Jasmine hosts the April 6, 2026 Washington Journal, analyzing a MAGIN report showing C-SPAN viewers are nearly balanced politically while discussing the Artemis II mission and 2026 midterms. Maryland Governor Wes Moore criticizes President Trump's cuts to SNAP and Medicaid, forcing state funds to prevent hunger, as callers debate rising energy costs and Iran war impacts. Kevin Hassett defends a 4.3% unemployment rate driven by tax breaks, despite caller concerns about youth economic uncertainty and housing affordability. The episode concludes with a preview of President Trump's week, an advertisement for "The Kissinger Tapes," and Larry Sabato's analysis of upcoming elections, highlighting deep partisan divides over fiscal policy and foreign intervention. [Automatically generated summary]
On Washington Journal, Americans will head to the ballot box in less than seven months to vote on their top priorities and concerns for the midterm elections.
The Iran war nears its sixth week as President Trump threatens to ramp up and escalate.
The average price of gas remains over $4, according to Gas Buddy.
The government remains partially closed.
And Democrats feel emboldened to retake at least the House of Representatives.
So we want to hear from you.
What is your top issue heading into the midterm elections?
Here's how you join the conversation.
Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000.
Republicans, your line, 202-748-8001.
And Independents, your line is 202-748-8002.
You can also reach us by text message.
That number is 202-748-8003.
Include your first name, city, and state.
And you can also post on Facebook at facebook.com forward slash C-SPAN or on X. Our handle is at C-SPANWJ.
Americans will vote on November 3rd this year to decide the fate of the House, the Senate, multiple gubernatorial elections, as well as down ballot races.
Now, according to a Gallup poll released earlier, excuse me, released late last month in March, it found that as the war intensified in March, the headline here is healthcare reclaims top spot among U.S. domestic returns.
And it says that as the war intensified in March, the latest Gallup poll found that healthcare topping Americans' list of domestic concerns, with more saying they worry, quote, a great deal about it than other than about 15 other domestic policy areas.
If you just bear with me while I scroll right here, it shows you the list of worries that they asked about.
Interestingly, illegal immigration is down at the bottom.
33% say they worry about it strongly.
That, of course, is an issue that fueled President Donald Trump, one of the issues that fueled President Donald Trump back to the White House in 2024.
But I want you to take a look at some of these lists, these issues that Americans are worried about.
Healthcare availability, affordability, U.S. economy, inflation, federal spending and deficit, income and wealth distribution.
Now, last week, the president, in a clip at his Easter luncheon, that was close press, said that the U.S. would not be able to pay for daycare in addition to Medicaid and Medicare, saying that that should be up to the states.
Listen here to Maryland Governor Wes Moore slamming the president for that comment.
In the midst of all this, the president in recent days told the gathering at the White House that in his view, because of the 50 states, quote, it's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.
He argues the federal government shouldn't have to pay for those programs because, quote, we have to take care of one thing: military protection.
So many of the decisions that this White House is making, they are making with a clear understanding that no state has a budget to say, okay, well, we'll just take on health care or we'll just take on food insecurity.
We saw that happen last year when the President of the United States broke the law in order to cut SNAP.
In fact, we sued him and we won and we beat him in court on this.
He actually tried to appeal the fact that, you know, threw a temper tantrum because he felt because the judges told him, actually, no, you need to pay for food assistance for people.
And what we ended up doing is in Maryland, I actually took $63 million out of our fiscal responsibility fund, which is a fund that is made up of capital gains taxes.
And I said, I'm not going to let the people of my state go hungry because Washington is throwing a having a food fight.
And so we made sure that SNAP and SNAP benefits were not going to be cut for the people of Maryland.
But it is a deeply unfair ask to ask states and/or governors, because we do things that the federal government has never done.
We actually balance our budgets.
And it is an unfair ask to ask us to take on what should be a joint responsibility because the federal government has decided to stop doing its job.
Now, that was Maryland Governor Westmore talking about the president's comments last week at an Eastern lunch where he said that the federal government would not be able to pay for daycare in addition to Medicaid and Medicare, saying that that should be up to the states.
We're talking about midterm elections this morning.
We want to know what your top concerns are heading into the midterm elections.
