Michael Tomaski and Rich Lowry dissect the Iran conflict, noting tactical missile successes but warning of economic strain from Strait of Hormuz threats and $4 gas prices. They analyze low public approval (59% disapprove) and NATO's conditional support, while callers debate the 1953 CIA coup, windfall taxes on defense contractors, and Social Security staffing cuts under Senator Warren's investigation. Ultimately, the discussion highlights how political polarization and diplomatic missteps, including Trump's insensitive remarks, risk deepening global alliances and domestic instability during a partial government shutdown. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times photographer Doug Mills reflects on decades covering American politics.
He talks about photographing multiple presidents, including the 1992 Clinton Gore campaign, President George W. Bush on 9-11, and capturing the attempted assassination of President Trump in 2024, which earned him his third Pulitzer Prize.
I've listened to his speech on the campaign hundreds of times, and I knew that when he said something about a chart, I thought, wow, the chart.
The chart's typically at the end of the speech.
And that registered right away with me.
And so then when he gestured over towards the chart, that's when the shots rang out.
And when he was gesturing, I was, you know, not as close as we are, but maybe four or five feet back.
And I had my lens on him.
I was trying to get something of he and the flag.
And then when he gestured to the rights and the shots rang out, I was actually taking pictures.
And then I just kept my finger on the shutter as soon as I heard the bullets.
Three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Doug Mills tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's QA.
You can listen to QA and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome back for a discussion on the ongoing conflict with Iran as well as other political news of the week.
We're joined now by Rich Lowry, who's the editor-in-chief of the National Review.
Welcome back to Washington Journal.
Hi, thanks for having me.
There have been several developments over the weekend with those longer-range missiles launched by Iran, as well as the president saying that Iran only has 48 hours to open the Strait of Hormuz or face attacks on their power facilities.
What is your assessment of the state of affairs in our war with Iran right now?
Well, it's mixed.
We've had great, displayed great technical proficiency and have had great tactical victories in terms of killing top Iranian leaders, diminishing their ability to launch missiles and drones.
So I don't think the military element of this, I don't think time is on Iran's side.
I think they have a math problem and eventually we might not get them to zero, but we're going to really significantly degrade their ability to hit their neighbors and to threaten the Strait of Hormuz.
But politically and economically, time is not on our side, on Trump's side.
Obviously, every day the Strait of Hormuz is closed and you have energy infrastructure threatened across the region.
You see upward pressure, not just on the price of oil, but all sorts of other things, most notably fertilizer.
So the Strait needs to reopen as soon as possible.
That's going to be a big challenge.
Trump is trying to threaten them out of it, their grip on the strait in various ways.
One, threatening Karag Island, you know, obliterating their military facilities on that island a couple days ago.
Now this threat against the power plants in Iran, I'm not sure he can threaten this regime out of anything.
I think if the strait is going to reopen, it's going to have to be done by direct military means is my guess.
In addition to all those concerns, the polling does not show that Americans are very supportive of this ongoing conflict.
There's Werter's Ipsos survey showing that 59% of Americans disapprove the U.S. strikes on Iran compared to just 37% who approve it, including only about one in five Republicans that actually approves of the war.
Does Iran pose this?
Does this issue pose a threat to the Republican Party, especially as we're heading into the midterms?
Yes.
If you continue to see elevated gas prices, and I think that's a really important economic metric, obviously, stands for cost of living, felt by everyone, advertised basically on every street corner in America, even if you're not filling your tank on any given day.
You see that number, which is now approaching four on average, four dollars a gallon across the country.
That's a major downside, as well as the other economic disruptions.
So I think if Trump is successful here, say that the Strait of Hormuz is reopened in the next month and there may be low-level conflict ongoing, but not at this level, and he can declare a victory.
I don't think there's a huge political upside.
I don't think people are voting for Republicans because we've won a war with Iran, but I think we would avoid some of the downsides.
So I think that this is in sheer political terms, this is all downside for Republicans.
There's been no rally around the flag effect, which is very unusual, and these sort of conflicts.
There wasn't a wave of public opinion in support of this beforehand.
In fact, there's very little case made for it beforehand, which I think relates to some of the difficulties we've seen or the lack of fully accounting of the potential downsides.
I think if you have a full debate over that, you go to Congress, all the critics of the action opponents, the action, and say, well, they're going to close the Strait of Hormuz.
What are you going to do about it?
And then you have to really think through and make the public case: well, you know what?
We're going to have every minesweeper we have is going to be there.
We're going to get the Europeans on board and get all their minesweepers there, and we'll have X number of minesweepers.
So that will really help.
And then people would say, well, wait a minute, the Europeans seem reluctant.
Then you say, well, we're going to go get them now in advance, you know, and secure their agreement.
So there are a whole host of things that I think could have been sussed out to a much greater extent if this weren't just basically the pejorative way to put it.
It's kind of a seat of the pants decision by the president.
Not that there wasn't a lot of military planning, not that there hasn't been a lot of military successes, but I think there have been significant downsides here that weren't fully accounted for in advance.
And there's potential escalation coming.
Although last Thursday, President Trump said he would not send U.S. troops to the Middle East.
Later that day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the possibility of on-the-ground action.
We've heard multiple reports of troops on their way to the region.
And then there's a Reuters-Ipsos poll that says only about six that found that 65% of U.S. adults think that Trump will eventually order troops into a large ground-scale invasion, but only 7% back a large-scale invasion.
34% say they would back it if it was special forces.
But 55% say that they would not support a ground invasion of Iran.
What do you think is the likelihood that we would see the boots on the ground, as it were?
So I think you have to make a distinction between a large-scale ground invasion.
I can't see that scenario.
Maybe.
Seems extremely unlikely to me.
But I think the likelihood of ground troops being deployed in some form or another, whether it's on Carg Island, whether it's on islands that are in the Strait of Hormuz or would be important to freeing up the Strait of Hormuz or on the shore of the Strait of Hormuz.
I've had some military experts say we can't do this without ground troops securing the shore.
I think the likelihood of that has increased pretty markedly over the last couple weeks.
Last week, NATO Secretary General said that the Allies would and would not be willing to do certain things in relation to supporting the United States in this effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
What's been your take on how NATO allies and other allies have responded to this request from the President for more support?
Yes, I think their initial reaction, which is no, go pound sand.
It was understandable emotionally, this administration that has insulted Europe almost every opportunity they've had and gone beyond the insult to actually threatening them.
We had a story last couple days on how Denmark and France and the UK were engaged in no-kidding military plans to repulse or at least bloody a potential U.S. invasion of Greenland.
So your allies, they're not going to be very inclined to do what you want when you're in a pinch if that's how you've treated them or how you've scared them.
That said, I think it was unwise for them initially to say, oh, go pound sand.
I think they just sort of said, yes, we're going to help you in any way we can.
As soon as we see a plan that we think is plausible to reopen the strait, this is an important issue for everyone around the world, especially including us here in Europe.
So yes, President Trump, we're going to help you.
But the U.S. inevitably is going to take a walk point on any effort to clear the strait.
So it wouldn't be as though their minesweepers are the first to go in or anything like that.
So they've come back a little bit to that position with the statement they released the last couple days, basically say, yeah, yeah, we're here to help, but let's talk about it more.
And I think that would have been a more sensible posture.
But look, there are very few major military operations that have so been on one man.
And that man is Donald Trump.
This was his decision, his decision alone.
Didn't consult Congress or go for authorization, as I mentioned earlier.
Didn't consult his allies.
I think he was queued up by the success of the operation in Venezuela to think we could do this in Iran too.
And you decapitate the leadership and you have a very quick change of regime or at least adjustment of the regime's attitude and you go home.
And that hasn't happened.
Let's listen to some of the comments from NATO Secretary General Mark Rotte about the question of the relationship with NATO, the United States' relationship with NATO, and what they are prepared to do when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz.
First of all, in my context with allies all over NATO territory, what I'm sensing and hearing is that we all agree, as we always did, that it was crucial for Iran not to get its hands on a nuclear capability, a ballistic missile capability.
And what the U.S. is doing at the moment is degrading that capability of Iran.
And I think that's very important.
This is important for European security, for the Middle East.
It is vital for Israel itself.
A nuclear Iran would potentially have been a direct threat to the future of Israel, but again, to the whole Middle East and to Europe.
Then when it comes to the Hormuz Strait, everybody agrees this strait cannot stay closed.
It has to open up again as soon as possible.
This is crucial for the world's economy.
It is also crucial because it's unacceptable if a key sea lane is not closed or is so difficult to use that sea lane because of all the threats currently there.
What I'm, in my context, which allies are seeing, is that they are intensely discussing amongst each other with the United States and amongst each other the best way forward to tackle this huge security issue.
And let me add to that that I'm confident that allies, as always, will do everything in support of our shared interests, as we always do.
So we will find a way forward.
Rich Lowery, you write in the National Review that Iran is challenging a bedrock of American geopolitical power when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz.
Can you explain what you mean by that and if it's significant enough for the U.S. to kind of go it alone here if the European allies don't step up?
Yeah, so first of all, I think the Secretary General is great.
I think he's sober-minded, responsible, and constructive.
And I think everything he said there was spot-on.
But look, this is a key global commitment of the United States.
Key geopolitical commitment, foundation of our geopolitical power is keeping free navigation in important waterways around the world.
This is something the British Navy did when they were preeminent for a very long time.
They passed a baton to us around the time of World War II.
And this is why we have a Fifth Fleet, to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
So on top of everything else, the economic and geopolitical effects, this would be a national humiliation if Iran were able to effectively control the Strait of Hormuz going forward.
This regime that has never been hugely powerful, it's never been a world power.
It's had significant regional power over time.
