Scott Pace and Marty McCary anchor a Washington Journal episode covering the Artemis II mission's legacy as a shift from bounded races to long-term competition with China, despite proposed 50% cuts to NASA's science division. The broadcast details Vice President JD Vance's Pakistan peace talks for Iran, Pentagon budget requests, and FDA Commissioner McCary's $7.2 billion plan targeting microplastics, artificial dyes, and animal testing reductions. Ultimately, the discussion frames space exploration as a maturation process for humanity while advocating for diplomatic solutions to global conflicts over military escalation. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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NATO Coattails and War00:15:06
Begins with expert analysis and viewer calls and comments.
The astronauts will conclude their 10-day journey around the moon that broke the record for the furthest human flight from Earth just after 8 p.m. when they're scheduled to splash down off the coast of San Diego.
And at 10:30, NASA officials will give a briefing after the crew is recovered.
And on C-SPAN 2, former New Jersey Congressman Tom Malinowski joins trade and foreign policy officials to discuss the future of global development starting at 9 a.m.
And then at 11 a.m., the former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Lebanon, and Jordan, along with other Middle East experts, will discuss Iran, Hezbollah, American policy towards the Middle East, and the future of Lebanese sovereignty.
Watch all of these events also on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org.
Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, along with your calls and comments live, Jennifer Kavanaugh of Defense Priorities discusses the latest on military operations against Iran and the status of the two-week ceasefire.
And then Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty McCary on actions the agency has taken during his first year, as well as priorities for his second year and beyond.
Later, Scott Pace, director of the George Washington University Space Policy Institute, will talk about the conclusion of the Artemis II mission to the moon.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal is next.
Join the conversation.
Good morning.
It's Friday, April 10th, 2026.
The future of the NATO alliance was a major topic of conversation this week as the organization's Secretary General was in Washington, D.C. to meet with President Trump.
The two leaders discussed the rift over NATO's willingness to come to the United States' aid in the conflict in Iran.
Afterwards, President Trump said NATO, quote, wasn't there when we needed them.
This morning, we're asking you about the future of the 77-year-old Mutual Defense Alliance.
Do you think the United States should leave NATO?
We're getting your thoughts on phone lines split as usual by political party.
Republicans, it's 202-748-8001.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
You can also send us a text, that number 202-748-8003.
If you do, please include your name and where you're from.
Otherwise, catch up with us on social media.
On X, it's at C-SPANWJ.
On Facebook, it's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN.
And a very good Friday morning to you.
You can go ahead and start calling in now President Trump with several posts on his truth social social media page about NATO this week.
The first coming directly after that meeting with Secretary General Mark Ruda.
He said, quote, NATO wasn't there when we needed them and they won't be there if we need them again.
Remember Greenland, the president said, that big, poorly run piece of ice.
That was on Wednesday.
It was yesterday that the president said none of these people, including our own very disappointing NATO, understood anything unless they have pressure placed upon them.
President Trump on his social media page, Mark Ruda, the Secretary General, was in D.C. yesterday as well, and he also spoke about the future of the alliance.
This is what he had to say: The money is flowing.
Industry and government will cooperate to ensure that money translates into the capabilities we need.
Why then does everyone in this room have a knot in their stomach about the future of the Transatlantic Alliance?
Why?
When we turn on our televisions or scroll our phones, do we see eager early drafts of NATO's obituary?
Let me be clear: this alliance is not whistling past the graveyard, as you would say in the United States.
Allies recognize, and I recognize, we are in a period of profound change in the transatlantic alliance.
Europe is assuming a greater and fairer share of the task of providing for its conventional defense.
And from that, there will be no going back, and nor should there be.
This is a move from unhealthy codependence to a transatlantic alliance grounded in true partnership.
For increased investments and improved production to matter, they must be accompanied by a mindset shift.
That mindset shift is well underway.
But these shifts are often only fully appreciated with the benefit of time and the space between can be precarious.
Mark Ruda, the NATO Secretary General, he was at the Reagan Institute in Washington, D.C. yesterday.
That was after his meeting with President Trump behind closed doors at the White House on Wednesday this morning, this Friday morning on the Washington Journal.
We're asking you about the future of the NATO alliance, asking you: should the United States leave NATO?
Republicans, Democrats, and independents are the phone lines, as usual.
The Pew Research Center, with a recent poll on this topic, also breaking it down by political party.
The headline of the results of that poll: Republicans have become less likely to say NATO membership benefits the United States.
They found that around four in ten Republicans and Republican-leading independents say that the United States benefits a great deal or a fair amount from being a part of NATO.
That's down from 49% last year.
A majority of Republicans, 60% now say the U.S. benefits not much or not at all from being a part of the alliance.
Overall, a majority of Americans, 59%, continue to say that the U.S. does benefit from being a member of NATO.
That's especially the case among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 82% of which see benefits for the United States and that opinion poll recently in the field.
You can find it at the Pew Research Center.
It is pewresearch.org.
We want to get your thoughts, your phone calls this morning, and we will start in Cortland, Ohio.
Tony, Independent, what do you think?
Oh, good morning, John.
And it's wonderful to be able to speak with you today.
I wanted to call yesterday, I couldn't get through.
But I want to thank you, C-SPAN, for Wednesday, April 8th, for broadcasting Ralph Nader and Bruce Feinstein's legal symposium held in the Rayburn House office building.
Your programming hit this event in full force.
I suggest that we, the people, view it in its entirety.
Tony, thanks for watching.
You showed up.
Thanks for doing it.
Thanks for watching.
Do you want to talk about NATO, though?
Just because I got a bunch of folks waiting, and I am glad you got on today.
I just want to make a couple comments, if I may.
Yes, we can talk about NATO.
I think my summary will address NATO.
I want to thank you for showing up because invited congressional members of Congress on both sides did not.
I'm sorry, I lost you.
No, I'm still with you, Tony.
So bring me to NATO, just so we can stay on that topic.
Okay.
They were talking about NATO walking past the graveyard.
I think the United States of America is whistling past the graveyard as we speak.
We are in dire straits.
And for those interested viewers who want independent view and information, I suggest watching the rerun of this powerful legal symposium hosted by C-SPAN.
You can find it on Real News and also C-SPAN.
Tony, thanks for the call.
Let me go to Luis, who's waiting in Rose Hill, North Carolina, a Democrat.
Luis, your thoughts on the United States and NATO.
Thank you for taking my call.
We need to stay in NATO.
Our president wants to be a great big bully.
And NATO has been there for 9-11.
So what is he talking about?
We definitely need to stay in NATO.
And I don't agree with him because he got into this crazy war for no reason.
Okay, I thank you for giving me a voice this morning.
That's Luis in the Tarheel State to Florida.
This is Mike, Republican.
Go ahead.
Good morning, John.
How are you doing?
Doing well.
All right.
So NATO, for the past 80 years or whenever World War II was over, you know, we rescued Europe twice in the last century, costing trillions and hundreds of thousands of lives.
And now they want 100% of our protection, but they put in the minimal.
They always complain.
And like we were there for Bosnia.
We were there for Ukraine.
Not our war.
Those aren't NATO countries, I don't think, either.
And so when we go in to kill this bloodthirsty regime, it's their oil that we're going to protect.
They're the ones.
And so now here they come after the fighting has stopped to swoop in to try to make a deal.
NATO is America.
Without NATO, or without the United States, there is no sea lift.
There is no airlift.
There is no massive intelligence operation.
There are no satellites.
Do you think that the EU has all these things?
They don't.
I mean, 100 years ago, the British Royal Navy, Britannia used to rule the wave.
Now they can't even put a ship to sea in three weeks without it having going to dock in Gibraltar for repairs.
You make the argument that the U.S. was always there for NATO.
The Article 5 protection, that mutual defense clause that's at the heart of NATO, it's only been invoked once in the history of NATO, and that was after 9-11, after the United States was attacked.
And that's the argument that NATO supporters will make, that NATO was there for the United States after 9-11, that they've been there for the U.S. as much as the U.S. has been there for NATO.
What would you say?
How much did they put in?
How much did they put in?
There was a few thousand, maybe thousands of troops.
Yeah, I mean, symbolically they put in, but let's get real, you know?
And they're over there funding their green news scam.
They're buying Russian oil while trying to sanction it.
They're funneling in mass migration.
They want socialism for everybody where you get health care, this and that.
You know who paid for that?
The American citizens over the last, I'm 51 years old.
I've been paying for it my whole life, trying to scrape by and get ahead.
And it just flows out of this country to others.
And they could at least be a little more humble when, I mean, they're over there talking crap about our president.
And honestly, John, this is really all about Greenland.
They're going to come to a deal.
NATO's going to give up Greenland for protection.
I mean, that's my prediction.
I don't know, but that's...
Gotcha.
That's Mike in Florida.
In terms of what NATO might put in when it comes to the Iran conflict, amid the ceasefire talks, there is discussion that NATO may help secure the Straits of Hormuz.
Here's the headline from Fox News: the story noting that NATO's chief signaled on Thursday that European allies may move to help secure the Strait of Hormuz following his discussions with President Trump this week, even as the White House declared the alliance has already failed and was not being asked to assist.
The ongoing discussions about what a NATO presence in the Straits could look like, those are happening this week in the wake of those discussions.
But that is the latest from Fox News.
This is Stacey from McLean, Virginia Independent.
Stacey, what do you think the future is of the NATO alliance?
Good morning, John.
You would be a fool.
Only a fool would separate from NATO.
And the only few people that want to separate it from NATO are two people: it's Trump and Putin.
NATO, whether people want to believe it or not, they paid with their blood, their children's blood, and every war that we got into.
Because in America, our friends eventually become our foes.
And we fund all of our foes, John.
And the reason why this is even a topic now is because he started this war, whether he was provoked to do it, tricked to do it.
Trump started this war and possibly ignited World War III.
And I say this because the only reason why they're over there that I can see is that to get away from the Epstein files.
And now Iran is releasing them.
Everybody knows what they've been doing: raping, kidnapping, eating, murdering kids.
All right, that's Stacey in Virginia.
This is Dave in Dana Point, California, Republican.
Dave, go ahead.
Yes, I just basically want to say NATO has been on our coattails ever since it started.
NATO is basically the United States' little child.
We are their daddy.
And it's time that they start to, you know, grow up, I guess would be the right thing to do.
And that's all that Trump's doing.
He's trying to make them pay their share.
It is what it is.
We've been helping them since after World War II with tariffs, just like we did, just like a dad does with their little child, give them a little bit of allowance.
We helped rebuild them.
We allowed them to charge us tariffs to help rebuild a war-stricken area of the world, which was basically Europe.
And that shouldn't have gone on as long as it did.
In 1970, we should have stopped the tariff thing.
That was enough time period to help rebuild the war-torn countries throughout Europe, Japan, and a few other countries, whatever it was.
It's about time that we made them grow up, basically move out, and start taking care of themselves with our help, of course.
Paying Our NATO Share00:10:20
But that's what they need to do.
It's very simple.
It's gone on way too long.
In terms of the United States actually leaving NATO, several news organizations this week taking a look at that process and what it might actually be like if that was a decision the United States moved towards.
And as The Week puts it in their column on it, leaving NATO wouldn't be easy for the United States because of a 2024 law that prohibits the president from doing so without the approval of two-thirds of the United States Senate or an act of Congress.
Even if all Republicans in the Senate voted for it, Donald Trump would still need at least 14 Democrats to join them.
And as they note, it's unlikely he would even get unanimity from Republicans.
Tom Tillis, Republican co-chair of the Senate NATO Observer Group, has already warned that leaving NATO would be an enormous, enormous risk.
Given the political obstacles, most NATO observers don't think Trump will try to make that withdrawal, despite his obvious displeasure at the alliance, the week looking at that 2024 law that one of the key supporters was Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State.
That was back in 2024.
We're in 2026, and we are asking you: should the United States leave NATO?
This is Ronald in New York.
Democrat, what do you think?
Good morning, John.
I feel not only should the United States leave NATO, I feel that NATO should be ended because NATO began as purely a defensive organization, but unfortunately,
unknown to many or most in the media, and a lot of your listeners and a lot of people at C-SPAN as well, NATO has become an offensive alliance.
And when this occurred on the border with Ukraine, it became a threat to Russia.
And that is the primary reason that Russia went to war and invaded Ukraine.
They did not want to be threatened in that way.
And I can understand that.
But unfortunately, most people don't seem to understand that there is history, that there was a promise given to Gorbachev that the United States would not expand further east than a certain line, and that was broken with offensive operations by NATO.
So, Ronald, I take it you're not a proponent of Ukraine eventually joining NATO.
It's up to 32 nations now, and you don't think it should be expanded to Ukraine?
I don't think it should be expanded.
I think it should be ended altogether.
That's Ronald.
This is Chris in Baltimore, Independent.
Good morning.
Hey, good morning, John.
How are you doing?
Doing well.
I'm getting tired of everybody jumping on C-SPAN saying that either, man, you always talk about, you always let Democrats come on.
They always jumping on C-SPAN, and you are a neutral entity that allows everybody to have their say.
It's fine, Chris.
We get it from both sides, but what do you think?
And it's fine when we do.
What do you think about NATO?
I think we should stay with NATO.
If we leave NATO, you have North Korea, you have Russia, you have China, all these entities, they may come together and come against the USA and also Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel.
So NATO, I think, was really designed: if you become a tech and everybody come to your aid, not when we start the war.
So that's all I had to say, John.
And look, you guys, everybody at C-SPAN, y'all continue to do a great job, and I appreciate you.
Thank you.
That's Chris in Baltimore talking about NATO, the defensive treaty, the mutual defense treaty, Article 5 that's at the heart of NATO.
You also mentioned Netanyahu and Israel, the lead story in today's Wall Street Journal, Israel to begin direct talks with Lebanon.
Story noting that Israel said on Thursday that it would begin direct negotiations with Lebanon after President Trump delivered the stern message to Netanyahu in a phone call, according to a U.S. official, a phone call that they said was shorter than their usual regular talks.
Lebanese officials said that they want talks to lead to a lasting peace but are first seeking an immediate pause in Israeli strikes that escalated in intensity after the Iran ceasefire was announced on Wednesday.
We'll see how that plays into the Iran-U.S.-Israeli peace talks set to take place starting tomorrow in Pakistan.
The Vice President JD Vance set to lead those discussions for the United States.
Steve Wickoff, the special envoy, also part of that, and the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as well.
Again, that's set to begin tomorrow in Pakistan.
We'll see what happens, and I'm sure we'll be talking about it over the weekend here on the Washington Journal.
In the meantime, back to your calls on NATO.
This is Will in Mississippi.
Democrat, go ahead.
Good morning.
Yes.
To get to the question, no, we should not be NATO.
You know, this magnet group has won out and Dayton has lost our credibility around the world.
And it's sad that we have become a third world country.
Really?
We have let one man destroy what this country has built up.
Thanks for the founding father.
There are still laws that are holding us up.
But today, it's sad.
But everybody, you know, really this question you are asking this morning to show your bias.
Really?
Because this is no question.
I'm sick of you all polls, which is so unaccurate.
It's ridiculous.
And you're reading these articles and really be honest with you.
I'm just surprised with what America has become.
And I'm going to be an adventure.
Well, I tell you, we're asking this question today in part because the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Ruda, was in D.C. yesterday speaking publicly about the tension between the United States and the rest of its NATO partners, the future of the alliance.
Let me show viewers a little bit more about what he had to say about NATO allies and their reaction to the United States conflict in Iran.
This is Mark Ruda from yesterday.
