President Trump's 31-day military campaign in Iran, potentially targeting Karg Island and uranium, clashes with a record 44-day government shutdown leaving DHS employees unpaid. While viewers debate troop deployment risks and the war's economic motives against BRICS, the 2025 Freedom in the World report reveals a historic 20-year global decline in liberty, with U.S. scores dropping to 81 due to eroded personal expression and due process. This convergence of escalating conflict, fiscal paralysis, and shrinking democratic freedoms underscores a precarious geopolitical landscape where executive power expands as institutional checks weaken worldwide. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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bob cusack
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reuters04:17
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Cost of Military Power00:14:09
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Campaign 2026 and the battle over ICE reforms and DHS funding.
And then Bloomberg White House reporter Jeff Mason previews the week ahead at the White House and the latest on the Trump administration's actions in Iran.
Also, Yana Ganahovskaya discusses the Freedom House's annual research report, citing the decline in global freedom in 2025.
Today is Monday, March 30th on Washington Journal.
Strikes continued overnight in Iran as they targeted critical infrastructure near Tehran.
President Trump continues to speak optimistically about a potential deal to end the war between the U.S. and Iran last night.
But the parties have still struggled to begin the next phase of negotiations.
The joint U.S. and Israeli military campaign against Iran enters its 31st day.
So we want to know from you: do you support or oppose the use of ground troops in Iran?
Here's how you join the conversation.
Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000.
Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001.
Independents, your line is 202-748-8002.
You can also reach us by text message.
That number is 202-748-8003.
Include your first name, city, and state.
And you can also post on Facebook.
Our website is facebook.com forward slash C-SPAN or on X with the handle at C-SPANWJ.
We start this morning with Iran.
More U.S. military arrive in the Middle East as President Trump expresses optimism for diplomacy, telling reporters aboard Air Force One last night when he returned to Washington, D.C., that there is a potential for a deal and it could come soon, of course, with some of his normal caveats.
We're doing extremely well in that negotiation, but you never know with Iran because we negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up.
Whether it's the B-2 bombers or just terminating as an example the Iran nuclear deal done by Barack Hussein Obama, probably the worst deal we've ever done as a country, one of the dumbest deals we've ever done.
But I terminated it unfortunately.
Otherwise, right now they'd have a nuclear weapon.
Then we did the attack with the B-2 bombers and we stopped them from having nuclear.
And now we had to blow them up again.
And we will probably, I think we'll make a deal with them.
That was President Trump on the prospects of a peace deal with Iran and the U.S.
He says that that could come sometime soon.
Now, as he was talking to reporters aboard Air Force One, the Financial Times published this article, and the headline here is: Donald Trump says the U.S. could take the oil in Iran.
U.S. President tells the FT that he's considering seizing strategic Karg Island even as negotiations continue.
If you just scroll down a little bit, he said Donald Trump says he wants to take the oil in Iran and could seize the export hub of Karg Island as the U.S. sends thousands of troops to the Middle East.
The president told the Financial Times in an interview on Sunday that his preference would be to take the oil comparing the potential move to Venezuela, where the U.S. intends to control the oil industry indefinitely following its capture of strongman leader Nicolas Maduro in January.
The president's comments come as the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran has thrust the Middle East into crisis and sent the price of oil surging by more than 50% in a month.
Bent crude oil rose above $116 a barrel on Monday morning in Asia near its highest level of conflict began.
Trump said, quote, to be honest with you, my favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran, but some stupid people back in the U.S. say, quote, why are you doing that?
But they're stupid people.
Now that comes as overnight, the Wall Street Journal published an article which says that the president is weighing, quote, a military operation to extract 1,000 pounds of uranium from Iran, according to U.S. officials.
The headline here is Trump weighs military option to extract Iran's uranium.
Now, if you scroll down just a little bit, it says that he's weighing that military option.
It says Trump hasn't made a decision on whether to give the order, the officials said, adding that he is considering the danger to U.S. troops.
But the president remains generally open to the idea, according to the officials, because it could help accomplish the central goal of preventing Iran from ever making a nuclear weapon.
The president has also encouraged his advisors to press Iran to agree to surrender the material as a condition for ending the war, according to a person familiar with Trump's thinking.
Trump has been clear in conversations with political allies that the Iranians can't keep the material, and he has discussed seizing it by force if Iran won't give up at the negotiating table.
Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt have acted as intermediaries between the U.S. and Iran, but Washington and Tehran haven't yet engaged in direct negotiations to end the war.
A quote from Caroline Lovitt here says, It's a job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the commander-in-chief maximum optionality.
It does not mean the president has made a decision.
The Pentagon didn't comment, and a spokesperson for the U.S. Central Command declined to comment.
So let's turn to some phone calls.
Robert from Massachusetts, a Democrat.
You are first.
Good morning, Robert.
unidentified
Good morning, Abraham Worcester.
I know you might not be able to pronounce Wiston, Massachusetts.
I want to start out first.
When everybody talks about the 47th war in Israel, it's been 47 years since Palestine had lost their land to the Jews.
The Jews, the American Jews, and the Jews in Israel, they got so much money.
Well, we got a war going on right now.
When Donald Trump came out, when he first became cut, he said, Jews would not replace us.
All right, let's turn now to James Lankford, a Republican, who was asked yesterday on Meet the Press, NBC's Sunday morning program, whether or not the Congress would have to approve if the president made the decision to send troops into Iran.
Let me ask you bluntly, Senator: do you believe President Trump would need congressional approval if he, in fact, does want to put U.S. boots on the ground in Iran?
If we have a long-standing war that's happening, go back again to what happened in Iraq or in Afghanistan.
Yes.
If this is to protect Americans and to be able to make sure that we're in there for a season and we're stopping and getting out, that's very, very different.
So again, this is all contingent.
It's an interesting question to be able to talk about on the political side, but really the focus needs to be on how do we make them stop attacking us.
That's the main focus.
The president has the authority to be able to prevent someone from attacking us.
That is what he's doing right now.
If we're going to have a long-standing occupation, that's a very different issue.
But I don't think that's even what President Trump is even talking about.
We're not trying to be able to go in and to be able to occupy the country or to be able to have a long-standing long-term war.
No one wants to see that.
So I'm looking forward to us getting this mission complete and getting out of there.
So that was Oklahoma Senator James Lankford talking about whether or not President Trump would have to go to Congress to get approval to send in ground troops.
One article that published over the weekend from the Washington Post, the headline here is, The Pentagon prepares for weeks of ground operations in Iran.
If President Trump approves a plan, such an effort would mark a new phase of the war that could significantly, that could be significantly more dangerous to U.S. troops than the first four weeks.
If you just scroll with me, here it says, the Pentagon is preparing for weeks of ground operations as thousands of American soldiers and Marines arrive in the Middle East for what could become a dangerous new phase of the war should President Donald Trump choose to escalate.
Any potential ground operation would fall short of a full-scale invasion and could instead involve raids by a mixture of special operations forces and conventional infantry groups, said the officials.
All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss highly sensitive military plans that have been in development for weeks.
Such a mission could expose U.S. personnel to an array of threats, including Iranian drones, missiles, ground fire, and improvised explosives.
It's unclear Saturday whether Trump would approve all, some or none of the Pentagon's plans.
Doug from Ohio, an independent.
Good morning, Doug.
unidentified
Good morning.
I got to say, I am totally against this war all the way.
The only reason we went to war is to cover up the Epstein files, of course.
And Trump's a greedy man.
He wants the money.
I'm just wondering, is he a protected pedophile or is he a pedophile protector?
But the war is just stupid.
It's going to cost American lives.
And it's all because of the rich man's greed.
You know, everybody, the rich man's making money on this war, and the poor guys are going to go suffer.
Reminds me of Vietnam, reminds me of Afghanistan.
It reminds me of all the sickening wars we've been in lately.
The best thing to do is get that man out of office, please, people.
Remember, are you right?
And we're American citizens, and we don't need that man as president anymore.
So our question is: do you support or oppose the use of ground troops in Iran?
unidentified
I absolutely oppose the use of any troops.
I oppose the bases that the Americans have installed over the years to set up this war.
I think that the American public does not understand that this war has been going on for years, and we're just at the point of maximum escalation.
I don't think that the American people are being told the truth about the war.
We see practically nothing.
We talk about a few soldiers that got killed or were injured or maimed, but what about all the people that are there that are being destroyed by American bombs that are in the Middle East?
As the last president of the United States, which Donald Trump is, and I want to memorialize this, because this is what was said by the Honorable Minister Louis Florica, that this is in fact the last and final third world war.
So we must take proper actions to prepare ourselves for what comes next after this.
This country is operating in the way that it started, might makes right.
And This is why we're in this predicament that we're in now because, you know, the president and a lot of American citizens believe that if we have the power and the willingness to use the power against people that are not strong enough to fight against us, then we should be able to take it.
And it's their fault because they're not strong enough to fight against us.
We're going into countries taking presidents, taking oil, taking, taking, taking.
That's how we took this country.
We came here.
They came here.
They took the land.
They took people.
This is how this country operates.
Unless we recognize that empires fall.
And eventually we're going to get what we're doing to other people, and we're not going to like it.
We need to fix the way we operate.
Unless when we get the bully pushback on us, we're not going to appreciate people taking what we gain.
And Trump, he claims that we're pumping oil over here like crazy.
We've got so much, you know, that we have the most, the most, the biggest country here that pumps the most oil.
Then why aren't we just pumping our oil and using it ourselves instead of shipping it all over the world and stuff, just exporting it and stuff.
And as for this war, it's horrible.
And I've heard talk that he was thinking of reinvoking the draft, which I think is a horrible thing.
And if he does, the first two that should go is his two oldest sons, which you'll never see happen because he'll pay off somebody just like daddy pay it off to keep him out of the Vietnam War and stuff.
Now, I don't believe that the President has advocated for restarting the draft, but there have been other allies who have said that.
And earlier in March, I believe Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary, declined to rule out starting a draft saying basically that she's not going to make red lines for the president.
Willie from Texas, a Republican.
Good morning, Willie.
unidentified
Good morning.
Good morning.
I'm absolutely for getting ground forces on the troops on the ground.
Again, when you take a look at what we're trying to do here, we've already diminished all of Iran's capabilities.
The only thing that we need to do now is to kind of put a band-aid, but just put some ground troops on the ground to block and protect all of the oil that we have down there in Carg Island and other islands like it.
What we have here are some elements that can get in there and ensure that it's going to be when and if it is going to be right for the Iranian people to come out and start getting rid of the Republican guards and the rest of those folks.
And they can do that with their own people.
What we're trying to do is to ensure that there's going to be something left of Iran, and our troops on the ground will be able to do that.
The Marines, the 82nd Airborne, I would like to have some tanks in there, but nonetheless, I think that, yeah, absolutely, we ought to have them in there, and then we can continue on with the mission.
Once the mission is complete, Ms. Jasmine, once the mission is complete, we will bring all those folks back home.
All right, Willie from Texas, they're a Republican.
Just because he mentioned taking the oil and putting boots on the ground there, I turned to a Guardian article.
The headline is, How could U.S. forcibly reopen Strait of Hormuz and what are the risks?
If you bear with me while I scroll just a little bit, it says, Iran's chokehold on the strait through which a fifth of the world's oil trade normally passes gives Tehran leverage that Trump understands, sending oil prices rocketing more than $100 a barrel.
The president has said he is prepared to give diplomacy a chance, though bombing Iran continues.
But he also said on Sunday that he wanted to, quote, take the oil.
Trump has two military options to open the strait: seizing territory or deploying a massive naval presence in the waterway.
