CSPAN - Washington Journal Open Forum
Aired: 2026-04-06
Duration: 27:59


=== Profanity and Power Plant Bridge (14:44) ===

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[00:01:09]  Welcome back.
[00:01:10]  We're in open forum, ready to take your calls and commentary.
[00:01:13]  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.
[00:01:24]  This is from Saturday.
[00:01:25]  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.
[00:01:34]  Trump's 10-day deadline to Iran is expected to expire on Monday.
[00:01:39]  He previously threatened to bomb the country's energy, water, and oil infrastructure if no deal was reached to open the strait.
[00:01:46]  Tehran has accused Trump of planning to commit war crimes.
[00:01:51]  Just some of the news that we're following this morning.
[00:01:54]  Michael is in Connecticut on our line for independence.
[00:01:57]  Michael, you are in open forum.
[00:01:59]  Yes, thank you for reading that part of that comment from Donald Trump.
[00:02:05]  I notice you didn't read the full comment because it would be so inappropriate for you to do that.
[00:02:10]  He uses the F-word in that comment, if you look closely.
[00:02:16]  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.
[00:02:44]  Could we be more despicable?
[00:02:46]  And I'm just going to leave it at this.
[00:02:49]  The problem isn't the president.
[00:02:51]  It's the Republican Party.
[00:02:54]  Congress can stop this president tomorrow morning, but Republicans refuse to.
[00:03:02]  So if you follow the yellow brick road, I hope America is understanding what to do in the next election.
[00:03:08]  Vote out all Republicans because they are the problem.
[00:03:12]  Fix the problem.
[00:03:14]  The Republican Party.
[00:03:15]  Bring that party back as a decent, respectable party, the kind of party it used to be before Donald Trump took control of it.
[00:03:24]  But Donald Trump, yes, he's the face of the problem with his language, with his threatening war crimes on Easter Sunday.
[00:03:33]  But the people of America have the ability to end it by voting out all Republicans at every level in the next election.
[00:03:41]  And let's try to get America back by rebuilding the Republican Party and restoring trust in America once again with our friends.
[00:03:52]  Thank you for listening to me.
[00:03:54]  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.
[00:04:19]  Let's hear from Larry in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska on our line for Republicans.
[00:04:23]  Good morning, Larry.
[00:04:25]  Well, happy Easter, everybody, number one.
[00:04:29]  Number two, I think the Democratic Party's got some serious trouble.
[00:04:36]  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.
[00:04:57]  It needs to go back to the Democratic Party of the 1960s and the 50s and even the 70s and stop this hate.
[00:05:10]  I mean, on Easter, how can a Democrat or a Republican, anybody talk about hate on Easter?
[00:05:19]  That just boggles my mind.
[00:05:22]  Larry, what do you think of the President's post this morning on Easter using that level of profanity?
[00:05:29]  The profanity, I do not agree with.
[00:05:33]  That's one thing I got to say about the president.
[00:05:37]  I agree with him all the time except for his firing of Pong Baby and Christy No.
[00:05:44]  I did not like that.
[00:05:46]  But other than that, the man is doing a great job trying to keep America back to where it used to be, where it was honorable.
[00:05:56]  He's trying to clean up the corruption.
[00:05:59]  He's trying to.
[00:06:00]  Larry, if I can ask you, we had a caller in a previous segment ask about this framework in particular of Make America Great Again.
[00:06:08]  And you were just saying that you're calling back to a time when America was better.
[00:06:13]  When was that specifically?
[00:06:15]  I think in the 60s, 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.
[00:06:40]  Okay, Democrats and Republicans both.
[00:06:44]  And here's the thing about today is there's so much hate that it cliles up.
[00:06:51]  We actually got people not being civil to each other.
[00:06:57]  That's one problem.
[00:06:59]  But to think about it, you've got Democratic people rooting for criminals and terrorists.
[00:07:09]  You know, JFK would just literally just roll over his grave if he knew what was going on.
[00:07:18]  Ben is in Chicago on our line for independence.
[00:07:21]  Good morning, Ben.
[00:07:22]  Good morning.
[00:07:23]  This war with Iran is planned, led, carried out by the President's cabinet and Israel foreign operatives.
[00:07:31]  The intel our president receives is manipulated.
[00:07:34]  He gets two-minute YouTube shorts of bombings.
[00:07:37]  We don't want this war.
[00:07:38]  We're being led by mind control.
[00:07:40]  Godspeed to the HN pilots shut down.
[00:07:42]  I hope Chechen soldiers don't get to them because we usually have to save a bullet for the soldiers over there.
[00:07:48]  I pray that everybody's okay.
[00:07:49]  Please let our men and women of service be okay.
[00:07:53]  The war is hurting our allies more than anybody.
[00:07:55]  South Korea is literally telling people to stop driving as much.
[00:07:58]  What are we doing?
[00:07:59]  The side causes of this are military-industrial complex profits off of this like crazy.
[00:08:05]  The U.S. president is talking about hitting their water desalination plans for rural people in Iran.
[00:08:11]  This makes no sense.
[00:08:12]  That is a war crime.
[00:08:13]  And another caller called in earlier about double-tap bombings where they try and rescue people and then they get bombed.
