CSPAN - Washington Journal 04/19/2026
Aired: 2026-04-19
Duration: 03:00:59


=== Strait of Hormuz Reclosure (02:37) ===

[00:00:00]  On demand at cspan.org.
[00:00:05]  Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, along with your calls and comments live, the Washington Examiner magazine's James Antl on campaign 2026 and other political news of the week.
[00:00:16]  And then author Sophia Nelson will talk about the state of American democracy and freedom and her new book, Redefining Freedom.
[00:00:23]  C SPAN's Washington Journal is next.
[00:00:25]  Join the conversation.
[00:00:37]  Good morning.
[00:00:37]  It's Sunday, April 19th, 2026.
[00:00:40]  Iran has once again closed the Strait of Hormuz following a brief opening of the crucial waterway during peace talks this weekend, which means the effect of the war on the global economy is unlikely to end soon.
[00:00:52]  It's showing up in the personal finances of many Americans as well.
[00:00:56]  But the president spent some of the past week highlighting what the administration considers the economic wins of his second term thus far.
[00:01:04]  This morning, we want to hear from you about your personal financial situation and how you feel you've fared since.
[00:01:11]  President Trump took office.
[00:01:13]  Better, worse, the same?
[00:01:14]  We want to hear your thoughts.
[00:01:16]  Our phone line for Republicans is 202 748 8001, for Democrats 202 748 8000, and for Independents 202 748 8002.
[00:01:28]  If you'd like to text us, that number is 202 748 8003.
[00:01:33]  Please be sure to include your name and where you're writing in from.
[00:01:36]  We're also on social media at facebook.comslash C SPAN and on x at C SPAN WJ.
[00:01:43]  Now, for the latest on the Iran war, let's look at the New York Times reporting on the reclosure of the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:01:50]  It says a standoff at the Strait.
[00:01:52]  Iran takes back control.
[00:01:55]  Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Saturday that the Strait of Hormuz was closed until the United States ended its own naval blockade just a day after both countries announced that the vital waterway had reopened.
[00:02:09]  Two Indian flagged ships were hit by fire, at least one of them from Iranian forces, according to a shipping monitor.
[00:02:17]  The new developments added to the confusion over the status of transit through the strait and could dampen hopes for a quick end to the war.
[00:02:25]  Now, the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz has had major effects on the global economy, including on gas prices, leading a lot of people to be very concerned about their personal finances.

=== Wiped Out Tax Refunds (05:59) ===

[00:02:37]  President Trump challenged the narrative of the affordability crisis this past week, talking about some of the economic gains of his administration.
[00:02:46]  In particular, since it was tax week last week, The president, as reported here in KSNV from Las Vegas, talked about the no taxes on tips, calling Las Vegas the birthplace of no taxes on tips as he promoted deductions.
[00:03:02]  President Trump arrived in Las Vegas on Thursday to tout his tax policies a day after the deadline for federal returns.
[00:03:10]  He was also taking part in a roundtable and delivering remarks at the AC Hotel in downtown Las Vegas.
[00:03:18]  Going down, it says, Trump has enthusiastically praised the changes from last year's reconciliation package, also called the One Big Beautiful Bill, which paused taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security through 2028.
[00:03:33]  Americans shopping for a new car could see tax benefits under a proposal tied to where the vehicle is made, as the White House highlights what it says are popular new deductions.
[00:03:44]  Now, President Trump did speak more broadly about his administration's economic policies.
[00:03:49]  During those remarks, he made these comments on Thursday.
[00:03:54]  But every single American at every income level is more money in their pockets this week because of the Republican tax policies.
[00:04:02]  And we've got to win the midterms.
[00:04:04]  If we don't, these policies are going to be taken away from you.
[00:04:07]  The taxes are going to go through the roof.
[00:04:09]  Look at these, look at the states, these blue states, what is going on there with taxes.
[00:04:15]  Look at what happened in Virginia.
[00:04:16]  A person went to a good governor there, and somebody got elected that she's gone crazy.
[00:04:21]  She's gone totally crazy.
[00:04:23]  Look at New York.
[00:04:24]  I mean, he's a nice guy, calls me all the time, says hi.
[00:04:29]  But his policies are no good.
[00:04:30]  He's chasing people out and causing a lot of harm to everybody.
[00:04:34]  I mean, everybody's taxes are going through the roof.
[00:04:37]  After four long years of brutal inflation under Biden and congressional Democrats, you deserve every single penny that you're getting now because you had to suffer.
[00:04:46]  You suffered.
[00:04:47]  We're the highest inflation in the history of our country under Biden.
[00:04:51]  Sleepy Joe.
[00:04:52]  He's the worst president we've ever had by far.
[00:04:56]  Average refund the average refund this season is over $4,000.
[00:05:01]  And here in Las Vegas, many workers have reported refunds of $5, $6, $7, $8,000 or more, and they've never had anything.
[00:05:10]  It's all from no tax on tips alone.
[00:05:18]  And then don't forget, you have no tax on Social Security for our seniors.
[00:05:24]  A lot of seniors out there.
[00:05:27]  And you have no tax on overtime.
[00:05:29]  You know, this state covers them all.
[00:05:30]  You have the seniors, you have the overtime, but you have no tax on overtime, you have no tax on tips.
[00:05:36]  And you have no tax.
[00:05:37]  Think of it, Social Security.
[00:05:40]  The president made those comments on Thursday.
[00:05:42]  Now, on Wednesday, tax day itself, Senator Chuck Schumer criticized the One Big Beautiful Bill tax cuts and said that President Trump's war with Iran costs have wiped out the tax refunds that Americans will receive this year.
[00:05:59]  When Republicans passed the One Big Beautiful Bill, they promised Americans that their tax refunds would grow by $1,000 on average.
[00:06:08]  Well, the results are in, and the massive tax relief Republicans promised has turned out to be a dud.
[00:06:16]  Refunds on average have changed only by a third, about $350.
[00:06:22]  And Americans need every penny they can get, but a couple of hundred dollars doesn't go very far on a tax break when the average American family will pay an extra $2,000 on tariff taxes and $740 this year to fill up their tank.
[00:06:41]  That's right.
[00:06:43]  Donald Trump's war in Iran alone has wiped out any tax refund Americans will see this year.
[00:06:52]  Let me say that again.
[00:06:54]  Donald Trump's war in Iran alone has wiped out any extra tax refund Americans will see this year, and that's not including all the tax, all the increases they're paying because of tariffs and higher electric bills and what they're doing to health care.
[00:07:14]  No wonder.
[00:07:16]  Only one in four taxes believe the one big beautiful bill has helped them.
[00:07:19]  Only one in four.
[00:07:21]  That means there are some Republicans who don't like it.
[00:07:24]  Seven in ten Americans, meanwhile, say they're still paying too much in taxes.
[00:07:32]  Seven in ten Americans say they're paying too much in taxes, while the ultra wealthy aren't paying their fair share.
[00:07:38]  And they're right.
[00:07:40]  Trump's one big beautiful bill has been a dud for working families, but millionaires got a $300,000 tax cut.
[00:07:48]  Big corporations got a tax cut of $65 billion.
[00:07:52]  Republicans want to call their bill a working and middle class tax cut, but truth be told, it should be called a massive giveaway to the ultra, ultra wealthy.
[00:08:05]  affordability has been a major topic of conversation this year.
[00:08:08]  And the Cato Institute released this past week its handbook on affordability.
[00:08:13]  And among the points they raised in this handbook, which looks at things from housing and energy and health care, transportation, as well as monetary and fiscal policy, the Cato Institute said, Washington, D.C. has deemed 2026 the year of affordability.
[00:08:29]  Inflation and the cost of living are Americans' number one concern after experiencing the highest inflation since 1981.

=== The Year of Affordability (12:30) ===

[00:08:37]  Voters remain livid that by January 2026, consumer prices had climbed 24 percent in just five years, while interest rates on mortgages, car loans, and credit cards also rose sharply.
[00:08:51]  That is just one of many different data points that we have on affordability.
[00:08:56]  Let's get to your calls on your personal finances and if you feel that they are better, worse, or the same since President Trump has taken office for the second time.
[00:09:06]  We'll start with Carl in Portland, Oregon, on our line for Democrats.
[00:09:10]  Good morning, Carl.
[00:09:12]  Hi, thanks for taking my call.
[00:09:16]  I sympathize really with bigger families.
[00:09:19]  I'm an elderly man, and I know that I work at a food bank, and we have had, since President Trump has been in office, an increase in people because of the circumstances.
[00:09:37]  It's probably a less.
[00:09:43]  Prosperity going on.
[00:09:46]  I don't mean to place the burden on his hands.
[00:09:50]  It's just the way the situation is.
[00:09:53]  But you've got to look at what people need instead of the other kinds of things like disposable cash and entertainment and stuff like that.
[00:10:05]  So, yeah, definitely the food prices have increased under his time in office.
[00:10:12]  I don't know if the tariffs are a part of that, but I do know that.
[00:10:17]  You know, the gas prices have raised because of, you know, international decisions that he's made, and also that whatever these taxes kind of thing, I think, you know, that for the average American who's not an accountant, trying to figure out how to save money on taxes, you know, is really a challenge.
[00:10:44]  So I think most people are looking for other ways to save money besides whatever they can get.
[00:10:52]  Returned from their tax payment.
[00:10:57]  Carl mentioned food prices.
[00:10:58]  That was one of the categories that Cato looked at in its affordability handbook.
[00:11:02]  And it says, Few prices hit closer to home than groceries.
[00:11:06]  Food is one of the most visible indicators of rising living costs, and grocery store receipts have become a symbol of the broader affordability squeeze.
[00:11:15]  Since January of 2020, which obviously predates the current Trump administration, food at home prices have climbed by over 30 percent, far more than double the increase.
[00:11:25]  Seen over the entire previous decade.
[00:11:28]  Much of this reflects general inflation, but food prices have also been pushed up at specific times by specific shocks.
[00:11:36]  COVID era demand shifts to eating food at home, supply disruptions for produce, and the war in Ukraine driving up commodity prices.
[00:11:45]  As a result, food prices have risen even faster than overall inflation since 2020.
[00:11:51]  And voters have noticed in December of 2025, an Echelon Insights survey.
[00:11:57]  83% of Americans surveyed said groceries were either very expensive or somewhat expensive, the highest response for any core expense.
[00:12:06]  Let's hear now from Buster in Georgia on our line for Republicans.
[00:12:10]  Good morning, Buster.
[00:12:13]  Well, I think everybody needs to bite the bullets now because he's trying to stop this terrorist country from killing people all the time.
[00:12:24]  And if they ever got a nuclear bomb, the whole world will be gone.
[00:12:32]  And you're going to just have to put up with it.
[00:12:36]  And he's trying to help this country.
[00:12:39]  The mess that Obama and Biden put us in with Iran, plus that border.
[00:12:48]  We're in trouble, man.
[00:12:49]  Them 11 people missing, I guarantee it's tied to that border.
[00:12:54]  So, Buster, how have your personal finances changed at all or remained the same?
[00:13:00]  Well, I'm 75 years old and I got a little rental property money and a Social Security check, but my whole life I had tried to keep up with the Joneses, so I'm all right.
[00:13:13]  But we've got to get behind this.
[00:13:16]  I know things are higher.
[00:13:19]  But the war in Ukraine is part of it.
[00:13:22]  But we've got, if you don't back Trump now, you better learn how to speak Russian or Chinese because they're coming after you and he's trying to stop it.
[00:13:35]  All right.
[00:13:35]  Let's hear from Susan in Southberry, Connecticut on our line for independence.
[00:13:39]  Good morning, Susan.
[00:13:41]  Hey, good morning.
[00:13:42]  Thank you for taking my call.
[00:13:45]  I just listened to your caller just now.
[00:13:49]  And a lot of this is just fear mongering that we should be fearful of a country that are killing people and we're going to be speaking foreign languages.
[00:13:59]  I don't know what media companies they're listening to, but I do believe they're ones that are keeping people in fear in their own homes to leave because there's gangs on the street, terrorists in our country.
[00:14:12]  And it just keeps going and going and it needs to stop.
[00:14:17]  And I think part of the problem is.
[00:14:21]  Is that people aren't listening to the right news sources?
[00:14:24]  So I thank C SPAN for giving these opportunities of other shows that you show that have people who are discussing real issues that are going on in Ukraine and Iran.
[00:14:36]  And there are not terrorists in our home country trying to get you.
[00:14:41]  And Susan, what about your personal finances?
[00:14:43]  How do you think that you.
[00:14:44]  Oh, go ahead.
[00:14:46]  Yeah, I was just going to say that.
[00:14:47]  Um, I, I actually work in a food bank and we have seen a large increase in small families and the elderly in using our food banks.
[00:14:59]  And honestly, food banks don't have enough to supply the community.
[00:15:06]  Our food bank is from donations and a lot of times it's just not enough donations to go around.
[00:15:14]  And for myself personally, The costs of gas have gone up.
[00:15:20]  It's taking away from me that money I would have put into savings or maybe bought a steak.
[00:15:27]  I haven't had a steak in so long, I don't even bother looking at the meat department anymore.
[00:15:35]  I mean, even look at the price of ground rounds.
[00:15:38]  And our farmers are struggling.
[00:15:41]  And the fact is that fertilizer is not plentiful, and these are things that our farmers need to grow our crops.
[00:15:50]  And we look at climate change, and certain foods are affected by that, and those costs are going to affect our local food supply that we just get from strawberries from California and avocados.
[00:16:04]  And it's just sorry to be all over the place, but it's kind of crazy where people are acting as if Iran was a significant threat to us, and we need this needless war to straighten this out.
[00:16:18]  And this is only going to be a little hurt.
[00:16:20]  For all of us, we just need to understand that the little hurt is so worth it when nothing was going on.
[00:16:27]  And another thing is, I thought we bombed their Iranian nuclear systems last year into oblivion, but I guess that wasn't true either.
[00:16:37]  What else isn't true?
[00:16:39]  So thank you for your time and thank you and have a great day.
[00:16:42]  And thanks, C-SPAN, for taking my call.
[00:16:46]  Echoing some of the points that Susan raised during a union workers' rally last Saturday, Senator Bernie Sanders, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Addressed the affordability concerns of seniors and a majority of workers who are living paycheck to paycheck.
[00:17:01]  Here's a portion of his speech.
[00:17:05]  60% of our people today are living paycheck to paycheck.
[00:17:11]  And I do not have to explain to anybody in this room what living paycheck to paycheck is about.
[00:17:19]  It means that every week people are struggling to pay the outrageous cost of housing.
[00:17:27]  Struggling to pay their health care bills, prescription drugs, groceries, child care, and other basic necessities.
[00:17:36]  Nearly half, nearly half of older workers in America, if you can believe it, these are people who have worked their entire lives, have nothing saved for retirement.
[00:17:49]  Think about it.
[00:17:49]  Richest country in the world.
[00:17:51]  Man, woman working 40, 50 years doing hard work.
[00:17:55]  They get 60 years of age, they got nothing.
[00:17:59]  In the bank for retirement.
[00:18:01]  Over 20% of our seniors are trying to live on $15,000 a year or less.
[00:18:13]  Now, there is some data about how consumers in general are feeling about the economy more broadly, the consumer sentiment numbers, which we also got this past week.
[00:18:22]  And here's reporting on that from CNBC that consumer sentiment hits a record low and that inflation fears have been rising amid the Iran war.
[00:18:32]  Consumer confidence plunged to a record low in April as fears mounted over rising energy prices and the broader impact of the Iran war, according to a University of Michigan survey.
[00:18:45]  Now, the drop in sentiment coincided with a sharp spike in inflation expectations, as well as with respondents seeing prices up 4.8 percent in a year from now, a full percentage point rise from the March reading.
[00:19:02]  Let's get back to your calls.
[00:19:04]  David is in Chicopee, Massachusetts, on our line for Republicans.
[00:19:07]  Good morning, David.
[00:19:09]  Yes.
[00:19:10]  Hi.
[00:19:10]  How are you doing?
[00:19:11]  Good, thanks.
[00:19:13]  I'm just commenting on your remarks.
[00:19:16]  Are we better off?
[00:19:18]  Than before.
[00:19:19]  And I definitely agree we are not.
[00:19:22]  Take Social Security.
[00:19:24]  It's mentioned that we pay no taxes on Social Security.
[00:19:29]  Well, I certainly did this year.
[00:19:33]  So I just don't understand where they're coming from on this.
[00:19:38]  And we're only getting 2% a year on Social Security.
[00:19:43]  And when inflation is 24%, so the next round, what?
[00:19:47]  Is it going to be another 2%?
[00:19:49]  It's got to be a lot more than that.
[00:19:52]  So, I'm just looking up some information for you on the no taxes on Social Security to see if we can get some clarity here.
[00:20:00]  This is from Thomson Reuters Tax and Accounting.
[00:20:03]  And it says The One Big Beautiful Bill Act created a new tax deduction for seniors 65, offering up to $6,000 for single filers and $12,000 for married couples, effective from 2025 through 2028.
[00:20:17]  The temporary deduction presents a strategic window for tax planning.
[00:20:22]  I'm just going down here.
[00:20:25]  Who qualifies?
[00:20:26]  Seniors, let's see, to 2025 taxes, excuse me, I'm just trying to get this information.
[00:20:34]  Here we go.
[00:20:35]  For single taxpayers with income over $75,000 and married filers with an income over $150,000, it phases out at a 6% rate.
[00:20:45]  So it may have been that you were past the income requirements to not pay taxes on Social Security.
[00:20:54]  And so that could be it.
[00:20:56]  Just checking, David.
[00:21:00]  With you, but it's billed as nobody's paying taxes on Social Security, and that's not true.

