Washington Journal on March 26, 2026, details the 27-day U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict costing $31 billion and a 41-day DHS shutdown where over 400 TSA agents quit. President Trump labels it a "military operation" while preparing 82nd Airborne troops for deployment, despite Senate leaders Thune and Schumer stalling over ICE reforms. Guests Adam Smith and Michael Waltz debate the strategy, with Waltz defending Kushner's negotiations and rejecting Epstein file links to the war, while callers discuss the Postal Service crisis and the "Invisible Doctrine." Ultimately, the episode highlights deep partisan gridlock threatening national security and economic stability amidst global instability. [Automatically generated summary]
The future of the U.S. Postal Service after the Postmaster General told lawmakers that without assistance from Congress, the agency would run out of funds by February of next year.
And we'll also talk about U.S.-Israel combat operations against Iran, the impasse over Department of Homeland Security funding, and other congressional news of the week.
First, with Washington Democratic Congressman Adam Smith, and then with Washington Republican Congressman Michael Baumgartner.
Washington Journal is next.
Join the conversation.
Today is Thursday, March 26th on Washington Journal.
Strikes continued overnight in Israel, Iran, and neighboring countries as the U.S. and Iran struggle to begin the next phase of negotiations.
The joint U.S. and Israeli military campaign against Iran enters its 27th day.
Here in the U.S., the parcel shutdown over funding for the Department of Homeland Security enters its 41st day.
Optimism over a possible deal on Capitol Hill has plummeted in the last 24 hours as lawmakers search for a solution to reopen the government and ease travel pains at the airport.
And that's where we will begin this morning on the Washington Journal.
Two topics.
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First, we start this morning on Iran.
The U.S. has delivered a 15-point peace plan aimed at ending the war in Iran, and Iran says via state TV that they've rejected it.
That's after a briefing on Capitol Hill yesterday caused lawmakers to have some growing concern over the administration's handling of the conflict.
According to a article on NBC News, the headline here is tensions flare during Iran briefing on the Capitol.
Much of the frustration during the briefing for members of the House Armed Services Committee focused on the prospect of sending U.S. ground troops to Iran, sources said.
Yesterday, the president spoke at the National Republican Committee annual fundraiser, and he avoided using the word war.
Take a listen here.
They want to deflect from all of the tremendous success that we're having in this military operation.
I won't use the word war because they say if you use the word war, that's maybe not a good thing to do.
They don't like the word war because you're supposed to get approval.
So I'll use the word military operation, which is really what it is.
It's called a military decimation.
But they don't like the good publicity.
They don't like to see us succeed.
They want to see our country fail.
That was President Trump yesterday speaking at the National Republican Congressional Committee annual fundraising dinner.
By they, he was referring to Democrats.
Now turning back to Capitol Hill here on the U.S., discussions among about ending the shutdown over the Department of Homeland Security remain at an impasse this morning.
Take a listen to both the Democratic leader on the Senate side and the Republican leader on the Senate side discussing those plans that were rejected by both parties after being traded.
Take a listen here.
Democrats sent Republicans our counteroffer on legislation to reopen DHS, pay TSA workers, while at the same time rein in ice with common sense guardrails.
Our offer is a reasonable, good faith proposal that contains some of the very same asks Democrats have been talking about now for months.
Leader Jeffries and I have spoken about this agenda, and he agrees we need these strong reforms.
Now, over the last day, Republicans have made the outrageous and bad faith claim that Democrats are somehow moving the goalpost back in these negotiations.
They are saying Democrats change the ask.
They're saying Democrats are backtracking and suddenly introducing new demands at the last minute.
This is nonsense.
Nonsense.
Democrats and the American people have been very clear from the beginning about what we need in order to move forward.
We've been talking about ICE reforms from day one.
These are not new demands.
These are not surprise demands.
They are not things we came up with yesterday.
They are common sense reforms, reasonable reforms, reforms that police departments across America follow every day.
These are reforms the American people overwhelmingly support and things that Republicans know perfectly well we have been seeking since these negotiations began.
Altogether, thanks to Senate Democrats, a lot of DHS employees have been working without pay for more than 80 days so far this fiscal year.
Mr. President, that's shameful.
It's no wonder TSA agents are quitting in droves.
Anyone would be.
If they've been working without pay for almost 50 percent of the fiscal year so far.
My Democrat colleagues, of course, are working with pay, having rejected a Republican proposal to stop senators' pay while DHS continues to be shut down.
But I'm hoping that Democrats can at least envision what it's like for stressed out Homeland Security workers wondering if they'll be able to pay their rent.
And I hope they'll recognize the situation can't continue.
Homeland security workers are hurting.
Travelers are beyond fed up with the disastrous situation at U.S. airports.
And we cannot continue to keep this critical department unfunded.
Democrats have a proposal before them with legislative text, the latest serious offer from Republicans to get this department back up and running.
Democrats have repeatedly said that they want to pay TSA, Coast Guard, FEMA, and employees who defend America from cyber attacks.
This bill would do it.
I hope Democrats will work with us to finalize an agreement and reopen the Department of Homeland Security this week.
That was Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaking there.
Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader of the Senate, spoke before talking about the impasse and negotiations to end the shutdown, the partial shutdown on DHS.
Now we know that reports say that over 400 TSA agents so far have quit.
Let's turn to some phone calls.
Darrell from Columbus, Georgia, a Democrat.
Once I click your button, good morning, Darryl.
Good morning.
How are you this morning?
I'm doing well.
How are you?
Doing great.
Doing great.
Thank you.
I just want to make a comment on the TSA situation.
Well, you know, based on what I read and based on my understanding, the Republicans do not want to fund TSA and some of the other agencies as well.
If you go and look at Project 2025 on pages 158 and 159, it clearly indicates that the end game is to privatize TSA.
So they come with all this rhetoric that they want to do this and do that.
But if you go and look at that project, they want to privatize just about everything.
And the Democrats are trying to work with them to get these people funded and get them paid and all that.
But they're just going to keep on dancing around to they get what they want.
And it's just a mess.
And I just wanted to put that out to people.
People go ahead and start doing some reading.
Then what these people are all about.
That Project 2025 will tell you everything that you need to know about this current Republican Party.
And that's all I want to say, Jasmine.
And Jasmine, you're doing a great job.
Thank you.
Thank you, Daryl.
I turn now to the live feed from the New York Times.
The headline here is Republicans reject Democratic proposal to end DHS impasse.
This came after, of course, the Republicans first issued a counteroffer, which would have funded DHS, and they would have handled the ICE funding specifically in reconciliation outside of the Democratic bill that would have replenished the funding for DHS.
It said Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have each formally rejected the other's latest proposals to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown that has now lasted more than five weeks.
Democrats on Wednesday sent a proposal with, quote, common sense guardrails on federal immigration agents, which they have demanded be part of any agreement.
But Senator Jon Thune, Republican of South Dakota, and the majority leader immediately called it a non-starter.
Robert from California, an independent.
You're next.
Good morning, Robert.
Yes.
I want to know why at the airports, any ICE personnel can pat down someone or operate a machine.
How hard is it to do this, number one?
Number two, here we are 25 years after 9-11, and people are still taking their shoes off.
It's absolutely ridiculous.
It's total incompetence.
We don't need $75,000 a year TSA employees to pat someone down.
I remember very clearly how all this was done before 9-11.
And it's outrageous that the members of Congress are getting paid when other people in the government are not getting paid.
They're the ones who should not be getting their pay.
They're not doing their job.
I'm so sick of it.
I'm sick of the Republicans blaming the Democrats.
I'm sick of the Democrats blaming the Republicans.
I'm sick of political hacks like Chuck Schumer every day on the air, putting his face in front of a camera.
He's completely useless.
He's a clown.
And this whole situation just goes to show you how incompetent the federal government truly is.
Robert from California.
Edward from Michigan, a Democrat.
Good morning, Edward.
Oh, yeah.
Yes, hello.
I wanted to talk about the Iran situation.
Okay, good.
Well, I've been following the cost of the war, right?
And there's a website called Iran Cost Picker.
And right now, the amount of money that we spent on the Iran war is $31 billion, according to them.
And when the first, I think, the first week of the war, we were spending like $1 billion a day or $2 billion a day.
So, and to me, this reminds me of the Iraq war.
It's just the parallels are very close.
And we ended up, what, how long did we, like, we were in Iraq for at least 10 years, right?
And they said it was going to be over in a very short period of time.
And we would install a democracy.
So to me, this is going to end up to be a very expensive venture in Iran.
And I'm not even sure of the end goal.
It's a lot like the Iraq war.
Well, Edward, I have pulled up for folks, they can see it on their screen now, the website that you mentioned, IrancostTicker.com.
They say it's based on the Pentagon's briefing to Congress, which said that it was $11.3 billion for the first six days plus $1 billion ongoing per day.
And it has a breakdown from how long the war has been going on, per second, per hour, per day.
And that's IrancostTicker.com if folks want to look at it on their own.
Scott from California, a Democrat?
I'm here.
Hi, Scott.
You're on the line.
Jasmine.
I can hear you, Scott.
I must apologize.
I told you that Jasmine was the heartstone that you can hold in your hand and it warms.
I was wrong.
It's Jasper.
Oh, that's disappointing.
Thank you, Jasper.
God bless you.
You are wonderful every single day.
Thank you very much.
You're so, well, thank you just for being here.
Okay, any comment on DHS or Iran funding before I let you go?
Yeah, I think we're messing it up.
And we're just doing horrible things to the ICE agents coming in and all the horrible garbage.
I believe they, we are so wrong.
All right, Scott from California.
The caller before Scott actually spoke about how much the war in Iran was costing the U.S.
Now, there's a conversation happening on Capitol Hill about a supplemental funding plan that would replenish some of that money that has been spent.
Take a listen to House Speaker Mike Johnson talk about it and whether or not that could come through a regular funding bill or a reconciliation bill.
I'm glad to know the Senate is interested in Reconciliation 2.0.
As you know, I have been a broken record.
Iran War Costs Debate00:15:13
We need to do that.
It's an important legislative tool.
We already had a set of priorities that are working on in the House, and it is possible that the defense supplemental will be a part of that package, but we don't yet have the details.
And I know you all have a lot of questions this morning about what the number is going to be requested, and so do I.
We haven't gotten that yet.
I think they're tabulating that.
I think the Department of War and OMB and the administration are working that out, and I suspect we'll get a specific request.
You know, that's how the process works.
And then when we get that, we will go through our processes here to review that and look at it and check its feasibility and all of that.
It may be, sadly, and I would say this: it may, and it would be a sad outcome, that we would have to get a military funding bill done with only Republican votes.
That's what the reconciliation package would allow.
It's quite sad and really shocking and dangerous.
Again, Democrats with their crazy policies, they have Trump derangement syndrome.
They can't even, they would not even, I don't even think they would agree to vote on a bill that would simply restock our munitions.
We've used some of those, as you know, in Operation Epic Fury.
And we've got to do that.
It's a necessity.
The first job of the federal government is to protect the people.
But Democrats, I don't think we can count on their votes to do the simple, basic responsibility of Congress.
And so it is part of reconciliation, probably.
We'll see.
That was Mike Johnson talking about additional funding for the war in Iran.
John from Colorado, an independent.
You are next.
Good morning, John.
Hello.
Good morning.
I want to talk about Iran a little bit.
Okay.
I think we have it all, I think we have it all backwards there.
I think what we should be doing is bombing the hell out of Israel until it looks exactly like what they have done to Gaza.
They are no ally of ours.
And I think once we do that, we'll have peace in the Middle East.
All right.
John from Colorado.
Carol from Miami, Florida, a Republican.
Good morning, Carol.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I'm shocked at your last caller on Fight Bottom Israel.
Iran is our problem.
Iran is a terrorist capital.
And what Trump is doing is fine, but I don't want boots on the ground.
Just wipe them up by air.
The world is not safe as long as Iran has any kind of weapons.
So do this, end Iran, and end it quickly.
We're backing Israel because they will always back us.
As far as homeland security, Democrats will not fund it because they do not want a secure border.
And that's obvious.
We've seen it all.
And why is this?
Because they think that they can stay in power if they fill our country with immigrants.
I've done him down here in Miami, and there's no immigrant that's going to vote for a Democrat just this midterm.
And thank God, get rid of all of them.
Democrats are the problem of this country.
All right, Carol from Miami.
Tony from Pennsylvania, a Republican.
Good morning, Tony.
Hey, yeah.
Well, that last lady isn't very bright.
But I think it comes down to the angels saying, you know, whoever doesn't like war is a pedophile.
Larry from Oregon, a Republican.
Good morning, Larry.
Yes, I'm calling about the Iran situation.
I think the most appropriate question is not how much are we paying for the cost for the war, you know, in terms of current dollars.
How much have we paid since 1979?
And if we don't take care of the problem right now, how much is it going to cost us in the future if we don't take care of the problem?
What we're talking about is the pain that we're going to have in the short term versus the long-term gain if we do take care of the problem.
We need to buckle down and take care of the problem.
And I see that we have a president that's willing to do that, and we need to buckle up as a country and take care of the problem.
Thank you.
Francis from New York, a Democrat.
Yes, hi.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I was listening to something you said about the Democrats not being committed to making a deal regarding DHS, TSA.
And the senator from Kentucky, I think his name is Kennedy, he basically outed Donald Trump.
The bottom line on this is I don't see why people don't see the bigger picture here.
I'm not concerned about what happened 50 years ago.
Iran has not touched this country.
I'm concerned about a $39 trillion debt.
And I'm also concerned about a billion-dollar a day war that most of these people calling in, most of them over the age of 65, they don't give a damn.
They don't give a damn about that money.
And most of them don't pay into the tax system the way blue states do.
So I don't even know why they're calling, because at the end of the day, we cannot afford this.
We had no reason to go into a war with someone that has not attacked us, and we shouldn't be following others into wars.
That's my take on this.
But people really need to do their homework.
their own Republican senator, Donald Trump, and he said you need to be very clear.
They're talking about DHS funding there.
I'm talking about TSA funding.
Yeah, DHS funding.
I think the president basically said, after initially saying that he would not sign a deal on DHS unless the Congress passed the Save America Act, he then, after a meeting on Monday with Republican lawmakers, said that he'd be open to it depending on what the language looked like.
So he has shifted a bit, but.
Right.
Well, not enough.
Not enough.
Francis, go ahead.
When this is over, when this guy's out of office, and maybe sooner rather than later, the bottom line on this is they've pretty much impacted this country financially.
I'm losing money in the stock market.
My 401k isn't doing great.
Francis, you mentioned how blue states pay more into the country.
Let's listen now to a blue state Democrat, Representative Pete Aguilar, talking about both the administration's approach to Iran and also to DHS funding.
Our country is deep in yet another endless Middle East war.
Gas prices are skyrocketing.
TSA agents aren't getting paid.
American travelers are waiting in record-breaking lines.
ICE is brutalizing our communities.
And hardworking families are being forced to make difficult financial decisions on whether they pay for groceries or gas or medications.
And now the Trump administration is reportedly asking for $200 billion in order to fund this war, but he won't spend a dime to bring down costs for health care here at home.
