On March 25, 2026, the Washington Journal dissects a 39-day DHS shutdown and 25-day Iran war, where Senate Republicans proposed funding 90% of DHS excluding ICE—a deal President Trump rejected. Congressman Pete Sessions defends the administration's $200 billion war spending and Markwayne's appointment while denying ICE agents are insurrectionists, despite callers citing 13 million undocumented immigrants. The episode concludes by highlighting deep partisan divides over voter ID laws, election fraud claims involving Nick Shirley, and the strategic implications of lifting sanctions on Russian energy to fund Vladimir Putin's Ukraine conflict. [Automatically generated summary]
We'll talk about U.S.-Israeli combat operations against Iran, the impasse over Department of Homeland Security funding, and other congressional news of the day.
First, with Texas Republican Congressman Pete Sessions and then California Democratic Congressman Ami Berra.
And Time political reporter Nick Popley previews the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference.
Washington Journal is next.
Join the conversation.
Good morning.
It's Wednesday, March 25th, 2026.
The House is in at 10 a.m. Eastern.
The Senate is in at noon.
The conflict in Iran has now hit 25 days, and the funding impasse impacting the Department of Homeland Security is now at day 39.
And that's where we'll begin this morning on the Washington Journal.
As we take you through the latest on a potential deal to reopen DHS, we want to hear from you about the shutdown and its impacts on phone lines split as usual by political party.
Democrats, it's 202-748-8000.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
You can also send us a text, that number, 202-748-8003.
If you do, please include your name and where you're from.
Otherwise, catch up with us on social media on XITs at C-SPANWJ on Facebook.
It's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN.
And a very good Wednesday morning to you.
You can go ahead and start calling in now.
Here's the latest headline on the Department of Homeland Security: partial shutdown, this from notice.
Senate Republicans work to convince Trump to back their DHS shutdown off-ramp.
Joining us at our desks to take us through the latest It's Notice politics reporter Oriana Gonzalez.
Explain what that off-ramp is, what that looks like as of today.
So, so far, the off-ramp is pretty similar to what Democrats wanted Trump to agree to, which is essentially funding 90% of DHS of the Department of Homeland Security and just not include ICE or the CBP, essentially trying to separate Trump's immigration agenda from the rest of the department.
However, what we saw from Trump yesterday is that he remains kind of non-committal to anything here.
He was asked by reporters about this deal that Republican senators that floated by him, and he essentially said that he wasn't, quote unquote, happy with anything that they would bring him in.
And let me show viewers that in President Trump's own words.
This is the president yesterday in that conversation from the White House.
Republicans and Democrats in the Senate to fund all but enforcement operations of ICE to get those TSA agents repaid and open up the rest of the department.
Would you sign that?
Well, I don't want to comment until I see the deal, but as you know, they're negotiating a deal.
I guess they're getting fairly close.
But I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it.
These guys came in, they wouldn't pay people.
You know, they had a deal to pay.
They had to break their deal.
The Democrats broke the deal that we had.
It was all done.
Everything was fine.
And then they just said, well, we're not going to pay anymore.
And they hurt our country.
And at a very difficult time because, you know, we are at, as they would say, a war.
They call it a war.
I call it a military operation.
A very successful one, like successful like nobody's ever seen before.
Hey, Venezuela was equally as successful.
That's a great, that was a great thing.
No, the Democrats had a deal.
It was a done deal.
And then they said, well, we're not going to pay.
And so a lot of people suffered over that and put our country in danger.
I was President Trump yesterday from the White House, Oriana Gonzalez.
He's talking about Democrats breaking the deal.
Did those comments and him saying he's not happy, whatever the deal is, did that sink the deal?
We are not yet exactly sure whether it sunk it.
Republicans are still pushing for that because here's the thing, there's a second part to all of this, and it's essentially kind of tying together what's going on with DHS with his legislative priority, the Save America Act.
And it's putting portions of ICE funding, CDP funding, and portions of the CB of, excuse me, of the Save America Act in a reconciliation process.
The problem, though, that arises from that is that the reconciliation process has to really follow these very strict Senate budget rules.
And it's unclear whether anything around the Save America Act would even make it to a bill like that.
And so they're kind of giving Trump a little bit of an off-ramp here, but there's no clear way to know whether this off-ramp actually leads somewhere and whether this reconciliation bill is actually going to happen.
And that reconciliation process, a much longer process, but the benefits, at least from the Republican perspective, is that they can pass the legislation on a simple majority.
This deal that would open DHS back up a lot sooner, negotiated by Senate Republicans.
Where do Republicans in the House stand on this deal?
What did you hear yesterday?
That is my favorite question is wondering where things are in the House.
And the thing is that so far from conservatives, from House Republicans, they don't really know.
They haven't seen the Senate deal.
They haven't seen text for it.
Tom Cole was telling some of my reporter colleagues was that they were hearing that something was happening, but at the same time, they were healing that it was falling apart.
And so they're kind of in a bind here of not really knowing where the text is, not really knowing what this deal exactly looks like and whether they like it.
And we have to remember that last summer when the House was considering the reconciliation bill, it was a very, very long process for Mike Johnson to get his conference together in order to pass this.
So sure, let's say that, you know, that all of this works out in the Senate.
The House is the biggest question mark in Congress.
And for all of this to work out in the Senate, 10 Democrats would have to sign on to this.
How many Democrats are putting themselves out there saying, okay, I'll support this deal?
None have quite yet said that they are supporting this exact deal.
They're definitely putting Senate Republicans in a tough position where they're trying to put in bills that would exactly fund TSA, like just individual components of DHS.
But so far, it's kind of like up in the air of where things are.
Democrats are definitely more upfront, more comfortable with this idea.
But whether Trump gives Republicans a green light here, that's the biggest question.
Speaking of up in the air, the headlines like this one from USA Today continue to stack up as the days go by.
Pressure building in airport impasse.
You see the ICE agents there at the New Jersey airport in Newark.
So as those headlines and those cable news headlines continue to blare about what's happening at airports, what are you watching for today?
What would be a sign that this is moving forward?
Well, so far what we've seen also from polling, and this is important to mention, is that most Americans are blaming Republicans for the DHS shutdown.
They're seeing what's going on in TSA, the very long TSA lines that are happening in different airports across the country.
And Republicans are very much impacted by that.
We have to remember two things about Congress.
They love a recess.
At the end of this week, they are on for a two-week-long recess.
So their idea is that they're going to get DHS handled by the end of this week.
If not, Trump is forcing them to stay in Washington for the two weeks until they figure something out.
But senators, again, as I said, they love to go home and they love a break from Washington.
Is there enough time in the legislative process to get this done by the end of the week?
And how many senators have committed to doing that to staying past Friday if they don't get it done?
So far, I haven't heard particularly from senators saying I'm excited to stay past Friday necessarily, but they're really saying that they want to get something done.
Katie Britt, who plays a very essential role here, has said that she's willing to work through the night this week in order to get something done.
And I imagine the rest of the Senate Republican conference is on that same page of trying to do as much as they can to bring something to the table by Friday.
You and your colleagues will be up on Capitol Hill again today.
Again, the House is in at 10 a.m. Eastern.
The Senate's in at noon.
Who are you most interested in hearing from to see if there's any further movement after sort of a back and forth day yesterday?
The people that I'm particularly interested in in this entire process of whether this reconciliation, what happens with DHS, are the very, very conservative members.
So, of course, the House Freedom Caucus here have a really, really important role to play to see whether they will fall in line and agree to not fund ICE and CBP in a DHS funding bill.
And all of it being covered at notice.org.
That's where you can find Oriana Gonzalez and her colleagues and their reporting.
And we'll let you get your day started on Capitol Hill.
Thanks for joining us early this morning.
Thank you.
Your phone calls now taking your thoughts on day 39 of this partial Homeland Security Department shutdown.
It's 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
That's our question for this first hour of the Washington Journal this morning.
And we will start in Brooklyn, New York.
It's Alan, line for Democrats.
Alan, go ahead.
Good morning.
So much going on, so much to talk about.
And so many lies out of the president's mouth every time he speaks.
On the issue of the shutdown, he never once mentioned that Democrats are ready to sign a bill to renew funding as long as we stop the kind of reckless behavior that we saw in Minneapolis, behavior which they have, by the way, stopped because they probably realize it is not what the public wants, and yet they're not willing to write into the law requirements that they have visible badges,
that they do not have masks that prevent people from identifying them to hold them accountable, that they be trained, that they cooperate with local officials who want to enforce the law when there's been a crime and have participated in the crime scene, as with the murders of Predi and Good.
And every one of the requests being made is totally reasonable and accepted by the American public.
And he makes it sound as though the Democrats are just stonewalling funding for absolutely no reason.
At the same time, they seem to be sending ICE to the airports during the DHS shutdown of airport TSA agents to just simply waltz around the airport and have no particular training, no assignment, and do nothing but intimidate people who might be there that they may be apprehended when they're on the way to visit loved ones in another country or another state.
And the level of accommodation of incompetence and mendacity and corruption is just mind-boggling here because each act of wrongdoing supports and enables dozens of others.
People don't have the mind space to keep track of all of the wrongdoings that are being affected by this administration.
It's almost as if the Iron Dome in Israel can only filter out a certain percentage of the incoming missiles and some will always get through and they fire enough missiles.
If our attention is analogous to the Iron Dome trying to keep track of all the wrongdoings coming out of us.
Alan, got your point.
That's Alan in Brooklyn, New York.
Let me go to Joseph in New Jersey.
Republican, good morning.
You're next.
Hey, how are you, John?
Good morning.
Good morning.
The previous call, I don't know if he realized what he said.
He was complaining about what happened in Minnesota, and that's the reason why we have to have these delays at the airports.
And then he said all of the stuff that got them upset is gone.
They stopped doing it.
The mask, all the other things that the Democrats didn't want.
He just said that, that they stopped it, and they're still having a shutdown.
I just, John, I got a question for you.
The guy before Trump let 30 million people into this country illegally.
You asked the Democrats to call up after me.
How are we supposed to get the bad ones out of here without going around and trying to find, are they going to just give themselves up?
This is crazy.
This is lunacy.
These people are nuts.
Thank you.
That's Joseph in New Jersey.
We showed you President Trump from yesterday talking about this potential deal.
Let me show you the leader of Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, speaking with reporters at the Capitol yesterday.
So as everyone knows, negotiations continue on DHS funding, including the Coast Guard, FEMA, CESA, while also securing real reforms to rein in ICE and stop the violence.
Over the weekend, progress was getting made.
Then Donald Trump threw a temper tantrum.
He demanded Republicans tie the SAVE Act, voter suppression, to TSA paychecks.
It was outrageous from the start.
Democrats knew it, and Republicans knew it too.
And because of Donald Trump, negotiations started falling apart.
That's not just a delay, that's real harm.
That's another day TSA workers go without pay.
Let's not forget, Democrats have now tried eight times to pass clean TSA funding.
I'm supposed to have a little.
Here we are.
In case you missed it.
Oh, well, here we go.
They're always ahead of me.
They're a great staff, aren't they?
Anyway, we have voted eight times for funding, and Republicans have blocked funding eight times.
Eight times, we asked, no poison pills, no politics, no conditions, just paychecks and public safety.
Eight times, Republicans blocked it.
Instead of paying our TSA agents what they deserve, Republicans have chosen eight times to keep our airports in chaos.
And what does Trump do?
He sends ICE agents to airports.
ICE agents don't run security lines.
They don't screen passengers or move travelers.
By all accounts, many are just standing around.
So Americans are asking a simple question.
People at airports say to one another, why is Trump paying ICE agents overtime to stand around instead of paying TSA workers to move the lines?
ICE Agents Stand Around00:08:45
Makes no sense.
Maybe the answer is this: security isn't the goal.
And this is something rather pernicious.
Hope you've seen it.
Steve Bannon said the quiet part out loud.
Calling this a calling using ICE agents at the airports a test run for using ICE in the 2026 election.
Can you imagine?
It's chilling.
ICE should leave the airports.
TSA workers should be paid.
And Republicans should stop playing games and no intimidation, no more chaos, enough.
And let me say one more thing on the SAVE Act.
This morning we learned Donald Trump, who constantly attacks vote by mail, used vote by mail himself.
Typical Trump hypocrisy.
Every day, there are more examples.
So it's fraud when Americans do it, but fine when he does.
Does that make any sense?
Does that make any sense at all?
Chuck Schumer, that was yesterday on Capitol Hill.
The Senate is back in session today.
At noon, live coverage on C-SPAN 2, gavel to gavel.
The House is in at 10 a.m. Eastern.
That's where we'll go after this program ends here on C-SPAN.
Taking your phone calls, day 39 of the Partial Homeland Security Department shutdown.
It is Joe in Massachusetts next.
Republican, good morning.
Joe, you with us?
Go ahead.
Yes, I just want to say I'm sick of the Democrats.
They want to take money and spend it their way.
They're not thinking and listening to the people and all the young people that have been killed.
If it was one of their people, something would happen.
Then they would act.
They don't care about the people of America and they don't care about America.
Let Donald Trump do his job.
Thank you.
That's Joe in the Bay State to the Palmetto State.
This is Ulysses Greenville.
Good morning.
Good morning, John.
John, can somebody tell me why are the TSA workers working?
They cannot get nothing done if they don't stick together.
If all of the TSA workers would stay home, then someone would have to do something.
Thank you.
So, Ulysses, you want sort of a general federal strike?
Yes.
Yes.
That is the only way this would solve a problem.
If no one is not working there, nothing move, nothing fly, or do nothing there.
Yes, I would love to see everything shut down.
Thank you, John.
That's all I have to say, baby.
Call out rates by TSA spiking by the day.
This is a number from that USA Today story.
Some 400 employees at TSA have resigned since this began.
That number being quoted by USA Today in the wake of another week of no paychecks for TSA agents.
This is John out of Houston, Line for Democrats.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I have felt that that guy just spoke about the strike.
He's correct.
They need to pay these people.
One thing about the mail-in ballots and everything, Trump has been creating this problem for the last 15 years because of the fact that he created the false fraud mail-in.
He's created the problem with fake news and all that has done one thing, has created why we can't vote the way we need to vote.
The Republicans and the Democrats are the vote of the problem in everything we have done.
And what has created the problem is the fact that we're not a country of America.
We are a party of each other.
So all these Republicans and Democrats who claim they're this and that, that's where the problem come in at.
They are the problem because they do not believe in this country.
They believe in being in a party.
And I thank you for your time.
And it was very hard getting in here, but I appreciate being able to.
Thank you.
That's John in Houston this morning referencing voting by mail and the SAVE Act.
Chuck Schumer, you heard in that clip referencing it as well.
This is the story that he spoke about when it came to Donald Trump's use of vote by mail.
President Trump, who's in the midst of pressuring senators to curb the use of mail and voting, voted by mail in Tuesday's special election in Palm Beach County, Florida.
The Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections website indicates that President Trump, who has registered to vote at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, voted by mail ballot in the special election between Democrat Emily Gregory and Republican John Maples for a seat in the state legislature.
A spokesperson for the office of the White House said that the information on the website is correct.
Trump's decision to vote by mail, the Washington Post writes, comes as he pushes the SAVE Act and derides vote by mail at his events.
That story again in the Washington Post.
This is Jake out of Missouri, Independent.
Jake, go ahead.
Yeah, I got to agree with the other two guys about this strike deal to get something moving because it's obviously everything's so polarized.
It would really be nice if we could go back to the ways of compromise.
But it seems like that's what we're lacking today.
So, you know, as an independent, I could just sit and watch, you know, either side throw stones at each other.
And it's really part of the same problem.