=== Consumers Speak Loud and Clear (15:42) ===

[00:21:07]  You're correct.
[00:21:08]  There are some people who would pay taxes on their Social Security payments if they are above the income requirements for it.
[00:21:16]  Thank you, David.
[00:21:17]  Let's hear from James in Tennessee on our line for independence.
[00:21:21]  Good morning, James.
[00:21:23]  Good morning.
[00:21:23]  Thank you for taking my call.
[00:21:25]  I have a few things I want to say.
[00:21:28]  Hello?
[00:21:29]  Go ahead, James.
[00:21:31]  Okay, first of all, this man is lying.
[00:21:36]  All he does is lie.
[00:21:38]  And nobody's income getting better when the gas prices are going up.
[00:21:44]  Food is going up.
[00:21:46]  One day he's Jesus.
[00:21:48]  Then he's saved with a doctor.
[00:21:51]  Then you got this man saying he's at church, a wall guy.
[00:21:59]  But here he goes, receiving a same thing from pork fisher.
[00:22:05]  Then you got his spit advisor.
[00:22:10]  So, James, how do you think your personal finances have been affected by this new Trump administration?
[00:22:16]  Are you doing better or worse or the same?
[00:22:20]  It's worse.
[00:22:21]  I made it three years old, so it's worse.
[00:22:23]  Real worse.
[00:22:24]  Because every time you go to the store, things go up.
[00:22:27]  And I go all the time.
[00:22:29]  And so I don't know what kind of Kool Aid the man that called in and said he was sitting aside, bite a bullet.
[00:22:36]  I bit a bullet during the Vietnam War.
[00:22:39]  I was drafted.
[00:22:39]  It's like this fool who was in the White House was drafted, who claimed his whole family got heel spurs.
[00:22:47]  Damn Trump.
[00:22:47]  Bye.
[00:22:49]  Now we have, you know, I mentioned earlier those consumer sentiment numbers hitting a record low.
[00:22:55]  The director of the survey of consumers, Joanne Hsu, discussed those consumer sentiment numbers.
[00:23:01]  numbers and the fact that they hit an all-time low in an interview last week.
[00:23:06]  Consumers are speaking loud and clear.
[00:23:08]  They are very, very frustrated by the persistence of high prices, and they're feeling very weighed down with the cost of living.
[00:23:15]  This is not much of a surprise, particularly given this morning's CPI print, which consumers had already incorporated these price hikes from last month into their views.
[00:23:25]  And this 25% increase in gas prices, these prices at the pump that are really weighing down on consumers.
[00:23:32]  Their short-term outlook has deteriorated quite a bit, but there is a glimmer of hope.
[00:23:37]  The long-term outlook did not sour nearly as much as the short run did.
[00:23:41]  But at this moment, consumers are very frustrated and they're struggling with cost of living issues.
[00:23:47]  Joanne, a lot of people are feeling echoes of 2022.
[00:23:51]  How does this reading compare historically to previous episodes of geopolitical turmoil and inflation worries?
[00:23:58]  This is a historic low and is very, very low given, and sentiment readings for the past year have all been actually very, very low.
[00:24:07]  And so consumers have been frustrated for some time.
[00:24:11]  You know, given that we're in a wartime situation, it's not surprising that consumers have.
[00:24:16]  Kind of heightened awareness and heightened worries about what's going on in the economy.
[00:24:22]  Interestingly, we didn't really see much, too much of a reaction with respect to labor market expectations.
[00:24:30]  I mean, they did sour a little bit relative to last month, but within range of what we were seeing in the last year.
[00:24:35]  And that stands in contrast to personal finance expectations and business conditions.
[00:24:39]  Those are much worse than we had been seeing previously.
[00:24:42]  Our question again this morning How are your personal finances doing?
[00:24:46]  Are they better, worse, or the same since President Trump started his second term in office?
[00:24:50]  Jeffrey is in Greensboro, North Carolina, on our line for Democrats.
[00:24:54]  Good morning, Jeffrey.
[00:24:56]  Yes, good morning.
[00:24:57]  Thank you for taking the call.
[00:24:58]  Jeffrey, please make sure that the volume on your TV is turned down and then go ahead.
[00:25:03]  Yes.
[00:25:04]  Okay.
[00:25:04]  I'm sorry.
[00:25:05]  It is down.
[00:25:06]  Thank you.
[00:25:07]  Can you hear me?
[00:25:07]  Yes.
[00:25:08]  Please go ahead.
[00:25:09]  All right.
[00:25:10]  Thank you.
[00:25:12]  To your audience that's listening, like, honestly, it's horrible.
[00:25:17]  Everybody knows it.
[00:25:18]  I do not understand when these projections with the stock market, with just the basis of making it seem like this war that we shouldn't have been in, absolutely, it's devastating and it's going to cost us.
[00:25:35]  For so long.
[00:25:36]  In America, we're feeling it right now.
[00:25:38]  Everything is up.
[00:25:39]  You can't pretend it.
[00:25:41]  Why do people pretend that gas is a normal, where it's at, and it's not?
[00:25:46]  No one is very much challenging him, checking him on any decision he's making.
[00:25:51]  You know, it's just going straight to his desk and whatever he feels, this is what he wants done, and it's going on.
[00:25:56]  I say the reality is when people are struggling and living paycheck to paycheck, and the reality is there is always a fallback that they want to keep.
[00:26:09]  Blaming this is Joe Biden's situation.
[00:26:12]  Then they're going to go as far back to say it's Obama with all of this.
[00:26:16]  It makes no sense.
[00:26:17]  This man should not be in office.
[00:26:20]  Personally, I thought anyone in America that had convictions couldn't even run for anything legally like that.
[00:26:28]  But it's just override with the situation on his accountability.
[00:26:33]  There's so many distractions and so many things that he is doing.
[00:26:36]  It is absolutely just astonishing to live.
[00:26:39]  And expressed this on TV this morning.
[00:26:42]  This man absolutely has no intention for the poor.
[00:26:45]  He doesn't care.
[00:26:46]  It's about his centerpiece with the rich, the powerful people who are doing things in America, the keep, whatever, how they're doing it, the economy to seem like it's this and that and the third.
[00:26:58]  But the average person in Greensboro, North Carolina, it's horrible.
[00:27:02]  It's horrible.
[00:27:03]  It's homeless.
[00:27:04]  It's job related issues.
[00:27:06]  Everything is up.
[00:27:07]  And that's just in North Carolina.
[00:27:09]  And if you go into the West Coast, the gas is higher.
[00:27:12]  So why are all these mega people?
[00:27:13]  That support Donald Trump ain't checking him on anything like this.
[00:27:17]  They know, and America is not, you know, overlooking everything, but it should be his time is coming, and I hope he's held accountable.
[00:27:28]  And beyond anyone in that administration that walked in the way what he was doing, they should be held accountable, too, because this is wrong on every level.
[00:27:37]  People is absolutely struggling, and it's serious.
[00:27:41]  So, like Jeffrey, a majority of voters.
[00:27:44]  Blame Trump for the recent rise in gas prices.
[00:27:48]  This is according to a Quinnipiac University poll that the majority of voters blame Trump for the rise in gas prices.
[00:27:56]  Trump's job approval is holding steady at 38%, according to their national poll.
[00:28:02]  And 64% think that his comments to end a whole civilization was unacceptable.
[00:28:08]  Among the commentary of that Quinnipiac poll includes from Tim Malloy, a polling analyst there.
[00:28:14]  Who says from regular to premium to diesel?
[00:28:17]  For many, pain at the pump rhymes with Trump.
[00:28:21]  65% of voters say when filling her up, the president shoulders the blame for the price spike.
[00:28:27]  Back to your calls.
[00:28:29]  Sam is in Clarksburg, West Virginia, on our line for Republicans.
[00:28:32]  Good morning, Sam.
[00:28:34]  Yes, I have to agree with the man that was just on the phone.
[00:28:42]  My finances have, I've lost some.
[00:28:50]  But the problem is that Trump is only out for himself.
[00:28:57]  And it's a shame because we, the people, Is what he's in office for.
[00:29:07]  And it's really all about him.
[00:29:10]  And it's sad.
[00:29:14]  It wouldn't make any difference to me whether it was a Republican or Democrat or Independent that was in office at all, as long as they're doing their job.
[00:29:23]  I'd vote for any of them.
[00:29:27]  But that's not the way it is.
[00:29:29]  And it's just a shame.
[00:29:32]  I don't understand it at all.
[00:29:36]  He should have never.
[00:29:37]  Been in office.
[00:29:39]  And I hope he has to pay for everything that he's done.
[00:29:43]  And he is, I don't care what anybody says, he is a pedophile.
[00:29:49]  So.
[00:29:49]  He's been doing that for years.
[00:29:52]  I'll just say that the president has not been charged or convicted with any of those charges, but I understand your opinion.
[00:29:59]  I do want to respond to the point that you were raising about President Trump's responsibility for the gas prices in particular.
[00:30:07]  And during.
[00:30:08]  A Fox Business interview with Maria Bartiromo last week.
[00:30:12]  President Trump did address concerns about the Iran war's impact on the economy as well as prices at the pump.
[00:30:19]  Here's a portion of that.
[00:30:22]  Told me that we were going to be at only $92 a barrel, $92 a barrel.
[00:30:27]  I would have been very surprised.
[00:30:29]  All right, sir.
[00:30:29]  And you know what?
[00:30:31]  I'm very happy.
[00:30:31]  And it's going to come dropping down very big as soon as it's over.
[00:30:35]  And I think it can be over very soon.
[00:30:37]  So if they're smart, it will end soon.
[00:30:40]  Overall, the impact on the economy, do you expect a hit to growth?
[00:30:43]  Do you expect a spike in inflation?
[00:30:44]  Well, look, there's a hit because, you know, we go through it for whatever it is, six weeks.
[00:30:50]  There's going to be a hit, but it's going to recover, I think, fully.
[00:30:54]  Somehow they misquoted me.
[00:30:56]  I think oil will be down to the levels it was.
[00:30:59]  You know, they said, I expect oil to be high at the midterms.
[00:31:03]  I don't expect that.
[00:31:05]  I think that we will be somewhere around where we were, maybe even lower.
[00:31:09]  This is going to, when this is over, I think the stock market is going to boom.
[00:31:13]  It's already booming.
[00:31:14]  Again, nobody thought we could be at 50,000 during my four terms on the Dow or 7,000 on the SP.
[00:31:23]  Again, our question is about your personal finances and if you're better or worse or doing the same since President Trump took office again.
[00:31:31]  Some comments we received via social media on X, Elvin Brown says, As a retiree, my financial situation is much worse than when Biden was in office due to high inflation and high gas prices.
[00:31:45]  Diane in Port Charlotte, Florida said via text, Personally, my finances are going great.
[00:31:51]  Markets are great.
[00:31:52]  I don't pay attention to polls.
[00:31:54]  They are only done to persuade people a certain way.
[00:31:57]  And also on X, Sonia says that they are doing worse by far.
[00:32:02]  Health insurance alone almost breaks the budget.
[00:32:06]  Back to your calls.
[00:32:07]  John is in New Mexico on our line for independence.
[00:32:10]  Good morning, John.
[00:32:13]  Okay, thank you.
[00:32:15]  I think my first point would be on the tariffs.
[00:32:19]  I was told, or we've been told, that we were the ones that paid for the tariffs.
[00:32:23]  It was all passed down to us.
[00:32:25]  So I'm wondering why the shippers and the people that actually paid the tariffs are the ones receiving the refunds.
[00:32:31]  Because we've been told that we were the ones that paid for it.
[00:32:34]  So I'm really concerned that we're the ones that should be getting the refunds, as if everything was told to me was true.
[00:32:42]  My other thing is to hear people complaining about gas prices.
[00:32:49]  If I recall during the Biden year, I think if you could look this up, do you know what the average gas price was during the Biden year?
[00:32:58]  It'll take me a second, but you can go ahead with your point.
[00:33:01]  Okay.
[00:33:01]  So I think if you were to look it up, I bet you it's about average what it is right now.
[00:33:06]  And that was for pretty much all those four years that they were in power.
[00:33:10]  So it's hard to hear Schumer or any Democrat complain about gas prices when during their term in power, the gas prices were just as bad, if not worse.
[00:33:21]  So it's really hard to hear Democrats talk about that.
[00:33:24]  And then my last point, I guess, is on your polling.
[00:33:29]  I find it odd that you guys don't show us any polling on Democrats.
[00:33:33]  For instance, I don't know what Schumer's polling numbers are or Hakeem's polling numbers are.
[00:33:41]  I never hear them, or I rarely hear about the Democrat polling on them.
[00:33:46]  So I just want to make a suggestion if you could, when you guys do your polling, because these midterms are going to be who runs the Congress, that it would be great if you guys would show us.
[00:33:59]  What people think about the Democrats running the Congress, especially Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, you know, it'd be great if you guys would at least show some polling on that once in a while.
[00:34:10]  That's really all I have to say.
[00:34:11]  Thank you.
[00:34:12]  All right.
[00:34:13]  I'm finding a little bit, but not the exact data that you're looking for.
[00:34:17]  This is a story from Fortune magazine from March 31st that gas prices under Trump hit a benchmark from the Biden inflation era, that U.S. gas prices, this is back from the end of March, that U.S. gas prices jumped past an average of $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022 as the Iran war pushed fuel prices to soar worldwide.
[00:34:42]  And yes, 2022 was during the Biden administration, and those numbers were coming from AAA.
[00:34:51]  So there was a point during the Biden administration when gas prices did hit that.
[00:34:55]  And I'm just looking for overall, but not finding great numbers quickly.
[00:35:00]  But I understand your point.
[00:35:02]  Betty is in Blacksburg, South Carolina, on our line for Republicans.
[00:35:06]  Good morning, Betty.
[00:35:07]  Yeah, I just want to say when Trump was in the first time, things were good.
[00:35:14]  When Biden came in, all these people got to come across the border, everything went up.
[00:35:21]  He gave them the ones across the border, he didn't give the American people, but he did the ones that come across the border motel, money, whatever, insurance, and everything.
[00:35:36]  Well, Everybody talks about Trump.
[00:35:39]  Trump, Trump, Trump.
[00:35:41]  Why don't y'all show what happened when Biden was in?
[00:35:46]  And, Betty, how are your personal finances doing since Trump took office the second time?
[00:35:51]  Well, mine was good when he was first in there, and it still ain't bad.
[00:35:58]  He's trying his best, what he's trying to do.
[00:36:01]  And I can't believe that people didn't see what went on when Biden was in.
[00:36:06]  Things were burning and protesting.
[00:36:09]  And people getting killed and still getting killed, and what they're doing now.
[00:36:15]  Chuck Schubert, Jeffrey, and all these people, they need to be thought out because all they do, they hate Trump.
[00:36:24]  You hate Trump.
[00:36:27]  What if you say they were doing what they're doing to Trump, to all these, like these men that come on and say something about Trump?
[00:36:36]  Don't be acting like that.
[00:36:37]  We get the idea.
[00:36:38]  Betty, let's go to Tom in Massapequa, New York on our line for Democrats.
[00:36:42]  Good morning, Tom.
[00:36:44]  Oh, good morning, and thank you.
[00:36:46]  You're an excellent reporter.

