black people do not all vote the same.
No one can tell.
Aaron, let's hear from Charlie.
Yeah, I think, I mean, you know, I don't think we're going to have to have people produce their income tax returns before they can file for public office.
But, you know, first of all, we have lifted up the bottom in on federal income tax rates where there are a substantial number of people that make less than the minimum that you actually have to pay.
Now, whether that's a good thing or not, there's some people that think everybody ought to pay a little bit, even if it is just a little bit.
And other people say, well, you know, you shouldn't put that burden on poor people.
But in terms of the wrinkle of someone could have lost their ability to vote but could still run for elective office.
You know, for Congress things, I mean, the Constitution pretty much says, you know, you have to be 25 years of age to run for the House of Representatives.
You have to be 30 or to take office.
You have to be 30 to be a senator.
Remember, Joe Biden in 1972 was elected 29, but he turned 30 before the swearing-in date.
You have to be 35, run for president, and a citizen of the country, born for president, born in the country.
But, you know, we're not going to be amending the Constitution to say unless you don't pay income taxes or unless you, I mean, that's not going to happen.
All right, founder and contributor to the Cook Political Report, Charlie Kirk Cook.
Coming up next, we will be joined by James Jacobi.
He's director of the PBS frontline documentary, Remaking the Middle East.
We'll talk about his film and about the Iran conflict and its regional impacts going forward.
We'll be right back.
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Regional War Imminence and US Decisions00:16:08
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Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back to the program.
Joining us now to talk about the conflict in the Middle East is James Jacobi.
He is the director of the PBS frontline documentary called Remaking the Middle East.
James, welcome to the program.
Thank you for having me.
First, can you talk about what the central question that you are trying to address with this documentary was?
The question is: how did we get here?
Here we are in this war, Israel and the United States attacking Iran, and now what's threatening to become a regional war kind of is a regional war at this point.
And we had actually worked on this documentary many, many months ago in advance of expecting this conflict to escalate, and which it did obviously in June of last year when Israel and the United States attacked Iran and their nuclear facilities.
But we basically have been interested at frontline in understanding the roots of this conflict, understanding the larger geopolitical issues at play between Israel and Iran.
And really the question we're trying to answer is how did we get here?
What did you learn about President Trump's decision making and that process to start the attack?
What did you learn about that and the timing of the attack?
Well, what we learned was that the door was kind of open, left ajar after the June attacks.
There was obviously that the Trump administration at that point was saying that Iran's nuclear program had been obliterated, but left open the option of coming back to do more attacks in case Iran showed any activity at the nuclear sites or unless they had some other reason that they wanted to put forward to attack again.
It became clear that around December, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israelis had assessed that the Iranians had been replenishing their missile stockpiles, their ballistic missiles.
And if you remember in June during that war, the Iranians launched thousands of missiles at Israel and in the region.
And it was very impressive.
I think it took the Israelis a bit by surprise at that point about how powerful their missile silos were, their missile stockpiles.
And so I think that they were always planning to go back after the June war and attack their ballistic missile program.
So Benjamin Netanyahu came to Mar-a-Lago in December of 2025 to meet with President Trump and basically made the argument that he's going to go ahead with an attack at some point in the future on Iran's missile program.
I think he made the pitch to Trump to join the attacks.
Trump was on the fence for quite a while.
And then as our film shows, there were several stages that kind of got the Trump administration more invested in the idea of attacking again.
There were the protests in Iran and the terrible, deadly crackdown of the regime on the protesters.
Protests that started as economic protests because their dire economic situation turned into protests really against the regime.
And then there was with brute force and lethality, there was thousands of protesters killed.
Trump watches that, kind of captures his imagination as a sort of human rights issue, that he's locked and loaded, ready to go to defend the protesters.
Then that turns to the nuclear issue again, where he sends out his envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner to try to negotiate another deal with the Iranians.
They put some major demands on the table.
The Iranians are negotiating.
But then at a certain point, it becomes clear that the Israelis are going to go ahead with something, and President Trump really decides to go ahead with it.
Probably the decision, the reporting's not clear yet, but the decision to really do it was when the intelligence came that said that the Ayatollah at the time, the now deceased Ayatollah and his top commanders were meeting in one place.
CIA, Israeli intelligence, had intelligence about that, and they decided to strike.
Well, James, we have a portion of your film.
I want to show it to people, and then we'll continue our conversation.
Here it is.
This was a preventive, not a preemptive war.
And in international law, that is considered completely off-limits.
Because if you had a world of nothing but preventive wars, you'd have war all the time.
So there is this question here, whether this is in fact a war of choice.
Yes, I know all these slogans.
If it's not imminent, it's a war of choice.
No.
This notion that if the other side is not killing you, don't kill him, and you let him the time to prepare, you be killed in the future, and you don't do anything because it's not imminent.
It's stupid.
This is the mistake that we did before the 7th of October.
It was not imminent, so we let them to be stronger.
And then when they felt they are strong enough, they surprise us.
At least Israel is not going to behave that way in the future.
I mean, doesn't that fly in the face of what international law is all about?
Maybe, but we know what is the alternative.
And James, he mentioned October 7th, and there was an Israeli journalist in your film that said there's an Israel before October 7th and an Israel after October 7th.
Absolutely.
I don't think it could be overstated how important it is to put this war in the context, at least in the Israeli mind of October 7th, that on October 7th, that was General Amador, Yaakov Ahmadjor. one of the top thinkers in Israel, former national security advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu, a very revered figure, especially on the kind of militarist right in Israel.
But he's really one of the architects of this doctrine to say that Israel after October 7th needed to learn the lesson of what happened before October 7th, that they allowed Iran and Iran's proxies in the region, meaning Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, the Shia militias in Iraq, to all grow too strong.
And then they were attacked on October 7th, taken by surprise.
That remains to be seen how surprising it was.
But that was that the lesson needed to be learned that you can't let threats grow.