Let's consider the most recent events.
When it came time to provide the logistical and other support the United States needed in Iran, some allies were a bit slow, to say the least.
In fairness, they were also a bit surprised.
To maintain the element of surprise for the initial strikes, President Trump opted not to inform allies ahead of time.
And I understand that.
But what I see when I look across Europe today is allies providing a massive amount of support, basing logistics, and other measures to ensure the powerful U.S. military succeeds in denying Iran a nuclear weapon and degrading its capacity to export chaos.
Nearly without exception, Allies are doing everything the United States is asking.
They have heard and are responding to President Trump's requests.
The United Kingdom, the United Kingdom is leading a coalition of countries that are aligning the military, the political, and the economic tools that will be required to ensure free passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
This is evidence of a mindset shift.
Mark Ruda, the Secretary General of NATO, he was at the Reagan Institute yesterday.
He was at the White House on Wednesday.
He's been in Washington this week rallying support for NATO amid this discussion and the president's criticism of NATO as the United States has conducted its operations in Iran.
That's the topic of this first segment of the Washington Journal today.
Should the United States Leave NATO?
Taking your phone calls on phone lines for Republicans, Democrats, and independents.
Gregory is an independent in Maryland.
Go ahead.
Good morning, John.
I support us being in NATO.
I think it is a defensive organization, has done a lot of good.
And one of your callers was talking about all the European wars that we've been in.
And we should also remember that it benefits us.
The United States does not get involved where its interests are not involved.
And as far as their social issues or what they spend money on, it's worth considering how much money we send to Israel.
And they have a social medicine system and they pay for abortions.
But there are billions of American dollars going there.
So, yes, NATO is necessary.
The only time anyone is needed to be defended under Article 5 is the U.S.
I was in that war.
I was in Kosovo, and NATO has always been there for us.
And not when we start wars and then tell them, hey, you're not helping us.
So, yeah, we should stay in NATO.
Avoiding World War III00:15:11
Thanks.
That's Gregory in Marilyn Kelly's in the Lone Star State Republican.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for C-SPAN.
I believe we should stay in NATO.
We do not want a World War III.
I think it was good that we go in there and get rid of any nuclear-grade plutonium and whatnot in Iran.
Iran is a rogue state.
I pray for the citizens there.
I'm not against Iranians, okay?
I pray for those people.
They are subject to a dictatorship in Iran and the government, it's the government that's bad.
As far as that caller called in regarding, oh, we did this to deflect against Epstein files.
Well, we had that during the Biden-Harris administration.
And Artemis II, I wish them godspeed.
I pray for their having a soft place to fall in the ocean outside of San Diego.
And I will be watching this on C-SPAN.
Thank you so much, C-SPAN, for broadcasting this without commercials and whatnot.
And so we see what really goes on.
And that crater that they found that was larger than the Grand Canyon.
How exciting is this?
You know, one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
And I can't wait until we land boots on the moon again.
That's going to be so exciting.
I was born around the time when Neil Armstrong did it the first time, and I'm in my 50s.
So this will be exciting to see a second time.
Thank you so much for your time.
Kelly, thanks for watching our coverage tonight of the Artemis II splashdown.
It begins at 6:30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
You can call in and join the conversation.
You can also watch online at c-span.org and take it with you on the free C-SPAN Now video app.
Splashdown is expected around 8:07 p.m. off the Pacific coast of California, of course.
And we will be watching that with you and hope you join us here on C-SPAN for that.
Plenty going on around the country and in Washington as well.
It's just about 7:30 on the East Coast.
I want to bring you a couple other headlines, including another one from the White House yesterday.
This is from the Wall Street Journal.
First Lady Melania Trump denied having ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and called on Congress to hold public hearings for his victims in what was a surprise announcement at the White House on Thursday.
The story noting that in her address, Melania Trump said she was responding in part to social media posts that were circulating with fake images and statements connecting her to Epstein.
I want to show you a little bit of that statement from the White House yesterday.
The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today.
The individuals lying about me are devoid of ethical standards, humility, and respect.
I do not object to their ignorance, but rather I reject their mean-spirited attempts to defame my reputation.
I never been friends with Epstein.
Donald and I were invited to the same parties as Epstein from time to time, since overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach.
To be clear, I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, Maxwell.
My email reply to Maxwell cannot be categorized as anything more than casual correspondence.
My polite reply to her email doesn't amount to anything more than a trivial note.
I am not Epstein's victim.
Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump.
I met my husband by chance at the New York City party in 1998.
This initial encounter with my husband is documented in detail in my book, Melania.
The first time I crossed paths with Epstein was in the year 2000 at an event Donald and I attended together.
At the time, I had never met Epstein and had no knowledge of his criminal undertakings.
I was the first lady from the White House yesterday.
If you want to watch her full statement, you can do so on our website at c-span.org.
Back to your phone calls now this morning, another half hour or so in this first segment of the Washington Journal as we talk about NATO, a topic that's very much in the conversation this week at the White House.
On Wednesday, it was the NATO Secretary General meeting with the President amid tensions over the future of the alliance.
We want to know what you think about whether the United States should leave NATO.
Phone lines for Republicans: 202-748-8001.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
Barney, Florida Democrat.
Thanks for waiting.
Go ahead.
I got three points to make.
First point is, we got these people elected pedophiles and pedophile protectors in the White House is a disgrace.
Second point is that Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Benjamin Netanyahu, this mess didn't start until Donald Trump got elected.
They had them files.
Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin had these files.
This is why.
Barney, what files are you talking about, and how does it relate to NATO?
The Epstein files.
You know what files I'm talking about, man.
Come on.
How does this relate to NATO?
The future of NATO is our question.
How does it relate to NATO?
Why is Putin, Putin wanted Donald Trump to pull the United States out of NATO so he can have his way in East Europe?
Benjamin Netanyahu is having his way.
But this war, Trump couldn't say anything about it because they was going to blackmail Donald Trump with them same files, which is already coming out.
How do you know that, Barney?
It's common sense.
What president, any president, you name any president, any president want to pull out of NATO?
All this mess started when Donald Trump got elected.
So the only answer could be blackmail?
Yes.
All right.
That's Barney in Florida.
Jim is in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Republican.
Jim, go ahead.
Hey, John, are you reading me?
Gotcha, Jim.
Go ahead.
Good morning, John.
About the future of NATO.
What's the future demographics of Western Europe?
I think that will indicate how they're going to cooperate with us.
France, Germany, England, even Denmark.
We remember with the Danish newspapers and the mass riots some years ago, the murder of Charlie Hebdo, although that newspaper gunned down because they simply printed a picture of Muhammad in a newspaper.
They've had to alter any kind of free speech expression in the European Union because of their populations, which are now percentage-wise, they have larger percentages of Muslims, like in France, than we do.
And they're handcuffed by their populations already.
They have to be concerned about how they attack other Muslims.
So it's going to be like a majority of the people.
How are you connecting religious belief and the future of NATO?
It's not about religion.
It's about race.
It's about the racial makeup, the demographics of these countries.
There's more mosques now in Germany than there are Lutheran churches.
These countries will cease to be Germany, France, England within about 50 to 100 years.
So we have to take the long view.
All right.
That's Jim.
Corey, Knoxville, Tennessee, Independent.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I think we should stay in NATO because we wouldn't want a lot of those NATO countries to side with Russia or China or even Iran.
Because it seems like, you know, if NATO splits, a lot of them would have the ambition to actually kind of scatter between us and our enemies.
Or, you know, we wouldn't want any of the European countries, you know, claiming neutrality or anything in case that there is some sort of conflict.
And for the last caller, I actually do comprehend a little bit of the religious stuff because there is definitely religious conflict.
Turkey is kind of undervalued in that, but that's all I wanted to say.
That's Corey in Tennessee on the future of NATO and the United States membership in NATO.
As we said, President Trump met with the Secretary General on Wednesday, but on Monday from the White House, he publicly expressed his concerns about NATO.
Here's some of what he had to say back at the beginning of the week.
Look, we went to NATO.
I didn't ask very strongly.
I just said, hey, if you want to help, great.
No, no, no, we will not help.
I said, that's all right.
You don't want to help?
Because I've always said NATO's a paper tiger.
See, NATO is a paper tiger.
Putin's not afraid of NATO.
Putin's afraid of us, very afraid of us.
And he's explained it to me a lot of times.
I got to know him very well.
I know him very well.
NATO is a paper tiger.
NATO is us.
And when we needed them, but we didn't need them, by the way.
We didn't need them, obviously, because they haven't helped at all.
Just the opposite.
They've actually gone out of their way not to help.
They didn't even want to give us landing strips.
Now, he's coming to see me on Wednesday, as you know.
He's a wonderful guy.
Secretary General is great.
And Mark Ruta, he's a great person, but he's got, and you know, it all began with, if you want to know the truth, Greenland.
We want Greenland.
They don't want to give it to us.
And I said, bye-bye.
Okay, thank you very much, everybody.
I was the president back on Monday.
The president has long been a critic of the United States spending too much and providing that protective umbrella for NATO, though he has touted his efforts to get other NATO members to increase their own defense spending as a percentage of their GDP.
Here's the latest on what NATO members spend on defense.
This from the Washington Examiner this week.
NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta touted the alliance's across the board 20% increase in defense spending in his annual report announcing that all allied countries met their GDP spending requirements in the year 2025.
In 2025, for the first time, all allies met the goal agreed to way back in 2014 to invest at least 2% of their GDP on defense.
He said many went much further.
He went on to say that this report coming after President Trump's criticism of the United States' disproportionate spending in mid-2025, NATO data forecasted that all 32 countries would hit their agreed upon 2% GDP defense spending rates, though the alliance also said that more nations would push toward a 5% target by the end of the year.
That from the Washington Examiner, one of their recent stories on NATO and NATO spending.
Steve in the Buckeye State is next.
Democrat, Steve, what do you think about the future of the alliance?
Good morning.
Yeah, we should stay in NATO.
Really doesn't have anything to do with the Gulf.
If we look at the Constitution, Article 6, Section 2, the supreme law of the land is the Constitution, the federal law in pursuance to it, and treaties.
So, you know, NATO's a treaty.
We signed it in 1949, 32 members.
So, yeah, that's one point.
And then if they want to try to get away from NATO, they're going to need two-thirds of Congress.
Thanks to Tim Kaine, Senator Tim Kaine, and Senator Rubio in 2023.
So, yeah, that I think, well, NATO expanded, too, as well.
Sweet added Sweden and Finland.
I think it was in 2023.
But yeah, the treaties, it's the supreme law of the land, supremacy clause.
And so I think this is a lot of smoke and mirrors.
I don't know why we're not talking about the UN Charter, which is another treaty.
That was signed in 1945.
And the other day, 15 members of the Security Council of the UN had a draft resolution to open up the Strait of Hormuz.
And I think it was drafted by Bahrain.
And Russia and China were a no.
Colombia and Pakistan abstained.
And then 11 countries said yes to it.
But yeah, we were, let's see, we're, as far as the UN goes, the UN Charter, we're a permanent five member, which China, Russia, France, the UK, and the United States are permanent five members.
So we have veto power.
But the President does not like NATO.
Veto Power and Genocide00:05:39
And I'm leaning towards he has some favors to pay to Vladimir Putin.
That's just my personal opinion.
But yeah, I think, you know, there's no Article 5 here.
We didn't start, NATO didn't have anything to do with this war.
There was no planning involved.
We didn't talk to them.
We didn't, you know, involve them.
So therefore, they're not obligated to join the fight.
That is correct, sir.
I mean, this has nothing to do with it.
We just went in there, guns blazing.
And now, look at it.
Nothing's coming out of the Strait of Hormuz.
And we didn't plan for it.
Strategic petroleum reserves, we were down by about 300 million barrels when we started this war.
We use 20 million barrels a day.
We might produce 13.5 million, but now I digress a bit, but we were talking about NATO.
But hey, NATO is, they're doing what they're supposed to be doing.
And they came to our aid after 9-11.
They came and helped us.
So this is just a lot of part of the president's diversion tactic here, that he's trying to blame NATO.
And like I said, there's something to do with Russia here.
Steve, got your points.
That's Steve in Ohio.
Let me turn to NATO spending and their own defense spending for just a minute more, because it's the point of a lead column, a lead editorial in today's Washington Post, the editorial board writing that many European countries are finally talking about spending on national defense after slacking for too long because of the American security umbrella.
Too often, however, politicians have been pitching these overdue investments as jobs programs that will boost domestic economic growth.
As a result, from the United Kingdom to Germany, they're not leveling with citizens about the trade-offs that will be required to prepare for the wars of the future.
This casts doubt on the sustainability of commitments to spend 5% of GDP on defense, something all but one member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, that being Spain, has pledged to do by the year 2035.
The column explores it further from there if you want to read the Washington Post today.
Back to your phone calls.
Robert in Riverhead, New York, Independent.
Go ahead.
Good morning, John.
Am I there?
Yes, sir.
Okay.
Yes, I really appreciate C-SPAN.
Regarding NATO, no, we should not withdraw from NATO.
And the president wants to eliminate any kind of checks and balances on his behavior.
He ignores the Constitution.
He ignores Congress.
He wants to ignore oversight by the national community, and that is NATO.
He has his son-in-law who couldn't even get a security clearance.
The first time Trump's administration appoint, he appointed him and his daughter. as some kind of advisors, he couldn't get a security clearance, and now he's there negotiating or doing backdoor deals representing us, the United States.
So anyway, we should stay in NATO, and God hopes that we can last us the next three years under this man that's really a traitor to our nation.
Thank you very much.
That's Robert.
This is Reginald, Houston, Texas, Independent.
Reginald, go ahead.
Good morning very much.
Finally got through.
I just want to say about NATO.
I believe NATO is a longtime ally of the United States and it should stay.
Press Donald Trump is mentally got a mental illness and he's got dementia and the media don't want to tell the truth about what's going on.
And I believe that the United States is in too much term chaos because of Donald Trump and Congress need to make a move and remove him from office.
And you have a good day.
Thanks.
Reginald, this is Willie in Maryland.
Willie, go ahead.
Well, I think NATO is pretty much going to be finished, but people forget how NATO was started and what it was for.
And it's so sad that most Americans don't know and don't remember history.
So let me help them with that.
After World War II, basically, NATO was created.
And one of the reasons it was created is to stop crimes like genocide.
So I don't understand how the United States can veto something when they see a genocide being created as if it's right.
But I understand somewhat because isn't the United States the same country that did a genocide on all the people that were here before the Europeans came?
So the Europeans are okay with committing genocides as long as it's them doing it.
And furthermore, the United States keeps vetoing everything that would stop a genocide.
So maybe the United States should leave NATO so NATO can function properly.
And the only reason that everyone turns to the United States to get something done is because the United States is the only country that has a military base on every continent.
We have more military bases than other countries in the world.
Political Home Front Issues00:15:05
And with that being said, Mark Rubio said to Iran that Iran should focus on its people and not spending all of its money on military.
But the United States is the only country that spends so much on military and less on people.
We give money to Israel, but Israel has free health care.
In terms of spending on the military in the United States, we found out last week what the president would like to spend on the Pentagon's budget in fiscal year 2027.
A $1.5 trillion appropriation is what he's looking for from Congress, a significant increase in the Pentagon budget.
It would make it one of the biggest parts, as already is one of the biggest parts of the national budget, but increase it by some 40%.
That is the latest from last week.
It's 7.45 on the East Coast, and we want to bring you the latest from today.
We are waiting for the release of the latest inflation report.
We're expecting that around 8.30 a.m. Eastern.