Even the limited ground incursion being considered risk the kind of body count that could sink a presidency, experts say for Iran, boots on the ground would be a red flag.
Emma Salisbury, a senior fellow in the national security program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said she believed Trump would not be able to resist escalating the conflict by capturing one of Iranian islands in the Gulf.
And of course, he's talking about Carg Island there.
Our question this morning is: do you support or oppose the use of ground troops?
unidentified
I would be willing to pay $20 a gallon for gasoline for our car if those ground troops and if Trump and the United States military would make sure that my children and my grandchildren and myself are not incinerated by these crazy people over there.
And they are crazy, as you well have seen.
They strike out, they'll kill anybody in their beds, they'll kill babies and everything else.
And people just have to retaliate back with a similar thing.
And we don't want to do that.
Just like Israel didn't want to have to go into Gaza and do what they did.
But in order to keep these crazy people squelched, you've got to do some type of measures because you know darn anybody knows darn good well that they're going to use that nuclear material to hold their other country's neighbors hostage as well as us in the world.
And as long as they think they're crazy, then that's what will happen.
We'll all just submit to what they want and what they do.
All right, that was Randy from Kentucky, a Republican.
Daryl from South Carolina, Democrat.
Good morning, Darrell.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm opposed to this war because this war is going to be terrible for us because if we put troops on the ground, it's not going to be a regular army fighting a regular army.
These people in Iran, they hit and run.
They'll send missiles, they'll send drones, they'll hit our forces, and we have a body bag coming back to America.
I want to take a moment to make a direct call to President Trump and Congressional Republicans saying we cannot have American troops on the ground in Iran.
This is going to be such a risky operation.
And for what purpose?
I mean, everything I see with Karg Island, it's just about adding leverage for diplomacy.
When we see about potential efforts to open up the Strait of Hormuz, again, this is not an end to this war.
This is something that will only prolong it and increase the risk at a time that we've seen already so many service members put at harm's way and this administration not giving them everything that they need.
Well, this is something that has been looked at time and time again.
An operation of that magnitude would likely take days, if not weeks, to be able to do.
So what are you going to do?
Have U.S. service members, where are they going to bunker down?
Where are they going to get provisions?
The amount of supply it needed.
And just keep in mind, Jake, that over half of American service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan were killed by IEDs, often at the hands of Iranian-backed militia groups.
It wasn't just the ballistic missiles that was the threat.
So putting them in that kind of way is so risky.
And again, at what cost?
And certainly without Congress's approval, and by proxy, what that means is it would be without the American people's approval.
And I just want to say there's a reason why Donald Trump is not coming before the American people for approval for this war.
It's because he knows what the American people feel, which is that they don't want this, that they want a government that is focused on them lowering costs.
And not only is he not lowering our costs, he's increasing it.
And now it's the American people that are paying for this Iran war, $200 billion that they want, instead of helping us lower health care costs, helping us lower costs, certainly groceries, and now our gas prices are through the roof.
And so the American people clearly don't want this.
So that was California Democratic Senator Andy Kim on CNN yesterday morning talking about the president's potential use of troops on the ground in Iran.
John from Mount Laurel, New Jersey, an independent.
Good morning, John.
Our question this morning is, do you support or oppose the use of ground troops in Iran?
unidentified
Hey, Jasmine.
Yeah, I'm definitely opposed to sending in troops.
It's just a slippery slope.
And once you get into war, it's hard to get out.
I mean, what happens when there's a dramatic escalation and dozens of U.S. service members die?
How do we expect to hold an island when Iran is a massive country?
It's three times larger than Iraq, and drones can be sent from all over the country to hit our troops.
It's just an excuse to enter the mainland.
I mean, Iranians may not want their regime, but they don't want America and definitely don't want Israel and their country either.
Folks that are calling in, supporting this war, just really deluding themselves.
It's going to be Iraq 2.0 and all the folks in Iran and the military, the IRGC, et cetera.
They're all way more.
I mean, if you think about Iraq, the Baathist regime, they were kind of let go and then all of them became the commanders of ISIS or al-Qaeda.
It's the same thing in Iran.
It'll just be worse because they're more well-trained and more well-funded and more well-resourced.
Resourced.
And I just want to say all these folks calling in, the big tough military guys in support of war, in support of sending our troops off to die.
I mean, look at your leader, Donald Trump, and the way that he treats PO, the way he treats the memory of POWs, of service members in general, Robert Mueller and John McCain, and how he spit all over the graves of Robert Mueller and John McCain and called them losers for being American war heroes.
How do you all think that Donald Trump's going to treat our service members?
They're pretty much not telling everybody how many people are getting injured already in this war.
There's going to be no reports about the dead soldiers that come back in coffins.
And it's just a disgrace how you all can support this man who does not support our troops and really is just wrecking our country.
Now we have some messages from text message and online about folks responding to our question of do you support or oppose the use of Iran troops or ground troops in Iran, excuse me.
The first is from Richard, who says, I support the Middle East countries taking out the Iranian extremist regime.
We should work with our allies in the area, giving air support.
Another comment says, only if it's to secure the uranium and they plan on leaving after that.
From Scott, non-disclosed, he says, oppose unless we want to fight another Afghanistan where we lose blood and treasure and get nothing for our effort.
In the end, the key is to arm and support the rebels within to take down the regime and assist them with intelligence and air support.
Steve Hendrick says, ask me when it's not a hypothetical question.
I have a feeling U.S. involvement is going to end pretty soon.
And Gerald Ernest says, we need to do whatever necessary for our great president to bring peace to our country.
Elizabeth from Maryland, an independent.
You're next.
Good morning, Elizabeth.
unidentified
Good morning.
Now, I am totally opposed to it, to any war.
War is never the answer.
I am a child of war.
The Russians came when I was a little girl to East Prussia, where I was born, and we fled and we hid.
And the fear, nobody ever talks about the children that are left and are also killed.
Think about how many children are going to be killed.
How many children are going to be affected with their fathers are killed or injured.
We don't even have to talk about killing.
We have to talk about injuries, how these men come back damaged, how many came damaged emotionally from Afghanistan, from any war.
So why does this president, who never did anything for anyone, for this country, he is going to go to war?
He doesn't even probably know what war is all about.
He has never been in it.
So why do we want to cause more damage?
Get out of Iran.
Leave Iran alone.
Why doesn't Saudi Arabia fight that war or Egypt go and fight them?
Why do we?
Why do we?
This country needs to be built stronger, not weaker.
And that will not do anything for us, and certainly not for the people that are being killed and losing a loved one, either in this country or in any country.
Just because we've had two people now mention the amount of injuries from the Wall Street Journal on March 27th, it says more than 300 U.S. troops have been injured in Iran's war.
CENTCOM says, after four weeks of war with Iran, 13 American service members have died and 303 have been wounded in action, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for American military in the Middle East.
Of those wounded, 273, or about 90%, have returned to duty.
10 have been seriously wounded.
More from Georgia calling in on the former military line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
Yeah, I'm a retired military.
I'm a disabled vet from Vietnam.
And I don't think what most folks are seeing is the casualty after that.
And all these people that are saying those folks over there is crazy.
I want to remind them of Himeshima and not going to say in Japan.
We dropped two atomic bombs.
All this talked about everybody crazy to drop a bomb on you.
Ain't no one country dropped a bomb like that.
That's us.
We don't need no war in our ground.
Cool.
I'm not worn a ground or fight since World War II.
Now, yesterday on Fox News, top Democrat of the Armed Services Committee Adam Smith was arguing that the U.S. military campaign to this date has not been effective, something that he said formally on our program.
Well, I mean, let's be honest, it's a lot of troops.
It's not, as we've been saying, you know, when we think of boots on the ground, sometimes people think that's a large ground invasion, kind of like what we saw in Iraq in 2003.
That's, you know, maybe 150 up to 200,000 troops.
This number is more for smaller targeted operations.
And the type of forces that they are, the 82nd Airborne Marines, this is for limited incursions, such as, you know, the president has been talking about taking Karg Island to open up the Strait of Hormuz or possibly going after the nuclear, the enriched uranium for the nuclear program.
So this isn't what they call a ground invasion force, but still, it's a lot of forces.
And no matter how you look at it, it is, you know, you're putting troops in harm's way.
And military experts say that there's no doubt that there will be casualties.
And this is very dangerous for U.S. servicemen.
So whether you agree with President Trump's decision or not, it is dangerous for U.S. forces.
Now, the White House's public position has been that they are engaged in diplomacy and in negotiations.
The president says direct, indirect.
Other folks say they're just indirect conversations.
Pakistan is becoming a leader in some of these negotiations between Iran, who they have good relationships with, and the U.S. Over the weekend, the foreign minister says that Islamabad could host talks between the U.S. and Iran.
This is whether it's Pakistan or whether it's Turkey, Qatar.
There are a lot of intermediaries talking to the Iranians, talking to the U.S., trying to bridge the differences.
Usually, and when you look at negotiations with Iran over the years, you don't sit down till you feel like the gaps are narrow enough that you're going to make progress sitting down talking to one another.
When you look at these proposals, the U.S. sent that 15-point plan, and the Iranians then came back with their five-point plan.
President Trump's plan was for conditional surrender.
Give it all up, give it all up your bad activities, no nuclear weapons, don't do anything, open up the strait.
And the Iranians are saying, pay us for what you did, don't ever hit us again, give us control of the Strait of Hormuz, and make sure that Israel doesn't hit us again.
So you can see how far apart the two sides are.
And so that's why I don't, people that I talk to say they're so far apart right now that they think that this will go on for a lot longer.
But, you know, you also have to remember that the Iranians are saying, well, this is just the pretext for a ground invasion.
You're bringing all these troops to the region.
And remember what happened last June.
Remember what happened just a month ago.
The U.S. and Iran were having these direct talks sitting at the table when the bombs started flying.
So there's a lot of skepticism on the Iranians' part, yet they are still engaging in negotiations while both sides are, you know, President Trump is sending a lot of troops to the region and the Iranians are obviously getting ready for possible ground troops in some way.
Is that the Speaker of Iran's parliament basically accused President Trump and his administration of fronting diplomacy while they're actually, quote, secretly planning a ground invasion.
I mean, I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about this deficit of trust.
How difficult is it to actually have negotiations when one side clearly does not trust the other?
And has the U.S. made the case of why this time with Iran is different?
Well, Ronald Reagan used to say, trust but verify.
So when two enemies are sitting down eventually to talk, obviously there's no trust.
But, you know, there's, as everybody has been saying, that the U.S. and Iran technically have been at war in some, whether it's a Cold War or for decades.
And so there is no trust.
The hope, and nations don't necessarily negotiate based on trust.
They negotiate based on their interests and whether each side thinks that they have leverage.
Now, the U.S. thinks it has all of this leverage because they did hit, Jasmine, about 13,000 targets already, and they have significantly weakened Iran's weapons program, the missile program, the launchers, the interceptors, all of that.
But the Iranians feel they have leverage because they are controlling the Strait of Hormuz.
They're making pain across the whole region and causing oil prices to spike.
And so each side feels that they have leverage.
And it looks like both sides are trying to use as much leverage to see what they can get out of those talks.
I think because the sides are so far apart, it's still a ways away before they can come to an agreement.
But that doesn't mean that each side, neither side wants this war to continue.
Speaking of pain, the Iranian regime says that if the U.S. were to send in ground troops, that they are prepared to attack American and Israeli universities in the region.
Obviously, there's been this constant concern of a wider regional war if the U.S. did in fact strike, and now, of course, they have.