But a regime that has been bombed for weeks now is as weak as it's ever been.
If it can defy the most powerful country in the world and have this chokehold on the global economy, that would be a terrible thing for our country in all sorts of ways.
So there's no alternative than for us to go do this alone.
Hopefully we get help, but we're going to be the leaders of any effort to do this.
And if we can't do it, no one else is doing it for us.
Beirut Hostilities and Filibuster00:13:03
We'll be taking questions for Rich Lowry of the National Review.
Our phone line for Democrats is 202-748-8000.
For Republicans, 202-748-8001.
And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
Rich, before we get to the calls, I want to ask you about something else in the National Review, an editorial about the SAVE Act.
And the headline here is, the SAVE Act's virtuous goals are not worth the cost.
This is a legislation that's being debated in the Senate that would change the way that federal officials or the federal government is involved in elections.
Can you talk about why you think, why the National Review thinks the SAVE Act is not worth it?
Yeah, so we very much support the underlying goals.
Voter ID is a common sense measure.
There's no evidence anywhere it suppresses the vote because everyone has an ID.
If they don't have an ID, they should get an ID to participate in the mainstream of American life.
Also, obviously, people should have proof of citizenship that they're here, that they're citizens and can vote before they register to vote.
All that's clear and obvious, but we support the federal system we have in our elections.
And these ultimately are state matters and local matters are better if they're handled by the states and localities.
But even if you disagree with us and you say all these things should be imposed federally, one, they're not 50 votes for this legislation currently.
Mitch McConnell is very much against federalizing elections.
Lisa Murkowski is against this because of how elections are conducted in Alaska, which is very idiosyncratic compared to other states because of the rural nature of it and the vast spaces involved.
Tom Tillis is not enamored of it.
North Carolina has mail-in voting, which they're talking about saying you can no longer have no excuse mail-in voting.
And there are a lot of states where Republicans have become very adept at mail-in voting.
So even if you think it should pass, it's not going to pass.
And then to eliminate or have a rifle shot through the filibuster to try to pass it makes no sense.
Because again, you don't have 50 votes.
You certainly don't have 60 votes.
So you'd have to eliminate the filibuster to get close to it.
And then you've left this loaded gun on the table that potentially would be exploited by Democrats if they take over in 2028.
And there are very few things that you can imagine big things in the next nine to 10 months that Republicans want to do that would make eliminating or weakening the filibuster worth it.
I think most big things they couldn't even get 50 votes for, similar to this legislation.
But if Democrats come in, take the House, take the Senate, take the presidency in 28, and the filibuster is already gone, so there's no difficulty for them there, or there's been a precedent for eliminating the filibuster from important things you want to get through, then it's Katie Bar the door, because I think they very much would want to add D.C. as a state potentially, Puerto Rico as a state, maybe stack the Supreme Court.
These would be big, irreversible things.
So the president really wants this legislation.
A lot of people in the Republican base, very whipped up about it, but I think the party is just going to have to take the L on this one.
All right, let's hear from our callers.
Amelia is in Chicago, Illinois, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Amelia.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mr. Lowry.
We all believe we should love our neighbors.
Right now, thousands are dying, including hundreds of children, and the world economy is set on fire.
What responsibility do you think the president bears for starting this economically and humanely reckless war?
Well, very direct responsibility.
We wouldn't have launched this operation if he didn't want to do it.
And there's some who want to, on the isolationist right, who want Aryo is forced into it by B.B. Netanyahu and there's no choice.
No one tells Donald Trump what to do.
He's not going to get pushed around by anyone around the world, including by a country of 9 million people in the Middle East.
So he launched this war.
But I very much agree with a caller we heard from right before I came on, I think right around 8 a.m. or so, who said this war has been going on for 50 years.
This is a regime that's been hostile to the United States since its inception, arguably the most anti-American regime in the world, with American blood on its hands up to its elbows.
And this was going to be a growing and intolerable threat.
So I don't agree with we absolutely had to launch this war three weeks ago, but I do think this was a necessary war in the sense that you couldn't allow the Iranians to reconstitute all their missile forces and go bigger and better than they were before at the same time they wanted to develop a nuclear weapon.
That was an intolerable situation because eventually they would have gotten strong enough.
Whereas it's been very hard to do this war now.
They've imposed downsides on us.
What would it look like two or three years from now?
Maybe they could more reliably hit Diego Garcia.
And by the way, those missiles they launched just a day or two ago had a much longer range than anyone knew and that the Iranian regime had ever admitted.
So you get a nuclear weapon and you put it on top of a missile that can potentially reach Paris, that should be an intolerable threat to the rest of the world and obviously to us as well.
So my hats off for Donald Trump for grasping the nettle.
And there was a seal around Iran for decades.
They could hit us with our proxies and we could never hit them directly.
We could fight their proxies, we can impose sanctions, but we could never hit them directly.
He broke that seal last June with Operation Midnight Hammer and he's gone further here.
So I'm supportive of the effort.
I hope it succeeds, but I'm trying to be clear-eyed about the downsides and where we are right at the moment.
More from that Reuters-Ipsos poll on American support for those U.S. strikes on Iran.
Not surprisingly, 77% of Republicans say they approve of the U.S. strikes on Iran.
28% of independents, just 6% of Democrats support it.
Rich Lowry, you just gave a reasoning for the war right now, but many have argued that the president has not been clear on the reasons that we've actually entered this conflict.
And he has given multiple narratives about this.
What do you think it's going to take to get a consistent message from the president on this?
I don't think we're ever going to get an incredibly consistent message from the president.
This is just how he operates.
He likes to preserve his options.
He feels though this approach has worked for him his whole adult life.
And it's hard to argue against that, given that he's now his second term as president of the United States.
But there are downsides and situations like this one, obviously, to this approach.
Now, I do think you can look and see the core of the argument here.
We want to further dismantle their nuclear program.
We want to dismantle their ability to manufacture and launch missiles and drones.
And we want to further reduce their regional power.
And we hope there is some more practical player who emerges from this regime who's willing to negotiate about those things in a way that would be more favorable to us or the regime falls.
But that's a little bit of a secondary goal.
The main thing is to eliminate their military might and their regional reach.
But he's just going to, you know, he loves governing through Truth Social, and it is not always very consistent.
And I do think that's a big downside in terms of making the public case for this conflict.
Jerry is in Crane, Texas, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Jerry.
Yes, hey, great.
Rich, hey, what a pleasure.
I have a question about a disparity.
You're the perfect person to ask.
It's about to say that in voter ID.
Okay.
Why is it that roughly 70% of the Democratic Party out there, the electorate, 70% support voter ID, but not one Democrat in Congress?
In fact, they'll get hostile at just the mention of voter ID.
It's amazing.
And then you see all these Democrats in the House of the Senate have they been debating it?
And all these Democrats lying about just yeah, well, they've just convinced themselves that asking people to show any form of ID constitutes Jim Crow 2.0 or Jim Eagle, as somewhat mystifyingly, Joe Biden said during an election debate during his time in office.
But this has become a quasi-religious commitment, and it's completely absurd.
As you point out, the polling shows almost universal support for voter ID.
We have a lot of states in the Union already have it.
And again, there's no evidence whatsoever that it suppresses the vote.
So this is a near-theological commitment of theirs that, in my view, makes zero sense.
Patrick is in Fruitland Park, Florida, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Patrick.
Well, thanks for taking my call.
I think there's a lot of things left out in this discussion.
Ariel Sharon was labeled the butcher of Beirut by his own country's judicial system, said he should never hold public office.
He spent 20 years chanting greater Israel by force.
He elected P.M. Perez, one of the ex, I think it was Perez, who said there should be a two-state solution.
He was publicly assassinated by an Israeli terrorist.
Rich Lowry, you know, that if C-SPAM would read the after-actions report of the bombing in Beirut, the U.S. Navy was shelling certain groups over there.
The Marines landed.
The Marines there told, we're taking increasing sniper fire.
We're going to be attacked.
They were told, no, stay, stay.
So we shot at people and they shot back.
You never mentioned that.
There were two takeovers.
Patrick, can you help us connect this to the conflict happening with Iran now?
I understand that there's a lot of history leading up to it, but what was your question for Rich Lowry?
This constant, oh, Israel, poor Israel, they never do anything wrong.
We got to support them.
How big is their country now through illegal settlement?
Wasn't Hamas or Hezbollah started?
You're not taking any more of our land through illegal settlement.
This constant wants to be available.
So which of these points are you asking Rich Lowry to respond to?
C-SPAM.
Yeah, I think I get the drift of the caller's case, which is Israel is this vicious expansionist power and kind of gets what it deserves.
And it's understandable that it has these terrorist forces ringing it and trying to destroy it.
And I just don't agree with that at all.
If Hamas and Hezbollah stood down tomorrow, really, would Israel be attacking southern Lebanon and attempting engage in repeated incursions of southern Lebanon over time, over decades?
No, of course not.
If everyone else accepted Israel's existence, which we accept most countries' existence all around the world, you'd have normality in the Middle East.
And Israel is a Western-oriented country.
It has its flaws.
You don't need to like Ariel Sharon or B.B. Netanyahu.
You know, 40% of Israelis hate B.B. Netanyahu with a burning passion.
So all that's totally fine.
But this is a country that has a right to exist, shouldn't be wiped from the map.
And as soon as you have the countries or players around it accepting that, I think you unlock a region that is at peace and can go about developing itself and maybe giving its citizens rights of the sort they have in Israel.
That would be a wonderful thing.
There is fighting in Lebanon happening now.
There's a story in the New York Times from yesterday.
Israel strikes across Lebanon amid fierce groundfighting in the south.