[00:08:18]  That's a war crime.
[00:08:19]  I want to move on to Ed Martin for Deputy AG.
[00:08:22]  We need Ed Martin in now over Todd Blanche.
[00:08:24]  Todd Blanche killed the Autopenn investigation, and Joe Kent is being called a Nazi.
[00:08:30]  And it's unfair why he is being called a Nazi.
[00:08:35]  He is not a Nazi.
[00:08:37]  He's an American patriot.
[00:08:38]  He got deployed.
[00:08:39]  He wants to serve and fight.
[00:08:40]  And then just because he talks about Israel being behind all this, he gets kicked out and blamed by the administration.
[00:08:45]  Why is the president lying to the people?
[00:08:49]  Thank you.
[00:08:50]  William is in Atlanta on our line for Democrats.
[00:08:53]  Good morning, William.
[00:08:55]  Hey, we just had two people on, a Democratic operative and a Republican operative, and they didn't have no answers for the people.
[00:09:04]  People, please let Black America save America.
[00:09:09]  Please vote all black politicians in.
[00:09:13]  We are the smartest.
[00:09:15]  We can save it, even with reparations.
[00:09:17]  Give us reparations, and we will repair all the infrastructure.
[00:09:21]  We will fix everything.
[00:09:23]  This is our nation.
[00:09:25]  It used to be ours.
[00:09:26]  Give it back to us.
[00:09:28]  We're the real owners of this land.
[00:09:30]  Give it back to us.
[00:09:31]  We will repair it.
[00:09:32]  We will fix it.
[00:09:33]  We will run the country the way it's supposed to be run for all people.
[00:09:39]  No matter what your color is, no matter what your faith is, we are the chosen one.
[00:09:45]  We are the people of God.
[00:09:48]  Put the control back in our hands.
[00:09:51]  You don't have to be scared.
[00:09:54]  All right.
[00:09:55]  We are in open form and ready to take your calls with comments about public policy and news of the day.
[00:10:00]  Republicans, again, can call in at 202-748-8001.
[00:10:05]  Democrats at 202-748-8000.
[00:10:08]  And Independents at 202-748-8002.
[00:10:13]  Once again, if you'd like to text us, that's 202-748-8003.
[00:10:18]  We're also on social media, facebook.com slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ.
[00:10:25]  Mike is in Rockford, Illinois, on our line for independence.
[00:10:28]  Good morning, Mike.
[00:10:30]  Good morning, Kimberly.
[00:10:31]  Happy Easter to all who celebrate.
[00:10:33]  Five underreported stories recently in the news.
[00:10:37]  The first one, Stephen Miller, in a hearing with Representative Lou.
[00:10:43]  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.
[00:10:55]  He could not answer in four minutes.
[00:10:57]  It was quiet.
[00:10:58]  The second underreported story is Mark Wayne Mullen's confirmation.
[00:11:05]  He was asked about Article 1, Section 6, Clause 2 in the Constitution where congressmen can't work for another branch of the government.
[00:11:17]  He admitted that he did COVID work where only four people were right into it.
[00:11:22]  Well, he was a congressman.
[00:11:25]  I think there's a big gray area there where you might have blurred the lines of the three branches.
[00:11:31]  No reporting at all.
[00:11:33]  The third one is Counter Fitzgerald, a lot of kids, I guess they all went to the island too, running Tenner Fitzgerald or buying the tariff rebates.
[00:11:46]  And there's after Trump and Ludnick passed the tariffs, and then we know that the Supreme Court shot him down.
[00:11:55]  Now they're getting the rebates to the import companies, and they bought the rights to the tariff money.
[00:12:01]  Very, very questionable, not much reporting on that.
[00:12:04]  And four and five, number four is the refinery in Texas that exploded.
[00:12:09]  I've seen videos of it.
[00:12:11]  It's vaporlight.
[00:12:12]  And wildfires in Nebraska burned a million acres, almost no reporting.
[00:12:18]  And then lastly but not least, the border fence is not being built on the border.
[00:12:25]  It's going through tribal lands.
[00:12:27]  We're losing hundreds of acres, and no one's really pointing these things out.
[00:12:32]  Everybody, happy Easter.
[00:12:34]  Thank you.
[00:12:35]  Next up is Jim in Rossville, Georgia on our line for Democrats.
[00:12:39]  Good morning, Jim.
[00:12:42]  How are you guys doing today?
[00:12:43]  Good, thanks.
[00:12:44]  What's your comment for Open Forum?
[00:12:47]  Well, I was just, you know, curious about the, you know, I'm in the district of Marjorie Taylor Green's, excuse me, vacant seat.
[00:12:58]  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.
[00:13:07]  Why haven't I seen any Democratic stuff?
[00:13:14]  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, you know, from both sides.
[00:13:36]  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.
[00:13:46]  Is this what you're saying?
[00:13:48]  Yeah, that's all I've seen.
[00:13:49]  It's just Rick Jones and the governor and nothing but, you know, Republican.
[00:13:56]  We haven't even seen anything about the, you know, the Republican seat or for the Congresswoman.
[00:14:06]  You know, it's just been, you know, attack ads against Sean Harris.
[00:14:11]  And it's been, you know, just, hey, vote for Clay Fuller.
[00:14:16]  So I was just curious about why the algorithm is going that way.
[00:14:22]  Often those algorithms show you more things that are similar to what you've already watched.
[00:14:28]  So perhaps searching for different things might yield different results in your algorithm, perhaps.
[00:14:36]  Well, I disting the, you know, go to Democratic side, but that is interesting.

