Lucy Caldwell and Chris Johnson dissect the Iran conflict, arguing that while Republicans view war as "peace through strength," Democrats fear inflation and fractured party unity. They debate healthcare solutions, with Johnson advocating market-based approaches against Caldwell's critique of ACA subsidies. Asla Aydan Tashbash warns that treating the Strait of Hormuz as a technical issue risks repeating Churchill's Dardanelles mistake, urging a negotiated maritime deal rather than appeasement. Ultimately, the discussion highlights how Trump's threats to civilian infrastructure signal a potential "forever war," challenging the rules-based order and forcing a redefinition of U.S. global strategy amidst rising national debt concerns. [Automatically generated summary]
The president addressed the Iran conflict and the ongoing war today, this past week, from the Oval Office, talking about the war's goals.
Chris, how well do you think he articulated the goals of this conflict?
unidentified
I think unfortunately we have a lot of constituencies within the party with different goals for foreign policy generally and specifically this war.
And so he basically tried to assuage all of them and say, I'm focused on this, I'm focused on gas prices, I don't want this to be an extended conflict.
And all of those things end up seeming sort of jumbled and a little bit contradictory.
And so I think there was a lot that Republicans wanted to see, especially if you look at the comments.
You know, John Bolton was writing an op-ed about what he wants to see from this conflict.
And in folks like him who support action in Iran and have for a long time, I personally believe that we should have acted on Iran much, much earlier and the JCPOA was a huge mistake and those kind of things.
But ultimately, the president did not tell specific groups or any specific group what they wanted to hear.
And often that message got mixed up with a bunch of other messages as well.
Lucy, Chris mentioned gas prices, which has been such a huge topic as this war continues and Americans are experiencing much higher prices and in other countries even more severe energy shocks as a result of this.
How do you think this impacts overall sentiment regarding the war effort?
I think that despite a policy wonks or a Hillstaffer's best attempt to explain the relationship between one thing or another or the intricacies of the Iran-Russia Axis.
I think the reality for Americans is they experience that we are now in another, what feels like it could be endless war, perpetuated by the very man who claimed that he was America first, that he was the person who was going to eradicate the neoconservative establishment from the Republican Party, the person who has become, you know, named John Bolton, who Chris just mentioned as one of his key enemies,
you know, these warmongerers like John Bolton.
And yet now Americans see not only has that not been true, but also in their daily lives, the kinds of relief that they hope to get, more permanent relief from inflation, other types of kitchen table issues, have actually not been relieved at all, but actually exacerbated in the form of extremely high gas prices.
And these are very challenging issues to understand.
And I think Donald Trump has, in his very Trumpian way, tried to thread that needle.
But the reality is that what Americans are experiencing is another newfound endless war that has not been authorized by Congress, that they do not understand the justification for, even his supporters, coupled with the daily grind of yet one more thing that is going to make their daily lives very difficult.
Chris, that doesn't even include the actual sort of military and human toll of this conflict.
We obviously saw this this weekend an airman rescued from the within Iran after the fighter jet was shot down.
I wonder, especially given what Lucy said about how Trump ran on sort of being away from these forever wars and being America First, that's going to affect particularly the Republican base heading into the midterms.
unidentified
I think the Republican base understood when they were listening to him when he was running for president, especially the second time, that America First was not America alone.
It was not an isolationist endeavor.
It was peace through strength.
And one of the goals of this war is to show countries like Iran that we are still in charge, that we still have the power, we still have the military capacity to keep our enemies in check.
And so that keeps us out of a lot of these other conflicts that we could potentially be dragged into for extended periods of time.
And so I think when you look at the polling that shows almost 100% support for MAGA Republicans for this war, they understand that America First does not mean just completely stepping away from any kind of use of military force.
They understood that President Trump's main goal is to show strength.
And what they really love about President Trump is not that he has, they align with a nuanced foreign policy view, which most American voters aren't thinking about that this intensely.
What they saw as a guy who was going to stand up to bad guys was going to use America's military where it makes sense to defend our interests and was going to do it in a way that was strong, in a way that most Republicans saw the Biden and Obama administrations as quite weak.
And that was the goal of the America First foreign policy agenda was to project that strength.
Lucy, though, on the other hand, when it comes to the midterms, President Trump is polling pretty poorly.
There's a YouGov poll showing that Trump's net approval rating has sunk to negative 23 points, with 35% of Americans approving of the president's job performance, 58% disapproving.
What do you think that that suggests about the upcoming midterms?
Because often midterms are a referendum on the president in office.
And I think that Chris just identified polling around MAGA Republicans, right?
Well, heading into the midterms, Donald Trump may have the support of MAGA Republicans, but MAGA Republicans are increasingly a dwindling audience, right?
Only something like a little more than half of Republicans currently self-identify as MAGA.
And among the entire voter base and U.S. population, MAGA, I think, is down to something like under 20%, right?
And even that Republican number is way, way down from even just last year.
There is a real softening, even within the Republican base, of people embracing the MAGA label.
And it is in part because you have former MAGA diehards like Marjorie Taylor Greene saying MAGA has been a lie perpetuated by Donald Trump and others, right?
You have these people who we think of as peak MAGA saying we have to re-look at all of this.
I'm not suggesting that Marjorie Taylor Greene is a figure to be embraced.
I just think that it is a really good reflection of the fracturing that's happening within the Republican Party, which brings me to your question about the midterms.
It is very hard to hold a coalition that is so fractured together, especially from what we know about Trump's experience at the midtimes previously, right?
When Trump has been on the ballot, there's a lot more Republican energy because of that core base than there are in the midterms.
Even earlier in the campaign season, Susie Wiles, Donald Trump's chief of staff, talked about how they actually felt like they needed to inject Donald Trump into campaigns up and down the ballot to really help bring the base out to make it feel more like a referendum on Trump.
Now, that may very well be an astute political assessment, but that is certainly a needle to thread that is getting harder and harder in a time where what's coming out of this White House, the policies that people are seeing, feel so, so disparate from what feels like the best path forward for everyday Americans.
That creates an opportunity for Democrats.
I'm a former Republican myself.
I will tell you, Republicans are about a gazillion times better at politics than Democrats are.
So rest assured, Democrats could screw this up, but there is a very big opportunity for Democrats right now to embrace that energy that Americans are feeling of just something is not quite right, really up and down the ballot.
The 2026 map historically has not been great for Democrats in the Senate, but even in the Senate, it seems like Democrats may be making inroads in some of those races.
I think that one of the key things for Democrats is that they have to accept that we are in a populist moment.
And again, I say that: look, populism are not my natural politics.
We are in a populist moment.
It is why you see figures like Graham Plattner, the Democratic Senate candidate in Maine, rising in the polls, doing so well against an incumbent Democratic governor who's running for that seat in that race to replace Susan Collins.
It's why you see a lot of new figures coming up in the Democratic Party who I think have a really compelling ability to make that message to folks.
We can either embrace this populist moment and elevate figures who can do something healthy with it, or we can be swept away in the ongoing tsunami of toxic MAGA populism.
So, look, it's about Democrats making smart assessments around the map, thinking about map expansion in the right way, thinking about shoring up blue state governors without, you know, I think going too far and deploying resources in places that it doesn't make sense.
They're still going to be massively outspent by the Donald Trump MAGA RNC machine.
Speaking of which, the Democrats, as you mentioned, Lucy, are trying to latch on to this narrative around the war.
Last week, the Democratic Aligned Vote Vets Action Fund released this ad targeting GOP Representative Derek Van Orden of Wisconsin, a retired Navy SEAL whose Wisconsin district is considered competitive this year.
Let's listen to this ad.
unidentified
Look at that gas pump.
We're paying the cost every damn day of this war in Iran.
But for Congressman Van Orden, we're not paying enough.
He's going for another $200 billion to spend on Iran.
This is the same guy who backed big cuts to VA care for vets.
Look, vets like me, they understand the cost of war.
But if we don't have the money to take care of our veterans, we damn sure can't afford another war.
Chris, this vote in particular about the war funding supplemental and ads like this, how risky do you think this is for Republicans?
unidentified
I think for right now it's going to look bad because we are in charge and everybody is focused on the president.
They're focused on Republicans in Congress.
Those are the folks that are seen as the change makers.
And so ads like this are great because you can go out there and say, look at all they're doing.
But as soon as the stage shifts and we get into the midterms and there are clear Democratic standard barriers, I was glad that Lucy brought up Graham Plattner.
As soon as folks like that are in the spotlight and Democrats have to answer for their policies and not just critique Republicans, I think a lot of this is going to fall flat.
Yeah, the war is not super popular right now.
We don't know how it's going to go.
It could go great.
We could get some really great concessions out of Iran out of this.
But even that aside, if you're criticizing the American military or defense spending and you're coming from this supposedly patriotic bet when you're somebody like Graham Plattner who has an extreme left worldview and often has criticized not the American troops, but has criticized America, comes across as unpatriotic.