So, you know, I think they just get in and get the work done.
And let's get this going.
Jake, when were the days of compromise?
Probably 20 years ago before Donald Trump.
It just seems like when he got the president, compromise went out the window.
What's a specific compromise that you remember, one that worked, Jake?
Boy, specifically, nothing really comes to mind.
It's kind of early.
That's Jake in Missouri on the second caller to bring up the idea of some sort of strike by federal workers.
Just to give some of the history of this, this is in government executive and why federal workers don't do that or at least not allowed to.
It's the law, as government executives explain specifically.
It's 5 U.S.C. 7311 specifies that federal employees may not participate in a strike and assert the right to strike or even belong to a union that asserts the right to strike against the government of the United States.
Driving the point home, 18 U.S.C. 1918 makes it a felony to strike against the United States or belong to a union that asserts the right to strike.
Most famously, almost 40 years ago in 1981, about 13,000 air traffic controllers went on strike after negotiations over pay and schedules broke down between personnel air traffic controllers organizations and the federal aviation administration.
President Reagan famously declared the strike a peril to national safety and ordered the air traffic controllers back to work.
In the end, President Reagan fired some 11,000 controllers and barred them from ever working for the federal government again.
That story from government executive from a couple years ago, but would apply still today.
This is Bill in Orange Park, Florida, Republican.
Bill, good morning.
Yeah, good morning.
Thanks for the call.
I got a question for you.
Why is there so many people in Congress against Having voter ID.
I just don't understand that.
Every country you go to, they require voter ID.
And get rid of this mail-in ballot garbage.
I just don't understand it.
Voter ID And Mail Ballots00:15:53
I mean, it makes common sense.
And yet you let Schumer stand up there and lie his teeth out.
Why don't you have Petterman on there instead of Schumer?
Put Petterman on there and he'll tell you how to do it.
Bill, in terms of getting rid of the mail-in ballot, you don't think anybody should ever be able to use a mail-in ballot?
There's some states that are only mail-in ballot.
No, I agree.
Mail-in ballots are good.
I got two granddaughters in the military.
Now they're going to need them.
And you didn't say that President Trump requested a mail-in ballot probably three months ago.
You just made that sound like he just got the mail-in ballots.
No, he probably requested it because he was going to be out of town or be out of the area.
So in that sense, for Christ's sake, in that sense, you're OK with mail-in ballots.
If people aren't going to be in town on the day to vote, you're fine with that.
If they're going to be in the military or they're going to have a leg miss out or, you know, there's huge common sense.
That's Bill in Florida.
We showed you Chuck Schumer earlier talking about the latest on negotiations over the Department of Homeland Security shutdown.
This is John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, yesterday responding to reporters' questions as well.
What is your level of optimism right now that this can be done by the end of the week?
It depends.
It's really in the hands of the Democrats.
We're ready to move, and we believe that the legislature of Texas is available with consent.
We could get on it and we could do it today.
If the president rejected a plan similar to this over the weekend, why did he change his mind now?
Well, I think there are, I mean, obviously, maybe you can just say that my colleagues were more persuasive than I was.
But I think the arguments have been made and clearly that what we are doing here, and thanks to his work last summer and our work last summer, we pre-funded a lot of the ICE budget.
And ICE agents right now and CBP agents are being paid, even though TSA is not.
And that's because we pre-funded that from last summer.
And so I think that, coupled with the fact that we also have possibility of a budget reconciliation bill, if we need additional, if we need to plus that up above and beyond what's already available, I think the president evidently was persuaded by those arguments.
Why wait until day 39 to get Democrats what they wanted, like you said?
Why not do this earlier?
And then where does that mean for ICE reform conversations with Democrats moving forward?
Well, I mean, I think that's going to be up to them.
The reform, honestly, this has all been about reforms that they said they wanted, and we have repeatedly showed up.
They have repeatedly backed away, including over this last weekend.
And it became very clear to us that they really weren't interested in reforms.
So if they want reforms, then they ought to figure out how to help fund, fully fund ICE.
ICE will be partially funded.
CBP will be funded under this proposal.
But if they want to have a conversation about some of the reform ideas that they had put in front of us, then that would be contingent upon actually providing funding for ICE.
And so we'll see how they react to that.
But we're ready to move, and it's really going to be incumbent upon them.
If DHS is going to open up and we're going to have TSA agents starting to get paid again before the weekend, it's the ball's in the Democrats' court.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, that was yesterday on Capitol Hill, the Senate.
Back in at noon Eastern today, the House is in at 10 a.m. A hearing on Capitol Hill on the impacts of the DHS shutdown.
That's going to be with senior officials from FEMA and TSA and the Coast Guard, the senior officials testifying on how it's impacting public safety and security.
That's happening before the House Homeland Security Committee live at 10 a.m. Eastern.
And we're going to show that on C-SPAN 3, also C-SPAN.org and the free C-SPAN Now video app.
So plenty going on in Capitol Hill today.
Taking your phone calls this morning on the Washington Journal.
We are about 30 minutes past the hour, 7:30 Eastern here.
This is John in Brooklyn.
Democrat, good morning.
How are you doing, John?
Thank heavens for C-SPAN.
I want to ask you a question a while ago.
When was the last time they had a bipartisan that was working together?
Tiffo Neil, John Reed, and President O'Brien with his bill he passed to fix the country up.
He did that bipartisan.
They agreed on that.
But let me get to Trump.
Some ladies said just a while ago that somebody said that Biden let millions of people into the country.
Biden didn't do that.
Trump did that.
Remember these words?
Don't pass that bill.
I want to run on it.
Do you remember that?
At the time, they had all the houses.
They had Congress, the Senate, and the presidential.
All they had to do is pass the bill.
They didn't need Democrats.
The money that Trump is spending right now on ISIS and throwing people out of the country, don't you know you could go harm immigration judges and do just what Obama did, get all these people out, because there are some people that really need to come to this country for protection in their lives.
All right.
Let me address.
Well, John, got your point on that.
Got plenty of colors waiting, too.
Let me get to Brianna in Sanborn, Iowa, Independent.
Brianna, good morning.
Thanks for waiting.
Hi there.
My name is actually pronounced Brianna.
Brianna, go ahead.
Yes, sir.
So I will make this as brief and concise as I possibly can.
However, I would just like to state for the record: I believe in God.
I believe God bless America.
I believe in Francis Scott Key, who wrote the Star-Spangled Banner.
You know, Jose, can we see by the dawn's early light?
You know, I believe in the preamble of the Constitution of the United States, we the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, promote domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense.
So, Brianna, Brianna, bring me to today.
So, listen, what is going on in this nation?
Clearly, what is actually happening?
I'm a very educated woman.
What is going on here?
What are we doing?
As a nation, what are we actually doing?
Let's just, can we appreciate the fact that there has been no time in history like the present time?
I mean, that may be a rhetorical question, but what is happening here?
I would just implore everyone.
I would just implore everyone that Man, it's hard not to get emotional.
Like, I would just implore people to really just dig deep, dig deep in your rooted belief system, dig deep as to who we are meant to be as a country.
Just black, white, Asian, anything.
Just as a as a people, we the people, as a democracy, I would just implore us to just collectively try to unite.
This is the United States of America, is it not?
That's Brianna.
This is Henry in Michigan.
Republican, good morning.
Yeah, John, you're sitting in a good spot there.
You should be telling your Democratic friends, you just spread what they should be doing, not what not supposed to be doing.
Why should we wait until it comes across the sky and it hits a town or your neighborhood near you?
You know what I'm talking about.
Boom, boom.
What are we referring to, Henry?
That's Henry in Michigan.
This is Jared in Delaware.
Wilmington, Delaware line for Democrats.
Good morning.
Hey, how are you this morning?
Just wishing everybody in America a good morning.
It's crazy to me how much the Republicans are doing flip-flops and backflips now, trying to justify everything that Trump is doing.
I heard a Republican caller call in earlier and say that, oh, the ICE is over.
They're not wearing masks anymore.
They're not snatching people anymore.
That's not true.
They're just not doing it in Minnesota anymore.
And Tom Holman, who was appointed by a Democrat, actually has a little bit of sense.
So that's why ICE is kind of falling back and now they're in the airports and different things like that.
As far as Trump goes, the last person just mentioned, the last Republican just mentioned the Star Spangled Banner.
She should probably read the whole thing and not just the part they sing in school.
Actually, a bunch of racist remarks in there as well.
But again, as far as Trump is concerned, the Republicans are doing flip-flops to justify everything.
He's over in Iran starting a war.
He said no wars.
Gas plays manipulating the stock market while the war is going on just to make his friends and his family some money.
Donald Trump isn't who he said he was going to be for Democrats or Republicans.
Actually, he is who he said he was going to be for Democrats.
Someone who we knew he would be and someone who Republicans convinced themselves that he wasn't.
The guy isn't doing anything.
Obviously, nobody can say that, oh, their life has gotten better over the past year.
Grocery price, eggs went down, but all the other groceries have gone up.
Gas went down for a moment.
Now it's backed up again.
What are you going to say?
The eight NCAA transgenders aren't playing anymore?
Whoopsie-doo.
Come on, guys, get it together.
They're the same.
These Republicans and Democrats are the same feathers on the same bird.
They're just on different wings.
That's all we're doing.
Obama, you know, he shot a lot of countries.
And yeah, okay.
Trump won-upped them.
But again, they're the same thing, guys.
Americans, Americans themselves need to wake up.
That's Jared in Delaware.
President Trump yesterday in the Oval Office speaking to reporters about the ongoing government shutdown, partial shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security.
Even as the Department of Homeland Security has a new secretary, it's now Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen.
He took the oath of office as the newest Homeland Security Secretary yesterday alongside the president.
This is some of what he had to say.
Thank you.
I think that was the most nervous I've ever been.
It just seems surreal being in office and having the President of the United States speak so highly of me and then recognize my family and know my family by name.
It's humbling.
And I never take it for granted, but I made this very clear that I don't care what color your state is.
I don't care if you're red or you're blue.
At the end of the day, my job is to be Secretary of Homeland and to protect everybody the same.
And we will do that.
I'll fight every single day.
Today, I got the privilege of meeting so many of the employees at DHS.
These employees have been there for 30 days without pay.
And if you need anything to know their dedication to show up and still protect the homeland that you and I enjoy and the freedoms that we're experiencing, they're working with for free because of political politics.
That's all I need to know.
I told them, if you're fighting 365 days, understand I'll be fighting 365 days beside you.
No one's going to outwort me, and I'm not going to let any of them outwort me.
The president is entrusting me with this, and failure is not an option.
So thank you so much, Mr. President, for this opportunity.
I won't let you down.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
That was Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen yesterday.
We're taking your calls this morning on this ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown and the potential for a deal happening this week.
Melanie's next in South Carolina.
Republican, good morning.
Yes, I believe that the folks in Congress that can't get it together should be fined $1,000 a day for allowing people to work with no money because the people in Congress are the ones who are supposed to get it together and they're not.
They're getting together to go home for two weeks.
And other people don't even have enough money to live for two weeks.
And again, $1,000 per person for everyone in Congress until they get it together.
Maybe something can get done if you take some money out of their pocketbook.
That's all I've got to say.
And we'll see if a deal gets done this week.
We talked earlier about that potential deal to fund everything but ICE deportation operations to fund the vast majority of the Department of Homeland Security.
And then the idea would be to move that separate ICE funding along with potentially the SAVE Act, that voting bill, in a separate process, budget reconciliation process.
It's a little bit longer, but the deal would open DHS a lot sooner.
Although here's the latest headline on that deal from the Hill newspaper today, deal to fund DHS draws criticism from both parties, the proposal to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, but it put off funding for the immigration enforcement removal operations.
It appeared to have some momentum, but that changed Tuesday when critics in both parties panned it.
And President Trump had endorsed that proposal on Monday, more lukewarm yesterday when he was asked about it.
This is Eddie in Saginaw, Michigan.
Democrat, good morning.
Hey, how are you doing today, John?
Doing well.
Listen, let me just say this on your behalf.
Man, I like listening to you because just like you explained, you had a couple callers that called in and saying, why don't they stop working?
And just like you explained back when Ronald Reagan was in office, they tried to like wish they can-strike under this law, and he fired them all.
Would be the same thing that would happen here in this situation.
But anyway, John, can you just explain to everybody why are the Democrats and the Republicans bickering about this and that?
Politicians Refuse Compromise00:15:11
Is it because the Democrats want them to have the ICE to remove the masks or have video camp wear a camera on them?
Or is it something else that didn't add it into this that they want more than what they're asking for?
Can you please just explain both sides of it?
Why they're not doing this and why they're not doing that.
Well, Eddie, Eddie, what's your understanding?
Democrats are saying they want some of these changes to ICE codified into law.
The mask idea, there's been negotiations over fundings for body cameras, and that is potentially part of this deal.
But what's your understanding of what the impasse is right now?
What I'm getting out of this, out of all the different news, all the different conversations about all of this, is that it's more to it than just removing your mask on a video camera, want ICE to tone down some of the action.
That's what I'm getting at.
But it seems like it's more that the Republicans are adding to this.
And the Democrats don't want that to happen.
Because I've been hearing about now it's something to do with the voting, the mail-in ballots, and all this kind of stuff.
So I know that whenever they come up with a bill, if the headlines say, get rid of this, for instance, get rid of this, this headline, they always add other stuff in it.
Other stuff that the people don't really know other than the initial start of the bill.
So to the people, John, just explain both sides of it.
Well, Eddie, here's Matthew Continetti's explanation for what's happening right now from the pages of the Wall Street Journal, the opinion section.
He says Washington's political class simply isn't listening on either side of the aisle.
Republicans, he writes, are waging a losing fight for mandatory voter ID.
Democrats are prolonging a government shutdown that has produced nothing but hours-long airport security lines.
The House and Senate haven't reconciled differences in separate housing bills.
The Pentagon will soon request a supplemental measure to pay for Operation Epic Fury, and no one knows how to pass it.
He writes, from the White House to Capitol Hill, leaders in both parties are more interested in performative struggles for position than in addressing the cost of living.
They use symbolic issues to mobilize base supporters and shape the battlefield ahead of this year's midterm campaign.
They've become experts in KFAB and dramatic art of masking fake conflict as real.
All that's missing, he writes from C-SPAN, is the soundtrack of Monday Night Raw, the headline of his piece, Voters Lose in This Congressional WrestleMania.
This is Alan in Washington.
Republican, good morning.
Yeah, they want the criminals to stay in the United States.
They're complaining about ICE, but they never complain about the ones that are driving down the road and killing people.
There's more people, more citizens been killed by illegals than by ICE.
In fact, the guy that was killed by ICE, he was a criminal.
The minute he walked out the door with his guns and no ID and no form of his criminal.
Do you think not carrying a permit on him was something illegal?
And so therefore he should have been shot, Alan?
You got to carry your permit.
I guess I'm asking you, are you saying that's justification for him getting shot?
He attacked the guy.
You can see it.
They didn't attack him.
He could have stayed out of his way.
That's Alan in Washington.
This is Daniel in Rockport, Massachusetts, Independent.
Good morning.
Yes, good morning, first-time caller.
Well, when it comes to our government is not paying his employees, there should be a bill formed or passed that people can sign.
And if the employees don't get paid, then all the people in Washington shouldn't collect the paycheck either.
Because a lot of them, they're just plain lazy.
They don't want to do anything.
They don't want to compromise.
They don't want to do anything good for the people.
Anyway, and when it comes, one more thing, when it comes to voter IDs, it shouldn't be any problem because anywhere you travel in the world, everybody's got it.