The American people want health care, not warfare.
They elected Donald Trump because they truly believed he would keep his promise to lower their costs on day one, end all wars, and make our community safe.
Instead, he has been actively driving up costs at the pump and grocery store and unleashed out-of-control ICE agents across the country to terrorize immigrants, detain children, and kill U.S. citizens.
And the worst part is that it doesn't have to be this way.
Democrats have put forward a proposal that would fund key components of the Department of Homeland Security, including TSA, Coast Guard, FEMA, while we negotiate common sense reforms to ICE.
But instead, Donald Trump doubled down on his harmful agenda and said he will only support a shutdown and paying our TSA workers if his partisan voter suppression bill is passed.
The American people are worse off under Donald Trump and they are fed up.
In Congress, we are the people's representatives, and it's time for Republicans to start acting like it.
That was House Democratic Chair Pete Aguilar talking about the administration's approach to both the DHS funding and also the Iran war.
Mike from Connecticut, an independent.
Good morning, Mike.
Good morning.
Like I said, American people are so gullible.
Look, if you look at the cost of living, we have people, American people who don't have no health insurance.
He cut taxes, cut taxes.
The Department of Education is gutted.
You got fellow Governor Wook is laying off.
And we got a ward that he asked for $200 billion.
Use that $200 billion.
Invest in the future of our kids.
Today's students is tomorrow's leaders.
But this guy, I'm really disappointed about the American people.
Avoided a guy who's a convicted felon running for this country done to the ground.
Like I said, an American people wake up.
All right, that was Mike from Connecticut.
Jim from Texas, a Republican.
Good morning, Jim.
Yeah, I was just wondering.
The other day, the House Republicans put on the floor, on the Senate floor, the Republicans wanted to give up their checks, not get paid.
And the Democrats voted it down.
They did not want to give up their checks.
That tells you right there.
The Democrats want to get their money.
They want to get their money and their checks.
And the Republicans were willing to give up theirs, you know.
And the Democrats wanted to keep their checks, but yet they want to take the money away from the TSA people.
And it's all because of one thing.
They want to collapse the government or they can laid in more illegals where they can vote and cheat and vote illegally.
That's what they've always wanted to do.
Let more people, and Terry's in.
As far as the war goes, the killers, Iranian killers, has been killing Americans by the hundreds and kidnapping them for years and years.
Ever since 1979, they've been killing Americans, killing the Reines.
And Trump's the only one's got the guts to do something about it.
Obama, he used to give millions and millions, billions of dollars.
Just give it to them.
They'd kill Americans, and then Obama, the traitor, he would give them money.
You know, plane loads of cash, money.
All right, that was Jim from Texas.
Peter from Reading, Pennsylvania.
One second before I go to you, Peter, sorry.
I'll just turn to something that Jim mentioned.
This was back from October.
I think he said it was this week, but the earliest article that I was able to find was from October, which is that Lindsey Graham proposes an amendment to force lawmakers to forfeit pay during shutdowns.
If you bear with me while I scroll a little bit here, it said Lancy Graham says forcing members of Congress to give up their paychecks during government shutdown would end shutdowns faster.
Graham introduced a constitutional amendment on Wednesday that would require congressional members to forfeit their pay for the duration of a government shutdown.
This was back in October during the shutdown last year.
And so he introduced that.
I would assume that it did not become law, although I do know that Ted Cruz has written a letter saying that he would forfeit his salary as the shutdown is ongoing.
This current shutdown, not last shutdown.
All right, Peter from Reading, Pennsylvania, a Democrat.
Good morning, Peter.
Good morning, young lady.
Oh, my name is Peter.
I'm a proud Democrat.
You know, when you listen to some of these Magamorons talk about immigrants, and I'd like to know from a lady from Miami or this other individual from Texas, are they Sioux, Cheyenne, Cherokee?
We're all immigrants.
And we're all illegal, unless you were born here.
I mean, unless you were originally here.
As far as I've got clowns not getting paid, I'm all for that.
I'm a union guy, proud union guy, and you hear these people talk about immigrants and so-and-so.
You know, when my grandfather fought in World War II and had to sit in the back of the bus, I asked them, was America great, Dan?
Was America great when four little girls got blew up in Sunday school?
We told you people so.
Now you read what you saw.
You voted this clown in again, a criminal, a liar, and a thief, and a rapist.
Donald Trump, of course, has not been convicted of anything that any form of rape.
Michael from Pennsylvania, a Republican.
Yes, thank you, Jacqueline, for taking my call.
Hi, Michael.
Thanks for shaking the band, and thanks for defending Donald Trump's record.
These accusations against Donald Trump are completely unfounded.
He was convicted by a completely liberal, completely Democratic political jury down in Washington, D.C., and they keep spreading the word that he's a felon.
That's baloney.
My role here, Michael, is to just say the facts, just to be clear.
But I appreciate your comment, but my role is just to say the facts no matter which way they go.
All right, go ahead.
So, anyways, I'm talking about ICE.
Immigration Policy Accusations00:07:26
I think it's unconscionable that Democrats have moved this thing.
They're trying to defend these protesters, and I agree that the protesters should not have died.
It's a shame that they died under these circumstances.
But there is a certain amount of guilt with going to these protests and stopping law enforcement.
And there's also a certain amount of guilt involved with heading your car towards a ICE, towards an ICE agent for a federal agent, and doing him harm.
And those things are not blameless.
And the fact that the fact that, as opposed to the thousands of people that have been killed by illegal aliens who are completely innocent, and they were completely, and those families have been ruined because of those things.
And now they want to change the rules on ICE.
They're holding up this Homeland Security by requiring warrants.
And everybody knows that warrants, in fact, everybody, especially the Democrats, know that warrants by judges will completely halt ICE in their activities.
And you'll have another thing when they never required warrants before under Democratic or Republican administrations.
And they want to continue what they've started, which is the taking over of this country by people that are not legally allowed to be in this country.
And that's.
Well, Michael, I'll just point that to, since you brought up the judicial warrants, last week in his confirmation testimony, we now know that he has been confirmed and sworn in as a new head of Department of Homeland Security.
But Mark Wayne Mullen actually said in his statement or in his testimony that he would require judicial warrants to enter homes and buildings for ICE agents, for CPB agents, unless they were in hot pursuit, meaning that they were chasing somebody who entered a home or a business.
So Mullen has said that on the record.
Now, of course, Democrats want to see it in writing, which has not happened yet.
It's a part of this discussion.
But the administration has moved a bit on that point, even if they have not put it in writing there.
Roland from Detroit, Michigan, and Independent.
Good morning, Roland.
Hi, Grant Horizon.
I imagine a country where its citizens do not align with a certain hey, Roland.
You're breaking up there.
Can you hear me now?
Yeah, I can.
Okay.
I hope that Americans would not align with these corporate manufactured political parties, Democrats and Republicans.
You know, you have your own mind to try to use your critical thinking skills.
That being said, back in the day, Donald Trump said he became a Republican because, in all due respect, his incompetent, uneducated, white Republicans would support him even if he was doing things against their interests.
And that's what's happening now.
You know, you hear people on this channel call with these talking points.
Do they have a class where they learn these talking points from this so-called MAGA thing?
You know, it's, and, you know, I woke up this morning to your station, and the banner said Donald Trump is going to unleash hail on Iran.
This guy is promoting violence.
And, you know, the youngsters are looking.
They're listening.
And it's just unfathomable what people are doing.
I hope that the so-called Democrats and Republicans will get a grip and everybody become independent thinkers because it's unraveling.
Donald Trump is really not this leader.
He represents, he's like an administrative assistant to a regime that wants, can't you tell that they're destroying America?
They're destroying.
All right, Roland.
I'm going to actually play that soundbite that you just referenced.
It's from White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, who said yesterday at the briefing that the president was prepared to unleash hell on Iran unless they entered into a deal.
Take a listen.
President Trump and the Department of War estimated it would take approximately four to six weeks to achieve this critical mission.
25 days in, the greatest military the world has ever known is ahead of schedule and performing exceptionally.
Day by day, the Iranian regime is being crippled, and their ability to threaten the United States and our allies is being significantly weakened.
Their ambitions of building a nuclear weapon have also been crushed to an even greater degree than they were in Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025.
That's why you're beginning to see the regime look for an exit ramp.
They recognize they are being crushed.
Their ability to attack American and ally forces, as well as their ability to defend their own territory, is dwindling literally hour by hour.
Following President Trump's powerful threat on Saturday evening, it was made clear to the United States that Iran wanted to talk.
President Trump is willing to listen.
As President Trump announced on Monday, the United States has been engaged over the last three days in productive conversations, which led the President to temporarily instruct the Department of War to postpone planned strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure only.
The remaining elements of the Iranian regime have another opportunity to cooperate with President Trump, permanently abandoned their nuclear ambitions, and cease actively threatening America and our allies.
But the President's preference is always peace.
There does not need to be any more death and destruction.
But if Iran fails to accept the reality of the current moment, if they fail to understand that they have been defeated militarily and will continue to be, President Trump will ensure they are hit harder than they have ever been hit before.
President Trump does not bluff, and he is prepared to unleash hell.
Iran should not miscalculate again.
Their last miscalculation cost them their senior leadership, their Navy, their Air Force, and their air defense system.
Any violence beyond this point will be because the Iranian regime refused to understand they have already been defeated and refused to come to a deal.
That was White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt issuing a stern warning to Iran as negotiations, the White House says, are ongoing.
Paul from Florida, a Republican.
Good morning, Paul.
Good morning.
I would just like to say right off the bat that if either house of Congress goes home without an agreement to alleviate the crisis that we're in right now with DHS, I just don't know what to say.
Trump's Election Victory Claims00:05:32
It would be a betrayal of the American people and the shame that the press should heap so much shame on them that they should be afraid to show their faces.
So let me just say that.
Now, we had an election.
Donald Trump won 90% of counties in the United States of America.
And I've been asking myself, why is there so much opposition to what Donald Trump is doing when he made no secret as to what he was going to do?
And he's done exactly that.
And then I hear about how these paid demonstrators make up the majority of the people demonstrating.
And it makes sense to me that America isn't against Donald Trump.
It's a conspiracy of paid demonstrators to brainwash in association with the American press, make people believe that the American people are against Donald Trump and his immigration policy.
He was elected on this immigration policy.
There's no secret there.
And I would also like to say this too: look what immigration's gotten us, okay?
15 million unskilled people.
What are we going to do with 15 million unskilled people when robotics and automation is just right on the horizon to take all of those jobs?
Put them on welfare?
So we want to immigrate 15 million welfare recipients?
Think about it, people.
All right, that was Paul from Florida, a Republican.
One thing that he said, I want to note that President Trump campaigned on no endless wars.
And I turn now to a headline from the NBC News.
It says, Trump, who campaigned against, quote, endless wars, enters Iran with no end date.
Trump won the presidency in 2016 and 2024, thanks in no small part to campaigning against the long and draining wars of his predecessors.
Now he started a war of his own.
That was published on March 3rd.
And it says, to win the White House in 2016, Donald Trump first had to get by Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the son and brother of two past presidents, inextricably linked with U.S. wars in the Middle East, attacking the Bush family dynasty and its legacy became a feature of the Trump's campaign.
And he, and that meant doubling down on criticism of the Iraq war that President George W. Bush had led the United States into under the premise of finding weapons of mass destruction.
The war in Iraq was a big, big, fat mistake, Trump responded when asked at a Republican presidential debate in February 26.
If you go on to this article, it mentions some promises he made in 2024.
Of course, the White House now says that the administration is ahead of time on their schedule.
They initially gave that timeline for the war of four to six weeks.
Stan from Florida, an independent.
Good morning, Stan.
First of all, they had a deal going with Kennedy, John Kennedy, the senator.
And it was a deal that was reached, and they were going to do it.
And then Trump called up and killed the deal because he didn't like it.
On DHS funding you're talking about?
Yeah, and then why is all these parachuters going over there then?
If there's no war, why is he getting all these people on the boat that are going to jump out of planes over there?
Iran said they never even talked to him.
He lied.
They've had a one-something fifth plan, and they said they denied everything.
They're not negotiating.
They're mining the street.
What do you call that thing between the mining it?
All they need is a little speedboat and go out there and just blow them up.
That's all they need.
They had a deal.
John Kennedy, the senator, got the thing together, and they all reached on it, and then they backed down because Trump called them up.
And if there's war, no war, then they don't need that $200 billion, do they?
But they're on their way over there now.
Parachuters.
He's got, what, 50,000 troops heading that way?
Yeah, let me read an article about this here, Stan.
This is from the USA Today.
It says, what is the 82nd Airborne Division preparing to deploy to Iran?
That was published on March 25th.
And it says, 1,000 troops from an Army unit known for its capacity, excuse this ad, capacity to deploy within 18 hours and parachute into a war zone are heading to join the Iran war.
The Pentagon will deploy approximately 1,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division's 1st Brigade combat team to the war, according to a defense official and a U.S. official.
Some personnel from the division headquarters will also deploy to the Middle East, the official says.
It says the troops that make up the Army's rapid response unit are preparing to deploy as U.S. officials have provided Iran with a 15-point peace plan, which proposes to end the nearly month-long war.
The New York Times first reported on March 23rd that the Pentagon was considering deploying troops from a combat bridge unit of the 82nd Airborne Division.
Ray from Pennsylvania, a Democrat.
Pentagon Deployment Details00:14:02
Good morning, Ray.
Good morning.
I wasn't in a call this morning because I didn't want to waste my call, but I just got so upset and tired of listening to these stupid people in the cult of the orange monkey talking.
But anyway, people who say that we could take the money or paychecks away from the congressman, that's going to get them to give in on anything that they want, like the DHS funding or the war.
These people have to realize these guys, the least they are, is well off.
The most of them are millionaires, multi-millionaires, and billionaires.
They could care less about their salary.
That's chump change to them.
They're not going to change anything when you take away their salary.
So people think about it and stop saying that because it really is stupid.
Second of all, troops.
Trump keeps saying it.
Everybody keeps saying they don't want any troops on the ground.
Well, guess what, people?
They're already there.
Special services and all the special services we have are on the ground already.
They wouldn't be able to target things and do things like they're doing without them being there.
And third things, I can't wait until, and me and the rest of the world, and half the world, and all the economy wait until Trump utters those words that we all want to hear.
And they are, I smell burning toast.
Thanks.
Stephen from Kentucky, an independent.
Yes.
Good morning.
Thanks for having me.
And thank you, Spanish.
I want to express our opinion.
I'm kind of like the last caller.
I didn't want to use my call, but I am because there's so many people that are just not.
Long story short, Caroline Levitt, she's lying.
The president is lying.
There are no negotiations.
Iran is ready to go all the way and unleash hell.
Hell has already been unleashed.
So I think the president's trying to manipulate the market by saying that, you know, this is all under negotiations.
We're talking.
No, they're lying.
They're lying through their teeth.
Iran is winning in their area.
As you can see, there's a toll road in the Strait of Hormuz that Iran is implementing right now.
China is able to pay millions of dollars to get their boats through Russia.
If any boat that is affiliated with Israel or the U.S. or NATO tried to cross, they will get bombed.