Many of these other Democratic candidates, when they try and do what I call LARPing patriotism, live-action role play where they're trying to act out, play act patriotism, it comes across as really hollow.
It comes across as really just trying to win over voters.
I think Plattner in particular is interesting in that they basically got this guy because he looks like what they think a populist looks like.
He has this affect, he's an oyster farmer and that kind of stuff.
But then when you listen to him talk, he sounds like your standard Democratic Socialist of America activist on Columbia's campus.
And so when you're trying to criticize this administration, it's very easy when you're not the one holding the platform.
But as soon as folks are looking at you as the alternative, not just the critic, that's going to be a real challenge for Democrats on this.
We're going to be taking questions for Chris Johnson and Lucy Caldwell from you, our audience.
Our phone line for Republicans is 202-748-8001.
For Democrats, 202-748-8000.
And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
Before we want to turn to the callers, I do want to ask you both about another issue that is likely to be coming up in the midterms.
I want to point out some polling from Gallup that health care has reclaimed the top spot among U.S. domestic worries.
61% of Americans worry a great deal about health care access and affordability.
Average national concern across 16 issues has declined from a year ago.
Republicans' average worry has plunged now that Trump is in his second year.
And so it points out here that although the Iran war intensified in March, the latest Gallup poll found that health care is topping Americans' lists of domestic concerns, with more saying that they worry a great deal about it than about 15 other domestic policy areas.
But on Wednesday, President Trump said that the U.S. government can't take care of child care, Medicaid, or Medicare costs, and suggesting that states should fund these provisions while the federal government focuses on military protection, such as the war.
Chris, you know, with health care being such a top issue for Americans, you know, we had those ACA-enhanced subsidies expire and no legislation was able to move on that.
How do you think this issue is going to play out in the midterms, especially as Republicans are pushing for more funding for the war?
unidentified
Yeah, obviously this is something I'm sure Lucy's excited to see where Democrats love talking about the health care issue as an issue that traditionally voters really trust them on, despite a lot of, you know, the Republicans would make the argument that a lot of the issues with our health care system are downstream of Democrat policies, you know, mostly the Affordable Care Act that happened under the Obama administration.
But this is where it gets tough for Republicans is our solutions on a lot of this stuff are get government out of the way, lower taxes, lower costs, lower barriers to entry, you know, limit the ability.
You know, right now there's efforts to get rid of the state barriers between the exchange markets for health care.
So you could buy health care, health insurance from another state that you don't live in, getting rid of that.
But those are all things that are going to have a lag time because they are trying to leverage markets, which will move and adjust over time, where Democrats are just going to go out there and say, we just need more subsidies.
We need to throw more money at this.
We need to go into further and further debt to solve this stuff.
Meanwhile, Democrat states are the ones that are taxing their voters, taxing their residents out the wazoo.
And so that's why President Trump's exactly right to say that the states should step up and do this kind of stuff.
Because if you're a Democrat state, if you're California, if you're Massachusetts, and you're taxing your constituents to such a degree that millionaires and billionaires are leaving the state, you should say, well, we're going to use that and we're going to take care of our citizens.
And instead, I think a lot of voters see that money going towards silly projects or infrastructure that never gets built.
The California high-speed rail is a perfect example of that.
Or they go to a laundry list of NGOs, these nonprofits that take taxpayer money and are supposed to provide services, but end up not doing that.
And so I think as long as the Republicans on this issue are reminding people why the problems exist, what their solutions are, and where the money is going currently as opposed to going to you for your health care, that is going to be, I hope, strong enough message to make sure that voters are at least not going to say, I don't trust those guys anymore on the health care stuff.
And Lucy, I imagine the Democrat counterargument to all of that is going to be pointing out that in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last year, there were about a trillion dollars in cuts to health care programs between cuts that are coming down the pipeline to Medicaid, ACA marketplace coverage, and other things.
How good of an issue is this, do you think, for Democrats when it comes to the midterms?
Yeah, I think that health care continues to be an important issue for Democrats and one that is compelling to the American people.
I don't quite understand the point that Chris just made around flow of funds to NGOs, but I think that the Democratic Party definitely has failed the American people and how it has shown up on this issue.
The real core driver of our costs, and say this again, I'm a former Republican.
I've worked on both sides of the aisle and I also worked in conservative policy around the Affordable Care Act and its implementation, is that the Affordable Care Act, the calculus that Democrats made in that moment,
and actually Barack Obama himself in a lot of his interviews since being president has talked about this, was to try to get what they thought that they could while threading the needle to not wake sort of just horrible lobbying forces.
And the force that they chose to supplicate were insurance companies.
And so in essence, the Affordable Care Act wound up being a giant payout to insurance companies.
And I'm not trying to lead us down an analysis of the ACA, but that becomes very important when we look at the issues coming up around healthcare now, right?
Part of why we're in this is that we are constantly figuring out, is there going to be an extension of subsidies?
We saw that in the big beautiful bill of ACA exchange supplements, yada yada.
You know, certain Republican states that did not implement their own federal insurance exchanges and are, excuse me, their own state-based exchanges now actually have much higher prices.
It's a very, very messy situation.
And so, certainly, I think that Democrats running on a campaign of like, we just need to fix ACA subsidies and just sort of further supplicated payers and just sort of continue the scaffolding on this system that we know is not working for people.
I think their credibility with the American people will certainly run out if that's the calculus they make.
I do think that in candidates, you know, you wanted to stick with the Graham Plattner example.
I would say, Chris, I think you probably didn't mean to say this, but I think that suggesting that a combat veteran is LARPing, as you said, LARPing patriotism is not a way that we want to be talking.
But we'll just stay with the Plattner example for instance.
You know, candidates like Plattner are threading this interesting needle of both putting themselves forward as candidates who have a lot of affinities with people who are center-right Americans, you know, strong pro-gun credentials, while also saying, look, you can be a person who is a pro-Second Amendment and wants to own a gun and also wants to have a conversation about Medicare for all, right?
So I think that Democrats at their best campaigning right now are putting these traditional issues together, like Medicare for all, with issues that have kind of become non-traditional issues for Democrats.
Like, look, you can be a gun guy and a veteran and a person who looks like what we think a Republican looks like, who's saying, this isn't working for me.
And I need to be able to have assurance that I'll get my health care needs met, right?
And so I think that is the kind of pairing that we'll see on the healthcare issue that could be a winner for Democrats.
unidentified
And just real quick on the Platinum thing, I wasn't trying to say that a combat veteran was LARPing patriotism.
I'm saying that Democratic consultants and strategists that are pushing for candidates like Plattner who agree with them on all their far-left ideas while also have the aesthetic that you're talking about.
What's your question for Chris Johnson and Lucy Caldwell?
unidentified
My question is may not be specific to them, but I've been hearing the term MAGA.
It's taking a lifelong.
I think everybody can understand that.
But I have yet to hear anybody, young, old, middle-aged, give me a date when you thought America stopped being great and give me a date when you thought it was.
That being the case, we could have a head-on debate, if you will, because there are some people who think it's great at a certain time and others who would probably take the other side.
You see, when you can just say MAGA, MAGA, MAGA, people jump on to that.
It's a cliche.
There was a time in this country when people used to say, love it or leave it.
Apparently, they didn't love it and they didn't leave.
So I think we understand the gist of Gary's question.
Chris, I'll give that one to you.
When folks talk about MAGA, when was America great and when did it stop?
unidentified
It's obviously never stopped being great.
But I think what President Trump and Ronald Reagan before him using make America great again as a phrase is pointing to this sense among the American people, especially folks in my generation, who feel like in the past America did big things.
I mean, just this week we saw the first launch to the moon in decades.
And that is something that felt like it feels like America was doing big things at one point, was able to just decide, hey, we're going to go to the moon, we're going to do this, that, and the other thing, as President Kennedy said.
Those are the kind of things that the nostalgia that MAGA brings up, that's what folks are thinking about.
And I think, unfortunately, it gets framed a certain way that it's about nostalgia for some past ways that America has not been great in certain ways.
And I understand that, but it's really mostly about signaling the nostalgia for when America felt like it was doing big things, when things worked, when policy led to outcomes that actually were positive for the American people.
And folks have a sense that that's not working right left and center.
And so the fact that this is a right-coated term, obviously it's just downstream of the president.
But that's what people are, that's what the president's getting at, and that's what he's trying to talk about: that nostalgia that people have.
Since you mentioned the mission to the moon, I should point out that we continue our live coverage here on C-SPAN of the Artemis II lunar mission this afternoon.
We're going to have an update from NASA officials.
This comes before the four astronauts are scheduled to orbit the moon.
You can watch the news conference live at 3:30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN now, and online at c-span.org.
And obviously, we have lots of Artemis II coverage on our website, c-span.org, that you can check out.