=== Generations Face Different Realities (07:15) ===

[00:36:50]  My thought was so I'm retired, I'm 60, I'm a Social Security disability, I got $700 back in my taxes.
[00:37:03]  I heard Trump say people are getting $4,000 taxes.
[00:37:08]  The taxes that are cutting are not really all taxes on Social Security.
[00:37:15]  It's just if you're 65.
[00:37:18]  There's a lot of non truths to that because I get $700 back.
[00:37:22]  I live on Long Island, make $75,000 a year, which you know in New York is pretty low.
[00:37:31]  And I didn't get any tax refunds.
[00:37:34]  $700 is going to pay for.
[00:37:36]  My credit card, part of it, not even to pay it down.
[00:37:43]  And so my finances are okay.
[00:37:48]  I wouldn't say they changed at all, but the thing that has changed is I got to get up every morning and worry where the market is.
[00:37:56]  That's my finances as a civil service employee under six figures.
[00:38:02]  My money's in the market.
[00:38:04]  So when I lose $5,000 because he says the war's over, And then Iran says the war is not.
[00:38:11]  It goes up and down.
[00:38:13]  And that is the stressful part about the economy.
[00:38:17]  The woman before you said about the gas.
[00:38:19]  Who cares about gas?
[00:38:20]  It went up because it goes up on these things.
[00:38:24]  And it goes up in the summer every time, anyhow.
[00:38:28]  So I'm not really worried about gas.
[00:38:30]  I'm worried about as far as it's high.
[00:38:32]  But I'm not getting any money back.
[00:38:35]  I'm not getting a break on Social Security.
[00:38:38]  I'm not getting any money back.
[00:38:41]  So.
[00:38:42]  I'm not happy with that.
[00:38:44]  And just last thing, the lady who said leave Trump alone, we could say leave Obama alone.
[00:38:51]  The things they put about presidents, who cares?
[00:38:55]  I mean, everyone does it.
[00:38:56]  Like, he's an idiot.
[00:38:59]  Thank you.
[00:38:59]  Have a good day.
[00:39:02]  Like Tom, many Americans have negative views of their taxes, according to polling from Gallup.
[00:39:08]  It's saying here that Americans' tax views remain negative.
[00:39:12]  This was polling.
[00:39:13]  From the end of March, and Gallup found that 59% say their taxes are too high.
[00:39:20]  That number has been pretty stable since 2023.
[00:39:24]  47% say their taxes are fair.
[00:39:27]  That's near the low last hit in 1999 of people saying that their taxes are fair.
[00:39:32]  And then partisan differences are a bit narrower under Republican presidents in terms of whether or not Democrats and Republicans feel that their taxes are fair.
[00:39:42]  Now, let's get back to your calls.
[00:39:44]  John is in Alexandria, Virginia, on our line for independence.
[00:39:47]  Good morning, John.
[00:39:50]  Hey, good morning, Kimberly.
[00:39:51]  Good morning, Kimberly.
[00:39:52]  Thank you.
[00:39:53]  So, I would say my economic situation is roughly about the same.
[00:40:01]  And I think the reason why, and I'll take a slightly different perspective, is I consider myself to be a Gen X empty nester that I think grew up in a different time.
[00:40:17]  In our 20s, we were taught live within your means, don't buy a lot of things on credit.
[00:40:23]  And, And, you know, and there were programs in place that focused on, hey, Americans achieving the American dream.
[00:40:36]  In other words, housing, right?
[00:40:39]  In my 20s, I was able to buy a single family home.
[00:40:43]  The interest rate was 9.5%, but the price of the house was dirt cheap, right?
[00:40:51]  My first home was $76,000.
[00:40:55]  But that's impossible today, right?
[00:40:58]  So there were programs in place to where we want Americans to achieve the American dream, which is buying a home, right?
[00:41:07]  But you can buy it for a reasonable rate.
[00:41:10]  So you fast forward today over the years, I would say.
[00:41:14]  Is the main issue we have right now is we've kind of lost that for some reason.
[00:41:20]  And I tend to kind of blame maybe the baby boomers mostly because I just hear a lot of baby boomers kind of saying, hey, they benefited from a lot of programs, pensions, Social Security, low housing, the market.
[00:41:39]  They benefited from so many great programs, but then now they're saying, well, I got mine.
[00:41:46]  Screw the Gen Zs, screw the Gen As, right?
[00:41:51]  You guys don't need government programs.
[00:41:53]  You don't need that stuff.
[00:41:55]  You're on your own and you go figure it out.
[00:41:58]  And to me, a lot of, again, to me, I just see them voting over the years, voting for a lot of politicians, congressmen, presidents, and both sides, for a lot of politicians that just don't care about the Americans, like Americans achieving the American dream anymore.
[00:42:15]  And this bad talking to government and so forth.
[00:42:18]  So that's, That's kind of my perspective.
[00:42:21]  And I know a lot of folks want to just blame Trump.
[00:42:24]  They want to blame Obama.
[00:42:25]  They want to blame blah, blah, blah.
[00:42:27]  I just think, again, and I'm probably going to get a lot of heat from the baby boomers, but I just think the baby boomers are a little bit ungrateful for a lot of things they benefit from in the government.
[00:42:41]  And now, because they have theirs, they're kind of like, well, scooter the other generations.
[00:42:48]  John, if I can pause you for a moment.
[00:42:50]  Don't.
[00:42:50]  Don't hang up yet.
[00:42:51]  I want to read you some data.
[00:42:55]  This is from the Times of London, but there's also been data reported about this in the Wall Street Journal as well.
[00:43:01]  Did baby boomers really have it best?
[00:43:03]  Here's what the data shows.
[00:43:04]  Around half of boomers owned a home by the age of 30.
[00:43:08]  Younger generations have a very different reality.
[00:43:11]  And so, looking at housing in particular, a little over half of baby boomers owned a home by the age of 30, while the number of millennial homeowners, and I know you're Gen X, John.
[00:43:22]  By the same age, it is 46 percent, as in over half of baby boomers owned a home by the age of 30.
[00:43:29]  For millennials, that number was 46 percent.
[00:43:31]  But data from the Resolution Foundation shows a sharp increase in home ownership among those born between 1991 and 1995 when they reached their 20s, suggesting help from either the bank or mother and father.
[00:43:45]  And so, this was similar data in the Wall Street Journal.
[00:43:50]  And now, granted, this is the European data from England, but the Wall Street Journal has actually found.
[00:43:56]  Some similar data.
[00:43:57]  But your point about more boomers owning homes at a younger age holds true.

=== Rising Prices in Tri-State Areas (11:11) ===

[00:44:06]  Thank you for that, Kimberly.
[00:44:08]  I think that proved my point.
[00:44:09]  But I would just add on why was that?
[00:44:12]  A lot of baby boomers, again, benefited from a lot of very successful government programs that focus on them being able to buy a home at a very young age.
[00:44:25]  And now those same baby boomers are now voting for people that don't care about that stuff and fixing that for the Gen Zs and the Gen A's.
[00:44:36]  Anyway, I just want to thank you very much, Kimberly.
[00:44:38]  All right.
[00:44:39]  Colleen is in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, on our line for Republicans.
[00:44:43]  Good morning, Colleen.
[00:44:45]  Good morning.
[00:44:47]  I just wanted to say I did agree with this last caller to some of the stuff he was saying.
[00:44:54]  I totally benefited from doing my taxes.
[00:44:58]  I did them with AARP because I do have AARP insurance and Social Security, and I did get the deduction and was very happy about.
[00:45:09]  That and my finances during when President Trump went into Iran, we have to remember why he went there too.
[00:45:23]  He went there to because they were enriching the uranium and he felt that these bombs could get closer to us.
[00:45:34]  So, this is not a good thing, and that's why he went.
[00:45:39]  Look at all the people.
[00:45:41]  There's 90 million people in India, and not all of those people, 89 million people, are living under this tyrant.
[00:45:52]  And so we live in.
[00:45:54]  I believe you're talking about Iran, not India, but also I'm wondering about your personal finances in particular and how you feel you've been doing since Trump took office again.
[00:46:04]  Well, like I was saying, when we went over there to help the people and stop the bombs making, I.
[00:46:14]  I lost money in the market, but I was kind of willing to do that to save people over there, you know, from living under a tyrant.
[00:46:25]  But now the market is perfect.
[00:46:28]  I'm more than what I lost as of Friday, more than what I've lost.
[00:46:34]  And I just think that, you know, the media does not talk about President Trump truthfully in many ways, they spin it.
[00:46:46]  In a way, because I listened to both sides.
[00:46:48]  I voted for President Obama, and I'm a Republican, but I did not like how things happened under him as well.
[00:46:58]  I think we have to get a piece of paper, and on the right side of the paper, write down what President Trump has done for our world and for us, and what is bad about him.
[00:47:09]  And I think, you know, coming up with all the good things he does of not.
[00:47:16]  Wanting people to be children, to be transgendered, and staying in the lane under God of, you know, what is a man and what is a woman.
[00:47:28]  There's so many things that he is on the right track.
[00:47:31]  I think that people and the gas was high under President Biden.
[00:47:36]  So I just don't understand, you know, I know that everybody has their opinion and everything, and that's what it's called, and that's why more people voted for President Trump.
[00:47:46]  They wanted a change.
[00:47:47]  Thanks.
[00:47:48]  Let's hear from Michelle in Montgomery, Alabama, on our line for Democrats.
[00:47:52]  Good morning, Michelle.
[00:47:54]  Hi, good morning, Kim.
[00:47:56]  Thank you for taking my call.
[00:47:59]  So, your question is a little deceiving.
[00:48:03]  I am an educated black American and I have a very decent job.
[00:48:08]  I can take care of myself, but I live in Alabama.
[00:48:11]  I couldn't take this salary to California and be comfortable because everything is just extremely high in California.
[00:48:19]  But I am worse off at the same time because if you look at the debt, I think we're like at $41 trillion.
[00:48:31]  There is a debt calculator that tells us how much of that debt belongs to each individual in America.
[00:48:44]  So the debt that Trump has put on each individual American, we are worse off.
[00:48:55]  And I don't care if you get your income from Social Security.
[00:48:59]  If you have a six figure job, if you own your home or you rent, you got a tax deduction, no tax on tips.
[00:49:09]  You have a debt that this president is compounding on Americans.
[00:49:20]  And I don't think anyone has an extra $360,000 to $400,000.
[00:49:26]  So, Michelle, that's the number that.
[00:49:30]  You're looking for, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, $114,236 for every single person in America because the national debt currently stands at over $38 trillion.
[00:49:45]  We're getting pretty close to $39 trillion.
[00:49:48]  And the national debt has grown over both Democratic and Republican administrations.
[00:49:53]  But I just wanted to, I looked up that debt clock for you.
[00:49:56]  Go ahead, Michelle.
[00:49:58]  Thank you so much, Kim.
[00:49:59]  But it has accelerated under President Trump.
[00:50:03]  And so, do we have another two more years to add another one to two trillion dollars, considering the price of gas, groceries, and everything else that's going up?
[00:50:15]  I mean, I don't know.
[00:50:16]  I don't know.
[00:50:17]  I don't know, Kim.
[00:50:18]  But you know what?
[00:50:19]  Thank you for taking my call.
[00:50:20]  I appreciate it.
[00:50:21]  Next up is Ted in Port Washington, New York, on our line for independence.
[00:50:25]  Good morning, Ted.
[00:50:26]  Good morning.
[00:50:27]  I got to say, all these calls and your information is amazing.
[00:50:33]  I want to talk about finances.
[00:50:35]  So, my personal finances are not better off, even though the stock market is running.
[00:50:42]  And it's scary because we're in the middle of wartime, and I'm like, when, why would the stock market be running like this in the middle of war?
[00:50:50]  So, to me, it's like twofold, and I think it goes back to around 2019.
[00:50:58]  There's a lot of other things that have occurred in the last decade, I think, beyond Trump's grifting, which he did a lot in the first.
[00:51:06]  Insider trading and manipulation, I would say at least 10 times in his first term.
[00:51:11]  And I kept calling it out and calling it out.
[00:51:12]  I mean, Martha Stewart went to jail for 30K, and this guy's stealing billions upon billions.
[00:51:19]  I think that the American people got screwed during COVID.
[00:51:25]  I think that we tried to get prices down, and because so many were paying it, that they did their math numbers and figured out a way to keep moving that forward somewhat to the point where in the tri state areas, You go into like a stop and shop, and Driscoll blueberries are $9 now for a pint of blueberries.
[00:51:43]  You know, strawberries are barely on sale, and we're in strawberry season.
[00:51:47]  I think that the gas scenario is going to catch up.
[00:51:51]  The oil, the gas, the transportation is going to start to cost more.
[00:51:55]  And I think by August, we're still going to see prices at the grocery store go up.
[00:51:59]  So my finances are not better off, even though the stock market is better off, right?
[00:52:06]  There's a big difference in that.
[00:52:08]  My regular everyday is dead.
[00:52:10]  In fact, I was an editor in television and I watched reality television get destroyed.
[00:52:16]  And that's why I take it back to 2018, 2019, when they were spending all their money.
[00:52:21]  All the oligarch tech guys were spending their money.
[00:52:24]  And here comes Donald Trump, who now decides to deregulate.
[00:52:29]  So, for instance, on Friday, Apple and another big oligarch company, Tech, they did some sort of deal where Apple gets to use some sort of programming and doesn't have to pay for it.
[00:52:41]  And Apple sells to the oligarch friend this other company for them.
[00:52:45]  So, what's good for one oligarch is going to help the other oligarch.
[00:52:48]  And what you have now across a few different genres of work is you've got too many heads, like a small amount of them, that are controlling way too much.
[00:53:00]  And it's all about his deregulation.
[00:53:02]  It doesn't, you know, the correlation between him talking and, yes, he moves the stock market.
[00:53:08]  We all know that.
[00:53:09]  But I also think that we have to look at, What's happening with regulations in the market?
[00:53:15]  Like I said, I've watched media get destroyed, and I'm so sad.
[00:53:19]  I've seen so many people lose job after job.
[00:53:21]  I mean, I go on LinkedIn every day, and I would say every two days I could see someone else who's like, Now I'm driving an Uber, or Now I'm doing this job, or I'm trying to do this job.
[00:53:31]  You mentioned you mentioned regulations, something new that the Trump administration deregulate.
[00:53:36]  Well, yes, but I wanted to point out that something new that the Trump administration has done.
[00:53:42]  Is that on the website for the Federal Register of Regulations.gov, where people can submit public comments?
[00:53:49]  The Trump administration, under this term, has added a new section where people can submit deregulatory recommendations in the same website for submitting public comments.
[00:54:03]  Just because that adds to the sort of deregulatory agenda that you were mentioning.
[00:54:07]  I don't like the deregulation, to be honest with you, because look at what, you know, the first, you know, it's because I'm watching the story of what's happened in television and streaming.
[00:54:16]  I mean, literally, we are paying for commercials.
[00:54:20]  All right.
[00:54:20]  Well, let's hear from Julie in Washington, D.C., on our line for Republicans.
[00:54:24]  Good morning, Julie.
[00:54:27]  Good morning.
[00:54:29]  Go ahead.
[00:54:29]  I'm not doing better.
[00:54:30]  Okay.
[00:54:32]  I'm not better at all, but what I really want to address is this ongoing.
[00:54:41]  Notion that there's no taxes on Social Security.
[00:54:45]  That is totally false.
[00:54:48]  The way it works is that if you didn't have to pay taxes on your Social Security, they wouldn't be withholding taxes on your Social Security.
[00:54:56]  What they gave instead was a $6,000 deduction, which is not the same.
[00:55:04]  So when you do your taxes, that Social Security amount that you got paid is going to show up on your tax return.
[00:55:11]  And if you qualify, you'll get the $6,000 deduction.