What's the concern here?
And is there a concern for the Pentagon that Iran could still do this despite the fact that they have decimated a large part of, say, their naval ships, or they've done those 13,000 strikes?
They've gone after their missiles, and so you see the Iranians using less missiles.
But what are they doing while they're using less missiles?
They're using all these drones.
So while a missile costs over a million dollars, drones could cost much less.
And so they're now what they call is asymmetrical warfare.
So while the U.S. and the Israelis are using bombs and strikes, the Iranians are being much more, I don't want to use the word innovative because that sounds positive, but they're using what they call asymmetrical, cheaper, low-tech versions.
And they're still making, they're still getting a lot of bang for their buck, if you will.
And so another thing that Iran does is it uses terrorist attacks.
We've seen over the years the Iranians have launched terrorist attacks, for instance, against an Israeli bus of tourists in Bulgaria.
So the concern is not just that Iran is going after nation, the U.S. interests and allies in the region.
Could they launch terrorist attacks?
There are sleeper cells of Iranian terrorists throughout the world.
You know, military and intelligence analysts believe.
So it's not just about the threat to U.S. forces in the region.
It's a threat to about Americans in the region.
And you have to be concerned about Americans here at home.
But talking about Iran and terrorism, obviously the U.S. says that they are one of the biggest sponsors of terrorism, terrorism-aligned groups.
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels are now joining in the fight, adding in that dynamic.
What threat do they pose in this already kind of complicated theater where you have obviously a ground invasion in Lebanon from Israel and the theater in actually Iran?
Yeah, the Houthis are interesting because they really got pummeled after October 7th.
So the Israelis see this as a continuation of October 7th.
They started going after the Iranian proxies, Hamas and Gaza, Hezbollah and Lebanon, and you see what they're doing in Lebanon, a similar attacks to the Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
And they also went after the Houthis that were in the Red Sea attacking ships, attacking Israeli interests.
So the U.S. and Israel really went after the Houthis at the time.
So when you see right now, this is really the first start of the Houthis getting involved.
And the question is, did the Iranians kind of save them for later while after a lot of these targets, as you said, were hit and they needed more, because the proxies are much weaker, Hezbollah is much weaker.
The Houthis are now getting involved.
And they're also, they have other areas of the Gulf, like this other strait in the Red Sea, Babel Mundab Strait, that this is the Saudis, if you will, back door to get some of that oil out.
If they go after that, then you're really choking off all oil getting out of the region.
And so now the Houthis, this could be another front, not just for Israel, Israel's fighting on several fronts, but for the United States to go after the Houthis as well.
Don't forget, President Trump tried these negotiations with Russia.
They weren't fruitful.
I think President Trump has gone back and forth between whether he trusts Vladimir Putin, whether he doesn't trust Vladimir Putin, because Vladimir Putin is not doing anything to end this war with Ukraine.
Intelligence analysts have said, yes, Russia is supplying these, they're supplying intelligence targets.
You see that these weapons from Russia are going back and forth between Iran and Russia in the Ukraine war.
Now they're sending them back to Iran for this war.
And it really complicates it.
And the interesting thing, you know, President Trump is not talking about it, and the administration isn't talking about it publicly, but privately they acknowledge that Russia and Iran, everyone knows that they're very close, but that they are supporting Iran's attacks against the United States.
And that severely complicates relations with Russia.
And it also, you saw that President Trump released some of the oil, allowed Russian oil to be sold on the market to ease the oil prices.
That helps Russia in its war against Ukraine because it gives Russia billions of dollars.
I think the Ukrainians are interesting because they have been the leader in this drone technology.
So one of the reasons you see President Zelensky more getting involved in this war is he's gone to the region, he's offered assistance to U.S. allies in the region for some of this drone technology.
And the Ukrainians do have very good intelligence.
So I think I'm looking to see how the U.S. deals with Russia on this going forward.
Because on one hand, they want to end the war in Ukraine.
They don't want Russia supporting Iran, but they also need some of that oil to ease the market.
So it's really a complex situation for the U.S. dealing with all these different theaters.
One is before we put ground troops in there, we ought to ask all good people of Iran to leave the country and then just drop about 30 mega bombs on the thing and just flatten the whole thing and then go in with our troops and they would be safe.
The second point I'd like to make is that the people that are always crying about somebody going to die of our troops in the country, they never compare it to the 70 million babies that the Democrats have killed in this country in our abortion clinics.
Longest Government Shutdown00:03:26
unidentified
That's where the death loss really is in our country.
And that would solve Social Security problems if we hadn't killed all our babies and they would be working and producing and we'd have all our great-great-grandchildren to take care of us.
And the third thing is the religion that these people hold in the country of Iran is to bring everybody in submission.
And you can see that even in their practical life, how they take women and if they don't wear their headdress or they speak up or anything like that, they take them and beat them so bad their bodies are almost like hamburger.
So we can't expect any mercy from them.
They're set.
They believe that they have the right to lie to anybody.
All right, Mark, let me actually turn to something else that we're tracking this morning, of course, is the partial government shutdown that continues because they did not pass any resolution over the weekend before senators went on recess.
The headline from NBC here is DHS funding lapse is now the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
The partial shutdown, the rest of the federal government is being funded, excuse me, hit a record on the 44th day, Sunday.
If you just scroll down a little bit, it says an ongoing funding lapse at the Department of Homeland Security cross into new territory Sunday when it became the longest partial government shutdown in history.
Now, on its 44th day, it breaks previous record when the department and the rest of the federal government went without funding from October until mid-November.
This time around the rest of the federal agencies and departments are funded.
Negotiations to reopen DHS were dealt a major setback Friday after House Republicans voted to pass a short-term funding bill that has no viable path in the Senate.
That came hours after the Senate passed a bipartisan bill to fund all of DHS except immigration and customs enforcement and customs and border protection.
House GOP leadership rejected the bill with Speaker Mike Johnson calling it a joke.
Now, yesterday, back on Meet the Press, Republican Senator James Lankford spoke about the House and Senate Republicans not being on the same page when it comes to DHS funding.
It seems like Republicans are not on the same page here, but let me ask you big picture because you're a member of both the Homeland Security and Intelligence Committees.
Federal officials have been warning about the war with Iran creating a heightened threat environment in this country.
Republicans are in charge of all three branches of government.
Given that and the strain on airport security caused by this shutdown, is air travel and airport security safe right now?
That was Senator Lankford talking about the shutdown.
Now, of course, both the Senate and the House have gone on a two-week recess.
There is no expectation at the moment that they would come back to vote to reopen the government.
Helen from Long Beach, California, a Republican.
Good morning, Helen.
It's open forum.
You can talk about whatever you'd like.
unidentified
Oh, morning.
Yeah, I'm going to piggyback on your last speaker about the troops, 50,000 being moved into Iran.
And why I was hearing your speaker say, she was reflecting a lot of accuracy.
My question is: well, not my question, but my thought is on this issue: is Trump wants to deal with China, especially on the terrorists.
And he's also wanting to break this new, it's called the New Development Bank.
And its primary members are Russia, China, Brazil, India.
And Iran was about to become a member of this bank, and it's thriving.
It's doing very well.
And it's working with second, third world countries to bring up their quality of life, parity in the economic world instead of the U.S. global dollar controlling it all.
Anyway, I think Trump's main reason for invading Iran Is to knock out Iran, which is a major ally of Russia and China and also North Korea.
And I think he's trying to do what he did in Venezuela, which was also a strong ally of China.
So I'm kind of going, going into it.
I might seem kind of circular in what I'm seeing, but this has to do with economics.
This has to do with Trump maintaining U.S. global dollar, his investments, U.S.-Israel investments.
But now, when she mentioned asymmetrical warfare, this is what I've been reading.
It's horizontal, asymmetrical.
It's what is happening: the Arab world, the Muslim world, may come to Iran's rescue, regardless of prior alliances with the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and so forth.
What does not look good for U.S.?
I keep going back to Vietnam, and we didn't win that war, and it was protracted, went nowhere, and caused many senseless deaths.
And I'm wondering if Trump is too arrogant to realize he's not going to walk into this region and knock it out like he did Venezuela.
So, anyway, New Development Bank, it was also known primarily, it was also known previously as BRICS, B-R-I-C-S Development Bank.
All right, Marilyn, let me stop you here so we can show the viewers about the No Kings rally, which you mentioned at the top of your comments.
Five takeaways from the No Kings rally as midterms heat up.
This is from the New York Times.
And you're going to bear with me because there's going to be a bit of scrolling here.
It says thousands of demonstrators against the Trump administration unfolded demonstrations against administration, unfolded across the country on Saturday, the third round in a nationwide series of loosely coordinated, quote, no kings rallies.
The day of protest, the first since October, came as the midterm election season takes place, and Democrats work to capitalize politically on an unpopular war with Iran.
Exactly a month earlier, President Trump ordered the first U.S. strikes against Iran, setting off a conflict that has sent gasoline prices soaring and rattled Republicans.
The war was a central animating force in the Saturday rallies, which were attended by roughly 8 million people, according to the No Kings organizers, though their estimates in some cities were higher than those of local public safety officials.
But the fighting in the Middle East was hardly the only issue on the mind of frustrated Democrats.
I'll just keep scrolling here.
Here are five takeaways.
The war seemed to galvanize younger voters.
I'm going to go quickly through these.
Trump's immigration crackdown remains a focus.
Just going to keep scrolling.
Dueling protests unfolded near Mar-a-Lago.
That's, of course, President Trump's estate in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Midterm candidates came out in force.
And lastly, Democrats found fresh fuel for their No Kings slogan.
So that's an article from the New York Times.
You can go and read that more closely if you would like.
In a digression concerning madness in A Tale of a Tub, 1704, Jonathan Swift says: The very same principle that influences a bully to break the windows of a whore who has jilted him naturally stirs up a great prince to raise mighty armies and to dream of nothing but sieges, battles, and victories.
Are you talking about anything specifically or just in general?
unidentified
Just in just everything.
I mean, you look at today's problems in today's world, and our politicians that have been there for 40 or 50 years just can't seem to get it done.
I mean, I understand we need younger people and all that, but we can't seem to get the younger people in.
At the same time, the old people don't want to go, and nothing gets done.
I mean, it's just like allowing the illegals and Biden allowing DeWalt to be open for four years, and then here comes Trump trying to close it all up.
And meanwhile, who takes care of all these people?
You know, we're supposed to have benefits as we get older, and our benefits are slowly leaving.
Just like our school systems all fall apart, our health care is all falling apart.
Why can't we blame the people that have been in there instead of somebody who's just been in there for four years and tries to work but can't get anything done because they don't want to embarrass their party or whatever the case may be?
You know, it's the politicians, it's not the people, it's the politicians.
Speaking of an impasse on DHS talks over the weekend, the president signed an executive action that would pay TSA agents.
I'm looking at a PBS News Hour article right now.
The headline says TSA pay may arrive, but airport delays could continue, and ICE agents may remain.
It says, even after President Donald Trump ordered emergency pay for Transportation Security Administration agents to ease long security lines, major U.S. airports on Sunday were still urging travelers to arrive hours early, and federal immigration officers brought in to help may not be leaving soon.
Trump's executive orders actually an executive action on Friday instructed the Department of Homeland Security to pay TSA officers immediately.
Though it was unclear how quickly travelers will see an impact, the move comes during a busy travel stretch with spring break underway and Passover and Easter approaching.
Yesterday, the president's White House, I mean, immigration borders are Tom Homan was on CNN talking about how long it would take for TSA agents to get those first checks now signed through that executive action under Trump.