Akiva is in Clifton, New Jersey on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Akiva.
unidentified
Good morning.
Good morning, Lucy.
Good morning.
The other guy, I forgot your name.
Krista.
I'd just like to have two brief questions.
You can decline answering them if you like, but I just want to say Georgia is going to have a big sand race because Republicans really have made an aggressive to defeat Osaf.
Never mind.
The thing is, Republicans, I believe, and you're going to agree with this, is that Republicans are going to gain six seats in the House.
Speaker Johnson has said that Republicans are going to gain at least five seats in the House.
What do you make of that?
And one other thing to point out, this isn't a criticism or a question, just to Lucy.
Publicans are going to keep control of the Senate in November because Republicans have insulated themselves that your party, the Democratic Party, can only gain two seats.
That will not be enough to get the majority.
There is no path to a Senate majority for the Democrat.
Yeah, well, I did say earlier in this hour that the map for Democrats in the Senate in 2026 is a challenging map.
There are some interesting opportunities for Democratic pickup, including in places like the state of Maine and elsewhere.
And of course, there are parts of the country where the Democratic machinery really needs to make sure to do the hard work to retain a seat in purple states.
And I think that the Georgia example is a good one.
I think, and you're right, I am a Democrat, but again, I have a little bit of a different background than some other Democratic operatives.
And I am constantly encouraging my fellow Democrats to embrace the style of politics that Republicans have used as operatives.
Not the ugly MAGA rhetoric, but some of the way that they operationalize politics.
And one of the things that Republicans do extremely well is they focus on state and local races.
And I think that Democrats have a tendency to generate, push all of their energy into federal politics and federal races.
And they overlook a lot of the pieces that are downstream of elections at the state and local level.
So I am really hopeful that Democrats are going to make inroads in state legislative races.
There's a lot that's downstream of state-led legislative races, including congressional redistricting, as well as in shoring up blue state governors.
I think that some of the rhetoric coming out of MAGA, coming out of the mouths of people like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, suggesting that they're going to do things like send ICE agents to polling places and continue federal encroachment into blue states and blue communities just reflects that the Democratic Party needs a much better counterpart, counterbalance to this moment that we're in.
And so I think that shoring up state and local elected officials is the way to go.
Though I agree with you, the map is very challenging for Democrats and the Senate in 2026.
I do think that there are lots of spots to be very hopeful, but no argument from me here that that should not be a singular focus.
Chris, I want to follow up with Gary's point about the House, including off-year elections last year, and this is according to reporting from the Washington Post, Democrats have flipped 30 Republican seats since the start of 2025.
Republicans, sorry, this is at the state level legislature.
Republicans have not flipped a single state legislative seat.
When you move to the House, there are a bunch of Republicans who are retiring or resigning, 36 ahead of the midterms compared to 21 Democrats.
What about, what do you think the prospects are for both the state level and the House for Republicans?
unidentified
Yeah, like Lucy said, at the state level, we organize quite well.
Folks generally trust their Republican governor, even if they don't necessarily trust either the president or Republican elected officials at the national level.
So at the state level, I feel very, very confident.
I got my start working in state politics in Ohio.
And folks just, it's just a different beast.
At the federal level, Speaker Johnson is great to just be projecting strength and confidence that we're going to pick up seats.
But we've got to deal with the reality that midterms are often hard.
I think those special elections, those state-level elections are showing that there is momentum behind Democrats right now.
It's a long time from November right now here on Easter Sunday.
But that being said, there's real headwinds anytime you're in a midterm.
I mean, in 2018, during what was the blue wave in the middle of President Trump's first administration, we saw dozens of seats flip towards Democrats.
And that was with a lot of young charismatic candidates like AOC running for the first time.
So I think that's the bigger question is what kind of candidates are they running?
Are they these young, motivated, excited folks who can speak to regular people and are charismatic and interesting?
Or are they going to elect radicals potentially that are going to scare folks off?
That's going to be the real decider of not just how many seats get flipped, but further and further flips happening from there.
Here's a comment we received from Teresa in Little Rock, Arkansas.
When growing up, my parents set a budget to cover food, daycare, and other responsibilities.
When did the federal government become responsible to pay for daycare?
Look at the fraud in Minnesota and other states for daycare.
No one is talking about getting the stolen money back.
Both parties are destroying the government in what they want it to be responsible for.
Chris, your thoughts on what Teresa is raising here in terms of who should actually be responsible for covering some of these types of programs.
unidentified
Yeah, I have a two-year-old, so I am very aware of how much child care costs right now.
And that's, I think, the more proximate concern a lot of folks have: even, you know, for a lot of people, the government doesn't cover their child care.
For most working young people, we are paying exactly what the market bears.
Unfortunately, because of the over-regulation of a lot of these daycare programs, I mean, here in DC, daycare teachers are required to have a college degree in some circumstances.
That's the kind of stuff that makes things more expensive.
And so, ultimately, when things become so unaffordable for regular people because of either being subsidized or over-regulated, which is often the cause of these things, the government has to step in to make sure that folks have what is provided.
So, by making these costs cheaper, by lowering costs, by lowering barriers to entry in the market, by making it easier for folks to become daycare teachers or even use funds available to form homeschooling groups or use that for other child care purposes, all of those things could potentially lead to a point where we're not just talking about who's responsible, but why does the government have to provide this?
Because it's just so affordable that it doesn't even seem like something that the government needs to fund.
Yeah, I mean, I think that certainly child care is a huge challenge as a fellow toddler parent.
I can certainly attest to that.
And I think that there are other types of creative solutions that we could start thinking about, including asking businesses to do more to help make this more manageable for employees.
There are large corporations that used to have on-site daycares when people did things like went into offices all day long, right?
There is no reason that American businesses could not become core stakeholders in this and see the writing on the wall and say, we don't want to see this problem continue to go unaddressed.
And we're going to make childcare a broader, more common benefit for our employees, right?
Or, I mean, there are also taxing structures that could make sense around this, you know, that have to do with how we tax corporations.
There are a lot of things we could explore.
I will say, I think that Donald Trump really was losing in that speech the other day and how he spoke about it.
And I, as people who know me know, I am absolutely not a defender of Donald Trump.
The core idea that he was putting out there was actually not the worst one, which is if we are going to look at things like paid parental leave at government subsidized daycares, that is a thing that should occur at the state and local level.
And it should not be the job of the federal government in contrast to, say, the national defense.
Again, you never find me defending Trump, but that actually is practical because of some of the differences community to community in the childcare needs of a community, right?
Different types of aspects of the workforce, as well as the regulations, right?
As Chris mentioned, a patchwork of regulations where in one state, what's required to become a daycare teacher is different than somewhere else.
So it's certainly a problem that needs addressing.
And I think that the post-COVID moment has certainly reflected that.
And lots of people have more flexibility in where they live.
And I don't know the stats, but I know many people are choosing to live closer to places where they have networks of family support and organizing their lives differently.
So it's certainly an issue that needs to be addressed.
I don't see it being a midterm issue, if anyone's thinking about that.
But it's a bummer when these perennial issues come up and continue not to be addressed and feel like pain points.
Garrett is in Louisville, Kentucky on our line for independence.
Good morning, Garrett.
unidentified
Hi, thank you for having me on.
I just wanted to highlight a couple things that Chris said in his opening statement.
Number one, I hear this from Republicans a lot, that the JCPOA is bad.
It's bad, it's bad, but there's no follow-up to that.
What I'm looking at is that we ripped up the JCPOA in Trump's first term, and this is the alternative is we're going to war, we're pulling out of bases in the Middle East, we're lifting sanctions on Russia and Iran.
India just bought oil from Iran for the first time in decades.
France may be buying oil from Iran.
It's not confirmed yet, but we're giving them more money than the JCPOA could have ever given them.
And we're still saying the JCPOA is bad.
So I'm just very confused on that.
And then secondly, the conflation of patriotism and being an American.
I feel like this is something that we need to talk about as an American people.
We can't let this happen.
To be anti-war is not to be an anti-American.
That's crazy thoughts.
We cannot sit there and group people into these massive lumps and call people anti-American.
We're anti-war.
We want our money to go to our schools, to go to our health care, to go to taking care of Americans.
Yeah, on the second one, you know, I'm not saying that folks who have foreign policy disagreements with the American government are not patriotic.
What I was trying to articulate was that often Democrats are associated with folks who are on the left who are very critical of America generally, not just our foreign policy, but often of capitalism, of our forms of liberal democracy, of various things that are so uniquely American that are getting criticized by folks on the left.
And so that's the sort of sense that people have.
I often say that politics is a vibes-based endeavor, and the vibes are often unpatriotic on the left for the American voter.
I'm not saying that Democrats are all unpatriotic and stuff.
That's just the sense that voters get based on the rhetoric they've had in the past, especially during 2020 and post-George George Floyd.