=== False Claims on Social Security Taxes (14:33) ===

[00:55:17]  So that is a total hoax.
[00:55:20]  Not true.
[00:55:22]  On the tips and overtime, the companies weren't given enough time to capture that information.
[00:55:30]  So if you got overtime in 2025, you're paying taxes on that overtime because of the way the administration rolled out the program.
[00:55:41]  I think people need to do some research.
[00:55:45]  All right.
[00:55:45]  Thank you.
[00:55:46]  Well, thank you to everyone who called in this hour.
[00:55:49]  A little later on Washington Journal, we'll be joined by author Sophia Nelson, who is going to discuss American freedom and the state of the democracy.
[00:55:58]  But first, executive director of the Washington Examiner magazine, Jim Antle, is going to join us to dive into the political news of the week.
[00:56:06]  Stay with us.
[00:56:07]  We'll be right back.
[00:56:20]  Saturday, April 25th, is the 2026 White House Correspondents Association dinner.
[00:56:25]  And tonight, on C SPAN's QA, Howard Mortman, C SPAN's Director of Communications, who, for years, has been chronicling the happenings at the dinners on his Extreme Mortman podcast, reflects on memorable performances by presidents and comedians at the annual fundraiser since the Reagan administration.
[00:56:45]  Thinking about Ozzy, he's made a lot of big hit recordings.
[00:56:52]  Party with the Animals.
[00:56:55]  Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath.
[00:56:57]  Facing Hell.
[00:57:00]  Black Skies and Bloodbath in Paradise.
[00:57:05]  Ozzy Mom Loves Your Stuff.
[00:57:09]  At the time, this is 2002, Ozzy Osbourne is in this big reality TV show.
[00:57:14]  So, this is, you know, you mentioned celebrities.
[00:57:17]  I think Ozzy Osbourne's like the number one celebrity there, and it's known that he, that was like a big thing.
[00:57:22]  A look back at the White House Correspondents Association dinners with Howard Mortman tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C SPAN's QA.
[00:57:32]  You can listen to QA and all of our podcasts on our free C SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:57:44]  Who's your representative?
[00:57:45]  Who sits on which committee?
[00:57:47]  Where do you even start?
[00:57:48]  C SPAN's official congressional directory.
[00:57:51]  Get essential contact information for government officials all in one place.
[00:57:55]  The congressional directory costs $32.95 plus shipping and handling, and every purchase helps support C SPAN's nonprofit operations.
[00:58:03]  Get your congressional directory by scanning the QR code or at C SPAN Shop.org.
[00:58:08]  Stay informed, stay engaged.
[00:58:13]  Washington Journal continues.
[00:58:16]  Welcome back.
[00:58:16]  We're joined now by the executive editor of Washington Examiner magazine, Jim Antle.
[00:58:21]  Welcome back to Washington Journal.
[00:58:22]  Thanks for having me.
[00:58:24]  So let's start with President Trump, who has been out and about in recent days supporting and touting some of the accomplishments of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
[00:58:33]  He visited the key swing states of Nevada and Arizona.
[00:58:37]  And then in Arizona in particular, he was talking about these at a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix.
[00:58:45]  Let's listen to his comments and then I'll get your response.
[00:58:49]  As part of our tax cuts, we delivered, a lot of you benefited by this, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security for our great seniors.
[00:59:03]  You know, the great big beautiful bill is really the great big beautiful tax cut bill, but it was also, we gave you the right to deduct your interest payments on a car loan, but only if it's made in the USA.
[00:59:16]  That's been incredible.
[00:59:17]  You never had that right before.
[00:59:19]  And this week, millions of Americans received the largest tax refunds of their lives.
[00:59:24]  The average is more than $4,000 per filer.
[00:59:28]  Think of that.
[00:59:28]  So nobody knew this was going to happen, but now they're getting their refunds back, and they're much larger than I said.
[00:59:36]  In other words, I under exaggerated, which is good.
[00:59:40]  So the president accurately saying that refunds have been coming in larger this year, but despite what he said there, there was a CBS News YouGov poll showing that.
[00:59:51]  63% of Americans rate the economy as bad.
[00:59:53]  And then there was a different polling from, actually, in that same poll, 65% disapprove of President Trump's handling of the economy.
[01:00:04]  69% disapprove of his handling inflation.
[01:00:07]  There was an Axios headline last week saying Americans hate the 2026 economy.
[01:00:12]  Why do you think there's such a disconnect between what the president is saying are his economic wins and how Americans are viewing the economy?
[01:00:19]  Well, I think number one, the cost of living is still the main metric by which Americans are judging the health of the economy.
[01:00:25]  And most Americans think the cost of living is too high and that President Trump has not focused enough on inflation, that he has not focused enough on domestic issues, that he is preoccupied with foreign affairs and he's preoccupied by legacy building projects and that that wasn't what at least the people who swung the election, toward Donald Trump in 2024 necessarily voted for.
[01:00:54]  I think another problem is, you know, the president in his remarks there talked about how people didn't even know they were going to get certain things out of the one big beautiful bill act.
[01:01:05]  And so number one, that's a bit of a communications error if that is the case, that people don't actually know what was in the bill.
[01:01:14]  And it was probably a branding error to call that piece of legislation by that name.
[01:01:21]  It was a rare case where they decided to go with a process-related name, a procedural name, rather than something dealing with the substance of the bill.
[01:01:32]  The fact that it was – there were some efforts to skew the tax cuts.
[01:01:36]  They were the standard Republican tax cuts, but with things like no tax on tips and no tax on overtime, trying to have it more beneficial to more working class type Americans, more working class voters who supported President Trump.
[01:01:51]  By calling it the one big beautiful bill, the reason that that was a dispute over whether there should be one reconciliation bill when they were doing reconciliation, and reconciliation is itself a real technical term.
[01:02:03]  It's a legislative procedure not familiar to most Americans.
[01:02:08]  So it was named what it was named not because of what was in the bill, but by the process by which they decided to pass it.
[01:02:16]  And that was probably a mistake.
[01:02:18]  So between the fact that people still think prices are too high and they're not fully familiar With the biggest legislative accomplishment President Trump has had in his second term, I think those two things combine to give them a kind of dour sense of the economy.
[01:02:36]  We're still over six months out from the midterms, but with Americans feeling so poorly about the economy, what do you think that means for the Republican prospects coming into the midterms?
[01:02:47]  Well, it doesn't mean anything good.
[01:02:49]  It probably will be a bad midterm election for Republicans.
[01:02:53]  And there are some historical reasons for that apart from things going on in current events.
[01:02:59]  And there are some Trump-centric reasons for that and some things that just are part of the modern presidency and part of being the incumbent party in polarized America.
[01:03:11]  So what tends to happen is when a new president comes into office over the last several decades is that They come in, they try to do their priorities that were promised during the campaign.
[01:03:24]  The top priorities are often things that are pleasing to their base, maybe don't necessarily resonate with certain other voters.
[01:03:31]  So they end up spending a lot of political capital on things that are supported by 40 to 45, 46 percent of the American people.
[01:03:39]  And as they spend down, they're usually at their most popular when they take the oath of office.
[01:03:45]  And then within a few months, they're less popular.
[01:03:47]  The other thing is structurally, incumbent, you know, the midterm elections are an opportunity to vote against the incumbent party.
[01:03:58]  The supporters of the president's party usually get complacent, and the supporters of the opposition party are very motivated to turn out and vote.
[01:04:08]  And that's been accentuated under Trump in that Trump appeals to a lot of voters who are lower propensity voters, who are very likely to turn out if he's on the ballot, but less likely to turn out when he personally is not, whereas voters who highly disapprove of Trump will turn out to vote for Dogcatcher.
[01:04:27]  They'll turn out in any race.
[01:04:29]  to register their disapproval of Donald Trump.
[01:04:32]  So when you take into consideration how voters feel about the economy, when you take into consideration that the anti-Trump voters are the most motivated voters in a non-presidential year, and then you just look at the history, you know, since 1938,
[01:04:48]  the president's party has lost seats in every midterm, but other than two, and, you know, and both of those, you know, one was right after 9-11, the other after a very unpopular impeachment attempt against Bill Clinton.
[01:05:03]  So those are sort of exceptions that prove the rule.
[01:05:06]  Picture doesn't look very good for Republicans.
[01:05:08]  Now, I do think they have until the end of the summer to potentially move public opinion on the economy and to see economic conditions improve.
[01:05:19]  I do think, however, that would probably require the war in Iran to be wrapped up by that time and the Strait to be open.
[01:05:26]  But on that point specifically, last week the House and Senate voted again to defeat a war powers resolution that would have constrained President Trump's ability to continue military action in Iran and then.
[01:05:38]  You've got an Ipsos Reuters survey this week that said only 24% of Americans think the war in Iran has been worth the costs and the benefits, 22%, not sure.
[01:05:49]  There doesn't seem to be much motivation from Republicans to act, at least within Congress, to limit the president and his war.
[01:05:56]  No, I think that most Republicans in Congress believe in what President Trump is doing in Iran.
[01:06:04]  And even some who have some misgivings and doubts generally believe that the president should be given.
[01:06:11]  Relatively free reign to conduct foreign policy in this way.
[01:06:16]  And there's also a lot of Republicans in Congress who are still very hesitant to go against President Trump on anything.
[01:06:23]  But I do think if you look at the overall public opinion of the American people, most people are more concerned about the cost of living domestically than they are about what is going on in Iran and what is going on in the Middle East.
[01:06:38]  But those two things are linked at this point.
[01:06:40]  They're very linked at this point, absolutely.
[01:06:43]  Absolutely.
[01:06:43]  But Republicans. are not yet ready to, most of them anyway, are not ready to be in conflict with President Trump on this issue.
[01:06:55]  And I think they're also willing to give him a little bit of time, and they think that they still have some time before the cake is baked for the midterm elections.
[01:07:04]  But yes, absolutely.
[01:07:05]  At the present, they're in a situation that is not very good for them in the midterm elections.
[01:07:12]  Iran is a big factor in this.
[01:07:15]  They didn't do very much to sell the war before they did it.
[01:07:18]  And there is the connection why we had such high inflation, relatively speaking, for the first time, biggest in a couple of years in March was really because of the energy price spikes related to Iran and the Strait not being open.
[01:07:33]  So they're in a real political predicament.
[01:07:37]  But right now, I think most Republicans on the Hill are willing to stick with the president on this.
[01:07:42]  You know, speaking of foreign policy, there was news this past week from newly elected Hungarian.
[01:07:49]  Prime Minister Peter Magyar.
[01:07:51]  He accused the outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orban of diverting Hungarian taxpayer money to CPAC and vowed to cut off that, what he called a funnel of government cash.
[01:08:02]  And, you know, how significant were Orban's ties to U.S. conservatives and how does him leaving office, do you think, affect the conservative movement here?
[01:08:13]  Well, his ties to the American conservative movement were quite significant.
[01:08:18]  A lot of American conservatives were very interested in Hungary's family policies under Viktor Orban.
[01:08:31]  There was also a lot of financial entanglement.
[01:08:34]  There was also the relocation of some American conservatives to Hungary to study what was going on there, to be involved with the Orban government.
[01:08:43]  Orban lost to the incoming prime minister, who's substantive policies really are not that different and in some ways may be to the right of Orban, but the corruption was the major issue that I think was the difference maker in that election.
[01:09:00]  Do I think it's going to have a huge impact on the American conservative movement?
[01:09:06]  Probably not as a whole.
[01:09:08]  It may be some organizations more than others.
[01:09:11]  I don't think Hungarian money is really what's driving the whole train here, but it was obviously Important to specific individuals and institutions, and it's possible you'll see some of those people's priorities and their budgets shift in the coming years.
[01:09:30]  We'll be taking questions for the Washington Examiners.
[01:09:32]  Jim Antle, Republicans can call in at 202 748 8001, Democrats at 202 748 8000, and Independents at 202 748 8002.
[01:09:44]  Before we go to callers, I do want to ask you about something happening on the Democratic side.
[01:09:48]  Resignations of Representatives Eric Swalwell.