That's going to come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Here's how NBC News puts it.
The United States is about to get an initial glimpse of how the economy has begun absorbing the war with Iran.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics releasing the March Consumer Price Index report today dealing and detailing last month's inflation.
Wall Street analysts expect it to remain elevated.
Inflation remains a challenge, according to the chief global strategist at Principal Assets, one of the folks that NBC interviewed for the article.
Although it's trended lower, inflation has held above the Federal Reserve's 2% target for five years and is now confronting the new shock, that being the latest from this conflict.
So we will let you know what happens with that report when we all get it.
Again, 8:30 a.m. Eastern, and then we'll see how that resonates when the stock market opens today as well.
Back to your phone calls.
Steve, Jacksonville, Jacksonville, Florida, I should say.
Democrat, go ahead.
Yes, first of all, comparing the percentages of military spending is phony because U.S. is spread all around the world, and it's strictly NATO spending in Europe is greatly diluted.
Several people have made that point.
Secondly, withdrawing aid, Trump's withdrawal of aid to Ukraine is utterly shameful.
Third, in the 1990s, Trump took out as a private citizen from out of nowhere a two-page ad of the New York Times with this same line about NATO's being slackers and taking advantage of us, etc.
And this line to weaken and break up NATO is, for real, Russia's A1 number one geostrategic goal for many years.
And if you look at a map, you can determine why.
Lastly, no media have ever documented Donald Trump's numerous private trips to Russia with what result.
The cover was always a Moscow Trump cower.
Never came about.
And no one's ever looked at it.
Lastly, a kid looking at a map of the Strait of Hormuz could say that Iran could cut off that strait very easily.
And all the military, the uniforms, have let it be known that they told Trump that.
And that's all I have to say.
On Russia and Vladimir Putin's designs for the future of NATO.
This was the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal from just a week ago, back at the beginning of the month, amid the Iran conflict.
The lead of their piece, could the Iran war do what even Vladimir Putin couldn't, and blow up the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance?
That is no longer an idle question, as most of Europe has refused to help the United States, and President Trump is responding by threatening to leave NATO.
This would be the dumbest alliance breakup in modern history, they write.
Ted, Florida Republican, you're next.
Yeah, our relationship with NATO is like having your 20-year-old son living at home.
You're feeding him, you're clothing him, you're covering his bills.
It's time to kick him out and make him independent.
Thank you.
That's Ted.
This is Ronald in Miami.
Go ahead.
Ronald, you with us?
Yes, can you hear me?
Go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for taking my call.
What I would like to say about NATO is the fact that NATO continued to grow.
It has no more leverage.
You know, it was a big stick diplomacy at one point.
Now, I don't know, we're all over the place.
I don't know what type of diplomacy or what type of standard.
And it is no leverage in LATO anymore because it's not growing.
The Europeans are not setting the standard anymore because of the global change.
You got the global markets now.
So the third world countries are coming up.
And it's how do we get in front of this kind of stuff?
And I don't see that pulling out a NATO would help.
That's Ronald in Miami.
Go ahead and keep calling in.
About 10 minutes left in this first segment of the Washington Journal.
Phone lines for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, as usual.
I want to show you more from NATO's Secretary General, Mark Ruda.
Again, he was at the Reagan Institute yesterday in D.C. after his meeting with President Trump on Wednesday at the White House, answering a lot of questions about the future of the alliance.
Here's more of what he had to say.
As they would say in diplomatic circles, these conversations for Frank and Olvin.
Which is good.
Candidate, they may have been a good idea.
Candidate, they even were candid, Frank and Open.
But that's good because we are amongst friends here.
I mean, the president, myself, we like each other.
We are good friends for many years now.
And I'd rather have the conversation on the table instead of tiptoeing around it.
And I sensed his disappointment about the fact that he felt that too many allies were not with him.
And I explained to him yesterday, I said, hey, Mr. President, clearly, the overwhelming majority of Europeans have done what the U.S. asked of him and what was previously agreed in these circumstances.
And yes, sometimes it takes a bit of time, but hey, guess what?
We have coalitions in Europe.
We have sometimes the political home front to take care of.
Sometimes it takes a couple of days.
But then we pull together, and almost the whole of Europe did, for the U.S. to project power on the world stage through its partners in Europe.
And NATO is there, of course, to protect the Europeans, but also to protect the United States.
As Jonas Stürer, the Norwegian prime minister said, these huge nuclear submarines in Russia are not there to attack Norway.
They are there to attack the United States.
And it is thanks to the Alliance that we are able to make sure that they are not able to get in a position to do that.
And this is just an example where both the U.S. mainland and Europe stay stronger and safer because of the Alliance.
So it was a good conversation.
It was open and candid.
And I clearly felt his disappointment, which, again, to a certain extent, I understand.
Mark Ruda, the NATO Secretary General, yesterday at the Reagan Institute.
Again, if you want to watch that full interview, you can do so at c-span.org.
A few minutes left for you to call in and give us your thoughts on the NATO alliance and the U.S. role in it.
Mike is in Maryland, Republican.
Mike, thanks for waiting.
Go ahead.
Thanks.
Let's have a quick conversation here.
So, NATO is the size of a few states in our country, and they should be treated as such.
In the past, we were like their stepchild or their underling, and we lost a few wars and let them control us because we couldn't fend for ourselves.
Mike, when were we NATO's underling?
When was that time?
We lost the British-American War, and when they controlled us, and we set up the financial system to support them.
I'm sorry, which war?
The British-American War.
Well, you know, the Brits fought against us, right?
The Brits.
You're going back to the revolution?
I'm going back because what happened is that NATO wasn't set up until 1949.
I know, but look, we were under their financial grip.
LIBOR was funding them.
They created a financial tax system that we had to pay into and funded their world with.
Now that we're going to a crypto blockchain environment, their banking system is in anarchy.
And this war that we're fighting right now is really an economic war.
That's why the flux in oil is the big kicker because it's the staple, along with the heavy metals of silver, copper, gold, and platinum.
And so what we're dealing with is we're leaving the old age and we're going into the new age.
And so it is a new world, but we're going to run it.
And so NATO is like an old conflict of interest.
Like it's like having a legal contract with an old employer that blocks you from doing new work because you have to wait the time out of six months or a year before you can start your own enterprise.
All right.
That's Mike and Maryland.
Pat is in Tennessee.
Democrat, go ahead.
I do not want to see us pulled out of NATO.
I'd like to ask America: do you not, any of you, remember Pearl Harbor?
I do.
And, you know, what if Russia, China, Hungary, North Korea, I know our military is large, but what if all of those dictators got together?
Of course, the president and his family would be underground in a bunker and probably moved to Russia after it was all over, after we were blown to smithereens.
If he pulls us out of NATO, we're like sitting ducks for Russia.
I just don't know what's wrong with America.
I'm just so disappointed.
I'm a very old woman.
I remember.
I remember Pearl Harbor.
Just people don't forget this country.
That's Pat in Tennessee.
We'll continue talking about NATO.
We just want to give you some more situational awareness about what's happening here in D.C. and around the world today.
As we noted earlier, and as we found out earlier this week, the Vice President is headed to Pakistan for leading the negotiations for an end to the Iran conflict.
He's being joined by Special Envoy Steve Wickoff and the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
He's at Joint Base Andrews now, getting ready to leave for Pakistan.
And if he makes some statements before getting on his plane to Pakistan, we will bring you that live for what the Vice President has to say.
So we're monitoring that as we continue to hear from you on NATO.
This is Sophia in New York, Independent.
Go ahead.
Good morning, John.
I missed you.
The last time I called was February 4.
By the way, I do want NATO to stay.
America will always be, first of all, number one, and make the world together.
John, it is not fair.
It is not nice.
C-SPAN change.
Like I said, February 4, I called.
Each time I called, they hang out on me.
When Alex was there, he got promoted every month, the fourth day answer, you know?
So, Sophia, let's stick to NATO for a second.
Okay.
The reason I accept, like I say, John, United States will always make, no matter what happens, the world to be together.
What Mr. Trump is doing, you know, it's his advisor, his voters, his people now is twenty-two percent of uh uh uh Republican support him.
I brought it to him 2016.
It is the people around him making him to decide.
He's not deciding things on his own, believe me.
Maybe, maybe because I'm old, I'm 75, you know?
So anyway, please.
Sophia, we'll take your comments, and that's going to be our last comment in our first segment of the Washington Journal.
Stick around, though.
There is a lot going on today, and we'll keep you informed and on top of all of it.
Coming up a little later in the program, we're going to be joined by FDA Commissioner Marty McCary back for a discussion on his first year leading the FDA and what the future holds for the agency.
But next, we'll be joined by Defense Priorities Jennifer Kavanaugh for a discussion on the latest on the military operations in Iran and the status of the two-week ceasefire.
Stick around.
We'll be right back.
Watch our special edition of America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series.
Sunday, as journalist Evan Smith interviews America's Book Club host, David Rubinstein, about the presidency, Congress, and the state of the economy from the New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University.
There's a lot of talk these days, David, that these necessary components of a functioning democracy are faltering and are failing us.
And that is why some people are concerned larger than the presidency about the state of things today.
I believe that the government of the United States has functioned reasonably well.
Think about this.
When this country was created in 1776, when really 1789 under the Constitution, we were a tiny little country and no one in the world thought we'd be a power.
Diplomatic Solutions Needed00:15:09
And because of many things, natural resources, talented people, immigration, entrepreneurial spirit, a whole variety of things, this country became the most powerful country and most envied country in the world.
Watch our special edition of America's Book Club with an interview of our host, David Rubenstein, Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
Best ideas and best practices can be found anywhere.
We have to listen so we can govern better.
Democracy depends on heavy doses of civility.
You can fight and still be friendly.
Bridging the divide in American politics.
You know, you may not agree with the Democrat in everything, but you can find areas where you do agree.
He's a pretty likable guy as well.
Chris Kins and I are actually friends.
He votes wrong all the time, but we're actually friends.
The horrible secret that Scott and I have is that we actually respect each other.
We all don't hate each other.
You two actually kind of like each other.
These are the kinds of secrets we'd like to expose.
It's nice to be with a member who knows what they're talking about.
Les did agree to the civility, all right?
He owes my son $10 from a bed for a second.
Fork it over.
That's fighting words right there.
I'm glad I'm not in charge of it.
I'm thrilled to be on the show with him.
There are not shows like this, right?
Incentivizing that relationship.
Ceasefire, Friday nights on C-SPAN.
Washington Journal continues.
We return now to the conflict in Iran.
Our guest is Jennifer Kavanaugh, Director of Military Analysis at Defense Priorities.
And Jennifer Kavanaugh, first for viewers who aren't familiar, Defense Priorities, what's your mission?
What do you do there?
Well, Defense Priorities is a think tank in Washington, D.C.
And we are focused on informing a more clear-eyed and restrained U.S. foreign policy.
We'd like to see a reduction in the U.S. military footprint and an emphasis on other tools of U.S. power, economic and diplomacy.
What does a clear-eyed, restrained U.S. foreign policy mean in a world in which we are in a shooting war with Iran and in a two-week ceasefire right now?
Well, you know, in my view, the United States is actually very secure.
So I don't see a world in which the United States faces threats everywhere.
We have oceans on two sides and friendly neighbors to the north and south.
So we don't need a large U.S. military footprint forward.
And on the specific question of the war in Iran, Iran didn't pose a major threat to the United States.
The United States didn't need to get involved in this war.
So it's great that there's a ceasefire, but the United States has expended a lot of military power, a lot of munitions, a lot of political and diplomatic capital, and hasn't achieved all that much.
Come back to not needing to do this because the explanations for this conflict are varied, but they include that we could not allow Iran to achieve a nuclear weapon and they're on the way to doing that.
That Iran was fighting a proxy war around the region and even around the world as well, funding terrorist allies, that Iran also had a finger on the trigger as we found out with the Straits of Hormuz that it was willing to choke off economic supply lines around the world, that these were all the reasons why the United States needed to do this.
What do you say to those arguments?
Well, on the specific question of the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Hormuz was open before the United States started this war.
So the fact that it's closed as a result of this conflict, not a reason that the U.S. got involved.
On the nuclear issue, I agree that Iran's nuclear program is something to be concerned about, but military force was never the way to help to dismantle or control that program.
That's a diplomatic and political problem that needs a diplomatic solution.
So negotiations is the right way to approach that.
Today, the Iranian regime is still in power.
They still have the highly rich uranium.
They still have the capabilities to start a nuclear and continue their nuclear program.
And their military capabilities have been damaged, but they haven't been eliminated, and they can reconstitute that.
So yes, the U.S. has achieved tactical successes that potentially make some countries in the region safer in the near term, in the sense that Iran will struggle to project military power and maybe to fund its proxies.
But over the medium and long term, the U.S. really hasn't achieved anything.
On negotiations, as we noted for our viewers, the Vice President is on his way to Pakistan.
He's headed to Joint Base Andrews, just outside Washington, D.C., getting ready to fly out.
He's going to lead the U.S. negotiations.
We'll show viewers if he does make statements in the next half hour or so from Joint Base Andrews.
But now that we are at the negotiations phase here, what can be achieved at the negotiating table?
Well, the negotiations will be very difficult.
The two sides are very far apart.
There's essentially no overlap between the Iranian 10 points and the U.S. 15 points.
They are diametrically opposed.
It is a good sign, though, that the parties are going to meet.
And it's interesting that J.D. Vamps will lead the negotiations.
He hasn't been involved in the past.
It suggests an increasing seriousness from the administration about trying to find a solution.
Why?
Because in the past, this has been something that has been managed by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
And so far, they haven't been able to deliver anything.
Now you have the vice president, who's the second highest-ranking political official, going to lend political credibility and political weight.
It changes the dynamic of the negotiations.
The Iranians have been frustrated with Witkoff and Kushner, so this helps having a new face at the table.
So I do think that's a positive step.
But realistically, it's not clear sort of how much they can achieve in this first round of talks.
I think a successful outcome would be an agreement to meet again, a sense that they had started to discuss some of these issues, and there was a path to achieving some kind of deal over the next two weeks.
What do you say to folks who say this is what Iran does?
They will string the United States along and just negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, and never change anything.
There was one of the editorial words, I think, was the Wall Street Journal, cautioning against letting Iran go past this two-week ceasefire, that if it doesn't happen in the next two weeks, Donald Trump should perhaps go in and finish the job, whatever that may mean militarily.
Look, the military options on the table are terrible.
There's really no military way to accomplish what the president wants to achieve, which is some kind of limits on Iran's nuclear program and a better relationship between the United States and Iran.
Those are things that have to be accomplished in the negotiating table.
One of the reasons why the administration looked for an off-ramp here at this point was because continuing to escalate was simply too costly.
The economic costs are mounting, the military costs are mounting, and putting ground troops into Iran, which is what would be required for any of these more expansive goals, would be really catastrophic.
It would result in significant U.S. casualties and potentially significant military failures.
Jennifer Kavanaugh of Defense Priorities is our guest, a senior fellow there, Director of Military Analysis, taking your phone calls on phone line split as usual.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Independents, 2027-8002.
We do have a special line in this segment for active and former military, 2027, 8003.
And we'll go there as often as we get calls as folks are calling in.
How has the past six weeks changed the geopolitical balance in the Middle East?
Well, I think Iran comes out with significantly more leverage than they had before the war started.
Yes, they've lost a lot of their military capabilities, but they've managed to survive a war with the United States, which is a big plus for them.
And they have now controlled the Strait of Hormuz.