On the GCPOA thing, I understand that folks wanted to stay in that because there is now a counterfactual where we stayed in it.
Iran never got a bomb and none of this ever happened.
But we were not headed in that direction under the JCPOA.
Under the JCPOA, there were still ways that Iran was going to be able to get a nuclear weapon, even though they're obviously agreeing not to.
That is the main criticism on the right, is that they were still headed in that direction.
They were still aligned with our enemies abroad.
This is not some new thing that folks like China and Russia are aligned with Iran.
That's not surprising to us.
And on the oil aspect of it, there is, because Iran has been so hindered by this war, we are seeing massive increases in demand for American oil and liquefied natural gas.
And so that's going to be a huge shift in our benefit.
Debating the merits of the war itself aside, the idea that Iran is somehow benefiting from this, I think, is not correct.
And just a little bit of background for folks who might not be familiar with that acronym.
JCPOA refers to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
That was the Iran nuclear agreement that was passed, agreed upon between the United States, Iran, and several other world powers back in July of 2015.
I'm reading here from the Council on Foreign Relations.
Under its terms, Iran agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear program and open its facilities to more extensive international inspections in exchange for billions of dollars worth of sanctions relief.
I am a former Republican, and I came up in the Republican Party really working on state policy, lobbied on the ground in 30-some states.
And what attracted me to the Republican Party is that I held a lot of small L libertarian views, right?
I was very interested in the concepts around the free market and individual liberty, individual responsibility, and a huge fan of federalism.
You've heard me, I still think there's a lot that is amazing in federalism, and I'm encouraging Democrats to embrace federalism.
But the reality is that as we got closer and closer to the 2016 election, and I was looking at the debate stage of the 17, not all the debate stage, but the 17 Republican candidates in 2016 who were running for president, I could not see many candidates who I felt like I could support.
Maybe a John Kasich, maybe a Carly Fiorina, perhaps a Jeb Bush, but the vast majority of the Republicans on those debate stages, not even just Donald Trump, but also people like Ted Cruz and others.
I just did not feel that they spoke for me, and I did not feel like they spoke for the concepts that had attracted me to the Republican Party in the first place.
And for a very long time, actually, until last year, I always identified as a political independent because I have a lot of things to criticize with the Democratic Party.
But I could see in this political moment that we are in that I actually think that the Democratic Party is doing the right thing to try to broaden the tent and to be open to a range of ideas and to elevate non-traditional voices.
And I thought I should stop complaining about the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party is inviting me in.
I'm going to take that invitation and help shape the Democratic Party into a party that can be inclusive of a lot of Americans, whether you're a person who was a Republican last week or, you know, whatever.
Rachel is in Silver Spring, Maryland, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Rachel.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thank you, C-SPAN.
Happy Easter.
I have a question from Mr. Johnson.
Regarding Christy Noam, when she was in charge of DHS, there's an investigation going on about overspending when they were buying warehouses to hold so-called illegal aliens or immigrants.
Where is the accountability, sir?
Should there be accountability?
And these were our tax dollars used.
Your tax dollars, sir.
Will the Republican Party be known as the Party of Grifters?
Thank you.
Yeah, I mean, well, first, there have been consequences.
Christy Noam is no longer in the administration.
So, and part of that was concerns over these contracts that were going through Corey Lewandowski and other folks.
So, I think that's going to get looked into.
I think Republican voters have been animated quite a bit recently by the idea of how much fraud is happening in the government, how much states and the federal government are both being taken advantage of by various groups.
So, I think there is going to be some introspection.
I think there's this belief that we don't ever criticize our own side, and politically, that's often the strategy.
But for regular voters, they're not looking at fraud as a partisan thing.
They see it as a government problem.
And so, the more that we are straightforward, we're investigating ourselves, we're taking this stuff seriously, taking these accusations seriously, the better it is with the voters.
That being said, you know, we know that there are certain biases within the mainstream press where they will look into certain stories or certain angles or potential issues much more critically for Republicans.
And so, we have to be clear-eyed about what's being accused and make sure that these are credible and not just partisan attacks coming from elected Democrats or a biased mainstream press.
Let's hear from John in Vicksburg, Michigan on our line for independence.
Good morning, John.
unidentified
Yeah, good morning.
One thing: our country is about to hit a, I guess you'd call it a dubious milestone.
It's projected to happen before the midterms, and that's $40 trillion in debt.
And we have achieved this by voting for people with Ds and R's next to their name for, you know, as long as I can remember, which is why I'm an independent.
We've watched the net worth of politicians, both D's and R's, grow exponentially while serving in government.
I don't trust either one of these people, and I think that's why the independents in this country are a growing population.
I'll let both of you respond to this point about the national debt.
I'm looking here at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation's debt clock showing over $39 trillion in debt, which is more than $114,000 for every single person in America.
Lucy, why don't you go first and then we'll follow up with Chris?
I think that some of what was referenced just now in the question was around whether or not this is a swing issue for independents.
And it's hard to know from the research.
I tend to think it is not.
I think that certainly the national debt, and it's an issue that I've worked on, is an issue of grave concern.
And it is certainly unsustainable to be in a situation where we are increasingly just trying to service the interest on our debt.
Of course, federal debt is a little different.
We have to adjust our minds a little bit because it's a little bit different than your own personal debt.
But obviously, this is a fiscally unsustainable situation.
I don't think that independents are aligned on this issue.
You know, they may say they are, but one of the realities of the independent label, and I know this having worked in independent politics, is that you can get people who identify as independents to flag a lot of issues, but they actually are spread across the political spectrum themselves.
And sometimes we accidentally use independent as almost like a stand-in for moderate, and the data tells us that's not true.
It is everyone there.
You can ask an independent who turns out to have views like Rashida Tlaib and also views like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
So, obviously, not a monolith.
I think that unfortunately the debt is going to be an issue for ever in this format because people can't decide on how they want to pay this debt and get on top of our national debt crisis because one party wants to make adjustments to tax revenues but not to program or vice versa.
And we have a really hard time reaching agreement on what those things are.
I think that America is unlikely to impose austerity measures that other countries have done when they have tried to tackle their debt.
That is a thing that I think hits people hard.
So it's certainly an important issue.
I don't think that it is going to be an activating issue for swing voters or even for most independents in an election anytime soon, candidly.
Even if it's not going to be a major issue in the midterms, it is a pretty significant issue when it comes to policy decisions.
I'm still looking here at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, and it says every day we spend over $2.8 billion on interest on the national debt.
It is the fastest growing part of the federal budget and it's crowding out a lot of other spending.
unidentified
Well, exactly.
And I think that's where folks are going to get frustrated is as the debt continues to go up and the interest we're paying on it continues to go up and they're going to see less and less of their individual tax dollar going to programs that they think the government should fund.
It's going to be something that becomes more salient as a political issue, I think.
But unfortunately, I think because of the nature of how debt works and how interest rates work, it basically won't become a salient issue until there's a real crisis where you start to see interest rates going up, where the government is losing the ability to spend or borrow, see credit ratings going down, those kind of things.
And so I think that's the only point that this actually gets changed because even among Republicans, you're going to see folks who acknowledge the government is bloated.
We need to cut things.
But looking just at the limitations of the Doge effort, where we're running into just the reality that it's really, really hard to cut government programs, especially in a meaningful way on the budget.
And so when you look at the pie chart of the federal budget, I think most people's impression is that we're giving all this money to defense and foreign aid and stuff like that when over half of the budget is entitlements.
It's Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, various forms of other entitlements.
And those are really, really hard to convince people that we need less of or we shouldn't be spending as much because that's what's driving the debt up so much.
So I'm hopeful, though, that as the economy continues to grow, as we continue to see more development in AI and new technologies that could increase productivity, hopefully growth helps us get out of this debt crisis.
But until it becomes a crisis, I doubt I see a lot of policy change.
Chris, I just wanted to, last time you were on, I called in and talked to you a little bit.
And you listed off a bunch of, I guess, adjectives that you would describe yourself as.
I think it was evangelical, capitalist, so on and so forth.
You ever put American in that?
And I just wondered where Americans fit in on that list of adjectives.
No, that's a great question.
I think there's an assumed American preface to all of those, an American evangelical, American dad, an American conservative.
And so I think that because we just talk about America and we live in this American political discourse, we don't focus on that as part of our identity near as much as we should.
And so I'm glad you called back in and called me out on that because, yeah, being an American is a huge part of my identity.
American Conservative Identity00:03:02
unidentified
It's just not something we think about ourselves in ways that distinguish ourselves from others.
And so when we're sitting around other Americans, especially other patriotic Americans, it's often something that gets left behind.
Well, thank you both for your commentary this morning.
Lucy Caldwell, Democratic strategist, as well as Chris Johnson with the American Energy Leadership Institute and Republican strategist commentator as well.