=== Congressional Resignations and Expulsions (05:01) ===

[01:09:51]  And Tony Gonzalez, as they likely faced expulsion, some really serious charges, especially for Eric Swalwell.
[01:09:58]  What do you think this means in terms of just voter perceptions of Congress more broadly, as well as for the Democratic Party?
[01:10:06]  Right.
[01:10:06]  Well, you know, obviously there's a lot of scandals of this nature going on in Congress, and there has been some ongoing debate about files pertaining to sexual harassment committed by members against staff and against others.
[01:10:21]  You know, how open.
[01:10:22]  Some of these files should be.
[01:10:24]  The argument against opening them is that people who maybe the evidence against them isn't that strong, you're going to besmirch them.
[01:10:32]  But there is also an argument for transparency, and there's a clear problem with the behavior in this area in Congress.
[01:10:41]  Eric Swalwell, there had been a lot of rumors to this effect about him for quite some time.
[01:10:48]  You know, he mounted a presidential campaign during which some of this could have come out, but he He was sort of an asterisk candidate.
[01:10:57]  He didn't really get very far and he dropped out before the first primaries.
[01:11:02]  I think with the competitive gubernatorial race in California and with so many Democrats being in that race that there was some risk that maybe both Republicans would make it to the runoff, there was a little bit of a need to cull the herd.
[01:11:20]  There have been a lot of people who came forward with Swalwell, and then Tony Gonzalez, who's a Republican, his extramarital affair obviously ended in a very tragic and dramatic fashion with a woman lighting herself on fire and killing herself.
[01:11:39]  So these are really horrific cases, both of them, assuming that all the allegations against Swalwell are true.
[01:11:51]  I think there is a good bit of evidence for them.
[01:11:56]  And they really show a lot of brazenness among members of Congress and also the fact with such narrow majorities how reluctant sometimes the leadership is to really, in both parties,
[01:12:09]  is to really press because if you push some of these people out, I mean it's noteworthy that Swalwell and Gonzalez are kind of leaving together so they don't really affect the balance of power and there was talk about maybe expelling four members of Congress at once with an equal partisan split.
[01:12:29]  That often affects, too, how much consequences there are because people don't want to flip control of the House over an individual member's scandal, but that also means bad behavior can be rewarded.
[01:12:43]  But to your point of the brazenness, all of this, the individual tragedies are the individual tragedies and accusations, but in terms of how the public sees Congress as an entity, congressional approval is already very, very low with a lot of people thinking. that it is ineffective as a body and that they've handed over a lot of their powers to the executive and then you have this.
[01:13:07]  What does this mean for their actual ability to govern?
[01:13:10]  Well, yeah, that's really the $38 trillion question here, right?
[01:13:17]  Congress has largely abdicated a lot of its constitutional duties.
[01:13:21]  They've allowed the executive and the judiciary to take a lot of their power.
[01:13:26]  Individual members of Congress don't seem very invested in the legislative branch.
[01:13:32]  as an institution, so they're not behaving the way the founders envisioned and that they would, if nothing else, want to jealously safeguard their own powers.
[01:13:40]  That hasn't really seemed to happen here.
[01:13:42]  So people seem to want to serve in Congress to use it as a dating service.
[01:13:47]  They want to use it to set themselves up for future lobbying jobs.
[01:13:53]  They want to get into punditry or become social media celebrities.
[01:13:57]  And there are relatively few members of Congress, many of whom are chairing important committees. who are really serious about legislating and governing.
[01:14:05]  And then on top of that, the majorities, particularly in the House, are now so small that you can't really afford very many defections on anything.
[01:14:15]  So even just numerically, it's become very difficult to govern.
[01:14:19]  And Republicans have ended up having to, you know, we could have had many multiple ballots for Speaker at the beginning of this Congress if President Trump hadn't intervened on behalf of Speaker Mike Johnson.
[01:14:32]  We did have that when there was no Republican president during first, when Kevin McCarthy was elected, and then when Kevin McCarthy was ousted.
[01:14:40]  So, you know, the president now has to even get involved to get them to do very basic functions of Congress.
[01:14:48]  All right, let's get to your calls.
[01:14:50]  Don is in Iowa on our line for independence.

=== Inflation Remains a New Issue (08:27) ===

[01:14:52]  Good morning, Don.
[01:14:56]  I was worrying about your polls because I think Goliath polls are based on people that is associated with certain groups, like in the Northeast and into the East, Southeast, but it's not really associated with anything in the West, Midwest, or.
[01:15:25]  The polls I cited earlier were nationwide polls, but I understand your concerns that they maybe don't reflect the complete picture of America, which honestly, probably no poll can.
[01:15:36]  But did you have a question for Jim Antl?
[01:15:40]  Yeah, why is it that when you talk about food prices and that, you don't talk about like the prices of eggs, how far down they are right now?
[01:15:54]  Like in Iowa here, we had, they were down below a dollar.
[01:16:01]  And like coffee and that, they're down almost a dollar and a half sometimes in the store.
[01:16:08]  But you guys don't even mention that in your news articles.
[01:16:11]  Broadcast and stuff.
[01:16:14]  And this is part of all the why the polls may be wrong because you don't put out the information like you should.
[01:16:22]  So, before we let Mr. Antel respond, I'll just read you some reporting on these food prices in particular.
[01:16:29]  This is from Marketplace.
[01:16:31]  That grocery inflation did slow down in March, but it doesn't mean that your cart is getting cheaper.
[01:16:36]  Overall, grocery inflation slowed to 1.9 percent year over year, but the picture is uneven.
[01:16:42]  As you were just saying, egg prices are down nearly 45 percent, but tariffs and supply chain pressures are pushing some produce prices higher.
[01:16:52]  This came up a lot in our last hour about food prices.
[01:16:55]  Prices in particular gets to this affordability issue.
[01:16:58]  Yeah, I mean, there are some things that are improving, and pre Iran gas prices was among them, egg prices, certainly lots of grocery prices.
[01:17:10]  A problem with inflation, though, which makes it such an intractable political issue, is that inflation is cumulative.
[01:17:19]  And so when we say inflation goes down, that means that the rate by which prices are increasing is slowing.
[01:17:28]  But that doesn't mean that prices are going down.
[01:17:31]  And particularly when we had a couple of years ago inflation spike to a 41-year high, the prices aren't going back to where they were in 2019 in President Trump's first term.
[01:17:43]  And it's frankly, it's unrealistic to expect that they would.
[01:17:47]  Economically speaking, it would probably mean we were having worse economic problems if that were to be the case.
[01:17:53]  But it is sort of what I think a lot of people are judging the health of the economy by.
[01:17:59]  I paid this at the grocery store just a few years ago.
[01:18:04]  I'm paying this now.
[01:18:05]  People are telling me it's getting better, but I still find myself paying higher prices.
[01:18:11]  So when unemployment goes down, people go back to work, and as long as they're getting comparable pay, it sort of solves the problem of the previous high unemployment.
[01:18:23]  When you have a period of high inflation, it takes a while for people to get used to the new normal of these higher prices, even if inflation starts to cool off.
[01:18:35]  So even with the March inflation being the highest it's been in a couple of years, it's still far below what it was at a 41-year high just a couple of years ago.
[01:18:50]  People are paying those higher prices from a couple of years ago.
[01:18:54]  And so, if prices are even rising a little bit more slowly, they're still going to feel that economic pain.
[01:19:02]  To your point, I mentioned this in the last hour, but in Cato's handbook on affordability that they just put out last week, it pointed out that since January of 2020, food at home prices have climbed by over 30%, far more than double the increase seen over the entire previous decade.
[01:19:19]  Right.
[01:19:19]  And there are a lot of voters.
[01:19:22]  Who are adults now and voting now who have never lived through a period of high inflation, at least economy wide high inflation.
[01:19:32]  We've seen certain sectors experience this kind of inflation.
[01:19:35]  So, you know, inflation had really stopped being a major political issue in the early to mid 1980s.
[01:19:44]  So people aren't used to that.
[01:19:46]  I mean, people have lived through recessions and things like that.
[01:19:49]  You know, the Great Recession was not that long ago.
[01:19:53]  But inflation is, to a lot of voters, kind of a new issue.
[01:19:59]  People have really, it's really knocked them for a loop, and it's affected our politics, and it may affect our politics again this year in the midterm elections.
[01:20:08]  Steve is in Florida on our line for Democrats.
[01:20:10]  Good morning, Steve.
[01:20:13]  Good morning.
[01:20:14]  I wanted to ask Mr. Antel the information that goes out in the media outlets, and I'll use the word disinformation, the algorithms,
[01:20:28]  and the The partisan, I guess, conspiracy related themes that go out are usually based on the persons or the group of people on the other side of the spectrum of what you believe are subversives and they're a threat to the American way of life and this and that and the other.
[01:20:58]  And I felt like that was really a factor.
[01:21:05]  In the 2016 election, I felt like there were disinformation outlets that were putting out all these things on the social media and all the devices that people had access to.
[01:21:17]  And I guess, and that's the political aspect of what I wanted to ask you.
[01:21:26]  As far as the economic aspect, I feel like we live in a global society with a global economy, and the best thing that we can do is participate in free trade.
[01:21:37]  Globally, with all nations, and I feel like we're going the opposite direction with all these tariffs and war mongering with all these other countries.
[01:21:50]  But basically, I'd like to hear what you say about the media outlets and how they affect elections.
[01:21:58]  Thank you.
[01:21:59]  Well, the algorithm and the political polarization and the intensity of public discourse are different, but somewhat related things so that You know, search engines and social media platforms are going to serve you the content that they, based on the algorithm, think that you want.
[01:22:27]  So if you consume a certain type of political content, you're going to get a lot more of that type of political content and perhaps increasingly extreme forms of that political content unless you're very intentional about Altering your consumption habits to get the algorithm to serve you something different,
[01:22:50]  or you avoid using the, you know, you really look very hard for material yourself rather than just relying on the algorithm.
[01:22:59]  So there's certainly, even though that's, I don't think, really the intent, you know, most of these platforms are just hoping to make their customers happy to get the stuff that they seem to, seems to float their boat, but it does have the effect of.

=== Evangelicals and Catholics Clash (06:07) ===

[01:23:19]  Intensifying polarization and maybe extremism, and maybe all of our abilities to retreat into our own bubbles and live in a fantasy world of our own creation.
[01:23:32]  We do have a president who loves social media, though.
[01:23:36]  And so if you're staying engaged in politics, often that means paying attention to what the president is saying.
[01:23:42]  And last week, he shared an AI generated depiction of himself as a Christ like figure, which sparked quite a bit of outrage.
[01:23:50]  Among his Catholic and evangelical Christian supporters.
[01:23:54]  He's also engaged in a public fight with the Pope, Pope Leo XIV, over the Iran war, calling the Pope in a social media post weak on crime and terrible on foreign policy.
[01:24:06]  Pope Leo did respond to some of President Trump's attacks last week.
[01:24:10]  Let's listen to what he said.
[01:24:13]  The message of the gospel is very clear.
[01:24:15]  Blessed are the peacemakers.
[01:24:17]  I will not shy away from announcing the message of the gospel, of inviting all people.
[01:24:23]  To look for ways of building bridges for peace and reconciliation, of looking for ways to enjoy it for any time that's possible.
[01:24:35]  To put my message on the same plane as what the President has attempted to do here, I think is not understanding what the message of the gospel is.
[01:24:49]  And I'm sorry to hear that, but I will continue on.
[01:24:54]  About what I believe is the mission of the church.
[01:24:58]  I do not look at my role as being political or politician.
[01:25:02]  I don't want to get into a debate with him.
[01:25:05]  I don't think that the message of the gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing.
[01:25:12]  And I will continue to speak out loud against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships among the states to look for just solutions to problems.
[01:25:23]  Too many people are suffering in the world today.
[01:25:25]  Too many innocent people are getting killed.
[01:25:27]  And I think someone has.
[01:25:28]  to stand up and say there's a better way to do this.
[01:25:32]  You know, you had some GOP leaders distancing themselves from the president, especially after that image was posted.
[01:25:38]  But, you know, there have been quite a few other responses, in particular to President Trump's dispute with the Pope.
[01:25:45]  John Fury, Republican strategist, said lots of Trump's policy choices have been great.
[01:25:50]  Some have been not so great.
[01:25:51]  Picking fights with the Pope is not helpful today, but the election is a long time away.
[01:25:56]  And the Democrats have been mostly hostile to the church on basic issues like life and death.
[01:26:00]  So we will see how this all plays out.
[01:26:02]  But I'm not as negative as some other pundits out there.
[01:26:06]  From the Heritage Foundation, President Kevin Roberts.
[01:26:09]  While I think there are more constructive ways for President Trump to engage the church, I fully share the president's goal, along with most Americans, for a lasting end to the conflict in Iran.
[01:26:20]  Why is the president fighting with the Pope?
[01:26:23]  Well, the president fights with anybody who he feels seems to want to fight with him.
[01:26:29]  So the Pope, this is the seven year old defense, of course.
[01:26:34]  He started it.
[01:26:35]  The Pope did speak first.
[01:26:37]  President, as is his want, decided in his response to escalate quite a bit.
[01:26:44]  And now here we are.
[01:26:46]  I think it's an interesting choice in that President Trump won the Catholic vote in 2024.
[01:26:55]  He won it by a fairly impressive margin, particularly among Catholics who attend Mass weekly.
[01:27:04]  And so, but Catholics are.
[01:27:08]  Swingier in their voting than, say, white evangelicals are.
[01:27:12]  White evangelicals are a pretty solid base for Republicans, solid base for President Trump.
[01:27:18]  Sometimes their turnout isn't as high as Republicans needed to be in elections, but usually the margins are pretty reliably high.
[01:27:28]  But that's not always the case with Catholic voters.
[01:27:31]  So picking this fight or accepting and escalating this fight, as I think the president would describe it, is at a minimum an interesting.
[01:27:42]  strategic choice.
[01:27:44]  I do think there has long been, particularly among conservative Catholics in the United States, a sense that the American bishops in particular, and this is our first American pope, are more eager to pick fights with Republicans on Catholic social teaching about social welfare spending and maybe foreign policy and immigration than they are with Democratic elected officials on abortion, marriage,
[01:28:14]  other social issues.
[01:28:17]  But, you know, there is the whole, there's also the fact that there are some Catholic conservatives who think that Trump has backslid on social issues compared to the first term.
[01:28:29]  And that you don't hear as many Catholic conservative intellectuals defending Trump on Iran as defended George W. Bush on Iraq when Pope John Paul II was very critical of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
[01:28:46]  So there has been some shifting.
[01:28:48]  Here, but like the AI image, you know, it's hard to know how much online phenomena really speaks to what voters are thinking.
[01:29:00]  So you have all of these social media influencers who are evangelical Protestants or traditional Catholics who are starting to see some infighting among those groups online.
[01:29:12]  Does that mean we're starting to see tensions between evangelicals and Catholics within the Republican Party and within the conservative movement?
[01:29:20]  I'm less sure about that.
[01:29:22]  The Pope, however, is much more than an online figure.

=== The $40 Trillion Debt Crisis (02:09) ===

[01:29:27]  Jim is in Indiana on our line for independence.
[01:29:30]  Good morning, Jim.
[01:29:32]  Good morning.
[01:29:33]  I'd like to ask the guest this morning to be able to make a relationship for that.
[01:29:40]  We have two economies, and the national debt relates more and affects more in the Main Street economy than it does in the Wall Street economy.
[01:29:52]  So when we're talking about economies, the people that see view the economy as bad are the ones, like you say, they're out looking at grocery prices and so on and so forth.
[01:30:03]  However, I'm a dead hawk, and I don't think anybody, I don't think there can be a good economy as long as we keep driving this debt up and throwing money away.
[01:30:13]  And we have to ask ourselves as Americans, what did $40 trillion buy us?
[01:30:18]  Thanks for your answer.
[01:30:20]  Well, I can certainly buy the temporary illusion of prosperity.
[01:30:25]  And I think that there is a reluctance on the part of either party, and frankly, on the part of the American electorate, to really confront any of the major drivers.
[01:30:37]  Of the national debt.
[01:30:39]  You know, back when we had Ross Perot running a more or less single issue campaign about the budget deficit and the national debt, we were talking about a $4 trillion national debt, and we thought that that was astronomically high and was going to lead to economic catastrophe.
[01:30:57]  As the caller mentions, we're careening toward a $40 trillion national debt.
[01:31:02]  It'll be at that level before we know it.
[01:31:04]  We now regularly, in periods of Until recently, relative peacetime and relative prosperity were running trillion dollar annual federal budget deficits, which maybe was a little understandable during the Great Recession, maybe a little bit understandable in the depths of COVID.
[01:31:25]  But this has just become what's normal, and it's not sustainable.
[01:31:31]  And as the saying goes, if something can't go on forever, it will eventually stop.