And the legal people of this country, they should have no objections of getting voter IDs.
Thank you.
That's Daniel in Massachusetts.
This is Carl, Louisiana.
Good morning, line for Republicans.
Good morning.
Happy Wednesday to you.
I am calling basically in reference to the Congress.
This worldwide that politicians are doing this.
Our country was lost in 1913 to the British banking system when they stole the American citizens' money on December 23rd of 1913 under Wilson to support their global wars.
And that's what we're doing.
We're doing the bidding of bankers having all these wars and drug trade.
So that's just my opinion, but it's something to think about.
Thank you.
Carl in Louisiana.
This is Michael Kipling, North Carolina, Democrat.
Good morning.
Good morning.
How are you doing?
I'm doing well.
Yeah, I just want to say, you know, I'm a three-time war veteran and stuff.
You know, I fought for this country.
And what I can't understand is like all this fight and stuff against each other.
I mean, this country is divided.
I wish people in this country, like, open their eyes to see what's going on.
Because this country here, I mean, it's too divided.
And you got a guy in the White House just like a kid with a gun.
He's doing whatever he wants to do.
And I don't think that he will be able to turn this country to a dictatorship.
It'll be hard to do that.
You know, these ICE agents are just guys off the street.
No training, no nothing.
You know, they're shooting people, they're bragging about it, they're texting each other, bragging about it and everything.
You know, the cops, you know, don't do that.
This country needs to get this stuff together and everybody needs to pull together and stop being divided or it'll be another civil war before you even know it.
Thank you.
It's Michael in North Carolina to South Carolina, Somerville, Mark, Republican.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Hey, this thing about Trump, just like the previous caller about divided country, we're always going to be divided as long as we don't believe in freedom and liberty over socialism and communism.
This thing about this DHS is all about making sure we got these illegals in here and they're not going to try to get rid of them.
If nothing else, future voters, it still gives them the seats in the Senate and the House there by the census count that they're counting these illegals.
So that's another reason why the Democrats don't want to do this about even try to keep ICE out of doing what they're supposed to be doing, protecting us Americans.
This whole big picture is it's dangerous as heck what's going on because the people just hate Trump.
And the biggest thing is what we got to worry about is our national security.
This thing about TSA and the piecemeal.
Well, the reason why they want to fund TSA now, because American people are actually getting the hardship from their not funding them.
Unlike the cyber security, the FEMA.
And well, the FEMA, the people in Hawaii, are going to find out about that, about the flooding.
But also, the Coast Guard, we need them bad.
And what's the last one that's really super important that's not being funded?
Oh, yeah, Secret Service.
Yeah, we're okay about, I guess, they want President Trump assassinated since they want to do that situation, not funding it.
But that's the dangerous as heck.
And as far as, you know, this Iran war thing, people would need to realize we were within a couple weeks of having them having nuclear warheads, you know, 10 or 11 nuclear warheads capabilities.
And find out about that Diego CR, guard, whatever it is, that island out there where they found out they got missiles that could go farther.
That's why Europe's joining us.
They said, oh, no, before they weren't going to help us, but now they can see the missiles can hit them.
Oh, they're going to help us out now so they know they're a threat.
This is all dangerous about our national security and our safety.
That's the biggest thing.
When these people want to hate Trump and not worry about our safety and our national security, that's why we had funded DHS from 9-11 for terrorism.
We had to get a star on a license for all this crap.
And they let the border wide open all this time.
It comes down to national security.
We need to fund everything in the DHS.
All right?
Thank you.
It's Mark in South Carolina, Cleveland, Ohio.
Ruben, Democrat.
Good morning.
Good morning.
How are you doing this morning?
Doing well.
Hey, I have a question.
Why is it a problem with ICE ticking off their masks?
Okay.
And I understand, you know, they have to chase people from around the country and everything.
But every other law enforcement do not wear masks, and they show Papa ID and everything else.
And they chase us as bad as people as ICE do.
So what makes that a difference?
So you think this should be an easy issue to agree on, Ruben?
Repeat.
You think this should be an easy issue to agree on?
Yes, it should be.
You got your sheriffs.
You got everybody else don't wear masks.
So why can't I do that?
You know, and they don't go busting at people's houses and every taking snatching people out of cars.
They do it by the book.
Well, we can't follow the book no more.
We can't follow the Constitution.
That's Ruby.
I thought we live.
Yeah, I thought we live governed by rules.
That's a Ruben in Ohio.
This is Beverly Casper, Wyoming, Independent.
morning hey well good morning uh yeah it is important to have rules that didn't honor yourself a human being but yeah that ice is a little bit too much for me because it looks like uh people look like they came across
So it's kind of babbling to me.
But all of these people, have a good day.
May God be with you.
And today is my father's birthday, and I love just being alive.
Thank you.
It's Beverly in Casper, Wyoming.
This is Rhonda from Facebook with one of the many comments during this segment from social media.
Rhonda saying, Democrats are responsible for this shutdown with their petulant political games.
They shut down the government for two months, and now this, all they need, they all need to be voted out, is what Rhonda says.
This from Mary, pay TSA, continue negotiating the rest.
ICE needs serious reform and training if they are to continue.
If border control is going to be brought into the cities, they need additional training also.
And Matt saying, pass the SAVE Act, fund DHS.
It's that simple.
Voter security and homeland security seems easy enough for anyone with common sense.
Time for maybe just one or two more calls.
This is John Troy, New York, Republican.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Yeah, I just want to say that it's 100% on the Democrats.
There was an 18-year-old woman killed, girl killed the other day by one of the immigrants letting into Joe Biden's open border.
And now, some of the provisions for the Democrats to want to settle this, what was it?
I heard it's to get a warrant every time they want to throw in a legal alien that shouldn't be here out of the country.
It's just absolutely ridiculous.
Trump is doing the right thing.
And if they agree to Democrats' demands, it would handcuff them on everything.
And it's just, it's ridiculous.
It's their fault.
It all goes back to the mess that Biden and Harris created by opening the border to begin with.
None of this would be happening if Joe Biden didn't let in 20 million illegal aliens and you saw how easy it was to close the border once Trump got elected.
So this is 100% on the Democrats.
They could make a deal tomorrow.
The only Democrats that have any spine to stand up to their crazy agenda is John Fetterman.
I would vote for him in a second.
It's just the Democratic Party has gone off the rails in the last five years and with their policies.
And that's all I have to say.
Thank you.
That's John and Troy, New York, our last caller in this first segment of the Washington Journal.
Stick around, plenty more to talk about today.
We'll have two lawmakers on the program today at 9 a.m. Eastern.
It's Democrat Ami Berra of California.
But first, after the break, a conversation with Republican Pete Sessions of Texas, who sits on the Oversight and Financial Services Committees.
Stick around for that conversation.
We'll be right back.
Senate Funding Impasse00:09:29
C-SPAN is as unbiased as you can get.
You are so fair.
I don't know how anybody can say otherwise.
You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country.
I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices.
You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds.
I absolutely love C-SPAN.
I love to hear both sides.
I've watched C-SPAN every morning, and it is unbiased.
And you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments.
It's probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country.
You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions.
Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark.
In a divided media world, one place brings Americans together.
According to a new MAGA research report, nearly 90 million Americans turn to C-SPAN, and they're almost perfectly balanced.
28% conservative, 27% liberal or progressive, 41% moderate.
Republicans watching Democrats, Democrats watching Republicans, moderates watching all sides.
Because C-SPAN viewers want the facts straight from the source.
No commentary, no agenda, just democracy.
Unfiltered every day on the C-SPAN networks.
Washington Journal continues.
And joining us now from Capitol Hill, it's Congressman Pete Sessions, Republican from Texas, senior member of the House Oversight and Financial Services Committees.
Congressman, good morning to you.
We're almost, we're now 40 days into this partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.
What's the latest you're hearing about a potential deal, a potential off-ramp here?
Well, thank you.
And that is a good question, John, because in fact, it has emanated out of the United States Senate.
A group of people who are very aware that across this country are airports, people who are at spring break, hours in line to try and move their families through effectively through airports.
The commercial element for the airlines is difficult.
It causes them disruptions.
It is a disruption for the economy of the country as people are deciding not to travel and do things.
It is a mess.
And so this has driven United States Senate and senators to try and seek an impasse that exists today in the Senate.
And that essentially was a thought or an idea that fund everything at Homeland Security except ICE.
That would bring about bringing back a lot of employees, but then would prepare us for FEMA, the Coast Guard, and other very important organizations that exist to serve and help the American people.
This issue and idea evidently went to the White House.
The White House, I do not comment or speak for the White House, but evidently there was some conversation with members of the House.
I am not for this.
I believe that we need to fund the operations.
I believe that ICE is an important part of Homeland Security.
They are the part, literally, that takes care of the criminals that are in this country.
We don't ask other people to do that.
We ask ICE to do their job.
This all comes, I think, at a time when we had a change in the Secretary of Homeland Security, as we know, Christy Noam, appeared before the Senate in conversation before a committee a couple weeks ago.
I don't think that went as well as Christie wanted.
I don't think it went as well for a lot of people.
As it turned out, the president then decided he was going to have a new Secretary of Homeland Security.
That is Mark, who is a United States Senator today or was from Oklahoma.
Mark is a friend, a dear friend of mine, and a person who I believe is going to reset the tone, the tone of probably not just EHS, but ICE in particular.
He spoke very clearly at his hearing and I think gave messaging that he's willing to work with his former colleagues that are senators.
But perhaps more importantly, he signaled that he did not believe that ICE should be the top of every day that was on every TV station about their operations.
So I believe that his review of this, Mark Wayne is a person who, while may not be skilled in all the policy aspects, he is skilled in reading people and understanding the importance of the operation to the nation.
So that's where we are.
I do not expect that the House will be a part of this deal, but we'll see if the Senate can pass it.
Come back to not supporting this deal.
If the ICE funding is the holdup here, and as you acknowledge, people are being hurt by TSA agents calling out and the lack of funding for TSA, why not carve out the ICE funding and keep working on that and fund the rest of Homeland Security, including TSA and Coast Guard and FEMA and all those other things, and then keep working on this problem of ICE.
Well, it is a very important question, John, and you asked that to a member of Congress who's made many votes at a time when I did not necessarily agree with completely what was before me, but in the best interest of the nation I did.
And you now have two United States senators from Hawaii that will gain that political pressure because of the huge storm that impacted Hawaii, and certainly FEMA would be a part of that.
I went out to Hawaii two years ago when they had the huge fires.
Hawaii needs FEMA.
And so there were times where I had to not bite my tongue, but I was not for everything.
Perhaps it's debt limit funding, perhaps it's other things.
Politically, we need to understand we need ICE.
We need ICE in this country.
And so Republicans in the majority will stand strong.
They need to fund the Department of Homeland Security, not carve out what they do not like, because otherwise what we're doing is setting the stage where ICE just exits the federal funding.
And I will not do that.
And so I would encourage Americans to think this through.
We need to fund it and then make the changes that perhaps might be offered.
But the offer by the Democrats is simply one that I would not accept either.
And that is how they look at what the alternative would be for their vote.
Do you expect to be sticking around during the Easter recess that Congress is going to be in session to work through this?
You know, if Congress is in session, of course we will stay here.
And I think it makes perfect sense that if the American people expect us to, and I do too, to come up, we're resolved we should.
But let's just be quite blunt.
This is also a political city.
I voted yes.
The question is about the people that vote no, not the people that vote yes.
And we need several more who will vote yes, and then we could have this done.
So the onus is on them, just as I in the past have voted yes in other funding opportunities when the Democrats were in control.
I respected that for the good of the American people.
Come to the SAVE Act.
For me, we're already a month into primary voting in election 2026.
When do you expect the SAVE Act to be addressed for Congress to pass this or not before we get any closer to Election Day?
Well, I believe that the sale has already been made that people do understand you need to show proof of being an American citizen if you're going to be a voter.
So I think that that is once again part of this struggle that's going on between not just the two parties, but the philosophy about whether we're going to allow people who simply come here illegally, as we know we had, as you've heard earlier in the show, some at least 13 million people who came here.
The Democratic Party H.R. 1 bill from 2017 would have made them immediately that same day eligible to vote in a federal election.
We disagree with that, and so we're attempting to counter with what we believe is reasonable and where the law should be.
Congressman Pete Sessions is our guest, Republican from Texas.
You know him well if you're a C-SPAN viewer and you can call in and talk to him this morning.
202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans.
Independents 202748-8002.
Iran Government Frailty00:11:55
As folks are calling in, Congressman, we haven't had you on since the beginning of the war in Iran and hostilities there 25 days ago at this point.
What should be the U.S. goal when it comes to war with Iran?
Well, the goal of Iran is one that has been at our doorstep for a long time and presidents have tried to work their way through it.
Each time the answer back from the Iranians was death to America and death to Americans and Israel.
We finally, based upon intelligence over the last few years, have understood how close they were to a nuclear bomb, a weapon, weapons of mass destruction, and their desire to use that.
And you've seen a number of conversations over the years with different presidents about that.
They continue on that pathway.
So the goal should have been and should be that they need to make sure that the Iranians are put back in the box with an understanding that civil conversations that need to take place by the United Nations, by all the nations of the region, is that they will not threaten other countries through the Houthis or other proxies that they have.
And they responded, no, thank you.
So I would like for there to be a lot of other things that had happened in this conversation, but war happened.
And now the United States is finding probably the frailty of playing nice.
Playing nice means that we have now faced off with the Strait of Hormuz that is closed with thousands of drones, us knowing that they had the desire and the ability to do this, to shut down economies of the world.
And so we're now going to have to figure out if this conversation between the administration is real or not and if the Iranians are serious.
Otherwise, it means that more raining down of bombs on them to change their way of life rather than them changing our way of life.
Are you prepared to approve $200 billion in additional war spending?
And if so, does Congress have any say on how that is used?
Well, in fact, we would extract and want to know not only what the money is used for, and it would not take a seasoned veteran to understand that we need to resupply our stockpiles.
It does not take a seasoned veteran to understand that others are watching as we're doing this and that immediate needs to fulfill the military department of war is necessary.
The cost of the war is an issue, but us being prepared and staying strong is more important.
As we know, we have other adversaries and people who are rivals, if not adversaries.
We need to understand what's going on with Taiwan and Japan.
The Chinese have been very aggressive and taking advantage of this circumstance.
So I would, my vote without question would be to understand we need to pay for that which we have done and the ongoing effort is the question and I think that that's where the administration is going to have to come and say what the plan is now that we know where we are.
Let me let you chat with a few callers.
There are plenty for you, sir.
This is Christopher in Ellicott City, Maryland, Republican up first for you.
Christopher, you're on with Congressman Pete Sessions.
Yes, good morning.
Good morning.
What's your question or comment, Christopher?
Well, I wanted to say in war, the only way to finish a war is for the enemy to surrender unconditionally.
In World War II, Japan and Germany were forced to surrender unconditionally, and then the war was over.
We have to continue in Iran until they surrender to the reality that they are an evil regime and we need to defeat them militarily first.
That's Christopher.
Congressman Pete Sessions, on unconditional surrender as a stipulation to end the war.
Well, I think what Christopher is talking about, there is a huge bit of reality, and that is to get to that point, it means that we are going to have to be able to walk ourselves in their streets and to be able to have them know that they lay down their arms.
I think that the reality is today is that unlike the other issues he's talked about, there are lots of people who are in Iran who could form a government who could change the direction of that country.
And this formation of this alliance, I think, is healthy and could be there, but it is still in a precarious state.
As the Iranians, by virtue of the sun, accepting this role, it is still very dangerous.