The Israeli military said it was stepping up attacks aimed at infrastructure in Beirut belonging to Hezbollah.
This is the violence came as people around Lebanon attempted to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
At the same time, heavy rain and thunder swept through the capital, Beirut, where many displaced people are camping outside and have nowhere else to go as the war approaches its fourth week.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it was targeting infrastructure in Beirut belonging to Hezbollah with an increasing intensity, just as another sort of front in this ongoing conflict.
Voter ID and Inevitable Conflict00:12:59
Let's hear from George in Elgin, Texas on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, George.
Good morning, C-SPAN.
Good morning, Mr. Lowry.
And thank you for taking my call.
This is kind of in response to the from Texas on the SAVE Act.
You said there's states in the Union that currently have voter ID, and Texas is one of those states.
We've had voter ID for years.
You go in there with your voter registration card, they set it aside, and they ask for your ID immediately.
And you don't vote without that ID.
So I don't know what you're complaining about.
But there's another thing about that.
And that's my wife and I have been together 50 years.
And we've had driver's license for longer than that.
And in Texas, your driver's license number doesn't change throughout your life.
It remains the same.
So we went together to renew our driver's license.
And she's Hispanic.
She's brown.
She has black hair and a black eye.
And I'm white.
And we had two lines that day at the driver's license office.
I had no problem.
I got my driver a lot renewed when she went up there today and said, ma'am, you need to show us a birth certificate or a passport.
And so she reached in her purse and pulled out her passport and handed it across the counter.
And the lady looked at her and said, ma'am, this is a passport.
And she goes, that's right.
Because she was stunned that somebody Brown could immediately jump through that hoop.
So the SAVE Act is a useless piece of legislation.
It's already been done here in Texas.
Texas has been under control of Republicans for over 25 years.
And all it is is Jim Crow.
You remember Barack Obama.
He had to show this birth certificate.
The President of the United States had to show us birth certificates.
George, I want to give Rich Lowry a chance to respond because some of these points that you're raising are ones that have been raised by many Democrats who are concerned that issuing the types of policies under the SAVE Act would lead to situations like the one Greg was describing.
Yeah, I have no idea what the person in the voter registrar's office or the DMV was thinking in that interaction with the gentleman's wife.
I take his point.
He's correct.
There are a lot of states that have voter ID.
That's what I said.
And it's not a problem, as he also pointed out, is something I agree with.
Now, there are potential practical difficulties when it comes to how Republicans want people around the country to produce evidence that they are U.S. citizens.
So that's another reason I think it's just better for states to handle this.
And at National Review, we want people to have to prove that they're citizens.
It's common sense, have to produce an ID, but we're not sure that this federal legislation is the best way.
Imposing a national standard for all this is the best solution.
Homer is in Florence, Massachusetts, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Homer.
Good morning, Kimberly.
I just wanted to say thanks for your poll earlier of 3,651 people in a country of 355 million.
I don't think it means much.
Homer, what do you think is an appropriate sample size for public opinion surveys to where you would feel confident in their outcome?
There would be no poll that could possibly give me an example of 355 million diverse people in this country.
But I wanted to say to Rich Lowry, was it a war when Barack Obama bombed for eight months in Libya?
Did he get approval from the Congress?
And also when they bombed Syria?
Or what about when Biden bombed Syria, Libya, and Lebanon?
I mean, I'm just curious, because we didn't call it a war then.
Those were just going, oh, what?
I think we've got the idea.
Yeah, no, I take that point.
Look, those were wars.
I think it's absurd this tradition we now have in this country.
I'm not calling significant military operations acts of war.
They clearly are.
This is a war now.
And I don't think as a technical legal matter, President Trump had to go to Congress on this.
I think Iran did provide aid to the September 11th hijackers in Al-Qaeda.
So the so-called AUMF does apply here, but that's quite dusty.
quite long ago, so I think it's a prudential matter.
That's an operation for use of military force.
Correct.
But I think as a prudential matter, in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution, it would have been better if he went to Congress.
But he also has, as Carler points out, a lot of precedent for other military actions, other acts of war that presidents undertook on their own.
So it's not as though anyone's going to take him to court and stop this war.
The Justice Department or the Office of Legal Counsel will have lots of reasons to say he had the authority to do this on his own.
I just think it would have been better in all sorts of ways if he'd gone to Congress beforehand.
Kate is in Missouri on our line for independence.
Good morning, Kate.
Good morning.
What's your question for Rich Lowry?
My question is, because there are so many parts of the SAVE Act that are already covered in the various states, could there be anything in the SAVE Act that gives the president, but could it be used as a stepping stone for federalization?
Kate, your line is cutting in and out.
Could you ask that question again, please?
Sure.
Is there anything that the president could use as a stepping stone toward further federalization?
Okay, you're still cutting in and out, but I believe what you were asking is there's something in the SAVE Act.
Okay.
Yeah, for us, it's another potential downside.
It's not as though Democrats haven't tried to federalize elections on their own.
There's a big effort in the Biden administration as well.
We just don't think Republicans should provide more precedent for doing that.
So again, as a prudential matter, we'd prefer that this is handled by states.
Mark is in East Northport, New York, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Mark.
Good morning.
As a veteran, my question to you is, do you think people underestimate how often leadership has to act on information the public isn't aware of?
And how do you explain those decisions to the people who only see it after the fact?
So, sorry, it was a little fuzzy.
How often the president has to act on threats that people aren't aware of?
Yes, how often leaders have to make decisions based on non-public information and how they explain those decisions?
Yeah, I think it happens fairly often in the scheme of things.
It's usually smaller scale than what we're seeing here in the war against Iran.
So I don't think that really applies here.
I think everything you need to know, you could have made the case publicly beforehand.
But one thing I'm mystified talking about things that aren't public is why if the United States and Israel are so bent on toppling this regime, something that I support and hope happens, why there wasn't more effort to have some sort of covert action to arm an opposition in Iran?
Because it's very hard to do regime change from the air.
When you have a ground force that's armed working in conjunction with air cover, which could be very close and very coordinated given some of the extraordinary technical operations we've seen here, then it's possible to unlock more possibilities.
But for some reason, that didn't happen.
So maybe it has happened.
We don't know about it, and we're going to learn about it soon, but it doesn't seem to have happened.
And I'm not sure why that was the case.
Crystal's in Wilkesbar, Pennsylvania, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Crystal.
Yes, good morning.
If you just let me get two points across.
First of all, I think that if Israel and the United States and many other countries have nuclear weapons, I think every country should have them, and maybe they'll stop fighting each other.
That's number one.
Number two, as a black woman in America, Iran has never called me the N-word, has never said we eat cats and dogs.
I have no problem with them whatsoever.
I stand with Iran.
Thank you and have a good day.
Okay, that's quite the strong take, I would say.
There are a lot of countries around the world that have a nuclear weapon, some that shouldn't.
North Korea at the top of that list, but we don't have to worry that, say, France is going to randomly nuke someone or hold the world hostage.
It's not going to happen.
It's a liberal Western country.
That's not true of Iran.
And it's just intolerable to have this apocalyptic religious extremist theocracy with the power to threaten the entire region and to stay the region's hands or the hands of the United States of America if we undertake even more threatening actions around the region.
So this is why it's been a matter of bipartisan consensus.
Every recent president, Republican or Democrat, has said Iran can't have a nuclear weapon.
Now you have different means of attempting to achieve that or maybe not quite achieve it or let Iran sit on the cusp of a nuclear weapon.
That's what Barack Obama's approach was.
But everyone said they can't do this.
And the idea that because President Trump has said controversial things, he's comparable to the Iranians or the Iranians are even better is obviously preposterous and shameful.
President Trump is the leader of our country.
He's been duly elected.
We have a constitutional system.
We have a free country, et cetera.
And Iran is none of those things.
It has been a blight on the region since its inception nearly 50 years ago.
And it would be great if it went away and there are a different regime there, a different government there that actually honored the rights of its citizens, that didn't massacre its citizens in the streets if they had the temerity to engage in protest marches.
So I'm not sure that's going to happen as a result of this military operation, but it'd be a very good thing if it did.
Ed is in West Virginia on our line for independence.
Good morning, Ed.
Yes.
I'm 91 years old.
I'm blind.
I remember when all this started, 1979.
I voted for Jimmy Carter because I've been an independent ever since 1956 when I cast my first vote.
There's so many questions asked by these people that call in, and you just don't seem to ever ask them people like a person calls in and says, I'm a Republican.
I've been a Republican all my life.
How do you know they've been a Republican all their life?
This war started in 1979.
And if we'd have had eight other presidents that would have had the guts to stand up to Iran, I'm not a Trump fan.
I really ain't.
But I was so glad that he took this action and he took it because these people, if you want to wait another 20 years and find out about it, look out your window.
You'll be able to see it.
Thank you very much for my time and consideration.
Any thoughts you'd like to add?
I appreciate that call.
Yeah, appreciate that call very much.
I agree.
There's been a state of war since 1979.
Pretty much any time over the last 50 years, especially at the beginning there, if someone told you in 1979, you know how this ends?
You know how this regime ends?
It ends in a war with the great Satan and the little Satan, you wouldn't have been surprised.
Or if anyone had told you, oh, you know what, we have a very nationalistic president of the United States who's obsessed with strength and he's bombed Iran, that wouldn't have been a surprise.
So I think there's an element of this conflict that was inevitable.
It doesn't mean it had to happen three weeks ago.
It doesn't mean that everything's been perfect here.
Obviously, it hasn't.
But eventually, there was going to be this kind of showdown with this regime that actually sought it.
You know, it's part of its reason and purpose to have a conflict with what it considers the great Satan.