And so right now, we're in a period where the Israelis do believe that in preventive war, not even preemptive, but preventive.
If they see and identify something they think is a threat to their security, they will attack preventatively.
And so it was interesting in that exchange with General Amador because, you know, as I posed the question to him, preventive war really flies in the face of international law.
And as he says, you know, maybe it does, in his view, but the alternative is worse, meaning allowing threats to grow on Israel's borders.
If you'd like to join our conversation with James Jacobi about his film, you can go ahead and give us a call now.
Lines are biparty.
Democrats are on 202-748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
James, you asked an Israeli official, when will this war end?
What was the answer?
The answer was rather vague, which was when they feel as though they have sufficiently weakened Iran and its proxies to a point at which they can't attack or pose a threat to Israel, to U.S. interests in the region, or to neighboring countries.
Now, of course, that's a rather vague goal.
What does it mean to do that?
So that is the answer, though, that you hear that the United States and Israel at some point will sit together and come to the conclusion that Iran and its regional, the regional militias that it's supported for all these years are weakened enough.
That is arbitrary and remains to be seen what that really means.
So is it conceivable in your opinion that the U.S. could say we're done, we've achieved our objectives, and Israel says we're not done and we're going to continue this war?
Oh yeah, that's completely conceivable.
I don't know how likely that is.
It's very difficult to understand where this is going at this point.
There's obviously a tremendous amount of political pressure, economic pressure on the Trump administration to wrap up this war.
There's also major risks of doing so now that you've sort of opened Pandora's box.
So it really, that is a totally plausible scenario in which the Trump administration tries to get us out of this war for a whole host of reasons.
And the Netanyahu government and the Israeli military decides to continue to pummel Iran.
And it's important to note, you know, Hezbollah and Lebanon.
I mean, that's a major front in this war right now where, you know, hundreds of civilians are dead, thousands are displaced, hundreds of thousands are having to leave Beirut and the southern suburbs of Beirut and southern Lebanon.
So I think it's really anyone's guess at this point as to how this turns out.
Your film's title is Remaking the Middle East.
Do you believe, and the people that you interviewed, do they believe that this, what you've called a regional conflict, regional war, is going to fundamentally remake the Middle East?
I mean, I think that there's an attempt to remake the Middle East, a massive attempt.
It's underway right now.
It's been underway for a long time.
There's been diplomatic efforts by multiple American administrations to remake the Middle East.
And then since October 7th, you could say that the Israelis and the multiple fronts of the war that they've fought since then have been attempts to remake and reshape the Middle East, to reshape the balance of power, to try to neutralize Iran and its proxies.
You know, I think, again, nothing is ever really remade by brute force alone.
And there have to be political solutions to the myriad problems in the Middle East that are going very far back.
So it may be folly that one country or another could remake the region.
Again, that remains to be seen, but I think the odds are, you know, obviously things have been remade.
Things are in major flux.
U.S. and Israel killed the Ayatollah and the Supreme Leader in Iran.
I mean, that is a major shift.
And there are also other major shifts at play here.
But again, whether you can fundamentally solve any problems remains to be seen.
Let's talk to callers now.
We'll start with Judy in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Democrat.
Good morning, Judy.
Good morning, Mimi.
I recently saw a documentary on the history of relations between the United States and Iran.
And I just want to put out some facts.
In this documentary, Jimmy Carter did negotiate a release of the Iranian hostages.
He started negotiations in November of 1980, and a deal was signed early January of 1981.
There is film footage of the hostages being loaded onto a plane.
It was the morning of Reagan's inauguration.
So Ronald Reagan took the oath of office, and that is when Iran gave the clearance for that plane to take off from the tarmac.
So Jimmy Carter did negotiate the release.
Second, if Iran was such a bad actor and we were so outraged about the hostages, why did the Reagan administration sell Iran weapons and funnel the money to the Contras?
All right.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, go ahead.
Hello?
Yep, go ahead.
What's your third point?
My third point is Russia invaded Ukraine under the guise of national security.
Russia didn't want Ukraine to become part of NATO.
So when you look at Iran, just about every country surrounding Iran has U.S. military bases in it.
And Israel does have nuclear weapons, and they have had nuclear weapons for decades.
So with Iran being surrounded by military bases and Israel having nuclear weapons, doesn't Iran have a legitimate concern for their national security?
All right, let's hear from our guest, James Jacobi.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I think that's a terrific question.
Yes, of course, Iran has legitimate concerns about its national security.
There's been massive both diplomatic and military efforts to try to isolate Iran.
We had the Abraham Accords, which were normalization of relations between Israel and some of the Sunni Gulf states to basically, one, create economic and trade agreements, military protections from the United States, but also to, in some ways, create an axis against Iran.
Iran has chosen as one of its priorities, national defense priorities, to prop up militias in the region.
Iran Strategy Supporting Hezbollah and Hamas00:15:48
And I don't think we should forget about that as a strategy to support Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen.
It was what they called forward defense.
The Israelis interpreted that as, you know, this was a regime that from the very beginning in 1979 is saying they wanted to wipe out Israel and basically get rid of all American and Israeli interests in the region.
The Israelis saw that as their intention.
And then by creating and propping up these militias around Israel, they saw that as offensive.
So, you know, you can make the argument in both ways, certainly.
The Israelis have not, even though they do have nuclear weapons, they don't admit to that, but they do.
They haven't threatened to wipe Iran off the map, at least until rather recently when Benjamin Netanyahu has kind of vowed to get rid of this regime.
But the argument could go both ways, but I think it's really important to see it from both perspectives.
Jim, Independent in Iowa.
Good morning, Jim.
Hi.
It might have been a phrase.
The Israeli gentleman that you interviewed said they allowed October 7th.
You might have asked why the Israeli military was ordered to stand down for seven hours during that attack, which they had been warned of in advance.
But one of the things that concerns me most is the great lack of support amongst the American population for this war.