=== Resetting America's Balance of Power (03:09) ===

[00:14:45]  So, you know, thanks for your time.
[00:14:47]  I was just curious about that because, you know, this election is, you know, pretty pivotal.
[00:14:54]  I'm sorry, not pivotable, but pivotal.
[00:14:57]  You know, I understand Jim.
[00:14:59]  Yeah.
[00:14:59]  All right.
[00:15:00]  Let's hear from Joshua in Harwick, Pennsylvania on our line for Republicans.
[00:15:04]  Good morning, Joshua.
[00:15:06]  Good morning, and happy Easter to everyone.
[00:15:09]  Go ahead, Joshua, with your comment in open forum.
[00:15:12]  Yeah, I think that today is a great day for America.
[00:15:16]  And there are a lot of different issues that I think, as you listen to the Open Forum, people have on their minds.
[00:15:23]  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.
[00:15:39]  Gas prices haven't gone up as high as what they were under Joe Biden.
[00:15:44]  And everyone's upset about gas prices now, but they weren't that upset two, three years ago.
[00:15:50]  And once again, we are going to bring peace in the Middle East.
[00:15:54]  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 word of peace.
[00:16:11]  Donald Trump is laying out the framework of how to deal with the Palestinians, and he's cleaning up with Israel, Hezbollah, in Lebanon.
[00:16:22]  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.
[00:16:33]  And this is a great day.
[00:16:34]  And I couldn't be happier that we've got this down to pilot.
[00:16:40]  And us holding Iran stops China from getting Iran.
[00:16:45]  And this is how we reset the balance of power.
[00:16:49]  And so I'm really excited.
[00:16:50]  I'm really excited about how this realigns our allies against China and brings them back to the fold of American free world capitalism.
[00:17:04]  Carol is in Marlborough, Massachusetts on our line for independence.
[00:17:07]  Good morning, Carol.
[00:17:09]  Good morning.
[00:17:11]  Happy Easter.
[00:17:13]  I just wanted to say I agree with everything that the colleague just said, the Republican caller.
[00:17:20]  Thank God for this president.
[00:17:22]  President Trump is doing a great job.
[00:17:25]  And thank God that we saved that airman in Iran.
[00:17:31]  And everything that the president is doing is to make America safe again.
[00:17:37]  And I appreciate you taking my call.
[00:17:39]  Thank you.
[00:17:41]  Next up is Anthony in Houston, Texas, on our line for Democrats.
[00:17:45]  Good morning, Anthony.
[00:17:47]  Hey, good morning.
[00:17:48]  I just, you asked the question earlier, and I hope I can have time to respond to it.