C-SPAN Q&A with Doug Mills00:02:27
Well, thank you so much for your time, Rich Lowery, editor and chief of the National Review.
Thanks as always for joining us on Washington Journal.
Thanks for having me.
I enjoyed it.
Next up, we have Michael Tomaski, editor of The New Republic, who will also join us to discuss the news of the week, including the ongoing war with Iran.
We'll be right back.
Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times photographer Doug Mills reflects on decades covering American politics.
He talks about photographing multiple presidents, including the 1992 Clinton Gore campaign, President George W. Bush on 9-11, and capturing the attempted assassination of President Trump in 2024, which earned him his third Pulitzer Prize.
I've listened to his speech on the campaign hundreds of times, and I knew that when he said something about a chart, I thought, wow, the chart.
The chart's typically at the end of the speech.
And that registered right away with me.
And so then when he gestured over towards the chart, that's when the shots rang out.
And when he was gesturing, I was, you know, not as close as we are, but maybe four or five feet back.
And I had my lens on him.
I was trying to get something of he and the flag.
And then when he gestured to the rights and the shots rang out, I was actually taking pictures.
And then I just kept my finger on the shutter as soon as I heard the bullets.
Three-time Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Doug Mills tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q ⁇ A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Trump Expectations on Iran War00:15:30
Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back for more analysis on the ongoing war with Iran as well as other political news here in Washington.
We're joined now by Michael Tomaski, who's the editor of The New Republic.
Welcome back to Washington Journal.
Thank you so much.
Great to be with you.
With all of the developments over the weekend, including those long-range strikes by Iran, as well as the president's threat to potentially strike Iranian power facilities, what's your assessment on the state of the war thus far and what comes next?
Well, it's escalating bit by bit, drop by drop.
I think Donald Trump expected this to be over by now.
I think he thought this was going to be not quite another Venezuela, which took literally two and a half hours.
But I think he thought this was going to be just a matter of days, that he would not necessarily topple the regime, but he would weaken the regime in a few days or a couple weeks to such an extent that the people would rise up and find some magical democratic smalte leader.
Hasn't happened, isn't going to happen, at least in the foreseeable future.
So, you know, we have bit by bit escalation.
Closing the straight of Hormuz is, you know, not necessarily an economic stranglehold on the world, but it certainly will raise gas prices, as it has.
It's going to do something to liquefied natural gas prices, which people have been starting to pay attention to in the last couple of days, which is going to have all kinds of effects on farming and other pursuits.
So, you know, it's going to be an economic struggle, I think, for a long time.
I think militarily, the United States and Israel have armies that are proficient enough to get done most of what they want to get done.
But as far as changing the regime, I think that's a long, long way away.
And I think Donald Trump might get bored and lose interest before that happens.
And also coming down the pipeline are the midterm elections.
And with the impact on gas prices, as well as fertilizer prices and other costs, how do you think this is going to impact the domestic political landscape?
Well, midterm elections are a referenda on the incumbent president.
That's an old cliché, but it's a cliché because it's true.
And, you know, we see in poll after poll after poll what people think right now.
Donald Trump's approval ratings are generally around 40%, sometimes a little higher, but often a bit lower.
On specific questions like his handling of the economy, he's much lower than that, low 30s, 30% I saw literally the other day in one poll.
So people are going to take it out on him.
So I think that's pretty much all the Democrats have to say.
I do think they should talk also about democracy, about ICE, about these detentions and these extrajudicial moves that the administration is making.
That's absolutely part of the story.
I think they should also talk about his personal corruption and the meme coin and things like that, that AI-chip deal with the UAE that the Wall Street Journal reported on a couple weeks ago, a couple months ago.
All these things are part of the Trump story, and I don't think the Democrats should leave any of them out.
I get really annoyed when I hear Democrats debate, should we do this or do this?
You can walk and chew gum at the same time, people.
But the main story is the economy is prices, is gas prices, is inflation.
Donald Trump promised that he could magically lower prices.
Some gullible people believed that.
No president can do that, but somehow people believed it.
But now they're seeing the truth.
And when it comes to the cost of the war itself, the Pentagon has asked, is planning to ask the Congress to approve another $200 billion for the war.
What kind of position do you think that puts Democrats in in terms of the argument that we can imagine the White House will make about needing to support the troops versus their opposition to this war?
Well, I think potentially it puts Democrats in a pretty strong position politically.
The war's not popular.
You know, let's just check that basic fact.
No poll shows that it has 50% support, sometimes in the high 40s, sometimes in the mid-30s.
So it's got about the same popularity that Donald Trump does approval rating.
So there's very little political risk for Democrats.
Maybe in a few purple districts, I haven't looked at it district by district, but maybe there are a few people who need to be careful about what they say.
But generally speaking, the Democrats should just be able to fire away and say, we don't want this war and we're not going to vote a penny for this war.
Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee in the House of Representatives, spoke to my colleague at the New Republic, Greg Sargent, the other day for Greg's podcast.
And he was very vocal in saying, not a penny.
And he doesn't usually talk.
He spoke more directly than he's sometimes known for doing.
Democrats are also digging in quite a bit on funding for ICE, as you mentioned earlier, and this ongoing partial government shutdown that is starting to affect airports, TSA workers, and as well as others going quite a while now without being paid.
What do you think should be the next move for the Democrats in regards to funding for those TSA workers and others under the Department of Homeland Security?
I think they should stand pat for the time being.
I don't think the Democrats are going to pay any political price for this.
I think Trump is going to pay the political price because TSA workers are the government.
TSA screeners are the government.
Donald Trump's the government.
The Democrats aren't the government right now.
So I think your average person is just going to say, these people work for Trump.
What's happening here as they stand in these long lines?
I don't think the Democrats are going to get much blame.
So, you know, I don't think the Democrats want chaos in the nation's airports.
So, you know, they may cut a deal at some point just to avert that.
But I think politically, I don't see a whole lot of risk for them.
We're going to be taking questions from Michael Tomaski of the New Republic.
Democrats at 202-748-8000.
Republicans at 202-748-8001.
And Independents at 202-748-8002.
I want to ask you, Michael, first about a piece that you wrote for the new republic.
Yes, Trump derangement syndrome exists, but it's among his supporters.
And you're talking about that Pearl Harbor comment that he made in the overall office with the Japanese Prime Minister.
Can you explain what you mean here?
Well, it was an outrageous thing, the President of the United States, to say in the presence of the Japanese prime minister.
It's a very sensitive topic for them.
Yes, they did it.
Yes, they're culpable, but they have been our allies for 80 years, for gosh sakes.
And, you know, we did occupy the country after we nuked them.
And I'm not necessarily criticizing that.
I realize that the use of those nuclear weapons prevented the war from lasting potentially another year.
That's a different debate.
But we occupied the country for seven years, but we've been friends for decades and decades and decades.
And for a President of the United States to make a stupid, churlish comment like that in the presence of the Japanese prime minister is just offensive.
What does that have to do with his supporters?
Well, I noticed a lot of people on social media supporting it or laughing it off or saying it wasn't any kind of big deal.
People just say that's Trump being Trump.
No, I'm sorry.
That's not acceptable.
The President of the United States represents us, represents all of us on some level.
And all presidents, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama to Reagan to Carter, in my adult lifetime, have recognized that, that on some level, they represent the people of the United States before the world.
He doesn't care about that.
He represents himself.
He represents the people who suck up to him at Mar-a-Lago and on the golf course.
And, you know, we can't, it's horrible that we have a president that behaves that way.
And of course, he's already topped that with this incredible thing he said about Robert Mueller 10 minutes after Mueller died.
All right.
Let's get to your calls.
Larry is in Chester, New Hampshire on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Larry.
Hello.
Thanks for taking my call this morning.
I guess I'm on board with you.
This TDS Trump derangement syndrome.
I mean, I call it Trump delusional syndrome because they have this delusion that he's like this king or like everything he says is okay.
Like, oh, it's like you said, Trump being Trump.
But when they tell things, like when one side says something, and it's both sides, they always leave out stuff.
And then the other side takes that stuff and says, look, you know, they're leaving this out or something.
So it ends up that no one believes the other side.
So like, how do we even get through this to get people to start like looking at facts?
Because no one looks at facts anymore.
They use their emotion.
And I'm sorry, but the Trump VAGA, they have the story.
They control the narrative.
Trump just throws so much stuff in there.
Even if you wanted to look up stuff, it's hard to keep track of it all.
And there's so much information there that you really have to look through it.
You have to know what the sources are.
Like, we need to come out with a better way to be able to give people a picture of what's really happening.
What is the left saying that's incorrect?
What is the right saying that's incorrect?
I mean, I care.
Like, I know that we have difference in policies, but when we're making decisions based on incorrect information, we're not going to get anywhere, especially when Trump controls the narrative, which he always seems to do.
So that's kind of all I want to say.
I don't know how we solve that problem, but they just need to know more information.
All right, well, let's let Michael add his thoughts to that.
Yeah, the caller describes a very difficult problem in this country that's just gotten worse and worse over the last couple of decades and is only going to get worse.
And it's a problem that rests in my mind to a large extent in the shape of our media because we now have, you know, we generally say the media when referring to the press, the fourth estate, but we actually have two medias in this country.
We have a mainstream media that consists of the New York Times and, you know, NBC News and we can no longer say CBS News, but ABC and the Associated Press and so on and so on.
And then we have an avowedly right-wing media that consists of now CBS.
Looks like the Washington Post has joined those ranks.
Fox News, of course, Newsmax, One America Network, all the radio stations that you find across the country.
And those two media, then is there a left media?
Sure.
That includes the New Republic magazine.
It includes a handful of other magazines and the Huffington Post and some other outlets.
But we're quite small compared to both the mainstream media and the right-wing media.