We are now winning down there.
And you know what's funny?
There is a propaganda war behind the scenes, and I think Iran is winning the propaganda war.
Their latest Lego video showing Trump as a Lego character was hilarious.
But unfortunately, yeah, Trump is lying, and Caroline Levitt's lying.
They're all lying.
This is.
Let me pull up an article right now specifically on the state of negotiations because as we know, Iran is saying that there are no negotiations while the Trump administration is saying that there are negotiations.
I turned to a Wall Street Journal article from the front page of the paper this morning.
The headline is: Deal to end conflict faces a narrow path.
It says, the prospects of a diplomatic deal ending the war between the U.S. and Iran look dim right now, but Middle East veterans said there is a pathway for an agreement if the two sides want to engage.
Mediators from Turkey and Egypt and Pakistan are pushing for a meeting between U.S. and Iranian officials as soon as this week.
President Trump and his political allies have expressed enthusiasm for talks.
While Foreign Minister Aragachi said, that's the Iranian Foreign Minister, said Wednesday evening that Iran has no intention of negotiating, Arab mediators said Tehran has been more open in private and is listening as they try to craft terms that would at least allow the two sides to meet.
Any talks are likely to be fraught.
It's a sign of the difficulties the U.S. and Israel removed Aragachi and Hamad Bajr Ghalib, Iran's combative speaker from the parliament from Kill List four to five days ago, so they could continue negotiations.
So that is part of some of the latest reporting on the actual status of negotiations there.
Dwight from Virginia, a Democrat.
Good morning, Dwight.
Good morning, Jasmine.
Bear down.
How are you?
Bear down.
I'm good.
How are you?
Bear down.
I just want to ask the Republicans this.
There were 13 soldiers killed in Afghanistan, and the outrage they showed was immeasurable.
Now there are 13 soldiers killed in this war in Iran.
Where's the outrage, Republicans?
I don't hear you at all.
You follow whatever this goon says, and that's what you're doing.
You should be outraged that these soldiers have lost their lives, just like you did in Afghanistan.
Remember?
The other thing is, I just want to correct.
Obama, when President Obama sent that money to Iran, he did it lawfully.
He had to do it.
By law, he had to return that money.
You listen to Fox News, they tell you this stuff you don't understand.
Quit following and listening to Fox.
Quit following and listening to this goon who is not a president, who is an unlawful person and a thug.
Thanks, Jasmine.
Virginia.
Ginny from Connecticut, an independent.
Good morning, Ginny.
Hi, good morning.
I wanted to call in this morning.
I'm listening to callers.
I am an independent, but was a Republican.
And I switched my affiliation under this Trump rule, I'm going to call it.
This Republican Party is acting so much more like a cult, and politicians included.
And I say that from the experiences that I am getting from my fellow neighbors and, you know, just discussions that you can't have a discussion.
It gets heated, angry, it gets very angry.
You know, if you don't follow this president in all things, you'll be blackballed by his followers.
I mean, listen to the callers.
They're angry.
They're ill-informed.
They won't listen to anything else but what Trump says.
You know, no independent thought.
I guarantee that the callers that have been phoning in this morning concerned about immigration, concerned about Iran, never thought about immigration before Trump told them it was an issue.
Trump never talked about Iran.
All of a sudden, now it's a big, huge issue.
I'm concerned.
I just got a couple questions.
How about 24 settlements?
Okay.
Go ahead.
How is our deficit?
How's the cost of living?
How is the Epstein investigation going?
And how about no new wars?
This is just, it's a cult, a money-making cult.
Thank you, C-SPAN.
Larry from Houston, Texas, Democrat.
You're next.
Good morning, Lord.
Good morning.
And thanks for taking my call.
I know y'all are very independent and y'all do not fact-check people, but I wish y'all would.
Because this guy talking about Trump won 90%, 92% of the counties in America on board.
Trump won 49% of the votes.
Do you know what Mad is?
Now, as far as war, I fought in two wars.
I fought in Desert Storm, Desert Shield.
America is going to get slaughtered in Iran.
First of all, if you listen to what Israel Prime Minister said, he's trying to transfer, trying to trade the way to all go to, well, it's LPNG they got over there, that they're really trading through there mostly.
And he wants to go ahead and run all pipes that go all the way to Israel and start making Israel where they start unloading.
The whole thing about this people, this is all crazy.
First of all, you need boosts on the ground in Iran.
And if you're trying to protect that little straight, like one caller said, they could always go with speedboats, anything.
This place is not wide.
It's a kill zone.
You know, so all you people are hollering about wars, this, and things that it don't happen like that.
Do y'all forget in 1978 what happened before 78, why they held American hostages?
The same thing.
Regime changed.
They had a puppy government in there before.
Next thing is this is my last thing.
This is for all my black Americans.
The U.S. voted in a U.S. U.N. resolution claiming that slave trade wasn't the gravest threat in America, I mean, in the country.
I was reading it.
They had three countries that voted against it: Israel, America, and Argentina.
What does that tell black people in America that are sons of slaves, ancestors?
Thank you.
You have a good day.
Larry from Houston, Texas.
Walter from Colorado, a Republican, you're next.
Good morning, Walter.
Walter, you on the line?
Yes.
Yes, good morning.
Hi.
I do take exception to one of your previous callers mentioning that Donald Trump changed his party affiliation.
Are you still on the line?
I'm on the line.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Hi.
I take exception to one of your last callers who said Donald Trump had to change his party affiliation so that he got the support of non-educated white voters.
That's totally, totally false.
No question about that.
Second of all, the situation with Iran, it's been a long time coming.
American blood has been spilt as a result of that country for a long time.
And when someone tells me like Iran has told the United States that we're going to get you, we're going to kill you, if that happens to me personally, then I'm going to hit back first.
So that's all I have to say.
Thank you.
Walter from Colorado.
Eddie from New York, an independent.
Good morning, Eddie.
Hi, yes.
Good morning, ma'am.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I've called this program three times only, even though I've listened to the program for more than, you know, six, seven, eight, ten years.
I want to make two things, mention.
First, number one, this war just started.
The American poor failed to realize it all started back in 1953 when America went and took out the democratically elected government of Iran and installed in the Shah of Iran, which was an illegitimate move by the United States of America.
And that's where all the things started.
It just started in 1979.
Secondly, I want to say this.
Uranium, which is used for most nuclear material, comes from Africa.
Africa has the largest, the world's largest deposit of uranium.
And to make nuclear materials, you need uranium, which is turned into plutonium.
The OAU is going to pass a resolution restricting all African countries from giving any of the uranium or selling any of the uranium to the United States because it is wrong for the United States to take this uranium and put it into high-grade plutonium to make nuclear materials, which is destroying the world.
Why should America, Britain, France, and Germany, other countries have nuclear materials, but nations that are building up themselves cannot have nuclear material?
This will cause a problem.
And if the American people think the developing countries are going to just lay down and fold their hands, they have a whole new thing coming for them.
Thank you very much.
Have a blessing day, ma'am.
Lonnie from North Carolina, Democrat.
Hi, good morning, America.
Yeah, thank you.
Isn't it something?
Right before all this happened about America and bombing Iran, you know what was in the news at that time.
I'm sure you probably can pick it up, Jasmine.
Epstein File Allegations00:02:42
But at that particular time, just came out when Donald Trump had raped this 13-year-old girl.
I'm not saying he did.
I'm not saying he did, so don't hang up on me.
I'm saying it is alleged that this 13-year-old girl was raped by Trump.
And plus, he did.
You're talking about a document from the Epstein files, correct?
Exactly.
Which I believe the DOJ said didn't have any merit, but I'm looking it up while you keep talking.
Yeah, of course.
But soon as that came out, we bombed America bomb Iran.
And you can't hear, you don't hear nothing else about it.
So you ask yourself this question.
Hmm, is this a legitimate war or is this just to scorch earth to keep his name out of the playbook?
I tell you, people, y'all are suckers who don't believe that Trump is in them files.
Thank you, C-Span.
All right.
I turned to a political article about what that gentleman was just talking about.
The headline here is Justice Department publishes documents with sexual assault allegations against Trump.
This was published on March 5th, and it says, the Justice Department posted a trio of FBI interviews with a woman who alleged President Donald Trump sexually assaulted her when she was a young teenager after she was introduced to him by Jeffrey Epstein.
The woman central allegation, according to FBI summaries of her interviews with investigators known as FBI 302s, is that Trump hit her after she bit him and when he attempted to force her to perform oral sex.
Three files come as Democrats are investigating whether the department purposefully withheld materials that included sexual assault allegations.
Trump has denied wrongdoing in relation to the Epstein allegations, and he hasn't been charged with the crime in connection with them.
There's no evidence to suggest Trump took part in Epstein's sex trafficking operation.
Many of the materials released by the Justice Department lack substantially or context.
White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt called the allegations, quote, completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence from a sadly disturbed woman who has an extensive criminal history.
And I believe the DOJ released a similar statement after that.
And to note, that came out on February.
I mean, this came out, this was published on March 5th, and the first strike in Iran, I believe, was February 28th.
CJ from Niagara Falls, a Democrat.
Good morning, CJ.
Hey, good morning, Ms. Wright.
Middle East Conflict Expenses00:06:35
I guess one aside, you owe this country, especially a guy like me who's got two girls, I think within an age, one might be a year younger, one might be a year older.
But you got to teach them how to be poised and how to react when people are giving you sick and heat, and you just come back like, mm-hmm.
And anyway, you're very good at it.
You're the best.
Secondly, my own take on this is the reason why we're pumping up like, you know, 7,500, 8,000, whatever the figure is up to now of, you know, airborne.
You know, everybody's got their speciality is it probably doesn't even have much to do with Iran necessarily.
We'll probably use some people there, but the others will be slushed off to do Israel's bidding as they go into a greater Israel concept up the Beirut.
Like, you know, right now the Latani River is a pretty key situation, more or less.
Exactly, exactly.
And, you know, I could actually cry if I really thought too, too much about this because I've been watching it in slow motion for 45 years.
Nobody's hands are clean.
But If we commit a lot of American troops to make sure Israel has access to their fresh water and the Latani River,
and we just keep pushing, you know, basically so-called Palestinians, because it's not like they're ever going to have a place to live on the Gaza Strip when that becomes Havana 1956.
And it's just sad.
You know, it's just sad that we've become that hallowed out morally as a country.
CJ, let me turn now to Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner, who talks about the cost of the war, not just goods and all of these, but the rising costs of the totality of the war.
Take a listen here.
Truth is, even if the president feels in his bones today or tomorrow that we've won the war and stops the bombing with no guarantee that Israel will stop or Iran will stop and the strait starts to get reopened, we're still going to see economic pain across the globe for weeks, months, potentially a year.
Now, for consumers in the U.S., the conflict obviously has led to severe price shocks at the gas pump.
Since the war began, average gas prices in the United States have increased by about a dollar a gallon, 30%.
And I will take a bet with anybody in this chamber that we're going to see an average gas price of $4 that will be maintained for some time.
That $4 price will be the highest since 2022.
And here, let's take the optimistic view.
Even if the strait is reopened today, the average household in our country is still expected to pay about $740 more in gas prices for the remainder of the year.
That's just gas.
What about diesel?
Well, Americans are struggling at the punt.
Skyrocketing diesel costs are threatening to increase the pain for households across a series of domains.
That was Senator Mark Warren talking about the rising costs of the Iran war.
Carly from North Carolina and Independent, you're next.
Carly, you have the last word for us.
Go hi for the section.
Good morning.
I hope you're doing well.
I'm doing well.
I'm in my mid-60s.
My husband and I lived overseas a total of seven times, twice in the Middle East.
We were there after Lockerbie, and then again, I told my husband I'd never go back again.
I want people to know unless you've, you can visit there, you can be a tourist, but if you don't live there, you don't know what's going on.
These people don't like us, never have liked us the last 47, 48 years, and really even longer.
They have not really liked us.
It's never going to change until that regime changed.
If you've never lived there, you will never know what hatred they have for us.
They like our money, they like what we have, and they want what you have in America.
And I say to Senator Carl.
Carly, we've got to go to break.
Do you want to put one last sentence in there?
All right.
Can I say to Senator Warren and the U.S. public, you think paying $5 even for a gallon of gas is very expensive?
I got news for you.
If we don't clean out that mess in the Middle East, it's going to be a lot more expensive for U.S. citizens, right, in this country.
You won't even have the freedom to get gas.
Okay, Carly from North Carolina.
C-SPAN Funding Appeal00:02:23
Later, Washington State Democrat Adam Smith joins us to talk about the war in Iran, funding for Homeland Security, and other congressional news.
But first, American Enterprise Institute's Kevin Kosar discusses the future of the U.S. Post Office as they recently announced service could stop due to the lack of funding.
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Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back to the program.
Joining us this morning to talk about the post office is Kevin Kosar, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Kevin, thanks so much for being in studio with us today.
Glad to be back.
All right.
So this is a headline.
If I pull it up from the New York Times, I'll pull it up in a section actually.
Postal Service Financial Struggles00:15:21
But basically, just kind of go with us.
What are we hearing from the post office when it comes to their funding?
Well, Postmaster General Siner appeared before Congress recently and said, we've got very bad news.
In one year, we're going to run out of money.
And that's a huge problem because the Postal Service is a self-funding enterprise.
It does not survive by taking taxpayer dollars.
It has to pay its own way.
So when the Postal Service runs out of money, it's going to cease operations.
And how big is the post office?
I mean, what's the number of employees, offices?
How much mail do they deliver?
The percentage of mail that they handle.
You know, obviously we know that people are using FedEx and UPS for all their things, but how large is this operation that they are saying is going to run out of money?
It's a massive operation.
It brings in about $80 billion per year.
It has more than 600,000 full-time employees.
It's the biggest postal operation in the entire world.
But nonetheless, it is one that is financially struggling.
The quantity of mail volume is still quite high relative to other countries.
We have something like 112 billion mail pieces that get moved in a single year, but that's down 50% from the previous high back in 2008.
The decline of mail due to the internet is ongoing and it's posing like an existential threat to the Postal Service.
Last year you wrote in AEI about the financial challenges.
You actually just told me for our viewers that you've been covering the mail service USPS for about 23 years, but last year you wrote about the challenges that USPS is facing.
The agency lost more than $3 billion in just the third quarter alone.
When did the revenue start dropping?
Was it the invention of email that is the reason for this?
I mean, when did it start?
Well, in the late 90s, the Postal Service's most lucrative form of mail, first-class mail, that started to decline.
Just people started transitioning over to email.
Businesses started transitioning over to reaching out to customers through the internet.
But the real problem happened in 2008.
That's when we entered the financial crisis, the economic turmoil, Wall Street firms cratering left and right.
That accelerated a lot of businesses' efforts to try to cut costs.
And one thing they cut big time was mail.
So yeah, since 2008, we've dropped 50% in mail volume.
And so the internet, you know, 2008 crash, are there any other major factors that kind of explain the increasing gap between revenue versus expenses of the post office?
Well, the Postal Service's costs grow naturally.
Every year we have more and more people in the United States.
We have more and more addresses.
So the Postal Service, by law, has to serve every single one of them, no matter how far-flung they are.