=== Midterm Elections and Energy Prices (15:53) ===

[01:31:37]  But so far, We've had our guns and butter and our cake, and we've been able to eat it too.
[01:31:45]  Mike is in Massachusetts in our line for Democrats.
[01:31:47]  Good morning, Mike.
[01:31:49]  Good morning.
[01:31:50]  It's a great pleasure to be able to talk to you.
[01:31:53]  I have a question.
[01:31:54]  I hope it can be answered.
[01:31:56]  My question is why is it we were the only nation in the world to drop atomic bombs on hundreds of thousands of civilians, predominantly at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who died?
[01:32:13]  Including newborn babies that day.
[01:32:16]  Well, how in the world can we be the only nation that uses nuclear weapons on other people?
[01:32:24]  How can we dictate who in the world can have nuclear weapons and who cannot when we have to look at our own backyard before we start telling people what to do?
[01:32:35]  If Iran really wanted to get to us, they could wage chemical and germ warfare on this country.
[01:32:41]  And it doesn't even have to be Iran.
[01:32:43]  We have plenty of Timothy McPhaes in this country.
[01:32:48]  We lost one, but there are a lot of them, I think, walking around out there.
[01:32:52]  And I hope you can comment on this.
[01:32:54]  I didn't mean to flood you with so many questions.
[01:32:57]  Thank you.
[01:33:00]  Well, a couple of things.
[01:33:01]  I mean, nuclear weapons have not been used since then, and that, in the lifetime of most Americans alive now, is a long time ago, even if it's not very long ago in the grand scheme of history.
[01:33:15]  So I think, one, you know, like a lot of things that took place during that period of world history, we tend to want to say never again.
[01:33:27]  But there are also nuclear weapons since then.
[01:33:31]  have predominantly been used as a deterrent.
[01:33:34]  So, you know, one country has nuclear weapons, the other country has nuclear weapons.
[01:33:40]  Because we believe nobody can win a nuclear war, you know, that sort of offsets and nobody wants to use it.
[01:33:50]  Mutually assured destruction.
[01:33:51]  Mutually assured destruction, absolutely.
[01:33:53]  And so I think the fear with Iran was that it would use whatever nuclear arsenal it would be able to build.
[01:34:03]  to deter efforts to punish it for things like aiding Hamas and aiding Hezbollah and rocket attacks into Israel and things like that.
[01:34:16]  Obviously, anybody can argue against the credibility of nuclear powers telling non-nuclear powers that they can't have nuclear weapons.
[01:34:27]  And I think there's also a big question about whether a lot of what we've done in the last couple of dozen years actually incentivizes rogue states to get weapons of mass destruction because countries that have them, such as North Korea, we treat with a certain level of deference, and countries like Libya that gave them up or Iraq that turned out not to have them, their governments get toppled.
[01:34:54]  So, you know, there's that question there.
[01:34:57]  But I think a lot of Western leaders feel that there are aspects of the nature and the character of the Iranian regime that.
[01:35:07]  Would make it very dangerous for it to have nuclear weapons.
[01:35:11]  John is in Las Vegas on our line for Republicans.
[01:35:14]  Good morning, John.
[01:35:16]  Yeah, hey, good morning, you guys.
[01:35:18]  C-SPAN is the greatest.
[01:35:20]  Okay, listen, James, you don't know what you're talking about.
[01:35:24]  You don't have a clue.
[01:35:25]  You don't need to insult our guest, John.
[01:35:27]  Do you have a question for him?
[01:35:28]  Okay, I'm sorry.
[01:35:29]  Yes.
[01:35:30]  What I'm trying to say is he doesn't seem to know the fact.
[01:35:34]  The confrontation with the Pope was to educate the Pope.
[01:35:38]  The reason Trump reacted to what the Pope said was to educate the Pope, James, not to sit there and have a battle with him or whatever.
[01:35:48]  The Pope is not the person to go to for foreign policy.
[01:35:52]  We have an extremely difficult, extremely dangerous undergoing here that Donald Trump is trying to solve.
[01:36:00]  You have a country that will eliminate, sir, Israel.
[01:36:06]  That's their goal.
[01:36:08]  Their goal is written down in paper.
[01:36:10]  They wrote down they're going to take out.
[01:36:12]  And eliminate the country of Israel and everybody that lives there.
[01:36:16]  Do you not understand the threat?
[01:36:19]  That's my point to James.
[01:36:22]  I thank you for educating me and the Pope as well.
[01:36:26]  Yeah, look, obviously, Iran is a dangerous country.
[01:36:33]  You know, and the president is going to do what he feels he needs to do to protect American national security and security of American allies.
[01:36:44]  The Pope has a very different job as a religious and moral teacher and trying to apply Catholics, in the Pope's specific case, trying to apply Catholic social teaching to current events.
[01:36:58]  So there is a manner in which these are different spheres of influence, but there's also.
[01:37:07]  You know, the basic idea is can preventative wars be just?
[01:37:15]  And is can wars of choice be just?
[01:37:19]  And was this a war of necessity, as the president argues?
[01:37:25]  Or was it a war of choice?
[01:37:28]  Whether Iran is I think most people would agree that the Iranian government is a bad government, but there are a lot of bad governments in the world.
[01:37:37]  So, you know, that I think is sort of Apart from the national security concerns, that's sort of where the moral arguments come into play.
[01:37:46]  And, you know, do you want to be at war in the Middle East all the time?
[01:37:52]  And, you know, many people who voted for the president would believe that the answer to that was no.
[01:38:00]  Obviously, there's the argument that we're always at war with the Middle East anyway, Iran, you know, starting in 1979.
[01:38:08]  Joe is in Maryland on our line for independence.
[01:38:11]  Good morning, Joe.
[01:38:13]  Hey, good morning to you both, and thank you, sir, for your demeanor.
[01:38:17]  It's tough to handle people that don't agree with you sometimes.
[01:38:20]  I wanted to put a couple things on the record, if you would.
[01:38:25]  What college did you go to, sir, if you don't mind sharing that?
[01:38:28]  Sure, Ohio Wesleyan University.
[01:38:32]  Wesleyan University?
[01:38:34]  Ohio Wesleyan.
[01:38:35]  Not Wesleyan in Connecticut.
[01:38:38]  Uh huh.
[01:38:38]  And that's a Catholic thing?
[01:38:40]  It's a Methodist thing, actually.
[01:38:43]  Awesome.
[01:38:43]  Thank you for everything you do.
[01:38:44]  I'm stupid.
[01:38:46]  And I like to learn.
[01:38:47]  The internet said you were from Yale.
[01:38:48]  And I was like, that would be interesting.
[01:38:51]  That would be interesting.
[01:38:52]  Well, you know, it just sheds a little light on where you're maybe coming from.
[01:38:56]  Like if you're from Harvard or from the University of Maryland or Georgetown, those have powerful effects on people's trajectory in life.
[01:39:04]  And that said, I'm from the Washington, D.C. area my whole life, 56 years now.
[01:39:09]  And I've worked in the Supreme Court.
[01:39:11]  I'm a laborer in general.
[01:39:12]  I fixed buildings all around D.C., but all my friends' fathers were in politics.
[01:39:17]  One of them was the head of the Maryland Senate for most of my life.
[01:39:21]  He was one of the most powerful men in Maryland.
[01:39:23]  I remember the Clintons used to stay at their house a lot in North Beach, Maryland, the president.
[01:39:28]  And I'm running for governor of Maryland now.
[01:39:32]  I'm an independent candidate, right in.
[01:39:34]  Of course, I'll never get to that.
[01:39:35]  Podium, but I'm praying and working hard, sir and ma'am.
[01:39:39]  What I'm seeing, though, it seems to me this two sided thing is really working well for the wealthy people, but for the poor people, we are not getting anywhere at all.
[01:39:52]  It seems like the corporations always have a horse in the race, whether it's a Democrat or a Republican.
[01:39:58]  They don't just put one person up.
[01:40:00]  Like, if their whole business line is on one person, they don't do that.
[01:40:05]  They got several horses in the race, and they carry RDs in front of their names.
[01:40:11]  And I apologize, but this is really.
[01:40:13]  I'm 56.
[01:40:14]  I remember when Gary Condon's girlfriend got killed.
[01:40:17]  So, Joe, at which point did you want Jim Mandel to respond to specifically?
[01:40:20]  Well, does he think that.
[01:40:22]  I think that things have actually gotten a little bit better for us citizens.
[01:40:26]  Like, you know, back when they found little boys running around in the White House.
[01:40:30]  You remember that with George Bush and that.
[01:40:32]  That stuff has slowed down a little bit, I feel.
[01:40:34]  I feel like we're getting a handle.
[01:40:35]  Do you agree or not?
[01:40:39]  I don't know what Joe was referencing there, but.
[01:40:42]  What I will say is that both major parties are pretty unpopular.
[01:40:50]  And there's been a line of thought now for 30 plus years that there's a big opening for some third option.
[01:41:02]  A couple of problems have come into play is that one, third parties and independent candidates end up, particularly at a presidential level, End up having to spend all of their money trying to make it onto the ballot, and then they don't have the money to campaign.
[01:41:18]  So, the reason the big exception to this rule was Ross Perot, who did make it onto the ballot in all 50 states and was then also able to wage a fairly robust general election campaign, is that he was a billionaire himself.
[01:41:33]  So, if you're trying to reduce the influence of billionaires in corporations, it is a little difficult to do that.
[01:41:44]  As an independent or third party candidate, just because you need the money to come from somewhere.
[01:41:49]  Secondly, I think if you look at Donald Trump and you look at Bernie Sanders, it's at least in recent elections been more effective to sort of try to take over a major party.
[01:42:02]  And so, you know, you could argue to some degree that Trump performed a hostile takeover of the Republican Party and now is very much the leader of the party.
[01:42:12]  Bernie Sanders was a bit less successful, but he had been an independent.
[01:42:18]  Even though he caucuses with Democrats, he'd been an independent for the bulk of his congressional career.
[01:42:23]  He had never actually run for anything on the Democratic line until he ran for president for the first time in 2016.
[01:42:30]  It has certainly moved the ball forward on a lot of his ideas and issues that he worked within the Democratic Party.
[01:42:40]  Now, some of those things seem to be ascendant within the Democratic Party with figures like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who could become a senator or presidential candidate.
[01:42:49]  Azora Mandami, who's the mayor of New York City.
[01:42:53]  A lot of Democratic socialists running in Democratic primaries right now in this year's elections.
[01:43:01]  So while it's obvious that there would seem to be a market for a third option given how unpopular both major parties are, what seemed to have worked more at a practical level is for people who might otherwise be outside the major parties working inside them.
[01:43:20]  Jerry is in New Jersey on our line for Democrats.
[01:43:23]  Good morning, Jerry.
[01:43:25]  Good morning.
[01:43:26]  I'd like to make two comments and then I have a question for you.
[01:43:31]  I'm a registered Democrat.
[01:43:34]  The one thing I do see is that when we're talking about the economy, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, all the new states, the new governors in the states are actually causing a lot of the problems with the economy.
[01:43:53]  So I think that's going to affect a lot of opinions in the long run because you could See the double, you know, they run on one thing, but then do another.
[01:44:04]  And I think people are going to realize just how negative this is turning out.
[01:44:08]  You know, I do believe that the state economy, like state taxes on gas, state stuff affects the economy.
[01:44:18]  So when you're talking about the president and you're talking about the federal government, there's so much they can do.
[01:44:24]  But the states really control a lot of, you know, when these people say they can't afford it.
[01:44:29]  I live in New Jersey.
[01:44:30]  I can tell you we have the highest taxes.
[01:44:33]  So we're getting affected big time compared to a lot of the other states.
[01:44:38]  So I think that's going to make a difference.
[01:44:41]  The other thing is, too, about Donald Trump.
[01:44:43]  I think the one thing that he has done, and even with the Pope, he has exposed the press, really, the bias and the credibility.
[01:44:55]  So, Jerry, I want you to get to your question, if you don't mind, just because we're running out of time.
[01:44:59]  Yeah, my question, because let me just say about the bias of the.
[01:45:04]  Press and the Pope.
[01:45:05]  You know, Trump has exposed a lot.
[01:45:07]  Even with the Pope, he's very, very liberal.
[01:45:11]  The other Pope before him was really liberal, too.
[01:45:14]  This is why the Democrats love him so much.
[01:45:16]  They're not really faithful, but they love the Pope.
[01:45:19]  So, my question to you is twofold How much does the state's taxes and all that affect the economy?
[01:45:30]  I hear people calling from New York, California.
[01:45:34]  What was the second part of your question, Jerry?
[01:45:36]  And then the other part of the question is with the Iran war, if it continues and it keeps going the way it's going, but we are winning, how do you think that's going to affect the election?
[01:45:52]  So I think that states have a really big impact on the national economy.
[01:45:57]  And, you know, in a place like New York, where the global financial sector is heavily based there, it can have a huge effect.
[01:46:06]  And, you know, and I think you're seeing right now in Virginia, Governor Abigail Spanberger ran on affordability, legislature proposing various tax increases, not all of which Governor Spanberger has signed, and maybe some of them will never be signed.
[01:46:23]  Seems to be at odds with that message and has affected her poll numbers.
[01:46:28]  In terms of the war with Iran, I think even if it is a rousing military success, and I think in terms of degrading Iranian military capacity, there clearly have been some successes.
[01:46:45]  I do think the political benefit to Trump and the Republicans will be limited if it's still going on by November, if it's still.
[01:46:55]  The main point of conversation, and also if the strait isn't open and global energy prices are still high.
[01:47:04]  I think the cost of living is going to once again be the major issue, perhaps the main issue in this election.
[01:47:13]  And I think they will need to wrap things up probably by sometime late this summer to not avoid a negative political outcome.
[01:47:22]  Now, if Trump can transform the Middle East, maybe that's worth it.
[01:47:28]  A loss in the midterm elections.

=== Freedom Requires Personal Responsibility (03:03) ===

[01:47:30]  But I think even the most optimistic scenario for Iran, if it's still going on by the time people are voting in the midterms, would probably be a net negative for Republicans.
[01:47:41]  Jim Antle, thank you so much, executive editor of the Washington Examiner.
[01:47:45]  We always appreciate you coming on Washington Journal.
[01:47:47]  Anytime.
[01:47:48]  Thanks for having me.
[01:47:49]  After the break, author Sophia Nelson is going to join us to discuss her new book, Redefining Freedom Thoughts on Bridging Divides and Renewing the American Promise at 250.
[01:48:00]  Don't go anywhere.
[01:48:00]  We'll be right back.
[01:48:24]  Democracy Unfiltered.
[01:48:30]  Start your...
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[01:48:46]  This is a great forum, and you get to talk to real Americans and look forward to the callers.
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[01:48:51]  And I would be remiss, this is my first time ever on C-SPAN, if I didn't say that I think, and all you callers, our country would be a better place if every American just watched one hour a week.
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[01:50:13]  Washington Journal continues.
[01:50:15]  Welcome back.
[01:50:16]  We're joined now by Sophia Nelson, who's the author of the new book, Redefining Freedom Thoughts on Bridging Divides and Renewing the American Promise at 250.
[01:50:26]  Welcome to Washington Journal.
[01:50:28]  It's great to be back.
[01:50:29]  Well, thank you so much for bringing your book as well as your expertise.