So the mainstream media and the right-wing media absolutely do give two different versions of events.
And of course, I think the mainstream media is much more accurate.
They have flaws and they make mistakes, but the right-wing media is largely a propaganda network for Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
And this is a huge problem in this country.
And it's why we no longer argue about the same set of facts.
Jacques is in Claymont, Delaware on our line for Independent.
Good morning, Jacques.
Good morning.
Just one thing, you forgot the new media, by the way, which is the podcast and the YouTube and all that, just as an aside.
Right.
I called in because it frustrates me, and I'm an independent, it frustrates me to no end that whenever people speak about Iran, they want to go back as far as 1979.
Nobody goes back a little further when we put our fingerprint on that country.
And the Persians have a long history and they have a long memory.
This didn't start in 1979.
This started before 1979 when we installed the Shah of Iran.
And he put his neck on those people.
And ever since then, it's been on with Iran as far as the Persians are concerned.
That's where this started.
And we like to go right to 1979 and call these people bloodthirsty and they've killed Americans for this minute.
We never go back to the beginning where we stuck our nose in that.
That being said, I'm an independent because I don't believe either party really has the American population's interests at heart.
The only reason why Donald Trump got elected is because we're a very greedy country.
We put riches and economics above decency and above civility.
So you're raising quite a few points there.
I'm going to let Michael respond.
He makes a very important point about Iran.
It was 1953 and the United States and the CIA overthrew a sitting elected, democratically elected government in Iran, which was socialist under Mossadegh and was nationalizing the oil fields.
And the United States of England didn't like that.
So we got him out of there and we installed the Shah.
And it was a tragic, tragic mistake.
And many people knew it at the time.
If you read contemporaneous documents, there was a fierce debate in the Eisenhower administration about the wisdom of that move.
But John Foster Dulles wanted to do it, and Eisenhower, of course.
And it was a horrible, horrible mistake.
And the Shah's regime became more and more and more repressive over time.
Ayatollah Khomeini, who came in in 1979 in the Islamic Revolution and took power, was exiled in 1964, maybe, but was a leading, leading opposition figure and living in Paris, but was well known to Iranians.
Democrats Lack Political Spine00:11:56
So it's absolutely the case that the extremism of the Shah in this direction sort of led inevitably almost to the extremism of the Ayatollah and his followers in the other direction.
So we do bear some responsibility for that without question.
His second point is also interesting.
And I would just say this very quickly.
I'm a liberal.
I tend to support the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates.
But I recognize ways in which the Democrats haven't really done the job they should be doing of telling working class people we are on your side.
And Donald Trump is in some respects better at that rhetorically, not his policies by any stretch of the imagination.
But rhetorically, he's a better salesman.
And the Democrats have some complications and contradictions there and need to do much better along those lines.
I want to follow up on that point because there was a recent NBC News poll that found just 30% of registered voters view the Democratic Party positively compared to 52% who view it negatively.
And even within that, 22% of Democrats view their own party unfavorably, with 30% of self-described progressive Democrats holding a negative view.
Why do you think there is such a bad opinion of the Democratic Party, even amongst its own base, and what's it going to take to change that?
I think a lot of people see the Democrats as not having a real spine and not fighting enough and not really standing for something.
I wrote a big, long 10,000-word piece about this in the, was it the March issue or the April issue, a recent issue of the New Republic, the one before the one that just came out.
And I guess it was March.
And I talk about this a lot, and I talk about how, you know, the way Donald Trump lets people know that he's on their side, which he's not.
It's a fraud, but the way he lets them allegedly know that is that he picks fights in their behalf.
And he names names and he calls out enemies.
And he says to people, your life is hard.
And your life is hard because these people are making it hard.
Now, his enemies are, you know, immigrants and transgender people and, you know, radical left lunatics like me, I guess, which I'm not.
But, you know, he puts things in terms of conflict and tension and fight.
And he says, I'm fighting those people on your behalf.
And the Democrats don't do that.
Most Democrats, some Democrats do.
But most Democrats are kind of afraid to do that.
Who would Democrats be doing that toward?
Well, corporate bad actors who are ripping people off and making their daily lives harder.
But a lot of Democrats are just afraid to talk that way.
And I could go on and on.
But if people are interested in my thoughts on this, they can go look up that very lengthy piece that I wrote, What the Democrats Need to Do Now is the headline, and I go into all this at great length.
Speaking of lengthy essays, you also have a new book coming out, as I understand.
Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Yes, thank you so much, Kimberly.
It's a novel.
There it is.
Quite an interesting cover.
It's called Killing Baby Hitler.
It's published by Orr Books.
It's coming out in late April.
It should be in bookstores by then.
It's fiction, my first foray into fiction, although I guess my critics might say otherwise.
But it's set in the future, and people discover, a group of scientists discovers the secret to time travel, and they decide to send a couple people back to 1889 Austria to try and do what the title suggests.
And, you know, I'm not going to give it away from there, but hijinks ensue, let's just say.
But my friends who've read it tell me it's very funny, but also I'm happy to hear them say it has some insights about our current political and social situation that we're living in here in the United States and around the world.
So I tried to combine a lot of things that I've read and thought about over the years and put them into a work of fiction that I think is, I hope people will find enlightening.
But also, it's just, it's entertaining.
People tell me it's a good page turner.
Well, let's get back to the nonfiction aspect of American politics and international affairs.
Let's hear a question from Dave in Frederick, Maryland on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Dave.
Yeah, I mean, you were speaking about, you know, media, CBS, et cetera, but you didn't say anything about social media and the type of conspiracy theories they could put out.
I mean, Trump has an influencer, Laura Loomer, in the White House.
I mean, that's really important.
And young people use social media, and they get a lot of their news through social media, and much of it is not true.
And it just excuse how people think about certain things, especially younger people.
What do you think about that?
100%.
You're totally right.
That was a bad oversight on my part.
Social media is probably more important than traditional media at this point.
If you include podcasts and podcasters like Joe Rogan, who undoubtedly influenced more votes than the New York Times editorial page in 2024.
And then, yeah, TikTok, you know, and people get their news in 30 or 45-second bits.
And then, you know, X, formerly Twitter, Blue Sky, and those other platforms where outrageousness is often rewarded.
And on X now, just like plain old, you know, racism quite often.
So, yeah, these things have had a really toxic, well, not everything.
I mean, podcasts can be very useful, I guess.
There are a lot of good podcasts out there, but social media has been really toxic.
And, you know, what to do about it.
You know, there's this Section 230, I'm sure the caller knows what I'm referring to, that holds tech firms harmless from things that are said on their platforms.
And there's a lot of talk about ways to reform Section 230 that would rein some of this in.
And, you know, that's one possible solution.
But, you know, it's really a bad, bad problem.
And it's a toothpaste that we can't put back in the tube.
I want to ask you about some developing news.
In an interview with CNN, White House Borders are Tom Holman has said, echoing what the president threatened, that the administration would be deploying ICE to U.S. airports.
And I want to get your thoughts on that related to what we were discussing earlier about the suspended funding for TSA.
Well, I wonder what the need for that is.
So I'd like to know a little bit more about it.
But, you know, this is also, I don't know what Holman and Trump think this is going to show the American people.
What exactly are what muscle are they flexing here?
I don't think this is going to be very popular.
ICE isn't popular.
Again, we returned to polls.
Trump isn't popular.
The war isn't popular.
ICE isn't popular.
What ICE is doing isn't popular.
It's, in fact, extremely unpopular.
So now they're going to be in airports.
I don't know.
I'll go read about it, Kimberly, but I don't get it.
Richard is in Louisville, Kentucky, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Richard.
Yes, there's so many things.
First off, I'm going to try to stay within the decade of things that have happened in this country and around the world.
The Ayatollah Khomeini, only after he's killed thousands, they say over 30,000 in Iran.
You didn't mention that, Mr. Tomaski.
It's almost as if you would agree with that.
But I understand.
I read up briefly on the new.
Hello.
Yes, we can hear you.
Okay, I'm sorry.
I read up on the New Republic and found that you're not just left-leaning.
You're pretty far over there.
But you know, hey, I don't have to read you.
See, and that's the thing about America.
The same thing with X. All the crazies that come on there, I can just flip on through them, just keep on going.
And that's what's great about American and, you know, right to free speech.
You don't have to read all that stuff.
And anybody with a half a brain wouldn't see that this is just garbage.
But as far as 20 billion going to the military, that they need some extra money, absolutely.
Those and those going into Minnesota to find the fraud, the money that's going to be taken back.
Now we're in California.
Have you seen California?
All the money that's been stolen from taxpayers?
And oh, by the way, you mentioned some polls earlier.
I think if you looked at Republican and megapolls, we are behind Donald John Trump as President of the United States.
Hey, you have a great day.
Oh, I know that.
I mean, there was a poll last week from NBC that showed Trump's support among self-identified MA people, which is not the same as Republicans, but self-identified MAGA people, is literally 100%.
So I don't have any doubt about that.
Now, his support among Republicans, you know, at any given time, a president's support in their own party should be 90 or 88.
I've seen polls where Trump's in the low 80s, and that's a little bit of trouble for him.
But granted, I won't really take issue with the caller.
And he said a number of things that I disagree with, including his assessment of the politics of the new republic.
But I'll grant him this point.
I have no brief for the Iranian regime whatsoever, sir.
None whatsoever.
Brutal, awful regime.
I'd like to see them toppled.
I'd actually, you know, I'm not, as you can tell, no fan of Donald Trump, but I'd actually like to see this succeed in the way that he dreams about and for Iran to become a democratic republic.
It's a great country with many great, great history and great traditions.
So, you know, I'd love to see that happen.
And I despise this regime.