All right, coming up later on our program, we're going to be joined by the Brooking Institution's Asla Aydan Hashbosh, who's going to discuss the latest on the Iran war, including the U.S. effort to open the Strait of Hormuz.
But first, we are going to have open forum.
You can call in now to participate.
Republicans at 202-748-8001.
Democrats at 202-748-8000.
And Independents at 202-748-8002.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
Author and editor Tom Wells opens his 600-page book titled The Kissinger Tapes this way.
Quote, Henry Kissinger is one of the most polarizing figures in recent American history.
He's hailed by many as a master in the art of diplomacy and realpolitik.
Tom Wells, who has a PhD in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley, writes this, quote, many critics consider his diplomacy overhyped and some condemn him for committing war crimes, close quote.
Mr. Wells' book is subtitled Inside Henry Kissinger's Secretly Recorded Phone Conversations.
These recordings cover years 1969 through August of 1974, the end of the Nixon presidency.
unidentified
A new interview with author and editor Tom Wells about his book, The Kissinger Tapes, inside his secretly recorded phone conversations.
Book Notes Plus with our host Brian Lamb is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
But first, a quick update here from Ox Axios that Trump has threatened Iran with quote-unquote hell if the Hormuz Strait isn't open in 48 hours.
This is from Saturday.
President Trump threatened on Saturday that hell will rain down on Iran if the regime doesn't agree to open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours.
Trump's 10-day deadline to Iran is expected to expire on Monday.
He previously threatened to bomb the country's energy, water, and oil infrastructure if no deal was reached to open the strait.
Tehran has accused Trump of planning to commit war crimes.
Just some of the news that we're following this morning.
Michael is in Connecticut on our line for independence.
Michael, you are in open forum.
unidentified
Yes, thank you for reading that part of that comment from Donald Trump.
I notice you didn't read the full comment because it would be so inappropriate for you to do that.
He uses the F word in that comment, if you look closely.
He used on Easter Sunday, Donald Trump uses the F word to describe another nation that he attacked and is now threatening war crimes, bombing their public works facilities and their bridges, war crimes, threatening war crimes while using the F word on Easter Sunday, the President of the United States.
Could we be more despicable?
And I'm just going to leave it as this.
The problem isn't the president.
It's the Republican Party.
Congress can stop this president tomorrow morning, but Republicans refuse to.
So if you follow the yellow brick road, I hope America is understanding what to do in the next election.
Vote out all Republicans because they are the problem.
Fix the problem, the Republican Party.
Bring that party back as a decent, respectable party, the kind of party it used to be before Donald Trump took control of it.
But Donald Trump, yes, he's the face of the problem with his language, with his threatening war crimes on Easter Sunday, but the people of America have the ability to end it by voting out all Republicans at every level in the next election.
And let's try to get America back by rebuilding the Republican Party and restoring trust in America once again with our friends.
Michael is correct that there was quite a bit of profanity in the president's post from a little under an hour ago on Truth Social talking about Tuesday being a power plant bridge day all wrapped up in one in Iran saying that they should open the Strait of Hormuz using multiple versions of profanity on Truth Social in that post this morning.
Let's hear from Larry in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Larry.
unidentified
Well, happy Easter, everybody.
Number one.
Number two, I think the Democratic Party's got some serious trouble.
We got the Democratic Party that I used to know, like JFK and a few others.
If they were alive today, they would sit down and cry to see what happened to the Democratic Party today.
It needs to go back to the Democratic Party of the 1960s and the 50s and even the 70s and stop this hate.
I mean, on Easter, how can a Democrat or a Republican, anybody, talk about hate on Easter?
If I can ask you, we had a caller in a previous segment ask about this framework in particular of Make America Great Again.
You were just saying that you're calling back to a time when America was better.
When was that specifically?
unidentified
I think in the 50s, even though we had all this trouble, because I lived in the 60s and the 70s, even though we had a lot of problems back then with the protest of the war, civil rights, and everything like that, we were all working to try to fix the problem.
Okay, Democrats and Republicans both.
And here's the thing about today: there's so much hate that it cliles up.
We actually got people not being civil to each other.
That's one problem.
But to think about it, you got Democratic people rooting for criminals and terrorists.
You know, JFK would just literally just roll over his grave if he knew what was going on.
We are in open form and ready to take your calls with comments about public policy and news of the day.
Republicans, again, can call in at 202-748-8001.
Democrats at 202-748-8000 and Independents at 202-748-8002.
Once again, if you'd like to text us, that's 202-748-8003.
We're also on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ.
Mike is in Rockford, Illinois, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Mike.
unidentified
Good morning, Kimberly.
Happy Easter to all who celebrate.
Five underreported stories recently in the news.
The first one, Stephen Miller, in a hearing with Representative Lou.
Lou was questioning him about the $6.2 billion being transferred to an overseas account in the Grand Caymans to a company that was formed seven days before the transfer.
He could not answer it in four minutes.
It was quiet.
The second underreported story is Mark Wayne Mullen's confirmation.
He was asked about Article 1, Section 6, Clause 2 in the Constitution where congressmen can't work for another branch of the government.
He admitted that he did COVID work where only four people write into it while he was a congressman.
I think there's a big gray area there where he might have blurred the lines of the three branches.
No reporting at all.
The third one is Counter Fitzgerald, Lutnick kids, I guess they all went to the island too, running Tenner Fitzgerald or buying the tariff rebates.
And there's after Trump and Lutnick passed the tariffs, and then we know that the Supreme Court shot him down.
Now they're getting the rebates to the import companies, and they bought their rights to the tariff money.
Very, very questionable, not much reporting on that.
And four and five, number four is the refinery in Texas that exploded.
I've seen videos of it.
It vaporized.
And wildfires in Nebraska burned a million acres, almost no reporting.
And then lastly but not least, the border fence is not being built on the border.
It's going through tribal lands.
We're losing hundreds of acres, and no one's really pointing these things out.
Well, I was just, you know, curious about the, you know, I'm in the district of Margaret Taylor Green's, excuse me, vacant seat.
And I'm sitting here watching YouTube all night long, and all I see is nothing but the Republicans thing just fighting against each other.
Why haven't I seen any Democratic stuff?
You know, I mean, I don't want to say I'm a Democratic personally, but I would like to see some more fair balance, you know, negotiations or not negotiations, but just some fair from both sides.
I don't know how to articulate the way I'm trying to say, but Jimmy, if I'm understanding you correctly, the videos that are coming up naturally for you on YouTube are skewing Republican.
Is this what you're saying?
unidentified
Yeah, that's all I've seen.
It's just Rick Jones and the governor and nothing but, you know, Republican.
We haven't even seen anything about the, You know, the Republican seat or for the Congresswoman.
You know, it's just been, you know, a tech ass against Sean Harris.
And it's been, you know, just, hey, vote for Clay Fuller.
So I was just curious about why the algorithm is going that way.
Go ahead, Joshua, with your comment in open forum.
unidentified
Yeah, I think that today is a great day for America.
And there are a lot of different issues that I think, as you listen to the open forum, people have on their minds.
But I think the central most point that we all should really hold is that America is winning this war in Iran, and that a problem that Joe Biden should have dealt with is now finally being solved.
Gas prices haven't gone up as high as what they were under Joe Biden, and everyone's upset about gas prices now, but they weren't that upset two, three years ago.
And once again, we are going to bring peace in the Middle East.
And with Iran decapitated and effectively its regime silenced, there's going to be peace with Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Dubai with Israel.
And that they're all going to kind of center around this board of peace.
Donald Trump is laying out the framework of how to deal with the Palestinians, and he's cleaning up with Israel, Hezbollah, in Lebanon.
And I think this is a great day of celebration for America as a whole, for just all the free-loving people of the world that a dictatorship is falling.
Strategic Use of Bible00:03:47
unidentified
And this is a great day.
And I couldn't be happier that we've got this down to pilot.
And us holding Iran stops China from getting Iran.
And this is how we reset the balance of power.
And so I'm really excited.
I'm really excited about how this realigns our allies against China and brings them back to the fold of American free world capitalism.
Next up is Anthony in Houston, Texas, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Anthony.
unidentified
Hey, good morning.
I just, you asked the question earlier, and I hope I can have time to respond to it.
Is there too much religion?
And I would have called in on that line, stating that there's too much religion.
And why?
Because how religion has been used historically, not just by the United States, but all around the world.
But in the United States specifically, you think about the curse of Ham and how Genesis was used to support chattel slavery.
You think about the doctrine of discovery.
and the indigenous replacement displacement and how the Bible and religion was used to take land away from indigenous people and under the guise of bringing Christianity to the new world.
You think about racial segregation and racial purity and how the Bible, Ezra, for example, is the book of Ezra was used to support that.
And so very difficult for me to support this faith movement over facts, right, over reality.