I talked to Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen yesterday.
There is a plan to get these TSA agents paid, hopefully by tomorrow, Tuesday.
So yeah, it's good news because these TSA officers are struggling.
They can't feed their families or pay the rent.
Your heart goes out to them because they're sitting there right now working very hard and not being paid by members of Congress now on vacation getting paid.
Well, look, paying TSA agents doesn't pay the rest of the Department of Homeland Security.
You know, you got the Coast Guard, you got CISA, you got the Men and Women Secret Service, you got a lot of people working at the Department of Homeland Security that isn't getting paid.
And even though, you know, and we got the mission support under TSA, I mean, under ICE, right?
ICE officers, excuse me, they'll be getting paid, but how about the mission support people, the people that keep the lights on and you know, and do all the things that they have to do so ICE agents go out there and do their job.
So, you know, they just need to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
After all, we're talking about the Department of Homeland Security in a time we have a heightened threat, you know, posture right now in this country because of what's going on in the world.
This should be the last thing they're fighting overfunding for.
Yeah, last night on Air Force One, the president said Republicans in the Senate were being too soft and then went back to saying that they should pass the Save America Act.
Obviously, a shift in where he was just a week before there.
But I wonder, you know, we talked about the fact that it is Republicans who run the Senate floor.
It is Republicans who run the House floor.
Is there a political price to be paid for 40 days of this, just on the heels of the last record-breaking shutdown, which ended last year, last fall?
Yeah, well, it's not coming at a good time for Republicans.
Their poll numbers are good.
The president poll numbers are not good, especially with independents.
Three out of four independents in a recent poll disapprove of the president.
So this is looking like a tough election.
And because Republicans control Congress, I think they're going to get the majority of the blame.
That said, partisans are going to blame the other side.
There's a lot of finger pointing here going on.
And Democrats who have lost the prior shutdown battle.
And Senator Schumer took a lot of heat for how he handled the prior shutdown.
They're fairly united on this one, but at the same time, just people are suffering and people will continue to suffer, at least for the next couple of weeks.
Well, this is not a popular, whatever we can call it, military clash, war, whatever you want to call it.
It's not popular, partially because gas prices have gone up significantly since the start of this conflict, and there's no end in sight because the United States has really taken out a lot of things in Iran, their military capability.
However, what are we talking about mostly?
The Strait of Hormuz and how gas prices continue to rise.
And these talks that President Trump say they're yielding progress, but then Iran even saying they're not even happening.
So, what is going on here?
I do think that there's a sense that, and there are certain provisions of the War Powers Act that the administration has to follow, but by and large, the president dictates foreign policy, not Congress.
However, Republicans think that they want this conflict certainly by the time we get to May that this thing is at least scaled back significantly.
But in the interim, things could be intensifying, especially with the possibility of ground troops on Carg Island.
That would be a significant development in the war.
So, overall, though, the administration and John Thune, the examiner, we recently interviewed John Thune, and he said he pleaded for patience with the American voters who are frustrated with paying more at the pump, but said eventually that will come down.
And that's been the administration's line: this year, as it goes along, it's going to get better economically and with this conflict with Iran.
But right now, there's a lot of skepticism in polls, and that's why Democrats have been taking some red seats in a number of races across the country.
So, the momentum is with Democrats.
They don't really have an agenda.
It's not clear what their agenda would be if they took over the House and/or Senate.
But in midterms, you really don't need much of an agenda.
That's more for a presidential candidate year.
You just have to be the opposition party, and that's what Democrats are doing right now.
I think most people do not favor boots on the ground.
The president has indicated that, and the administration has said there would not be boots on the ground.
Other times, the president says he's not scared of boots on the ground.
Now, if you pull back, the big mission is to make sure Iran does not get a nuclear weapon.
Most people believe that should be the case.
And Republicans and others who support the war praise the president because all Democratic presidents and Republican presidents in recent decades have said Iran should not get a nuclear weapon.
However, the administration's messaging on the conflict has not been great.
And I think that they're going to have to do some more work if they are going to put boots on the ground in Carg Island or wherever, or potentially near the Strait of Hormuz to deal with that blockade that Iran is doing.
So a very complicated situation that's got to get, I think, clarified within the next month or so because of those War Powers Act provisions.
Certainly Trump has time, but time is running out.
Now on the politics of this, obviously you said that the administration's messaging hasn't been great.
Just over the last week or so, the president said that we've won the war, we're winding down the war, but he also says that, you know, he says that negotiations are going well.
I wonder, where do you evaluate each party's messaging on this?
Obviously, you said Jon Thun has tried to get Americans to be more patient.
Well, Democrats certainly are not supporting Iran.
They know that Iran has funded terrorism for the last 50 years.
Their proxies are all over the world, and that's why there's concern about sleeper cells, both in the United States.
And there was a report over the weekend about Canada.
Listen, I think Democrats, they want to have oversight.
They want more transparency.
Republicans say that in some briefings that are held by the principals, the main principals, Marco Rubio, Senator John Kennedy said as a Republican from Louisiana, he said those briefings are great, but when it's lower-level people, they're not getting a lot of information.
And Kennedy said he even stopped going to those.
So Democrats are very frustrated by that.
They don't believe the president when he says they're making some progress on talks with Iran.
They just don't believe him.
And so Democrats say we want transparency and we want to vote on funding this war and also approving it.
That said, Congress has not been in the business of passing war resolutions in recent years.
And Ted Cruz looks like I've heard he's been telling people he's going to run.
So watch for Ted Cruz, another run for president.
And then more recently, Rand Paul, who also ran in 2016, along with Marco Rubio in the primary that Trump won, he may run.
He said it's 50-50.
But look, if you look at Vance and Rubio, they do have a good relationship, but they are potential rivals here.
And Trump is certainly, he has not, at some point, he might endorse.
It's kind of early for that.
But Rubio, honestly, has made some significant ground in the Trump crowd.
Remember in 2016, he and Trump went at it during debates down the stretch of that primary.
It got very, very nasty.
But now Rubio and Trump have a good relationship.
And this poll shows to me that the MAGA crowd is accepting of Rubio.
Not all of it.
I was skeptical that he could win the MAGA crowd over because once you run against Trump and criticize him, whether you're Nikki Haley or John McCain, then the MAGA crowd doesn't like you.
But Rubio is back and he's a main contender.
So we'll see.
Now, we'll see if they both run.
Vance, I think, is very likely to run, but he's going to have company, that's for sure.
There are indications that airports are doing, are going to get a little bit better, but some government officials still within DHS are not going to get paid.
But will that move Congress?
That remains to be seen.
As far as the conflict in Iran, I mean, it's affecting global politics.
Iran has been bombing its neighbors.
It's affecting the economy, the global economy.
War is not good for that.
And overall, the energy sector has been upended.
And we're seeing, speaking of airlines, we're seeing if you're going away this summer, you know, if you're booking a flight, it's a lot more expensive than it was just six weeks ago.
Okay, because I just booked a flight and it was extremely expensive.
Carl from Naples, Florida, an independent.
Good morning, Carl.
unidentified
Hi, good morning.
Mr. Cusack, I have a question.
I recently heard at the CPAC Todd Blanche indicating that the DOJ would support ICE or some type of federal agents at the polling places.
And looking at the midterms, I just have one thing I want to preface this with.
I'm reading this from the U.S. 18594 code.
Whoever, being an officer of the ARMY OR NAVY or other person in the civil, military, or naval service of the United States orders, brings, keeps, or has under his authority or control any troops or armed men at any place where a general or special election is held, unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years or both,
and be disqualified from holding any office of honor, profit, or trust under the United States.
I am not familiar with that code, but I should become familiar with that code because that's kind of interesting because it's a real concern from Democrats that ICE agents are going to be at the polls this year, which history shows and convention shows at the polls we were talking about, it's not going to be a good year for Republicans.
How bad will it be?
Well, I mean, we'll have to see.
You know, a lot of midterms, we thought in a recent one, a red wave was coming.
It didn't really come about.
And Joe Biden's standing in 2022 actually helped, that actually could have hurt Democrats in the long run because the whispers of pushing Joe Biden out after that election, you just never know.
So I do think, though, and I've talked to some Democratic members who are very, very concerned about the ICE presence, just from an intimidation standpoint.
So, and remember, though, the amount of money in politics has ballooned.
So there are going to be lawyers on both sides of this issue.
And right now, everything is decided by the courts.
It used to be in politics 15, 20, 25 years ago.
When I got into journalism, there weren't a lot of legal reporters because Congress or the administration had the final say on stuff.
I mean, just going back to the midterms, I know you said that folks are kind of in different places, but how does the economy and prices factor into the mood on both sides of the aisle when it comes to the midterms?
And that's where Democrats, I think, fell down in 2024.
They were talking about issues that they're still talking about, democracy and Trump being a dictator, but bread and butter issues as far as going to grocery store and inflation.
And it certainly did rise.
And I think Joe Biden was defensive in a number of areas, didn't show the Bill Clinton empathy a lot.
And that's part of the reason Democrats lost in 2024.
But fast forward now, it's 2026, and Trump is in office.
So it's his problem.
He promised to make it better.
And they've got a while to go as far as where people think the economy is.
And Trump has had some foreign policy successes, certainly.
And Venezuela was a big one.
But it's the economy and domestic issues that drive people to the polls in this country.
No, I want to invite more of our viewers to join in on the conversation.
We're talking about politics this morning.
Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000.
Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001.
Independents, your line is 202-748-8002.
Colin from Washington, D.C., an independent, you're next.
Good morning, Colin.
unidentified
Good morning, and thank you for C-SPAN for taking my call.
And good morning to your guests.
Morning.
I just had two.
Good morning.
I just had two quick points.
The first was related to the TSA and Trump's executive order to pay TSA agents.
I have extreme concern with this because we know that Congress has the power of the purse, and this is fundamentally an anti-constitutional argument to make that Trump can fund the TSA.
He can't.
This is not me saying this.
This is the Constitution.
As your guest has just said, this has never happened before.
So this is truly unprecedented, and it is by definition a constitutional crisis.
I really think that we should not be advocating for this on C-SPAN.
But besides that, I had a second point, which was just related to the Washington Examiner itself, and something that has been extremely concerning to me to begin with.
You know, whenever Washington Examiner is invited on C-SPAN, is that Philip Einschulz, the owner of Washington Examiner, bought it, purchased the Washington Examiner, changed the name to the Washington Examiner because he wanted to make a conservative version of the Washington Post.
Well, guess who owns the Washington Post now?
It's a billionaire.
So we have two billionaires who are both arguing these same viewpoints and calling themselves opposing viewpoints.
This is extremely alarming and we're talking about constitutional crises, and so I just wanted to add this to the conversation.
On the second question first, the Washington Examiner, our motto is straight news, conservative views.
So we're similar to the Wall Street Journal in that our news is straight and our newsroom reports fairly.
And then on the opinion side, it's conservative.
So now that doesn't mean that everything that Trump, that the Washington Examiner agrees with everything that Trump is doing.
Far from it.
Just like the Wall Street Journal will criticize Trump on tariffs, that's the case at times with the Washington Examiner.
As far as power of the purse, it's a good point.
I mean, this is, that's why Congress exists, is because of the power of the purse.
And that's why I do think there's, because this is unprecedented, I think there could be successful legal challenges to this.
So the longer this goes on, the murkier it gets.
Now, if Congress can come up with a solution in the next month, okay.
But overall, that's where the funding is.
And that's where the funding is.
The administration wants $200 billion for the Iran war.
Okay, well, Congress is going to have to pass that.
But will the White House have another take on that?