=== Digital Detox Improves Focus (10:15) ===

[01:50:34]  How would you describe our understanding of freedom in the modern age?
[01:50:39]  And here, as you argue in the book, where we've kind of gone off track.
[01:50:44]  Well, you know, I was inspired by a quote from Coretta Scott King.
[01:50:48]  And she said, in essence, freedom is never truly won, it has to be won again in every generation.
[01:50:55]  And I think what we've seen is a creep in our democratic republic of malaise, apathy, let somebody else do it, it doesn't affect me.
[01:51:06]  And I think our understanding of freedom has become very polarized, very divided, right?
[01:51:12]  We're in camps.
[01:51:14]  We got the right idea over here, they're wrong over there.
[01:51:17]  And so freedom is no longer this collective experience as Jefferson intended it to be in that great sentence we hold these truths to be self evident.
[01:51:27]  But I think that we need to re examine, renew, and redefine freedom for the 21st century, right?
[01:51:33]  I mean, think about it our Constitution is an 18th century document, and it's great.
[01:51:38]  I don't want to throw it out.
[01:51:40]  But we need to renew it and we need to update it and we need to define freedom, I think, differently and more broadly so it's inclusive of everybody.
[01:51:48]  You're right that freedom has been hollowed out and reduced to a slogan invoked to excuse cruelty and evade accountability.
[01:51:55]  I think that's right.
[01:51:56]  I think that when I say something or I demean, let's take this for example during the presidential debate, the last one about the Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs, right?
[01:52:08]  Come on.
[01:52:09]  I mean, nobody believes that really happened, but that is done to say these people or those people or others are somehow taking away what is mine and my America and taking my country back.
[01:52:23]  And so we've narrowed freedom down, like I said, to these boxes where we're either ultra right conservative, we're ultra left progressive, or we are somewhere the rest of us stuck in the middle, and everybody's got their own version of it.
[01:52:36]  And when we do things that are unacceptable, cruel, and unkind, we say, well, That's my freedom to say that.
[01:52:43]  That's my freedom to treat you that way.
[01:52:45]  That's my freedom to disrespect you.
[01:52:47]  That's not freedom at all.
[01:52:49]  What kind of freedom do you think we should be aiming for?
[01:52:51]  I think freedom has responsibility.
[01:52:53]  And I think we've gotten away from that.
[01:52:55]  And when I say to redefine freedom, again, I want to be clear that I'm saying more renew it, change it for our time.
[01:53:02]  And I think that the kind of freedom we need now has a number of parts to it economic freedom, personal freedom, shared freedom, and then you have what I call civic freedom.
[01:53:15]  And that is.
[01:53:16]  Making sure that we all read our documents, understand them.
[01:53:20]  I think we need to get back to civics in this country.
[01:53:22]  Real basic, you know, I'm old enough to remember the Schoolhouse Rock little guy, right?
[01:53:30]  And that was a really helpful, it was a jingle, but it goes to show you how much we've shifted away from really emphasizing the values of civic virtue, which is the underpinning of freedom.
[01:53:41]  You can't have freedom without virtue.
[01:53:43]  And I think now our argument about freedom has become we're mean.
[01:53:48]  We're really unkind to each other, if I can just say it that way.
[01:53:51]  And I want to see a freedom that's kinder, that's gentler, that's more embracing of everybody, and a freedom that really respects other people who are different from me, and vice versa.
[01:54:02]  I want to read an excerpt from your book, particularly where you talk about those obligations that accompany freedom.
[01:54:09]  You write For decades, we have taught ourselves a dangerous myth that liberty is permanent, that the Constitution is immutable, that institutions will protect us automatically.
[01:54:20]  That America, by virtue of age or exceptionalism, is somehow invincible.
[01:54:25]  But freedom is not granite.
[01:54:27]  It is not steel.
[01:54:28]  It is not bulletproof.
[01:54:29]  Freedom is the shoreline, beautiful, beloved, but always vulnerable to the tides.
[01:54:34]  Freedom is fragile not because it is weak, but because it depends on us, our participation, our vigilance, our willingness to speak up, show up, and stand firm when the forces of cynicism tell us not to be a bother.
[01:54:48]  We have been taught to think of liberty as a birthright, but liberty is a behavior, a practice.
[01:54:54]  A commitment.
[01:54:56]  What specifically do you think people can do in their day to day lives to achieve this kind of redefined American freedom as you lay it out here?
[01:55:05]  Well, first of all, we're living exactly what I talk about in that paragraph.
[01:55:09]  We are in an age of cynicism, division, anger, unkindness, incivility.
[01:55:15]  So, how do we do this in our day to day life?
[01:55:18]  Obviously, right now, people are being affected by high gas prices, by high food prices.
[01:55:24]  People, the younger generation can't buy a home as I was able to do young.
[01:55:28]  And so the biggest answer to your question is a very simple one.
[01:55:33]  As I started with Coretta's quote, freedom is not guaranteed.
[01:55:38]  It is not static.
[01:55:40]  Freedom is one again in every generation.
[01:55:43]  That being said, when 50% of the population does not vote, when we are apathetic to a degree that we're not engaged in our politics, and yet every day we see a circus show in Congress, right?
[01:55:55]  Whether it's the allegations, people being thrown out, abuse of power, et cetera, at the end of the day, what is important is that we, the people, understand that this government was set up.
[01:56:07]  For the people to be empowered.
[01:56:09]  And when the people become apathetic in their day to day life, this thing erodes.
[01:56:15]  It dies.
[01:56:16]  And so in Virginia, as you know, it's going to be interesting to see on Tuesday how the referendum comes out.
[01:56:21]  Now, that's going to be a perfect example of people in their everyday life deciding will we answer the call to rebut this cynicism of we will just take the seats we need in other legislatures around the country to get the outcome we want?
[01:56:36]  I'm talking about the Republicans.
[01:56:38]  Or.
[01:56:39]  The referendum on redistricting.
[01:56:40]  Yes, absolutely.
[01:56:41]  And so Virginia, of course, being now a very blue state, the Democrats having complete power redrew the maps.
[01:56:49]  We have an independent commission.
[01:56:51]  I feel some kind of way about that, but I voted yes.
[01:56:53]  And I voted yes because I want a hard stop on any one party, I don't care which one it is, saying from a national level, because the founders wisely put in the Constitution that elections are decided by the states, not a big national, we tell you what to do.
[01:57:10]  And I think if Virginia votes yes, We will have effectively stopped the power grab.
[01:57:15]  And then in a few years, I think it's five years, the map will come back up again.
[01:57:19]  And then I think it goes back to the commission.
[01:57:21]  So it's a sad commentary on where we are.
[01:57:24]  But in our day to day lives, you've got to run for local office.
[01:57:27]  You have to show up at the school board.
[01:57:29]  You have to show up at the zoning commission.
[01:57:31]  You have to let your voice be heard with your congressmen and your senators.
[01:57:35]  When you disengage and you say, oh, that has nothing to do with me, I'm doing well, my family's doing well, you're not understanding what freedom is about.
[01:57:44]  Because it is a shared responsibility.
[01:57:46]  We are responsible for one another in our system.
[01:57:50]  A lot of us are addicted to our phones and social media, and many people try to organize that way and use it in a tool in that way.
[01:58:01]  But I want to read an excerpt from your book on the impact of the digital age on freedom.
[01:58:07]  You write The digital age has cost us attention, it has cost us empathy, it has cost us patience, and increasingly it is costing us the truth.
[01:58:16]  Scroll through social media and the crisis becomes undeniable.
[01:58:20]  Cruelty has become normal, anonymous insults and threats are routine.
[01:58:25]  Nuanced conversation is nearly impossible.
[01:58:27]  People are not persuaded, they are pummeled.
[01:58:30]  They are not reasoned with, they are ridiculed.
[01:58:32]  They are not debated, they are destroyed.
[01:58:35]  What do you think is a solution for this?
[01:58:37]  Because we're not putting down our phones.
[01:58:39]  You know, there's a study that literally was released yesterday.
[01:58:43]  One of the companies paid people, they did this study, either a university or a company or both.
[01:58:48]  I want to say Pew did this, but don't quote me on that.
[01:58:51]  And they basically paid people to staff their phones for two weeks.
[01:58:55]  And they watched how cynicism went down, depression went down, anxiety went down.
[01:59:02]  And they were saying, imagine if you do this for a month or what would happen over a period of three months.
[01:59:08]  So I think to the point that I'm making in the book is, and listen, I'm a Gen Xer and I'm looking at a big birthday next year.
[01:59:14]  I don't even want to say which one it is, but I'm about to leave my 50s hint.
[01:59:17]  So, you know, I am old enough to remember a time when we had no telephones.
[01:59:22]  And, you know, I remember being a teenager and the phone hung on the wall in the kitchen.
[01:59:25]  And that's how you communicated.
[01:59:27]  You had to walk over and see your friends.
[01:59:29]  You had to communicate very differently and in person.
[01:59:33]  And so we've lost that connectivity, right?
[01:59:36]  That humanizes us.
[01:59:38]  The things that people say online, Kim, they would never say to your face, right?
[01:59:43]  They wouldn't be able to do it because it would be so disrespectful and so odious that you wouldn't want to talk like that.
[01:59:49]  And so I think what this study shows and what I'm trying to say is that, okay, we're probably not going to give up our phones.
[01:59:56]  I understand that.
[01:59:57]  But we need to be intentional about putting them down several hours a day.
[02:00:01]  We need to take those phones from our teenagers and our kids when they come in and have a conversation and give them a piece of fruit or a snack and talk to them and talk to them about what's going on and talk to one another about what's going on.
[02:00:14]  That study looks like it was from Georgetown University that a two week digital detox can reverse years of focus lost to social media.
[02:00:22]  I'm reading from earth.com.
[02:00:24]  A new study has found that blocking mobile internet on smartphones improves mood.
[02:00:29]  Mental health and sustained attention within just two weeks.
[02:00:33]  There it is.
[02:00:33]  And that was from Just two weeks.
[02:00:35]  Think about that.
[02:00:36]  Yeah.
[02:00:37]  Now, then, there have been different, there are many differing opinions on what freedom means and whether or not we should be involved in different aspects of freedom.

=== Renewing America's Great Promise (11:46) ===

[02:00:49]  I want to talk about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who delivered a pretty strong critique of progressivism during the while making remarks.
[02:01:01]  About the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence at the University of Texas Law School on Wednesday.
[02:01:09]  I want to listen to his comments and then get your response.
[02:01:13]  Progressivism has made many inroads into our system of government and our way of life.
[02:01:21]  It has coexisted uneasily with the principles of the Declaration.
[02:01:27]  Because it is opposed to those principles, it is not possible for the two to coexist forever.
[02:01:37]  Progressivism was not native to America.
[02:01:41]  Wilson and the progressives candidly admitted that they took it from Otto von Bismarck's Germany, whose state centric society they admired.
[02:01:53]  Progressivism was the first mainstream American political movement, with the possible exception of the pro slavery reactionaries on the eve of the Civil War, to openly oppose the principles of the Declaration.
[02:02:11]  Progressives strove to undo the Declaration's commitment to equality and natural rights, both of which they denied were self evident.
[02:02:22]  To Wilson, the unalienable rights of the individual were, quote, a lot of nonsense.
[02:02:29]  Wilson redefined liberty not as a natural right antecedent to the government, but as, quote, the right of those who are governed.
[02:02:42]  To adjust government to their own needs and interests.
[02:02:47]  In other words, liberty no longer preceded the government as a gift from God, but was to be enjoyed at the grace of the government.
[02:02:57]  The government, as Wilson reconceived it, would be, quote, beneficent and indispensable.
[02:03:07]  Justice Thomas there saying that progressivism is basically a threat to America.
[02:03:11]  Your thoughts?
[02:03:13]  I know Justice Thomas well.
[02:03:15]  So if he's watching, good morning, Mr. Justice.
[02:03:17]  I disagree with him, however, strongly.
[02:03:20]  And let me tell you why.
[02:03:22]  If you think about Jefferson's refrain, which is what he's talking about, we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.
[02:03:32]  Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
[02:03:35]  Okay, pause there.
[02:03:36]  That's what he's talking about.
[02:03:37]  And then he's talking about the framers and he's talking about, you know, the declaration, et cetera.
[02:03:41]  But Justice Thomas himself is the living embodiment of expansionism and of a progressive constitution.
[02:03:49]  Let me be specific.
[02:03:51]  But for the eradication of Jim Crow, the advent of affirmative action policies, even Loving versus Virginia, 1967, Clarence Thomas couldn't be married to the wife he has.
[02:04:05]  She is a white woman, he is a black man.
[02:04:07]  Without loving and that progress, They aren't legally allowed to be married, number one.
[02:04:12]  Number two, Justice Thomas has to understand that the very things he pushes back on are why he sits on the Supreme Court.
[02:04:20]  And to not acknowledge that, to hold the seat of Thurgood Marshall, and to not understand that you are the benefactor of a great deal of sacrifice starting from the Declaration down where the founders envisioned.
[02:04:33]  Listen, if we had Jefferson and Adams sitting here with Ben Franklin, they'd say to me, Sophia, We knew when we did this that slavery needed to go.
[02:04:43]  We were clear, but we knew that if we did it, the South wouldn't come along with us.
[02:04:46]  So we made that sacrifice.
[02:04:48]  It wasn't a good choice.
[02:04:49]  Our hope, however, was that it would become a more perfect union, that it would expand, that eventually slaves would be free.
[02:04:56]  They were.
[02:04:56]  That eventually women would vote.
[02:04:58]  They did.
[02:04:59]  And so with every marker of progress we make, the Constitution expands.
[02:05:03]  I'm an expansionist.
[02:05:04]  I believe in a living, breathing Constitution.
[02:05:07]  I don't want to be governed by a document written in 1787.
[02:05:12]  That tells me I'm three fifths of a person.
[02:05:15]  I want you guys to hear what I said.
[02:05:17]  Check me on this.
[02:05:18]  Three fifths because I'm a slave in 1787.
[02:05:21]  I don't want to be defined that way.
[02:05:23]  I want to be defined in the way I live in 2026.
[02:05:27]  And that's what I'm talking about.
[02:05:29]  Not throwing it out, but renewing, breathing new life into it, and understanding that the founder's vision was always an inclusive, that everyone was given rights by God, but also that they were as a birthright.
[02:05:44]  Able and entitled to live freed by the law, that equal protection.
[02:05:48]  You can tell I'm a nerd and I'm a professor.
[02:05:51]  Anyway, I'm sorry.
[02:05:52]  I think most of us here at C SPAN are nerds.
[02:05:55]  That's why I love coming here.
[02:05:56]  All right.
[02:05:57]  If you have questions for Sophia Nelson about her book, Redefining Freedom Thoughts on Bridging Divides and Renewing the American Promise at 250, you can call in Republicans at 202 748 8001, Democrats at 202 748 8000, and Independent at 202 748 8002.
[02:06:16]  We're going to start with Diane in DeSoto, Kansas, on our line for Republicans.
[02:06:20]  Good morning, Diane.
[02:06:22]  Good morning.
[02:06:23]  I am a conservative, middle of the road type of person.
[02:06:28]  If I look at things objectively, what I see is a broken Congress.
[02:06:36]  It's so broken that I think we need term limits.
[02:06:40]  People I know on the right and the left seem to agree with this.
[02:06:44]  Everybody but Congress, they don't want it, of course.
[02:06:48]  But I would like to know what you think of that and how do we, the people, make that happen?
[02:06:56]  Thank you.
[02:06:58]  Yes, ma'am.
[02:06:59]  I fully agree with you, have long time been a proponent of term limits.
[02:07:03]  I do think that the system's broken, which is why I wrote the book.
[02:07:07]  I want us to celebrate our semi quincentennial, but I want us to be sober and I want us to think about it.
[02:07:13]  As to how we, the people, get it done, you're right.
[02:07:17]  It's difficult.
[02:07:17]  Congress is never going to limit themselves out of jobs that pay them almost $200,000 a year and let them work part time and do things that you and I could never do at our jobs.
[02:07:27]  So, in that instance, because of the way this government is set up, And Congress is elected every two years, we need to be holding those representatives.
[02:07:35]  We need to have referendums as people.
[02:07:37]  There are ways we can organize at the grassroots.
[02:07:40]  We can work through existing organizations, rather.
[02:07:44]  And you see that there's a big move to get rid of the Electoral College, right, to go to a popular vote.
[02:07:49]  And that's been around for a while.
[02:07:51]  Virginia just ratified one of the states that did so.
[02:07:54]  And I think that when you begin to see the movement to move away from the Electoral College, people will have to then really dig into how do we make this government not only more accountable, but Every generation, we should have fresh blood.
[02:08:08]  And one of the reasons I think our government is so broken, ma'am, is because you have people in Congress, and this isn't ageism.
[02:08:15]  There's no corporation you can go to in the Fortune 500 right now that has an 80 year old CEO or a 70 year old CEO.
[02:08:22]  They are in their 40s, 50s, and 60s for a reason because that is the place of life when we are more vibrant, we have lived some, we are hopefully wiser, and we can engage in a way that is thoughtful and understanding of those behind us and those ahead of us.
[02:08:40]  We need that in our government, and that is sorely missing right now.
[02:08:44]  All right, next up is Keith in Boulder, Colorado, on our line for Democrats.
[02:08:48]  Good morning, Keith.
[02:08:50]  Hi, Sophia.
[02:08:53]  As I recall, you are a traditional conservative, correct?
[02:08:56]  Yes.
[02:08:58]  Yeah, and I am really thrilled by your appearance this morning.
[02:09:04]  And something you said really resonated with me freedom requires personal responsibility.
[02:09:13]  And this is really important to me because we blame politicians, left, right, middle, doesn't matter.
[02:09:22]  But they're only a reflection of us.
[02:09:24]  And to tie this with social media or the rise in social media and technology, people don't realize that they are doing something that they have never been able to do in the history of mankind self publish.
[02:09:42]  Editorial responsibility for what you publish.
[02:09:47]  And this is what has devastated political discourse in the U.S.
[02:09:55]  Now, I will assign some blame to the right because AM radio did a lot of damage.
[02:10:02]  The demonization of half of America.
[02:10:08]  Let me give you one point on that.
[02:10:11]  Rush Limbaugh started calling the Democratic Party the Democrat Party.
[02:10:17]  Within a short space of time, the entire Republican Party, I don't call them the Republic Party, started adapting Democrat Party instead of Democratic Party.
[02:10:33]  So, you know, we all have responsibility to engage in the civil and responsible, Way we can attack Trump, the right can attack Biden, but it should be policy focused, and that's all I have to say.
[02:10:52]  But that personal responsibility in the civility of our politics is key.
[02:10:57]  So, thank you for saying that, and thank you for being a respectful and disciplined political analyst.
[02:11:05]  Thank you.
[02:11:06]  So, before you respond, I'd like to read another excerpt from your book that follows some of those points that Keith was highlighting.
[02:11:13]  You write In this era, we are living under a very different tone, one in which absolute personal freedom is celebrated over shared responsibility, in which grievance is sold as patriotism, in which cruelty masquerades as clarity, and in which power has been untethered from character in ways that alarm even those who once championed this style of politics.
[02:11:35]  Yeah, I mean, I think that's right.
[02:11:37]  I think the caller is onto something.
[02:11:38]  Social media has absolutely changed our discourse and not for the better.
[02:11:42]  I mean, you can be anonymous, you can, there are bots.
[02:11:46]  There's so many bots, you don't even know if you're engaging a human being or something else, and that's real, right?
[02:11:51]  You know, sometimes I'll get into these fights and people are like, hey, Sophia, that's like not even a person, so stop.
[02:11:57]  And so I think that this shared responsibility of civility has to be taught.
[02:12:03]  Unfortunately, the generations coming behind Gen X, and that's Y and Z, millennials Y and Z, they grew up with the devices.
[02:12:11]  That's their norm.
[02:12:13]  And unfortunately, what they're seeing in politics right now, the personal destruction, the animus, the The vitriol, the nastiness, that's their norm.
[02:12:22]  And I don't want them to ever believe that is the norm.
[02:12:25]  It is not.
[02:12:26]  What you're seeing now with the president's conduct and his tone and our leaders is awful.
[02:12:32]  It is not who we are.
[02:12:33]  It is not who we should be.