And I think it may result in the same Israeli elements and U.S. government elements performing another false flag attack in this country or to like 9-11 to raise support for hostilities in the Middle East.
And most people know that Netanyahu funded Hamas and said it was necessary as a means of preventing a unified Palestinian front to prevent an independent country for the Palestinians.
Okay, Jim, so a lot there to respond to, starting with the October 7th attacks.
He says that the Israeli army was told to stand down for seven hours.
Yeah, I think there is no proof yet that's come out in part because there hasn't been a proper investigation yet inside of Israel into what really the security failure was on October 7th.
So I don't want to go beyond where there's proof.
It seems like the caller is suggesting that there was some sort of intentional, they knew what was coming and there was an intentional standing down.
I've seen zero proof of that.
Also zero proof that 9-11 was a false flag operation.
But I do think it is, yeah, I think there is proof, however, that Benjamin Netanyahu was supporting the shipment of money to Hamas for many, many years through Qatar, basically millions of dollars in big bags of cash.
And as the caller did suggest, that was in order to kind of keep the Palestinians separated.
There's the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
There was Hamas in Gaza.
And because Benjamin Etanyahu and his party and the right wing in Israel has not wanted to see a Palestinian state, they thought it was better to have two entities controlling two different parts of the Palestinian territories than have a unified Palestine.
So the caller was correct about that.
Eric is next in Rock Lee, New Jersey, Republican line.
Good morning, Eric.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
And I just want to give you guys a bulk a hug through the phone.
My comment is, unfortunately, Iran's going to hold us as far as a political carrot.
They're going to do it now so they can't do it.
They're going to say one thing and do something else.
What we need to do is we need to counteract them before they say anything.
And we have to say, we want to do this.
XYZ.
This is when we want to do this.
XYZ.
This is for how long we want to do this.
Because if they hold the carry in front of us, they're going to do it.
They'll look.
They're going to say, look, we can hold the car for as long as they can.
The political news is going to eat it out.
The thing is, have a concrete discussion and then put it on paper.
James?
Did you?
I think the caller is referring to maybe the nuclear program.
I'm not exactly sure.
I think that in part what's happening right now is that we're hearing we're in a war and we're hearing bluster from both sides and we're not hearing anyone really talking about resolution or what a possible exit plan would be on either side.
We're seeing escalation.
We're seeing the Strait of Hormuz where a huge amount of our energy, our oil and gas comes through the Strait of Hormuz.
The Iranians have mined that.
We've got naval vessels that are potentially escorting ships through there.
We have an escalation right now and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of discussion or signaling from either the Trump administration or the Iranian government or the Israelis about what is the end game, what's the off-ramp here.
And perhaps the caller was referring to the fact that in that vacuum, there aren't clear ways of seeing how this ends.
And I think one of the things that the United States has tried over the years to do in various ways has been to get to a diplomatic solution, meaning a nuclear deal with Iran, to varying degrees of success.
And I do think, as our documentary shows, that in some ways, while flawed, the Obama-era nuclear deal did at least deal with containing the nuclear problem for a period of time.
And it could have been a lot better.
Everyone sort of admits that.
But the big question is whether a deal is better than no deal.
So at the end of this war, is there going to be some sort of deal on the nuclear program, on the missiles, on the proxies, and Iran's support of them?
That remains to be seen.
But at this point, I don't think there's much faith that at this point that the United States or Israel is going to want a deal.
So we'll have to see.
Is there any indication as to where Iran stands on the support of those proxies and if they still think that that's a strategic idea?
You said that they call it forward defense.
Do you think that that support will continue or will they pull back, do you think?
I mean, I think we're seeing already the indications that it's continuing.
I think that Hezbollah is launching rockets into Israel right now.
It appears to be in coordination with Tehran.
And so I do think that it is still part of their strategy.
Obviously, Hamas's capabilities are severely decimated.
So that proxy is much less operable.
The Houthis still, despite having been hit by the Americans and the Israelis in the past year, they still have capabilities.
And so I do think it's still part of their strategy.
And what did you learn about how much Tehran directed, funded, knew about the October 7th attacks on Israel?
Yeah, there's no evidence that they knew the date that they partook in October 7th itself.
There is evidence to suggest that Yahya Sinwar and his surrogates, the leadership of Hamas, was sort of pitching the idea around in July of 2023, both to commanders of Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as to IRGC commanders in Tehran.
So it was probably known that they'd concocted a plan to do something.
I think Hamas's hope, and it's clear from what Hamas has actually said, was that the other proxies and Iran would join in right away after Hamas launched the October 7th attacks.
I think they thought it was a chance to attack Israel when it was vulnerable.
Of course, vulnerable in part because Benjamin Netanyahu had the country embroiled in his corruption scandals and trying to change the judiciary in Israel and was sort of distracted by domestic issues.
But there is no proof that Iran either sanctioned the attack, funded the attack, or planned it or participated.
They deny that they were even aware of it.
There's evidence to the contrary.
Lynn, Columbia, Maryland, Independent Line, you're on the air.
Yeah, Kapir, which is a tiny country, is the headquarters of U.S. Army CENTCOM, this Al-Udeh Air Force Base.
And that's also where Hamas is headquartered.
They're next door neighbors.
I wanted to take this opportunity, since someone earlier mentioned 9-11, control demolitions and all, take this opportunity to congratulate al-Qaeda on becoming the new government of Syria, Mr. Al-Sharad, who they still have a wanted, dangerous terrorist, a wanted poster out for it at the FBI site.
Mr. Al-Shara al-Qaeda was, they rolled out the red carpet for him at the White House, and Trump had his arm around him and everything else.
So I think you guys, you think tag folks, we're a lot smarter out here now than we used to be.
And these BS stories that you're running with these proxy terrorists, so-called proxies run by NATO right there, right there in the Middle East, we're not really fooled anymore.
We know what's going on.