They've shown that they can do it without their Navy, since their Navy is, as the administration tells us, at the bottom of the ocean.
And this is a significant piece of leverage that they won't give up easily.
The Gulf states, for them, the nightmare scenario is that this Iranian control of the strait continues, that the Strait of Hormuz becomes an Iranian toll booth for some indefinite period of time.
So in my view, really, the country that comes out looking the best or having the best negotiating position is really Iran.
Taking your phone calls, we will start with Patrick in Overland Park.
Republican, Patrick, go ahead, out of Kansas.
I have a question relating to the role of NATO in the war.
And I lived in, I'm a former infantry officer.
I lived in Germany three years and in Russia two years.
And I have a question relating to NATO's role in the Gulf War.
And that is, under the often quoted Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, I am at risk of dying for the 34 countries that are members of NATO.
But recent events have made me question whether anyone in those 34 countries is willing to die for me.
And I just don't understand.
They say, the German Chancellor, it's not our war.
I understand that, but they have a role protecting the global economy through the Straits, just like everyone else.
And I'll be listening for your guest response.
Thank you.
Patrick, thanks for that.
I think it's 32 countries in NATO correctly.
32 countries.
Go ahead.
So I think there's a couple of important points here.
The first is that the NATO treaty covers a specific geographic region, and that does not include the Middle East.
So NATO doesn't really have a role in this war.
I think it's fair to argue that the Europeans have a bigger stake in free passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
They rely much more heavily on Persian Gulf oil, and that they should be playing a bigger role at some point in securing transit through that choke point.
It's also fair to criticize the Europeans for not spending enough on defense.
It's something that they've tried to work on and for not really carrying their weight when it comes to the security of the North Atlantic region, which is the function of NATO.
But in terms of this specific war, this is a war that the United States started.
It did not consult with NATO partners before the war began.
And so it seems a little bit unfair to criticize the Europeans for not now coming to bail the United States out when the problem that we're looking for help with here is a problem that was created by the war itself.
So I'm kind of torn on what role the Europeans should play.
I think it's fair potentially to criticize them for not allowing the United States.
I think Italy and Spain have put restrictions on the use of their bases.
And that's potentially a fairer criticism.
The United States might have expected more support, but it's not unprecedented for allies to limit U.S. access to bases.
It's allowed within the treaty.
And this war is very unpopular in Europe.
And those countries' leaders have to pay attention to domestic public opinion as well.
What are your thoughts on Mark Ruda and the tightrope that he had to walk this week when he came to Washington, D.C.?
Well, you know, his job is to keep NATO functioning.
And I think that you have to see all of his comments in that context.
I think, taking a step back, I think the European response to this has maybe been, or at least Ruda's response has been a little bit unhelpful.
I think the long-term trajectory of U.S. foreign policy is that the United States will pull away from Europe.
And that means that NATO's lifespan is limited.
And the European efforts to sort of appease Trump and keep him involved in NATO is self-defeating.
I think the Europeans should accept that the United States is going to retrench from Europe and just start focusing on what's in their best interests.
And that would mean building up their military forces and doing what is necessary to defend the European continent without the United States.
Are you giving a prognosis of months or weeks for NATO or years?
When do you expect years?
I don't think it will happen immediately.
But I think the fundamental...
Before the end of Donald Trump's term?
It's possible.
But the fundamental problem here is not the Iran war.
It's not Greenland.
It's that the United States and Europe do not see the Russia threat in the same way.
The United States does not see Russia as a conventional military threat to the United States or really to Europe.
And Europe does.
And you can't have a military alliance where there's such a stark disagreement about what the threat is.
Did you feel that way during the Biden administration?
I think the divide started to emerge under Biden, but I think it's increasingly clear.
And things like Greenland and this war have accelerated that trend.
So these issues aren't insignificant.
So you don't think this is something that changes with a change in administration?
I don't.
I think the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy is away from Europe, just simply because U.S. and European security interests just don't align really anymore.
Cullen, Virginia, Jim, Democrat.
Good morning.
You're on with Jennifer Kavanaugh.
Yes, I agree with a lot of what Jennifer says.
Before this current administration attacked Iran, Oman had a negotiator that was in between Iran and the United States.
And according to that Omani negotiator, Iran had agreed to all the what the United States wanted Iran to agree to in regard to making progress towards nuclear bomb.
And I'm reading here that Oman's negotiator said, Iran committed to zero accumulation, zero stockpiling, and full verification of enriched materials by the IAEA.
And Jim, what are you reading from?
Just if you're quoting something, what are you reading from?
Just a search through Google.
Is it a news article you're reading?
Well, they're quoting the negotiator in this, yes.
Just to advocate, when people agree from something, it's best to get a source.
It's BBC news.
Got it.
Okay.
So they had agreed to all that.
And plus, we had already attacked their nuclear facilities in June, which might have been part of the reason they agreed to that.
They agreed to de-enrich the material they had so that it couldn't be used towards a weapon.
So I don't see the reason for the attack.
Also, there was a Republican called in about this issue yesterday.
Balancing Asian Power00:14:47
It was talking about NATO and how if the U.S. pulled out of NATO, that Russia would just roll into the NATO countries.
And I wonder what cave that Republican has been living in because Russia has been at a war with Ukraine for four years, and by every analysis, they're losing that war.
So how big a threat is Russia to Europe that has nuclear weapons and a much larger access to other weapons?
Excellent questions.
So on the Russia question, I would agree that Russia is not a major threat to Europe either.
I don't think it's not insignificant.
Russia has put significant pressure on Europe using a hybrid campaign, which includes sabotage and drone flights and other types of economic warfare.
But this doesn't really pose a major military threat.
As the caller suggested, Russia's military is tied up in Ukraine.
Even when that war ends, when it does end, Russia will have to reconstitute its military forces.
That will take some time.
And I don't see any indication that Putin or other leaders in Russia want to invade Europe.
This would be a test of NATO that I don't think they want to undertake.
You don't ascribe to the theory that if Vladimir Putin were able to take Ukraine, it would embolden him to make incursions in other places and continued expansion.
Not really.
I mean, this war has been very costly for Russia.
They've lost significant numbers of soldiers.
Their economy is suffering.
And I think Ukraine is a specific and special issue for Russia and for Putin.
And Europe is a totally different situation.
I don't see any interest in Europe, in Russia, excuse me, to invade Europe at any time in the near future.
Europe is quite strong.
Europe has sufficient military probably now to defend itself.
The idea that Russia is going to invade the Baltics and suddenly be rolling into Berlin to me seems preposterous.
So yes, Europe needs to build up some of its defenses, probably needs better drone defenses, but I don't think that Russia poses a major threat to Europe in the way Europeans do.
If Russia doesn't pose a major military threat, what are the major military threats to the United States in your mind?
I think the only threat worth really considering to any extent is the threat from China.
I don't see a war with China as being likely, but China is the only near-peer military in the world that could possibly challenge the United States.
I think U.S. goals in Asia should be really to focus on balancing Chinese power.
It's not sustainable for the United States to be the dominant power in Asia anymore, but balancing Chinese power so that the U.S. can maintain access to economic markets and maintain a player and maintain a position in the Pacific region would be very important.
So that's really the only place where I see a continued role for U.S. military power.
That line for active and retired military, Joseph is waiting in North Carolina.
Joseph, go ahead, you're on with Jennifer Kavanaugh.
Jennifer Kavanaugh, you make some good points.
It's probably way past the time that we left Europe, but that would also mean leaving our bases in Italy, Turkey, Britain, all of these other places that we established after the Second World War.
We set up NATO, we set up the United Nations, we set up CETO, we set up agreements all over the world.
And you say maybe it's time we stopped having influence in Asia.
Well, there's Guam, which we consider part of the United States, even though it's not a state.
There's Hawaii, which is a state, which, by the way, Japan attacked because they said it was impeding their dominance in the Far East.
We have significant ties with South Korea and Japan.
So we would have to withdraw bases if we start telling people that we're not going to be in alliance with them.
The only places that we would have are embassies, because our embassies are considered part of United States soil, and as long as we have relations with Computers, we'll have the embassies.
But as far as our military bases, we would have to start shutting them down.
Joseph, let me let Jennifer Kavanaugh pick up on those points.
Well, I think it's true that if the United States started to retrench from Europe, it would give up its bases in Europe.
But I guess I'm not that worried about that.
I don't see having a large U.S. military presence in Europe as necessary for U.S. security.
There are threats that Russia poses to the United States, cyber threats, nuclear threats.
Having a large U.S. military presence in Europe doesn't actually address those threats.
Those would be dealt with through a missile and air defense and better cybersecurity at home.
The other argument that's made for maintaining the European bases is that it helps the U.S. to project power into the Middle East.
Those bases have been very important in this war against Iran.
But there aren't really many threats I would want to use military power in the Middle East for either.
I don't think that having bases in Europe so you can project power into the Middle East is a good selling point for those bases.
As far as Asia, I would agree that some of the bases that we have in Asia are important to maintain.
I wouldn't suggest pulling forces out of Guam.
In fact, I would suggest increasing U.S. military presence along the Second Island Chain, places like Palau and other locations near Guam.
And I also think maintaining some military bases in Japan would be important.
So I'm not suggesting that all U.S. forces should come home or that we should break all our alliances.
But I do think a much smaller U.S. military footprint would be sufficient to protect core U.S. interests, which really include defense of the homeland and protection of access to key economic markets, mainly in Asia.
What do you think about a proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget in fiscal 2027?
It's completely unnecessary in my view.
There's just no justification for that much defense spending of the United States.
What is justified?
Something probably half that, maybe, maybe even less.
The Pentagon can't account for the $1 trillion that it already gets.
And until it can account for the $1 trillion that it already gets, I guess I'm really hesitant to provide it additional funding.
We also get mixed messages.
On the one hand, we're told that the military has everything that it needs to fight.
And then on the other hand, we're told that they need a significant, like over 40% increase in their budget.
And a lot of this money is going to really expensive programs that I'm not really sure what the purpose is.
Building lots more destroyers and other types of big battleships, these aren't survivable.
In a war with China, they would be easy targets.
We don't need a lot more of these high-end fighter jets.
We should be focusing on cheaper, precise mass, cheap things that we can do.
We're talking drones.
Drones, cheap missiles.
What we really need to be focusing on.
Well, there's lots of missiles that can be cheaper than the ones that we produce right now.
You know, if you look at a lot of the U.S. air defense missiles right now, they cost $4 million each.
We need to find a more sustainable way to do air defense than air defense missiles that cost $4 million each.
So trying to find ways to reduce the cost of the systems that we use, this is what's winning wars, is the ability to mass produce cheap systems that get the job done, not have these really expensive, exquisite technologies that you can fire for two weeks and then you run out.
A few minutes left with Jennifer Kavanaugh of Defense Priorities.
It's defensepriorities.org if you want to find them online.
This is Scott waiting in the Tarheel State, Charlotte, Republican.
Go ahead.
Hi.
I had a couple comments and just one quick question for the guest.
So the whole Iran through diplomacy, see, where I have a problem with that is we've just been shown that you can't trust them as far as you can throw them based on they said their ballistic missiles can only go, you know, reach the really surrounding areas 2,000 kilometers.
And just the other weekend, they launched a missile that nearly hit, I forget the island name, but which would mean it has a span to hit all over Europe.
So, yes, I think that there's some things that the war won't be able to get out, like the nuclear material.
So there's something that needs to be done about that.
But my question to you is: when it comes to NATO and us, you know, looking for best interests of ourselves, would be, you know, you say Russia is not a couldn't do, you know, their military, they can't even beat Ukraine.
Well, without the United States weapons and support and everything of that nature, Ukraine would have been toppled overnight.
Europe does not have the defenses.
The army of the United Kingdom is so tiny.
This is going to take 20 years for Europe to catch up to where they can defend themselves.
So if they don't do that, you don't think that China or Russia or any of these adversaries are going to just step right in and do what they want.
And we can't do anything about it because our soldiers would be back at home.
Scott, got your point.
We'll let Jennifer Kavanaugh jump in as we continue to monitor the vice president's arrival at Joint Base Andrews in D.C. He's getting ready to head out on his flight to Pakistan to lead negotiations.
Jennifer Kavanaugh, go ahead.
So I just disagree that it will take Europe 20 years to build the capabilities to defend itself.
Maybe it needs five years to build up some of the logistics and combat enablers that it relies on heavily for the United States.
Maybe a little bit longer than that for some of the space capabilities.
But I just disagree that it would take 20 years.
I also disagree that U.S. adversaries like China, like Russia, are just waiting for the U.S. to pull back before they make these massive invasions and attack their neighbors.
The biggest lesson that has to come out of the past few years, Russia's war in Ukraine, the U.S. war in Iran, is that wars are really costly and they often don't go like you expect.
So for leaders like Putin looking for a future campaign or for Xi Jinping, the lesson they have to take away is if they're going to use military force, they better be 100% sure that they could do it quickly and easily and not get themselves tangled up in these long campaigns that drain military power and that are big political dead weights on their ability to support and keep the approval of their domestic public.
So I just think that the world works a little differently than the caller is suggesting.
In fact, I don't see U.S. military power forward as the stabilizing force.
In fact, if you look over history, U.S. military power has been very destabilizing.
The U.S. continues to act as a revisionist actor, not as a status quo power.
So it's possible that less U.S. military forward, a smaller U.S. military footprint would be better, not only for the United States, in my view, but also for the rest of the world.
Again, you're watching live pictures as well of the vice president at Joint Base Andrews.
He is getting ready to head to Pakistan.
He's going to lead negotiations in the ceasefire at the end of the war.
He's talking to reporters now.
Look, we're looking forward to the negotiation.
I think it's going to be positive.
We'll, of course, see.
As the President of the United States said, if the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we're certainly willing to extend the open hand.
If they're going to try to play us, then they're going to find that the negotiating team is not that receptive.
So we're going to try to have a positive negotiation.
The president has given us some pretty clear guidelines, and we're going to see.
So I hope you guys have a safe flight.
We'll certainly take some questions later on.
But for now, let's get on the plane and hit the road.
Thank you all.
The vice president there, again, getting ready to head to Pakistan.
What are your thoughts on the brief comments he made to reporters?
Well, I think that's the right attitude.
I think you have to go in with an open mind.
As I said, I think that the two sides have very different positions.
So I think what I'm going to be watching is what are the dynamics?
What are the issues they talk about first?
Is the focus on the Strait of Hormuz?
Is the focus on the nuclear program?
And how are they planning to proceed?
And then coming out of the negotiations, as I said, I think the key thing will be a specific plan to meet again.
I think that would be a success.
What do you think about the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, not leading these negotiations?
That it's JD Vance.
Is that significant to you?
Well, you know, I think, number one, Rubio has a lot of issues on his plate.
He's also serving as national security advisor, so there could be a question of bandwidth.
You know, I also think that Vance brings a unique aspect to the negotiating team in the sense that he has a very strong sort of anti-interventionist reputation.
As a senator, he was very opposed to the U.S. getting involved in wars.
And so to that extent, I think it signals that the administration is potentially open to compromise here.
Now, of course, VAMPS will stick with the guidance from the president, and he's been very supportive of the president's agenda throughout the president's second term so far.
But I do think having him there suggests that the U.S. is ready to negotiate and open to some compromises.
For much more from Jennifer Kavanaugh and her colleagues, it's defensepriorities.org.
Jennifer Kavanaugh is the director of military analysis there, and we appreciate your time this morning on the Washington Journal.
Thanks so much for having me.