And so that just drives up costs naturally.
It's also the case that like any other business, compensation is going to rise.
Health care costs are going to rise.
And the Postal Service has a unionized workforce.
And I should mention here that one of the policy goals when the Postal Service was created back in 1970 was to create middle-class jobs.
And that's why we have four different unions who bargain for, you know, through collective bargaining for good wages and good compensation generally.
But that's expensive.
Now, I want to invite, before we continue, our viewers to join in on the conversation.
Your lines are for Democrats, 202-748-8000.
For Republicans, 202-748-8001.
For Independents, 202-748-8002.
We are talking about the U.S. Post Office, which says that they are running out of money.
Just to go back a little bit, in 1970, they transitioned from being heavily subsidized by the taxpayers to self-sustaining.
Why did they do that?
Well, the old model simply broke down.
For the longest time, the Postal Service had been funded both by revenues from postage, but also taxpayer contributions every year.
Congress would get together and pass a spending law, and it would put a certain amount of money out there for the Postal Service.
Problem with that system is that when Congress gave money, it also put strings upon it.
It put in requests.
It tried to do things like set the rate for different types of mail.
It often tried to get people hired into the Postal Service.
It tried to determine routes.
It got all deep into this logistics enterprise and made a mess of it.
And the Postal Service actually had these breakdowns where just workers got frustrated in the 60s, mail stopped moving, on-time delivery plummeted.
It was a problem.
So the idea was: okay, we have to get Congress out of there.
We have to get the special interests out of the Postal Service and just let this place be professionally run as a kind of government corporation.
And I should just mention that there are about 18 federal government corporations out there, like Tennessee Valley Authority, who were set up explicitly to be slightly removed from Congress and to create their own revenues.
I want to take a listen to a clip from 2007 of then Postmaster General John Potter, who told members of Congress at that point in 2007 about the troubles they were having.
Take a listen.
It is my hope that 30 years from today, a future Postmaster General will sit at this table and report on the progress made possible by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006.
Unfortunately, our business model remains broken, even with the positive pricing and product changes in the new law.
With the diversion of messages and transactions to the internet from the mail, we can no longer depend on printed volume growing at a rate sufficient to produce the revenue needed to cover the costs of an ever-expanding delivery network.
Now, that wasn't quite 30 years ago, as Mr. Potter said.
It was about 19 years ago, but they're still talking about the same challenges that you and I are discussing right now.
I wonder through that 19-year period, what changes or cuts have been made to try to make their financial situation better and why aren't they working?
Well, the Postal Service has reduced the size of its workforce a bit.
It is not able to just lay off workers or get rid of them like a private sector business would.
These workers are covered by collective bargaining, so it's mostly used retirements to create an attrition process to downsize.
The Postal Service has also tried to trim the number of mail sorting facilities that has, along with some post offices.
They've tried other things like outsourcing more and more mail sortation and preparation to the private sector.
But ultimately, delivering the mail is an expensive, people-intensive process.
And again, when your network includes not only the continental United States, but Alaska, Hawaii, Virgin Islands, American Samoa, that's a huge amount of space that you have to move mail over.
And if the volume is going down, but you still have to have that big infrastructure, it's hard to break even.
All right, let's turn to some phone calls.
Robert from North Carolina Independent.
Good morning, Robert.
Hey, good morning.
Yes, sir.
I kind of have a question and a comment.
My comment is: I remember when, not too long ago, if you, mostly my uncles and everything that was in the United States military, when they got out of the military, first place they went to work was with the U.S. Postal Service.
And they felt lucrative.
But then I saw over time how they kept changing and began to lose their retirements and stuff like that.
And it was stretched out over time.
And then now I see a lot of the Postal Service people that come in my area, they're like part-time.
A lot of them are black American.
They don't get paid a lot.
They don't have retirement.
They're part-time.
They're angry.
They slam my mailbox door and they don't wave and frame me like the old postal purpose guy used to be and the people who used to walk the beat and talk to you when they put the mail in your mailbox.
And so that's my comment.
But my question is: is it really necessary with all of the AI stuff that we have coming up for delivery mail?
Because all I get is junk in my mailbox.
And I just, I have a trash can at my door, and I actually won't allow the junk to come past my threshold to my home and bring those spirits in, trying to get me to feed into advertisement, buy stuff that I don't really need.
So can we do away with the post office?
Is my question.
That was Robert from California, North Carolina.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, certainly the demand for paper mail has gone down, but the demand for getting parcels, stuff in boxes, has gone way up thanks to the internet and online shopping.
And the Postal Service actually partners with lots of private sector firms, Amazon and others, to carry boxes the last mile, so to speak.
They're the ones who ultimately the stuff gets handed off to because they've got a postman, a letter carrier, who's going to be going just to about every house in this country.
So they have that unique advantage.
And if they were to just simply go away, there'd be a big hole in our logistics system as far as getting stuff.
And it's not clear that the private sector would flow in and be able to handle it.
But there's a whole lot of other little practical problems to deal with.
Like, take, for example, the Bill of Rights says that if you get arrested, you're right to have a trial by a jury of your peers.
How do we see juries?
Well, you get a jury notice in the mail.
And that is how we ensure that people get a fair trial.
We don't have an electronic system that can replace that right now.
So the Postal Service remains embedded in our society.
And we just, we can't have it collapse in a year due to lack of money.
Donald from South Bend, Indiana, a Democrat.
Good morning, Donald.
Yes.
Yeah.
My name is Donald.
I'm from South Bend.
Yeah.
And also I'm a retired letter carrier.
Now, with Mr. Kosar is his name, failed to mention back in 2006 when George Bush was president,
he slapped onto the post office an ungodly $5 billion requirement that the post office had to pay into its fund that funds the retirees.
The amount of money in which Mr. or President Bush at that time did to the post office really sent us on a downward spiral.
Now, of course, we have other challenges.
You know, the gas and everything.
Our vehicles, the vehicles are old, but they're still running.
We need to replace our vehicles.
I guess what I'm calling in to say is that the post office is a vital, vital public service, and it connects the community.
A lot of people depend on the post office to bring their medicine.
And, you know, during the Christmas time, we bring presents and everything.
All right, Donald, I'm going to let Kevin get in here and respond to some of what you said.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
The Postal Service does have underappreciated but really critical roles.
I mean, think back during to when the country was in the grips of COVID and so many people were simply stuck at home.
Well, who brought all those COVID tests to our front door?
Well, it was the U.S. Postal Service.
They were the ones who were out there delivering it.
They also served as a logistics system of last resort.
You know, all of a sudden, people were buying tons of stuff online.
And FedEx, UPS, DHL, all those companies, they did not have the bandwidth to carry it all.
So guess what?
We relied on the Postal Service to get us there.
Now, just to go back very briefly to the retiree health benefits situation, yeah, that law did require, for a certain period of time, $5 plus billion dollars a year to be put aside to protect the benefits of individuals like you.
The scenario they were trying to avoid is that you'd have a whole wave of retirees who suddenly, you know, their health benefits would not be paid for.
But it's correct.
The amount that the Postal Service was to set aside was simply too high.
And for most years, they end up not paying it.
They just didn't have the cash.
The current Postmaster, David Steiner, is now calling on Congress to take action by loosening regulations to allow the agency to borrow more and charge more for postage.
How much right now is a federally mandated borrowing limit?
How much have they borrowed?
Has it ever been repaid?
I mean, what is the actual conversation about changing some of these regulations?
Sure, yeah.
The law says that the Postal Service can only borrow from the U.S. Treasury, not from the private market, a total of $15 billion.
And they have tapped that out.
They can't borrow any more.
And again, this is an $80 billion enterprise.
And if you were in the private sector, an $80 billion enterprise could borrow a whole lot more than $15 billion.
Congress, of course, is nervous that the Postal Service borrows this money.
Does it have a plan to earn enough to pay it back?
Or is it going to keep digging itself deeper and deeper, and we're going to find ourselves facing a taxpayer bailout?
So I think Congress is going to have to come together with a collection of policies which give the Postal Service an infusion of cash, but also help it in some way reduce its very difficult to control operating costs.
Borrowing Limits for USPS00:10:02
I mean, a way that the Post Office could make more money perhaps is increasing mail prices.
But right now, there is a cap on that.
Why and what does that cap look like?
Yeah, there is a cap on it.
Postal Service, interestingly enough, has raised prices a lot over the last 10 years.
And it's brought more revenue, but it's also led to mailers mailing less paper mail.
And so the concern there is like if you let them just keep raising it, do you ultimately get what's called a demand death spiral, where a lot of businesses and most of what's in the mail is sent by businesses, suddenly just pull back entirely and then revenue collapses.
So yes, trying to get more revenue by higher prices is certainly in the mix, but you don't want to raise prices too high.
Matt from Dearborn, Michigan, a Democrat.
You're next.
Good morning, Matt.
Good morning.
How you doing?
I got a few points.
First of all, historically, the mail service was never, never made money.
Never.
Not since the beginning of the country.
It never made money.
Two, it was all about the thing that the mail was all about historically was it was a secure way to send a message.
That's what we wanted as a country.
You know, you could send a letter and nobody would open it or fool with it.
Third, about making money.
Another thing, historically, in the early part of the country, the price of the stamps weren't the same.
If you send a letter farther away, it costs you more money.
So, I don't know, it's just historically, it's all about, it was all about secure messages.
That's what the country wanted.
And then internet, you know, they say that's secure.
Well, I don't believe that with all the tech bros nosing their thing into everything.
I don't think the thing I'm talking on right now is very secure.
I guess that's all I got to say.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Postal Service was set up to deliver messages, also was set to deliver news.
And both those lines of business have obviously been eaten into by other technologies.
But you get an important point.
Prior to 1970, the Postal Service was not expected to be a business that could cover its own costs.
And a question that Congress is going to have to grapple with is, should we think about having taxpayers put money on the table to cover this public service?
I'm not going to say which way I lean on that question.
I think it's something that needs to be honestly debated because the Postal Service does do certain things that are obviously unprofitable but carry a public benefit.
Dave from Michigan and Independent, you're next.
Good morning, Dave.
Yeah.
Hi, Kevin.
I got a question to ask about, has there been any talk to you about maybe autonomous electric vehicles, you know, delivery in the rural areas,
especially these wide open areas, especially in the summertime to take the load off of all the extreme costs and so on, even if you had to modify the mailboxes to accommodate these autonomous vehicles and everything as a promotion and everything for them to get used to the traffic on the roads, safety, and all this other stuff.
Would that help take a couple of days or three days a week, maybe, to relieve some of that stress and cost and really share the prosperity of it?
I'll take my answer off there.
Thanks, Kevin.
All right.
Yeah, the Postal Service has looked into using autonomous vehicles to move mail between facilities instead of having an individual driving an 18-wheeler.
Maybe you could have those sorts of autonomous vehicles out there.
They've not talked much about using them for delivering to the doorstep.
I think there's been some blue sky kind of thinking about could we use drones?
But these conversations are complicated.
This technology is not cheap.
Postal Service doesn't have a lot of cash laying around that they can just invest in this sort of stuff, which would be very expensive.
And it raises complicated questions with the employee unions because essentially these technologies would be eating into work that the employees would be doing.
And naturally, unions, of course, are going to be a little uncomfortable with that.
John from Virginia, a Republican.
Good morning, John.
Hi, good morning.
I'd like to ask the guest about a subject that he just touched upon, which is how the unions have dealt with changes in demand for Postal Service services.
In terms of have, I guess the basic question is, has the labor associated with the Postal Service kept pace with the decline in demand for the service?
Well, certainly the number of full-time employees since, say, the 1990s, the number of full-time employees at the Postal Service has gone down.
And whenever the unions are bargaining, they have these big, complicated collective bargaining agreements, there's always provisions that give the Postal Service a certain amount of space to hire non-unionized temporary employees.
And that's kind of the way that this workforce size issue has been debated over the course of time.
And again, the Postal Service itself has tried to use retirements and attrition as a way to kind of reduce the total size of the workforce and maybe control costs a little bit.
One question that we got from online, it says, why not make the USPS private from Brent from Tulsa, Oklahoma?
Certainly there are other countries that have gone in on privatization of their postal services.
Look, I've been following postal policy in Washington, D.C. for more than 20 years.
I have yet to see somebody sketch out a plan that can clarify for me how exactly you privatize the current postal service while meeting all the policy goals that we presently have, like, you know, uniform rate for a stamp.
You know, you don't have to pay more to send a stamp over a bigger distance.
Service to remote areas, post offices within reach.
We have a whole lot of policy goals, and I've yet to see a plan that's able to meet all of those while privatizing the Postal Service and, and this is critical, avoiding the too big to fail problem.
It would not be good if we took government service, moved it to the private sector, gave it to a single firm to do, and then that single firm screwed it up and then came back and said, you've got to give us more money because we're going broke.
Just repeats the same problem we got now.
Linda from New York, a Democrat.
Good morning, Linda.
Yes.
Yes, hi.
I fully am in favor of the United States Post Office.
I'm thankful for them.
I don't see how you can do away with them when there's so many people.
I'm going to say I'm in my 70s and I know people who are living in their 80s and 90s and they don't have computers.
They don't have the knowledge to pay bills online.
And there's a lot of reason not to trust because of all the hacking that goes on.
The other thing I want to know is how much is the post office losing because I see them sell fraudulent stamps on Facebook and I know people who buy them and say, well, they work, so how much money are you losing because of these fraud places selling stamps that people think are legal postage and they're not.
Yeah, I'm not sure about the scope of the fraud.
I don't think we have any studies that are clear on how big that number is.
We don't even have good numbers on the level of theft that's occurring through the mails, whether it's by employees or non-employees of the Postal Service.
What I can tell you is last year that the Postal Service did book a $9 billion deficit.
My last question for you before we wrap here, Kevin.
There is a case in the Supreme Court right now as they are considering a ruling on late arriving ballots for elections.
I wonder if you know what are the factors that determine how long a ballot could take to arrive at a polling place once it's put in the mail.
And if they were to do what I think a lot of people are expecting them to do, which is kind of roll back some of that law, I know now some places you have about five days after the post to get that into the voting place.
What is the impact on the agency that relies on some of these posts for the election?
Yeah, this is an interesting case.
There are 14 states where ballots can arrive to election officials through the mail after election day and still be counted.
And if the Supreme Court rules against this, then that's going to have to change.
And of course, that is going to create pressure on voters to get their ballots in faster.
It's going to up the pressure on the Postal Service to return these things very, very quickly.
I should say that historically, the Postal Service has a remarkably good record of moving this mail really, really fast.
But in a time where the Postal Service is struggling to hire employees, trying to compete against all the other private firms out there who are gobbling them up, it's a real serious challenge.
Supreme Court Voting Pressure00:02:33
All right, AEI Senior Fellow Kevin Kosar, thank you so much for being with us this morning.
Thanks for having me.
And next, it's time for Open Forum.
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Washington Journal continues.
This is Open Forum.
Welcome back.
Before we get to your phone calls, I have some programming notes for you guys.
This morning, President Trump holds a cabinet meeting in the fourth week of the war with Iran.
Watch it live starting at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3.