Let's turn to some phone calls.
Eric from Maryland, an independent.
Your first good morning, Eric.
unidentified
Hey, good morning.
I'm very pleased to be the first to call this morning.
Going to the midterm, I'm very, very concerned about two things.
The first one is the war, because I don't believe that it's going to end the way we believe it's going to end.
And of course, the second one is the economy.
And I believe two are connected because we need money for the war.
And we saw the president trying to ask for billions of dollars, actually, maybe a trillion, I think.
The headline here is: Trump's Iran War Leaves Republicans adrift ahead of midterms.
If you just bear with me while I scroll a little bit here, it says that this is not the run-up to the midterm elections that Republicans wanted.
A year and a half after winning the White House by promising to lower costs and end wars, Donald Trump is a wartime president overseeing surging energy costs in an escalating overseas conflict.
The war in Iran was largely unpopular before an American fighter jet was shot down in Iran, a development that dominated headlines on Friday and contradicted Trump's claim that Tehran's military capabilities have been all but destroyed.
One crew member was rescued, and we know now that the second crew member was also rescued in a daring effort by the U.S. military over the weekend.
And it says earlier in the week, the Republican president offered little clarity to a nation eager for answers during a primetime address from the White House, his first since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran more than a month ago, simultaneously suggesting that the war was ending and expanding.
Now, during a Fox News interview over the weekend here, Senator Majority Leader, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, he spoke about the current price of gas in light of the Iranian conflict and he said this.
And I think, you know, in his view, and I think in the view of our military leadership and war planners, many of the objectives have been achieved.
Obviously, opening up the strait is going to be a key part of that.
The president's made it very clear whether that happens the hard way or the easy way it will happen.
And things will start to stabilize, Dana.
You'll start to see those gas prices come down to a more normal range.
But this was an important step that the president took.
It's in America's vital national security interest to ensure that the Iranians don't have a nuclear capability and that their ballistic missile capabilities are diminished and degraded in a way that they don't threaten not only that region but the entire world.
And it's a step that was long overdue.
Obviously, it will be hopefully in the next few weeks played out and we'll have achieved the objectives that we need to have achieved.
That was Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Fox News over the weekend talking about gas prices in relation to the Iran military conflict.
Lisa from Hyattsville, Maryland, a Republican.
Good morning, Lisa.
What's your top issue heading into the midterms?
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm a first-time caller.
Oh, welcome.
Thank you for taking my call.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
One of my concerns is the way that the governing is running in Maryland, specifically Westmore, as far as electricity prices.
That is a huge concern to not only myself, but many citizens, as I honestly feel as though he is not a competent governor.
The other thing I would also suggest is that they look at the SNAP benefits, the Medicaid benefits.
You know, because it's supposed to be there for people who actually truly need it.
You know, if you're elderly or disabled, there's way too many people, in my opinion, who actually have these benefits that actually could possibly work.
So I think there needs to be a tighter control around that.
Okay, Lisa from Hyattsville, Maryland, a Republican first-time caller.
She mentioned at the beginning of her comments electricity prices in Maryland.
I turn now to a WAMU article.
It says the headline here is, she sealed her doors and kept the lights off.
Her PEPCO bill still nearly doubled.
I'll scroll down, give me one second here.
Melinda Robertson did everything she's supposed to do.
She set her thermosat to 68 degrees, sealed out drafts with tape around her balcony door, and religiously turned off lights.
She didn't need to.
Her February electricity bill came back nearly double as her usual average, over $700 for a second row in a month.
And it says that she cut back on groceries.
Her aunt's monthly bill was $1,000.
And so a confluence of factors here.
The short answer, according to state regulators and energy experts, is that multiple forces hit at once.
It's been a brutal winter driving up electricity usage, natural gas prices rose in recent years, and a surge in the data center construction is straining the regional power grid in ways few anticipated.
The long answer involves utility regulation, energy auctions, and a debate over who should foot the bill for powering the artificial intelligence boom.
So that is an article in WAMU about Maryland's electricity price surging.
If you want to take another look, Pamela from Tennessee, a Democrat.
Good morning, Pamela.
What's your top issue heading into the midterm election?
unidentified
Hi.