Can they fund it in another way by moving certain budget allotments around?
I'm not sure, but I'm also not sure they're going to have the votes to pass a war supplemental of that magnitude.
And when you're talking about the House and Senate not agreeing on ending the shutdown, a member, the House and the Senate are run by narrow Republican majorities.
Well, now they're talking about doing a reconciliation bill where they would get some of this military funding where they would not have to get 60 votes.
Okay, but if John Thune and Speaker Johnson can agree, and they have a pretty good relationship, but they've had differences on the Epstein files.
Johnson wanted the House pass bill to be altered by the Senate.
John Thun did not alter it at all, and he just sent it to the president for a signature.
There have been other disagreements they've had.
So how are they going to get another big, beautiful bill, as they call it, Reconciliation 2.0, when they can't agree on funding the government?
It's going to be very difficult.
And if they fail on reconciliation, it's not going to be a good thing going into the election.
I mean, just three hours ago, Axios reported that the GOP weighs health care moves to pay for Iran war.
It says Republicans are considering reductions in federal health spending to help pay for a budget bill containing as much as $200 billion to fund the Iran war and immigration enforcement.
We know that health care is such a big political issue.
I mean, is this going to go well with the people who wanted the government shut down over those ACA subsidies that never actually got extended?
Yeah, you know, the fallout from the ACA subsidies hasn't been as significant as I thought.
However, polls do show that Democrats have the advantage on health care and they've long had that advantage.
Republicans have advantages on other issues like tax cuts and national security for the most part.
So, but yeah, this is this is, I mean, look at it right there.
I mean, they're looking at moving money to make sure, but that could be a political liability because, well, the economy is number one in this election, but health care is in the mix as well.
So, especially when people are losing jobs, especially in the D.C. area, you lose your job.
Basically, you're losing your health care unless your partner or spouse has health care.
So, that could also be risky.
And the moderates in Congress, the centrists who are in tough reelections, the Republicans, they're very nervous right now.
Again, a lot of them have cash advantages, but cash is not always king.
Hillary Clinton had more money than Donald Trump in 2016, and we know how that ended.
I don't fully get the question, but he definitely has cited a lot of emergencies that have given him emergency powers.
And again, the courts decide what's an emergency or not because if it's big enough issue, someone's going to legally challenge the administration.
But Trump has a lot of power on foreign policy.
All presidents do.
And I've been in Washington since 1995, and every president has taken more and more power from Congress, which honestly I don't think is the greatest thing, but it is what it is.
You know, when I listen about the Iran war and stuff that's going on, then with the funding process that you have a Senate that passes a very good bill, then it comes back to the House, and you have the weak Johnson going, well, no, we're not going to do this because we want this.
And when I see that, and then they're trying to shift funding from other things, I firmly believe that Johnson is handing the House to the Democrats because you have to have bipart, you have to work with both parties.
And Johnson seems to think that I only do what I want, what Trump wants.
And again, I heard a guest talking about with the MAGA group or the guest.
I am a Republican and I'm a very conservative.
And yes, I voted for Trump, but I'm not mad.
And I believe that if you have criticisms, as everyone should, it should be okay.
But then again, you have those zealots out there that just think you can never say anything bad about our president, which is going to be very harmful for our country, I believe.
Well, certainly the House Republicans met for two hours before Johnson came out and finally addressed the media and said, we're not going for this bill, blaming Schumer, though he was pressed that, hey, this, remember, the Senate is run by Republicans and this was the Thune bill as well.
The chances of Democrats winning the House right now are fairly high.
The Senate is, certainly, I think the map is very difficult for Democrats.
Is it possible, is there a path for Democrats to take control of the Senate?
There is, but they're going to have to win every close race, every purple race, defend their seats, and then win in some red states, possibly Iowa, possibly Alaska.
But it can't lose any of these toss-up races.
And the map is just very difficult for them.
However, this election is similar to 20 years ago.
George Bush was in his second term, and they lost the House and the Senate when earlier in the year, no one thought that election year that both would go to the House and Senate.
Chuck Schumer has really raised expectations in repeatedly saying he's got to get donors to pay him instead of just that the House Democrats.
But he has been very bullish, and that raises expectations.
And if he doesn't win the Senate, some Democrats are going to even be more upset with him because he's been taking a lot of arrows in the back, friendly fire from some Democrats.
Yeah, Schumer has got a lot of people to primary folks who he wanted to.
So, of course, a big onus is going to be on him.
On immigration enforcement, which of course is what this whole shutdown is about, Mullen now enters, I believe, his second week as Secretary of Homeland Security.
Christy Noam was fired, though the administration did not say that that was a concession to Democrats who wanted to see her gone in these talks.
Have you seen a change in policy or is it more of a rhetorical shift in style?
I mean, Republicans, including the president, obviously, was not happy with how Christy Noam was heading that department as well with Corey Lewandowski.
They were making the calls at DHS, and there's a contract that came up in Christy Noam's last hearing before she was let go and transitioned to a much lower position in the administration.
And that did not go over well with the president.
And Christy Noam said she was aware of this ad campaign that featured her.
Trump indicated that was not the case.
So now, Mark Wayne Mullen is respected.
He had a testy confirmation process, needed John Fetterman on the Democratic side to get him through the committee because it's so partisan right now.
Usually, I believe Marco Rubio was confirmed unanimously.
Usually when it's one of their own, the Senate Club, which Mark Wayne Mullen used to be, you get an easy confirmation.
His confirmation was not easy, but Republicans and Democrats do acknowledge that they're happy that Christy Noam is out and Mullen is in.
Now, Mullen also is one of his first tests is going to be, hey, guys, you can't go away for two weeks.
I need my department funded in a normal way that's not legally suspect.
So that's going to be a real leadership test for him.
I want to know, I don't know how to start off, but I want to know what your guest thinks of what we went through the last four years under Joseph Biden and compare that to Donald Trump's presidency.
Donald Trump is trying to take care of the government and the people of this country, and Biden did absolutely nothing.
And we lived under gasoline prices almost $4 a gallon for four years.
He loves talking about crowd size and he does draw big crowds.
So there's an energy there.
And also, when the president comes, money comes to you.
Okay, so that's on one side.
But Jasmine, as you mentioned, his numbers are not good.
So the vulnerables have to think about that.
Congressman Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania, he's actually voted against, he's in a tough reelection.
He's kind of a survivor.
He's always in a tough reelection.
He voted against the Big Beautiful Bill.
I don't see Trump going to his district.
But certainly, that's what candidates have to weigh: these low numbers for the president to drag in that area, but then they get money and attention, and the base shows up in midterms.
And if the base does not show up for Republicans, they're in real trouble.
That said, Democrats have their own issue.
They buried their autopsy report from 2024.
We've not seen that.
The DNC report.
And they still have issues of what they're for and what their agenda is.
But in large part, that's a 2028 concern, not a 2026 concern.
It's open forum where you can talk about any public policy or political issue on your mind this morning.
But first, a programming note: C-SPAN's coverage of the Artemis II mission continues this afternoon as NASA will give an update on preparations for Wednesday's launch, their first crew test around the moon in over 50 years.
Watch live at 5 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
So let's turn to some of your phone calls because it's open forum.
Joe from West Plains, Missouri, a Republican.
Good morning, Joe.
unidentified
Yeah, hi.
Hi.
I live close to Illinois, but I live in Missouri.
And for the four years when it was peacetime, gas in Illinois was always over $4 a gallon.
And I never heard no Democrats complaining about that.
Only now.
Now, over here in Missouri, we're between $3.39, $344 a gallon for regular.
I don't know what it'll be today.
I'm still in the House.
But I didn't hear all these Democrats complaining about gas when Joe Biden and I don't, I don't know if I can blame a president for gas prices because it's traded on the commodity market every day.
It's trading right now.
And that's what's making gas go up or down.
But I didn't hear all the complaining about gas from the Democrats when it was always over four bucks a gallon in Illinois and it was probably 60 or 70 cents a gallon cheaper in Missouri.
And I don't know if that's because of county and local taxes, but I don't care what it costs.
I can afford anything.
I got gas yesterday for $3.39.
Who can complain about that?
But it was like $2.55 and $2.45 before the war started.
But there's a difference in states and counties, and I don't know why, unless it's the tax rate or something.
He spoke about gas prices in the Times this morning.
There's a headline: As gas prices approach $4 a gallon, Americans rethink vacation.
Already pinched by the high cost of living, some families have modified how they plan to travel by road and air as Iran war pushes gas prices, gas and oil prices higher.
So that is an article in the New York Times this morning on gas prices.
Well, you know, I think it's finally good to see some civility between John McCain and Donald Trump, because as you remember, John McCain was an advocate for bomb Iran.
So with that being said, I wonder has anyone ever looked at the fact that Iran was supporting Russia in drones against the reward that they're in?
So I wonder if Iran still now being able to give Russia drones that will help them against Lewinsky over there.
Well, we spoke with Elise Labba earlier today, who told us that there has been some concern that Russia was actually sending back some of those drones that Iran sent to Russia for their war against Ukraine and now using them for Iran's war with the U.S. and Israel.
Rex from Ohio, a Democrat.
Good morning, Rex.
It's open forum.
unidentified
Good morning.
Yes, I'm wondering why we haven't heard anything more about turmoil for our politicians in this country.
All right, I'll see if my producers can find an article on the latest in the conversation about term limits.
Everett from Raleigh, North Carolina, Independent.
Good morning, Everett.
unidentified
Good morning.
I would just like to know where does the conflict with Iran end?
And also, why is Biden getting such a hard rap on his economy and how the country was under his watch opposed to now?
Because even if you look right after the COVID crisis and whatnot, well, he brought inflation down from like 9.1% down to just under 3%.
And now within one year, we're going right back over like, you know what I'm saying?
We'll be over 5% if not a Great Depression.
And another thing that really concerns me, like, we have an 80-year-old clown and whatnot that's sending you to war, but his sons never go to war.
His older, one of his sons, both of it, he got two sons that could go to war, but he'll send you there.
He'll lie and lie and lie.
And I don't feel more safe with Donald Trump than that.
It was like the worst thing that people ever could have done to us.
And one more thing, Kamala Harris was right because Iran is eating his lunch like right now.
And it's just sickening it.
I pray that our troops get out of this one, but I pray we never go back to this.
I'm watching Lincoln right now.
And it's just amazing how our country could be sent back like this and whatnot.
You know, and I just pray that we never have nobody like this clown, these carnival barking clowns like Pink Head Self and all of that tough talk that really does nothing.
It just hurts us all the way around.
And I don't want my kids to die for Israel.
And I'm sure a lot of people don't want their kids to die for Israel or all the wars that's been going on for centuries that are never ending anyway.
All right, Everett, let me actually turn to the economy now since you mentioned inflation.
The current U.S. inflation, according to nerdwallet.com, is 2.4%.
That was from an article updated March 18th here.
And it says the CPI, the consumer price index, increased 0.3% in February compared to 0.2% in January, according to the most recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The year-over-year increase was 2.4%, and the core CPI was up 2.5%, both unchanged from January.
If you scroll just a little bit down, though, the PPI, which is a producer price index, which we know that the Federal Reserve pays close attention to, which tracks prices at the wholesale level, went up 0.7% in February after a 0.5 increase in January, according to the most recent data.
And so the increase was larger than analysts expected.
On an annual basis, the index rose 3.4%.
And the PCE, that personal consumption for expenditures price index for January, released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on March 13th, showed that prices rose at a 2.8% annual rate in January, declining 0.1% from December.
