Washington Journal Open Phones pt.4 examines President Trump's Strait of Hormuz blockade and a federal judge halting his 90,000-square-foot ballroom addition. The broadcast details Congress rejecting the Iran war powers resolution while callers debate executive authority versus legislative power, citing Obama-era insults and Jared Kushner's alleged translation failures in the Snyder versus United States lawsuit. With Speaker Mike Johnson failing to extend Section 702 of FISA, the episode concludes by highlighting deep partisan fractures over war powers and fraud accusations during RFK Jr.'s testimony. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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AI Access and Revenue Sources00:05:49
I do think many of the companies realize they can't just sit back and say, not our problem.
So, how we get them to the table in a group, maybe on a revenue source that we could agree on jointly, but what the there there is going to be in terms of how we make, you know, work truly AI accessible, adjacent, whatever terminology we want to use.
You know, I think we have to put all our heads together and really have a sense of urgency to this that I'm not sure we've seen yet.
Senator, I could talk to you about this forever, but I'm getting the signal.
We have to go.
So thank you for your time.
Well, thank you.
Thanks, everybody.
President Trump posted an update on Truth Social on negotiations with Iran.
He writes, the Strait of Hormuz is completely open and ready for business and full passage, but the naval blockade will remain in full force and effect as it pertains to Iran only until such time as our transaction with Iran is 100% complete.
This process should go very quickly in that most of the points are already negotiated.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
For the latest on the Iran conflict, follow our continuing coverage on the C-SPAN networks.
In other news, I want to share with you from the front page of the Washington Post.
A judge has imposed new restrictions on President Trump's ballroom work.
Federal judge set new limits on President Trump's planned White House ballroom, saying construction could proceed only on an underground portion of the project deemed necessary by the military and not on the 90,000 square foot above-ground addition that the president has eyed to entertain VIP guests.
It said that the judge chastised the Trump administration for its incredible, if not disingenuous, interpretation of his order last month to halt work on the Trump's planned 400 million project until the president obtains authorization from Congress.
We're back to your calls on Congress rejecting this week in the House and the Senate the Iran war powers resolution.
Taylor's in Asheville, North Carolina, on our line for Democrats.
Go ahead.
What's your message to Washington on this?
Good morning.
Yeah, I think it's absolutely disgusting that Barack Obama got us into this war.
You know, if he hadn't insulted and hurt Donald Trump's tender feelings at the White House correspondents dinner back in the day, then Trump would not have been forced to get revenge on him by tearing up the deal that we had with Iran to keep them from developing nuclear weapons.
You know, this is all Obama's fault because if he hadn't hurt Trump's feelings, then we wouldn't be in this mess.
And now that Trump can't even relax by going to Epstein Island to the United States.
All right, Taylor.
Understood.
David, Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, on our line for Republicans.
Hi, David.
Hi, Don.
I don't want to make a comment about the War Powers Act.
But before I say that, I want to say that Congress has the authority to declare war, not to make war.
So in other words, to make war and to declare war were debated during the Constitutional Convention.
And it was up in the air, but they decided to leave it in the Constitution that Congress has the authority to declare war.
So it's implied the President as Commander-in-Chief has the authority to make war.
Okay, you remember that going into the World Powers Act, right?
I believe that started when the hostilities began in Iran.
Even if Congress passes a world powers resolution, it still requires the president's signature.
And, you know, if they do pass it, and, you know, Trump's going to veto that.
That's the main idea.
I'm not sure if that makes any sense to anybody, but a resolution is like a pending bill, and a president has to sign it.
The president's going to veto it, and they don't have enough votes to override that veto.
Okay.
David in Pennsylvania.
We'll go to our line for independence.
David is in San Francisco.
Hi, David.
Yeah, well, thank you.
I was interested in the war as well as I noticed you talking about the tax on tips.
I'll just remind people there was a lawsuit, or excuse me, there was a criminal charge.
It was called Snyder versus the United States, where a bribe can become a tip.
There was a corrupt mayor from Indiana.
Well, David, let's stick to the Iran war powers resolution.
What are your thoughts on that?
Well, obviously, Donald Trump is trying to hide from Epstein, but I was going to just raise the issue that good grief.
I just had my notes.
Good grief.
Need glasses.
Oh, yeah.
The PR spin right now is that America is not tough enough to fight this criminal war.
You know, we've been tricked into fighting a war.
Donald Trump fired the experts on Iran.
Then he sent in Jared Kushner and his crony from New York to do the negotiating.
FISA Extension Failure Explained00:02:38
They had no skills.
They had no language skills.
They had no technological skills.
And when their translations went bad, that's when they started bombing.
Okay.
David, I will leave it there.
Before we bring our viewers up to Capitol Hill for live coverage of RFK's testimony for the second day in a row, I want to share with you what happened in the wee hours of the morning on the House floor.
They were slated for legislative business today.
That was canceled from Punch Bull's reporting, the FISA flop plus Republicans can't stop fighting each other.
Punch Bull reporting this morning, an audacious play by Speaker Mike Johnson to pass a five-year extension of Section 702 of FISA failed spectacularly just before 1.30 a.m., leaving House GOP leaders firmly stuck over how to address concerns from rank-and-file Republicans on the surveillance program.
House Republicans saved face, kind of, with the unanimous consent passage of a two-week extension of FISA authorization.
But that wasn't before the Johnson-authored compromise was rejected by a dozen Republicans.
In a nod to far-right hardliners, GOP leaders posted a compromise FISA amendments just before 11 p.m. that would have strengthened criminal penalties for misuse of the program, included some warrant language that Democrats say merely codifies existing law, and enhanced congressional access to the FISA courts.
Representative Clay Higgins, a Republican from Louisiana and a Freedom Caucus member who led the charge for the warrant changes, called it a solid bill.
Higgins' plea was for not.
A group of Republicans rebelled on the House floor and soundly rejected Johnson's compromise, joining with Democrats to vote it down by 220 to 220 margin.
Rebellious Republicans then joined with Democrats again to vote down a rule to consider the clean 18-month FISA extension originally sought by President Donald Trump and GOP leaders.
20 Republicans voted no on a rule, a remarkable rejection.
Then the House left town.
The Senate is also not in session today.
But as we said, the House Education Workforce Committee will continue with their hearing with RFK Jr., and we will bring you there in at the top of this hour.
We'll go to Gloria in Kansas, a Republican.
Gloria, bring us to this top of the hour here with your thoughts on Congress rejecting the Iran war powers resolution this week.
Yes, I'm glad that they rejected that.
War Powers Resolution Rejected00:01:31
The Democrats just want to cause trouble for everything.
They didn't care.
Obama did worse than this, and they didn't care that Obama did that without Congress.
And they don't care about all the fraud money that's being spent.
They're saying that the war is costing a lot of money.
What about all the fraud, billions and billions of dollars of fraud, mainly in the sanctuary cities, which are Democrat?
And then you just showed Kennedy on TV being questioned.
And the Democrats, I get so mad at them when they show the committees because they ask questions and then they interrupt and won't let people answer their questions.
They're just doing stuff for the camera.
They don't really want to know the answer.
So I just think the Democrats, they don't have any policies.
They don't have anything.
All they want to do is complain.
And they're hypocrites because what they complain about is the same thing they've done even worse.
Okay.
And Gloria, the questioning continues of RFK Jr. here on Capitol Hill today.
Democrats will be pressing him on the president's vaccine policies, other health care policies when he takes the seat.
We're going to leave this to take you live to former Republican Congressman Adam Kinsinger discussing the state of American journalism and public trust on media.