Well, I have one issue concerning the elections themselves, which is the mail-in voting abilities.
I'm a senior citizen.
My knees are bone on bone.
Voter Rights Lawsuit00:02:45
unidentified
There's really no way I could go out to vote.
So I understand that the president recently signed an executive order giving the federal government the right to control that, which is not within his authority at all.
My bigger issue is why is he continually being allowed to do things that are illegal and outside of his authority with no pushback whatsoever from an official source?
The media talks about it.
The courts will rule against him, but he continues to just go ahead and do whatever he wants without Congress saying anything.
Congress seems to be complicit in trying to install a dictator.
I don't know if this might have something to do with that trip that Trump took them on to Russia, which was a pleasure trip, and maybe they had Compromont gathered against them, or maybe there was just some flat-out talks about just don't say anything, do nothing, and you will get wretches in power beyond your wildest dreams.
Pamela, let me turn now to give an update on the mail-in voting executive order that the president signed last week since you mentioned it.
The headline here from a CBS News article is, 23 states sue Trump over new executive order targeting mailing voting.
If you just bear with me while I scroll a bit, it says, officials from 23 Democratic states in the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit Friday.
This was filed on April 3rd.
Seeking to block Trump's latest executive order that aims to restrict mail and voting, arguing the directive unconstitutionally attempts to interfere with state's administration of elections.
The lawsuit led by California was filed by the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts.
It asserts that neither the Constitution nor any federal law gives the president the power to mandate widespread changes to states' electoral systems and voting procedures.
The measure, they say, quote, transress plants of state's constitutional power to prescribe the time, place, and manner of federal elections and seeks to, quote, amend and dictate election law by fiat based on the president's whims.
The executive order at the center of the challenge was signed by Mr. Trump on Tuesday, months before the midterm elections and lays out new requirements related to mail-in voting.
The directive calls for the Department of Homeland Security to compile state citizenship lists of U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote in federal elections and requires the U.S. Postal Service to send mail or absentee ballots only to reach voters on each state's list.
So that is more about that recent voter bill, mail-and-voting executive order that the president signed.
Tell me, what's your top issue heading into the midterm elections?
unidentified
Good morning.
It's voters' issues.
It seems to me our country would be better served if we would focus on three primary things.
Health care for all, make America the number one health care nation in the world.
We shouldn't be 28th.
And number two, the best legal system in the world.
We shouldn't be 38th in the world.
Denmark should not be number one.
United States states should have the best legal system in the world.
It's a shambles.
Our president system is a shambles.
And those two, and then the third would be eliminate the IRS and set in motion a sales tax.
Before 1912, we didn't have the income tax.
It's just too hard for citizens to understand 80,000 pages of tax codes that prostitutes, drug dealers, and rich people can hire accountants to get around taxes.
Those three things would help our country.
But the most important thing in this country is to use America's power to drill, baby, drill and pay off a national debt because America has the energy to supply the world with oil and gas.
Anyway, I am not able to vote in Florida in the midterm elections because I am an independent.
And I don't feel that that's right because they put in who they want to put in there in the midterms.
And they tell me at the voters' registration offices, oh, you can vote in the general election when they've got everybody to run in where they want to be running.
And there's a few states, and I don't know what states they are, but if you're registered independent, you can vote in the midterm elections.
And as far as trusting the president of the United States, he's a continuous liar, people that are supporting the Republican Party or the MAGAs or whatever you want to call them.
I don't see how anybody can trust somebody when they're continuously loved.
And that's very upsetting to me because in my observation, I'm 80, I'll be 90 years old next year.
And that's very disheartening to me because I do really honestly believe we have already lost this country to the oligarchs.
It's very sad.
And I cry almost every day about it.
Thank you very much, Jasmine.
You are an asset to C-SPAN, and you're very well knowledgeable.
Thanks for calling in, Jack, from Tallahassee, Florida, an Independent.
Now, he mentioned not being able to vote as an independent in the Florida primaries.
Florida is among a handful of states in the country that have a closed primary.
So that's what you would Google if you want to know more about that process.
But he is the second person now to talk about the status of voting itself.