It just has been used to justify violence and people who gather on Saturdays to watch a lynching with their families and then go to church and raise their hands and praise to a God that they believe supports that.
So I believe there's a great deal of moral value in biblical teachings, not just Christianity, but many other religions.
There's a lot of moral value, but that's not what's being taught or being propagated or perpetuated throughout society.
The Book of Eli with Denzel Washington gives us a great example of how these people in power see the strategic use of the Bible.
And I just use that because people like watching movies, so maybe they'll watch the book of Eli and get an understanding of what I mean.
Finally, what I would say in response to one of the other callers who said he'd like to go back to the 1960s because he gave justifiable reasons, but he said one thing that got my attention.
He said that we were trying to work on things.
We were working together.
And I would agree with him.
The result of working together gave us civil rights.
It gave us voting rights.
It gave us affirmative action.
But as Martin Luther King said in his last book, where do we go from here?
Homeless Communities Backlash00:05:17
unidentified
Chaos or community?
There is a white backlash that takes place.
And white voters primarily vote for political clowns, he said, who use a witch's brew of bigotry in order to gain their vote because it's not really about religion.
It's not really about Christianity.
It's not really about, it's about self-preservation.
It's about what they want for themselves and their group and their tribe.
And that's the unfortunate thing of how, for me, how religion is used.
Now it's about DEI and the attack on D.I. got your point.
Dave, I understand your broader point about the Democratic Party, but can I follow up with just one of the points that you mentioned about homelessness in the United States?
I want to point to some research from the University of California, San Francisco, about how common illegal drug use is among people who are homeless.
And they found it was the largest study among people experiencing homelessness since the 1990s and found that less than half of people experiencing homelessness regularly used illicit drugs in the prior six months.
The most common drugs used by this population aren't opioids but methamphetamines.
And a significant percentage of people who are homeless and use drugs regularly have tried but have been unable to receive treatment.
I understand your larger point, Dave, but I did want to give you some data around homelessness and drug use.
unidentified
But that data that you're saying, you didn't mention this, and this is the key.
I'm 59 years old, so I know the difference between homeless and druggy tank communities.
Druggy tent communities are a phenomena that's been popping up hardcore over the last 10, 15 years.
That's what these are.
Everybody knows prior that.
If you're 30 or older, you know the difference.
Homeless, you'd see one or two in a park somewhere.
Now you have druggy tank communities and they're everywhere.
They pop up behind strip malls.
They're in empty fields.
They're in our parks and recreational areas prior, say 10, 15 years ago, before we had druggy tank communities.
Let's hear from Edith in Illinois and our line for independence.
Good morning, Edith.
unidentified
That prior caller just shows there is no mercy in the heart of most Americans today and no intent to try to improve the lives of everyone in America.
The pathetic Republican Party is going to go down this November.
I hope mostly because the Hispanic community has found out that they do not intend to help anybody but someone who has pink skin, rosy cheeks, blue eyes, and basically from Europe.
So America has to decide, doesn't it ever care about immigrants?
Apparently the immigrant is the dirty word today.
And they don't realize we are our own ancestors who were immigrants at one time or another.
And just hope that we don't have a basic revolution right here in this country and slit each other's throats one day.
This is going to come before the four astronauts are scheduled to start their orbit of the moon.
You can watch the news conference live at 3.30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN now, and online at c-span.org.
But joining us next, we'll have Brooking Institution's Asla Aishdan Tabas, who's going to join us for the latest on the Iran war, including in the effort to open the Strait of Hormuz.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
Lights, cameras, impact.
To celebrate the 250th anniversary since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, thousands of students across America started writing and filming for this year's C-SPAN Student Cam documentary competition.
Nearly 4,000 students from 38 states and Washington, D.C. created documentaries examining themes from American history, exploring rights and freedoms rooted in the foundational document, or tackling modern-day issues from the economy to immigration, criminal justice, education, and healthcare.
They researched, they interviewed experts, and they told powerful stories, exploring the enduring impact of the Declaration of Independence.
And now it's time to announce the top winners of Student Cam 2026.
The middle school first prize goes to Harper Hayden and Helena De La Hussé of Correa Middle School in San Diego, California.
For documentary, This Is What Democracy Looks Like about Free Speech and the No Kings Movement.
The High School Eastern Division First Prize goes to Kessler Dickerson and Charlotte Liggin from Millbrook Magnet High School in Raleigh, North Carolina for Roots of Freedom: The Struggles and Tensions of Rural American Agriculture, about farmers and government policies that impact food production.
In the high school Central Division, Benjamin Curian of Olintangi Liberty High School in Powell, Ohio won first prize for A Right to Health about healthcare policy.
And in the high school Western Division, first prize goes to Ganaya Safi and Juhi Fari from Indercom High School in Sacramento, California for Dreamers Deferred, the American Dream on Hold about Immigration Policy and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
And we're happy to announce the Student Cam 2026 Grand Prize winner earning $5,000 is Irena Holbrook from Troy Athens High School in Troy, Michigan for her documentary, The Pursuit of Fair Pay, about the impact of name, image, and likeness, known as NIL, on college sports.
And out of almost 4,000 students who participated this year, you've won $5,000 in this year's grand prize.
Congratulations.
Rules-Based Order Crisis00:16:05
unidentified
Thank you.
Want to see their amazing films?
Watch all 150 award-winning documentaries at studentcam.org and catch the top 21 winners airing this April on C-SPAN.
It has been over a month since U.S. operations started in Iran.
What is your take on the state of the war so far?
unidentified
Well, it's been an incredible military success for the United States, clearly displaying superior technical capabilities, but not a decisive strategic win.
Iran continues to control Hormo Strait, but beyond that, clearly has retaliatory capabilities, is able to hit back.
And it does look like they are increasingly feeling like they are going to control the timeline, that they have the upper hand now, that they don't have to agree to an off-ramp.
So I think all of these questions point to this interesting middle ground, this interesting middle phase in which the United States, despite its very clear superior capabilities on the military side, is not able to decisively claim victory.
On the political situation, on the end state, President Trump has a number of options, but no clear theory of the case yet.
You had a guest essay in the New York Times saying, Trump, don't repeat Churchill's deadly mistake.
And this was looking at the Strait of Hormuz and cautioning against history repeating itself.
Can you talk about the connection between what's happening now and Churchill and why you're making this particular warning?
unidentified
Sure.
Look, hormones is not just a technical problem.
I think these choke points look like technical issues to war planners.
It's a narrow passageway.
And, you know, given U.S. military capabilities, why not go ahead and militarily solve the situation, force through the hormones and open it up?
I warn using a page from Turkish history, in fact from World War I. Winston Churchill, before he became the hero of World War II, he was actually responsible for a humiliating defeat for the British forces and its allies during World War I,
which was the effort to open up the Turkish Straits, that is to say the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, and get towards the Black Sea in order to be able to help Russian Empire, which at the time were Britain's allies.
This turned into an enormous disaster.
Churchill had mistakenly thought that Ottomans were too weak, but it is not so easy to force yourself through a strait, even with superior military capabilities, as British forces found out, leading to a situation with 133,000 men dying on both sides.
I caution against thinking of the strait as a plumbing problem.
It is a sovereignty issue.
For Iran, clearly, it's their sole leverage, the key leverage, and they're fighting for their survival.
So I also talk about possible solutions.
Gallipoli, the war of Gallipoli, which many people even today remember of people read about it in books, in those who study World War I, but certainly everybody in Britain.
That has shown us that great powers, even great powers, can get trapped in thinking that they can force their way through narrow passageways.
But when they're facing a determined defender who's, you know, with nationalism and survival instincts combined, it does get to be a very tricky situation.
I offer negotiations, a negotiated maritime deal, as a possible way forward, guaranteeing free passage.
That obviously has to happen.
Iran cannot control the hormones and use it as a toll booth.
But there are ways, options, to keep it open, guarantee free passage, and without a sort of a protracted long war.
If you all have questions for Asla Aydan Tashbash of the Brookings Institution, you can call in Republicans at 202-748-8001, Democrats at 202-7488000, and Independents at 202-748-8002 with your questions about the ongoing Iran war.
And Asla, I want to talk about the President's prime time address to the country last week, where he urged U.S. allies who rely on the Strait of Hormuz to take it.
Asla, I wonder what you think of the President's strategy when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz and demanding that allies that are relying on this is mainly European allies and allies in Asia, be responsible for reopening the Strait.
unidentified
That's not really a possible path forward, nor would it help U.S. economy or interests.
Well, primarily because Europeans are not going to be militarily able to do that.
It's a very risky proposition.
Their militaries are not strong enough to take on Iran, and they don't want to.
I think they are very skeptical about this war.
They seem to think of it as a war of choice on the part of the president, with the strategic goals of the war still being fuzzy as far as Europeans are concerned.
So they don't want to go into this war and clash with Iran and face retaliatory attacks or reprisals from Iran.