We know that October 7th really was an inside job by the Israelis.
James, she mentions Assyria, relationship between Iran and Syria and where it stands now that Assad has fallen.
Yeah, there seems to be a lot of misinformation flying around here.
I mean, yes, there's no doubt that the new leadership in Syria belonged to and ran a terrorist organization and what he considered a liberation organization.
Of course, there was Bashar al-Assad, who was the leader of Syria, who was in part propped up by the Iranians because Syria offered a really important land bridge between Iran and Hezbollah and Lebanon.
And so when Assad fell in the wake of kind of Israel's decimation of Hamas and Hezbollah, it was a major quote-unquote win for the Israelis and the Americans, obviously, because Assad was, you know, was supporting Iran and was backed by Russia as well.
But as the caller does suggest, it really does remain to be seen who this leader in Syria is and how he governs and who his alliances are with.
As we know, the Trump administration has tried to court him to ensure that he's on the straight and narrow.
But I think, again, it remains to be seen how that plays out.
Let's talk to Sam, Democrat, Rome, Georgia.
You're on with James Jacoby, Sam.
Yes, good morning, James.
I want to ask a question.
Can we look at it from the oil perspective?
Who is Iran's biggest trading partner with the oil sector?
And I've also read something that they have a lot of natural gas.
So who are their trading partners with the oil and natural gas?
And in terms of Israel, who are their trading partners, if they have any oil and natural gas in their country?
And I'll wait to hear your response.
Thank you.
Yeah, that's a great question.
And I don't want to go over my skis because I don't have the facts about this handy.
I believe that Iran's biggest trading partners in terms of oil and natural gas have been China and Russia, but I'd need to fact-check that.
I certainly think they're significant, and it's very significant in terms of the role that China and Russia are playing now and have played with Iran.
In terms of Israel, they don't, to the best of my knowledge, they don't have oil and natural gas.
Yeah, it looks like as of early 2026, China is Iran's largest trading partner, absorbing over 25% of its exports, primarily oil.
A Republican in New Jersey, Norberto?
Hello?
Hi.
Sorry, what's your first name?
Norberto.
Norberto.
Go right ahead.
You're on the air.
Thank you.
First, I'd like to say I'm a Republican, and I'm a Spaniard American who's pro-Israeli.
I'm one of the few.
And I'd like to offer a suggestion on how to reduce the price of oil with the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran is going on.
First of all, I'd like to say that I emailed Donald Trump this idea last night to the White House.
And it basically states that Saudi Arabia and the Emirates and Qatar, with the excess profits they're making on the consumption of and sale of petroleum,
should establish a global international insurance fund that would allow U.S., Israeli, and West European countries to immediately move into Venezuela to start pumping oil with no risk in loss to these companies.
The insurance would pay for any losses that would occur during the transition in Venezuela, and the Saudis and Emirates would be reimbursed by give-backs from the sale of that oil.
I'd like to know what you think.
You have an opinion on that, James?
It's a little bit off our topic.
I don't, but I do actually think that the caller is tapping into something, some ideas that are being floated out there.
I don't know if it's exactly that design, but I think that I've read about similar ideas about whether, I don't know if it's about excess profits for Gulf oil, but insurance funds in order to basically cushion the blow here in terms of oil prices going over 100 a barrel.
Civilian Targets Hit in Gulf Region00:11:54
Iran has been hitting retaliatory attacks on air bases and civilian targets around the Gulf, the UAE, even Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, etc.
How are those nations responding?
Have they kind of hardened their positions or are they starting to put pressure on the administration to end the war in Iran?
I think publicly at least they're saying that they've hardened and that this is unacceptable and that they're under attack from Iran by both missiles and drones.
So as you mentioned, civilian targets have been hit as well as oil infrastructure, airports.
So it's harder to know what's going on behind the scenes as to whether I think that I think probably the Iranians were expecting that once they started to hit the Gulf states that the Gulf states would be the ones to say, you know, enough is enough to the Americans and the Israelis, considering their allies, close allies, and that they might be the ones to mediate a ceasefire.
But at the same time, I think that it's important to note that these Sunni Gulf states have seen Iran as a threatening menace in the region for a long time.
There's obviously the Sunni-Shia divide that goes back a very, very long time in the Muslim world.
And so the Gulf states being Sunni and Iran being Shia, and Iran has always been kind of this, you know, I mean, there's always been this divide and this animus.
But I think that the Gulf states may see this as an opportunity to try to, you know, do what the Americans and the Israelis are hoping to do in this war, whether, again, whether it remains to be seen, which is to weaken Iran's ability to attack its neighbors, including Israel, including the Gulf states, including U.S. installations in the region.
We've got about 10 minutes left with our guest, James Jacobi.
He is the director of the frontline film called Remaking the Middle East, and we'll talk to John, a Democrat, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I'd like to tell James that he did an outstanding job on the documentary that was produced.
I found it very informative.
But I also have a question.
There was a piece in there where it showed Donald Trump going out to the helicopter and saying that neither one of the combatants knew what they were doing.
And isn't that piece where Trump was talking about Ukraine and Russia?
Thank you.
Do you know which part he's talking about, James?
Yes, I do.
Thank you for the compliment about the film.
I think, yes, that was in the midst of the June war.
And basically, Donald Trump had called for a ceasefire.
And the Israelis and the Iranians had broken the ceasefire.
And the president was upset about it.
And when asked by a reporter on the south lawn of the White House on his way to the helicopter what he made of the breaking of the ceasefire, he did make that comment that these countries have been at it for so long, they don't know what the expletive they're doing.
So it was not in reference to Russia and Ukraine.
It was in reference to Iran and Israel.
Trevor, Washington, D.C., Line for Democrats, you're on the air.
Hi, this is a really interesting conversation.
I've, as many people have, searched for an instance in which a stable democratic regime has occurred through kinetic power.
My question to you is, why send bombs?
Why not send chocolate?