That is why they hung the three young people for even speaking up the other day as the thuggery from this new regime.
So I would like to say that we're going to have to find a new way.
This is darn near 2026, and victory may look a little bit different, but it must be victory, and it must be a change, in my opinion, of the regime.
The people of Iran have to control their own destiny.
And I think there are lots of conditions that Christopher could find would be important for us in today, 2026, to know that victory could, should, and will be achieved.
Let me take you to the Bluegrass State, Louisville, Kentucky.
Marty Democrat, good morning.
Don, I'd like to make a couple of quick points, and then I'll hang up and hear what the guest says.
Now, I'm not sure I'm clear on what kind of government the Republican Party wants to see in power in Iran.
Are you talking about a government that will be accountable to the people and will allow opposition leaders to be heard and will have some kind of term limit?
Or are you talking about just another monarchy like they used to have that will give us what we want and therefore have to be kept in power for decades with the help of the CIA all the way until there's another anti-American revolution like there was in 1979?
And also, my other point real quick is that I just find it mind-boggling to believe that the Trump administration is expecting that after the bombing campaign ends, the Iranian people are going to say, they did this for us.
They destroyed all this property and killed all those people in our country for us, the Israeli Air Force and American military, and now we owe them something.
Because if it doesn't happen, then we have to invade.
But I find that to be mind-boggling.
Thank you.
Congressman.
Well, thank you.
And this gentleman is well versed in not only his language, but his expectations, and I respect that.
I would say first, what does it look like?
Well, I think it looks like that there is a multi-coalition.
We have been for a number of years not trying to pick who that would be.
We would want these coalitions to work together.
As you know, the Iranian people are very smart.
They're well-versed.
They know their history.
They know their frailties.
I just don't think that it has to be an American model of a constitution where Thomas Jeffersons stand up and decide what their constitution looked like.
I think the fledgling government would look like an agreement to work together in a vast country that has resources and needs.
I would remind us back having going to back to Lincoln, a team of rivals.
I think that they believe that their ability to see a brighter future is more important than what Khomeini had.
And that would be where you don't kill your own people.
You don't become belligerent.
You turn yourself inward and help the Iranian people.
I think that is victory to where we rid themselves of a danger to other nations that are other Muslim nations that are their neighbors.
They have had war ever since 1979 on their mind, and they have undermined country.
So I think that there's plenty of room to say we know what victory would look like.
And I think the gentleman from Kentucky makes a point.
I do not think it's a monarchy.
I do not think it's one leader.
I think it's a coalition government.
Lakeland, Florida, Armand, Independent.
Good morning.
You're on with Congressman Pete Sessions.
Good morning and good morning, Pete.
Thank you for C-SPAN.
Hey, I'm just curious how we got as far as we got with this immigration thing with the ISO around the country when all of a sudden, I mean, not all of a sudden, but I mean, when all these years we could have had E-Verify, and nobody votes in E-Verify to make sure that immigrants in this country are here legally working.
I'm in Florida.
I'm still seeing on all the construction sites, and I'm still seeing Verizon running cables, all illegal immigrants sitting in the holes, digging the holes for these pipes to go through, these wires to go through underground.
Right by my house, none of them speak English.
I know they're all illegal.
And by the way, ICE agents, I think the reason they're masked, I mean, all these immigrants are wearing masks because they don't want to be facially identified.
But you have ICE agents, and I'll bet a majority of a bunch of the ICE agents that you're seeing, I'll bet you some of them are January 6th insurrectionists that couldn't get a job in a federal job anywhere.
And now they're being specially treated, and that's why they're wearing masks.
Now, some of them are taking their masks off, but I'll bet you the ones that are taking their masks off didn't have anything to do with January 6th.
Armand, got your point.
Congressman, give me a chance to respond.
Well, my first point would be, sir, if you have any indication that the things which you have stated, there would be some evidence, I would be willing to hear about that, about these ICE agents that were insurrectionists.
Secondly, I would say to you that the use of e-verify is when you come to get a job.
We were under the Biden administration, some at least 13 million people just walked into this nation and went to various places.
We paid billions of dollars for them.
They are in this country.
I believe, me personally, that they're a part of the drug cartels, that they were simply having drug cartels that we know control their border to come and help them with fentanyl.
The plan was that fentanyl would be not just in my town of Waco, Texas, and not just in large towns, Dallas, Houston, New York City, but it would become in smaller towns, Louisville, Kentucky, and other places.
They had then people that they knew where they were.
We had some 500,000 children still unaccounted for as of a few months ago.
The Biden administration just opened up the gate and did not even try and know who people are.
So to run them through e-Verify when you already know they are illegal would be a waste of time.
What we needed to do is to understand who has come to this country and follow the law.
Postal Service Financial Problems00:12:19
Can I just ask a quick question?
You said 13 million illegal immigrants under the Biden administration.
A caller in our first segment said 30 million, and then another caller said 20 million.
What's the best place to go for that number?
Where do you go?
Well, I would tell you that I don't know, and that's why I made the claim of less.
Generally speaking, here in Congress, we spoke about some 13 million people, which is why it's a generally accepted understanding, some 13 million people that Congress will speak about.
I'm not trying to overshoot or undershoot it.
It's generally where we believe that number is.
Let me come to your oversight committee work.
I know last week there was a hearing with the Postmaster General before the Oversight Committee on the United States Postal Service, the status, the financial status of USPS.
Where are they today?
Are they doing well right now?
Thank you very much.
The bottom line is, as Chairman of Government Operations for Oversight, I have the immediate oversight over the post office, over any government operations anywhere in the world.
And the operations of the Postal Service is very important to not just the energy to this country, but the commerce of this country.
It is grounded in the Constitution, the Postal Service, the Postal Service owns the mailbox.
But in doing that, the Postal Service is suffering as the country grows, as the country changes and moves around.
The new Postmaster General, Mr. Steiner, is a very nice man and I think well suited for this job.
But I believe that he believed that he was trying to, what I would say, make the post office great again, as opposed to taking the post office that has financial problems, it has problems with employees, it has problems that put pressure about the amount of revenue that comes in and they're spending.
And they, I think, saw that their outcomes would be based upon Congress or me agreeing that we would raise the debt limit for them.
They are stuck in a debt limit, some $13 billion.
They want to raise that substantially and raise the price of a stamp.
And I am opposed to both of these issues at this time until they control what they're doing.
So the Postmaster General, Mr. Steiner, who is a great manager, looked at an opportunity once again to gain more revenue.
And in doing that, found that some of the partners that provide billions of dollars to the Postal Service to provide mostly rural services for packages, they did not bite off on their desire to pay more money for these operations.
And they have the ability to do that themselves.
So it placed the post office in a position where they had to make a decision about what would be some $9 billion worth of revenue that did not go well in their plan.
So they're doing the same thing that any of us would do in the hearing.
I've encouraged the Postmaster General to rethink the decisions that they've made.
The postal workers are worried about what a $9 billion hole would mean.
And members of Congress have come to me.
I've given them an indication that I believe we're not critical, but that we have to have a better plan.
Mr. Steiner and I talk, our teams talk, and this is a bipartisan issue.
Mr. Infume, who is from Baltimore, Maryland, is the ranking member, and he and I look at this view of the Postal Service with the same or very close lens.
To control costs, would you ever support cutting back on Postal Service days, on making it five days a week instead of six?
Well, in many instances, postal operations are closed on Saturday today.
In many places, they have stopped that.
This needs to be the realistic viewpoint that the American people and Congress understand the reason why we would make these changes, but the answer is yes.
And the answer is that there is a huge diminishment in the amount of mail that comes through the service.
But what we've got to understand is if we all work together, meaning outside operations, there's a lot inside, including trucking, the movement of mail, things that move back and forth.
The system is complex.
And they've now found themselves at the post office where there is a good bit of oversight and questions that occur.
So what happened is that the management of the postal service decided they really don't like the oversight that they have.
So I will step in and work with the Postal Service and the governing board and make us work well and better together on a bipartisan basis out of Washington, D.C. so that we get a handle on this.
Less than 10 minutes left with Congressman Pete Sessions this morning on the Washington Journal and plenty of calls for you, sir.
This is Jack in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Line for Democrats.
Go ahead.
Your party has given the power of the presidency to an insane pedophilic serial killer.
You're evil and this whole thing.
All right.
Congressman, do you want to respond at all?
Well, I would just say that I am aware across this country that there are people who have varying views.
And I would tell him that I can control myself.
And I try and work on a straightforward, honest basis with a bipartisan mission that I have with Mr. Infume and the duty and responsibility of my job on oversight.
And I would like for him to at least offer some credibility to there are people who are trying to move this nation away from anything that would be a fight to fix.
And that we believe both Mr. Infume and I in each other and our ability to do business and we're trying to teach others the same.
Rob in Ohio, Republican.
Good morning.
Hello.
Hello.
Go ahead, Rob.
You're on with Congressman Sessions.
I just want to get your opinion.
These Democrats out here trying to serve America and these people to fight against America.
How easy do you think your job would be if you could get these Democrats to work with the Republicans and try to come up with some constitution and take the proposed instead of causing more problems?
Well, I think that the question, John, that is before us is one that the American people very clearly see, and the answer is difficult.
We deeply believe in the right of the two parties or parties of people who bring their ideas.
The bottom line to me is that we saw what happened when Senator Schumer did what I think was responsible and what I think was mature a year ago when he agreed that the Democratic Party would end the government shutdown.
And his agreement to do that caused others in his party that I will just use the term his left to then oppose that because they want to shut down the government.
They do not like President Trump.
I think we have an obligation as members of Congress, as I do and others, to look at the greater good for the American people.
And there are, it's two sides against each other.
It's like two lines in a great big bag scrapping with each other.
The needs of this nation are important.
I disagreed for virtually most things that President Biden did in his administration.
His administration's secretaries did not even report to work.
Millions of government employees did not come to work.
There were $500 billion worth of misdirected payments because computers took over for self-reporting by people who wanted to fleece this government.
We are changing that, but I think the greater good can be seen when we work together, and that's what Mr. Infume, and I think other Democrats, certainly Greg Meeks from New York, is a dear friend of mine.
Greg is the kind of man who wants to be able to make progress for the American people as opposed to a policy for a party.
So I think that there are people here who can do that, and I pray for them.
And they are my friends.
Just a couple minutes left with you, Congressman, and just a couple election campaign 2026 questions for you.
First, on Texas politics, where are you on John Cornyn versus Ken Paxton in the Senate Republican runoff in Texas?
Thank you very much.
I've worked with Senator Cornyn for many years while I'm the senior member of the elected people from Texas with 28 years.
I've watched John Cornyn for many years as our Attorney General and also as our junior senator, now senior senator.
I believe that John Cornyn has been attacked by people who do not want him and like him.
I believe that his truthfulness, his honesty, and his reliability is the reason why I am for Senator Cornyn in this battle and would like to see my party understand that when we fight, it becomes not only more expensive, but it puts at risk the seat.
And so I am solid for Senator Cornyn.
And then I think the first time you and I chatted was back in 2010 when you were the NRCC, the National Republican Congressional Committee chair.
In that election, you won something like 63 House seats.
It was called a wave election.
Net seats, John, not 63 seats.
We won't have to win.
63.
We need 89 seats, net 63.
And you would know the math, certainly.
On wave elections, what are the qualities of a wave election?
Are Republicans in 2026 possibly on the other side of a wave election?
What are you seeing as somebody who's watched these and studied these?
Well, in fact, the success of a rain dance does have a lot to do with timing, but also so does the plan and the desire of what you're selling.
We sold different qualities, and at that time, the Republican Party simply people saw us as the minority, but with good answers.
At that time in 2010, as you'll recall, President Obama was not popular.
They were pushing an agenda.
The Democrats simply rumber-stamped every bit of that.
And we made statements like, we will read the bills before we pass them.
We will understand what's in them.
But the bottom line is, is that the Democratic Party still is out of context with, I think, the American people, not only on social issues, but the track record that they still support.
And in essence, they wish President Biden or Kamala Harris were still in office.
And those are things that cause friction for many voters who do not want to go back.
They may not be completely where President Trump is, but the party and what the party stands for, I believe it will be an even battle for us.
At this point, I do not see where we have to have a wave election.
Congressman Pete Sessions will end it there.
Republican of Texas, member of the Oversight and Financial Services Committees.
Do always appreciate your time.
Always appreciate you chatting with colleagues.
Bridging Political Divide00:04:00
John, thank you.
I hope I did well enough to get invited back.
You will, sir.
Coming up a little later this morning, it's Congressman Ami Berra, Democrat of California.
He'll be here to take your calls as well.
But until then, it's our open forum.
Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, now is the time to call in.
Go ahead and start dialing, and we will get to those calls right after the break.
Best ideas and best practices can be found anywhere.
But we have to listen so we can govern better.
Democracy depends on heavy doses of civility.
You can fight and still be friendly.
Bridging the divide in American politics.
You know, you may not agree with the Democrat in everything, but you can find areas where you do agree.
He's a pretty likable guy as well.
Chris Coons and I are actually friends.
He votes wrong all the time, but we're actually friends.
A horrible secret that Scott and I have is that we actually respect each other.
We all don't hate each other.
You two actually kind of like each other.
These are the kinds of secrets we'd like to expose.
It's nice to be with a member who knows what they're talking about.
Les did agree to the civility, all right?
He owes my son $10 from a bet.
And he's never paid for it.
Fork it over.
That's fighting words right there.
Glad I'm not in charge.
I'm thrilled to be on the show with him.
There are not shows like this, right?
Incentivizing that relationship.
Ceasefire, Friday nights on C-SPAN.
Staying informed is essential.
The C-SPAN shop has the apparel to match your Civic Energy.
Premium t-shirts, hats, and drinkwear.
Everyday favorites for those passionate about politics through C-SPAN.
There's something for every C-SPAN fan.
And every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations.
Shop now or anytime online at c-span shop.org.
Gear up for engagement.
You're watching democracy happen in real time.
For 47 years, since March 19th, 1979, C-SPAN has made that possible.
No commentary, no spin, no government funding.
Just democracy, unfiltered.
As we celebrate our Founders Day, join viewers like you who are helping C-SPAN carry this mission forward.
Visit c-span.org/slash donate or scan the QR code to make your contribution today.
Preserve the legacy, power the present, shape the future.
Support C-SPAN with a Founders Day gift.
Washington Journal continues.
It's time now for our open forum.
Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, phone lines are yours to do so.
Now is your time to call in.
We let you lead this program as you're calling in.
A reminder, the House is in at 10 a.m. Eastern.
The Senate is in at noon today.
There's also plenty going on on Capitol Hill on the C-SPAN networks on C-SPAN 3 at 10 a.m.
Senior officials from FEMA, the Transportation Safety Administration, the Coast Guard are set to testify about how the now 40-day long government funding lapse is impacting national security and public safety.
We'll air that hearing live.
C-SPAN, C-SPAN.org, and the free C-SPAN video app.
Also, today at 10 a.m. Eastern, this is on C-SPAN 2.
The Senate Budget Committee will hear testimony about the Social Security's current struggles to stay solvent.
You can watch that also on C-SPAN.org and the free C-SPAN Now video app.
And one more for you at 2 p.m. Eastern.
Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a forum on allegations that the Department of Homeland Security used taxpayer dollars to enrich Republican political allies through insider contracts.
That is happening on C-SPAN 3 if you want to watch it.
Also C-SPAN.org and the free C-SPAN Now video app.
So again, a busy day on Capitol Hill.
We hope you stay with the C-SPAN networks throughout the day and we hope you call in during this open forum to let us know what's on your mind.