And also today at 10 a.m., college athlete officials and former athletes testify on compensation deals for student athletes.
Tax Stamping Deadlines00:07:57
Currently, there's no federal standard governing how these NIL or name image likeness deals are structured from the Senate Help Committee.
Watch it live at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 2.
And then at 2 p.m., the House Ethics Committee will hold a rare public hearing involving Representative Sheila Sherlis McCormick, a federal, a Florida Democrat facing allegations related to the misuse of federal funds.
The congresswoman has requested that the ethics proceedings be delayed until the criminal case concludes and that hearing be held privately.
But the bipartisan committee denied both requests.
You can watch that live starting at 2 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3.
Now back to Open Forum where you can talk about any public policy or political issue on your mind this morning.
We start with Mary from Ohio, a Republican.
Good morning, Mary.
Yes, 10 summers after Castro first weaponized migration, the Mario Boat Lift of 1980, a secretive group gathered in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
It was July 1990.
A dozen of communist radicals, guerrillas, and even drug traffickers from across Latin America and the Caribbean were attending the meeting of political parties and movements.
They hoped to answer an extension, how do we proceed now in the battle against the West?
The driving force behind the Sa Paulo Forum SPF was a left-wing Brazilian politician, Lulu da Silva.
Lulu and Castro bonded over the idea of creating an international organization that could work on many fronts against the United States.
In the decades ahead, it would prove its effectiveness as a centralized engineer of the migrant weapon against the U.S.
The SPF.
All right, Mary, I know you're reading something there, but do you want to get to kind of the conclusion?
Yes.
What I want to put out there is since this SPF forum, all kinds of countries in Latin America, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, all the way down to Mexico in 2018, they have formed this powerful group.
There's over 10,000 members.
Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, powerful figures in Washington, left-wing nonprofits and naive open border advocates have backed this.
It's a movement in our country.
We've got Mexican politicians living in our country.
We've got 50 consulates in our country.
Thank you, Mary.
I think we're all a point there.
Bruce from Oakley, California, a Democrat.
Good morning.
Yeah, good morning.
Yeah, I just wanted to listen to the post office issue, and I think they are a central service we have.
I was at the post office yesterday.
There's always people in the post office making their packages and doing their business.
We get a delivery to the house every day.
And if you mail a package off, it goes from, let's say, California to Florida.
You know, for a small service, it goes right from house to house.
And I think I always give my postal service a $20 tip every day.
And I think it's something we need.
Thank you.
Bruce from Oakley, California.
Eric from Durham, North Carolina, an independent.
Good morning, Eric.
It's Open Forum.
Yes, I'm a retired postal employee.
And for years, one thing that concerned me about the post office is that they developed a statute of law rule that says that whatever way you start delivering mail is the way you have to continue living mail.
And that rule is sort of self-defeating for the post office, which says that if you walk mail to a mailbox, you have to continue doing that.
And in this day where production and transportation is so different from where we were doing 80 years, 100 years ago, 50 years ago, You have to adjust with the time.
And that slowed down mail service because a person has a route or they're walking mail to boxes.
And that is something they can change and do a better job and save money and time.
So there's a lot of things that they need to tweak and change within the system.
Also, a lot of government interference, like some of the things that the President Trump did on his last term to, you know, just fire one postmaster to hire another to be able to do what he wanted to do to the post office.
All those things are self-defeating things, and it also malign trust.
Thank you.
Eric from North Carolina.
Ruth from Texas, a Republican.
Good morning, Ruth.
Good morning.
Sorry, lost my voice.
You sound just fine to me, Ruth.
It's open forum.
What you got?
Years ago with the post office, all you had to do was write city on your envelope if you were mailing something within your own city.
And now it costs so much money for like the mail here in Hempill has to go to Shreveport, Louisiana, and then come right back to Hempill.
And that costs money, and I wish they could fix that.
But last year, I needed to mail money to a check to my sister in Conroe, Texas.
It needed to be there because she needed to pay for a radiology thing for her cancer.
So I put it in the mail.
It was picked up on a Wednesday.
I figured it would be there maybe Monday, Tuesday.
And it did not get there till Thursday of the next week.
I called customer service at the post office, and we tracked it back.
My mail was picked up on a Wednesday here in Hempill.
It went to Shreveport, and it did not even get postmarked until Friday.
And then it was delivered the next Thursday in Conroe.
And the post, the customer service said, well, generally it's five business days, so it wouldn't have ever made it there until the Wednesday.
And I said, well, why was it not postmarked until two days after it left my house?
And they said, oh, sometimes that just happens.
And that made me think about how people that used to get their taxes stamped on like December 31st, as long as they were stamped by that day, they didn't have to pay the penalty and interest on their tax.
Well, now, apparently, your mail does not get stamped locally.
It doesn't get stamped till it reaches the distribution area, like in our case, in another state.
So you can't count on your postmark just because you put it in your mail that day.
All right, Ruth from Texas.
Kevin from Maryland, a Democrat.
Good morning, Kevin.
ICE Funding Status Update00:10:13
It's open forum.
You can talk about anything.
How are you today?
I'm doing well.
How are you today?
I'm very well.
Thank you.
I just wanted to give everybody a quick reminder about the so-called undocumented or illegal immigration into our country.
Everybody's just got to remember: if you're not an indigenous person of this country, you are all definitely illegal immigrants.
Thank you.
That was Kevin from Maryland.
Cindy from Hampton, New Hampshire, and Independent.
Good morning, Cindy.
It's open forum.
You can talk about anything.
Yeah, hi, Jasmine.
My question is more like if you could, I want to know about what about this board of peace that was just set up by Trump.
And now I can't even remember which countries joined in.
And they were going to just.
I believe it was like 26 countries.
Yeah, right.
So I was just trying to list them off in my head the last few days.
I mean, he set this whole thing up to be like some kind of alternative UN or whatever his goal is for that.
But we haven't heard a peep about this board of peace.
And I mean, and now we're fighting a war with Israel against Iran.
But I mean, if they were just focusing on Gaza or are they just focusing on Trump and him getting more money or whatever?
I mean, if you could just maybe make a quick list of those countries and show something like that, because it was so much that nobody can remember about it anymore.
And wasn't it supposed to be something really important?
All right.
I have made, I looked quickly, and I don't see a very easy list for me to read off of, but I will ask my producers to see if they can find a list.
But I believe it was several countries that agreed.
And I think so far, some countries have even committed to paying the $1 billion entry fee.
Bud from West Virginia, Republican.
Good morning, Bud.
It's open forum.
Good morning, C-SPAN.
And to you, young lady, you've done an excellent job.
Thank you, Bud.
And my comment is: if the law had been enforced by Biden and the Democrats last administration, we would not have this problem with immigration.
Immigrants are not above the law.
We would not have to have a shutdown.
And for voters, voter ID is a must, or we'll lose our country to foreign voters.
And the law is the law, and it's there for a purpose, and we wouldn't have all this problem if the law had been kept.
Thank you so much, and have a blessed day.
That was Bud from West Virginia.
Just turning back to the previous caller before Bud, she asked me who's on the board of peace.
I have an Axios article here.
It lists the countries that have accepted invitations to join.
In Asia, it's Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cambodia, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Mongolia, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Europe, it's Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Hungary, Kosovo, Africa, Egypt, Morocco, South America, Argentina, Paraguay, North Carolina, El Salvador, North America, El Salvador.
Who's not on the board of peace?
Permit for reports.
Axios says that includes Austria, France, Germany, so a lot of folks in the EU, Greece, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.
The Vatican declined to join, citing certain critical issues, and Trump revoked Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's invitation to the group.
So that is a little bit about who is on there.
I found that on Axios if you'd like to read any more.
Janice from California, a Republican.
Good morning, Janice.
It's open forum.
You can talk about whatever.
Good morning, young lady.
I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.
Thank you.
And you're welcome, beautiful.
I am calling because, one, I am an African-American woman.
I was born black.
I am living black and I'm going to die black.
And I get so tired of Democrats always questioning my blackism because I am a Republican and I stand with my president.
I am also sick and tired of hearing people calling Trump a racist.
I think that Black America, you need a wake-up call.
I never hear Trump change his tone or tune when he gets in front of African-American audiences or people when he speaks.
Unlike Hillary Clinton, who comes up with her fake Georgia accent and her hot sauce in her purse, or AOC with her ain't nothing wrong with being a bartender in front of eight historical black college university women.
And then you have Gruesome Newsome, who's sitting there in front of a black audience in Atlanta talking about how stupid he is, what a low IQ he has, and how he can't read.
Oh, I'm just like you.
Do you even know when you're being insulted?
And you call Trump the racist?
I see more racism in that party of Democrats than I see anywhere in the Republican Party.
And one more thing.
For those of y'all who do not know, ICE has been funded until Trump gets out of office.
So who is it that the Democrats are actually punishing?
Because ICE is the only ones getting paid.
You people need to wake up and get a clue.
And the last thing I'd like to say is as far as this war with Iran, I don't know what kind of stupid you have to be stuck on to not realize that Iran was coming after us.
And for those of you who think that we didn't have, we don't have any business over there because Iran and Israel have been going back and forth.
You people need to read your Bibles that you call your, those of you who call yourself biblical Christian Democrats.
There's not one thing Democrats stand for that is in the Bible.
They are pro-abortion.
They are anti- All right, Janice.
I think we take your point there.
And just one thing she referenced is that ICE did get about $75 billion from the One Big Beautiful bill that passed in the House and Senate last year and that President Trump signed into law.
So they are still getting paid.
They do still have funding while the rest of DHS does not, including TSA agents who we know are resigning in droves.
Dale from Maryland, a Democrat.
Good morning, Dale.
Hi there.
How are you doing today?
Good.
How are you?
I am excellent.
Boy, I tell you, Janice is angry.
Gruesome dosome.
I hadn't heard that term before.
But what I'm calling is I'm hoping, you know, you have so many people listening that some of the people will hear me today and get on their computer and take a look at a documentary that I just watched about a year ago.
It's titled The Invisible Doctrine, The Invisible Doctrine.
And I'm an old retired guy, and I have always been a big flag waiver and served in military, et cetera, et cetera.
But after watching this documentary, I realized that I have been missing the big picture.
And I would hope that Janice and others listening would dial this up because it really pulls the curtain back on what is happening in our world, especially in this country, well, actually around the world, and why we're at each other's throats, which, of course, that's the bottom line.
I mean, we're fighting, fighting, fighting, Democrat, Republican, and there's actually an invisible activity going on.
It sounds kind of spooky, but it's an organized thrust by the super rich to create exactly what we're seeing.
And they're doing this, and you might say, oh, poo-poo-poo, but they're doing this through capitalism.
Capitalism is allowing them to basically rape and rob and kill us.
But like growing up, I was always told capitalism is better than sliced bread.
And then after watching this Invisible Doctrine documentary, I realized 400 cents in the documentary.
All right, Dale, I'm going to end you here so I can get in one more card before we go to the break.
Sue from Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Independent.
Good morning, Sue.
You've got about 45 seconds.
It's open for them.
I don't know if I can do it all in 25 seconds.
Undocumented Immigrant Terminology00:02:19
Well, just try.
Just try.
Well, the post office should stop Saturday delivery.
It's useless and it should not be going on.
The second thing is that I wish people would stop using the term undocumented immigrants.
There is no such being in the universe.
Unless you've been given permission to emigrate into a country, you cannot be an immigrant.
And so you're either a resident alien or an illegal alien.
And I wish people would stop doing that soft sell of undocumented immigrants because they are not.
And after 250 years with the Iran war, we now find ourselves once again being controlled by a foreign country.
All right, Sue, I'm going to end you there.
Later, we'll hear from two House legislators from Washington State today.
Republican Michael Baumgartner will join us later in the program to discuss Iran and other news.
But first, we'll talk about those topics with Democrat Adam Smith, ranking member of the Armed Services Committee when Washington Journal continues.
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War Powers and Budget00:16:04
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Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back.
Joining us this morning is Congressman Adam Smith, top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee here to talk with us about our two top topics this morning, Iran and DHS funding.
Congressman, thanks so much for being with us.
Thanks for having me.
It's good to see you.
Let's start with DHS funding.
What is the current status of talks to end the impasse over DHS funding?
I think there's progress being made.
I mean, there's different layers to this, but from the very beginning, you know, Democrats wanted to fund TSA and other things.
That has been on the table.
The question is what to do about ICE and Border Patrol.
That's been our concern.
And that concern arose certainly out of Minneapolis, but about the broader campaign that ICE has been conducting, where they're doing warrantless searches, where they are assaulting people using incredibly aggressive tactics, not paying attention to things like probable cause and due process, American citizens being detained for weeks at a time without any due process.
And we wanted that addressed.
So there was an effort to fund that and debate this.
Republicans rejected that.
And now we're going back and forth, even as Republicans are starting to make some minor changes in immigration enforcement.
But look, all of that is interesting.
We need to fund TSA.
All right.
And however we get there, that has to happen in the next 24 hours.
There's all kinds of different battles that go into that.
But we're seeing the crisis at the airport, the crisis affecting the lives of the TSA agents.
So I am optimistic that we'll get a resolution to this because we have to.
Let's say that not enough movement is made on some of the demands to reform ICE that Democrats have said that they want to see.
Would you support a deal to reopen DHS, even if it doesn't fully change or fully commit to those changes that you want to see for ICE?
Yeah.
I mean, it's the nature of compromise.
And look, the issue had to be pushed, and we have seen the American public agree with us on the changes that need to be made to immigration.
We've seen some minor little changes in terms of at least the rhetoric coming out of the White House, nowhere near where it needs to be.
But look, you always have to contemplate the cost of a strategy.
And at this point, if we're not funding all these different agencies, that's a huge problem.
Yes, we pushed it.
And the fact that the Republicans have decided that they'd rather see TSA, sorry, TSA agents not paid than actually address the problems with immigration enforcement, you know, past a certain point, we have to make the decision as to whether or not the strategy that we're employing is going to continue to push them in that direction.
So I think there's some small victories here, not anywhere that we need to be, but the impact right now that it's having, we can't allow that to continue.
Somebody has to care about how the government functions.
So you could live with a deal on the table right now from senators like Katie Britt and others that say we're going to fund all of DHS.
We are not going to fund bipartisanly ICE, but fund that through reconciliation and not implement some of these reforms.
Well, it's already been funded through reconciliation.
I would like to see these.
But not implementing some of those reforms.
Right.
You guys can't.
To answer your question in this is, no, fine with that is exactly the wrong way to put it, given the bad set of choices that are in front of us.
And that's something that a lot of people don't understand about politics.
We've all, I guess, been raised to say, no, you have to have what you want.
And if you don't get what you want, you may as well blow the whole place up.
I'm not one of those people.
I would not be fine with that.
I'd be deeply upset that the Republican Party has decided not to rein in ICE and protect the rights of the American people, you know, but I don't believe in shooting hostages.
So, in terms of reforms to ICE and DHS, your position is that although you wouldn't like to see it, there's not anything that's necessary for you to see in the next 24 hours.
I'm sorry, you keep trying to take it as I'm saying it.
Don't rephrase it.
Basically, what was it?