Let's load up our big fancy weapons with Hershey's, you know, maybe some Italian chocolates, and just lob chocolate bombs on them.
It would probably have the same effect.
I'm not kidding.
There's no way out.
Take me seriously.
Yeah.
No, I understand your question.
I mean, I don't know about the chocolate analogy, but I do understand whether you think that the futility of this is becoming more evident.
The Iranian regime is wide and deep.
It's been in power since 1979.
We don't have any instances that I think we can point to historically where regime change in the Middle East has worked out well.
And I think that the Trump administration thought that maybe they could do the Venezuela model in Iran, meaning take out the senior leader and then somehow the rest of the government keep it in place and then they'll capitulate to American demands.
That's just not, I mean, no one who knows anything about Iran would expect that to happen there.
So whether you're sending bombs or you're sending chocolate, I think, as you say, the endgame is just as unclear.
You know, and I think that, yeah, I think you raise an important point about where we are right now.
And just to let everybody know, Reuters is reporting that the first message from Iran's new supreme leader to be released soon, that was about an hour ago.
So that may be out.
That's Iranian state media reporting that the new supreme leader, Mustabah Khamenei, will be speaking publicly for the first time.
If we are able to get that for you, we will definitely show that to you.
George, in Pennsylvania, Line for Democrats.
Go right ahead.
Yeah, thank you so much.
Yeah, you know, one month before Hamas did what they did to Israel in October, Israel had bolstered Azerbaijan's military and never profited more than before by bolstering, by selling the weapons to a Muslim nation that wanted to, and they marched 175,000 Armenians out of Karabah.
And we're not getting any press on that.
It was like an experiment.
They did that, and then they seen what would happen.
And the same situation with Armenia as Palestine, where they're landlocked.
They were letting essentials go in and out, but sparingly, and causing a lot of problems.
Then they moved the whole population.
They gave them 48 hours.
We're not hearing about this.
And Israel was a main player in that.
And then they say they have a problem with these Muslim nations.
What's the triangulation of that?
And also, what's the relationship with Shia and Shiite and Iran and Turkey and Azerbaijan?
That's my question.
Emphasis on Armenia.
Okay.
James, comment there?
Yes, sir.
I wish I knew more about that.
I don't, and I don't want to comment on it if I don't know, if I don't feel comfortable knowing all the facts, but I'll certainly look into that and read up on it.
But I do think you raise an important point about Turkey, some of the other countries in the region.
You know, I was asked earlier about whether this is really a remaking of the region.
I think that there's other powers like Turkey, Erdogan, who are hoping to take on a more leading role in the region.
And I think, again, when the dust settles, if and when the dust settles here, we're going to see a renewed push from Turkey to kind of take on a leadership role in the region now that perhaps Iranian influence has diminished.
Let's talk to Brad Boyd, Texas, Republican.
You're on with James Jacobi.
Mr. Jacoby, I'd like to say this succinctly.
I think you're a good and honest man.
You know a lot.
My thoughts are that this all started in 1959, I believe it was, when the Muslims invaded Iran.
And they were not a Muslim nation at the time, and they became one in less than 20 years.
I believe the same thing is going all over in the West.
Most of North Africa was a Christian nation at one time.
And I believe we should be talking about this as far as Muslim and non-Muslim instead of nations, because it's all about the religion.
Thank you.
Yeah, I would exercise caution with that argument.
I mean, Iran has been Muslim for a lot longer than back to 1959.
I think you're referring to the 1979 Iranian revolution, which was the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
Before that, Muslims were in Iran.
It was run by the Shah, who was a Muslim.
And I think it's important to state that the Iranian state changed a lot in 1979 and did become the Islamic Republic of Iran.
But I would stress that there are massive differences in the Muslim world between Sunnis and Shias.
The alliances between the U.S. and Israel and lots of countries don't necessarily fall on religious lines.
And while I think, of course, religion always comes to play in a lot of conflicts around the world, I do think it's not the only lens through which to look at this conflict.
All right, we'll take James a Newark, New Jersey, Independent Line.
Go ahead, James.
I don't, sir.
Now, your history is a little bit swept up.
Now, Lisa said that.
I've been in a spy since 1956.
I've been studying things, but it's kind of that I advise credits washing about.
Now, bounce on my butt about it.
I just stay quiet.
Now, 1952, Iran was being at peace.
Britain wanted to invest in Iran.
So, James, we are running out of time.
Sorry about that.
But James, he wanted to talk about the 1953 coup of Mossadegh, I believe.
Yeah, no, again, a very important historical moment.
Unfortunately, we didn't have time in our documentary to go back that far, but I would have loved to, which is when, of course, you know, when we, the United States supported a coup inside of Iran, overturning a democratically elected leader and installing the Shah of Iran.
So in the Middle East, when you cover it, you could always start the clock at various places as to when conflicts begin.
But I mean, the U.S. clearly meddled in Iranian domestic affairs, installing the Shah over a democratically elected leader at the time who was threatening to nationalize all sorts of things in Iran which were counter to U.S. interests.
PBS Frontline Examines US-Iran History00:02:29
So I really think it's an important thing to point out.
And perhaps in the next documentary, we can cover that.
All right.
And the documentary is called Remaking the Middle East.
You can see that on Frontline's website.
You can also see it on YouTube and in the PBS video app.
And our guest was James Jacobi.
He was the director of that film.
Thanks so much, James, for joining us today.
Thank you.
And the House is going to go to a very brief pro forma session.
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Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back.
We're in open forum.
As I mentioned in the previous segment, the new supreme leader of Iran, Mustabah Khamenei, is making his first public statements right now on Iranian state media.
We're going to go ahead and dip into that for a little bit.
This is through an English translator.
Forget we will revenge on the blood of your martyrs.
This revenge is not only for the Martyred leader is actually for those who are martyred by the enemy disrevenge.
we will take a full revenge until then and also we were more sensitive for the revenge of our children.