Deporting Godaways Debate00:02:23
We'll start with Bill in Sierra Vista, Arizona.
Republican, good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I have an observation, basically, and a question about the problem with the funding.
We keep hearing that this is all about ICE, but my observation is that no matter what ICE is called or what their tactics are, it will never be satisfactory to the Democrats because it really isn't about ICE.
It's about deportation.
It isn't about immigration.
It's about deportation.
And the Democrats are determined, actually hell-bent on destroying our deportation system.
I would like to have anybody running for office this midterm election to answer one question for the American people, a multiple choice question.
And that is, if their party is in power, what should be the end state or end fate of gotaways?
People who came into our country in between ports of entry never went through any system, never were vetted, never even said so much as hi to the border patrol.
And we have no record of them in any system.
We don't even know their names, almost 2 million of them.
And so, what should be their end state or end state?
Should they A, be allowed to remain in the shadows indefinitely?
B, should they be asked to come out of the shadows so they can be given some sort of legal status or path to citizenship?
Or C, should they be deported?
Now, if Godaways, whether they're criminal or not, and I'm tired of hearing about just a criminal, I believe they should be a priority.
But if we can't deport Godaways, if that's not the objective of the Democratic Party, is to deport Godaways, then we must quit the asylum system, just destroy it as well, and the refugee system and the visa system.
Because if you can't deport or aren't going to deport Godaways, who are a threat to our national security, then you can't expect anyone to go through an asylum system and be vetted and deported or visa system, visa overstays, they shouldn't be deported.
So that would be what I would like to see is I would like to see politicians let us know, let your constituents know, what is their status on Godaways?
Thank you, Bill.
In Sierra Vista, Arizona, go ahead and keep calling in.
Immigration Job Qualifications00:10:30
Did want to show you some new video this morning.
This is from San Antonio, Texas, on the return of Dennis Coyle, the American citizen who was released by Afghanistan after over a year of being detained.
Some video there of him getting off the plane, landing hugs all around the Trump administration being part of that conversation.
Dennis Coyle, a 64-year-old academic detained by the Taliban in Kabul on January 2025, according to his family, he was held in near solitary confinement while never being charged with a crime.
He had spent nearly 20 years working in Afghanistan.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Secretary of State welcomed Coyle's release, saying, Today, after more than a year of captivity in Afghanistan, Dennis Coyle is on his way home and he is home.
Again, that's the video that is in from Texas this morning.
Back to your phone calls.
This is Sonia in Staten Island Democrat.
Good morning.
Hi, John.
Good morning.
I want to go back a little bit to the Reagan and when he fired all the air traffic controllers.
That was one of the worst things that could have happened to the United States.
You know, they were negotiating.
Is there a right to negotiate?
And to say that because you're a federal worker, you're not allowed to have your rights and strike, it was horrible.
And I voted for Reagan back in the day, his first administration, and totally regretted that.
This administration also did a really horrible thing for workers when they took away the tax deduction from credit card interests.
And that hurt not the rich, but again, you know, the middle class and low-income.
So I just want to let the Republicans caller know that it's not about I like you, I don't like you.
It's about who is qualified to do the job.
Oh, you're my friend, you're not my friend.
Are you qualified to do the job?
Then do the job.
The ICE workers?
Sonia, on striking federal workers, what you started with, supporters of that provision in the law against federal workers striking will say it's a national security issue, that there's these essential jobs that federal workers perform, national security jobs, that we can't have them striking and negotiate during a strike.
That would at least be the argument for why that is in law.
Then you need to provide another way for fairly provide them with ways to be able to ensure that they get paid.
Now, the TSA people that are working now, basically, they're like enslaved people.
They're working and not getting paid, and they have bills to pay, and they are there without their freedom to not go to work.
That is like the most appalling thing that it's like we've gone backwards back into a form of volunteer slavery.
Does it make a difference to you, Sonia, that they are almost certain to get their paychecks when funding returns to DHS, that whenever these shutdowns have happened, federal workers have been paid for their time made whole at the end of these shutdowns?
Does that make a difference to you?
Well, that's what they're supposed to get, right?
But in the meantime, how are they meeting the bills that they need to pay?
I myself have bills to pay that.
If I don't pay them, I get a late fee.
You accumulate late fees, you accumulate interest.
Even if they give me my money back, you know, after months, I've accrued unnecessary debt while working for the United States.
How is this the right way?
Why do Republicans feel this is okay?
I don't think a lot of them do, but they're supporting it.
And that puts us, the American people, into this controversy when, you know, Republicans want to say, oh, they don't like this one, they don't like it.
No, if you're qualified and you're doing the right job, then you're doing the right job.
But they're not doing the right job.
Sending ICE that is getting exuberant amount of money and flaunting it in front of people that are working and not getting money.
Come on.
This is like a no-brainer.
It's the wrong thing to do to the American people or anyone.
Got your point.
That's Sonia.
This is Eugene in Georgia Independent.
Good morning.
Good morning, John.
I want a side note for her, just to her point of reference.
They went on strike.
That was national security because they were being overworked.
And almost every reason they went on strike for was adopted by the FAA.
So they struck for real reasons.
And 11,000 of them got fired, Eugene.
That's correct.
They paid a price.
And they weren't allowed to work for the federal government again.
They paid a price, but what they struck for was for national security because they were being overworked and there was, I mean, it was dangerous.
And they were speaking out that, hey, we have a problem here.
And they didn't want to go on strike, but the government refused to address their issues.
And it was dangerous.
They didn't want to be the ones that had planes crash on their side.
But the reason I called, John, was I want to thank you for calling out the congressmen for pulling those immigration numbers from the sky, I guess.
I've been a construction in construction for 45 years.
I worked when there was no undocumented workers on the job sites.
I remember when they showed up.
They showed up after Amnesty in 1987.
Let's be honest about what's going on here.
The Republicans want to make this a Biden thing.
This is an immigration issue from the 80s.
For 10 years, I fought against immigration tooth and nail.
Had tried to have some deported.
It didn't work.
You tried to have people deported?
I was calling us.
I was doing everything.
They were coming on our job sites, John.
They were lowering our wages.
We were taking 10 cents an hour raises in our union agreements because these guys were working for 50% of what we were working for in the 80s and 90s.
We couldn't survive.
They were attacking our wages.
How long did you work construction for, Eugene?
45 years.
What do you do to that?
I'm retired now.
But for 35 of those years, John, it was a fight with immigration.
Then I realized what was going on with immigration.
Workers weren't being paid.
They were going without wages.
They were not getting safety.
They were not getting overtime.
So I changed my views after 10 years.
And I started helping the immigrants.
And for the past 25 years, I've been nothing but an advocate because I've seen what they were living.
15, 20 guys living in one house.
They may get paid on Friday.
They may not get paid till next month.
They may not get paid then.
John, I have personally helped retrieve millions and millions of dollars in lost wages that companies in America would not pay the immigrants.
How'd you do that, Eugene?
Well, I got power of attorney and I reached out to the employers.
They didn't know the system.
They don't speak English.
Most of them are uneducated farmers.
That's what NAFTA did.
It brought them over here.
Because when they can't grow corn, they got to eat.
And there's a job across the river.
Are you crazy?
They're going to go over there and work and feed their family.
But, John, when they got here, lawyers would not help them.
It took me years and years to build a relationship with that community to where they would trust me to come to me.
Lawyers wouldn't help them because it's $4,000 and $5,000.
But it's a bunch of them.
And they're not getting paid.
So when Republicans get on here, a MAGA, and they talk about $30 million or $300 million or whatever, they're pulling those numbers out of the rear end.
They want them here.
That's what made me change my mind.
Because when they rounded up a bunch of them in my little small town, like 300 of them, and we were all cheering, they pulled up in charter buses to deport them to Mexico.
Before those buses got to the border, congressmen, and I can name the names if you want them, was on the phone to turn those buses around.
Those buses never unloaded their payload at the border.
They unloaded them right back at the National Lord Guard Armory where I lived.
And Eugene, whereabouts, where at Bath and Georgia are you?
I'm near Atlanta now, but I was raised in South Georgia.
And I'm talking about South Georgia.
And I remember the first employer who hired undocumented workers.
He later became an important state senator for the state of Georgia.
I walked the floors of the halls of the capital of Georgia for 20 years trying to get meaningful legislation passed, immigration legislation.
And Eugene, did you do it as part of an organization?
Well, I'm a member of a union member.
I did it for my jobs.
When I realized that the political system was against us, they wasn't there to help us.
We reached out to the government agencies and everybody.
Hey, we got a problem here.
We can't negotiate wages because these employers are when you can hire two guys for the price of one, even if they can't do a good job, you can't compete with that.
Sabotaging Fair Elections00:03:04
Nobody can.
Eugene, thank you.
Thanks for sharing your story out of Georgia this morning.
We're about 15 minutes into open forum.
Plenty more folks calling in.
Want to get to a few of them, including Rich in Cleveland, Tennessee, Republican.
Rich, go ahead.
Again, I'm talking about Reagan now.
Rich, you with us?
Got to stick by your phone, Rich Joanne, Chicago, Democrat.
Good morning.
Yes, good morning.
I was trying to call in to talk with Congressman Sessions, but I'll say this: that the Republicans and Trump are saying that they want to free the Iranian people from authoritarian rule so that they have a say in governing their lives.
And can you hear me?
Yes, ma'am.
Okay, so that they want to do that for the Iranian people to free them of that rule so that they can live, have a say in the way that their lives are lived.
And right here in the United States, we can't even get our fair elections anymore because the Republicans are sabotaging every way to make it a free and fair election.
And so how can they claim to want to help the Iranian people be free when right here they won't even let they're planning to not even let us have a free and fair midterm and presidential election by putting ICE and all of these obstacles in the way, trying to stop mail-in ballots when President Trump just mailed in his ballot the other day.
So it's not fair for them to say that and then don't live by that.
Joanne, what are your thoughts on showing an ID to be able to vote in this country?
Well, look, the ID thing is in some way it's a good thing because you're showing that you're saying who you are.
But when you have a woman who gets married, her name changes, and now she can't vote because of her name change, and she has no way of going to get a birth certificate with her married name on it.
That's a problem.
We never had all these problems before.
We've always had free and fair elections.
I forget the man's name who was in charge of the security, cybersecurity during the 2020 elections.
And he said, we had the most free, fair, and secure elections in this country's history.
And we weren't demanding IDs and all of that.
There were no illegal, they keep claiming illegals are voting.
They're not voting.
You can go in statistics and look that it's like 0.008% of some illegal person voting.
Blatant Election Fraud Claims00:03:46
It's just not happening.
And they're trying to make us think that it is.
And so everybody has to do their research and watch.
Don't just listen to what they're saying.
Look at what they're doing.
That's Joanne in Chicago.
This is Vince, Newport, Richie, Florida, Republican.
Good morning.
Hey, John.
Good morning.
I want to switch gears and bring up a topic that is not getting any coverage on the news, mainstream medias.
And it has to do with this blatant fraud that's going on around the country.
And I don't know if you've heard of Nick Shirley.
He started in Minnesota with these child care buildings that were unoccupied, claiming millions of dollars tax dollars.
Now he's out in California, and he's in an apartment complex, and every door has a hospice sign on it.
Nobody in there, nobody working.
There's luxury cars in the parking lot.
So, I mean, people need to wake up.
Why am I paying taxes if this money is just being blatantly given away?
I just want people to understand that we need to take care of ourselves so that we can take care of our children and our grandchildren because we're not going to be here long.
I'm 70 years old, and you know, what are we going to leave them?
And that's all I had to say.
Thank you.
On the latest expose from YouTube content creator Nick Shirley, this is the story from News Nation.
Nick Shirley, the independent journalist who shined a light on alleged child care fraud in Minnesota, has set his sights on another Democrat-controlled state, that being California.
His new expose suggests fraudsters in the Golden State are creating fake hospice businesses by using the Medicare beneficiary numbers of seniors who are actually healthy.
California hospice enrollment has inexplicably risen by about 1,000% in recent years.
Shirley says he uncovered what he calls $170 million in suspect billings and said operators appear to be living large by driving luxury vehicles.
News Nation reporting on the latest from Nick Shirley.
This is Andy in Gladstone, Oregon.
That is Line for Democrats.
Go ahead.
Yes, good morning.
I want to discuss a little bit about the SAVE Act.
If the premise of the act is to have people prove who they are and their citizenship, because the Republicans, particularly Trump, believe there's such a massive case of flaw and undocumented, I don't think any Democrat or anyone of any party would disagree with showing an ID to prove who you are at the voting booth.
But if the premise is to show you're an American citizen, I suggest instead, since they now have the voter roles from, I believe, 26 states, that they take it upon themselves to go through those roles, identify those people they believe are flawed, notify those people, and those people would be the ones who would be required to show a passport or some proof of citizenship.
Put the onus on those who are claiming the fraud rather than 180 million or so registered voters who are total citizens.
Passive American Citizens00:04:26
In this country, we are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, or even with the IOS.
You are subject to audits if it's suspected that you've done something wrong, not that everyone has to prove it.
That's my point at this moment.
That's Andy in Oregon.
This is Robert in Virginia, Independent.
Good morning.
I don't understand why I'm listening and on the phone and watching you, and we got sound like two different programs going.
I thought this was kind of, you know, right there for everybody while we're being censored.
No, Robert, it's a delay.
So you and I, you can hear me through your phone sooner than you'll hear me through the TV, but it's easier just to listen through your phone.
So just go ahead.
What's on your mind?
Yeah.
Okay, thank you.
But, you know, what I want to bring out to some people that's listening this morning is everybody in this country has become so passive.
We've got a government up there that's out of control now.
The people that Donald Trump hired to help him rob and steal from everybody in the country and the rest of the world.
And people don't want to get above their couches and do something about it.
You know, back when there was a Million Man March, people was up there fighting for their rights.
That's what they ought to be now.
They ought to be out there surrounding the White House, asking Donald Trump to get the heck out of there before this country falls apart.
Robert, have you ever heard of these no kings rallies?
Yeah, I've seen that.
I've heard it a little bit.
There's another one set to take place this weekend, and it's not one.
It's many rallies across the country.
Have you ever thought of attending one of those?
Well, I just turned 78, and I'm in rather bad health.
There was something local.
I'm down here in Chesterfield.
I could probably travel to it, but if it's in another state or something, I'd have problems getting back and forth and such.
But here's another point I wanted to make.
People don't like hearing things, but this is what I've got to say about this.
Donald Trump has made millions of people hate him.
All over South America, Cuba.
I'm sure over there in other countries, he's just got people, you know, wanting to see him leave this world and his family.
Anybody that shares his DNA, you've got some people that support him that have been blindfolded and indoctrinated.
And I feel sorry for them.
All right.
Got your point, Robert.
This is Catherine in New York, Democrat.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I wanted to bring up the Epstein files.
Trump is in there as raping children.
And I don't understand why we haven't been talking more about this, why there hasn't been more of an uproar.
Anyway, I just all we have to do is type in Trump and everything about it comes up.
And I really feel that he started the war to take away from that attention from that.
That's Catherine in New York, last caller in our open forum.
Stick around.
Plenty more to talk about this morning, including up next a conversation with Amibera, Congressman, Democrat from California.
We'll talk about the latest on the partial government shutdown, the war in Iran.
Plenty more to talk about.
Stick around.
We'll be right back.
Get C-SPAN wherever you are with C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app that puts you at the center of democracy, live and on demand.
Keep up with the day's biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearings from the U.S. Congress, White House events, the courts, campaigns, and more from the world of politics.
All at your fingertips.
Catch the latest episodes of Washington Journal.