I'm not trying to rephrase it.
I'm just trying to get to the meetup.
I want the changes in immigration.
I think it was perfectly appropriate that we pushed that issue.
At this point, it doesn't look like we're going to get the changes that we want.
We need to keep pushing for those changes and by whatever avenue we can.
But at this point, the cost of continuing to have this government not funded is too high.
So, no, I'm not fine with it.
No, I don't see it as unnecessary.
I just understand the votes, and I understand where we're at and the impact this is having.
So, I still hope in the next 24 hours that there will be at least some changes to immigration enforcement.
But to simply say we're not going to fund anything if we don't get them is not where I'm at.
Let me ask you about the newly confirmed DHS Secretary, Mark Wayne Mullen, who obviously came from the Hill, replaced Christy Noam.
Do you expect any changes?
I know you mentioned kind of rhetorical shifts, including perhaps his use of judicial warrants that he said that he mentioned in his confirmation hearings.
Do you believe with him now in place instead of Christy Noam that there could be any changes that perhaps aren't written in some of this agreement but could come from his?
I don't really have that expectation.
It could happen.
I mean, Mark Wayne has said that he wants to see warrants for these searches.
It could happen, but with the Trump administration, I don't have expectations.
I think we are going to have to keep the pressure up.
And that's another thing.
I want the focus to be on immigration enforcement and the need to change it.
If the focus now is very much on the long lines at the airport, as well as it should be, and on the TSA agents not being paid, that is undermining our ability to make the changes that need to be made in immigration.
It's not accomplishing our goal.
And our goal is to make those changes in how we do immigration enforcement in this country.
So if that's not accomplishing the goal, it's not so much a matter of shooting hostages.
Sorry, it's the wrong way to put it.
It's a matter of how we're going to get there.
How are we going to make those changes?
Is the continued pressure point around funding for the broader DHS going to get us there?
It doesn't seem to be.
So we need to come up with other plans to try to push that.
But no, I don't have much in the way of expectations that the Trump administration is going to suddenly become reasonable in terms of how they pay attention to the Constitution and the rights of the American people.
Quick question before we turn to Iran.
But have you told House leadership, Democratic leadership, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jefferies, that it's time to move on if within the next 24 hours this isn't resolved?
Well, I've been talking with, I don't talk with Chuck Schumer, he's not my leader, but I've spoken with Vakeem Jefferies, and I've said, yeah, no, we need to figure out some way to get this funded.
And look, if they can get something in the near term that gives at least some changes, sure.
But as I've said over and over and over again at this point, yes, it is not acceptable for TSA agents to not be paid and for the disruptions that's being caused to air travel for all Americans.
And I want to invite our viewers to join in on this conversation with the congressmen, Democrats.
Your line is 202-748-8000.
Republicans, your line, 202-748-8001.
Independence, your line is 202-748-8002.
Okay, Congressman, turning to Iran.
You all were briefed yesterday on the House Armed Services Committee.
There were a lot of tweets, a lot of concern from lawmakers leaving that briefing.
Can you tell us what you learned in there?
Well, I learned that there is no plan to accomplish what they say their objectives are.
And for all those tweets from my Republican colleagues, they could go ahead and vote for the war powers resolution and stop this war if they feel like they're not.
Like Nancy Mason said that she would not be supportive of Boots on the Ground.
Right.
You know, I mean, I'm glad that they want to get attention by talking about how concerned they are, but we need to turn those concerns into actual action because the concern is the plan of forcing Iran to stop its progress on a nuclear weapon, to stop building ballistic missiles, and to stop supporting terrorist organizations in the region, we are no closer to achieving that objective today than we were three and a half weeks ago when this war started.
And the concern is, as we brought the administration officials in to say, okay, how are you going to get there?
They didn't give answers.
They didn't tell us how they were going to make progress on the objectives of this war or what they were going to do if they didn't make progress.
There was a lack of specifics as to what the war plan is.
I want to take a look at some polling that we've seen over the last few days.
This is from AP, NORC poll that was released yesterday.
It says for U.S. military action against Iran, has it gone too far?
59% of adults agree with it that it's gone too far.
Democrats, that's up to 90%.
Independents, that's up to 63%.
Republicans, that's 26%.
So if nearly 60% of Americans feel that military action against Iran has gone too far, 62% in a separate poll say that they're strongly opposed to U.S. military troops on the ground.
With numbers like that, can any escalation in this conflict be sustained?
Yeah, those are separate questions.
I mean, first of all, the war was unpopular when the president started it.
So I guess this is going to be misinterpreted, but the logical answer to your question is sure, if President Trump decides to keep going, polling numbers don't change that, even if they should.
So sure, the president could just keep going with the war without any question, despite where the American people are at.
Again, remember, it had like 25, 30 percent support when he started it.
He very clearly doesn't care about public opinion on this.
And that's a huge problem as we go forward.
He could, he shouldn't.
And I think that's the more important point.
The war should stop now because the cost is simply far higher than any possible benefit that could be achieved.
The president said last night that he doesn't want to call it a war or that people do not want him to call it a war.
I assume he means DOD and other folks in the White House because it would get him in trouble when it comes to congressional authority.
Do you believe that this war is legitimate since he didn't go to Congress?
Yeah, I'm not much into semantics at this point.
The problem is that we have started a war.
We have lost 13 service members.
You can call it a war.
You can call it whatever you want to call it.
13 service members are dead.
Over 1,000 civilians are dead.
There's been massive global disruption of the economy.
Gas prices are through the ceiling.
Inflation is going up as a result.
And Iran does not seem to be backing down.
So I think it was a mistake to think that the military can solve the problems that we have with Iran, and we should stop that.
From the briefing that you guys got yesterday, has it raised any expectation from you that the U.S. could eventually deploy ground forces in either an invasion, let's say, to keep open the Strait of Hormuz or to take Karg Island?
Yeah.
You see, that is the sort of point that we're at right now.
Not achieving the objectives.
The bombing campaign continues, so Trump faces a choice.
Does he escalate to try to get to those objectives, or does he accept the fact that they're not achievable?
I think there is considerable risk of escalation, and there's two main ways that he can escalate.
One, put troops on the ground somewhere, whether it's taking Carg Island, somewhere else.
Two, is to begin more aggressively targeting Iranian infrastructure.
And then you are attacking the Iranian people as much as you're attacking the Iranian regime, and you're simply driving up the cost of this conflict.
But that is the choice that the president faces, except that it was not a good idea to have tried to achieve the objectives through the military in the first place and set more modest goals and stop the war or escalate and try to up the ante and figure out how to achieve what I don't think he'd be able to achieve even if he did escalate.
But there is considerable risk that Trump will not agree with me, that he'll say, nope, we're going to double down and go forward.
So does there need to be another war powers vote?
I mean, I know you mentioned it earlier when we were talking about whether folks leaving that briefing and being concerned yesterday.
Should there be another war powers vote and how do you convince Republicans who say no boots on the ground but haven't gone any further than that?
It's very hard because Republicans basically do what Trump tells them to do.
Even as they may express concerns when it comes to voting, it comes to actually impacting his policy.
Gosh, I'd have to sift through the examples now, but very, very rarely have they voted against what President Trump wants.
But I think we simply have to try.
And it's the same back with the immigration issue.
You know, I mean, we didn't want to fund ICE.
Now, I do want to be clear, we wanted to fund TSA.
Republicans just wouldn't let us fund that portion of it unless we funded ICE.
So we wanted to fight that battle.
We want this war to stop, and we want to make that case.
But we need a majority, which means we need votes from Republicans.
And as much as Republicans express concerns, they express concerns about the two people being killed in Minneapolis.
They didn't change their position.
And I've not yet seen them changing their position on the war in Iran.
But we have to keep making the case because on both of those issues, I mean, the policy issues are really important.
The war is having a devastating cost.
The immigration enforcement is having a devastating impact on the rights of the American people.
We have to keep making that case, even if the Republicans don't see that and vote with us.
Do you expect another war powers vote to happen soon?
Yes.
When?
Well, soon.
That's tough because we're not in session for two weeks.
I expect to see one when we come back, yes.
Just quickly, because you said you're not in session, if a resolution on DHS...
We should stay in session.
There's no way on earth we should go out of session without having funded TSA and other things.
If that takes us through the weekend, whatever.
We should not leave until that is resolved.
Do you feel like leadership is all on the same page with that?
I frankly haven't had that specific conversation, but I would think the answer to that question would be yes.
I just don't know for sure.
Okay, back to Iran.
Let's talk about funding because obviously the war powers votes, the multiple of them have failed on both the House and the side, I mean, excuse me, House and the Senate side.
What is your view on this reported number of $200 billion for an Iran war supplement?
That's in addition to the president's proposed $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon for the next fiscal year.
The Pentagon budget, of course, is already $916 billion.
Several things about that.
One, it points up the cost of this war.
We're, what, $39 trillion in debt now, and we're going into a war which isn't going to actually reach the objectives that we wanted to, driving up the cost.
So I think it points up how expensive the war is.
Second, the budget issue is just absurd.
If Republicans believe that this is absolutely necessary, and we have to spend the $200 billion, and we have to spend the $1.5 trillion to meet our national security needs, I don't agree.
I don't think that we need to spend that much money on defense in order to meet the needs of our country.
Defense Spending Disputes00:09:08
And I think it undercuts the ability to fund other things that are also important.
But if you do feel that way, then raise taxes and pay for it.
I mean, it's just insane to me that the Republicans passed a $4 trillion tax cut primarily going to people, well, tax cuts primarily go to people making money because if you make money that's when you're paying taxes.
So it's primarily going to people who are already doing well financially.
So they want that, and then they want all these wars and all this defense budget, which they're not prepared to pay for.
So if you're going to put a $200 billion supplemental on the table, it better be paid for.
It better come with a tax increase.
I'm not going to support a supplemental that simply takes it out of our debt and takes it out of Medicaid and food stamps and education and every other program.
One quick question before we turn to some phone calls.
You are obviously the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
It does a lot more than just talk about what we're discussing right now.
What should that committee be focused on that it isn't happening under perhaps this Republican majority?
Well, look, I don't really, I think the Republican majority and the chairman of the committee might ride, they're focused on what they should be focused on.
We did massive acquisition reform in last year's NDAA, which is an effort to get the Pentagon to innovate at scale faster and spend money more efficiently.
This year we're focused on defense industrial base issues.
How do we build the munitions that we need?
How do we upgrade the ability to build all of the equipment we need faster, more efficiently?
A couple years before that, we did a focus on quality of life.
How do we pay service members and their families what they need in order to be able to want to stay in the military?
So I don't think that focus is wrong.
The focus that's wrong is on the idea that war is the answer to so many of our problems, whether it's in Venezuela, whether it's in Cuba, whether it's threatening Greenland and Panama, whether it's a war in Iran, whether it's saying that we have to be prepared to go to war with China.
I think we rely too much on the military to meet our foreign policy and diplomatic objectives.
That's what I don't agree with in terms of the focus of how to make the Pentagon more efficient and more effective.
You know, I think Chairman Rogers and Chairman Wicker in the Senate, I think we are working on the right priorities in that regard.
All right, listen to some phone calls.
Edward from Keyport, New Jersey, an independent.
Good morning, Edward.
Good morning.
Thank you.
So I say no compromise with the GOP.
They're not honest actors.
Like I watch you guys speak all day facts and logic to these people and then they just turn around with a bunch of hyperbolic falsehoods.
If you read your history of the Weimar Republic, the left-wing parties far outnumbered the fascists and they could have beat them at any time, but they kept preaching this parliamentarianism.
Let's just keep on going and touring the Reichstag and speaking this until the Nazis banned them all.
So, and my last thing is I'm not going to be patriotic about any war until we get some health care in this country.
It's ridiculous.
Raise the poverty limit.
Thank you.
Yeah, I completely agree with the last comment.
You know, I think this notion that we stumble into wars we shouldn't be in and then you have to support them because you have to support the U.S. fundamentally misunderstands what our representative democracy is.
I think you can be a patriot and say the war doesn't make any sense and you should stop it.
On the other point, I want to get into a Weimar history, but they also voted to basically empower the Chancellor, Hitler, which we're not going to do.
I do think we have to present a legitimate policy agenda.
So, no, I'm not saying we compromise with the Republicans, but we also have to be smart about what's going to work and what's not going to work.
And right now, I think not paying TSA agents is not advancing our ability to undermine support for Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
And that's just a logical thing.
It's not 1932 or whatever the hell it is.
That's a very logical problem.
You know, is it helping us make the case to the American people that Trump is doing a terrible job as president if we are part of something that winds up not paying TSA agents?
No, it's not.
So we need to figure out a better strategy and a better approach.
Omar from Washington, D.C., a Republican.
Good morning.
Yes, good morning.
I have a comment and a question.
First, I need to say that I'm a Frederick Douglass Harriet Tubman Republican.
I like the fact that Tim Scott calls out the racism of the Trump folks.
And I like the fact that other Republicans, although they keep their mouths shut, will address health care in private.
My question to you is a legal question.
Isn't it, can't President Trump, because he's through executive orders, simply deputize the TSA agents, turn them into ICE agents, pay them out of the ICE budget, but restrict their duties only to TSA duties?
I think that's a legal question, not a policy question.
But doesn't he have the authority to do that given that he's done other things like this?
Yeah, I think the answer to that question is you're absolutely right.
He has done other things like this.
And look, in the reconciliation bill that passed last year, they pumped $190 billion more dollars into DHS.
DHS's budget on an average year is like $60 billion.
So triple that was put in there just last year.
That money's still there.
If Trump wanted to, he could use that money to pay TSA agents.
Now, I will quibble with one thing.
He couldn't do it legally, because we appropriate the money, and the money is supposed to go where it is appropriate to.
But you're absolutely right.
Trump has done it over and over and over again.
Well, he did it last night down for the military.
Right.
And in other instances, he's taken money that's been appropriated and cut certain programs.
And he has already violated the law dozens of times in terms of how he's supposed to spend money.
So legally, no, I don't think he could.
But based on his own precedent, if he wanted to, he certainly could pay TSA agents out of that fund right now.
Laura from Florida Democrat.
Good morning.
I'd like to thank you so much for the job you're doing.
And I'm really concerned because my grandson is flying in from New Jersey to Florida on Good Friday.
And I'm just scared.
He's just 18, you know, and I'm just scared he's going to get caught up in that mess.
And I really want to see him.
I've been seeing him in five years and I miss him.
And what I want to say is by not funding these TSA agents, we are making this country more vulnerable to an attack, you know, from Iran.
I believe that.
Look at 9-11.
And I just don't understand why Trump would not agree with soon and say, okay, we'll put it on the back burner and we'll do it later.
But let's fund this TSA agent.
I don't understand.
Why wouldn't we do that?
No, I think, well, I think the point is, and look, from the very start, as I said, as much as we wanted to focus on ICE and funding, we wanted to fund TSA separately, just fund them.
The reason that Trump didn't want to do it is he saw it as a leverage point.
I mean, if we weren't funding TSA, he could block our ability to reform ICE.
So he saw it as a leverage point, and he held on to it for that reason, which is not a good reason.