Because I've noticed over the years that I've been watching C-SPAN, most of the moderators are progressives, are liberals, and because they all go to other stations like CNN and MSNOW after they finished with being on the job with C-SPAN.
And I'm just wondering, why doesn't C-SPAN hire conservative moderators?
Well, the focus of the moderators is not to take either side, Kathy.
It's to report the facts and to listen to your phone calls and try to provide you guys when you ask questions or you have comments with the most up-to-date information.
So I don't think that that's necessarily the metric in which C-SPAN is hiring folks.
I know I work for NOTICE, which is a non-partisan news center, in addition to my work here at C-SPAN.
Ken, Miami, Independent.
Good morning, Ken.
unidentified
Guys, good morning.
As an independent person, you know, I was just thinking about something, this idea.
You know, instead of everyone like blaming everybody else, you know, this whole blame game, everybody's, you know, pointing fingers and, you know, blaming everybody else.
It's your fault, it's their fault and everything.
Why can't we just get together and solve the problems and fix the problems?
There's a lot happening at the White House this week.
First on Iran, what are you hearing from White House officials about the Iranian war effort as thousands of U.S. military personnel are either in or close to arriving in the Middle East?
Well, it's week five of the Iran war, and the administration is continuing to press forward with that, even as President Trump has said that negotiations are going to continue.
He has extended his deadline for the threat that he posed more than a week ago now on attacking Iranian power plants.
That has been put on hold for the purpose of some sort of negotiation, although the negotiations, exactly what's happening with the negotiations is also a little bit unclear.
The president and his top aides have been sending mixed signals about the war, other than the fact that they're right now, according to Secretary Marco Rubio, ahead of schedule.
Begs the question, what is the schedule?
That part hasn't been laid out, but the war continues and the ramifications continue as well.
Is there any sense at the timeline that President Trump is working through his decision-making to actually deploy troops inside Iran?
I know last night he was asked at Board Air Force One about whether he's considering it, and he said, I just have so many alternatives, but then we also see this kind of mass movement of troops into the Middle East.
Now, Democrats and some Republicans have been saying that the White House should come to Congress if the President does decide to move ground troops in Iran.
Obviously, these troops that the President have sent are more specialized forces, not so much everyday infantry.
But have you heard from White House officials of whether they are planning to go to Congress to ask for approval to do such a thing, should he decide it necessary?
Well, number one, I think you're right to highlight the fact that it's not just Democrats, it is some Republicans as well, including Nancy Mace, who is, I think it's fair to say, a MAGA supporter and a longtime supporter of President Trump.
But that is another example of at least some minor fissures that are happening within the MAGA movement about the war.
I spent a good chunk of last week in Dallas at the CPAC conference talking to people who were there, which is the annual gathering of conservative MAGA faithful.
And though most of the people I spoke to there also said they continued to support the president and support the war, there were certainly some who are concerned about it and said that to me.
And that is in line with what you're seeing from lawmakers like Nancy Mace.
To your question as to whether or not they are planning to go to Congress, I don't have an answer to that.
The president obviously made a decision when he launched this war not to go to Congress.
And that has more than ruffled feathers with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
I'm not seeing any signs that they're going to change their mind about that if they were to put ground troops in, but I just don't know.
My last question on Iran for you here, Jeff, is Pakistan says that it could be hosting talks very soon between Iran and U.S. officials in Islamabad.
Have you been able to report that there have been direct talks between Iran and U.S., or is it still just mostly indirect talks between intermediaries?
And if those talks were to happen, who would be leading the U.S. negotiations?
I don't have any updates on talks beyond what the White House has said and the President has said, but in terms of the pattern that we've seen so far, it's been, you asked about who would be leading them.
It's been Steve Witkoff, who is the President's special envoy, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, who has also served as an envoy.
And those were the two men who were essentially leading talks with Iran before the war, up until the final days, frankly, before the war, when they concluded that the negotiations were not leading to what they believed was the right conclusion of Iran agreeing to give up its ballistic missile program and agreeing not to pursue a nuclear weapon.
If talks were to happen in Pakistan, as you mentioned, my guess is that those two men would certainly be involved and would likely be the leaders on the U.S. side.
Certainly, the war and the developments of the war have been dominating this White House.
The president did say last week that they've rescheduled their trip.
He's rescheduled his trip to China for mid-May.
So, we'll be watching for additional talks between those two sides.
But it's all pretty much everything is against the backdrop of this war right now: foreign policy, economic policy, domestic policy, and of course, politics, which is my wheelhouse in the impact that this war is having, both on his base but also on Democrats and independents leading into the midterm elections, which keep getting closer and closer every day.
And back to open forum where you can talk about any public policy or political issue on your mind this morning.
Wanda from Chattanooga, Tennessee, a Democrat.
Good morning, Wanda.
unidentified
Good morning.
I was calling to find out whether or not we could do some of the things that Bernie Sanders has suggested when it comes to the debt, our national debt, because it looks like we're going further and further in the hole.
I'm not sure if we can retrieve by paying $5 each person or not, even if that's legal, I'm not sure.
But I'm thinking when I heard that China is buying up most of our debt, that we should become more working toward taking care of our own debt.
You know, hopefully that, you know, will go across somebody's mind again.
Because when Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton ran, I always figured it should have been Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders because Bernie Sanders had more ideas that people were agreeing with.
And the part where he said that a two-party family could raise money within their household to probably afford a home, they start raising the home prices.
You know, it's just like whatever he had in mind, the opposite is being done.
And right now, I would love to see a Bernie Sanders-like individual speaking for the American people.
And if you could find out whether or not it's legal for us to hello.
All right, that was Norma from Newton, Iowa, a Republican.
I'll just turn to an article on the front page of the New York Times here.
It says that more die in ICE custody as critics charge neglect.
One man deteriorated after a toothache.
He could not even blink his eyes.
It says it started with a sharp pain in the tooth for about a week.
Emmanuel DeMas sought treatment while he was being held at an Arizona immigration detention center.
Several detainees later told his family that Mr. DeMas, who had migrated from Haiti in 2024 under what was then a lawful U.S. program, was given only ibuprofen, the detainee said.
Here is kind of the nut graph of it.
It says the Department of Homeland Security and its ICE agency, which have been leading deportation efforts, have faced growing scrutiny over agents' aggressive militarized tactics on American streets and the killing of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota this year helped lead to the ouster of Chrissy Noam as Homeland Security Secretary.
But as her successor, Mark Waymullen, takes over, the number of people who have died are receiving, who have died in immigration detention has been drawing more attention.
The number of immigrants in custody, in ICE custody, has nearly doubled in the last 14 months, and the detention centers have been strained by the surge.
That is an article in the New York Times on people who have died in ICE custody over the last 15 months.
I believe that says Maurice from Texas, Democrat, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Yes, I would like to, I mean, I don't understand why all of the things that President Trump has done that was not correct, not approved of, turned down buildings that he wants to make ballrooms out of, starting a war with Iran, which he knows own any bombs and nuclear war, nuclear heads and stuff like that.
Why is he getting away with all this and nobody is speaking up or doing anything about what he's doing?
First, though, we had a caller call in and ask about the U.S. debt.
My lovely producer found an article from July 2025 and the headline here on Fox businesses want to help with America's 36 trillion debt.
I believe at this time it's 38 trillion.
It says Treasury Department now takes PayPal and Venmo donations.
That program has collected $67.3 million over 29 years, which hasn't made much of a dent.
It says Americans, if they're so inclined, can now pay down the national debt via Venmo and PayPal.
It says you can Venmo the United States to pay off the national debt.
Donors can go to pay.gov and under gifts to reduce the public debt, choose between the more traditional bank account and or credit slash debit options and the newer options to make a gift.
Even a generous donation is unlikely to make much of a difference.
However, the $67.3 million given since 1996 only accounts for 20 minutes of debt, according to Axio.
So that is a way to help pay down the debt.
You go to pay.gov under gifts to reduce the public debt.
There is the national debt.
Oh, it's up to $39 trillion, the national debt on your screens there.
David from Virginia, an independent.
Good morning, David.
unidentified
Good morning, C-SPAN.
Thanks for taking my call.
I've got a couple of items.
Number one, on the Iranian war, you know, there's all this discussion about boots on the ground.
And I don't know why we wouldn't first consider deploying mines around the island of Kard to prevent the ships that are transporting 80 to 90 percent of Iranian oil exporting to countries around the world.
That would definitely have some major impact on their economy by putting mines in or some kind of blockade.
You just have to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis.
What it would do is it would minimize American casualties.
It would also keep the infrastructure of Carg Island available for a future more friendly regime.
And it would minimize the amount of economic, I mean, environmental damage that would occur.
I mean, you look at those huge storage tanks.
If we bomb that place, you could have it, you know, environmental catastrophe.
So that would be my suggestion.
On the economy, you're right.
The inflation rate is still only 2.4%.
But since the war, I know my 401k has lost about 13% since this war.
And if you're retired, you know, that's a big deal.
You first mentioned Carg Island putting, you know, why hasn't the administration thought about putting mines around the island?
I will point to a CNN article from March 25th.
And the headline here is, Iran building up defenses of Carg Island to protect against potential U.S. ground attack sources say.
And it says that Iran has been laying traps and moving additional military personnel and air defenses to Karg Island in recent weeks in preparation for a possible U.S. operation to take control of the island, according to multiple people familiar with U.S. intelligence reporting on the issue.
As the Trump administration has been weighing, using U.S. troops to seize a tiny island, which handles about 90% of the country's crude exports.
But U.S. officials and military experts say there would be significant risks involved in such a ground operation, including a large number of U.S. casualties.
The island has layered defenses, and the Iranians have moved additional shoulder-fire, surface-to-air guided missiles known as MANPADS there in recent weeks.
Iran has also begun laying traps, including anti-personnel and anti-armor mines around the island, the sources said, including on the shoreline where U.S. troops could possibly stage an amphibious landing if Donald Trump moved forward with the ground operation.
Karen from Dexter, Missouri, an independent.
Good morning, Karen.
It's open forum.
unidentified
Okay, I just wanted to see if you know anything about.
I read somewhere that Trump was actively steering a company that he deems more favorable to himself to take over, to buy out or take over control of CNN, if that's true.
I'll try to have, I'm leaning on my producers a lot this morning.
There has been some reporting that the White House believes that more conservative coverage would come from a Paramount-owned CNN.
I'm looking right now at a BBC article.
The headline is How Hollywood and MAGA Aligned Over Warner Brothers deal.
And it kind of goes through, it's from February, goes through how the deal, because obviously Netflix was supposed to buy Warner Brothers, how that deal fell through and Paramount came in.
And so I will try to find a probably more direct question or direct article to answer your question in a second.
I'll come back to that if I'm able to find it.
But there is actually a lot of articles online about the genesis between Paramount, Warner Brothers, and the administration.
Howard from Indianapolis, a Democrat.
Good morning, Howard.
unidentified
Good morning.
I was calling to respond to one caller who questioned why Trump is getting away with what he's doing.
And my response would be to the Republican Party, which is the controlling party in both Congress and the Senate, are not holding him accountable for his incompetency and his behavior.
In my view, Trump is really not president.
He's an insurrectionist.
An insurrectionist can never serve in public office.
But we have institutional breakdown where we're not holding him accountable.
That's one issue.
The other is the national debt.
We are a sovereign fiat currency-based country.
We can never go bankrupt because we issue our own currency.
So this whole debate about the national debt is just inaccurate.
The national debt is an obsolete measure of the health of our economy.
The two metrics are the rate of growth in our GDP, the inflation rate, and full employment.