Find scheduling information for C-SPAN's TV and radio networks, plus a variety of compelling podcasts.
The C-SPAN Now app is available at the Apple Store and Google Play.
Download it for free today.
c-span democracy unfiltered c-span is as unbiased as you can get You are so fair.
I don't know how anybody can say otherwise.
Understanding Republican Members00:15:35
You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country.
I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices.
You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds.
I absolutely love C-SPAN.
I love to hear both sides.
I've watch C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased.
And you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments.
This is probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country.
You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions.
Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark.
Washington Journal continues.
Back at our desk this morning, it's California Democrat Congressman Ami Berra, member of the Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees.
Before we get to foreign affairs, start with Homeland Security.
What are you hearing about a potential deal here to end the now 40-day-long partial government shutdown?
You hear a lot of things.
It sounds like the Senate got close to the deal.
The president was warm to it and then kind of killed it.
And things are going back and forth.
I think we've got to get the TSA agents paid.
We've got to get most of Homeland Security funded.
Again, we've got real issues with how ICE is conducting itself.
So if you could carve that piece off of it and negotiate some of the reforms in ICE, I think you'd get this done.
What would it take for you to support funding ICE again?
I mean, so we do need some customs and border protection, immigration enforcement.
But even in my hometown in San Francisco, you saw how ICE conducted themselves, grabbing a woman from Sacramento.
Like, use the warrants that you have and so forth, but conduct yourselves through due process, et cetera.
And again, I think we saw what happened in Minneapolis.
So I do think ICE has to rein itself then in terms of how they're doing these raids and conducting themselves.
Do you think Congress will or should stay in session here over these next two weeks, this recess that was supposed to happen, to get this thing solved?
I think we should get this done, yeah.
What's the path to doing that?
I mean, again, it sounded like the Senate was pretty close.
There's a bill that's over there.
We've got our discharge petition, which funds everything outside of ICE.
That's where I would start.
Bring up that vote and let's vote for it.
What are your thoughts on the new Secretary of Homeland Security, Mark Wayne Mullen?
Yeah, we came to Congress together, so I know Mark Wayne fairly well.
He is definitely heads and tails above Christy Noam.
So I hope he sees how toxic Christy Noome was, makes the necessary reforms, comes up to Congress, works with us a lot of us, Noam in the House.
And again, I think there's a possibility to get some reforms.
What makes him heads and tails against Christy Noam?
And I would note that you co-sponsored articles of impeachment against Christy Noam.
I mean, Christy Noam was pretty low bar.
Just how she conducted himself, the complete disdain for the American public as well as congressional oversight.
Again, I think Mark Wayne saw that example.
I think the president understood that Christy Noam was becoming toxic, and I think this is a chance to reset things.
Come to your Foreign Affairs Committee work.
What's your understanding right now of our objectives in this war against Iran?
President has not articulated those objectives.
He's been all over the place.
I disagree with his decision to go to war.
I'm on the intelligence committee.
We had a chance to ask Tulsi Gabbard, ask the CIA director.
There was no imminent threat.
And thus far, there was no nuclear breakout.
They weren't days away?
They were not days away.
And if the president has data that suggests that, get on television, speak to the American people, come up to the Hill.
But as a member of Foreign Affairs and the Intelligence Committee, they failed to demonstrate that.
There was no imminent actions that the Iranian regime was going to take against American assets or the American people.
So that was not, you know, there was no imminent threat there.
These have been bad actors for over four decades.
Nothing has changed.
They have murdered military servicemen and women.
But again, there was no imminent threat to take us to a war that's costing us $2 billion a day.
You asked the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, about this imminent threat issue and the intelligence there.
It was in a recent exchange in the Intelligence Committee.
Just explain what she told you.
I mean, what she told us was she presented the information to the president.
When I asked her, tell me if there was an imminent nuclear threat, she failed to answer that question.
They can't articulate why at this moment in time they took us into war with Iran.
That's totally disrupted the global economy, has impacted so many American lives.
Again, I've urged the President to go on national television, speak directly to the public, tell the public why he took us to war without congressional authorization, without coming to Congress asking for congressional support.
In that back and forth with Tulsi Gabbard, I also used her words from 2020 where she said President Trump is taking us into an illegal war with Iran that is unconstitutional.
Again, if the President thinks this is a justified war, he needs to get on television and speak directly to the American public.
Have they, has the Trump administration, articulated why they need $200 billion in war funding?
They have not.
And if they can articulate that, I don't think the American people, at a time when they can't pay for their groceries, pay for health insurance, want us to give $200 billion.
Does that mean you won't support it?
Not unless he can articulate what that imminent threat is, what the goals are, what this looks like on the day after.
Again, I think he's created a mess.
And it's my job as a member of Congress to ask tough questions.
As a member of the intelligence committee, what are your thoughts on Pakistan being ready to host negotiations and off-ramp for this war?
Look, I'm glad that there's negotiations taking place.
I would prefer to work with our European allies, our Asian allies, bring them in as equal partners, because Trump has now created a mess.
We are where we are, so we can go back and re-litigate the war, but we've got a mess on our hands right now.
How do we solve this?
How do we create some stability?
How do we get the straits open again so you can get energy flows going?
That is going to take a long-term proposition.
I understand the Iranians have made a counter-proposal, which is totally unacceptable, which says they can have all the missiles they want.
They can enrich uranium, hands-off Hezbollah.
That is worse than where we started.
So I still think there's a long way to go here.
I know you're the top Democrat on the East Asia and Pacific subcommittee when it comes to foreign affairs.
How are countries in that region viewing this latest U.S. conflict in the Middle East?
What should we know about what they're thinking about this?
Yeah, I've talked to the Koreans, I've talked to the Japanese and our allies in Asia.
They're very dependent on energy flows, natural gas that comes out of the Middle East.
That has all but stopped coming out.
It is impacting their economy.
It is impacting their ability to build the semiconductors and things that they need to.
You worry about that with Taiwan.
So this is a real issue.
And it is at a time when the global economy still is pretty fragile.
This was the last thing that the world needed.
And then move to another region.
I know there's a large Ukrainian population in your district.
What has this conflict in Iran meant for the ongoing war in Ukraine and how much attention that is getting and what we should be watching for there?
I mean, what it has then is it's empowered Vladimir Putin.
I mean, when the president has said, okay, we're going to lift sanctions on Russian energy and oil exports, that doesn't help the Ukrainian people.
That helps Vladimir Putin fund this illegal war.
Again, this is a mess.
This was poorly thought out.
I think the president felt emboldened after Venezuela went relatively smoothly, and he didn't see much aftermath after that.
Again, I think this was ill-conceived, should never have happened.
Our military's performing the job that's in front of them.
So it's not about the military, but it is about President Trump and his decision-making.
Ami Bear is our guest Democrat from California.
C-SPAN viewers know him well, maybe even from one of those student CAM competitions, those student documentaries.
He's appeared in a few of those.
He's here this morning to take your phone calls.
202-748-8000 for Democrats.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
We've got him for about another 20, 25 minutes before he has to go start his day on Capitol Hill.
This is Roberta in San Diego Republican line.
Good morning.
Hi, Mr. Barrett.
First off, I have spoken with your office as well, but I would like to ask you several questions, actually.
And all of them are important questions.
Can you give me one or two, Roberta?
Yes.
First off, why is California a sanctuary state?
Well, Roberta, we've always been a state that's welcomed immigrants.
I think it's okay for us to work with immigration and customs agents, identifying criminals and others.
I really wish that Congress would come together and reform our immigration system, create a legal immigration system.
You have a whole bunch of folks that have been here.
Perhaps they did come here in an undocumented capacity, but they're contributing to society.
Your neighbors and others.
If they're not at risk, if they're not criminals, I think we should figure out a way to let them come out of the shadows.
And Roberta, because you're so kind enough to be concise, what's your second question?
Yeah, my second question is this.
Why did San Diego?
How did San Diego become the second largest city in California?
I guess the beautiful weather that you have there, I mean, it's 70 degrees year-round.
So I think a lot of people want to live there.
That's Roberta in San Diego this morning.
There's a lot going on on Capitol Hill.
What are you going to be focusing on today when you do get up there, when you leave the studio?
Yeah, obviously, I hope we have a chance to open up the government and get the TSA workers and others funded.
Again, those negotiations are ongoing, so we'll see where we are.
In terms of who you work with best up on Capitol Hill, it's a question we've been asking a lot lately as viewers are concerned about too much animosity on Capitol Hill.
Who's a member of Congress that you work with the best?
You know, right now there's a freshman member that in a lot of conversations with Jefferson Shreve from Indiana.
I think he's a really good member, thoughtful.
You know, we work with a lot of the Californians, Vince Fong, others.
You know, our motto in our office is we're friends with everyone.
I recognize that we may have different views, but we're all a reflection of the folks that vote for us.
Six terms on Capitol Hill.
Why is it a freshman member that you seem to be working well with?
I mean, you try to get out there and get to know the new members that are out there, try to understand what their districts are like.
It's easy for us to work with fellow Democrats.
I think it's necessary for us to understand the Republican members.
And what is it that this freshman member understands about you or that you understand about them?
I mean, I think when you get away from the cameras, especially with freshman members, building relationships, especially, again, with freshman Republicans, understanding who they are, why they ran for Congress, what their districts are like, I do think those are really important.
And then older members like French Hill, who's the chair of financial services.
He and Martha, his wife, are good friends with me and my wife, Janine.
So again, civility is paramount.
So I think French is another member that I work pretty closely with.
Who did you get along with when you were a freshman?
Six terms ago?
Six terms ago, that was a long time ago.
Chelsea Gabbard came in with you, right?
Chelsea Gabbard, Mark Wayne Mullen.
Christy Noam actually came in in our class as well.
Kevin Kramer, a bunch of senators, Kirsten Sinema.
We had a pretty close class, and that was a different day and age.
Yeah, I miss John Boehner.
I mean, I think he was the guy who wanted Congress to work.
Back to the phone calls.
This is Ruth in Oaklawn, Illinois, Independent.
Good morning.
Yes, I was wondering if you could tell me why it is, what has happened to compromise on the Hill.
It's my understanding, pretty much, that everyone wants to get immigration under control.
And the Democrats, as far as ICE is concerned, would like to see cameras and warrants, et cetera.
Why then will they not, the Republicans, ask for, as a compromise, to have, I'm sorry, I'm having a moment.
That's okay, Ruth.
Ruth, I think that's a great question.
You know, when you get away from the cameras, the vast majority of members could get to 80% agreement on just about any issue.
In a narrow majority right now, where the Republicans can only lose one, maybe two votes, a small handful of extreme members on the far right and the far left can sometimes dictate the conversation.
So I don't think Congress is going to start working until we get to a level where the center right, center left, folks that are willing to compromise and recognize that we're a divided country.
My district's different than a district in northwest Georgia.
But we could come together and serve the American people.
That's what I'm hoping to do.
And again, I get yelled at a lot by Democrats saying, you know, you're willing to compromise with Republicans.
To me, that's not a bad thing.
That's my job.
Sue, Ashland, Ohio, Democrat.
Good morning.
Hello.
I wanted to ask on the voting, the SAFE Act, why is it just for the females?
Why would they have to like, you know, get everything that they need to get like for voting?
Why is it just for the females and not the men?
They're saying it's for the immigrants.
Well, wouldn't that be both men and female?
Why is it just target for the females?
Yeah, so it targets everyone in the sense that you have to prove citizenship when you register to vote.
Voter fraud is not a problem in America.
We've seen very few cases.
And in fact, the 2020 presidential election was the most litigated election of our lifetimes.
And again, they were relatively safe.
Now, voter ID, showing a driver's license, some form of ID when you vote is a separate issue than what the SAVE Act is trying to do.
The SAVE Act says when you register to vote, you've got to prove that you're a citizen by showing either a passport.
Now, the majority of Americans don't have a passport or a birth certificate.
And the reason why the birth certificate's a little bit of a problem is many women in this country, when they get married, will change their maiden name.
So their name, as it appears today, is different than the name that was on their birth certificate.
Wars Of Choice Argument00:04:50
Again, we think that's onerous.
And in fact, I think we want more American citizens to be able to vote.
We have low voter participation compared to some of the rest of the world.
I don't think this is a problem.
But again, compromise, it might be that you show voter ID when you go to cast your ballot.
Go to the states, let them check the voter rolls.
But again, it's not a problem in America.
Dan, in Pennsylvania, wants us to go back to Iran.
Does the congressman believe the Iran regime will use a nuclear weapon?
That's the text message question.
Dan, there's no evidence that the Iranian regime was seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
We do know they have 60% enriched uranium.
They do have breakout capacity, but that's still months away.
And the Supreme Leader who has now died that was taken out in the early days of this war had a FATWAI, had a religious order saying Iran would not go after the nuclear weapons.
We did ask Tulsi Gabbard if that had changed, if there was any intelligence evidence in that.
And this was in the open hearing.
And she said no, there was no indication that that had changed.
So there's no evidence that Iran was trying to create a nuclear weapon.
You asked a question in an open hearing.
Can somebody change their answer in the closed hearing?
I mean, we get a little bit more detail.
So in the closed hearing, I can get a sense of exactly what was in that intelligence report that was provided to you.
Can you say whether you asked that or followed up in the closed hearing, or is that not something you can answer?
I mean, I can say I did ask that question because I asked her if she delivered the intelligence that there was no imminent threat to the president.
She couldn't go into that in the open hearing, but I did ask the question in the closed hearing.
Would you describe this as a war of choice?
I would describe this as a war that President Trump chose to engage in.
This is Clifford May in today's Washington Times making the case of wars of choice.
This is what he said.
It's two paragraphs.
I want to get your thoughts.
I'm here to make the case for wars of choice.
My argument is simple.
Delaying wars does not ensure lasting peace.
On the contrary, delaying wars has often led to more wars, more costly in blood and treasure, World War II being the most obvious.
A war of choice is a conflict that we decide to wage to achieve vital goals before our enemies push our backs up against the wall.
American troops should never be in a fair fight.
If our enemies see that we have the means and the will to defeat them, then that may deter them.
Nothing else will.
Yeah, so if you're choosing to go to war, you have to sit down, you have to think about what coalitions come together.
You have to understand exactly what those goals are, what you're trying to accomplish, what's the end game.
President Trump did not do any of that.
You then have to come to Congress and understand if it's a choice, it's not an imminent threat.
It's we are electively choosing to do this.
Build support in Congress, understand what the resources are, then go to the American people and build your case to the American people.
Now, whether you agreed with Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush did actually do all of those steps.
Came to Congress multiple times, got on television, spoke to the American people.
There were clear objectives and goals in those cases.
You saw Colin Powell on the run-up to Iraq testify multiple times, go to the United Nations, build a coalition.
President Trump did none of that.
The European allies were surprised.
Our Asian allies were surprised.
And now, after the fact he's asking for their help, this was a decision that President Trump made.
His advisors told him how difficult it was.
They told him that it would be relatively easy for Iran to close the Strait of Hormouth.
A first-year graduate student in foreign policy would understand what the Iranians were going to do.
President Trump chose to do this.
I think it was a reckless action.
I don't think he built the case to the American public.
And now we're in a mess, and we've got to get out of this.
Do you expect to see American ground troops on Iranian soil before this is all over?
I mean, if President Trump is going to put American ground troops in Iran, he needs to come to Congress, and he needs to have the courage to get on television and speak directly to the American people.
He's not done that, and I'm pissed off about it.
In terms of speaking directly to the American people, he does.
We see him at these gaggles, they call him with the press, going back and forth at various meetings.
He's getting questions from the press about Iran and his goals and his actions and ground troops.