You know, but there are also very legitimate questions about the wisdom of this and the costs of it.
Bob is in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina on our line for independence.
Good morning, Bob.
Good morning.
Nuclear Deterrence and Devastation00:03:43
How are you?
Doing well, thanks.
What's your question for Michael Tomaski?
Okay, I have a question that it kind of confuses me.
And this is the business of nuclear weapons.
When we say we don't want nations to get nuclear weapons, we know there are nations that have them.
Some of them are our allies, but some of them are our adversaries.
And my understanding about a nuclear weapon is it had ultimate devastations.
My understanding, you can't targetly drop this like you do other bombs because of its enormous destructive power.
In other words, when you drop a nuclear weapon, my understanding is you have endangered your own nation, your own people, just as much as the people you targeted it at.
Or am I misunderstanding the devastation of this weapon?
And if it is that way, and nations have them, particularly our adversaries, may they simply want them not for offensive purpose, but simply for deterrence to protect themselves.
That's my question.
Thank you.
Yeah, a lot of interesting points.
The bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima by the United States in 1945 was 15 kilotons, and it killed a few hundred thousand people.
Well, I can't remember the exact numbers, but maybe around 100,000 instantly, and then a few hundred thousand more over time.
And, of course, much more illness and sickness and devastation than that.
Nuclear weapons today, they come smaller, but a lot of them are much, much bigger.
So the devastation could be much, much greater.
That's certainly true.
There's a concept from the Cold War that the caller may be familiar with called mutual assured destruction, the thinking of which was that, you know, if the United States or the Soviet Union launched a first strike, a first nuclear strike, the other country would have no choice but to retaliate and therefore mad, mutual assured destruction.
And this was the reason it was posited that neither would really use nuclear weapons.
And so it's generally held true.
I mean, it has held true.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the only nuclear bombs ever dropped in world history.
So it has held true that countries with nuclear power don't use them.
They just exist for deterrence sake.
And countries want to join that club because they think once they have one, then the United States or Russia or whomever won't attack them.
And that has generally held true.
There have been wars between countries with nuclear powers.
India and Pakistan both have nukes and they have had some skirmishes over the years.
But generally speaking, nuclear deterrence has worked.
We have a question we received via text from Melody in Pratt, Kansas, who asks, what are the chances that Trump's new task force force on waste and fraud will look closely at the Defense Department?
Zero.
Media Control and Oil Prices00:09:57
He proposes raising the Pentagon's budget to $1.5 trillion.
It's just under a trillion now.
So that is a massive, massive increase.
And, you know, it's just a bonanza for defense contractors.
You know, we don't need to spend that kind of money.
We don't need to spend what we're spending right now.
I'm not some peacenick who thinks eliminate the Defense Department.
No, no, we need a Defense Department.
We need modern, sophisticated weaponry.
So we need to spend sufficiently on that.
But a trillion and a half dollars and the monies that are being cut out of domestic programs, the firings that are going on at places like the Environmental Protection Agency and other places like that, and the things that DOSH did, it's really a very, very warped set of priorities.
Earl is in Canton, Georgia, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Earl.
Okay.
Okay, I was calling about the war.
I was drafted in June of 1969 for Nixon's Vietnam.
Okay, I didn't go to Vietnam, ended up in Germany.
And I was there.
It was in 71 March, I think.
The airborne troops came through with the Vav Oak show, but I got to see.
I was proud of it.
They were headed to Hanoi or the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
But they got there.
There was 5,000 or 10,000 troops.
They dropped in there and there was nothing there.
This is the same thing Trump's doing now.
Drop them in there, nothing's there.
So here we go again in another war for nothing.
That's my opinion.
I'm sorry that I feel that way, but that's just the way it is.
Why be sorry?
I mean, if that's how you feel, that's how you feel.
And, you know, I wouldn't necessarily compare this to Vietnam yet.
I mean, Vietnam was a different situation.
It was a country that had been ruled by France, and there was an uprising.
And incidentally, Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the Vietnamese uprising against French colonialism, originally wrote to the United States, to Secretary of State Dean Acheson in 1947, asking for our help.
And Acheson and Truman said no.
And only then did he turn to Moscow.
Another sad mistake, probably, no, certainly, in our history.
So you had a war of independence there that was very far along, really, by the time the United States got involved in 1965 in a deep way.
And you don't have that situation in Iran.
So they are different situations.
But as I said at the very top of my segment, Kimberly, drip, drip.
We're slowly, slowly escalating, talking about ground troops, talking about bombing power plants and other facilities if Iran doesn't reopen the strait.
So as I said at the beginning, Trump thought this was going to be over in a week or two.
It's much more complicated than that, and we don't know where it's going to go.
Next up is Mark in Bedford, Indiana on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Mark.
Yes, thank you for taking my call.
My concern is gas prices.
Trump, when he first took the Oval Office, he signed in a bill, Drill, Baby, Drill.
And I thought we weren't going to be dependent on foreign oil and gas and stuff.
I thought the United States could make cleaner, better fuel, like gas, oil, LP, and natural gas.
And I'm kind of concerned that prices keep going up instead of going the other direction because I really thought we weren't dependent on foreign oil any longer.
So maybe you can help me with that thought about why our gas prices keep going up when we should be producing our own oil and our own gas and our own natural gas and LP.
And thank you for your time and taking my question.
Thank you.
You know, it's been a while since I've looked into this.
So I admit I'm not an expert on the oil industry, but the United States is the world's largest producer of oil.
But other countries have more reserves.
Venezuela actually has the largest oil reserves, known oil reserves in the country, in the world.
But, you know, the United States can't unilaterally set prices.
You know, the prices are set by a whole combination of factors that have to do with production in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Iran and Venezuela and Mexico and the United States and other countries.
And those countries adjust their policies trying to influence price.
So in other words, a president can't set oil prices.
It is preposterous.
It stuns me that anybody believed that, frankly, when he was saying that on the campaign trail.
And so we're seeing now that prices go up when something like this happens.
And even when prices go, you know, he bragged sometimes that he got gas under $2 a gallon.
And I see Trump fans repeat that on social media.
Well, that was during the pandemic.
Everything was depressed.
Millions lost their jobs.
Millions of businesses were going out of business.
The economy was in negative territory.
So, of course, gas prices went down.
And now he brags about it as if it's something he did.
It's ridiculous.
I'll mention that right now, according to AAA, the average price of a gallon of gas is $3.92 and has been going up.
In some parts of the country, it's as high as over $5 a gallon.
Mark is in Damascus, Maryland, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Mark.
Hello.
Thank you for taking my call.
Go ahead with your question.
I'd like to address the issue of the media that was brought up a little while ago.
And I would like to say that we do not have anything that resembles independence in our mainstream media anymore.
And it's not even worthwhile to pay attention to it at this point.
Amy Goodman wrote an excellent book regarding the media, which is now state-controlled media, basically.
And she laid out all of the reasons why it has become that.
What is basically the state-controlled media is now, oh, and by the way, I'd like to agree with your current host or your current guest and disagree wholeheartedly with your previous guest.
And I'd like, with regard to the media, I'd like to say the media allows the kind of rhetoric that he skews.
For instance, the previous guest described Iran as a religious extremist theology and a threat.
He used language such as that they are a blight on the region.
Okay.
This is the kind of thing that's allowed on state-controlled media.
And did you have a specific question for our current guest?
Well, maybe he can address the fact that no one has brought up the fact that there is only one state that is going to benefit from this war that we are entering, which is Israel, and no one has spoken about Israel, which is...
All right, well, let's let our guests respond.
Yeah.
There's no question that Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has wanted a United States president to be a partner in a project like this for some time.
Regime change in Iran.
And he found it finally in Donald Trump.
And, you know, I assume that he helped talk Trump into this in some way.
But Trump's his own man.
Trump has free will.
You know, he's a grown adult.
He can decide.
He can make decisions.
And so I don't blame Netanyahu for what Trump did.
I blame Trump for what Trump did.
I see them, though, like they may be at odds here as we go down this road because I think Netanyahu is very committed to regime change.
And I don't think Trump is.
I think if Trump sees that this is going badly and really hurting his numbers, I think he'll just cut and run.
So, you know, they may be, they may diverge here at some point.
Well, that's all the time we have for this segment.
Thank you so much to Michael Tomaski, who is the editor of The New Republic.
Really appreciate your time this morning.
Thanks so much.
I'm grateful to be on.
And we are grateful for all of our callers as well.
And we are coming up next, going to have a segment of Open Forum.
Student Cam Documentary Winners00:02:51
You can start calling in now: Democrats at 202-748-8000, Republicans at 202-748-8001, and Independents at 202-748-8002.
We'll be right back.
Lights, cameras, impact.
To celebrate the 250th anniversary since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, thousands of students across America started writing and filming for this year's C-SPAN Student Cam documentary competition.
Nearly 4,000 students from 38 states and Washington, D.C. created documentaries examining themes from American history, exploring rights and freedoms rooted in the foundational document, or tackling modern-day issues from the economy to immigration, criminal justice, education, and healthcare.
They researched, they interviewed experts, and they told powerful stories, exploring the enduring impact of the Declaration of Independence.
And now it's time to announce the top winners of Student Cam 2026.
The middle school first prize goes to Harper Hayden and Helena De La Hussé of Correa Middle School in San Diego, California.
Their documentary, This Is What Democracy Looks Like about Free Speech and the No Kings Movement.
The High School Eastern Division First Prize goes to Kessler Dickerson and Charlotte Liggin from Millbrook Magnet High School in Raleigh, North Carolina for Roots of Freedom: The Struggles and Tensions of Rural American Agriculture, about farmers and government policies that impact food production.