I point to now an ABC interview with former Republican state election officials who were asked about the president's recent mail and voting executive order that we talked about a few minutes ago, if it would stand up to legal challenges.
In this clip, now our Pennsylvania Secretary of Commonwealth, Al Schmidt, former Maricopa County Arizona recorder Stephen Richer, take a listen to what they had to say when NASA.
A series of lawsuits have been filed, including one from your state.
Are you confident that the courts are going to strike down the president's order?
And what happens if they don't?
unidentified
I am confident of an outcome in our favor.
Americans should rest assured, despite all the back and forth in the courts that we will inevitably see, despite all the back and forth in the press, that Pennsylvania, the birthplace of our republic, and Governor Shapiro are going to stand up for our voters and know that the Constitution is on our side.
Well, in some ways, it's not because we have some of the underlying features that President Trump aspires to have in all elections, which is that we have documented proof of citizenship requirements in Arizona.
We have a mail voter list that you have to be on in order to receive a mail ballot.
And of course, we, like 46 other states, have intelligent barcodes that allow voters to track their ballots and allow election officials to track those ballots too.
So while I agree with some of the elements in the executive order and some of the aspirations, the form does matter.
And I agree with Secretary Schmidt that this is probably going to be enjoined very quickly.
I think someone on the internet said this will be enjoined faster than a cheetah on speed or something like that.
Mr. Schutz, so what is your biggest worry going into November?
The president has taken several steps to sow doubt about the election returns.
unidentified
I would say my biggest concerns are twofold.
One, that things like this cause some degree of confusion.
We want voters to know that the election is going to be free, fair, safe, and secure, and that everyone knows what the rules are prior to going into this.
So confusion is never a positive thing unless you're seeking to sow distrust in the outcome of an election.
So that was two former state officials talking about the president's most recent executive order targeting mail-in voting.
I want to invite more of our viewers to join in on the conversation.
And the question this morning is, what is your top issue heading into the midterm elections?
Democrats, your line is 202-748-8000.
Republicans, your line, 202-748-8001.
And Independents, your line is 202-748-8002.
You can also reach us by text message at 202-748-8003.
Include your first name, city, and state.
We have some text messages, social media messages answering our question, what your top issue is.
I'll turn to those now.
From Create Love, she says, or they say, excuse me, there are many, LOL, the economy, the wars, the budgets regarding programs, and response to what is their top issue heading into the midterm elections.
PJ Garcio says, Epstein files cover up starting a world war.
I will never vote for a Republican ever again.
Cowards are traitors, every last one of them.
That was PJ Garcio.
Carolyn Land Garvey says how the quote end game to our war in Iran works out for one.
Michael J. Fernia says, There are so many that you can't just pick one.
And so those were some of the messages we've got so far.
People answering the question: Is what is your top issue heading into midterm elections?
Rick from Washington, Michigan, a Republican.
Good morning, Rick.
What's your top issue heading into the midterm elections?
unidentified
Oh, this is to all the people.
President Trump, with his advisors, is trying to do the best he can.
Any person who thinks and talks bad of this man, especially demoncraft of our country and all the evil people, all lies.
I'm homeless, so when I talk about priorities, I'm talking about survival.
I listen to leaders in Washington talk about tough decisions, but from where I'm standing, the decisions don't look tough at all.
When it comes to the war in Iran, the money moves fast.
The urgency is immediate, and the action is clear.
But when it comes to Americans sleeping outside, suddenly it's too complicated.
Suddenly, it's slow.
Suddenly, there's no money.
So I have to ask who is this government actually working for?
Because people like me are told to wait, to be patient, to trust the process.
But we don't have time.
People are suffering right now.
So in this midterm, I'm not voting based on my party.
I'm voting based on whether leaders are willing to prove with their actions that American lives here at home matter just as much as anything happening overseas.
Yeah, my top issue is: first of all, all of our news outlets are manipulating the American, call it the psych.
They've all forgotten on purpose that we killed Iran's only freely elected leader in 1953.
Okay, first of all, you guys got to start talking about that to educate the people in the United States of what, why and how things are happening.
The other thing is, Israel's Secret Service trained our Shah's Secret Service in Iran, and they now hate Israel so bad because the Shah's Secret Service killed so many Iranians, which is killing your own.