Explain the difference of what you're talking about.
I mean, I want him to sit in the Oval Office, speak directly to Cameron, speak directly to the American people, clearly articulate why he decided to take us to war.
We've already seen service members, including a Sacramento County resident, die in action.
We've seen over 200 members be injured.
We've seen the turbulence in the global economy.
So why did he decide to go to war?
What was the imminent threat?
What are the goals and objectives here?
What comes next?
Rigged Elections Accusations00:09:32
Now that, you know, so I'll take it.
He has said he didn't, this wasn't about regime change.
Well, the Israelis have made it about regime change now.
So who are he negotiating with?
What does this look like?
It's got to be clear and concise to the American people.
And then he's got to come up to Congress.
If he's going to ask for resources to continue this effort, we have to understand all of those things.
What are the goals?
What is it going to cost?
How are they going to use those resources?
Is he going to put boots on the ground?
Again, I don't think he's going to have support in his own party to do that.
Take you to Stowe, Ohio.
This is Dave, Line for Democrats.
Thanks for waiting.
Go ahead.
Hello.
Yeah, I just wanted to inform people that Ohio has a real ID, a federal ID star on your license.
But to get that, a copy of your birth certificate is not good enough.
Your discharge papers are not good enough.
Your original license is not good enough.
You have to go either have the original birth certificate or go to the county recorder and have him certify your birth certificate, which means you got to take all day, pay for gas, pay for parking.
And then when you get there, the county recorder is more involved with transferring houses and everything else.
So what it comes down to is this is voter suppression.
If somebody goes to register and hands you a copy of your birth certificate, they will be turned away.
So I would agree with you.
Again, if there was evidence of massive voter fraud, that would be one thing.
And that would be a crisis and something.
There's no evidence that we have massive voter fraud.
And again, I'd go back to the 2020 election.
That was the most litigated election that we've had in our lifetime.
There was no evidence that was uncovered.
I think it was probably less than 100 ballots that may have been overturned and deemed from folks that shouldn't have been voting.
But the vast majority, that's out of tens of millions of ballots cast.
So this isn't a challenge.
It's something that President Trump is trying to raise because I think he does want to suppress the vote.
Dallas, Texas, this is O'Neill, Republican.
Good morning.
Hey, how are you doing?
I'm calling a reference to my wife here.
She used to work for small business administrations and did 20 years of retirement.
And then all of a sudden, I got a letter in the mail stating that she's no longer receiving Social Security anymore because she's not an American citizen.
Well, here's the deal on that.
Her father was a freedom fighter, number one.
He fought the Russians during the Russian-Hungarian Revolution.
President Eisenhower gave Carblanz to his family to come over to the United States to be American citizens.
Okay.
She went to college, Caldwell College, Seton Hall.
She used to work for Tale 13.
She produced the McNair Lair Hauer.
And she ended up working 20 years for the United States government.
Then all of a sudden, they took her Social Security away.
It took me 11 years, 11 years to get her back to Social Security.
They owed my wife $130,000, which they paid her backface.
But it took me five years to get it.
And what I had to go through, we got turned down so many times.
And there were a lot of people, the bureaucracy.
I even had to call.
O'Neill, do you mind if I ask when this all took place?
About 12 years ago.
It was a long time.
It was a long time because, see, my wife has Alzheimer's, so I had to step it up to represent her.
So this is before I had a proud attorney.
My wife's in the hospital right now for Alzheimer's.
O'Neil, thanks for sharing the story.
So I guess he's talking 2014.
That's the Obama issue.
Yeah, sure.
So, O'Neill, this is something that happens periodically.
It's something that our office gets involved with with our constituents who are having trouble receiving the Social Security benefits that they are due, veterans that are owed benefits.
For anyone who's watching the show right now, if you're in that same type of situation that O'Neill's in, that is what we do as members of Congress.
Reach out to your member of Congress office, let them know the situation, and that is something that your congressman or woman should get involved in.
Is it what they call constituent services?
It is the constituent services piece.
How many constituent cases are you working on at any given time?
Are we talking about a handful, hundreds?
Hundreds.
So we have helped over 30,000 constituents at my time in Congress.
So that goes from immigration, visa issues, Social Security, Medicare, veterans' benefits, passports.
Of those you mentioned, what's the most common one that you're working on?
I mean, it's a lot of Social Security, Medicare, and veterans benefits, and folks trying to get their IRS tax returns.
What's the most memorable one for you?
I mean, the most stressful time for us is during the Afghan withdrawal, because we have got the largest Afghan refugee population in the country in Sacramento County.
So lots of panicked folks that were trying to get out of the country.
You have calls in the middle of the night and helping those folks get out.
These are folks that serve with our troops.
In terms of that large Ukrainian population in your district, is there a Ukrainian refugee effort, people who are trying to get out of there and try to get to the United States to be with family members who are already citizens or something like that?
There is.
The biggest challenge right now, though, is the Trump administration changed a lot of the asylum rules.
And a lot of these folks came here legally going through the legal process.
A lot of the Afghan refugees, the same thing.
And now Stephen Miller's changed a lot of those rules.
So they're terrified, right?
They were working.
Now they're afraid to go to work.
And that's a problem.
We've got to fix this because, again, these folks followed the legal process applying for asylum and they're waiting for their hearings and so forth.
And again, they're terrified right now.
A couple minutes left with Ami Bera and a couple more phone calls for you.
This is Janet East Freedom, Pennsylvania, Independence.
Thanks for waiting.
Good morning.
I just am wondering how many people in the Congress or your audience are aware of the fact that you need to pay for your birth certificate, at least in Pennsylvania.
Now, I had been tidying up my affairs in the last month, and I couldn't find my birth certificate.
Well, I had ordered it in 2022, and I recently found it.
The envelope was dated 8-1, 2022.
The point is, it was free at that time.
When I went on the internet last month to order a replacement certificate, it was $120 plus $30 handling fee in Pennsylvania.
Yeah, Janet, I wasn't aware of that, but that doesn't surprise me.
And that's the real challenge with the SAVE Act.
If you've got to have a birth certificate or a passport, how many Americans actually know where their birth certificate is?
And if it's got to be an original birth certificate, then they're going to have to go through that process of, as you did, Janet, to order it.
And again, the vast majority of Americans probably don't have a passport.
This may actually backfire on Donald Trump because it may impact the rural states, the red states, more than does some of the coastal states.
To Coastal State, North Carolina, Grace, Line for Democrats.
Good morning.
Good morning, sir.
I have a couple of statements that I'd like to make.
One is, I don't remember, I'm 88 years old, and I've been voting for years ever since I was old enough to vote.
And I don't remember us having such horrible presidents such as Donald Trump and all the rules that he's making without Congress giving him permission.
It seems that since he became first time president, that this voting is just tearing him apart.
But yet, he voted by mail just recently for Florida.
So is he talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time?
And I'm just really interested.
I am a Democrat, and I'm a proud Democrat, but I have voted for presidents in the past.
Grace, from your mouth, he is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
This is a president who last night talked about how vote by mail was cheating, yet he chose to ask for a mail-in ballot and he cast that mail-in ballot.
So we don't have a voter fraud issue.
This is a president who still feels like the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Look, he won the 2016 election.
I don't refute that.
Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
Donald Trump won the 2024 election.
There's very little voter fraud in this country.
No Voter Fraud Issue00:04:13
If there is, then we should find those folks and prosecute them.
But, you know, again, study after study after study has suggested there's very little voter fraud.
This is a president who wants to rig these elections.
It's a problem that doesn't exist.
On the 2026 election, there's a story in today's New York Times about a potential Republican midterm convention possibly taking place in Dallas.
Plans coming together.
Thoughts on a midterm convention and should Democrats have one?
I don't think we need one.
I think we're strategizing.
We're winning election after election.
You saw the election around Mar-a-Lago.
We won that one.
So President Trump's going to have a nice Democratic representative in his state assembly.
I think it's going to backfire because anytime these days President Trump is on television, he's just free thinking and saying whatever's on his mind.
And I see the cringy look on some of the Republicans' faces.
Congressman Ami Berra, Democrat from California, member of the Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees, we do always appreciate your time.
Thanks for stopping by.
We'll let you get to your day.
Great.
Thank you.
Be all.
Coming up, more of your phone calls.
It's open forum, any public policy issue, any political issue that you want to talk about.
That's how we're going to end our program until the House comes in at 10 a.m. Eastern.
Go ahead and start dialing the numbers.
They're on your screen.
And we'll get to your calls right after the break.
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold, original series.
Sunday with our guest, Beverly Gage, a professor of American history at Yale.
Her book, G-Man, J. Edgar Hoover, and The Making of the American Century, received numerous literary awards and prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, the Bancroft Prize in American History, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography.
Her most recent book is This Land is Your Land, a road trip through U.S. History.
She joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein.
Now, when biographers spend five years, ten years, 15 years or so with a person, they often fall in love with them because they spend so much time with them.
Did you fall in love with J. Edgar Hoover or do you come away saying, geez, he's not as good as I thought or wished he was?
I did not fall in love with J. Edgar Hoover.
It's safe to say.
Nor did I think that I would.
To me, I was just fascinated by him the whole time.
I thought that he was important, and I thought that he was really an interesting, complicated character.
We mostly know him as a villain, and I did find that he was much more complicated than that one-dimensional portrait.
Watch America's Book Club with Beverly Gage, Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
Washington Journal continues.
Here's where we are on Capitol Hill today.
The House comes in in just about 30 minutes, 10 a.m. Eastern.
We'll head there when they do for live gabble-gavel coverage here on C-SPAN.
The Senate is in at noon Eastern.
You can watch that over on C-SPAN 2.
On C-SPAN 3 at 10 a.m., a hearing that we're going to be bringing you.
It's senior officials from FEMA, TSA, and the Coast Guard testifying on how the lapse in government funding at the Homeland Security Department is impacting national security.
That funding lapse is over 39 days.
We're on the 40th day of that funding lapse, that partial government shutdown.
We're going to show you that hearing over on C-SPAN 3.10 a.m. Eastern, you can also watch on C-SPAN.org and the free C-SPAN Now video app.
One more at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 2.
The Senate Budget Committee is hearing testimony about the Social Security's current struggles to stay solvent.
If you want to watch that, you can also watch on c-span.org and the free C-SPAN Now video app.
With that, we turn this program over to you, open forum here to end our program today.
CPAC Endorsement Speculation00:14:49
This is Joe out of Long Island.
Republican, good morning.
Good morning.
How are you doing, guys?
First of all, I want to say I've been a Republican.
Yes, I voted for Trump.
I like his policies, which is going on now.
The thing I don't like about that guy is just that he's, one, he's too egotistical.
I mean, he takes the credit for everything he has going on.
Doesn't really give any to his cabinet or the people around him who's really giving him the information.
But on the other hand, I'll leave it at that.
But as far as the voting goes, which I was wanted to get the gentleman before this on there, I wanted to know, when did this happen where you cannot be, you got to show proof of, or better still, that a person, non-citizen, could vote?
Because that's what they want.
They want to.
They let 20 million people into this country.
They gave them licenses, fed them room board, whatever.
They gave them all that.
And by giving them licenses, they were hoping that that would make them be okay to vote in America, even though they're not an American.
Joe, it's still illegal to cast a ballot in a federal election in this country if you're not a U.S. citizen.
It's illegal in every state.
Yeah, but obviously what they try to do by bringing these people in is they wanted their votes.
And by getting their votes, they would have to give them a license, right?
Show you your license, you could vote.
Now they want American citizens.
We want American citizenship proof to do that.
So, Joe, do you not think the SAVE Act will work?
think too many illegal immigrants have a valid ID?
I hope that I look at it this way.
I hope that in order you to vote as an American born and raised there, you should be able to vote and you shouldn't have anybody on the outside vote.
But my other thing is what I was before was my frame of thought is a little bit off that is that years ago to become a senator or congressman or a congresswoman you had to be born here, right?
You had to be you got senators and congressmen.
I can't even mention their names.
I pronounced their names.
So Joe, it's another country today, not this country.
Not a requirement for members of the House and Senate.
Requirement for the presidency.
The presidency, you've got to be born an American, but not the Senate and the Congress?
Sorry.
Not a requirement there.
Wow.
But it just bothers me on how the failure of the Republicans and Democrats are hurting this country.
I say, for instance, you get, what's that lady, Ola Omar, Ilan?
They found out that this woman and her husband, that they made millions of dollars, and you don't hear from this woman no more.
Why is that?
Is there a cover-up?
All right.
That's Joe.
This is Jane, Cleveland, Ohio, Democrat.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I'd like to say hello to everyone out there this morning.
Boy, I'm really amazed at how many people have very little understanding of the government.
My only comment today is: if Donald Trump is insisting that the 2016 election was fraud, I think we should talk to our congressmen to make sure we need to review the 2024 election.
He won the 2016 election, Jane.
I know, but, well, I'm sorry, the 2020 election, I apologize.
I was incorrect in saying 2016.
The 2020 election that he was saying was fraud.
Was there not fraud in 2024?
How come because he won, he doesn't have a problem with the 2024 election?
If there's fraud, there's fraud, and there is no fraud.
We know there was no fraud.
Legal citizens, if you're not a citizen, you cannot vote.
And if you did vote, you need to be prosecuted.
That's it.
That's Jane.
This is Adriana in California Independent.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I think that Trump has been very clear to the American people why we are fighting in Iran.
He stated that for 50 years, Iran has been a terrorist state and has caused chaos in the world, and also that they were prepared to manufacture nuclear weapons that could be used as far as even Europe.
The problem is that the American press only puts out what they want the American people to believe.
We no longer have journalists that actively seek the truth.
Instead, they parrot whatever Schumer says or thinks.
Adriana, where do you get your news?
I get it all over.
I read the New York Times.
I read the Wall Street Journal.
I read even Yahoo News.
I read everything.
I watch your program.
I watch C-SPAN on the weekends.
I watch the book programs that you have on C-SPAN.
I love C-SPAN.
I love reading the news.
I'm a news junkie.
So I get my news everywhere.
And I don't believe, I even watch sometimes what used to be MSNBC, which is now six weeks they renamed it.
But I even watch that occasionally as C-SPAM.
I mean, the CNN.
Adriana, you said you watched the books programs.
What's your favorite book you've read?
Well, I'm reading now the book about Ashley Kushner and the investments.
I forgot the title, but I get my books from the public library.
I do it on my, I read the books on my telephone.
I don't even have to buy the books.
I get it for free.
It's Adriana up early in California.
I guess it's not too early in California.
9.30 on the East Coast.
Go ahead and keep calling in.
We'll take more of your phone calls here in open forum.
Did want to show you one more headline this morning.
It is from Time magazine.
It's about the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.
It's set to kick off today in Texas.
The headline, Donald Trump is poised to skip CPAC for the first time in decades.
Nick Popely is the author of that piece.
And he joins us for a few minutes now via Zoom to discuss.
Nick Popley, why isn't Donald Trump going to CPAC this year?
Yeah, that's correct.
The president is not planning to attend this year's CPAC event, though a White House official tells me that his plans could change at the last minute.
But currently, it appears he has not headed there for the first time since 2016, basically his entire political career.
So why is he not attending there?
Well, you know, this year's CPAC event comes at a really pivotal moment for Republicans and for Trump.
You have a major foreign policy conflict underway with the war in Iran, rising energy prices here at home.
And Republicans are heading into a midterm cycle where they're on the defensive after last year's losses and last night's loss in Florida as well.
And adding on to that, Trump's approval rating is at 36%.
So he's under pressure at the moment.
We're about a month into the war.