Has the enemy attacked the school the victims of this incident should receive the necessary help as far as the current situation allows,
compensation should be paid to the victims for their losses as a result of this attack.
Two final points is for those authorities who would implement borders carry out these services.
ask for compensation from the enemy.
If we can't get for compensation from the enemy, we will destroy their properties as much as they have destroyed ours.
And that is a portion of what is being played right now on Iranian state media that you heard that through a translator, an English translator from the Supreme Leader, the new Supreme Leader, Mustabah Khamenei.
He talked about getting revenge on the United States and on Israel and talked about seeking compensation for victims.
Now he also mentioned the attack on the school in Minab in Iran.
The front page of the New York Times has this, the U.S. is responsible in school strike.
Early review says it says that the military plan relied on outdated data and it killed scores of children in Iran.
That was a February 28th strike on an elementary school building.
It was the result, it says, of a targeting mistake by the U.S. military, which was conducting strikes on an adjacent Iranian base, of which the school building was formally a part.
And that's according to a preliminary investigation by the Pentagon.
It is open forum now.
You can talk about anything related to politics, anything in the news.
This is Lani in Missouri, Line for Democrats.
You're on the air.
Yes, good morning.
I was hoping to get in with the previous guest.
I wanted to talk about the interview where they talked about Israel's policy of preventive war rather than preemptive war.
You know, it seems to me that if we have nations in the world who adopt that kind of policy, we're doomed to an utter destruction of the entire planet eventually.
If Israel follows that policy into the future, all it's going to do is mean that each nation in the Middle East is going to insist on the utter destruction of any nation that it considers an enemy or a threat.
I understand Israel's reaction to the October 7th fiasco, but they've taken many more lives than that attack was.
It would be like us in December 7th, 1941.
We were content with militarily defeating our enemy.
We didn't want to reduce the entire nation to rubble.
We did drop two nuclear weapons on atomic bombs on Israel.
We certainly did.
But that's not the entire nation.
It was two cities only.
And so if Israel follows that policy and we support it, then we're going to end up following that policy ourselves.
And where does that stop?
Understood, Lonnie.
Here's Gene in Illinois, Republican line.
Good morning.
Yes, I wanted to call to talk to the last guy that was talking about.
And I wanted to ask him about, didn't Obama take a group of Americans over to Israel to try to keep Netanyahu from getting elected?
And he was out of office for a time.
And so when they were attacked on October 7th, they were caught off guard.
And I think it was because there were some people put in office while Netanyahu was out of there that caused all that.
Am I right about Obama taking Americans over there to try to keep him from getting elected?
Did you look that up, Gene?
I didn't look it up.
I heard it.
Okay.
Sometimes you've got to look things up.
Bernice, Guthrie Center, Iowa, Independent Line.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I don't plan to present myself as someone who understands what goes on in the Middle East, but I am curious.
I'm curious about why the United States has given billions of dollars to Israel, and we have watched them take the Palestinian people to dirt.
I mean, destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives.
Why are we supporting this kind of behavior?
I don't understand it.
I never have understood it.
And now we're watching Israel become apparently a major power in the Middle East.
It's pretty obvious.
And if someone could just explain to me why the United States wants to continue to support Israel, it's beyond me.
And I don't understand it.
And I thank you for this time.
Lorenzo in Leesville, Louisiana, Democrat, good morning.
Good morning.
Just want to try to say that this goes way back because in the Marines hymn, there's a line in there about from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Triple E, the U.S. has been involved in this stuff a long time.
But this is like one guy said that this is a religious thing.
And also, I just want to say that we need to follow the money, all of that money that the Saudis gave to, I guess, Trump and them and that to make sure that we stay in the oil business because Biden was getting us into the electronic stuff.
And also, that Trump was not elected as a war president.
He was elected as a business to try to keep our business going.
And this is a prime reason why the Constitution gives the power to declare war to Congress because there's a lot of stuff that wasn't clarified as far as getting the people out, and all America's out and getting people out of the way before you start a war.
Now, Trump has stuck his toe in like an ant bed, and this thing is going to be around for a while.
But anyway, I appreciate you.
Thank you.
All right, Lorenzo.
And we're in open forum until the end of the program at about 10 Eastern.
We will continue to take your calls.
The Associated Press says that Iran's supreme leader issues first statement saying attacks on Gulf Arab neighbors will continue.
Also, some updates.
The UN Refugee Agency says up to 3.2 million people in Iran have been displaced by the ongoing war.
It said that most have fled to Iran and other major cities toward the north of the country or rural areas.
Jimbo, Bakersfield, California, Independent Line.
Hello.
Hello.
A shout out to Brian Lamb and all my heroes out there at C-SPAN Washington Journal for your daily contribution to our democracy.
Without you, I don't know where we'd be.
Hey, just a couple of comments here.
The enemy gets a vote, which means that the Iranians, if they choose to, can keep the Persian Gulf shut down for a decade if they wanted to.
And also, they can send a drone anywhere within a 600-mile radius of Iran anytime, anywhere they want.
And so just a reminder that the enemy gets a vote, even if you don't want to recognize their vote or not.
The other thing is that this is not conservatism.
This is populism.
A President John McCain would never ever consider going to war without the consent, full consent of the American people.
All right.
He would have gone to Congress.
That's what we call conservatism.
What we're seeing right now is populism.
And I want conservatives out there to recognize the difference.
All right.
So, again, you guys rock.
Thank you.
Thanks, Jimbo.
Mark in Oklahoma, Line for Democrats.
You're on the air.
Yeah, I'd like to know how much everything is costing us with the name changes and all the political buildings and Trump wanting to do how much of it is costing our tax dollars and the war and how much that brings a deficit back up in the deal.
And now there's talk about maybe we're going to go after Cuba.
Why?
What did Cuba do?
I mean, it just doesn't make any sense to do a land grab.