That's what we hate so bad.
Okay, and Yahoo has done the greatest job I've ever seen of creating hatred of Jews worldwide.
You will pay for this, Yahoo.
And Trump, you're going to end up paying for what you've done to America, causing all the hate worldwide on us, even though our CIA killed their guy.
They didn't kill our guy.
I don't know why this, why you guys, this, even Washington Journal doesn't want to talk about 1953, the CIA, Kermit Roosevelt, was part of the CIA then.
Oil rises slightly after Trump's latest threats on Iran.
It says oil prices rose slightly and stocks in Asia were mixed on Monday despite continued attacks in the Middle East and threats by President Trump to escalate U.S. attacks on Iran.
Trading was limited because markets were closed for the day in parts of Asia and all of Europe.
Mr. Trump taunted Iranian leaders on Sunday after the U.S. rescue of an American airman whose jet had been shot down.
The president demanded that Iran open the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passageway for oil shipments in the Middle East.
The conflict, now in its sixth week, has caused energy shocks that could drive up the cost of living around the world and deprive vulnerable regions of staples like electricity, clean water, and cooking fuel.
Randy from Michigan, a Democrat.
Good morning, Randy.
Tell me what's your top issue heading into the midterm elections.
unidentified
Good morning, Jasmine.
My top issue is two things.
When Trump was running for president, he said that he was going to give us better health care than we've ever had, better than Obamacare.
Now it looks like we're not going to have any.
The other thing is, how do we explain to the rest of the world how our drug war has told them that they can't sell their drug, but we're selling the most dangerous drug in the world, which is alcohol.
We're averaging 9,003 accidents a year on the roads for alcohol.
We're averaging 2,250 for all drugs.
And the whole thing about it is we're treating 29,000 alcoholics here in Michigan versus 4,000 drug addicts.
So all these things that they said was, you know, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, it's alcohol, alcohol, alcohol, alcohol, people.
Look at the numbers.
I mean, our government really just basically took away the rights of black and brown people to give to the rights of people that were drinking alcohol to make sure they had a job on Monday.
And that's what this is all about.
And these are the things that we have to address in this next election.
And Democrats, you better get on this because I'm going to tell you, this is going to be a thorn in your side if you don't start bringing these things up.
My top issue is preserving health care, Social Security, and Medicare and Medicaid.
Trump lied to us.
He said that he would not do any cuts to these.
He's already made the biggest cuts in history, and more cuts are coming.
Once these life-saving programs are gone, we won't be able to get them back.
And please show a clip of President saying that the federal government can no longer pay for these things, but the money must be spent on the military.
And he's asking for $1.5 trillion in 2027.
And there was a show on 60 Minutes yesterday called RAMUSA.
It stands for Remote Area Medical, where people have to line up like beggars.
Americans have to line up like beggars to get desperately needed health care.
Well, Trump's family is getting into the military.
They're making drones.
So they, of course, want to make money on that.
So we're not taking...
And please play the clip of Marjorie Taylor Greene.
She said, the president has gone insane.
And I just beg the people in Georgia to please vote Democrat this time so we can present.
All right, Marie, let me turn to an article right now about health care.
It's from KFF News.
And the headline here is a preview of the role health care may play in the 2026 election.
If I just scroll down here a little bit, key takeaways.
It says, historically, health care has often been among the most important issues to voters in most presidential and election midterms and election year polling since 1992, healthcare ranked among voters' top concerns with, quote, the economy taking the top spot in most elections.
While these polls usually ask voters to choose between healthcare and the economy as separate issues, KFF polling has long shown how health care costs are an important factor in people's economic concerns.
On its own, healthcare rose to the top spot in the 2018 midterm exit poll immediately after the failed attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act ACA.
In almost all recent elections, Democrat voters have consistently been more likely than Republican voters to say that health care is a top electoral issue.
And I'll just scroll a little bit here down.
It says implications for 2026 midterms.
Looking ahead to the 2026 midterm elections, the issue of health care affordability may help candidates motivate their bases.
As of March 2026, Democrats maintain an advantage over Republicans in voter trust to address the cost of health care and prescription drugs.