Bridging American Divides00:03:20
Coming up later this Friday on C-SPAN, we are going to be talking about the Artemis II mission and the legacy of that mission.
Splashdown expected this evening about 8.07 p.m. Eastern.
We're going to be talking in our last hour of the Washington Journal with George Washington University Space Policy Institute Director Scott Pace.
But next, we are joined by FDA Commissioner Marty McCary to discuss his agencies, the actions he's taken in his first year in the role there.
We'll get your calls right after the break.
You watched unmatched hours of Artemis coverage across the C-SPAN networks, from liftoff to the historic lunar flyby, as the crew traveled farther from Earth than anyone in history.
Stay with C-SPAN as we prepare for the Artemis II moon mission return to Earth today.
We are your front row seat for live video from NASA, mission control in Houston, and the highly anticipated splashdown off the coast of San Diego.
Plus, expert insight, briefings, news conferences, and your calls.
Follow the crew's journey back home as they return to Earth.
C-SPAN's live Artemis II coverage starts today at 6.30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, the free C-SPAN Now app, and online at C-SPAN.org.
Sunday night on C-SPAN's QA, Northeastern University professor and author Carla Kaplan discusses her book Troublemaker about journalist Jessica Mitford.
She explores to America, where she became a best-selling author, civil rights activist, and communist.
It was very difficult for her because she was the political outlier of, and very much so.
So even as a young child, she was somebody who looked around her and she was alone in her family in this attitude.
And she said, wait, something is very wrong here.
I don't get this.
Why do we have so very much?
And everybody around us in the village has so very little.
Author Carla Kaplan and her book Troublemaker, Sunday night at 8 Eastern on C-SPAN's QA.
You can listen to QA and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Best ideas and best practices can be found anywhere.
We have to listen so we can govern better.
Democracy depends on heavy doses of civility.
You can fight and still be friendly.
Bridging the divide in American politics.
You know, you may not agree with the Democrat in everything, but you can find areas where you do agree.
He's a pretty likable guy as well.
Chris Kins and I are actually friends.
He votes wrong all the time, but we're actually friends.
A horrible secret that Scott and I have is that we actually respect each other.
We all don't hate each other.
You two actually kind of like each other.
These are the kinds of secrets we'd like to expose.
It's nice to be with a member who knows what they're talking about.
You guys did agree to the civility, all right?
He owes my son $10 from a bed.
And he's my son.
FDA Fees and Incentives00:07:53
Fork it over.
That's fighting words right there.
I'm glad I'm not in charge.
I'm thrilled to be on the show with him.
They're not shows like this, right?
Incentivizing that relationship.
Ceasefire Friday nights on C-SPAN.
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Unfiltered every day on the C-SPAN networks.
Washington Journal continues.
And joining us now for his 10th appearance on the Washington Journal, it's Dr. and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty McCary.
Welcome back.
Thanks for watching.
Good to be with you.
What a start with our finding out about the fiscal 2027 budget proposal.
The numbers came out last week.
The FDA in 2027 is looking for a $7.2 billion appropriation, a 3.3% increase from the current fiscal year.
What does $7.2 billion buy the FDA in fiscal 2027?
Well, the agency is growing.
The number of applications coming in is going up.
We've got fierce competition from overseas.
We've got to be more competitive.
We're modernizing the agency.
We've got AI tools.
We're addressing the food supply because our entire health care system has been focused only on diagnosing, treating, medicating, operating.
It's kind of a whack-a-mole system.
We need to talk about the root causes of why 40% of our nation's kids are sick with a chronic disease.
So we're doing a lot on the food side.
Food is a big part of the FDA.
We're increasing the number of inspections.
We took action to remove the artificial food dyes from the U.S. food supply, and now we're going to the next level of chemicals.
And so we have a big food agenda to make sure kids have healthy food.
Less than 10 years ago, the FDA budget was in the $5 billion range.
What do you make of a $2 billion increase in the FDA's budget over the past eight years?
And what have you been able to do with the budget you had this year?
So the appropriated money from Congress is actually going down a little bit in the president's budget, but the user fees go up.
That is the application fees that enable us to have the funding commiserate with the volume of applications we get.
The FDA regulates 20% of the U.S. economy, so we've got applications for cosmetics and dog food and food products and supplements and devices and wearables and of course drugs.
So it's a massive portfolio.
And so those user fees enable us to keep up with the volume.
By the way, since we're talking money, I should note that we've been waiting on the Consumer Price Index.
Those numbers just came out about six months ago.
It gives us a sense of inflation.
The headlines, consumer price rose 3.3% in March.
That was as expected.
How much attention does the FDA pay to the consumer price index and inflation?
A lot because lowering drug prices for everyday Americans is a massive priority for President Trump.
You saw most favored nation status pricing.
We had the highest prices in the developed world.
Now we have the lowest prices in the developed world, thanks to President Trump and Trump RX, where people can buy direct bypassing the middleman of healthcare like the pharmacy benefit managers.
We'd like to see more drugs over the counter.
There's something magical about a price being on a shelf when you're shopping it.
It's competition, it's transparency.
It keeps prices in check.
Whereas when you buy drugs through a pharmacy where the pharmacy benefit manager is playing a shell game, all you know is your copay and oftentimes the employer who's paying is getting ripped off with a massive what we call spread pricing.
Now that money comes from the employer's paycheck.
It goes to the health plan and they are paying that giant spread.
So when they don't see it, there's more gouging.
And so this has been a big concern for a long time.
Why shouldn't more medications be over the counter?
If a drug is safe, if it's not addictive, if you can't use it for a nefarious purpose and you don't need lab tests to monitor how you're doing on the drug, why not make it over the counter?
So we're going to get more drugs over the counter.
I'd like to see vaginal estrogen over the counter, some other basic medications.
And it'll also save money because you don't have to wait in the ER or in an urgent care facility just to get a prescription that you know you need.
When did you start at the FDA?
I was there.
I came 12 months, probably 13 months ago.
So it's been one year.
What's been the biggest challenge in the past 13 months?
You know, it's been awesome.
We've had amazing people come into the agency.
We've had sort of this reinvigoration.
We've announced 40 major reforms in the year that I've been there.
It can be tough to get things done in government because unlike private corporations, you have to go through a formal rulemaking and guidance process, put things out for public comment.
But that's good.
It's good to get feedback.
And we're doing that with a lot of big things.
Like we're coming up with a definition of ultra-processed food.
We put out the new food pyramid and called out ultra-processed food for the first time.
We want industry's input on that definition.
We're talking about a budget increase in fiscal 2027, but how much was the FDA impacted by Doge cuts, the Department of Government efficiency?
How much staff did you lose in those first few months?
So the agency increased the number of staff between 2007 to the day just before I came by 100%.
This number of staff doubled to about 20,000.
And so Doge did not result in the layoffs of any scientific reviewers or inspectors, which is a big part of what we do.
It was a consolidation of IT and procurement staff and HR and travel staff.
For example, we have seven centers within the FDA.
Each center had their own lawyers, communications staff, IT staff, and they would build their own clunky IT systems.
So for example, if you report an adverse event from a vaccine or a drug or a device or a cosmetic product, they all had separate websites with separate portals and they were all different.
And they were so clunky that most people gave up when they started to report.
So we now have one giant adverse event reporting system.
We have one drug monitoring system we're moving to.
And that is going to save us $149 million a year.
What are we doing with that money?
We're investing in our scientific community to get decisions out faster.
Just staying on Doge for a second.
Has FDA been one of these agencies that we've heard about that have had to hire back significant numbers of folks who were laid off as they've had to fill those jobs or fill those roles?
Well again, no scientific reviewer was laid off.
Some took the early retirement offer.
And so there were a few of people who took that early retirement.
When I got there, I asked them to stay because when there's massive restructuring of an agency of 20,000 people, of course, there's going to be some errors.
And of course, you're going to need to write the ship once you get there.
And that's what we did.
Dr. Marty McCary, our guest, and he is always happy to take your phone calls.
He is, of course, the FDA commissioner.
And we have phone lines split regionally for you this morning.
Microplastics in Our Bodies00:03:33
If you are the Eastern or Central time zones, it's 202-748-8000.
If you're in the Mountain or Pacific time zones, 202-748-8001.
And he's with us for about another 35 minutes this morning.
So go ahead and get your calls in, and we will start with Dee in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Dee, go ahead.
Hi, good morning.
My concern is the microplastics that we carry in our body.
My source of information is Wikipedia, and they're saying that newborn babies, when they're born, their very first bowel movements that they have in their life, their feast figures has plastic in it.
So something needs to be done about this.
This is pestilence.
It is.
It's a form of it.
In the animals, in the water.
And I'm getting excited.
But thank you.
I want it to be addressed.
Thank you.
Microplastics.
Dee, thank you.
Yeah, so we are taking a very serious look at microplastics.
You may have seen our announcement as a Department of Health and Human Services last week that we're investing $144 million to study microplastics.
There have been early reports that there are estrogen-binding properties to microplastics, that they are showing up in the cord blood of newborn babies.
And as you appropriately mentioned, it may be one of the 200 or so forever chemicals.
That is, chemicals that enter the body and they never leave.
And they show up in children and offspring.
And so that's a concern.
These are chemicals that never get metabolized in the liver or excreted by the urine.
The EPA also took action, thanks to Lee Zeldin, on microplastics last week.
And so we take these things very seriously.
Now, in the past, these have been considered fringe topics to talk about artificial petroleum-based food dyes and microplastics and natural light exposure for children and the importance of that to health.
We are addressing those head-on in the Maha Commission report.
And it's really central to our entire agenda.
So we're putting these things front and center.
In your budget, how much of your budget goes to those Maha initiatives?
What are the key components?
So we've got now $50 million more in President Trump's new budget for the purpose of removing chemicals from the U.S. food supply.
We've got $9 million to increase our ability to move manufacturing back to the United States.
$5 million to work on our animal testing alternatives.
Turns out we don't need to be testing a lot of drugs on animals.
That's an old system.
Because we have better methods.
We have computational modeling where a computer looks at a molecule and can predict better than animals whether or not it's going to affect the liver or the muscle or something like that in the body.
We also have something called organ-on-a-chip technology where the drug is applied to a cell line of those human cells in a laboratory and you can study whether or not it disrupts the cells.
And so we've made massive strides in reducing animal testing, dog testing, beagle testing, and we officially announced on our reducing unnecessary animal testing roadmap, you no longer need 144 chimpanzees to test a class of medications called a monoclonal antibody.
Ignoring Scientific Mandates00:04:19
All of those things reduces the amount of time it takes for a new drug or cure to reach patients, and it lowers R ⁇ D costs, which means lower drug prices for everyday America.
Beagle testing, that's something that happens?
Our Beagle kennels are empty now at the FDA.
There was an effort to start reducing them years ago.
But beagles have been, in the minds of people like Dr. Fauci, an ideal animal model because they're docile animals.
And many people believe that's cruel.
And so there's been a massive reduction in animal testing at the NIH and the FDA.
Bill in Georgia, you are next.
You're on with Dr. McCarry.
Hello, Doc.
Yeah, hello, Dr. Macquerie.
I spoke to you last time before the election when your book, The Blind Spots, came out.
Okay.
I don't know if you remember me.
I'd like to ask you a question about the CDC.
And has it been reformed?
Last time, during the COVID epidemic, the CDC failed in their job description by not seeing that COVID was not as bad as it was as it was supposed to be.
So I'd like to ask a question: have there been reforms at the CDC?
Have people been let go for lack of their work and lack of their insight?
Many of these people who were PhDs and doctors knew that COVID, especially for children, was not as bad as they pretended it to be, and that these people need to be dismissed or let go.
I know it's very difficult because the judicial system is allowing them to sit around and vegetate.
Well, Bill, let me take your questions.
Yeah, look, what I hear is an intense frustration with the COVID response from our public health agencies.
And a lot of Americans are angry that their kids were shut out of school for a year and eight months, whereas in Europe it was about two weeks.
And the data were pretty clear that kids were at a 100,000-fold lower risk of COVID complications than an older individual with a comorbid condition.
And that distinction was never really made clear.
Instead, it was sort of everybody is almost at equal risk.
And so what you had were these draconian policies that alienated a lot of people.
At my university, Johns Hopkins, there were COVID vaccine mandates with the booster, or else you get kicked out of school, even if you recently had the COVID infection.
In other words, ignoring natural immunity to COVID from a recent infection.
Many people argued that was scientifically illogical.
If you recently had the flu, no one gets the flu shot because even Dr. Fauci had acknowledged that.
So ignoring natural immunity, cloth masks on toddlers for nearly three years, shutting kids out of school, COVID vaccine mandates for young kids, ignoring myocarditis.
A lot of people are extremely frustrated.
There have been many reforms at the CDC, but there's more work that needs to be done.
David, Michigan, good morning.
You are next.
Good morning, John.
Thanks for taking my call.
I have just one concern.
I feel that our medical, our American system is being confiscated by a commercial entity that handles the expense part of that process.
And what's the commercial entity, David?
Dr. Markley might disagree or agree, but whatever the case may be, I believe that our system in America should be under the department of the Department of Health and Wellness.
Hey, look, there's a very common sentiment out there in the United States that corporations own the FDA.
Autism Label Changes00:06:01
And there has been moments in FDA's history where it's been captured by the industry it is supposed to regulate, not just the FDA, but regulatory bodies in general in the government.
But one thing that is extremely clear is our charge from President Trump, and that is corporations do not own the FDA.
The FDA belongs to the American people.
And so we've done a lot of things to ensure that our scientific review is impeccably independent.
One of my first actions was to remove industry pharma members of FDA advisory committees wherever statutorily possible.
At the same time, we want to partner with industry to make sure there's a very good user interface so we can act quicker with less red tape and less bureaucracy.
We've cut a lot of red tape at the agency.
Take, for example, two recent approvals for cancer drugs, Zongertinib and Tech Dara, approved in 44 days and 55 days, respectively, instead of a year.
Now, the reason we got those approvals done fast is that these are game-changing cancer drugs.
Now, before that, the fastest approval was an HIV drug in 1996 when activists were demonstrating outside the FDA demanding that they get this protease inhibitor approved, which it was.
We need the same level of urgency to address cancer and disabilities and Alzheimer's and ALS and deafness and blindness as we did with HIV.
And so we're moving at record speed by cutting the idle time, cutting the red tape, and we're getting it done.
We're about to make a decision on a cure, potential cure for childhood deafness for 1% to 3% of kids with a form of congenital deafness.
It's a gene therapy, and we're about to make that decision in weeks after we receive the application.
That's because of a new program that we started under President Trump, and that is the National Priority Review Voucher Program.
If we see something game-changing, we have to think of what it is like if you're a patient and you want to have access to that.
We can do our review on safety and efficacy promptly and rapidly, cutting the idle time and the red tape, and that's what we're doing.
On reviews and applications, this is just in today's newspaper.
Maybe you can fill in some of the information about it.
GSK withdrew its application for a drug touted last year by President Trump as a potential treatment for autism symptoms just months after the company submitted it at the request of health officials.
What should we know about that?
Well, actually, they didn't withdraw anything, so what they did is they said they're going to change the label on their folate supplement, which some doctors believe can help kids with autism who have an autoimmune reaction to the folate receptor, making the brain folate deficient.
So some doctors test kids with autism for antibodies to the folate receptor, and if they have those antibodies, they supplement those kids with folate.
So GSK had agreed to a small change in their label, and they didn't go quite as far as putting the word autism in the label.
But that was the minor modification.
Doctors can still use it.