In the high school Central Division, Benjamin Curian of Oman Tangi Liberty High School in Powell, Ohio won first prize for A Right to Health about healthcare policy.
And in the high school Western Division, first prize goes to Danaya Safi and Juhi Pari from Intercom High School in Sacramento, California for Dreamers Deferred, The American Dream on Hold about Immigration Policy and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
And we're happy to announce the Student Cam 2026 Grand Prize winner earning $5,000 is Irena Holbrook from Troy Athens High School in Troy, Michigan for her documentary, The Pursuit of Fair Pay, about the impact of name, image, and likeness, known as NIL, on college sports.
And out of almost 4,000 students who participated this year, you've won $5,000 on this year's grand prize.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Want to see their amazing films?
Watch all 150 award-winning documentaries at studentcam.org and catch the top 21 winners airing this April on C-SPAN.
C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered.
Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back.
We're in an open forum ready to take your calls.
Mueller Investigation Remarks00:03:16
But first, news this weekend that former FBI director Robert Mueller has died.
Here's a portion of his obituary from the New York Times identifying that he rebuilt the FBI and led the Trump inquiry, imposing the most significant overhaul of the FBI in its history.
And then later, after concluding that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election, he became a target of the president's anger.
We have a portion of former Director Mueller's comments in 2019, where he actually gave statements on the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Here's some of what he said at the time.
I'll make a few remarks about the results of our work.
But beyond these few remarks, it is important that the office's written work speak for itself.
Let me begin where the appointment order begins, and that is interference in the 2016 presidential election.
As alleged by the grand jury in an indictment, Russian intelligence officers who were part of the Russian military launched a concerted attack on our political system.
The indictment alleges that they used sophisticated cyber techniques to hack into computers and networks used by the Clinton campaign.
They stole private information and then released that information through fake online identities and through the organization WikiLeaks.
The releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate.
And at the same time as the grand jury alleged in a separate indictment, a private Russian entity engaged in a social media operation where Russian citizens posed as Americans in order to influence an election.
These indictments contain allegations, and we are not commenting on the guilt or the innocence of any specific defendant.
Every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
The indictments allege and the other activities in our report describe efforts to interfere in our political system.
They needed to be investigated and understood, and that is among the reasons why the Department of Justice established our office.
That is also a reason we investigated efforts to obstruct the investigation.
The matters we investigated were of paramount importance.
It was critical for us to obtain full and accurate information from every person we questioned.
When a subject of an investigation obstructs that investigation or lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of their government's effort to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable.
A portion of the work of former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who died this weekend at 81.
Let's get to your calls in open forum.
Richard is in California on our line for Democrats.
Polling Issues and Cell Phones00:14:46
Good morning, Richard.
Oh, thank you so much.
Pardon me, Coffee.
Washington Journal.
I would comment first about your hired guest, Mr. Tomaski, killing baby Hitler.
There were books like that back in the 60s, late 60s, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, kind of a farce on the government situation, I think.
So bless his heart.
Robert Mueller made me so sad.
And to hear a certain person say, I'm glad he's dead, made me puke.
God, that's just really bad.
But also, I want to make a point.
So, Richard, I'll pause here.
You're referencing a post that the president made on Truth Social where he said, Robert Mueller just died.
Good.
I'm glad he's dead.
He can no longer hurt innocent people.
Yeah, that's just terrible.
What a statement.
There's approximately 35 million Shia religious people in Iran.
35 million is a big number.
The Shia religion is a religion of martyrdom against unjust causes.
And if Donald Trump thinks he's going to be able to land a couple thousand Marines to fight 35 million Shia people who are willing to die for their belief, he's going to get a big surprise.
It's going to be like, is he going to next going to decide he's going to nuke Iran like the Americans did when they decided they couldn't fight the Japanese on the land?
So they nuked them instead because everybody in Japan had at least a knife and a fork to fight with.
Everybody.
They were not going to give up, and that's why they got nuked.
So they didn't want any more losses to the Japanese.
And now, what's going to happen in Iran?
This is just a horrible situation.
That's my whole statement.
Thank you for your time.
I'll point out that this weekend on C-SPAN ceasefire, we're going to hear from Vermont Senator Peter Welch and Louisiana Senator John Kennedy.
They joined host Dasha Burns for a bipartisan dialogue on the Iran war, as well as Homeland Security Department's partial shutdown and the Senate action on the Trump-backed voter ID bill, the Save America Act.
You can watch that immediately after Washington Journal today at 10 a.m. Eastern here on C-SPAN.
Back to your calls.
Keith is in Palm Bay, Florida on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Keith.
Hey, good morning, and thank you for taking my call.
Just to answer that, one guy's quite, I don't believe in 3,500 Marines are going to invade the mainland.
I think it's a ploy to take over Cog Island where all their oil is distributed from.
And the blockade, if the blockade doesn't work, they'll probably put the Marines in there to take over that island totally so the Iranians can't gain money from oil and stuff.
And by the way, the oil on the sea that he's allowing to be sold, oil is paid when they fill up this ship.
It's a customer that it's going to be allowed to get their oil that's already paid for.
The Iranians already got the money for that oil.
It's the people waiting on the oil that they're allowing them ships to go to.
The same with the Russian ships.
It's ships that are already on the sea.
Okay, what I called about, though, was you had a little conversation about the polling, about the 355 million and how many people would represent in a poll and stuff to be accurate.
If I'm not mistaken, the last three or four, especially 2016, most important polls, presidential, were off.
They were way off.
The polling since the cell phones have not been accurate at all.
For one thing, illegal aliens could even be getting polled during these polls, and people lie on these polls.
So why do no matter how many people, unless you're having a vote, literal vote is the only poll that counts to me.
They're meaningless to put up these polls.
They're just making money and trying to direct people in the agenda because polls, I mean, if you can't be accurate on the presidential poll, why are these daily polls being accepted as accurate?
Okay, now also getting to Iran.
I want to let you get to your point on Iran, but the issues that you've raised with polling are definitely well sorted out and reported on about the cell phones causing problems with polling, about people lying in polls.
I wonder, Keith, what you think would be a good way to track public opinion in a way that's informative, if not polling, given all the flaws that are known about it.
Only elections can be people that are, you call somebody off the spot and they're going to be polled.
They could say whatever and change their mind two seconds after they hang up the phone.
I mean, this polling stuff is sort of, to me, it's a waste of money and a waste of time.
I don't believe the polls.
I mean, now when they had landlines and you were calling an actual American family's house to take a poll.
Now they could still lie, you know, on the poll, but at least those were way more accurate back then.
As soon as we went to the cell phones, it's been totally off, unaccurate.
And I just, I don't believe them.
How you can poll 3,500 people and say that 355 million people are thinking that way is beyond me.
Because then 3,500 people think that way.
You're saying that statistics say that all the country feels that way.
And it just, I mean, I was in math class too in statistics, and I just, I don't go for it anymore since the cell phone, especially.
Iran, you know, we have a flight of pink code going down to Cuba standing up for communism and stuff.
But they won't protest.
You know, the Gaza people won't protest against Iran killing 30,000 of their people.
Their women still get circumcised.
They can't even go out in public without a full covering of their body.
They have to have a man with them.
And these are laws.
Their husbands can abuse them.
They can rape them.
If a girl is raped, she's stoned to death, buried up to her head, and stoned to death.
They hang in wrestlers.
And we have no protest standing up for these women and these vulgar ways of this nation.
So, Keith, I do want to follow up on some of the points you raised related to Cuba in particular, although I did hear your points on Iran, but you referenced the group of Code Pink going down to Cuba.
So some context for that.
Just in the last 24 hours, a national blackout has hit Cuba for the second time in a week.
More than 10 million people, this is reporting in the BBC, have had power cut to their homes and businesses across Cuba after the country's national electrical grid collapsed for the second time in a week.
And Cuba's grid operator, so it's gradually recovering electricity.
But the Caribbean country has suffered three major blackouts this month as a U.S. fuel blockade cut off foreign oil imports required to keep power stations running.
Now, what our caller was referencing is a trip by a group, CodePink, as well as other groups.
Here it is on their website.
They call it Breaking the Blockade by Air, by Sea, by Land.
A growing coalition of international organizations, including Progressive International, the People's Forum, CodePink, and allied movements across the Americas and beyond is coming together to converge in Havana on March 21st to deliver humanitarian aid to Cuba.
And there have been multiple images of this trip happening.
Now that's what our caller was referencing.
Let's hear now from Mike in Valley Center, California on our line for independence.
Good morning, Mike.
Hi, thanks for taking my call.
I'm concerned about the safety of our troops that we're probably going to send onto the ground in Ukraine.
I'm afraid that the troops and the ships that deploy the troops.
Mike, just to be clear, are you talking about American troops being deployed in Ukraine or potentially in Iran?
In Iran.
Okay, go ahead.
Yeah, and I'm concerned that the ships and the troops could be attacked by swarms of drones and missiles.
You know, the Iranians aren't stupid people.
They probably have been holding back quite a bit of their armaments for a situation like this.
And I think the Iranian army, instead of starting a frontal attack, they could probably hide behind the Iranian people and just fire drones Get our troops.
I know Russia is supplying targeting intel to Iran.
And in the war in Afghanistan, Russia had bounties on our troops.
I think when Trump is, Trump and Israel are launching these attacks.
They need to protect the oil and natural gas infrastructure in both Iran and its neighbors, only because, you know, this can be a long time before everything's back to normal.
So these prices are going to be crazy for a while.
The only way to open the strait, I think, is with troops on the ground.
So I think it could be a real bad situation if we're not careful.
I think Trump's painted himself into a corner, and we should send Tom Hawk missiles to Ukraine.