And I'm wondering, is this a land grab?
The question is.
And is anybody checking how much money is being spent on other projects besides the war and the war and breaking it down where the average citizen can see it, not from a website, but a hard-printed copy?
Okay, Mark.
Let's talk to Earl next, a Republican in Indiana.
Good morning, Earl.
Good morning.
Thank you for the call.
A lady called there a while ago, couldn't understand what's going on.
We are blinded.
We are blinded.
Can't you see that we're coming to the end of the world?
It tells you in the Bible, all this is going to happen.
It's not going to get any better.
We're not thinking about everlasting life.
The only thing we're thinking about is taking land, taking money, stealing this, killing that.
It doesn't work.
God is at work right now.
God is at work.
He's right on our doorstep.
Christ says he's coming back and you'll be persecuted for my sake.
He died for us.
Wake up, people.
God is in control.
Not Trump, not our government.
Nobody.
God is in control.
Just if you don't want to go to heaven, then don't serve God.
He says, serve me or serve the world.
All right, Earl.
Let's talk to Rob, Democrat, Overland Park, Kansas.
Good morning.
Good morning.
So I know C Spain is about policy politics and things like that.
You know, Trump said he was not going to start wars, and yet he has done just that.
And now all of a sudden, his MAGA supporters support that.
I don't understand how that could be flipped like that, but okay.
So that's, I guess it's called hypocrisy.
As far as policy goes, there has not been a single guest on your show or anywhere else that I've seen who can articulate exactly what it is that Israel does for the United States for all the billions, all the weapons that we send over there.
So I'm not sure what we're getting out of it except a bad name around the world, that we are aggressors, that we are after oil and things like that.
So I think we need to stop that.
Quite frankly, I think we need to disband, disband APAC, and we need to defund Israel and use that money to focus on things right here at home.
We got a lot of problems.
We got a lot of people with needs.
So please, please just stop all this madness and let's start working on our own country and our own democracy.
Thank you.
And here's Angela in Virginia, Independent.
Go ahead, Angela.
Thank you so much for taking my call.
There is so much to be said here.
Disbanding APAC to Focus on Domestic Needs00:04:46
First, I would like to say that Russia is giving Iran, what is it?
Intelligence.
Intelligence.
Yes, intelligence.
Yep.
To see where it could bomb and things like that.
And not only that, Russia gets a lot of money for the oil now.
And Trump wound up stop sanctioning Russia.
There's so much that we killed all those little children over there.
We didn't want to do abortions, but now we want to kill everybody.
It doesn't make any sense.
You know, this is, I think Trump is a Russian asset.
So, Angela, this is the CNN report on what you were talking about.
Russia is giving Iran specific advice on drone tactics.
That's according to Western intelligence sources, reporting by CNN.
And David, Indiana, Republican line, good morning.
Good morning.
I won't take much of your time.
I kind of appreciate you putting the Iranian leader, his speech on air.
That's kind of aiding and betting the enemy in the old days.
But particularly when it was over, you immediately segue to the accidental bombing of the school in Iran.
You put those two together, so it may look like you were supporting the leader of current leader of Iran.
No, I don't support any leaders, David.
It was just an interesting question.
No, no, no, no.
The Supreme Leader mentioned it in his remarks.
He mentioned that school bombing.
So that's why I put that from the front page of the New York Times.
But you went right to it.
And also, when the guy mentioned John Thune's response to the shutdown, your eyes glazed over, but you didn't even say, hey, it's on our archives.
It's on our archives, David.
Everything's on our archives.
Go ahead and take a look.
Mike in New York, Democrat, good morning.
Yes, hi, good morning.
I want to address the three main arguments I'm hearing from people against the war.
So the number one is that Trump ran on a platform, no more wars.
The second argument, people are complaining about gas prices, economic consequences.
The third, people are complaining that we should have notified the people, U.S. citizens, the Arab states over there and take them out first.
So Trump ran on no more wars.
That's correct.
But here we are facing with the great danger.
I mean, they told to Steve Witkoff, having rich uranium at 60%, but it takes a week to get it to 90%.
And they were trying to have like an umbrella, a cover of ballistic missile, drone capabilities to finish that.
And everyone should imagine the great threat of Iran, a radical Islamist religious regime.
I mean, they're not taking, like we are thinking, American statistically, like with the plans, a game plan.
They're taking from a religious perspective.
And they will do whatever it takes to pursue that religious goal that they have.
If they decide something is against Sharia law or they don't like one country, they will use the nukes.
They're not thinking like us.
They have a different mindset.
And so, yes, Trump was running on a platform, no more wars, but this is a great danger for the world, the existence of the world, regardless of whatever his policy was.
And second, the gas prices.
I mean, give me a break.
What is the worst?
To have people be nuked and killed?
I mean, you just had yesterday, the FBI reporting that people living on the coast of California, that the ship might come close enough, far in the water, but close enough to have drones, like the Shahid drones, hit California.
They want people to go in hospital, people to be dying, people to die because of rather pay a dollar more for gas, have the threat taken care of.
And the third, taking out people of the country.
I mean, the biggest thing at war is surprise.
If you will take up all U.S. citizens from the nearby countries, then the Iranians will be so prepared that the mission will be a great failure.
So I think that's very logical what he's doing.
Americans Need Fact-Checking Beyond Bias00:03:28
Diego in Grants, New Mexico, Independent Line.
Good morning.
Good morning, Shistan.
Thank you very much for your time today.
I want to say first off how much I appreciate the work that C-SPAN does and all of the journalists.
Thank you to the New York Times.
Thank you to the Washington Post.
Thank you to all of the journalists for the hard work that you do.
I would like to say that I think all of us as Americans need to look into our home communities and find what we love most about our homes.
I think that right now, given the whole situation with the conflict in Iran, all of us as Americans, we need to remember that we are Americans.
And this is our time to look at our homes and see what can we do on an individual basis to support our community and our country.