And remember, there are about six generic manufacturers, and they are interested in changing their label as well.
So it's massively overblown to say that they are withdrawing anything.
Marty McCary, this is Martin from Dayton, Ohio.
Up next, go ahead.
Hello, yeah, a couple things.
First, I think we as a nation did better with COVID than things could have been a lot worse.
We've made mistakes.
I get that.
But the MRNA technology is amazing, and it can be useful in the future.
Also, Operation Warp Speed worked well, and the Trump administration should tout that as a success, but they can't.
Anyways, that's not why I called.
I will call because I drive through Ohio and the Midwest and I see corn on one side and soybeans on the other side.
I've seen it my whole life.
I don't think that'll ever change because there's entrenched pilers that want that to be the way it is.
The corn is, we can't even eat the corn.
It goes just to feedstock.
Will that ever change?
I doubt it.
I mean, Michael Pollen is a guy that I read all the time.
And so I don't know.
We're probably going to always have grain-fed cattle, but we should probably just go back to grass-fed like they do in Argentina.
It's a lot healthier.
Martin, thanks for the call.
Michael Pollen, a recent book out, and I can't think of the title of the book, but he's going to appear on book TV this weekend to talk about that book whose title I think.
Oh, that's great.
But we're going to be, he was at the New Orleans Book Festival being interviewed about that book.
But anyway, to the colors question.
Great.
No, I love Michael's work as an author myself.
I've often thought he has great work.
There are other authors that are very interested in this particular topic.
Mark Hyman, Casey Means has written about it.
So there is a groundswell movement right now to say, can we talk about the food that we're eating, not just the chemotherapy and the insulin?
Can we talk about school lunch programs, not just putting six-year-olds on Ozempic?
And so there's this new sort of renaissance right now to talk about root causes.
And you're seeing even the NIH shift funding from just molecular genetic work to actually studying what's causing autism, what's causing autoimmune diseases.
And that's good.
That's healthy.
For too long, we've had a system that's only rewarded financially us doctors doing things to people.
But we need to reward doctors to spend time with patients and talk about what they're eating and exercise and other things.
Playing into what you just said, what do you make of those commercials on TV, the pharma commercials with the happy people and the narrator giving all the scary potential side effects of some medicine?
Pesticides and Food Chains00:04:30
How do you view them as FDA Commissioner?
Look, I'm very concerned about misleading pharmaceutical advertisements and some of the new forms like online pharmacies parading around medications without even mentioning side effects and even paid social media influencers paid by the drug makers.
So we in my first year sent out over 72 enforcement letters to the industry.
Now the year before it was about one.
What's an enforcement letter?
The enforcement letter says, hey, we see this ad.
There are very concerning things in the ad that violate potentially our FDA regulations.
That is, you cannot create a misleading impression and you cannot have an imbalance of information.
And there was also a loophole whereby a pharmaceutical company could just list the complications somewhere else, like on a website.
We are closing that loophole.
So we've taken the strongest action in a generation to rein in misleading pharmaceutical ads.
And I think since that announcement, I've noticed personally that there are ads that are more clear now with more clear complications.
I've even noticed the font a little bigger.
Half the time, you don't know what the drug is for.
You don't even know what it's for.
And you're like, okay, I'll give up.
I'll take it.
I don't even know what it's for.
They're marching somewhere.
I don't know where they're going in some fake town.
I don't know where.
And they're always dancing, singing, happy.
And so the concern is people are not getting a fair balance of information.
They're walking and demanding these medications.
These are also some of the most expensive medications in the United States, $60,000, $80,000, $100,000 a year.
And so what we are doing is removing the red tape on the generic versions called biosimilars.
that particular class of medications, if you wanted to make a generic, you had to do another clinical trial that could cost $200,000 $200 million and take another two, three years.
We've never required that for a generic small molecule.
If you make it generic, it's just got to be the same structure.
So we said we're going to use the same concept for the biologics, that expensive class that's often advertised for the biosimilars, which are their generic versions.
And you're going to see biosimilars unleashed in an entirely new way within a couple years because there's a couple years of development time.
So we cut the red tape.
You're going to see lower drug prices as a result.
Take you up to the Pine Tree State.
Robin is in Maine.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I actually want to go back to the discussion of the food chain and food industry in the United States and the declining health in the United States.
If the FDA has a huge concern about the additives to food and the food chain itself, why is it that the Trump administration has recently lifted regulations on pesticides and fertilizers?
And I will take my answer off air.
Thank you again for your time.
Dr. McCarry.
Great.
Well, as I mentioned, we did take the biggest action in a generation on artificial food diets, and we're going to the next level of chemicals.
We announced a request for information on BHA.
We're going to do the same with BHT, which is a common preservative.
These are, if you read your cereal boxes, you'll see these chemicals, azodicarbonamide.
It makes bubbles in food.
It's kind of like in your yoga mat, there's bubbles.
It's the same chemical they use in yoga mats and sneakers that goes in the food.
It's banned in other countries.
You can get fined for putting it in food in other countries.
So we're going to the next level of chemicals.
You're going to see more on that in the next two weeks.
But on the pesticide issue, look, we're very concerned about the unknowns with pesticides.
So we've announced as the Department of Health and Human Services more NIH funding to study glyphosate and other pesticides.
And at the FDA, we have a program to help school districts that want to transition to healthier food.
And we actually coach them and walk them through that process.
And we should have some results as early as next Wednesday on that program.
It's a very interesting program where schools are saying, hey, we want to shift to healthier food for the kids.
We just don't know how.
Hormone Drug Demands00:08:43
What do you recommend when they say that, when they come to you and say that?
So we're basically implementing the lessons from our recent National Dietary Guidelines for Americans, or the DGAs.
That is our new food pyramid, which focuses on protein with levels 50 to 100% higher than previous protein recommendations, whole foods, things that come from good soil, good waters, good farming techniques, good animal raising techniques, and avoiding ultra-processed food.
60 to 70% of the calories a kid gets today in America are from ultra-processed foods.
That is our biggest battle right now.
And when you start shifting away from these highly commercial, industrialized, ultra-processed foods, you end up with more local foods, foods that are better for the local economy, foods that are often less expensive because they're not getting shipped across the country or imported from overseas.
And those are the healthy transitions that we want to encourage in school districts.
We're going to have some pretty interesting results on Wednesday.
How often do you eat fast food?
Very rarely.
Sometimes I'm forced to when I travel.
And look, people can eat whatever they want.
It's a free country.
But I have a wonderful wife who cooks with wonderful ingredients, and we eat healthy foods at least two meals a day.
Patricia, Virginia, good morning.
You're next.
Patricia, are you with us?
Go ahead.
Yes, I'm here.
Can you hear me?
Yes, ma'am.
Oh, okay.
My question for Dr. Mackery, he hit on something that really relates to me, and that was the price of estrogen vaginally delivered.
I do have, I'm 74, and I'm giving you my age because my doctor recommended hormones.
So they gave me a prescription for estrogen.
I do have a supplemental plan in addition to my Medicare that pays for prescriptions.
And normally I pay zero to zero.
I was shocked when I went to get my estrogen, and they said $591 for a month.
And I thought, I can't pay that.
So anyway, they fooled around and they went to the different prescription outlets or whatever they do.
And they managed to get it down to like 90-something, which is still expensive.
And then finally, when I went to pick it up, they got it down to $24.
So I'm just very interested in the fact that what they told me was that if it's a name brand, for example, Premarin, then you're going to pay top price.
But I went to a lower or generic, I suppose, prescription.
So I'm very interested in the fact that why would that type of medication, which is needed, be priced so high?
And that's all I have to say.
I've got all this on the television too.
Patricia, thanks for the call.
Well, it sounds like what Patricia is observing and experiencing is exactly what we were talking about with the pharmacy benefit manager shell games behind the pharmacy counter, marking up drugs because the employer pays most or all of that price.
And the employers are often getting ripped off.
They can't track 500 employees getting different medications at different doses and frequencies and generic versions.
And so what happens is when there's no clear product and a price on the shelf, then you have these money games that enable sort of this increased price gouging, if you will, behind the counter.
That is the magical power of going to over-the-counter.
When something is non-prescription, you see the price, you see a couple products.
For the fraction of shoppers that are shopping on price, they keep prices in check for everybody.
There's no vaginal estrogen in the United States that should cost $500 a month.
And so the price that she eventually heard it was sort of wrestled down to $24 sounds more like the market value.
I'd like to see vaginal estrogen over the counter.
I'd like to see other drugs like that over the counter.
And right now, I should just mention as a side note that there's a lot of demand on estrogen products for menopausal women and postmenopausal women because we took the biggest action in 23 years to remove the scary black box warnings from menopausal hormone therapy products.
There was a dogma that women should absolutely avoid them because they will definitely get cancer and other bad outcomes.
Turns out it was not supported with the literature, especially if a woman starts it within 10 years of the onset of menopause.
So it was a nuanced discussion.
But tragically, because of that dogma, 50 million women, including my mom, over the last 23 years, have been denied or talked out of hormone replacement therapy when they go through menopause.
And so we've told women the truth.
And as a result, we've seen a five-fold, six-fold increase in demand in these hormone replacement therapy products.
All those videos and announcements and roundtables.
We had a big FDA roundtable with experts are all online.
People can see what we had to say.
But that created a massive demand.
Now, it's not yet at the drug shortage list level, but the demand is extremely high, and the manufacturers are sort of barely keeping up right now.
If they want to find it, FDA.gov is where they can go.
Yeah, and they can Google FDA Roundtable on Hormone Replacement Therapy.
Joanne, out of the land of Lincoln, go ahead.
Yes, hi.
My question is similar.
Well, it's related to what you just said about would like to know if you could possibly explain in simple terms that prescription drug program for this audience and how to go about going and looking up your drug that you want and how it's working so far.
Thank you.
Great, thanks.
So TrumpRX is a website.
By the way, President Trump didn't come up with the name for the website, but it's trumprx.com.
Who did come up with the name?
I assume some of the staff there, but it's an easy to remember website whereby people can go and see whether or not the drug that they're on or the drug they're prescribed is less expensive if they buy it direct from the manufacturer.
And so that is an entirely revolutionary concept in healthcare.
It is actually a health reform because for the first time ever, you don't have to go through your pharmacy benefit manager or go through that many layers of middleman to get a medication.
So you're seeing some of the prices on there at the lowest prices in the world for some of the branded drugs.
You're also seeing generics added on.
I would like to see more drugs non-prescription, and that way people can see that healthy competition at the pharmacy on the shelf instead of behind the pharmacy counter.
What should viewers know about the Commissioner's National Priority Voucher Program?
Yeah, this is a really exciting program.
It's been very well received.
It is a moment where we are saying, can we cut the idle time in the review process and streamline our decisions?
Can we get decisions out in one to two months instead of a year?
Now, these applications can be 100,000 pages or 200,000 pages for a drug to get approved.
And so we do need time to go through it meticulously.
But without cutting any corners on safety, we've created a new workflow whereby the teams convene and make decisions in a matter of weeks.
Now, if I've told everybody on these teams, if you need more time, take more time.
But let's see what's feasible.
Can we get decisions out quicker?
Now, the two cancer drugs I mentioned, Tech Dara and Zongertinib, these are such game changers for HER2 mutated non-small cell lung cancer and for multiple myeloma, respectively.
I mean, doubling survival, doubling or tripling disease progress, reducing disease-free progression or death by 83% in the case of Zongertinib.
I mean, these drugs literally can bring people out of hospice.
That's how powerful they are.
So if you're somebody who could benefit from these drugs, don't you want the FDA to act with a sense of urgency?
So for the first time in history, we're getting decisions out in 44 days, 50 days in this new program instead of a year.
And it's been extremely well received with tremendous positive feedback.
We'll expand it based on the resources we have.
Reopening Schools Safely00:05:02
But so far, it's going well.
As I mentioned, we're about to make a decision on a potential cure for a form of congenital deafness in children due to the gene mutation that affects 1% to 3% of kids with congenital deafness.
We need the sense of urgency like we had with HIV when those drugs got approved quickly for cancer and deafness and blindness and other debilitating conditions.
Time for a few more calls, about five or six minutes left with the commissioner of the FDA.
This is Anthony and Georgia.
Anthony, go ahead.
Hello, this is Anthony.
I have a question here of a concern about the way the doctor explained why kids were asked to stay out of school during the COVID area to protect other family members who may have been elderly.
My understanding is that was the main reason why kids were asked to stay out of school.
And because of his answer, this sounds like a MAGA doctor here who's more interested in pleasing his boss than answering that question thoroughly.
I'll take my answer offline.
Yeah, look, the COVID era unfortunately became a very deeply partisan era in the United States, and that crossed over into medicine, unfortunately.
And so what you had were scientists and doctors and public health officials that lost their scientific objectivity.
The data out of Europe in July of 2020 was crystal clear that kids who were shut out of school versus kids who went to school with precautions had no difference in COVID complications whatsoever.
And that's because you cannot have a kid live in a bubble.
They're going to visit other kids or they're going to, you know, you can't have a kid have stay-at-home orders for three years.
And so the data were apparent.
Now, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a strong statement that the schools should be open in the fall of 2020.
But the second President Trump said the exact same thing, they reversed their position.
And so you had this partisan battle.
And then in the Biden administration, a guidance document on reopening schools during COVID out of the CDC that was literally edited by the teachers' union.
Edits from the teachers' union in the document before it was released appeared in the final document.
And FOIA has demonstrated that they did have really hard.
So unfortunately, it became a very partisan time.
And many of us were talking until we're blue in the face about how the schools need to be open for healthy kids.
And we can still see the program at the time.
I was on this program.
I went every place that would have me saying the schools need to be reopened in 2021.
It was getting out of control.
It was ridiculous.
And so there were all these conditions.
Well, once they get the vaccine, then they'll reopen.
Well, once this happens, they'll reopen.
And they were all just sort of, you know, paper tigers.
There was ultimately, in the end, if you look at, say, Michigan versus Sweden, same population, same climate, same concurrence of COVID waves, because, you know, you can't compare different states that had different waves at different times.
But Michigan and Sweden had the exact same concurrent waves at the same time, double the number of deaths in Michigan as Sweden.
Now, Sweden initially was criticized for sort of using modest precautions and telling people to use their own.
Well, they didn't have any excess deaths.
We had a lot of excess deaths from all sorts of abuse.
We saw opioid and other substance abuse deaths go up.
We saw kids with lifelong learning loss.
So the whole thing, in part, when we were fighting to reopen the schools in 2021 in the Biden administration, in part, I feel like we lost.
But I think it's pretty obvious to most Americans today that the schools were shut down way too long, and it just became a partisan thing driven in part by the teachers' union.
How often on a weekly basis are you interacting with President Trump?
How interested is he in the day-to-day operations at the FDA?
Well, I can tell you, President Trump is not afraid to make it very clear to all of us that we have to stay on mission to lower drug prices for everyday Americans, see more cures and meaningful treatments for the American public, especially those with cancer and debilitating conditions and things kids suffer from, including rare diseases, and healthier food for children.
And so we have interactions every few weeks, almost several times a week with the staff at the White House.
And because we rely on that charge and that vision to do our day-to-day work, and I'm very proud to report that we've announced 40 major reforms year to date in the Trump administration at the FDA.
AI Tools for FDA00:03:28
Time for maybe one more call.
This is Ava in Virginia Beach.
Ava, you're on with the FDA Commissioner Marty McCary.
Good morning, Dr. McCary.
My question was about reforms in the FDA.
During this program, you've talked a lot about cutting red tape.