We should have funded TSA a long time ago and had the fight about ICE like one.
They are connected within the appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security, but there's a very simple off-ramp.
But the Republicans believed that images of long lines at the airport, and then you know they're like using your tax dollars to run messages at the airport, blaming Democrats for the TSA being nakedly political and partisan with tax dollars.
So they felt that was a message war that they could win.
And they weren't necessarily wrong about that.
They were wrong on the policy.
They were wrong to use TSA agents in that manner and not pay them.
But we're seeing the impact.
And at the end of the day, and to the previous caller or a couple of callers ago, I consider myself a responsible member of the government.
I want our government to function.
I don't want our government to break down into an endless fight of each partisan side trying to make one group of people suffer for their own political benefit.
I want to govern this country well.
And I still don't see that as a weakness to say, look, if they're going to be irresponsible and punish the country, we are going to try to find some way to make it work better.
I don't think that hurts us in the long run to be responsible about that.
Eric from Arizona and Independent.
Morning, you do a very good job.
Prayer Breakfast Speech Critique00:02:17
Hello.
Hi, Eric.
We can hear you.
Go ahead.
Do you have a question or comment for the congressman?
Yes, I do.
I'm a retired military guy.
I've been around the world back and back and back again.
And, you know, great to come home.
But then I retired in 94 and all this nonsense.
And we knew who this man was that we're putting.
Yes.
Eric, we can hear you.
Go ahead.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
You're fine, but we are running close to time, though, so I'm going to ask you to speed it up a little bit.
Right.
Okay.
When Trump was growing up, he's in my age bracket.
We used to play a lot of games, war, risk, monopoly.
And he always would lose these games, and he was a bully then.
He's a bully now.
So, you know, he would go through a thing where he would rage and cry and probably beat up his brother.
Who knows?
But he's deranged.
All right, I'm going to have Congressman Devils want to have.
Yeah, no, look, I mean, Donald Trump is not a good person.
Okay.
You see the way he treats people, see the way he talks about people.
I was having dinner with a friend of mine who is part of a religious group that basically helps minister to members of Congress.
We were talking about the prayer breakfast.
At the prayer breakfast, Donald Trump is supposed to give a 15-minute speech.
He goes off for an hour and 20 minutes and attacks literally everybody at the prayer breakfast.
At the idea, you know, we're supposed to love our neighbor and be supportive of everybody.
And he's just up there talking about petty vengeance and attacking everybody.
I mean, yeah, and I understand policies are different than character, but I do think character matters a lot when you're trying to be a leader.
And issue after issue, Donald Trump has proven himself to just not be a good person.
And I do think that makes it much more difficult to deal with him and run the government well.
Middle East Diplomatic Stalemate00:06:53
So I agree with your assessment.
Turning back to the war here, the Times has this headline.
It says, Israel plans to control large parts of southern Lebanon, the defense minister says, and it effectively says that Israel has launched a ground offensive against the Iranian-backed militia, Hezbollah.
Israel officials say that they could lay the groundwork for Israel to remain in large parts of Lebanon.
I wonder if you can talk to us about your views on Iran, I mean, excuse me, on Israel's role in this conflict.
And do the U.S. and Israel share the same objectives?
Well, I think Netanyahu and Trump's approach is really problematic because their approach is all aggression all the time.
Both imagine a world of total victory, that all of their enemies will be vanquished.
And that's just not going to work.
And I think certainly perfectly reasonable of Israel to have weakened Hamas, weakened Hezbollah, weakened Iran in the way that they have.
But you can't just break things if you want lasting peace.
You have to build something.
There is an opportunity in Lebanon right now with Hezbollah weakened to support an alternative government that wants to be there.
There's an opportunity in Syria with a new government with Assad gone.
Israel is still, whatever they were, still bombing stuff in southern Syria.
There's an opportunity in Gaza in the West Bank to work with Palestinians who want an alternative to Hamas.
Israel has had a lot of enemies over the course of, what is it now, 80 years, sorry, 78 years that they've been in existence.
But a lot of those enemies have been turned into friends.
Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, these were all countries that threatened them.
And yes, they fought, but they also eventually built better countries.
In the case of Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, that's what they have to do now.
And it seems like Netanyahu is determined that until my last enemy is killed, we're going to keep fighting.
That is a recipe for endless conflict, just like President Trump, you know, going to war in Iran, thinking there was no other option, no negotiation.
If the conflict continues, new enemies are created.
And the final analogy I'll use on that is when Israel fought the PLO in Lebanon, the first civil war, or sorry, the first Lebanese war between Lebanon and Israel in 82.
They defeated the PLO, and they kept going and kept going and kept going.
And then they wound up with Hezbollah.
So, because nothing better was built.
You can't just focus on the bombing of your enemies.
You have to focus on how do you build up alternative governments that can work.
And I don't think that Prime Minister Netanyahu or President Trump have spent nearly enough time doing that.
The constant reliance on violence and war, thinking that that's going to solve your problems.
Life is not actually the Godfather movie.
I mean, it's a cool little movie where he gets a charge and he says, today we're going to settle all family business.
Not the way the real world actually works.
So I hope we get back to seeing diplomacy and some other options as a way to keep the peace instead of just relying on war and violence.
I mean, speaking of diplomacy, there is some conflict between the public statements from the U.S. and Iran as to the stage of negotiations.
The U.S. and the White House say that negotiations are going well.
They're in good faith.
Iran says that there are no negotiations happening.
They've rejected this 15-point peace plan agreement put forward by the Trump administration that would have ended the war, they say, through state TV.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and Israel have rejected a counterproposal from Tehran.
I think it was about five points.
Can you assess what you know about the actual, are we actually in negotiations?
What is actually happening going on?
We're not really in negotiations.
We're in an absolute stalemate.
And it doesn't really take much analysis to figure that out.
What President Trump said is, okay, you agreed to never build a nuclear weapon, allow us to inspect you, no ballistic missiles, no support for terrorist groups, open back up the Strait of Hormuz.
And Iran said, okay, how about this?
We're not going to do any of those first three things, and we're going to control the Strait of Hormuz forever.
Okay.
So I guess you could call that a negotiation, which is, you know, you could have this.
Okay, I will take none of that.
So there is this stalemate right now, and that's what it is.
You know, Iran believes that they have us by the throat because of the Strait of Hormuz.
And Trump believes that we will somehow break Iran completely.
And at the moment, there's no movement in between those two positions.
So it's a stalemate.
Do you think that Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, obviously folks who have been involved in other negotiations across the world, and now JD Vance, who's reported to be in, you know, in talks to perhaps go to Pakistan, are able to kind of get through this and put it in the middle of the market?
It's a huge part of the problem.
We have an incredibly talented diplomatic corps.
I travel a lot because of the Armed Services Committee visiting our troops, dealing with, and I visited our embassy employees all around the world.
They are some of the most talented, smart, capable, knowledgeable people in the world.
President Trump has completely sidelined all of them.
Instead, he's used two of his buddies who are real estate developers to try to negotiate all this.
And oh, by the way, who also both have billion-dollar interests at stake in all the places that they're negotiating.
So no, I don't think Witkoff and Kushner have much of a record in terms of actually negotiating anything.
I think we should use the diplomatic corps that actually knows a thing or two about what's going on and has the interests of the American people, not just their own pocketbook, at heart when they're having those negotiations.
So that too is a huge part of the problem.
We're running out of time here, but I just want to ask you quickly about Russia.
Russia is aiding Iran.
There is reports that they could be sending weapons to Iran pretty soon.
What do you make of their role in this after the president loosened oil sanctions?
Yeah, I think the fact that President Trump came in and acted like Putin was our friend and Zelensky was our enemy was a big problem.
All right, constantly berating Zielensky, constantly saying that Putin wants peace, pumping up Putin and Russia at the expense of Ukraine when Ukraine is actually standing up to Russia.
Russia's working with Iran and working with China and working with North Korea.
That's been true for a long time now.
All right.
So the fact that we have not stood up to Russia has empowered Putin and obviously Putin's working with Iran.
When Russia was in trouble, Iran sent all those Shahed drones up there.
They have a close relationship.
That is very clear that Russia is on the other side of this.
It is time for us to put pressure on Russia.
We take sanctions off of Russia.
We put pressure on Ukraine, telling them that they have to cut a deal.
It's really not that complicated that that approach should be inverted.
Support Ukraine, put pressure on Russia, not the other way around.
Certainly that impacts Ukraine, but it also impacts what's going on with the war with Iran and the Middle East crisis.
Bipartisan Threat Assessment00:15:15
All right, Congressman Adam Smith, top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.
Thank you so much for being with us this morning.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
And next, we'll get another perspective from Washington State Republican Michael Baumgardner when we're back.
Stay tuned.
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Washington Journal continues.
Joining us this morning to finish the conversation on DHS and Iran is freshman Congressman Michael Baumgartner of Washington, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Congressman, thanks so much for being with us this morning.
Good morning.
All right, I want to hop right in.
We just heard from Congressman Adam Smith, your counterpartner on the Democratic side from Washington.
But tell us from your vantage point what the current status of talks to end this partial shutdown over the Department of Homeland Security, where it stands right now.
Well, it's really obviously unfortunate that the Democrats continue to play such political games with so many important things in America, including our safety of air transportation and passengers and these TSA agents.
You know, right now, the Senate and the White House continue to discuss what it takes to get that Homeland Security budget.
Remember, this was a bipartisan budget agreement that the Democrats then walked back from over 40 days ago.
So it's still a good budget.
It was negotiated in good faith, and it was Democrats that broke that agreement.
We will today on the House floor as House Republicans for a third time pass a budget to fully fund Homeland Security.
And I think the American people need to ask themselves whether the Democrats work for them or work for their radical left-wing base, because right now, the Democrats are holding hostage the American people for that radical base.
And this is at a time when we have a significant terrorist threat here in America.
So they need to do the right thing, pass the budget, and live up to the bipartisan agreement that we had previously.
And it seems that that vote that you guys are going to take today is expected to fail, Congressman.
So I wonder, would you support a deal to reopen DHS, even if it didn't fully fund immigration, customs, and enforcement, ICE?
Well, the bill will not fail.
It will pass out of the House for the third time.
You know, the challenge is it gets to the Senate.
And because there are only 53 Republicans in the Senate and you need 60 to get around the filibuster, that is where the focus of the negotiation is.
But no, we need to pass the budget in its entirety.
You know, the irony, of course, right now is that ICE already has funding because of what we did in the One Big Beautiful Bill or the Working Families tax cut.
But you can see what the Democrats are doing.
They're just, you know, they're so afraid of their base.
So just to clarify, just to clarify, if Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats agreed to fund DHS except for ICE and brought that to the House, you would not vote for it.
Well, we'll vote for whatever package is agreed upon that the White House supports and that our leadership supports.
And we want to get the country moving again.
So, you know, I'm not in favor of drawing any hard red lines on any of these issues.
You know, we need to find an agreement that works for the American people.
But again, this speaks to a bigger issue, which is the Democrats are weak and they're afraid of their base and they're letting their radical left-wing base determine what they do.
And so, again, this was a bipartisan agreement that was reached.
And, you know, it's pretty remarkable at a time when the country is as polarized as it is, that there were actually 12 separate budgets passed in a bipartisan way.
And this Homeland Security budget came up short because the Democrats walked back after the events in Minnesota.
But it's still a good budget and it should be passed.
And we'll just have to see what happens.
But for a third time, House Republicans will be doing the right thing today on the floor.
So I know that Republicans, including the White House yesterday, have said that Democrats are moving the goalpost by bringing back in these changes that they want made to ICE.
But they say that they're relying on polling and other consensus from Americans who have started looking at ICE more negatively after some of the events, including Minneapolis, and want to see changes fueled by some of that consensus from the American public.
Is that not something that you believe Republicans should also be a part of, is responding to that concern?
Well, there have been some changes.
You know, Christy Noam is out.
Greg, the other fellow running ICE is out.
Tom Holman, somebody that was well respected by both sides of the aisle, received the highest civilian award from President Obama, was put in charge.
I think the temperature has certainly been turned down on the enforcement, and I think appropriately so.
I personally was very concerned about what I saw at video in Minnesota.
And so, you know, there have been real changes in terms of the enforcement mechanism, but that doesn't change the fact that there was up to 20 million people led into this country illegally, some of them very dangerous individuals involved in drug trafficking, human trafficking, and that we are a nation of laws that have to be enforced.
And so it is the Democrats that are afraid of their left-wing base, afraid of primaries, and that are beholden to a group of individuals that believe in no enforcement of immigration.
And so that is really what's driving their conversation, the weakness of the Democratic Party.
So that's the obstacle with the 60-vote threshold of the Senate.
It's not really about policy.
It's about radicalism in their base.
So, you know, I think I'm confident that eventually a compromise will be found on this issue.
But I think the American people have a lot of confidence in the enforcement of what was the primary reason Republicans were put in control of Congress and why when the elections was the animating factor of last year's election was immigration and illegal immigration.
And Republicans with President Trump have done a great job on that, securing the border, reducing fentanyl deaths.
Congressman, one last question for you on DHS before we turn to Iran.
But you're a supporter of DHS Secretary Senate former Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, who obviously, as you said, replaced Christy Noam.
During his confirmation interview, Mullen said that he regretted calling Alex Predi a, quote, deranged individual after he was shot and killed by CPP agents in Minneapolis.
I wonder, do you believe that Alex Predi and Renee Goode, who was also shot by an ICE official in Minneapolis, do you believe that they posed a domestic threat?
Well, I think that needs to be investigated.
You know, I think every responsible elected official should seek to turn down the temperature at moments like that when there is a lot of accusations going on.
I don't think any elect when the elected Democrats are calling law enforcement officers murderers, that certainly doesn't help turn down the temperature.
And I think every elected official should do that.
You know, I know Mark Wayne Mullen a little bit from our morning workout sessions.
He was the my first time I worked out in the House gym.
Mark Wayne was leading a bipartisan group.
I think I was doing about 140 burpees that morning.
But I saw him with both Republicans and Democrats working in a very congenial way.
And I think he'll have that ability to help unite folks and this important issue.
So I have a lot of confidence in his ability moving forward and I think we'll see good results for the American people.
So I want to turn to Iran here because you served as a State Department officer at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, during the first year of the surge in 2007.
And you recently pinned an article for the National Review.
It says, quote, apply Iraq's hardest lessons to Iran.
And you wrote that what is unfolding against Iran is not Iraq 2.0 and that this campaign is structured differently.
Can you explain your perspective there?
Well, I think we have learned some of the lessons from Iran, and I think President Trump is doing a real masterful job right now in the Middle East.
You know, I was someone that was very skeptical of President Trump when he came down the escalator in 2016.
I thought he would be naive and foolish on foreign policy.
And I think he's turned out to be the most consequential American president on Middle Eastern foreign policy probably since Dwight Eisenhower.
And what I'm seeing us carry out is a degrading of a very significant threat that the Iranians have posed for over 50 years, killing nearly 2,000 Americans in multiple terrorist attacks around the globe, and a realization with President Trump and Secretary Rubio that they could not be allowed to get a nuclear weapon or to have essentially a shield to develop that nuclear weapon with the use of ballistic missiles and drones and so forth.