Thank you.
So there has been reporting in the past couple of days about additional troop movements to the region.
Here's some in military.com from two days ago that the U.S. sends another 2,500 Marines to Iran as the ground option emerges in the war.
Thousands of Marines are heading to the Middle East as the United States weighs whether to deepen its role in Iran as part of a military buildup, leading to more questions about possible ground troops or missions tied to the Strait of Hormuz.
About 2,500 Marines are deploying with additional warships as the conflict enters a more dangerous phase.
According to reports Friday from Reuters and the Associated Press, citing U.S. officials, military.com reached out to comment for comment from multiple agencies as well.
Belinda is in Black Shear, Georgia on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Belinda.
Good morning.
I really, I have so many questions, but I'm more full of concerns.
I'm concerned for this country.
I'm concerned for our troops.
I'm concerned for us elderly, sick people.
And I watched on C-SPAN a while back or on here a hearing on Biden's competency when he was a president, and he was not even a president.
How much longer are people going to allow this man who is clearly unhinged to do what he's doing when the majority of what he's doing is coming from the people around him because clearly he doesn't know whether he's coming or going?
And I was at the first No Kings rally in Brunswick and I'm going to be at the next one.
But somebody's got to, at some point, why won't people stand up and say, hey, this man is not in his right state of mind.
He's putting our troops in danger.
The people that work on these ships are merchant Marines.
They're not people from other countries.
They're at risk.
And I mean, what are we supposed to do now?
Because now we're going to have Russia, China, and North Korea all against us.
We've made enemies with all of our allies, and we've cuddled up to the enemies.
What are we supposed to do as Americans?
Because I'm very frightened, and I don't know what to do.
It's not good, and nobody will stand up for us and do something.
It's like I'm just watching everything that I've seen all my life.
He's destroyed the United States.
They've destroyed everything that is good.
Every safety net, every safety factor is gone.
So what happens next?
What do we, you know, what are we waiting for?
Because none of this is ever going to be fixed or repaired.
There's not enough time.
The divide is far too much.
I have friends who are Trumpers.
And to be quite honest, they have a hatred to anybody who doesn't believe or think like Trump.
They literally have feelings of animosity and hatred to us because we don't believe the lies.
We know the truth.
We know better.
I mean, this is something that's going to go on forever.
The hate, the division, and the violence has only just begun in this country.
And I'm very frightened.
And what are we supposed to do?
Tara is in Los Angeles, California, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Tara.
Yes, good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
In the previous segment, a reference was made to regime change in Iran in 1953 by the CIA.
I want to point out that it was during the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States were locked into a conflict.
The goal was to stop the spread of communism.
Cold War Communist Threats00:05:14
Iran had a very strong, powerful communist party.
I was there.
The Communist Party of Iran was poised to take over the country.
Premier Mossadegh would have been overthrown in a matter of few months.
The Shah had been in power prior to the election of Mossadegh, and he was just brought back and not installed by the CIA.
I think people are overlooking the situation in Iran, the strength of the Communist Party, and the fact that Russia for centuries wanted to take over Iran because they needed to reach the warm waters of the Persian Gulf.
And it was their opportunity to do that because the Communist Party in Iran was very strong at that time.
That's all the comment I want to make.
I just want to correct the history of it because a lot of colors who are informed, but not 100%, I think we saved Iran from a communist takeover.
All right.
That's all I have to say.
Joe is in Anoka, Minnesota, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Joe.
Hi.
I just want to propose to all the listeners out there to call their representatives and demand a windfall profit tax on the war contractors, defense contractors, whatever they are now,
and for a repeal of the tax cuts on the top 10% that President Trump reinstated to lift the burden to the taxpayers on this war and everything else.
Prices are going to be going up on everything, especially your insurances.
People watch their home insurance, car insurance, health insurance.
Everything is going to go up.
All right.
Cornell is in Englewood, New Jersey on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Cornell.
All right.
Hi, Timberly.
I'm going to probably need your help on this.
I'm certain I heard somewhere where the president said when oil prices go up that the oil companies do better or something to that nature.
Now, my question to almost everyone out there is: I'm under the impression that we don't import oil, that we're oil efficient.
So, if we don't import oil and when we have a problem overseas, why does the barrel of oil go up over here?
And I'm not certain, but I thought we've been independent of this or other countries since Obama.
So, that's been a long time.
So, I don't know if that's true or not, but if it is, it doesn't make sense to me that because oil goes, it's like years ago.
I had a friend who lived in Columbia.
Carnell, if you don't mind, I just want to pause for a moment to give you some information on that point that you just raised.
The United States is a net oil exporter in that we export more oil than we import, but we do still import some oil.
I'll read you some information from the U.S. Energy Information Administration about this and then let you finish your point.
It says the United States became a total petroleum net exporter in 2020, and for the first time since at least 1949, in 2022, total petroleum exports were about 9.52 million barrels per day, and total petroleum imports were about 8.33 million barrels per day, making the United States an annual net total petroleum exporter for the third year in a row.
So, the United States uses a lot of oil, but also exports a lot of oil as well.
That is the answer to your question there.
Okay, but it still to me doesn't make sense that our price of oil would be predicated on oil overseas.
Now, I say that because for years when I was younger, people in Texas and Oklahoma and all those places, oil with the gasoline was much cheaper than here in Jersey.
And it seems to make sense here that the same thing should apply.
If we're not getting oil from overseas, we are a net, you already told we are a net exporter.
So, that means we have plenty of oil if we can export oil.
So, why are we paying on the price of a barrel overseas?
I think someone needs to explain it because I don't think that's right.
I think that's just what the president said: big oil making big money, but it shouldn't, I don't think, should be predicated on oil overseas.
That's all.
All right.
Next up is Ruth in Neosho, Missouri, on our line for Republicans.
Social Security Funding Needs00:03:06
Good morning, Ruth.
Yes, good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
The reason I'm calling is a little bit off the subject.
Social Security didn't answer their phone most of the week.
I didn't know if they're on vacation, if they're being defunded to where they don't have the people or what.
But it is strange that they're saying they need thousands of people, but they're short.
And whenever you call Social Security, they say call back during our business hours when it is like 9 o'clock in the morning.
And this went on all week.
So I'm calling to say somebody needs to give some funding to Social Security or somebody needs to do something for the people in this country that need to talk to the Social Security Department.
And I thank you very much for taking my call.
So, Ruth, I'll point out that this has been raised by some members of Congress, Senator Elizabeth Warren and other senators.
This is a press release from Senator Warren's office on March 16th that they're investigating Social Security Agency's customer service chaos, reaching, quote, new extremes.
They're saying that Trump's Social Security head has disrupted Social Security staffing and services.
Nearly two-thirds of Social Security employees report customer service has declined in the last year, and several members of Congress have signed on to this letter asking for more information about the staff cuts in the agency.
It says that staff cuts have left the agency with an average of only one field office representative per nearly 4,000 beneficiaries, a ratio that is 12% higher than it was before the cuts, with over 100,000 people visiting their local SSA office every day.
These staffing reductions translate to declining customer service.
According to a recent survey of Social Security Administration employees, nearly two-thirds reported that service quality has declined in the past 12 months, and 70% reported service speed had declined.
So, Ruth, that seems to echo what your experience was.
To that information, I didn't know it.
All I know is that they're saying they're low.
It's taken people falling for disability nearly three years for their cases to be heard whenever they're getting losing their houses and everything else.
And it has really got critical.
So, I thank you very much for your information, and hopefully, it will be straightened out.
Have a good day.
All right.
Don is in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Don.
Hello.
I just wanted to talk a little bit about Trump and how he's insulted American heroes like John McCain and Bob Miller and prisoners of war in general.
I just hear all these tough military guys calling in, supporting Trump.
I'm just wondering where these folks stand when it comes to that.
Not only does he spill in the graves of war heroes, he also has to comment about murdered entertainers like Rob Reiner.
A lot of Republicans call in and they say, oh, but the Democrats did this, oh, but the Democrats did that.
Founders Day Support Campaign00:03:38
What Democrat has said that all POWs are essentially losers.
Also, I just wanted to mention B.B. Metanya, who's passed for negotiations going back to the Clinton presidency.
She's actually been blamed for getting Yitzhak Rabin assassinated because Rabin was seeking a deal with the PLO.
And then Obama faced the same issues with Bibi.
And finally, once Obama got a deal, Bibi went out of his way to sabotage the deal and eliminate it with Trump.
So, I mean, reporting was being made that Iran was making concessions in negotiations, but BB goes on a preemptive bombing campaign and nullifies any negotiations.
All right.
Well, that is all the time that we have for our callers and the show today.
Thank you to everyone who called in.
We're going to be back with another edition of Washington Journal tomorrow, right here, starting at 7 a.m. Eastern.
Next up, ceasefire.
The U.S. Senate is holding a rare Sunday session today.
One of the main reasons is to vote on whether to advance President Trump's nominee to lead the Homeland Security Department, Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma.
A live look at the chamber as that vote is expected to get underway soon.
This vote happening as a partial government shutdown of DHS is in its 37th day.
If the Senate votes to advance Senator Mullen's nomination, there'll be up to 30 hours of debate before a final confirmation vote.
As always, watch live coverage of the Senate on C-SPAN 2.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. to across the country.
Coming up Monday morning, Niall Stanage, the Hill White House columnist on Trump administration's strategy in the Iran conflict and other White House news of the day.
And then USA Today congressional reporter Zach Shermile will talk about the week ahead in Congress, including the latest on DHS funding efforts.
And later, American University's William Leo Graham discusses the future of the Cuban government as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on Cuba's president to step down.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal.
Join the conversation live at 7 Eastern Monday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-SPAN.org.
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