And I'd like to ask that you define what cutting red tape is and how you're ensuring that that's streamlining the program, streamlining the administration and not weakening its regulatory abilities.
Thank you.
Great question.
Great question.
And look, we cannot cut any corners on safety.
Safeguarding the public is our number one priority, and we will never do that.
And that's why our scientists have the right to extend any process as needed for safety concerns, if they have any.
But I think you'll see with the decision on this new potential cure for childhood deafness that we can get decisions out without cutting any corners on that review.
An example on how we're cutting red tape is that we are using AI to do what we call the filing check of a new application.
That is, we get a drug application.
It has taken for decades 60 days for the FDA to review it to ensure that it is simply complete.
Now, that is not a scientific review.
It is a sort of a precursory, perfunctory check to make sure that it's simply formatted and complete and all the elements are there.
Well, we can do that with AI.
In fact, our AI is doing it in two minutes instead of 60 days.
That means every drug coming out of the FDA can get approved two months faster just by streamlining that one simple step.
We also have a powerful AI tool for our scientific reviewers.
They can navigate these 100,000-page applications much more swiftly.
They can summon information.
They can tell the AI, pull the PharmTox data within the application, show me how it compares to other applications, pull studies from the literature to get me well read and up to speed on this particular drug.
And so our scientific reviewers love this AI tool.
It's not making the decision on the drug, but it's enabling them to be much more efficient.
We're also hiring more scientists.
All of that creates efficiencies, and that's on top of some of these other regulations we have removed, such as the additional clinical trial requirement on biosimilars, the generic versions of expensive biologics.
And also, in the past, they've required two pivotal trials for a drug to get approved.
We are now saying the default is one pivotal trial because you can achieve the same statistical power with one well-designed, well-controlled, single randomized trial as you can with two smaller randomized trials.
That saves a lot of money, which means lower drug prices for everyday Americans.
And of course, reducing unnecessary animal testing.
One of our signature achievements, I think, of the first year, not only good for patients, it's more humane for animals.
Dr. Marty McCary with 10 appearances now on the Washington Journal.
Has it been that many?
You get to keep the mug now.
We'll talk to you again down the road.
Always appreciate your work and the work you're talking about available at FDA.gov.
Thanks for chatting with Bjorst.
Good to be with you.
Thanks.
Artemis II Moon Return00:03:04
Coming up later this evening, and we will show it live on the C-SPAN networks.
It's the splashdown for Artemis II, their return to Earth, 6:30 p.m.
We're going to spend our last 45 minutes of the Washington Journal talking about that mission.
We will be joined by Scott Pace, the director of Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.
Stick around.
We'll be right back.
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Stay with C-SPAN as we prepare for the Artemis II moon mission return to Earth today.
We are your front row seat for live video from NASA, mission control in Houston, and the highly anticipated splashdown off the coast of San Diego.
Plus, expert insight, briefings, news conferences, and your calls.
Follow the crew's journey back home as they return to Earth.
C-SPAN's live Artemis II coverage starts today at 6:30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, the free C-SPAN Now app, and online at C-SPAN.org.
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Coming up this weekend, at 9 a.m. Eastern, New Jersey, Democratic Senator Corey Booker with his book, Stand, where he details shared ideas that make America and talks about his record-setting 25-hour-long speech in the Senate that began March 31st, 2025.
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Washington Journal continues.
Space Unifying People00:14:44
I'll focus now on the final stage of the Artemis II mission, which is set to conclude with the splashdown this afternoon off the coast of California.
Our guest is Scott Pace, Space Policy Institute Director at Georgetown, at George Washington University.
Excuse me.
Scott Pace, if everything goes as planned with this splashdown later today, what will be the legacy of Artemis II when future space historians look back on this mission?
Well, I think one of the first things that will stand out is learning to fly again.
It is not simply astronauts and even machines that fly into deep space, but it's entire organizations.
And we haven't done this for a long time.
This is the first time since 1972 that we've gone really this far beyond low Earth orbit.
So what I think it represents is a return to the United States, putting humans in deep space, and represents hopefully the start of a long-term, more permanent presence of humans and Americans in particular in deep space.
And again, if all goes well later this afternoon, what does a successful Artemis II mission mean for the timeline of our return to space and where we go from here?
Well, it's certainly a critical step because the space launch system and Orion are right now on the critical path for getting back to the moon, putting humans back on the moon as soon as possible.
It also is a step toward buying time for the human landing system, which is still in development, primarily by SpaceX, but also with some ideas by Blue Origin to also demonstrate themselves.
NASA has announced that it will be doing a mission to test out human landing systems in Earth orbit, much as we did in the Apollo 9 program, which preceded Apollo 11 back in the 60s.
And so this is a successful and necessary step.
If this hadn't worked well or to everyone's satisfaction, then we'd have to keep doing it until we did get it right.
But this now opens the way to the next mission, Artemis III, which will be testing out the human landing system for the moon in Earth orbit.
For Artemis II to be successful, it will have to overcome the next big challenge, as the Wall Street Journal headline puts it this morning.
The heat is the high stakes and the fiery re-entry.
Explain the spacecraft's shield, how it will be tested when it comes to the heat, and what you're watching for today.
Well, what we're watching for, of course, is a successful re-entry, stay in communication with the vehicle as long as possible.
In the old days with Apollo, there was a period where there was a blackout period because this hot sheath of plasma would come around the capsule as it was re-entering and blocking communications with ground-based antennas.
Hopefully, we'll be able to stay in communication with Orion throughout the sequence because they'll be able to talk to satellites in orbit above them, and they'll still be able to be connected to the outside world.
But three good shoots, open canopies.
Yep, that's what we're looking for.
How long does a splashdown take?
This is expected to happen at 8.07.
When does sort of the highest of high stakes begin?
Well, there'll be a period of maximum heating as they enter.
They'll be entering over the South Pacific, south of Hawaii, and they'll be coming in about 25,000 miles an hour, and they'll slow down to 300 miles an hour as they splash down pretty much just off of San Diego.
So a number of events happen in fairly quick sequence.
So really the last hour or so will probably be the most intense.
You talked about the 60s and the Apollo mission, a time when the space race was very much on the minds of Americans.
What is the status of the space race right now, and what has Artemis II meant for the United States and the space race of the 21st century?
Okay.
So the first thing I'll say as I'm wearing my academic hat is it's not really quite a race in the same way that the Apollo program was a race with two superpowers, a fixed timeline.
Kennedy had said, return, send a man to the moon, return him safely to the earth within the decade.
That sort of bounded definition of a race is not really what we're in now.
We're in a period of great power competition with China in particular, and that the race is not to get to a finish line.
The race is to be present and fully involved in the development of space beyond what's already happened and in order to shape that domain for really the next century to come.
So it's a long-term enduring competition, not just simply a bounded race.
Now, that being said, one of the things I think we're seeing is how space has an ability to bring people together in a period, of course, of intense polarization and partisan polarization.
The space program is something which enjoys strong bipartisan support.
It's something which brings together people from all walks of life.
If you go and look at the crowds around the launch there, and if you look at the reactions of people from school children to older people like myself who remember Apollo, it helps bring the country together in a very, very powerful and important way.
So it's part of a long-term competition that we're in, but it's also something that speaks to cooperation.
Having a Canadian astronaut on board, having commercial payloads on board, talking about what the next steps in lunar development might be are all things that I think bring people together.
So it's different.
It has some resemblances to the past, but it's also new and unique in its own way.
Scott Pace is our guest.
We're talking about the final splashdown of the Artemis II mission and the legacy of that mission, what it will be, asking for your phone calls as well in this final 35 minutes of the Washington Journal.
We are doing that on phone lines split by region.
If you're in the Eastern or Central time zones, it's 202-748-8000.
If you're in the Mountain or Pacific time zones, 202-748-8001.
We'll look for your texts as well, 202748-8003.
Scott Pace, we noted you are the Space Policy Institute director at George Washington University, but also a background in the National Space Council.
What is that?
And did that have any connection to the Artemis missions?
Sure.
Well, the National Space Council is a mechanism inside the White House, which some presidents have used and others have not.
The Space Council was first created by actually by Eisenhower in the beginning of the space age.
President Kennedy decided to have Lyndon Johnson, his vice president, chair it, which started the tradition of having the vice president chair it.
It went away after the Johnson administration and really didn't come back until the Bush 41 administration, where Vice President Dan Quayle chaired the council.
And then it went away again and came back under the first Trump administration, where Vice President Mike Pence chaired the council and I was his executive secretary, sort of administrative role in running the council.
And the council is an interesting tool because it helps bring together disparate parts of U.S. space interests.
You have representation of economic interests, military interests, scientific interests, diplomatic interests, all different aspects of space.
Space is not just simply a technology item or a science item.
It's something that impacts many different parts of national power.
And so the Space Council is a very integrative function that I personally think is helpful.
In the Bush 41 administration, the Space Council was there pretty much at the end of the Cold War.
And so a number of issues that had never been really dealt with during the Cold War were in forms of new international cooperation with Russia, high-precision remote sensing, what to do with excess ballistic missiles, all kinds of issues were in the beginnings of space commercialization, all began in the Bush 41 administration.
In the first Trump administration, which I was very privileged to serve and support, we dealt with a number of questions about the future of human spaceflight.
So Space Policy Directive 1 said, yes, we should go back to the moon and on to Mars, a long-standing goal of NASA and others.
But it said something different, which is in addition with international and commercial partners, not simply a NASA-only kind of activity, but an activity that was really shared by a wider range of people.
So the international participation you see in Artemis, the commercial participation you see in landing on the moon.
These were parts of a new space environment that the Trump administration space policy recognized.
We did a number of other things too, reforming regulations, paving the way for space traffic management, paving the way for how we would use space nuclear power and a number of other items.
So I think it was a very productive period of time.
The Biden administration continued.
The Space Council was not as active, but it did a number of things to expand international participation in the Artemis program and continued to promote commercial activity.
In the second Trump administration, they decided not to bring back the Space Council.
And in part, this is because the running of the White House, running of the policy process, is much different than it was earlier.
It is much more direct.
The president has empowered his principals, his cabinet secretaries, more directly.
The White House is absolutely engaged and involved in space policy.
But the kind of the longer extended interagency kinds of debates that we had and others have had are not necessary as much because the policies are largely intact.
Creating new policy right now is not probably the highest priority.
You have executive orders, you have statements of policy, but I think the focus in this administration is much more on execution, much more on implementation.
You see a lot more statements of, well, this is the policy American superiority in space and following.
Now go do it.
And so that focus on implementation, I think, is one of the reasons you don't see an emphasis on the Space Council that we had, say, in the first Trump administration.
Caller is already for you.
Mr. Pace and Juanita is up first out of the Buckeye State in Cincinnati.
Juanita, you are on with Scott Pace.
Hello, Mr. Page.
Let me tell you, first of all, I'm really excited about the young people coming back.
I'm really excited that it's being piloted by Victor Glover, a member of my brother fraternity by Beta Sigma.
Jumping on the academic side, what I'm really excited about, because I used to be a teacher, I mean, a tutor down the street of little brown boys, is the scientific training that he had, the piloting training that he's had, and the very fact that this young man is bringing a space capsule back.
that no one has has ever, no human has ever gone to before.
I'm really excited.
And what I would like for you to speak on is the expansion of how we use the space program to get over different pieces.
But again, I'm really excited for you.
I'm happy.
I'm happy to be an American.
And I'm happy Victor's doing it.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Juanita, thanks for the question on how we use the space program to get over different arguments in this country.
Oh, I think that's a terrific question.
And, you know, bringing people together is also an important part of what the space program is about.
I mean, if in the 60s, yes, brought people together, but we were also part of, you know, competing on a larger stage.
Today, we, of course, have competition, but we also have greater cooperation.
I think Victor Glover did a very nice job when he was there at the moon and describing how looking back toward the Earth and seeing that it was fragile, small, everything that you ever cared about was there on that small blue dot in the cosmos.
And that sense that we're kind of all in this together, what I thought was a very nice rendition.
You know, it echoed a bit the first pictures of the Earth from the moon that came back by Apollo 8.
And so, you know, the focus was on, of course, going to the moon.
But part of what came out of that mission was a sense of coming home, of looking back and seeing the Earth as a whole.
Very, very powerful image.
This is the overview effect, as they call it.
The overview effect, as they call it.
And this crew and Victor in particular, I think, expressed that very well.
And I think that perspective is also very powerful and worth communicating to people.
NASA Budget Confidence00:13:53
I want to show you a headline from the New York Times.
This was yesterday's New York Times.
Kate Marvel is the opinion writer for this piece, a former research scientist at NASA.
The headline, NASA flew by the moon, but behind the scenes, its science is a chaotic mess.
She makes these points.
I want to get your thoughts on, Mr. Pace.
President Trump's 2027 budget request calls for a nearly 50% cut to NASA's science division.
We may still be able to shoot for the moon, but we're losing the ability to understand our own world.
She says reasonable people can disagree on what should be done to limit the effects of climate change, but rather than debate policy, the administration has chosen to attack the science itself and has effectively canceled the National Climate Assessment, fired researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and left NASA scientists in limbo.
What do you make of her description of calling the science right now a mess?
Well, I don't really agree with that.
And I think Nikki Fox, who's the Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, doesn't agree with that.
They have a very rich variety of activities going on.
And I would also point out that the president's budget request in the previous year was about a 25% below the prior year's enacted level.
And the Congress didn't agree with that and pushed back on it.
Now, no secret, when I was in the Trump administration and working for the vice president, I thought that the NASA budget needed to increase.
If you look at what the NASA budget was, say, at the end of the Cold War and say 1992, and you said if we had the same purchasing power today, the NASA budget would not be $18 billion, $19 billion.
The NASA budget would be about $33 billion.
So I think it maybe doesn't need to be that large.
And I think Jared Isaacman, NASA, says he can do a lot with what he has.
But I think a NASA budget in the high 20s, approaching 30, is not a reasonable target.
Now, the administration has said this is where their priorities are.
And they've spoken very clearly that they're going to emphasize exploration, that they're going to prioritize some science missions, but not others.
And that is absolutely the right of the administration to do so.
However, the Congress now gets a voice in it.
And the Congress has spoken, I think, very eloquently about needing to have a balanced program of science and exploration.
That science itself is a form of exploration, and exploration is empowered by science.
And in this last year, we saw the Congress restore funding to a lot of science areas.
And so the process is really just going to begin yet again.
And I think we have a very rich science program.
I would like the NASA budget to be larger, no secret.
But I think this is the conversation happening between the White House and Congress over where to put the priorities.
And I'm gratified by the emphasis on exploration that this administration has placed.
So would you agree more with a separate column by Ross Dothet?
He writes that the idealism of the space program isn't enough.
Ambition suffices to get us to space, but it's self-interest that will keep the rockets going, saying that the hardships of exploration will be fully surmounted only by a civilization that also discovers the rewards among the stars, the ability essentially to make money here.
Sure.
Well, there's lots of reasons for why space is important.
Space is important, certainly for scientific purposes, to learn things that can't be learned here on Earth.
Space is important for military purposes, certainly as we're seeing in current operations over Iran and earlier.
Space is a critical part of our national security.
But space is also a critical part of our economy.
Whether you're looking at communication satellites, images from Earth that are telling you about agriculture and oceans and land use, or if you're using GPS satellites to navigate to your next meeting in your Uber.
So the space environment contains infrastructure that is as critical to us as any infrastructure on the ground.
So that space domain is really important, and we have multiple sets of interests in it.
And in terms of our military interests and our commercial interests, we're going to be there.