I think here in New Mexico, we're making great strides with education.
We're really pushing the envelope, trying to improve things.
And I just want to say thank you very much for your time, C-SPAN.
And I think all of us as Americans need to remember we are American.
Tomorrow, the sun will come out, and we need to be victorious when it does.
Thank you, C-SPAN.
Thanks, Diego.
RW, Democrat, Marshall, Arkansas.
You're on the air.
Are you there?
Y'all listen through your phone.
RW?
Joe in Maryland, Independent Line.
Good morning.
Good morning.
And it's a little windy.
I apologize.
I'm trying to get indoors.
Give me about 30 seconds.
I just want to say a couple things.
One of them is about factcheck.org.
One of them is about America.
And firstly, I'll say with factcheck.org, that is when you think of a thing like that, you think that's just a nice place to go, factcheck.org.
But it turns out it was created by a person.
And his name is Brooks Jackson.
He created factcheck.org, him and another person from Penn State.
Now, I work for this man at his house.
And I'm here to tell you that it's not an unbiased thing.
Factcheck.org is partisan.
Well, that sounds stupid, but I'm not joking.
And that's not my only thing to say.
But when they push factcheck.org on us, again, I, Joseph Webb, I work at his house.
I know the founder, the maker.
I know his politics.
I know what he says.
And when everybody reverts to factcheck.org and say, they're the answer to truth and lies, that's a lie, and it's sad.
When you work at his house, what do you do, Joe?
Are you a contractor?
Well, thanks for asking.
Yeah, I fixed the roof.
I helped his wife when she was sick.
I helped clean fix her pool.
I'm a general contractor.
I'm a home inspector.
Some people think I'm just a gutter cleaner, or some people think I'm a stay-at-home dad.
Really, I run a business since 2000 for a long time.
And you typically talk politics with your customers?
Is that how you found out?
That's all I do is talk politics and religion because it's the most important things in the world.
I've lived in D.C. since I was a child.
Truth Lies and the Role of Factcheck00:04:06
I'm 56.
All my friends' dads were delegates and politicians.
My one friend's dad was the president of the Maryland Senate forever, and you can figure that name out.
And he just recently passed.
I'm in their houses all my life.
So, Joe, you said you had something to say about America.
What was that?
Yeah, go ahead.
Yes, America goes from Canada to Brazil, right?
Something like that.
So when you talk about, I love America, I wish that the politicians and everybody else would be clear, unless maybe they are being clear, because maybe they're trying to be inclusive and make the people from Peru feel good when they say we're going to help all Americans.
But I need people to be more specific.
If you're talking about the USA, the United States of America, that's different because when you talk to me, we got it, Joe.
John, Hillsboro, New Jersey, Democrat, you're on the air.
Yeah, you guys are doing great here.
Here's my big thing about this war.
You know, it was funny.
Two weeks ago, I was watching all these channels about oil companies.
They're all saying the same thing.
Oil has to reach $77 a gallon for them to start drilling again.
Because I guess the president was complaining about why aren't any new oils being drilled.
And they all said it had to be $77.
All of a sudden, oil's up there two weeks later.
He starts a war.
To me, it's all economics.
That's the whole reason why this is a con job.
We're paying for oil company and the rich just to get richer.
Look at the end of this year and see what happens.
All right, one more call.
Suzanne Florence, South Carolina, Democrat, you're on the air.
Good morning.
I am a clinical social worker.
I've been a clinical social worker therapist for 30 years.
I wholeheartedly believe what we're seeing here is the president acting out because of his narcissistic injury when he lost the election in 2020.
He is trying to demonstrate that he is extremely powerful and he does not care about anyone, be it Israel, America.
It's he is getting revenge for the loss of the election, and that's why he can't accept it.
And he's obsessing, and he's dangerous because he is a malignant narcissist.
Thank you.
All right, and that does it for calls.
This is coming up later today.
In about 10 minutes, we've got senior defense and national security officials join leading innovators at the annual National Security Innovation-Based Summit.
They'll share ideas and perspectives on ways to help the U.S. adapt and stay competitive on the world stage.
That's at the Reagan Institute in Washington, D.C., right here on C-SPAN, starting in about 10 minutes.
And that does it for today's Washington Journal.
We're back tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern.
Have a great day, everybody.
Coming up shortly here on C-SPAN,
we'll take you to a national security summit where lawmakers, officials, and industry leaders join discussions on defense innovation.
Then a conversation with Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, ahead of the highest court's rulings on cases involving birthright citizenship, gun rights, election law, and executive authority to fire leaders of independent agencies.
After that, President Trump is expected to hold an event observing Women's History Month at the White House.
America's Book Club and New Orleans Festival00:01:59
That'll be followed by our live coverage of the New Orleans Book Festival, marking America's upcoming 250th birthday.
All that and more.
Straight ahead, right here on C-SPAN.
Friday, on C-SPAN CEACE FIRE, BIPARTING DISCUSION ON U.S.ISRAL COMBAT OPERATIONS AGAINST IRAN WITH FORMER DEFENCE SECRETARY AND OBAMA ADMINISTRATION CIA DERECTOR LEON PANETA AND DEFENCE SECRETARY DURING THE FIRST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, MARK ESPER.
Joined by our host, Dasha Burns, looking at the potential of a wider escalation regionally, as well as the Trump administration's messaging on the justification and goals of the operation, especially with Iran's selection of a new supreme leader.
Watch C-SPIRE, Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series, this Sunday with our guest, The Chronicler of Adventures, award-winning, best-selling author David Graham, whose books include The Lost City of Zee, Killers of the Flower Moon, and...
and The Wager.
He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein.
So what about this fact, about this occurrence, made you think this could be something worth your time?
And I started to realize that this odd little old manuscript contained, you know, the seeds of one of the most extraordinary stories of survival and mayhem I had ever come across.
Watch America's Book Club with David Graham this Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
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