=== Religion Justifying Violence Against Homeless (07:13) ===

[00:17:54]  Is there too much religion?
[00:17:56]  And I would have called in on that line, stating that there's too much religion.
[00:18:02]  And why?
[00:18:04]  Because how religion has been used historically, not just by the United States, but all around the world.
[00:18:11]  But in the United States specifically, you think about the curse of Ham and how Genesis was used to support shattered slavery.
[00:18:22]  You think about the doctrine of discovery and the indigenous 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.
[00:18:38]  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.
[00:18:49]  And so, very difficult for me to support this faith movement over facts, right, over reality.
[00:18:58]  It just has been used to justify violence.
[00:19:01]  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.
[00:19:12]  So I believe there's a great deal of moral value in biblical teachings, not just Christianity, but many other religions.
[00:19:21]  There's a lot of moral value, but that's not what's being taught or being propagated or perpetuated throughout society.
[00:19:32]  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.
[00:19:43]  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.
[00:19:49]  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.
[00:20:00]  He said that we were trying to work on things.
[00:20:03]  We were working together.
[00:20:05]  And I would agree with him.
[00:20:07]  The result of working together gave us civil rights.
[00:20:10]  It gave us voting rights.
[00:20:12]  It gave us affirmative action.
[00:20:15]  But as Martin Luther King said in his last book, where do we go from here?
[00:20:20]  Chaos or community?
[00:20:22]  There is a white backlash that takes place.
[00:20:26]  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.
[00:20:42]  It's not really about Christianity.
[00:20:44]  It's not really about self-preservation.
[00:20:48]  It's about what they want for themselves and their group and their tribe.
[00:20:52]  And that's the unfortunate thing of how, for me, how religion is used.
[00:20:57]  Now it's about DEI and the attack on D.C. We've got your point.
[00:21:01]  I want to hear from a couple other folks.
[00:21:03]  Let's hear from Dave in Dana Point, California on our line for Republicans.
[00:21:06]  Good morning, Dave.
[00:21:08]  Yes.
[00:21:09]  Thank you for taking my call.
[00:21:10]  I just want to say happy Easter to everybody.
[00:21:13]  And I just want to say a long time ago, I used to be a Democrat.
[00:21:18]  And now the Democrat Party is the party of open borders.
[00:21:22]  We all saw it.
[00:21:23]  People who call in here on C-SPAN, they watch this stuff.
[00:21:26]  They know what's going on.
[00:21:28]  But we all know that they're a party of open borders.
[00:21:31]  They're a party of defunding and abolishing law enforcement agencies.
[00:21:36]  They're a party of allowing males in females safe spaces like their jails, their sports, their locker rooms, bathrooms.
[00:21:45]  They're also a party that likes to call druggy tent communities homeless.
[00:21:51]  We all know they're not homeless.
[00:21:52]  They're druggy tank communities.
[00:21:55]  If you go through and if you analyze all those things, those just a small portion of what I just said that they're for.
[00:22:03]  All that stuff hurts our women and children.
[00:22:07]  That's what it hurts.
[00:22:08]  It doesn't hurt grown men like me, but that's what it does.
[00:22:13]  And it's weird that people who watch this stuff call in on C-SPAN.
[00:22:19]  They see all this stuff that I just said.
[00:22:22]  So everybody knows that that's what the Democrat Party is for nowadays.
[00:22:27]  Dave, I understand your broader point about the Democratic Party, but can I follow up with just one other point that you mentioned about homelessness in the United States?
[00:22:35]  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.
[00:22:45]  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.
[00:22:59]  The most common drugs used by this population aren't opioids, but methamphetamines.
[00:23:04]  And a significant percentage of people who are homeless and use drugs regularly have tried but have been unable to receive treatment.
[00:23:12]  I understand your larger point, Dave, but I did want to give you some data around homelessness and drug use.
[00:23:20]  But that data that you're saying, you didn't mention this, and this is the key.
[00:23:26]  I'm 59 years old, so I know the difference between homeless and druggy tank communities.
[00:23:31]  Druggy tent communities are a phenomena that's been popping up hardcore over the last 10, 15 years.
[00:23:38]  That's what these are.
[00:23:40]  Everybody knows prior that if you're 30 or older, you know the difference.
[00:23:45]  Homeless, you'd see one or two in a park somewhere.
[00:23:48]  Now you have druggy tent communities everywhere.
[00:23:55]  They pop up behind strip malls.
[00:23:57]  They're in empty fields.
[00:23:59]  They're in our parks and recreational areas prior, say, 10, 15 years ago, before we had druggy tank communities.
[00:24:07]  These are homeless communities.
[00:24:08]  I think we have your point, Dave.
[00:24:10]  All right, let's hear from Edith in Illinois and our line for independence.
[00:24:13]  Good morning, Edith.
[00:24:15]  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.
[00:24:28]  The pathetic Republican Party is going to go down this November.
[00:24:33]  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 is basically from Europe.
[00:24:50]  So America has to decide: doesn't it ever care about immigrants?
[00:24:57]  Apparently, the immigrant is the dirty word today.
[00:25:01]  And they don't realize our own ancestors were immigrants at one time or another.

=== The Dirty Word: Immigrants in America (02:51) ===

[00:25:08]  And just hope that we don't have a basic revolution right here in this country and slit each other's throats one day.
[00:25:17]  All right.
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[00:25:31]  Coming up Monday morning, we'll talk about Campaign 2026 and political news of the day with University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato, and then Politico's Alex Gangitano discusses the week ahead for the White House and Rice University's Baker Institute non-resident fellow Mark Finley on the impact of the Iran war on global energy.
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[00:27:56]  Now, a discussion on the role of artificial intelligence and its role in the