Full employment is generally thought to be employment where unemployment is somewhere below 5% or something.
So I think we have a number of issues that are a problem in this country.
And that is we have a corrupt individual running the country.
We have a corrupt party that is tasked with holding him accountable.
And so these protests, like the No Kings protest, in other words, grassroots reaction and protests against this corrupt administration are critical now because we really are at war with domestic enemies that populate our legislators and our political leadership.
And we just need to come to terms with that.
Trump is not advocating for the interests of this country.
He's advocating for private personal interests for which we don't know the details of.
But he needs to be taken out of power along with this corrupt Republican Party.
All right, Howard, let me turn back to the question of Paramount that a previous caller had.
I'm actually looking at an article from CNN here.
It says, what does the Paramount WBD merger mean for CNN?
If you bear with me while I scroll here, it says, viewers and readers of CNN might be wondering the same thing that CNN employees are asking right now.
Now, this is from February 27th.
What will Paramount's ownership mean?
Answers are in short supply.
Paramount executives have talked privately about the prospect of combining its CBS news unit with CNN.
They have also praised CNN's news gathering machine and global reach, but CNN employees and viewers have serious concerns about whether Paramount CEO David Ellison will uphold the news's network's editorial independence amid severe political turbulence.
President Donald Trump, after all, has long sought to weaken CNN, and he viewed the recent bidding war for Warner Brothers discovery as another way to exert control.
Quote, it's imperative that CNN be sold, Trump said last December, signaling he favored Paramount's takeover proposal.
Paramount's financing has also come under scrutiny as several Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds are attached to the deal.
Journalists worry that such funding could complicate or even chill CNN's coverage of the reason of the region.
Furthermore, David Ellison's father, Larry, the Oracle billionaire, is one of the richest men in the world and a close ally of the president's.
Larry is deeply involved in the Trump-approved deal that kept TikTok online in the United States.
So there is a little bit to answer that viewer's question about the impact of Paramount buying WBD, which, of course, owns CNN.
As a follow-up to the most recent BookNotes Plus featuring Seth Harp on his book, Fort Bragg Cartel, we are replaying an interview from June 12th, 2012.
The guest on QA, the television program, was 31-year-old Michael Hastings, author of the book The Operators, which he said is what the special forces call themselves.
It is based on a Rolling Stone article that allegedly led to the dismissal of General Stanley McChrystal, who is a commander of the Joint Special Operations Command from 2003 to 2008.
One year almost to the day after our interview with Michael Hastings, he was killed in an automobile accident when he was driving in Los Angeles at 4:25 in the morning.
unidentified
We revisit an interview with author Michael Hastings about his book, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan.
BookNotes Plus with our host Brian Lamb is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
We bring you into the chamber, onto the Senate floor, inside the hearing room, up to the mic, and to the desk in the Oval Office.
C-SPAN takes you where decisions are made.
Global Freedom Decline00:14:59
unidentified
No spin, no commentary, no agenda.
C-SPAN is your unfiltered connection to American democracy.
And joining us now to talk about a new report on freedom in the world declining is Freedom House researcher Jana Gorahovskaya, who is here to discuss the organization's annual report highlighting the decline in global freedom in 2025.
Jana, thanks so much for being with us this morning.
All right, first up, can you remind our viewers what the Freedom House is?
What's your mission?
And how are you funded?
unidentified
Absolutely.
So we are a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.
We were founded in 1941.
So we're about to celebrate our 85th anniversary.
We were founded by Wendell Willkie and Eleanor Roosevelt, actually, in a bipartisan effort to help get Americans engaged in the fight against fascism in Europe.
We have different sources of funding.
So we have some government funding, we have non-foundational funding, we have private funding.
The report that I'm going to talk about today, very importantly, is not funded by any government.
Yeah, I was going to ask you, what is that report?
Freedom in the world?
It's an annual report, but how did it originate?
How did you guys start doing it?
unidentified
Yeah, so the report actually has been published annually since 1973.
So it's one of the longest issued reports of its kind.
And what it is, is it's an index.
So we assess political rights and civil liberties in countries and territories around the world.
And we look at the experience of freedom.
So rather than government performance, what we're evaluating is people's ability to exercise their fundamental rights in a given space, whether that's impacted by their own government, a foreign government, or even non-state actors.
And our methodology, which has 25 indicators, was derived from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Now, I want to show our viewers the headline of this report because it says, after 20 years of global decline, these basic freedoms have been hit the hardest.
Can you walk us through your findings?
unidentified
Sure.
So what we do is we look at the level of freedom globally.
We assess each country and territory separately, but then we put that data together.
And what we found in 2025, and I should be clear, we assess a calendar year, so January 1st to December 31st every year.
So I'm talking about what's happened in 2025.
Freedom declined, which means that more countries experienced deterioration than saw improvement.
54 countries declined, 35 improved.
So it was not a good year for freedom in 2025, but it was also the 20th consecutive year of decline in freedom.
So that means that every year since 2005, we've seen more deterioration than improvement.
And that has had sort of disparate effects around the world.
And you mentioned rights.
So of the rights that we assess, freedom of personal expression, freedom of the media, and due process were most affected during that 20-year decline.
So when we say media freedom, personal expression, due process, what does that mean for everyday people who are engaging, you know, who are reading the newspaper, who are posting on sites like X or Facebook?
What does it actually mean for Americans?
unidentified
Sure.
So in the U.S., actually, the two, or sorry, the three indicators that declined were personal expression, the functioning of government, and our corruption indicator.
And I can talk about those separately.
But on your question around the media, so it means a lot of things, right?
It means that in the U.S., there is a shrinking media market and there is concentrated ownership and there are also media dozers.
So that means that folks don't have as much access to media.
There's also greater bipartisan or partisan control of the media.
So the media you do have access to slants one way or another.
And then you also have competition between traditional media and social media, which also creates kind of economic pressures.
And then separate from that, you know, you have sort of government pressure on media and kind of the chilling effect that that has also had.
I should be clear: the media score for the U.S. this in 2025 did not decline, but it was already imperfect at a three out of four.
Now, something you co-authored an op-ed in the Washington Post in which you write: a mere 21% of the world's population now lives in a country rated free.
That's down from 46% in 2005.
What's contributing to this?
This, I mean, kind of precipitous drop in freedom over the last, you know, 20 years.
unidentified
Absolutely.
So, what we do is we assess every country and territory on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being the highest.
And then that score also translates into a status: free, partly free, and not free.
And so, today, as you say, we have only 21% of the world's population that lives in a country we rate as free.
39% lives in a partly free country, and 40% lives in a not-free country.
And as you observe, there's been a steady drop.
A lot of that drop, honestly, if you just look at the population, is because India dropped out of the free category and became partly free a few years ago.
So, obviously, that explains a lot of the global proportion.
But, more generally, what we've seen over the last 20 years is a number of factors.
So, there are a lot of military coups now, especially in Africa, and those are really detrimental to freedoms and they destroy political institutions.
We've also seen growing repression in already authoritarian countries, and you can see that in Russia or China and some of these other places.
But then, we also have seen democratically elected leaders try to undermine the institutions that are checks on their own power, and we're increasingly seeing that as a driver of decline in freedom as well.
Now, before we continue, Yana, I want to invite our viewers to join in on our conversation.
We're talking about freedoms across the globe, including here in the U.S. Democrats.
Your line is 202-748-8000.
Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001.
Independents, your line is 202-748-8003.
You can also reach us by text message.
That is 202-748-8003.
Just send your first name, city, and state.
Now, I know that we talked about what was contributing to it and some of the specific freedoms, but are there any more freedoms that have kind of topped the list of being in danger in 2025?
unidentified
Well, I mean, I think looking across the field, you know, some of the things that I find striking.
So, we talked a little bit about media freedom, but it's also important, the freedom of expression of ordinary people in their everyday life is also being infringed on.
What we're seeing is the rise of surveillance, the rise of the use of spyware, and honestly, also just reprisals for ordinary speech that might be controversial.
And so, we're seeing that people are self-censoring themselves, not only around the world, but also in the United States and in other established democracies.
And that's something that worries me because I think you need freedom of personal expression is really important for debating ideas, for living kind of in a healthy democratic society.
Now, we talked a little bit about the U.S., but can you give us kind of the top and the bottom of where these countries who perform the best and the worst are?
And where is the U.S. in that scale?
unidentified
Sure.
So the United States, the score currently is 81 out of 100.
It's still rated free.
The very top of our index, so those countries that get 100 or 99, actually Finland gets 100 consistently.
Finland has gotten 100 for a few years.
Norway, New Zealand are at the very top with 99, 98.
At the very bottom, you often see countries that are experiencing armed conflict or just very prolonged authoritarianism.
So very bottom of the list are countries like South Sudan, Turkmenistan, and then sort of in the near the bottom, but maybe not at the very bottom, you have China, which is a 9 out of 100.
And something else that you guys had within the report, you know, obviously you said that, you know, the U.S. was at an 81 out of 100.
It's still free, but it has seen a major decline.
You say in the United States, an escalation in both legislative dysfunction and executive dominance, growing pressure on people's ability to engage in free expression, and the new administration's moves to undermine anti-corruption safeguards all contributed to the negative score change.
The United States lost three points on the report's 100-point scale, bringing its net decline, bringing its net decline since 2005 to 12 points and more than any other country rated free during the same period except for Nauru and Bulgaria.
How should Americans think about this?
We talked about the media bit being a contributing factor, but what else?
unidentified
Right.
So, you know, I think it's important to kind of look at the decline over time and sort of put it in perspective.
The U.S. score has declined by 12 points since 2005.
And that's substantial.
To kind of put it in context, that is a bigger decline than Brazil or South Africa.
That is a bigger decline than the member states of the European Union, which have only declined by about three points.
It's a much smaller decline than Hungary has seen or that India has seen over the same period of time.
And over the last two decades, there's been a number of different factors.
So greater polarization in our political system has contributed to more dysfunction and sort of stymied legislative action.
So that's contributed to it.
The growing role of money in politics, unfortunately, has contributed to it.
Greater restrictions on the ability to vote, making voting more difficult, has contributed to this.
But also other things.
So certain kind of social issues.
Academic freedom has declined, both in primary schools, but also at universities.
We've seen a decline in our due process, in our rule of law, because of incarceration rates, because of how long it takes to get to trial, kind of all of those issues in the criminal justice system.
So it's been, you know, it's been an unfortunate deterioration over time.
It has been substantial and it's been sort of across aspects of both our political and social system.
So I did hear the speaker touch lightly on Western Europe.
Now, I don't know when these statistics or whatever you're, you know, it came out, like your policy or whatever you're speaking about.
But Western Europe is in major decline as far as free speech.
And they're getting arrested over there for certain words on the internet, Facebook posts, blah, blah, blah.
We even heard months back where I think it was in Britain, they wanted to come over to America and arrest, you know, people saying things they did not approve of.
So, and then let's go back to when Joe Biden was also in office.
And he pretty much, it didn't happen because Trump came in, but he was monitoring that internet like, you know, never before.
So please talk about Western Europe, Britain, Ireland.
There's a lot of clampdown, big clampdown on freedom of speech.
I wanted to point out that the founding fathers, John Adams, specifically said that there are two ways to conquer and enslave a country.
One is by the sword.
The other is by debt.
And you mentioned 2005.
Well, it's interesting that in 2005, bankruptcy protections, which the founders called for in the Constitution ahead of all the rights listed in the Bill of Rights, bankruptcy protections were removed from student loans.
And so I'm just wondering if you looked at student loans specifically in your analysis, because I can tell you that this is the camel's nose under the tent.