I mean, the United States has really no alternative but to be there.
The question is, do we want to go farther and push beyond that?
And I think we do, because in the course of exploration, in the course of having people present in space, we shape the rules, the norms, we create the partnerships with others that help secure that environment.
I often make the analogy to Antarctica, of course, a cold and forbidding and hostile place to work in.
But there's an Antarctic treaty system, there's a governance system there, and the United States has a large role in it, not a sole role, but a large role in it, because in part we helped put 3,000 people on the ice down there.
We are fully present in Antarctica.
So we go from a continent that first reached the South Pole with Norwegian explorers and Amundsen in the early part of the 20th century.
And then humans didn't return for almost 50 years until the U.S. Navy did.
And now we have McMurdo Station and others, and we have a full-up developed environment in which we're fully present in Antarctica.
And so I think the moon and other places will be like that initially.
They'll be austere places of exploration.
And then we're going to discover whether or not there are economic things that will also draw us out there.
Certainly, if we find markets and economic purposes to be there, that will help make space exploration more sustainable and more continuous.
So the commercial sector is absolutely vital.
But this is all part of an exploration process.
We don't really know where we can go and what we can do until we try.
And so to me, Artemis II is simply another step in that direction of exploring what is the future of humans in space.
Back to your phone calls.
This is Paul across the pond in England.
Paul, go ahead.
You're on with Scott Pace of George Washington University.
Hello, John.
Hello, Scott as well.
Can I just ask a question, Scott, about what will Artemis, the Ortemus mission will come back down safely?
And also, will the missions to future, like I just said, to Mars, the next mission, or whatever, or to the moon, nobody on the moon, and also the Mars after that.
I think we'll have that happen, Scott.
So what's the question, Paul?
Forgive me.
The question was, will the Ottomans be safe to come back safely?
And also, will we make a mission to Mars?
That's basically the question is, really.
Scott Pace, you get that?
Sure.
Yeah.
Again, this is one more step in the direction.
You know, kind of at a bit of a detailed level, the heat shield, which performed on Artemis 1 and had problems and which had been worked on very, very hard.
I think they've resolved most of them.
We're going to see how well it works.
I think the administrator and NASA looked very closely at it because there's a lot of criticism of the heat shield.
We're going to see how that performs.
That will inform the next one.
The heat shields being used now are quite a bit different than what was used during Apollo, so we're always doing something new.
If you were coming back from the moon, you're coming in much faster than if you were just in low Earth orbit.
And if you were coming back directly from Mars, you'd also be coming in, you know, really much faster.
So there is a lot of testing to be done, and there are other alternatives.
If it turns out that we need to find a way to come in maybe more gently, there are different mission ideas for coming back from Mars where you go into lunar, excuse me, into Earth orbit, that you burn a bunch of fuel to break into Earth orbit, transfer to a space station, and then come back maybe at a more modest rate, although still quite high speed.
So I don't think this is a one-and-done type of test.
I think this is one more step in a whole series of tests that will be scaling up in order to enable the return of humans from Mars.
And this might be a good time to show viewers from yesterday, NASA officials describing what the final step of the mission is going to look like before splashdown.
This is just about two minutes from yesterday's briefing.
Question for either Ahmed or Jeff.
I think back a little more than a decade ago, the Curiosity mission had its seven minutes of terror.
And I'm not trying to imply anything, but I want to get a sense of the 13 minutes of entry from entry interface to splashdown of how we should be thinking about it.
That's the 13 minutes of what?
I'm going to tell you it's 13 minutes of things that have to go right, is the way I think about it.
I have a whole checklist in my head that we're going through of all the things that have to happen.
The forward bay cover has to come off, the drugs have to come out, the main chutes have to deploy, the reefing systems have to cut, and we have to get touchdown angle alignment correct and then hit the water correctly.
And even prior to that, right, we've got the CMSM SEP separation between the service module and the crew module.
That has to go right.
And then you have the heat shield that has to work.
So it's not so much 13 minutes.
It's more, in my head, about an hour and a half of things that have to go right.
And that's the way I think of them.
Marsha Dunn, Associated Press for you, Ahmed.
I know all the data and all the analyses shows points the way for a safe splashdown tomorrow, but still, human emotion must be at play.
How tense-stressed are you?
So much is writing on this mission.
All eyes will be, you know, so focused on all this tomorrow around the world.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's no question that I'll be anxious.
And, you know, but we'll be with the families.
We'll be with them.
We'll all be together.
You know, I have full confidence in the team.
They do too.
You know, we've been with them the whole time.
And so, you know, we've done the work.
It's impossible to say you don't have irrational fears left, right?
But I would tell you, I don't have any rational fears about what's going to happen.
We've done the work we need to, and we, you know, have full confidence in the team, the recovery team, the flight control team, analysis and the work we did.
That was from yesterday's NASA briefing.
If you want to watch it in its entirety ahead of today's splashdown, it is available at c-span.org.
Scott Pace, what are you most anxious about as we head towards that hopefully 807 p.m. Eastern splashdown?
Well, I really like the way Ahmet described that.
You can't get rid of all irrational fears, but you can pound down all the rational ones.
And his description of running through the checklist, whether it's on ascent, descent, or on orbit, I think that's just exactly the way you think about it.
And if anything, DVH, you think about your workarounds and what else you can do.
I think, again, his description of confidence in the team and confidence in thinking through the checklist that he'll be getting is right.
And I think what's also maybe just a personal sort of commentary, I think that Ahmed gets right as well is with all that, there is still a sense of humility.
He was out meeting with the recovery crew.
I think the John Murtha is the Navy ship that's going to go out to get the crew.
And he described a small item on his desk, a replica of something that was given to President Kennedy by Admiral Rickover, famous of Nuclear Navy.
And I believe I've got this.
This is the prayer that says, O Laura, the ocean is so vast and my ship is so small.
You can't do these sorts of things without a sense of humility because you're managing levels of power and energies and doing things that no human has done before.
And so you should be humble in front of it.
And at the same time, you still press forward and you press forward with all the diligence and all the analysis and all the thinking that you can.
And I think just Ama's description there of a checklist in part and the analysis that they've done is part of that combination of both humility and confidence that I think reflects well on the team.
And again, we can all watch together this final stage of the Artemis II mission.
C-SPAN's coverage begins at 6.30 p.m. Eastern.
You can watch here.
You can watch at C-SPAN.org.
You can take it with you on the C-SPAN Now video app.
Tom is waiting in Baltimore.
Tom, good morning.
You're on with Scott Pace.
Good morning, Doc.
And I'd like to say, first of all, I'd like to offer my congratulations for successful return of our astronauts later on this evening.
I'm sure they'll be talking to their families and having a good dinner.
I have every confidence in our new NSA and in our astronauts.
And I know they're going to have a successful return to our planet.
Asteroid Mining Future00:10:21
My question is, sir, during the 1960s, when I was a kid, we had what's known as a space race with the Russians.
And it was a political and strategic approach.
We outspent the Russians, particularly when they lost their moon rocket.
And they ran out of money.
We didn't.
And we beat them.
Right now, the Chinese are interested in the moon big time.
I'm just wondering how much of our efforts going to the moon had to do with positioning ourselves with the Chinese.
How much did our efforts in the past with Apollo assist ourselves with the Chinese?
Yeah, we had a space race in the 60s with the Russians and we beat them.
Are we having a space race with the Chinese right now?
Sorry for the answer, but it's both yes and no.
It is absolutely a competition, but it's different than the more narrowly bounded race of the 1960s.
In the 1960s, there was just really us and the Soviet Union.
Today, we have an environment that's much more globalized.
Many more countries are doing things in space, more democratized in the sense that you have private companies, you have universities, and all kinds of other people participating.
So it's a much bigger gaggle of folks who are involved in this.
And the Chinese want to be involved in this, which is, again, perfectly understandable.
I think people have to maybe understand about the Chinese program.
First of all, it is very capable.
They've got a lot of smart people.
They've got resources.
They're making progress very steadily.
But they have a vision, a longer-term vision, I think, which is of building infrastructure or building presence.
They're not racing in the sense that we used to race.
They're not racing us back to the moon.
They're racing to create infrastructure systems, meaning communications, transportation, navigation, refueling facilities.
They are looking to be permanently there and present, as they are in different parts of the world, in the oceans, in Arctica, and any place you look.
On one hand, they have that right.
I mean, as the nation, space is the province of all mankind, as international law says.
On the other hand, I think that we also should be thinking about infrastructure and permanence and having partners and international cooperation and industry all with us because the shaping of the values and how space develops is going to be done by the people who show up, not by people who stay behind.
So I think while we're not, strictly speaking, in a race, there is a contest going on as to what values and what people will shape the next century in space.
So we can have that as peaceful cooperation, or it can turn into more bad competition.
I'm hoping for the peaceful cooperation part.
We have a group of viewers who watch along and post along throughout the show each morning, and we appreciate when they do.
One of them is J.D. Redding.
His question for you this morning is: Do you have any insight or information to asteroid mining within the next decade or two, or even mining on the moon?
Sure.
So the thing I think about asteroid mining and other things is once you're in space, once you're out of the Earth's gravitational field, it's relatively cheaper to get anywhere else in the solar system.
If you're looking at mining operations, it's actually harder to do it off the moon because you've got to go down into the lunar gravity well, then you got to claw your way back out and come back.
Whereas an asteroid is basically a large rock drifting in space and you can dock with it.
And some of them have rare earth metals, things of interest.
Some of them have volatiles and gases that are of interest.
There's a wide variety of types of asteroids.
I think before one really takes asteroid mining more seriously, you first have to have a better survey of what is out there.
And that's started.
And you have to have the technology to dock and extract material from those asteroids, which also is there and possible.
So it's certainly feasible to imagine asteroid mining, and in some ways, maybe more economical than going down to the moon and back.
But there's a lot of exploratory work that first has to happen.
You know, saying that there's valuable minerals in space is sort of like saying, well, you know, there's gold in the West.
Well, that's true, but where is it and what condition it's in and what it's like requires a lot more work.
So I think asteroid mining is absolutely conceptually feasible, but we have a lot of science to do before we can characterize it enough to really think about useful mining operations.
About five or seven minutes left in our program today.
This is Joe in Michigan.
Joe, thanks for waiting.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I have a question and then a short comment.
When will the real NASA come out of the closet?
I believe we have craft that could take us to the moon not in five days, but in maybe 20 minutes to a half hour.
But they have two programs, apparently, one covert, one overt.
And I don't think these astronauts set the record on distance from the planet.
Joe, why do you think that?
I finished a book last week called Secret Journey to Planet Serpo, a story of 12 American astronauts, trained military people who were flown on an EBAN spacecraft.
All right, Joe, we'll take the comments.
Scott Pace, do we have a secret NASA?
I think their funding profile would probably be much better than what we've actually gotten.
And I think it's really hard to keep things very secret in this society.
You know, there's a whole other discussion, which I won't get into, on, you know, unknown aerial phenomena, which is actually a worthy area of study.
But a large bureaucratic program within the U.S. government that is doing things, yes, there are some limited military activities, but nothing like what the caller kind of describes.
I wish it was different, actually, but I can't really hold that hope there.
On aerial technology, what we used to call UFOs.
Yeah, well, I mean, the vast majority of those things you can figure out an explanation for, and it's not.
But there are a small handful of things that, okay, are worth more looking at.
And I don't really subscribe to the idea that these are extraterrestrial craft or anything like that.
But there may be different physics phenomena, there are different meteorological phenomena, different things that we don't really understand.
And as an ex-physics person, if you see phenomena that you can't really explain, well, that's worth investigating.
And I think that's the way I would think of it.
I wouldn't think of it in terms of there being some covert program or think of it in terms of being aliens or so forth.
It's something that should be analyzed more.
We should have better scientific instruments.
We should look for things in a more consistent manner and just treat it as a scientific problem and kind of leave the speculation to the side.
Last call for the day.
This is Ann out of North Carolina.
Go ahead.
Hello.
Go ahead, Ann.
What's your question?
Yes, this is a comment.
I realize that we're traveling from space to Earth.
But this traveling to the moon maybe reminded me of the Babylonian time in the Baba.
And I'm reminding that we're trying to go to the moon, but we was standing here on Earth in the beginning of life.
And we're not really a good stewardess of Earth.
We're not taking care of Earth like we should when it comes to maintenance and everything else.
So why would we want to go to the moon and mess it up?
That's my comment.
Thank you.
And thanks for the question.
Scott Pace, give you the final two minutes here.
Why do we want to go to the moon?
I think we want to go to the moon.
And again, this is maybe speaking as an academic because it's the most marvelous teaching environment, the most marvelous school you can imagine.
In order to successfully operate in space, literally an alien environment, you have to master every tool of science and engineering to do so.
You have to force yourself and press yourself to do things that you would not do if you stayed at home.
So it's part of, I think, a maturation process.
It's part of a schooling process.
You know, yes, there are practical political reasons why we want to shape the space environment in ways that are conducive to our national interest.
But I think as humans, we also want to learn.
We want to learn and explore not just science itself, but also the engineering and skills that are out there.
And I think it's by leaving home that you can look back at home and come to a better appreciation of it and take care of that home.
The kinds of information that we have been able to get from space gives us a better appreciation of our planet.
The kind of skills we learn in space give us a better ability to be stewards of this planet.
And the viewpoint we get from space gives us a better perspective on taking care of this planet.
So I think it does contribute to the desire of the caller to take better care of Earth.
Stewarding Our Planet00:02:29
Scott Pace is the Space Policy Institute Director at George Washington University.
He's joined us for the past 45 minutes this morning, and he'll be watching tonight's splashdown.
Scott Pace, thank you for your time today.
Thank you.
And if you want to watch the splashdown as well, our coverage of the final stage of the Artemis II mission begins at 6:30 p.m. Eastern tonight.
You can watch on C-SPAN, C-SPAN.org, take it along with you on the free C-SPAN Now app.
And of course, we'll be back here tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern, 4 a.m. Pacific.
In the meantime, have a great Friday.
Watched unmatched hours of Artemis coverage across the C-SPAN networks from liftoff to the historic lunar flyby as the crew traveled farther from Earth than anyone in history.
Stay with C-SPAN as we prepare for the Artemis II moon mission return to Earth today.
We are your front row seat for live video from NASA, mission control in Houston, and the highly anticipated splashdown off the coast of San Diego.
Plus, expert insight, briefings, news conferences, and your calls.
Follow the crew's journey back home as they return to Earth.
C-SPAN's live Artemis II coverage starts today at 6:30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, the free C-SPAN Now app, and online at c-SPAN.org.
Friday on C-SPAN's Ceasefire, a bipartisan conversation on President Trump's handling of the Iran conflict with former West Virginia Independent Senator Joe Manchin and former North Carolina Republican Governor Pat McCrory, joined by our host Dasha Burns.
They'll also discuss the economic and political fallout as the upcoming midterm elections approach.
Watch Ceasefire Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific.
And this week, catch ceasefire on C-SPAN 2.
And a look now at what's coming up live this morning and later this afternoon here on C-SPAN.
National Action Network00:01:14
At 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time, we'll hear from historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in conversation with the Reverend Al Sharpton at the National Action Network Convention in New York City.
After that, the convention continues with an appearance by former Vice President Kamala Harris at 11 and later former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in the noon hour.
And around 1:15 p.m. Eastern, South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn will speak at the event.
All that and more coming up here on C-SPAN.
In the meantime, a conversation with Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker from yesterday at the National Action Network Convention.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back President Teller, President Al Sharpton.