So I think the early stages of this campaign over the last three weeks have gone very well and I think we're on track to see some real progress and a sustainable improvement of the situation in the Middle East.
I wonder if you believe that the sustained bombardment of Iranian military facilities though can lead to a regime change.
The president said this week that the regime had already been changed.
Caroline Levitt backed that up yesterday.
Although we know that the IRGC is still in power and according to reports, are in some ways consolidating power.
I wonder whether or not you believe that regime change is achievable under the current circumstances.
Well we estimate between 7% to around 20% of the Iranian people are hardcore supporters of the IRCG and the hardcore regime elements.
You know there is going to be an opportunity potentially as we continue to apply pressure and the Israelis degrade the senior levels of the Iranian leadership.
There is going to be an opportunity for that 80% to step forward and decide whether they want a different future from Iran, but that will be their decision to make.
What we have done so far is eliminate the immediate threat and the medium-term threat and that's going, I think, masterfully.
You've seen the complete decapitation of senior leadership, the IRCG.
You've seen the near total elimination of the Iranian Navy and significant reductions in their ballistic missile capability and their support for proxy terrorist forces.
All those things make America and the world much, much safer than we were a month ago.
So this is tremendous progress.
If you told me a month ago that we were going to be able to carry these operations out, which God bless all of them that have lost their lives, but the 13 service members, heroes every one of them, but in the grand scheme of things, a very limited amount of casualties and impact to our military forces.
I think it's really been impressive progress and I think it will continue.
From your conversations with the administration, with the briefings that you've received on Capitol Hill, how much longer can the American people expect this to go on for?
Well, as Klashwitz says, wars are a force of political will, contests of political will.
So a lot of that will be up to how the administration and leaders of the operations explain things to the American people.
If I had any critique of what the administration has done, I would say that there could have been more done in preparation to remind people of the threat, the American people, of the threat that the Iranians pose.
I would have encouraged the president, had I been at the White House, to spend a little bit more time of the State of the Union address talking about this threat.
I think when Secretary Rubio and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Kath Kane, talk about the threat, I think you see it in the polling numbers that the American people understand it and they feel like progress is being made.
So, you know, what President Trump also deserves a lot of credit for is not everything should be about the American domestic political cycle.
Sometimes leadership requires making tough choices and sacrificing potential political games for what's right about the country.
And I think so many folks have either Trump derangement syndrome or just are anti-American that they want to look at this solely through a political lens.
Well, policy and leadership should be a lot more than that.
And so President Trump, I think, really does deserve credit for doing something that could be very politically hard and even politically costly, but something that's the right policy.
I want to talk about that because we have some new polling out from yesterday.
I want to kind of run through these numbers with you.
According to AP poll released yesterday, the question is U.S. military action against Iran has gone too far.
Of all adults, 59% agree with that statement.
Democrats, 90%.
Independents, 63%.
Republicans, 26%.
On deploying U.S. troops on the ground to fight Iran, 12% strongly, somewhat favor.
26% neither favor or oppose.
62% strongly or somewhat oppose.
On the question of being concerned about being able to afford gas in the next few months, 45% are extremely concerned.
28% are somewhat concerned.
26% are not too or not at all concerned.
And whether it's extremely or very important for the U.S. goals to prevent U.S. oil and gas prices from rising, that's 67%.
To prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, that's 65%.
To prevent Iran from threatening Israel, that's 39%.
And to replace Iran's government with a friendlier one to the U.S., that's 33%.
So I know that you talked about sometimes leadership is about doing things that are politically costly.
But are you concerned about these numbers, particularly as Republicans are vulnerable going into the midterms?
Well, you know, I'm more concerned about the policy, as I mentioned.
And, you know, let's remember you talked about the price of oil.
Back in 2012, when President Obama won re-election in that election, the price of oil on an inflation-adjusted basis was about $180 as compared to today.
So, you know, the price of oil isn't everything.
Obviously, it's a factor in the elections.
But people look at the totality of government.
And also, when you're running for election, you're not running against Jesus Christ.
You're running against a Democrat.
Oil Price Inflation Concerns00:12:42
And so there's always a comparing contrast of the election, and that'll play out as well, too.
But again, what I'm focused on is the policy and making the American people safer.
And I have no doubt the American people are much, much safer than they were three weeks ago.
And, you know, the way those questions get asked, it's, well, of course, nobody wants to be put into danger for the sake of putting in danger.
But when you ask the American people to share sacrifice for the American national security interests or to keep their kids and their grandkids safe, there's more willingness to do that as well too.
And what I'm pleased about is, you know, we're not seeing the mistakes that we saw in Iraq.
And I saw some of those firsthand.
I saw some of the valor and the good things that happened in Iraq, but I also saw the challenges that we had of trying to install democracy in destroying institutions that there was not a plan to replace.
And I think what you're seeing with President Trump's leadership, be it in Venezuela or in the Middle East, is just a much more sober understanding of how the world actually works and a realistic focus on American core national security interests.
All right, Guisberg, let me get in one more question before we turn to some phone calls.
Boots on the ground, that's obviously been a topic of conversation since the beginning of this conflict.
Yesterday we heard from Representative Nancy Mays, who after a House Armed Services briefing said that she was even more against boots on the ground.
Anna Paulina Luna said in a quote to CNN, I'm opposed to troops on the ground, period.
No one agrees with Lindsey Graham with the Lindsey Graham war plan.
The administration has been transparent with us.
Trump will be able to negotiate a winning solution for all parties at ground, but basically saying she doesn't agree with boots on the ground.
Where do you fall on the issue?
Well, I want to make sure that my president was supported with as broad a toolkit and toolbox as he has.
Obviously, there are negotiations taking place, and when you take options off, that limits the toolbox and limits the effectiveness of those negotiations.
I think if you were to ask any member of Congress, and more importantly, ask the American people, hey, if you had to send in some American special forces to grab some Iranian nuclear fizzle material, would you support that?
All of them would say yes.
And so there's a lot of caveats in terms of how they would be deployed, and people don't want to limit options.
So those members of Congress can speak for themselves.
But again, I have a lot of confidence in President Trump, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, Dan Kaine, and Secretary Rubio for how this operation has taken place.
All right, let's send to some phone calls.
Andrew from Detroit, Michigan, and Independent.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Former Trump supporter here.
Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff leading the Iran negotiations and circumventing the State Department is a dangerous deviation from the norms of statecraft.
Who are these guys, really?
They have zero diplomatic experience and have no business being in the White House.
The so-called Iran negotiations were set up to fail from the beginning and were never carried out in good faith.
All right, Congressman, do you have a response to that?
Well, you know, the executive branch runs the State Department, and ultimately the commander-in-chief is in charge in our constitutional system.
So they all work for the president, and these were the same negotiators that successfully carried out the extension of the Abraham Accords, which was as much progress as we've seen in Middle East stability and peace relations.
So I think they've been pretty effective as negotiators.
More importantly, they have the confidence of the president, and the president is the one the American people have put in charge through our constitutional system to carry out these duties.
So I would disagree with the description that this is outside the norm or outside the spirit of the U.S. Constitution.
Greg from Tampa, Florida.
Go ahead.
Good morning.
How are you doing today?
Good morning.
I would like to just point out one basic fact.
The Iran war is a religious war that has been going on for over a thousand years.
We are not going to end it no matter what we do to destroy their weaponry.
This is a point that really needs to be considered.
Thank you.
Congressman?
Well, I think he's right in the sense that the regime leading Iran are religious fanatics.
This is not a rational regime in the way that most Americans would think of people looking at cost-benefit analysis or what's the national interest.
The folks running the IRCG and the Irani regime are religious fanatics that believe that their version of Shia Islam is going to, by the hand of God, sweep across the Middle East and eventually the globe.
And that is why it is so dangerous if they were to have a nuclear weapon.
You know, we have enough problems with North Korea having a nuclear weapon, and they're a hermit kingdom that largely wants to say insular.
If you were going to have essentially a group of Shia jihadists that would use a nuclear weapon to try to dominate the Sunni nations in their sphere, Israel, and then eventually the entire U.S., because that's what God wants them to do, you can realize how dangerous that would be for the world.
This is a group of individuals who have already killed over 2,000 Americans and multiple terrorist attacks, whether it be in Beirut, Khobar Towers, or the up to 1,000 Americans that I saw or was there when many of them were killed in Iraq from Iranian proxy groups and some of which I dealt with firsthand.
So I think the caller is right that there is a real religious element here, and that's what makes it more dangerous.
A.D. from Louisville, Kentucky, a Democrat.
Yes, Representative.
Good morning to everybody.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I oppose this war greatly because of the financial part, also the human element of it as well.
Even though this administration is asking for more money for this war.
What about when the war is over?
It's going to continue to cost us more money.
Congressman, do you have a response to that, particularly about the $200 billion number that we know has been reported that the Pentagon would like to ask Congress for, that you've said that you would vote for?
Well, it's a significant factor.
Obviously, Congress has to worry about the cost of things.
You know, we have to bear in mind that this year the federal government will spend $7 trillion on the back of $5 trillion in revenue.
And the major majority of those expenses are not driven by this war.
They're driven by social programs and expansive government programs.
So we do have an unsustainable trajectory of spending in this country.
We made some real progress in the One Big Beautiful bill with Republican leadership and for the first time in 30 years reforming some of the entitlement programs with putting things like work requirements on welfare and disincentivizing states for putting illegal immigrants on programs like Medicaid.
But there's a lot more work to do.
But in terms of the spending moving forward, you know, there is a real paradigm shift in how wars are fought that we're seeing play out in Ukraine and in Russia.
And while this is costly, we are also learning things through this operation and modernizing our defensive forces.
And some of this stuff needed to be done in any event.
And remember, in our U.S. Constitution, it tells Congress to do a few things.
It doesn't say Congress is supposed to run a social welfare program for all the states, but it does say specifically in our U.S. Constitution that every member has sworn an oath to protect is to provide for the common defense of the United States.
And that's the first goal and the first responsibility of Congress.
And I expect that when it comes time for an appropriation, we'll do that.
Because if we don't fund a capable military, and again, we're facing a more dangerous situation globally than probably any time since the start of the Cold War with the militant Russia, rising China, persistent threats of Islamic terrorism, we have to have a capable military, and we're going to do that, I think, in this upcoming budget.
I mean, in that $200 billion supplemental budget, would you require it for your vote to have spending offsets or would you be comfortable with that being effectively deficit spending?
Ideally, it would go through spending offsets.
And if it goes to the reconciliation process, it would as well.
But remember, Congress was able to find $150 billion to fund the war in Ukraine.
So I think we'll be able to find $200 billion to rearm ourselves.
And if we don't, it would make America much, much less safe and less secure.
And again, some of these weapon systems that have to be developed are more modern because of the changes with artificial intelligence and drone warfare.
And, you know, look, ideally, no one would have to spend money on military, but that's not the world we live in.
We live in a very dangerous world.
And if we don't modernize our military, then we risk going the way of the European states where they've been hollowed out with expensive social welfare programs and incapable militaries.
Essentially, they can't defend themselves.
I'm certainly not going to allow that to happen.
President Trump's not going to allow that to happen.
And Republicans aren't going to allow that to happen because the American people don't want that to happen.
John Dee from Oklahoma City, a Democrat.
Good morning.
Yeah, I was just wondering how we can give $40 billion to Argentina, but we can't keep Americans paid.
Seems like the Republicans, all they do is talk about funding things, but they never get it done.
What happened to America first?
Congressman?
Well, I think we've had tremendous success in this year of Congress.
We passed the largest tax reduction in American history.
Things like no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime.
One of my favorite bills that we've done under Republican leadership is we're providing $1,000 to every new child born in America through Trump accounts, which essentially work like a Roth IRA for somebody at birth and will get more people into long-term savings.
We also provided assistance in education and these $1,700 essentially voucher programs across the country.
So we certainly have done a lot to help the working people of America.
But ultimately, you know, we're a country of entrepreneurship and a capitalist system.
And what we need to do from government is create the system where small business and entrepreneurs can thrive.
That's the American dream that we need to protect.
And so, yeah, you can always look to your member of Congress or government to do something when it comes to providing funding for a program.
But the genius of America is to provide the environment where individual freedom can thrive, including in the job market.
And so I think we've struck a right balance here in Congress as Republicans, both providing the lowest taxes and low regulation, but also incentivizing the American people to put their hard work forward.
Miles from Texas, a Democrat.
Good morning, Miles.
Good morning.
Yes, sir.
You're a really good cheerleader from MAGA.
Hey, I was wondering: do you think the war possibly could have anything to do with the Epstein files?
Because successfully getting rid of the interest in those things is pretty important.
And by the way, did you see the unredacted Epstein files personally?
And also, do you know what blowback is, sir?
Congressman, any response to the first two questions?
Sure.
I don't think you have to answer the third one.
Sure.
Well, you know, ever since coming to Congress, I've supported the full release of the Epstein files, joined Congress in voting for that.
And the administration continues apace there.
You know, I think, quite frankly, with some of the Epstein stuff, no matter what is released, there are people that are engaged in conspiracies.
They're not going to be satisfied with what comes out.
But I would like it all out there as much as can be had on the Epstein issue.
I continue to have questions on Epstein.
Why was he given a sweetheart plea deal when he was first captured?
And we continue to learn more, but I don't believe that what's going on in the Middle East has anything to do at all with the Epstein files.
Have you been able to see any of the redacted files, Congressman?
I have not.
And do you believe that Pam Bondi and other DOGA officials should do a public hearing about the Epstein files, as I know some Democrats and some Republicans have called on them to do?
Well, we've had Attorney General Bondi in front of the Judiciary Committee for an oversight hearing, and they've released the files as required to do by Congress and law.
So potentially there could be a hearing on that.
I probably wouldn't be the best person to ask on that.
But I think the American people are getting transparency on this issue and that the transfer they deserve.
I think, again, there is some conspiracy theory and some folks that will just never be satisfied what is put out.
And so it should all be out there.
I've always supported that and again have questions and still like to know why Epstein was given such a sweetheart deal and understand a little bit more about Epstein's finances.
But as far as I understand and Congress understands, the files have been released as required by law.
Oversight Hearing Transparency00:01:10
Right.
And I think Pam Bondi was subpoenaed over by the House committee.
It's unclear whether or not she's going to have to sit for a deposition.
All right, Robert from Connecticut, you're our last caller, and I need you to ask your question in about 10 seconds.
Yes, Congressman, how can you give money to the Pentagon when they have one four to five audits?
Thank you.
Did you get that, Congressman?
Yeah, I think every government program needs to be looked at with diligence and reviewed with inspector generals.
You know, you look at the amount of money that has been wasted in welfare fraud in Minnesota, or I think what we're seeing in my home state of Washington State, there's a lot of concern about stewarding American taxpayer dollars, and certainly the Pentagon is not immune from those concerns.
We need to continue to have Roanoke oversight and responsibility, but I think American people have a lot of confidence in our military, and they need a military that is capable, that can defend us, and that's going to require a new environment.
The doors of the House have opened, so I've got to cut you off there.
Thank you so much, Congressman Michael Vaughan Gautner.