If they can remove constitutional bankruptcy rights from student loans, they can take them away from credit cards and medical debt.
And there are some very dark forces in this country that would love to do that.
And the student loan canary in the coal mine is something that everybody should care about in this country if they want freedom.
Well, we actually do assess some economic aspects in our index.
I want to say again that it's based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
And so it's not based on any given country's constitution or founding documents.
And we do that because we want to be comparative.
We want to be fair to every country.
But saying that, we do assess property rights and we assess the level of economic exploitation.
We don't go down all the way down to the level of student loans and things like that.
But certainly, I think the bigger issue of economic and social inequality is something that's reflected in the index and something that has impacted U.S. scores over time.
Another person writes in, how has free expression declined in the U.S.?
The ability to express yourself has greatly expanded free speech here.
I don't buy it.
unidentified
Sure.
I think our technological ability to express ourselves in the U.S. and elsewhere has obviously expanded with the digital revolution over the past few years.
But at the same time, what we're seeing, and I should be clear, the change we're registering in the freedom of expression score for the U.S. is multi-year.
There were specific aspects that happened last year, and I can speak to those, but this has been a longer-term issue.
What we saw is that increasingly people are seeing disproportionate consequences, and not necessarily just from the government.
We're seeing reprisals, we're seeing doxing, we're seeing threats for people doing something as simple as just posting their opinion online.
And I think that that is actually a very serious threat to freedom of expression.
Our last comment here from online, it's specific to you, Jana.
It says, do you consult with Amnesty International?
unidentified
We don't.
So in order to make our index sort of independent and preserve our editorial independence, we don't consult with any other organizations that issue any kind of assessments.
And we do that so that we don't fall into sort of an echo chamber where we're all basically saying the same thing.
We do rely on a network of over 150 analysts and advisors to provide some of the data and information that we're using.
And the majority of those analysts and advisors are based in the country where they're making the assessment or the territory.
So that's a little bit about how you guys assess the countries.
You say you basically use a universal document not tied to an individual's country's say constitution.
What other factors and metrics, what other factors and metrics does Freedom House use to create this report?
unidentified
Sure.
So I'm very happy to talk about how we do this.
I spend a lot of my time doing it.
The report takes us about 10 months to make.
So we've just finished this report.
We're going to start the new report for 2026 very soon.
We have a methodology that is actually available on our website.
If anyone wants to take a look, it has very specific, so it has 25 indicators divided between political rights and civil liberties.
And then each indicator has sub-questions.
And the sub-questions are meant to illustrate what that indicator is about.
So if you look at our freedom of the media, you'll see issues around ownership, issues around regulation, issues around censorship, things like that.
Our analysts and advisors basically answer those questions and they provide us data points and various kind of evidence and sourcing.
We fact check all of that information.
And so the kind of data that we use is different depending on the indicators, but we use reports of arrests.
We use if there were protests in a country, we use data on those.
If there is any kind of policing data, for instance, in the U.S., we look at hate crime statistics that are issued by the FBI.
So we look at different data points and then we make sure that it's all factual, accurate.
And importantly, we are trying to assess real world impacts on rights.
So it means that we kind of look past a little bit the political rhetoric that may be happening in a country and we're looking at whether people are able to exercise those fundamental freedoms.
I'm a 72-year-old African-American male, and I wanted to know if this young lady or her organization keeps the statistics of population decline.
1968, the president of the United States came on the air, and they wanted young black men in high school to go to their parents, who some could not read and write, and do the census.
It was not a gimmick to find out who was in this country or whatever it was during the 1968s, but they needed the citizens to do the census.
A year later, it came out that there were 41 million African Americans.
Today, what is that number?
If she could answer that question.
Thank you, and I'll wait for her answer.
I'm not sure that I know the breakdown in the U.S.
We do, we do use, basically we do issue what the population is, but we use a UN source for that.
So we have for every country, you see what the population is.
And that's part of the reason I'm able to say that 21% of the world's population lives in a country that's rated free.
So we do use population data, but not specifically for at the national level, these other breakdowns, I'm afraid.
All right, Yana, a question from online here, David from South Carolina.
It says, when you study freedoms in the U.S., excuse me, when you study freedoms in the U.S. versus communists in countries ruled by supreme leaders, do you have to use varying scales and definitions to compensate for the vastly different degrees of freedom?
unidentified
So no, that's one of the, I think, one of the strengths of what we're doing.
We are using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
And I should say the reason we use the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a source for our methodology is because this is not a standard that we as an organization or indeed we as Americans are imposing on other countries.
This is a founding document that much of international conventions come from.
And this is something that governments in other countries have agreed to as basic rights that they are upholding.
And so that means that when we look at the level of freedom in a given country, we are using that universal measure rather than the local measure.
And I think that makes sense because unfortunately, you know, what we've seen is authoritarian governments cancel elections, Completely disrupt the judiciary.
And so the things that they are doing may be considered legal under their own legal systems, but there are certainly violations of rights.
Thomas from Del Rey Beach, Florida, he says, it's absurd that Finland has a perfect 100 score considering all male citizens are forcibly constricted, conscripted into the military or go to prison for six months.
I wonder is that a factor in how you guys decide?
unidentified
I don't know the details of conscription in Finland.
Certainly there are many other countries where there is some form of national service.
South Korea has national service.
Many of those countries enjoy quite a high level of freedom.
And so I think, again, as long as those requirements are following due process and you have options in terms of serving or not, I think that we don't view that as a hindrance on freedom.
What I was wanting to know is the Democrats' policies on defund the police, defund the military, and open borders to show and they're leaning mainly to Marxism and socialists.
Bernie Sanders is the leader of the Democrat Party now.
And I'm wondering if that is going to be taking away our freedom in the United States.
We do look at physical safety.
That's very important, obviously.
Often we don't think about that as sort of a fundamental right, but it's really the building block of the exercise of all other rights, which is why you see countries that are experiencing armed conflict or sustained, you know, kind of chaos, as in the case of Haiti, that score is really low.
So for the U.S., it is something that we look at in terms of crime rates and people's ability to be free of basically extrajudicial or other forms of violence.
So that's something that's incorporated into the index for the U.S. and for all other countries and territories.
Another question from online, Sally Su on Twitter, she asks, what early warning signs should citizens watch for in their own countries that indicate a shift from democratic norms toward authoritarian practices?
unidentified
Oh, I think that's a really great question.
That is something that we have looked at in the past, sort of these early warning systems.
So maybe just to take media freedom since we talked about it and since this is a media outlet, to look at media freedom.
So I think when people think about freedom of the media, they often think about, you know, arresting or killing journalists or maybe censoring or shutting down media outlets.
But in democracies, the attacks tend to be different.
So what we see in a lot of democracies that are declining, we see concentrated ownership of the media.
That's certainly something.
And that ownership usually is aligned with the political forces that are in power, which obviously leads to sort of a slanting of the coverage.
We also see various legal attacks on the media.
So something that has unfortunately arisen a lot in Europe is the use of lawsuits against the media, so so-called slap suits against the media.
And that is an intimidation tactic because often these suits really cost a lot of money and they take a lot of time.
And so they send a message to investigative journalists and others that you should not investigate those in power or sort of the powerful because you will pay for that sort of with your time and money in courts.
And so those are some of the early kind of warning systems.
I'm happy to talk about other areas of democracy that tend to also suffer.
I guess the point I want to make is that it's often sort of this chipping away at the corners.
It's very rare that it's a kind of a sudden full-blown attack.
And we're talking about freedoms across the globe here.
I'll try to, if I have time, to look for you on the answer on that pipeline.
But do you have a question for Jana about this Freedom House report?
unidentified
Yeah, I got a question that real quick because we still don't know who Iran is, you know, who the military, you know, who's ahead of the state now or whatever you want to call it country.
I wonder if you can tackle any of those questions.
unidentified
I mean, on Iran, Iran has a score of 10 out of 100.
It's rated not free.
It's a, you know, it's a deeply authoritarian country.
I will say that, you know, every year this report or for the last 20 years, which is longer than I have been working on it, unfortunately, we're always delivering bad news that global freedom has declined.
And we're often talking about these really repressive places.
But in every repressive regime, there is always a deep desire for freedom.
And that includes Iran.
In Iran, very brave people have gone out into the streets to defend their fundamental rights time and time again.
And we've seen this in other places.
And so I think that's something that gets a little bit lost when we talk about sort of general trends.
And obviously, people are worried about attacks on democracy, but it's something that I find really inspiring.
And so I always want to, if I have a chance, I want to talk about that a little bit as well.
Yeah, I was going to ask you about some positive findings, but just quickly, just to get a little bit negative first, is, you know, it's been 53 years since Freedom House started tracking this report.
Has there ever been a point in those 53 years that it was worse than what it is today?
unidentified
Oh, I mean, certainly before the end of the Cold War, you had most of the world's population living in an authoritarian country with great restrictions on their freedom.
So, you know, I think that's also important to keep in perspective.
Certainly, you know, before the fall of the Soviet Union, also before, you know, it may be hard for people to remember, but in the early 1970s, I mean, Spain and Portugal were authoritarian countries.
And so, you know, that was even before the fall of the Soviet Union.
So certainly things have been worse in the past than they are now globally.
What else positive can people look to inside of the report?
unidentified
Well, so a couple of things.
One is we had three status changes in 2025.
So this is when countries moved between our three categories.
And for the first time in the last 20 years, all three were positive.
And not only were they positive, they were sort of the best kind of news, which is countries went from partly free to free.
And that was Bolivia, Fiji, and Malawi.
And it was a combination of peaceful elections that led to transfers of power, but also improvements in social rights.
But stepping back, one of the things that I also find really inspiring is that democracies are really enduring.
So during this last 20 years, over 80% of the countries that started as free countries in 2005 have maintained that freedom.
So they haven't dropped out of that status this entire time.
So I think that's really positive.
Democracies are self-correcting systems.
They have the capacity to overcome conflict, division, all of these sorts of things.
And it's not to say that folks shouldn't guard those freedoms and shouldn't actively participate in that, but it's to say that democracies are really resilient systems.
I mean, just looking back at the COVID mess that we had in the country, you know, the government had total control.
They told the medical community, if you offer the T-word treatment for COVID, you would lose all of your medical government funding, which most places, that's what they run on.
If you were in the military and refused to take the jab, you were thrown out.
If you had a small business like I did, you had to close hundreds of thousands.
Total government control.
We were being run by a dictator named Joe Biden, and I saw what a disaster that was for our country.
Did that figure into losing our freedoms to much of an extent in your study?
Thank you.
2020 was actually the worst year on record for global freedom in the way that we assess.
And what I mean by that is not only more countries declined than improved, but also the degree of decline was really extreme.
A lot of that was not here in the United States, but elsewhere.
But it did have to do with arbitrary and harsh restrictions on freedom.
A lot of governments in mostly authoritarian spaces use the, if you think about China, use the pandemic to restrict people's movement, their expression, and lots of other fundamental freedoms.
The key difference, as I think I said already, is whether those restrictions were following the law, whether they were following due process, whether they were equal.
My last question for you, Jana, if you could answer in about 30 seconds here, is given the ongoing war, wars, now the Iran war erupting, I know you guys said that you are starting in just a few weeks, but what can we expect from next year's report?
unidentified
Well, we're starting the work right now.
There's lots of things that I'm going to be watching.
There's certainly the armed conflict.
You know, I want to mention there's still an armed conflict in Sudan.
Many people are suffering.
There are many important elections.
There's the midterms coming up here in the U.S. There is elections in Hungary happening in a few weeks.