And also, let's not forget, even if Europeans were to lead a military operation in order to open Hormuz, let's say the French Navy takes the lead.
If their boats, their Navy vessels, or their sort of civilian infrastructure targets get hit by Iran, Iranian missiles, Iranian drones, it would really create a greater economic shock in the world economy because there is only one market for oil.
In other words, a French boat getting hit or a Saudi refinery getting hit does not help the United States.
We'd still see the oil price rising.
We'd still see inflation rising.
We'd still see fertilizers and other commodities both become more difficult, more scarce, and more expensive.
So I think that President Trump obviously has a number of options.
I thought in his April 1st speech, which you played, he tried to do several contradictory things.
It was simultaneously a speech for an off-ramp, but also escalation.
He tried to appease nervous consumers and perhaps an undecided American public, but he was also threatening to bomb Iran into Stone Age.
I think you cannot do both of these things simultaneously.
So, what I came away with is still no end game, possible escalation, possible off-ramp, but also no clear and clean option for the United States.
Well, clearly, the events of the past four days since that speech show us that it's not a clear option and it's not near completion.
Because if you think about it, we're seeing that Iran has retaliatory capability, that they can continue to fire ballistic missiles, drones, and so on, that they do have a command structure.
It seems to have been dispersed across the country.
We don't know who's running what, except to know that IRGC, their Praetorian state, their security forces, the more hardliner elements, are in control right now.
We also know they continue to have highly enriched uranium.
Now, President Trump no longer talks about the nuclear file anymore because, you know, I think we have continued to target their nuclear facilities.
Nonetheless, there is about 440 kilograms, which is almost 900 pounds, of highly enriched uranium that Iranians continue to have.
We don't exactly know where it is.
We think it's buried under Natan's, the nuclear plant that was bombed in the 12th day war.
But who knows, maybe it's dispersed around the country.
So I think President Trump's near-completion speech, if it was a chance for an off-ramp, if it was to prepare the ground for an off-ramp, I think U.S. market and the markets would be ready for that.
Consumers are getting more and more nervous.
But the reality is that we are not very close to achieving objectives when it comes to nuclear file.
And perhaps the best, cleanest, easiest way to get there would be through negotiations and a negotiated settlement.
All right, we're taking your questions for Asla Aydan Tashbosh of the Brookings Institution, where she's a foreign policy fellow.
We'll start with Kwame in Georgia on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Kwame.
unidentified
Morning, morning, C-SPAN.
My question for the guest is, does the United States have the moral authority in reference to telling the Iranians to not block the Straits Of Hamus when they have blocked all medical and other life-saving stuff, to actually get the?
Cubans people to live?
So the United States has definitely not been a good steward of the world.
And what I would say is that the United States is the biggest threat to world peace.
Well, I will say this.
The war is not popular around the world.
And there isn't a decisive support for the war in the United States.
And we also have increasingly questions raised about targeting civilian targets and war crimes issues.
I think those questions will linger.
They will continue to cause strain, put strain on U.S. alliances.
We're already seeing Europeans very much question the logic of this war and show an unwillingness to be involved.
The other issue, of course, would be the sympathy that Iran is able to garner from around the rest of the world, particularly the Muslim world, but not just the Muslim world.
Now, the Iranian regime is not a good regime.
They have just in January brutally cracked down on demonstrations.
They have regularly shown that they would put down any demand for greater freedoms with bloody crackdowns and brutal force.
Nonetheless, what we're seeing right now is a certain amount of sympathy for Iran because the picture looks like a David versus Goliath to many watchers around the world.
So I think those issues should trouble U.S. policymakers as they think of U.S. place in the world.
A moral authority, as you highlight, is very, very important.
Another important issue is the fact that U.S. had been the country that upheld the idea of a rules-based order.
So that's why it had such a strong hand when it opposed Russian invasion, Russian attempt at a full-scale occupation of Ukraine.
When the United States took this issue to the UN, it had almost full support, with the exception of North Korea and a few other, a handful, maybe four or five countries.
Nearly everyone supported U.S.-led UN resolutions condemning Russia.
Now, of course, we've also been condemning Russia targeting civilian infrastructures in Ukraine.
Now, if we go to a situation in which the United States is willing to target civilian infrastructure and bridges, petrochemical factories, as we have this morning, or other aspects of civilian life, that would raise very troubling questions in terms of what the United States stands for.
And the rules-based order, even if it's depleted form, is still the only principle we have that keeps the world away from full chaos.
You know, speaking of a rules-based order and going back to your op-ed on the Strait of Hormuz and sort of some historical context for that, I want to read you a bit from an article in CNN about an issue I'm sure you're aware of, that Iran has a new demand to end the war, and it could bring in billions.
This story pointing out that when an Iranian official this week, and this is a story back from March 31st, laid out a list of demands to end the war started by the United States and Israel, he added an item that hadn't been on Tehran's list before.
Recognition of Iran's sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.
The narrow waterway through which a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas ordinarily passes has emerged as the Islamic Republic's most potent weapon.
And now it's seeking to turn into both a source of potentially billions of dollars in annual revenue and a pressure point on the global economy.
Can you talk about the significance of this demand?
unidentified
We thought of Iran's leverage as its ability to impose pain on its neighbors and therefore on the global economy.
It was clear that Iran was no match for the United States militarily, but could inflict pain on its neighbors, attack its neighbors.
But it turns out its greater leverage was the fact that it controlled hormones.
Now, for listeners who may not be familiar with that part of the world, that's a narrow passage.
That's a narrow strait that opens into the Gulf, where you have pretty much all of the oil-producing Gulf Arab states use ports in order to export their products to the rest of the world.
The result is that one-fifth of the world LNG or oil passes through Hormuz, not to mention fertilizers and other important products.
So I think that Iran is aware of this leverage and they are approaching Hormuz as their key bargaining chip.
They also have enormous ability to defend Hormos because there's a very long Iranian coastline along that whole sea that would allow them to target any military effort, any ship or using not just missiles but also sea mines, drones, and mining in general to make it very difficult.
So I think my issue with the military option is it's not clean.
It would not be something that you could even imagine being able to solve with tens or ten or twenty thousand troops.
You would need a very large contingency and very long-term sustained U.S. effort.
And it's not clear that U.S. public or war planners are prepared for that.
So my issue is to also see this as a way that Iran, a way to give Iran something to end the war and provide free passage for all ships, a model for a negotiated maritime deal that provides freedom of navigation for everyone, including the Gulf states.
Well, my original question was: she said there was means to do that, and she's kind of answered that.
But I have another comment and a question for her.
It's very simple.
It has been proven time and time again, all through history, and that these people that run the country, not the vast majority of the people, because they prove what they do to them.
But they have said as soon as they get a nuclear bomb, they will end Israel and they will come after the United States.
History tells you you cannot appease these kinds of people.
There is nothing worse to fight than a religious fanatic.
And these people are that because dying in their cause brings their end to justification.
So how do you deal with them?
You cannot negotiate with them.
It has been tried.
You can go through history all the way from Genghis Khan to the Romans to the Germans.
You cannot appease them.
You appease them is a sign of weakness to them, and they will keep going.
If we had done what we did in World War II, where would you be now?
Because these people will use the nuclear bomb.
They have exported all over the region terror, and they will not stand until they are gone.
So, Jack, I think we have a sense of your question.
Go ahead and respond, Asla.
unidentified
I understand, and I think you're absolutely right that there are no easy options here.
President Trump could escalate, but that might mean getting the United States bogged down here in another Middle East war, possibly a forever war.
And we do know that based on the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan, the American public does not want to do that.
Is there a way to contain the Iranian regime?
Some would claim that the previous nuclear agreement with Iran called JCPOA was a way to contain the nuclear threat.
Iran was allowed to enrich uranium, but to a very, very low percentage, only enough to be able to produce energy.
But more importantly, they had inspectors across the country, and they had to report to International Atomic Agency.
Therefore, I think an inspection regime is one option in terms of how to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions.
But this is a chicken and an egg situation.
I think Iranians are also feeling unsafe.
The regime certainly, as you note, it's not a good regime.
But the more insecure they feel, the more they're likely to rush to a bomb because they look around to countries that are not attacked, and particularly countries like North Korea, and they think if only if we have a bomb, that would be the key to having, to sort of building some type of an immunity from United States and Israel.
In other words, I think it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation at this point.
And to disrupt that cycle would require a major grand bargain with Iran, providing some level of security and sovereignty to them, but also taking away their right to threaten neighbors, use proxies, ballistic missiles.
There's some elements of that in the 15-point proposal that was sent to Iran.
But it's not clear that they're in a mood to negotiate.
We received this question from Dwayne on X. Can you comment on why Trump is threatening destruction of civilian targets in Iran?
Trump and Hegseth already bombed a girls' school, killing over 100 people, destroyed bridges and hospitals in Iran.