And majorities say health care costs are important to their vote.
Who voters will ultimately trust to handle the affordability of health care and whether the issue will be enough to translate into turnout and votes remains an open question.
So that's from KFF News.
If you would like to go and read that further, Jim from Michigan, a Republican.
Good morning, Jim.
What's your top issue heading into the midterm elections?
unidentified
Yeah, we just basically need to change our government.
We don't have a government.
And I'm sorry, I must have dialed the wrong number.
I'm a Democrat.
Yeah, I know that.
I'm a Democrat.
And we're liberal.
Basically, I was an independent for many, many years and voted for the right person, is what I did.
And apparently, we don't have the right person in there.
He's a dictator.
And we have a communist Republican Party.
They do whatever he says.
And then if you do what he doesn't like, and then you're punished.
So I think actually we should go to the popular vote and get rid of the electoral system and just take everybody vote and let them vote for what they want.
Well, since John mentioned the fraud in California, I turned to an AP News article here.
It says eight arrests made in federal crackdown on alleged health care fraud in Southern California.
And that was published on April 2nd.
It says, federal officials on Thursday arrested eight people they say were involved in various health care fraud schemes, totaling $50 million in and around Los Angeles.
Five of the cases involved hospice care centers in the cities of Glendale, Artesia, Tarzana, and Simi Valley in the Los Angeles area that allegedly billed Medicare patients that were not terminally ill and did not qualify for hospice services.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said one person was arrested in Idaho and another in Louisiana for allegedly defrauding, or maybe that's LA, a West Coast labor's union health care plant.
An additional person arrested in LA was accused of forging immigration medical documents.
The Trump administration has made California and the Los Angeles area in particular a focus of its national anti-fraud efforts, alleging the Democratic-led state is failing to crack down on improper spending.
So that's an article that was published on April 2nd from the AP about federal crackdown on fraud in Southern California.
If you want to read more, Valerie from Chandler, Arizona, a Democrat.
Good morning.
Once I find your number.
Good morning.
What's your top issue heading into the midterms?
unidentified
Good morning.
Thank you for allowing me to call in this morning.
I really appreciate it.
I am very concerned about all of the regulations that are being implemented around voting and voting rights and having to show ID and proving that people are able to vote.
That's my top issue.
And just anything affecting the Constitution and changing the Constitution and rights around being able to move freely within the United States and being able to say you are a citizen, including the newest issue that seems to be rising to the top, including Trump's ability to say that people can't, who are born in the United States, are citizens.
Overstepping Authority00:14:42
unidentified
And the apparent, to me, it looked as if he was trying to influence the courts when he was sitting in the Supreme Court while they were doing their business in regards to the oral arguments for the birthright citizenship executive order.
Right.
Right.
It was inappropriate for him to be there while they were doing that.
So I'm very concerned about his overstepping in those regards.
What's your top issue heading into the midterm elections?
unidentified
My topic is health care for the young adults with disability.
These parents have given up, you know, because the school system has special education programs.
And for the students on the more severe end, have programs called the life skills program.
But once they're out of the school system, they're into the they have programs which provide very little.
And with people who are hired like, you know, very temporarily, they're not paid very well.
However, their facilities are very, very little.
And people are like really getting a daycare program that hardly provides anything or any training.
And that needs to be addressed because these children, even though they're adults, they are still children.
They're 18 and above.
But they can be there all the way to 65.
They're put on Medicare and Medicaid.
Yet their education doesn't matter.
Even though their school system is saying this is life skills training, but once it's life skills, it should be continued with the education money forever.
Because kids with the higher end of disability get money for college, apartments, note takers, computers, but these people don't get anything.
And their dayhab program is limited.
So how are the parents going to go to work?
Like, I have a son with a disability and I am struggling to find programs that would keep him for at least an hour or two after the day have program is done, because the dayhab programs are probably at least like six hours the most and they have struggles with transportation, they have struggles with supervision, health care, the and that's and that's.
Let me just, let me just ask you and that's where you are in New York State, correct?
Yes okay, so your top concern heading into the midterm election is health care, with the focus on health care for those who have disabilities, and I would like like anyone to address that like okay, we have been okay then.