It's not entirely clear how or when it will end.
And the U.S. is now deploying troops to the Middle East.
And there's some in his base who feel that he's drifting away from the America First approach that was so central to his political identity.
Now, it's important to note that a large portion of supporters still back his actions in Iran, but what we're seeing is a real discomfort with the idea of the U.S. getting pulled deeper into another war in the Middle East.
And even some of the featured speakers at CPAC are divided over the war.
Like Steve Bannon has warned the war could cost voters.
Nat Gates has questioned the U.S. relationship with Israel.
And so I think that may be in part why Trump is not planning to attend CPAC.
He doesn't want to face that blowback from his own party head on.
The White House has not given us an official explanation as to why he isn't planning to attend.
Again, that could change.
CPAC this year is in Texas, not Maryland, where it's usually held.
And of course, Trump has not yet endorsed in the Texas Republican Senate runoff.
That's quickly approaching.
And Ken Paxton is one of the featured CPAC speakers.
Also, the president will be going to Florida this weekend and is speaking at a Saudi investment forum on Friday night.
So there's some scheduling conflicts too.
But if Trump's not there, there will definitely be a different vibe at this year's CPAC.
One thing I'll be watching is just how United MAGA stands with the war, with the Epstein files controversy and other pressure points.
So we'll hear from the likes of Steve Bannon, Benny Johnson, Nick Shirley, and some administration officials as well, like Brendan Carr, Todd Blanche, and Brooke Rollins, but not expecting a whole lot of news from those speeches.
Back up for a second, explain for folks who aren't familiar the significance of CPAC in the world of conservative politics.
Yeah, this conference is one of the largest annual gatherings for conservatives.
Trump has really used it over the years to sharpen his political attacks, test campaign messages, and really redefine the ideological contours of the Republican Party.
He's attended every single CPAC since 2016.
So, really, again, his entire political career.
And it's, you know, a couple of years ago, he used it to test his campaign message of this idea of political retribution towards his perceived enemies and opponents.
And there was an idea that he brought up during the CPAC event, and it got a lot of support.
So, this is an event that Trump has gone to a lot in the past and respects.
In terms of what it means to CPAC that Donald Trump is not going, does this take any shine off CPAC?
Does this say anything about where CPAC stands in conservative politics today versus the nine years when Donald Trump was going every year?
Maybe, maybe not.
I'm not entirely sure what, you know, obviously CPAC is still going to have their event.
Trump is not running for re-election.
So, I think that may also have a factor into this.
But there is some divide in the Republican Party at the moment.
The White House is claiming there is not.
Trump supporters still largely do back Trump's actions with the war in Iran.
But I think this year's CPAC will be important for us to watch and see exactly how the Republican Party unites around the president and unites around his ideas.
And CPAC is also an opportunity for rising influencers, activists, and other politicians to take the stage and make their names be known in the same way that Trump did in the past.
So perhaps it's an opportunity for other figures to do that as well this year.
Who are some of those rising influencers or new names, folks that you'll be watching this year to see what kind of impact they make?
Yeah.
Well, Ken Paxton will be one that I think is interesting to watch.
He's obviously in the contested runoff in Texas.
Is John Cornyn going since Ken Paxton?
John Cornyn is not.
No, he's not.
So, you know, it'll be interesting to see if CPAC endorses in that race as well.
But, you know, it would put pressure on Trump to perhaps endorse quicker if he were to attend the CPAC event and Paxton was there.
Paxton actually has one of the featured speaking slots on Friday night at the Friday night Reagan dinner.
So, you know, I'm not sure if that's entirely why Trump isn't going, but of course, this is in Texas.
It's also a little far from the president's.
He'll be in Florida this weekend.
And so maybe that has to do with it as well.
And then you mentioned a few folks from the Trump administration.
What about JD Vance?
Is he going?
JD Vance is not on the schedule.
No.
He's not set to attend.
But that, again, could change at the last minute.
Are you going to be going down there yourself?
I am not.
No.
How many of these have you covered in your time?
They used to be right around Washington, D.C.
I have not personally covered it, no.
But yes, it used to be right around Washington, D.C. at the Gaylord Hotel in the National Harbor.
This year it'll be in the Gaylord Hotel in Grapevine, Texas, right outside of Dallas.
And why that move to Dallas from Washington, D.C. being right here next to the nation's capital?
Well, I think it partly has to do with, from what I've read, the organizers' match lap was not too happy with it being in Maryland, which is a blue state, and wanted to move it to a more red state this time.
So I think that was part of the reason why they moved.
But certainly, I think if Trump is not there, is not attending, maybe there's some folks who are less interested in attending this year.
Even though it's moved, of course, C-SPAN will be covering this year's CPAC conference as we always do.
Speakers and panel discussions kick off on Thursday.
go to our website cspan.org for details and go to time.com to read Nick Popley's article about Donald Trump skipping CPAC this year for the first time in a decade.
Nick Popley, thanks for jumping on a Zoom call with us this morning.
Thank you for having me.
Back to your phone calls before the House comes in here.
It's going to be about 15 minutes or so before they gavel in and we'll just roll with your calls.
This is Kendall in Cincinnati Republican.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I think that the TSA agents should be paid.
And one thing that is noticed is that the ICE budget has been approved for a number of years.
So perhaps they could reclassify the TSA workers under the ice and pay them out of that department.
Or perhaps the Democrats can pass legislation without any strings attached.
And I'm sure the Republicans would go along with that.
If the president did not sign that, then I think there would be enough support in both houses to override the presidential veto.
But at the end of the day, our TSA agents need to be paid for the work that they do.
So Kendall, just so I understand you're talking about just a straight up or down bill on paying TSA and trying to pass that today and overriding a potential presidential veto.
Exactly.
Reclassifying TSA Workers00:02:21
That's Kendall in Cincinnati.
This is Ginny Hancock, Michigan Democrat.
Good morning.
Good morning, John.
Boy, interesting show.
Every day I watch every morning, and I'm so grateful for C-SPAN and covering the hearings and all that.
I sure wish that our schools would go back to teaching civics and sociology.
I love those classes, and I've been interested in politics ever since.
On the voter ID thing, I think the Republicans are being very deceitful that they're not explaining that, you know, voter ID does not mean driver's license and does not mean military ID.
So they're disenfranchising so many people, not to mention the women whose names have changed and all of that.
I'm 73.
I've been voting.
I'm 71.
I've been voting since 73.
And I've had no problem in our county.
Where I vote, I get an absentee ballot.
It's got a number on it.
I sign the back of it.
I can track that number all the way through.
I have no issues in my community with absentee voting.
About the, you know, let's see, I've got notes here.
You know, he says things so off the cuff that it's just scary.
He's he's, you know, I've been watching him, studying him.
He's like, he reminds me of like a 15-year-old adolescent.
You know, he doesn't, maturity level of a 15-year-old adolescent plays by himself.
If you don't like his rules, he pouts and all this kind of stuff.
And no wonder the Republicans all have their tails between their legs because they can't get around the big Trump.
So, you know, I mean, recently, it's all about for him and his, you know, oil people and all this.
You know, there's been a lot of headlines about all of this in Vermouth.
I'm paying a lot of attention.
But anyway.
Jenny, you mentioned at the beginning you wished that they taught civics more.
Do you remember your civics teacher?
You're 71 years old.
Do you have a memory of a civics teacher?
Yep, Mr. Wisenen.
What did Mr. Wisenen teach you?
You know, just the civics.
I mean, he taught us how our government works and how everything is supposed to work together, equal branches, whatever.
And, you know, it was just a really good class, you know, coupled with sociology.
Conscientious Voting Habits00:06:32
Because if you have no idea where we've been, we don't know where we're going to.
And a lot of you, I'm 71, but a lot of young people are very confused.
And I talk to people when I'm out, and I'm amazed at the people that don't even know about the No Kings rallied on Saturday.
Are you going to one?
Yeah, I'm going to travel 100 miles to the biggest one in the UP, Michigan, which will be in Marquette.
So I got six signs made already.
I'm pumped up.
I listen to your show every day, and I could talk about, you know, I pay attention.
Jenny, thanks for paying attention.
Thanks for watching.
Let me get to Jorge calling out of Albuquerque Independent.
Good morning.
Well, good morning.
Thank you, Proceed Spen.
I believe that Americans should plant World War III victory gardens.
They should start rationing gas, electric, and fuel consumption.
There should be a march on Washington like the Milkings, but it should be a long-term sit-down, shut-down protest, then a constitutional crisis, constitutional convention.
The nuclear Iran threat is one thing, but the Strait of Hormuz is another.
That's a quagmire.
I think that America should blockade all travel until there's all, should blockade all travel until all travel is let through.
It shouldn't be an Iranian toll booth.
And I think that many places have benefited from POX Americana, while Americans have suffered, and this will be the last war.
Thank you, Proceed Spen.
Jorge and Albuquerque will stay in the land of enchantment.
This is Robert, Republican.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I'm calling about the birth certificates they were talking about earlier.
I live in New Mexico and Colorado, and our certified birth certificates are only $16 in New Mexico and $25 in Denver.
Then I checked the Pennsylvania lady, and hers are $25, and they're at vital check.
So these birth certificates are certified, and they're not that much money.
I don't know what they're talking about, these hundreds of dollars.
Maybe she's including her travel and all that.
I don't know, but we can get it online, and they'll mail them right to us.
And to get a driver's license in New Mexico, you've got to take a birth certificate anyway to get anything like that or a passport.
So I don't know what they're talking about.
As far as those Roblox, the other guy from New Mexico, I don't know what's going on there with that.
There's no reason to shut down commerce and businesses like that and doing things like that, driving people crazy.
I just don't understand why it's so hard to get a birth certificate.
It's simple at vital statistics here in New Mexico and Colorado.
That's Robert.
Thanks for the call.
This is Mary in Des Moines.
It's Line for Democrats.
Mary, go ahead.
Good morning, John.
I just wanted to add to something that you were talking about, who qualifies for a representative and a senator.
A representative has to be 25 years old and seven years a citizen before they can run for office.
A senator has to be 30 years old and nine years as a citizen before they can run.
Just so people aren't confused about how easy it is to run, there are some qualifications for those two, and that's in the Constitution.
I enjoy the program.
No, thank you, Mary, for bringing that up.
And it's always good to bring in the Constitution.
Do you think those are fair qualifications for a member of the House and Senate?
Yes, but I also am into, I think there needs to be a term limit for them nowadays.
What do you think it should be?
I do think there's something to be said about having the older ones with the younger ones.
Hopefully they can mentor the younger ones on the procedure in Congress.
But that doesn't seem to be what's going on right now.
There's too much confusion, division.
They're not working for the American public.
And that's really a disservice to the American public and the voters.
And I think we need to do something about that as voters and being more conscientious in what we're doing.
Mary Williams.
Thank you for your time.
What's a fair term limit?
I would think for senators, probably maybe two or three terms and for representatives, at least no more than three or four.
I think we have to limit because once it seems like they change after they get there, the power, the money, the prestige, all those kinds of things.
We are just human beings.
And nowadays, it just seems like so many are being bought.
I hate to say that about Americans, but that's what I feel like.
They just, there's too much money rolling around in politics for them to do justice for the American citizens.
When did that change?
You say nowadays they're all bought?
When were they not bought?
Well, I think when the Bush dynasty came in, and if people want to really learn something, they ought to try Kevin Phillips' book, American Theocracy.
I would really encourage people to go to their libraries and get the book and read it because what he wrote about in 2006 is coming to fruition.
And we're living with it right now.
And President Trump is the end of this.
I think we're in a real tragedy right now.
And I'm not sure we're of the quality of American citizens that we realize exactly what's going on and what we can do about it and appreciate it and do it as American citizens.
I'm really concerned.
I'm 93 years old.
I've voted since I was eligible.
And I've seen a lot in politics.
Mary, thanks for the call from the Hawkeye State.
Just to read the United States Constitution, never a bad thing on qualifications for members of the House and the Senate.
We'll start with the House.
Constitutional Voting Qualifications00:04:19
It's Article 1, Section 2, that second clause.
No person shall be a representative who shall not have attained to the age of 25 years and been seven years a citizen of the United States and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen for the Senate.
You need to go to Section 3 and Clause 3.
No person shall be a senator who shall not have attained to the age of 30 years and been nine years a citizen of the United States and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state for which he shall be chosen.
The qualifications laid out there in the first article of the Constitution.
This is Alan, Knoxville, Tennessee, Independent.
Good morning.
Yes, sir.
I just want to say that, can you hear me?
I can, Alan.
You cannot?
I can, sir.
Go ahead.
Okay.
I just want to say I've been married to an undocumented woman for nine years.
She's been in this country 20 years.
Good person, good Christian person.
And we went through the process of immigration for the last four years.
Every step we were approved.
Until the last minute, they said that I did not make enough money.
I mean, but they asked about her money, and our money was considered through all these processes.
And I don't understand.
We were not told this from the beginning.
Why?
They waited to the last minute.
I mean, if we had known this from the beginning.
And, Alan, sorry, I don't understand.
She was not approved because you didn't make enough money.
And who is they that told you that?
The immigration.
USCIS.
So, where does that leave you and your wife?
Either trying to appeal or we spend a lot of money for the lawyer and the government.
And we should have known this from the very beginning.
And, you know, this is what you need to make.
And in Tennessee, what they required us to make is a lot of money.
It may not be, you know, in California or somewhere like that, but it just broke her heart.
And I can't believe it.
Alan in Knoxville.
This is Kathy in Georgia, Republican.
Good morning.
Yes, hi.
I wanted to say that, you know, there's been talk by callers and that other representative that there is no voter fraud.
There is voter fraud.
There was a woman, a black woman in, I believe it was New Jersey.
Her name was Wanda.
I didn't get it, the last name.
Her name was Wanda.
She was convicted and charged with voter fraud, stuffing the ballot boxes.
And then there was a black man in the East Coast also that was charged and convicted for voter fraud.
So there is voter fraud out there.
And then the SAVE Act, you do not, if you're already registered to vote, you don't have to do anything.
You don't have to get your birth certificate if you're a woman and a married woman.
None of that.
They're just trying to scare you.
And if the media would report facts instead of Democrat bias talking points, this nation would be a lot better.
President Trump has done so much good that I can't believe nobody realizes it.
Like Black History Month.
Why don't you play when he had his celebration for Black History Month?
Media Bias And Facts00:01:51
You need to repeat it over and over.
You don't repeat the NPR hearing.
I've been saying that every time I call.
Where is the NPR hearing?
You need to repeat it.
I know you can get it on your website, but nobody goes there.
I'm sorry to say.
Kathy, a lot of people go to the website, but there's plenty there.
It's c-span.org.
And everything that we've aired is available there for anybody to see, to watch, to cut clips from if you want.
It's a fun website to check out and very easy to search around.
C-SPAN.org.
Try to get one more call.
We're waiting for the House to come in.
They're standing by the doors, but we think we can get in Donna, South Carolina.
Go ahead.
Can you make it quick?
Yes, good morning, everyone.
I just want to say that I think that a lot of people call in and offer their thoughts and opinions about things that are not well thought out or done research.
The gentleman from Joe from New York who called in and made comments about the House and the senators that they had to be U.S. citizens.
I just wish people would get educated and quit coming on TV, making their comments that are not well researched or well-founded.
Thank you very much.
Thank you and thank you to callers who often call in and will correct other callers or add information to our discussion.
That's the beauty of a live program.
That's going to do it for us this morning.
We take you now to the House of Representatives, gavel-to-gavel coverage beginning on C-SPAN.
The House will be in order.
The House lays before the Chair lays before the House a communication from the Speaker.