Now he is threatening even more harming innocent people.
And Dwayne here references a Truth Social post by the President from earlier this morning saying that Tuesday would be Power Plant Day and Bridge Day all wrapped up in one and that there would be more potential attacks.
unidentified
Yes, President Trump's tweet this morning is certainly signaling his level of frustration.
I think only a couple of days ago we heard him seeking an off-ramp and there have been negotiations through third parties, not negotiations, but messages being passed on, including a U.S. plan, 15-point plan passed on.
It does look like Iranians are not interested in negotiating.
They feel they have escalation dominance, not in terms of conventional war, but in terms of being able to control hormones.
They want to decide when this war will end.
And they want guarantees that they won't be attacked again.
So therefore, I think President Trump is frustrated.
So he's threatening, once again, to go back to the Stone Age metaphor, he's threatening to target civilian infrastructure and bridges.
I do think that this is a dangerous and risky path forward, a Vietnam path of sorts, deeper military involvement and possibly boots on the ground, whether it's to seize Hark Island, one of Iran's major oil facilities, energy hub, or to open the Strait of Hormuz.
We call this escalatory ladder.
In other words, you do something as a response and then they do something and before you know, you find yourself in a situation that you cannot extricate yourself.
It is something that happens to great powers also.
Wars don't start with people feeling they're starting a forever war.
Most often, policymakers, as was the case in this war, most often policymakers think that they are going to wrap this up fairly quickly.
We know from President Trump's own statements that he intended this to be a couple of days of war hitting Iranian targets and perhaps getting them to capitulate.
But the targeting seems to have the opposite effect on whatever is left of the Iranian regime, making them more hardline, perhaps more resilient, more resistant to negotiations.
Sally asks another question on X. Iran's Hormuz strategy seems to be to punish U.S. allies far more than the U.S. itself due to their energy dependence.
In your view, is this giving Tehran real bargaining power, or will it eventually pressure allies to push for a quicker deal?
unidentified
Absolutely.
I think it's giving Tehran greater bargaining chip, negotiation power, leverage, whatever you want to call it.
Look, it's not just European ships or Gulf Arab vessels that are not able to pass through.
There are certain vessels that are able to pass through because what we see now is Iran's most hardline element, that is to say revolutionary guards, controlling the straits and using it as a toll booth.
Not just that, but they are in communication with countries like Pakistan, China, and others who are reaching out to IRGC, the revolutionary guards, and saying, could our ships pass through?
I've over the past couple of days have seen a number of countries pleading with the remnants of the Iranian regime, the most hardline elements, and offering to pay.
And we know that some ships are paying and that Iranians are accepting payments in yuan.
Expertise in Foreign Policy00:11:14
unidentified
They're not accepting payment in dollars.
So I think this really goes against the dollarization, wanting to keep dollar as the primary global currency.
This also goes against the idea of keeping a stable front against Iran so as to increase the pressure.
I don't think Europeans can solve this issue.
It will have to be, once again, President Trump negotiating whatever ceasefire or off-ramp is negotiated would have to have a component about Hormuz remaining open open, freedom of navigation for Hormuz.
Any expert in this day and age should no longer use the word the rules-based order because it is really dead, dead as a dead horse.
And we did it in 2003 when we invaded Iraq without a United Nations Security Council resolution that would allow us to use force.
And it was a war of aggression, not a war of defense.
And I think that this is a 1956 Suez moment in which this is the end of the United States as a superpower and a unipolar world is certainly over.
And I'll take the response off.
Thank you.
Well, thank you for that comment.
We are certainly going through a global age of disorder.
And you're absolutely right that there have been significant violations of rules-based order.
There is still a United Nations, there's still a UN, there's still all the charters and treaties that we have since World War II that a lot of countries are abiding by.
We're still not in a Hovsian state of perpetual war around the globe.
So we should be aware of these.
I think the bigger question is what the U.S. relationship with the rest of the world will be.
What is going to be the U.S. strategy?
What is going to be its role, self-designated role in terms of the new century?
We've had multiple different messages from the Trump administration.
They talked about hemispheric defense, returning to the hemisphere as the core foreign policy doctrine.
They've talked about, some have talked about great power rivalry.
Others have talked about a concert among great powers settling on a new order with Russia and China, U.S., Russia, and China sitting together for a new Yalta.
But we seem to be very far from any of these conversations.
I think we're just going to have to live through a period of disorder for a foreseeable future until the United States decides what it wants to push for and what kind of a new global order it is willing to sign on.
And of course, the United States is not the only country that's going to have a say.
We're also going to most likely have China weighing in and middle powers weighing in on this issue.
But it's too early to start thinking about what the next phase will be.
You're absolutely right.
The old order is dead, but we don't know what it's going to be replaced with.
I will say that our guest has a long career in journalism focused on Turkey as well as its domestic evolution and regional reshuffling and has been with Brookings, I believe, for a while now, yes.
unidentified
That's right.
I will say this.
Think tank world, the policy community, is diverse.
And there are many people with different areas of expertise.
It is actually a rich ecosystem that has typically also been a resource for U.S. government.
And successive administrations have tapped into the human resources, the incredible pool that you have of the expert community in the think tank world, and that's Republicans or Democrats.
I think without expertise, you're not really likely to get to a good decision-making process, which is why governments, whether Republican or Democrat, have really relied on the think tank community, the policy community, and expertise on foreign policy issues.
I wonder if you can comment, given some of the cuts that we've had in the State Department, in particular, and research in various branches of the federal government from earlier in the administration, if do you think that's shifted the way that federal policy is shaped by the expertise and research coming out of the think tank world?
unidentified
It certainly has shifted.
I think this administration relies far less on expertise in specifically the think tank community.
I also think that the decision-making process is more focused at the White House and President Trump's inner circle.
As such, the rest of the bureaucracy is also not as involved as we have seen in previous administration.
And that even goes for the State Department and other institutions that used to be very involved in this ecosystem of decision-making in the past, like some of the agencies that have experienced cuts or some of the institutions that have actually been taken out of the equation entirely, like USAID or Institute of Peace.
Let's hear from Michael in Wisconsin on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Michael.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
I have a quick comment, and I do have a question.
Someone mentioned earlier about we can't negotiate with the Iranians.
Well, we were negotiating.
President Obama did a great job of negotiating with them and making sure that we can be in their country and have eyeballs on what they're doing, as your guest had mentioned earlier.
But Trump didn't like it.
And Bibi Netanyahu didn't like it either, because I remember him coming and speaking to Congress about how bad of a deal this was.
They wanted out of it.
Now we got out of it and we got this mess.
And to the caller who called earlier about dropping a bomb, that if Iran got the bomb, they would use it.
Well, we had the bomb and we used it.
And I know Israel's got it too, and no one makes mention of that.
Now, what I'd like to hear from the guest is if her comments on this Greater Israel project that I'm hearing about, how Israel is trying to expand their geographic territory and how, well, in my opinion, I think they're using our military to help them do that.
Does she have any comments on this Greater Israel project?
I'd like to hear about it.
I'll take that off air.
Thank you.
Okay.
Well, there's a far-right government in Israel, as you know, a coalition led by Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, but some of his partners in government are even more far-right than the Netanyahu and his Likud party.
The result is actually there is some of those elements in the current Israeli government or supporters of the current Israeli government that think Israel needs to have a broader space geographic reach.
There is also clearly a notion that Israelis have expressed as mowing the lawn, the national security doctrine in which they think keeping their neighbors militarily suppressed and regularly using Israel's air dominance to target,
to take out targets in neighboring countries, including, of course, Lebanon, but also Syria and now Iran.
This is essentially a strategy that believes, in my view, erroneously, but this is a strategy that argues that keeping these countries destabilized is better for the security interests of Israel.
Not everyone in Israel or inside the Israeli national security establishment believes this to be the right course, but this seems to be the policy that Israeli government is pursuing, mowing the lawn and therefore keeping the countries, Israel's neighbors, destabilize and a military edge over these neighbors.
But we're seeing, of course, this policy obviously affect the lives and livelihood of people, especially in Lebanon, but also in Syria.
And now, of course, you know, very much the current operation in Iran, very much something that Israel has falled for for years.
Well, thank you so much for your sharing your expertise this morning.
Asla Aydan Tashbas is a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Thank you very much for joining us today.
unidentified
Thank you, Kimberly.
President Trump will leave this recorded program here in a social media post today that the U.S. will target Iran's power plants and bridges on Tuesday if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened.
And separately, the president said he would hold a news conference on Monday in the Oval Office after the U.S. military rescued two U.S. pilots whose aircraft were downed in Iran.
Political Catastrophe Warning00:02:14
unidentified
The Washington Post, writing the multi-day operation, gave Trump and the United States a win to celebrate after more than five weeks of war with Iran and avoided what could have been a military and political catastrophe.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum, inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. to across the country.
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