All right, I think we take your point there, but we appreciate you calling in.
That was Sheetah from New York State.
David from Michigan, a Democrat.
Good morning, David.
What's your top issue heading into the midterm election, David?
unidentified
I appreciate you taking my call.
As far as the topics go today, I just have one concern that it appears to me that our president has a difficult time in being focused on his agenda.
And we're getting deep into the water.
with this gentleman's activities.
And I have, I have a son, I already lost a son and I don't want to lose this one.
A lot of New York State folks calling in this morning.
A Republican.
Good morning, Steve.
What's your top issue heading into the midterms?
unidentified
Hi, good morning.
Good morning.
Well, it's basically sustainability, right?
A lot of the companies out in New York City are moving out.
I mean, look, the Democrats opened up the borders.
Who voted for that?
That's not a democracy, right?
Half of the people didn't know that they're taking taxpayers' money and putting it and allocating in the way that they did.
Now, what's going on here, you know, and it's a lot of the issues with the states locally.
That's why the president's trying to get a grip on things.
No, the president did it was chaos.
Without chaos, we have no order.
So he's trying to put things in order, right?
I respect the president.
We must respect our presidents.
You know, when it comes to the Middle East, Iran, and the European Union, and what's been happening, that's a whole other story because we don't get the backing from them, right?
So what we're against is companies like China.
If you look at Amazon, Amazon is selling basically a whole lot of things from China, right?
What are we doing here to protect our economy when it comes to the resources internally that are being basically expelled out of the country?
All the technology, my background is in tech, that we've given to other countries and helped other countries to amount to the wealth that they have.
India, even China, China depends on us, their exports, right?
So we need to focus internally.
And I think the president is right.
I am an immigrant.
I'm almost 50.
I've been here since I was eight.
I see nothing wrong with that.
But I see that the cities controlled by the Democrats, which I grew up in New York City.
You're talking Brooklyn and Queens as a kid.
And I had the opportunity to have a free education, elevate myself to where I went to work on Wall Street.
So there are opportunities for people, but again, we're all Americans, and they need to put America first and fly the American flag, right?
And we can start there.
But when it comes to our cities, you know, right now, Mamdani is here.
And Mamdani doesn't have a clue about what it means to be an American.
You know, for example, you know, Steve, let me actually, because you talked to you talked about opportunities, let me go to something that the president has been talking a lot about recently, which is jobs numbers.
We know that on Friday, the president had a job support that come out that surged past expectations, and the employment rate dropped as well.
Companies added a net 178,000 jobs last month, according to the Labor Department.
On Friday, I'm reading a political article here.
And on Friday, White House National Economic Director Kevin Hassett was on Fox News speaking about these job numbers.
It's one of the best numbers that you've seen in a long time.
And what it shows is that all of the cumulative policies that President Trump has pushed, the no tax on tips, no tax on overtimes, making the Trump, old Trump tax cuts, permitted, deregulation, $18 trillion in new investments in the U.S. through our trade deals, all of that stuff, plus a big reduction to the trade deficit, has created an enormous amount of momentum for the U.S. economy.
And so that momentum cannot be upended by a temporary Middle East scurvo.
Okay, I want to get into that.
unidentified
But do you consider this full employment or near full employment at 4.3% on the unemployment number?
I actually don't think that it is full employment.
I think that there's plenty of room to grow.
And the way we would do that is that we would get more and more people to enter the labor force because of the high wage growth that we're seeing.
I mean, there are a lot of people who've been sitting on the sidelines who are coming back to work because they get no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and especially the no tax on Social Security.
There are a lot of people who retired but want to get back into this booming labor force, and they have a much higher tax reward for doing it.
You know, last night I was at a restaurant and I asked every waiter, how much money did you make now that they're doing their taxes because of the no tax on tips?
And the average answer, well, the lowest answer was $3,000 last year and the highest was $10,000, which is working there or people who worked there.
No, that was people who were working there.
And so all of that is something that's going to feed this momentum in the economy.
And while we're feeding that momentum, again, we've got all this foreign investment into the U.S.
We just had a groundbreaking in Ohio for a big data center with SoftBank.
And so this is really an economy that can't be slowed down.
That's your top issue heading into the midterm election?
unidentified
Yes.
And they agree with everything he does.
And like the gentleman, a couple of calls before, he agreed with the gas prices, talking about, you know, well, Democrats, they voted for electric cars.
We'll go get an electric car.
That makes no sense because half the MAGA, they don't even know the three branches of government.
And then you ask them, well, let me ask you a question.
What has Trump did?
What policies do you agree with that Trump did so far?
They can't even ask that.
All they do is divert to, well, what did Biden do?
It's not even about that.
Right now, America is in a state of trouble because we got MAGA that's just supporting Trump on every little thing he does.
And a lot of stuff that he does is not right.
If America was so great, then why did Pam Bonnie, Christy Noam, just get fired?
I mean, like, are we, is that what we're doing?
Are we, is that making America great?
Is that just trust the process?
Because, you know, I think that we really need to buckle down and really think of what we really want in this country.
And I understand that a lot of people like Trump.
They follow Trump from back from the 70s all up, and they just like Trump.
But the man is the wrong guy in office right now.
He's the wrong guy in the Oval Office, and I think we need help.
What's your top issue heading into the midterm election?
unidentified
Hi, my top issue is the economic uncertainty for young people.
So regarding what you just said on the jobs report, that sounds very hard to believe for a lot of people in this no-hire, no fire economy.
There was a recent article in Atlantic magazine.
A lot of the difficulty young people face being hired is being blamed on AI, but it appears the reality is it is because of the chaos of the policies of the current administration.
Tariffs, everything is unpredictable.
Now, prices for everything are unpredictable, and people are counting on foreign direct investment from the Gulf states and from Asia, which now that they are facing these catastrophic situations, are they going to follow through with those promises?
The entire economic growth of the United States is predicated on getting that trillion dollars of investment.
Is that going to happen?
So, for young people, you know, jobs, housing, the president has said he doesn't care about making housing more affordable or more available.
The draft age has been raised this March to 45.
So, what do young people find appealing to them and voting for MAGA?
I will just say that the president did sign in the last month an executive order on housing, trying to make housing more affordable.
But to his main point about young people in the job market, I turn to a CNN article posted just this morning, two hours ago.
The headline here is, The job market is so tough, young people are struggling just to land internships.
If I scroll down, bear with me here.
It says, One person was set to graduate with a master's degree in integrated design, business, and technology from the University of Southern California next month, but he doesn't have a job or internship lined up despite the 4,000 applications he's tallied over the past year.
The 23-year-old told CNN he's noticed on LinkedIn that many of the entry-level roles he's applied for have gone to people with several years of experience.
Since beginning graduate school in 2024, he has managed to complete only one internship, he said, all while racking up $100,000 in student debt.
It goes on to say the U.S. job growth has slowed sharply over the past year, making it especially difficult for young Americans not to just land their first jobs out of college, but even to land internships, often the foundational step in an early career.
Doing internships or getting any kind of work experience is, quote, the biggest predictor of landing a job out of college, said Nicole Bachman, an economist at ZipRecruiter.
And those internships also help companies build pipelines of future talent.
And so that is an article posted this morning about the inability for young people to even find internships in this job market.
Frank from Missouri, a Democrat.
You're next.
Good morning, Frank.
What is your top issue going into the midterm elections?
unidentified
Yes, ma'am.
My top issue goes back to the fruits of Reagan's starve-the-beast tax cuts designed to make our deficits so huge that Congress had no choice but to cut family-friendly programs affecting our lives from cradle to grave and resulting in the greatest wealth-income disparity since the 1890s.
Concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands, a $40 trillion debt, and proof of Ronald Reagan's two biggest lies.
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: 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.
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C-SPAN takes you where decisions are made.
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C-SPAN is your unfiltered connection to American democracy.
Joining us now to keep the midterm discussion ongoing is University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabado here to discuss 2026 and other news of the day.
Larry, thanks so much for being with us this morning.
I want to mention Kyle Condit, my managing editor, and J. Miles Coleman, who does a great deal of research and some wonderful and beautiful maps for us.
And we have a lot of student interns who work with us too.
What we do is gather as much information as we can about each race.