=== Supreme Court Character Assassination (05:40) ===

[02:12:35]  And that's why I wanted to write this book because, and I dedicated it.
[02:12:39]  I would love to be able to share the dedication because I dedicated it to young people, to the generation behind us.
[02:12:46]  And it is really important to me that I address you because.
[02:12:50]  I need you to take your country in a different direction, to renew that promise and that purpose, to understand that freedom is our great gift and it's why we're the envy of the world, at least we used to be before the last 15 months.
[02:13:06]  And so I hope we will work collectively and generationally to get that back.
[02:13:12]  You're welcome to read it.
[02:13:14]  So I wanted to share the book dedication because, again, I think this is who we're talking about.
[02:13:20]  For the generations of Americans yet to come, The stewards of our republic, you matter to me.
[02:13:27]  I thought of you with every word I wrote.
[02:13:30]  Go forward, and when your life is past the middle, as mine is now, may you look back over the winding path behind you, knowing you did your part too.
[02:13:43]  Keep a more perfect union alive.
[02:13:46]  May you have lived with courage, acted with conscience, and preserved the enduring promise.
[02:13:54]  That all are created equal, endowed with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
[02:14:03]  Next up is James in Ypsilanti, Michigan, on our line for independence.
[02:14:08]  Good morning, James.
[02:14:10]  Hello.
[02:14:11]  Good morning.
[02:14:12]  Good morning.
[02:14:13]  I belong to the new movement, the new generation from 35 to 40.
[02:14:21]  And I was talking, I was following Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court Justice.
[02:14:29]  And I believe in what he said is good because the progressives, what progressives have done, like Cortez and Omar, they let these immigrants in here.
[02:14:41]  I'm a black American.
[02:14:42]  My ancestors built this country, okay?
[02:14:45]  And for them to let these immigrants in and Joe Biden, I think it was politically wrong, okay?
[02:14:53]  So, what our organization is doing, which we got over a million FBA, foundational black Americans, we're going to take this country back.
[02:15:05]  And we know all the immigrants in the Congress, we know what they're all about, and we know they're against us.
[02:15:12]  So, it's going to end, okay?
[02:15:15]  Now, a lot of them, I'm a young person.
[02:15:17]  James, what specifically have members of Congress who are immigrants done to make you feel like they're against black Americans?
[02:15:25]  Because, number one, when they get in office, they're looking out for where they come from, and they people where they come from, like the Somalians.
[02:15:33]  Okay, I think we get the idea.
[02:15:34]  Let's have our guest respond.
[02:15:37]  Obviously, James, I disagree with your point of view vehemently.
[02:15:40]  I'm an African American woman.
[02:15:42]  I am descended from slaves on both sides of my parentage, both sides.
[02:15:48]  We cannot confuse the Trinidad and Tobago slave trade with immigration.
[02:15:54]  They're vastly different.
[02:15:55]  Some people were brought here against their will.
[02:15:57]  Others came here seeking hope, seeking a future, seeking a better life for themselves.
[02:16:03]  You know, America has been a beacon.
[02:16:05]  You go back and you look at Ronald Reagan's speeches, you go back and you go all the way back, you will see that the founders talked about it.
[02:16:13]  Most of the founding fathers were from immigrant families out of Europe and other places in Europe.
[02:16:18]  And so, to suggest that somehow immigrants have invaded our country or doing harm to our country is just specious and not correct.
[02:16:27]  Illegal immigrants is a different conversation.
[02:16:31]  It has become a very difficult one, I think, in this country, a very divisive one.
[02:16:37]  Presidents Obama, Biden, Bush, Clinton, others all deported people who were illegal in large numbers, but they did so in a way that was respectful of the legal process.
[02:16:50]  It didn't divide the country.
[02:16:52]  There were not ICE officers literally in the streets shooting and killing American citizens.
[02:16:59]  And we didn't see that because there wasn't this heated rhetoric that we talked about a few moments ago on social media and otherwise that dehumanizes people.
[02:17:09]  I don't believe there are illegal human beings.
[02:17:12]  My Christian faith does not allow me to think that way about other human beings.
[02:17:17]  I believe that there are people who need to come here the right way.
[02:17:20]  And I hope we work on policies and solutions.
[02:17:23]  That move us in that direction because we can solve this because we are Americans and we can solve anything when we put our minds to it.
[02:17:32]  Phyllis is in Durango, Colorado, on our line for Republicans.
[02:17:36]  Good morning, Phyllis.
[02:17:39]  Good morning.
[02:17:39]  I called to applaud this young woman.
[02:17:45]  I cannot believe how she put my thoughts into words.
[02:17:50]  We have lost respect.
[02:17:52]  And I'm going to cry.
[02:17:54]  I just love this lady.
[02:17:57]  I hope her book sells to everyone.
[02:18:01]  Thank you so much.
[02:18:02]  Well, thank you, ma'am.
[02:18:03]  You humble me.
[02:18:04]  And I do think that we need to bring respect and civility.
[02:18:08]  But I am all for, let me be clear, I love debate.
[02:18:11]  I love the arena.
[02:18:13]  I like to get in there and mix it up.

=== Keeping the Republic Alive (14:44) ===

[02:18:16]  But we've crossed lines now.
[02:18:18]  Like, you know, the character assassination, not just of public figures, but their families get drawn in.
[02:18:27]  Death threats.
[02:18:28]  I've gotten them.
[02:18:29]  Every journalist who's been on this show and otherwise, we all get death threats.
[02:18:33]  We all get vile things said to us, threats to our families.
[02:18:37]  That didn't happen a decade or two ago.
[02:18:40]  Definitely not three ago.
[02:18:41]  When I first came on this show the first time in 1998, I was a baby, I was in my 20s.
[02:18:46]  And I was a new committee counsel, and it was a different world then.
[02:18:50]  You just didn't have the access to people the way you do now because of devices and social media.
[02:18:57]  All right, next up is Eric in New York on our line for Democrats.
[02:19:02]  Good morning, Eric.
[02:19:05]  Hello, ladies.
[02:19:06]  Sophia, you're a breath of fresh air, as that woman explained, and you're singing my song.
[02:19:15]  The idea that people communicate better with more technology is a canard.
[02:19:25]  10, 11 years ago, I was watching our news feeds du jour, and I said to her, Wow, you watch this stuff, and you would think that half this country believes that if the other half dries up and blows away, then we've arrived at some kind of wonderful place.
[02:19:39]  And I said, I don't believe that's true.
[02:19:41]  That doesn't seem to be the world I walk around in.
[02:19:44]  So, what I did was I proceeded to come up with a personal poll because I think that our founding fathers, well, I know they did, in order to hash out our Constitution and all the heavy things of the day, they closed themselves in a room and faced each other and discussed it and were able to glean the nuances, the little bits, the important bits of the differences.
[02:20:12]  And what people communicate in person comes to the fore when you're in person.
[02:20:18]  And those guys were practiced at it, too.
[02:20:20]  So, to that point, I set off into our body politic in my daily rounds, just going to the gas station.
[02:20:28]  And whenever I found somebody alone, I did this for nine and a half years.
[02:20:32]  I turned to them and said, Excuse me, may I ask you for your opinion?
[02:20:37]  Invariably, they said yes as they pumped the gas or as we rode the elevator alone now.
[02:20:43]  Do you think most people are nice?
[02:20:44]  I asked them.
[02:20:45]  An innocuous question with what I think has a lot of meat in it.
[02:20:51]  So, Eric, your field research does sound really fascinating, but I want to make sure we can get to lots of callers.
[02:20:57]  What's your question for Sophia?
[02:20:58]  With her and face to face.
[02:21:00]  Use the body politic that we have in this.
[02:21:03]  We are an incredible product from our democratic experiment, and we're being tested because of the naysayers who get a lot of traction with their negativity online.
[02:21:13]  Thank you so much.
[02:21:14]  All right.
[02:21:15]  Yeah, I mean, I think we're circling the same wagon here that we all agree, and I think it's definitely age related as well, right?
[02:21:22]  If you grew up before social media and devices, you have a different opinion about human connection and real conversations and how you treat people and what's kind and what isn't.
[02:21:32]  If you're younger, it's harder.
[02:21:34]  Tony is in Gilderland, New York on our line for independence.
[02:21:37]  Good morning, Tony.
[02:21:39]  Oh, good morning.
[02:21:40]  Just make sure to turn down the volume on your TV, Tony, and then go ahead with your question.
[02:21:46]  Okay.
[02:21:47]  I totally disagree with the apathy as far as the voter.
[02:21:51]  We have bad people who have taken over with the system where they're kidnapping the vote and they're using it as their own personal agenda to do what they wish to do.
[02:22:03]  It's not that because the voter is being, what do you call it, apathy.
[02:22:08]  I totally do not agree with that.
[02:22:11]  And the second point is the Supreme Court keeps on going back to the founding fathers.
[02:22:19]  Why isn't that what's Relevant nowadays, what's good for the American people, whether it's a Republican or a Democrat.
[02:22:28]  They keep on going back to what?
[02:22:30]  That's a different time and a different era.
[02:22:33]  Thank you.
[02:22:36]  So, if I understand you properly, Tony, you're saying that the issue is not voter apathy, it's that when people vote, you think that their power is effectively captured and misused, is your first point?
[02:22:49]  Yes.
[02:22:50]  Okay.
[02:22:51]  And then your second point being that the Supreme Court needs to sort of lose its focus on the original document and be more expansive in its interpretation of what is needed for the modern day.
[02:23:03]  Is that what you meant for your second point?
[02:23:06]  Yes.
[02:23:07]  Okay.
[02:23:07]  Go ahead.
[02:23:07]  Yeah, I mean, I don't agree at all that apathy isn't a problem.
[02:23:11]  A republic dies slowly.
[02:23:13]  Look historically.
[02:23:14]  Democracies don't die overnight.
[02:23:16]  They die this slow, painful death.
[02:23:18]  It's like, you know, the frog that you put in the pot when the water's hot, he'll jump out.
[02:23:22]  But if you warm the water up while he's in there, he'll just succumb.
[02:23:26]  That's where we are.
[02:23:27]  When 50% of our people don't participate in our elections, that is apathy.
[02:23:32]  That is an attitude that says it has been overtaken by the bad people.
[02:23:38]  So what?
[02:23:38]  What's that have to do with me?
[02:23:40]  I think that on the point about the Supreme Court, I was very clear.
[02:23:43]  I'm an expansionist in my view of the Constitution.
[02:23:47]  I think the Supreme Court has proven that stare decisis, the principle of precedent standing, they've blown that out of the water with Roe versus Wade and some of the other decisions.
[02:23:58]  I suspect they'll do the same with the voting rights decision that'll come down probably this summer.
[02:24:02]  And I think that this court has done a lot of wishy washy, kind of, well, one minute we're textualists.
[02:24:10]  But for example, this 14th Amendment birthright case will be fascinating to see how they come down.
[02:24:15]  That should be an easy 9 0 decision because if you believe in the original text, well, clearly you believe in the 14th Amendment.
[02:24:22]  It's one of the most center core amendments to our constitutional process and order, and it'll be interesting to see how they vote.
[02:24:30]  So I think a lot of politics has infected our body politic.
[02:24:34]  Another thing I think we should talk about is money and the influence of money in our politics because I think.
[02:24:41]  Maybe that's what he's getting at in a sense that even if we vote the lobbyists, the influence of Citizens United, and that somehow money is speech.
[02:24:50]  Well, if I'm a billionaire, Elon Musk, or anyone, I have very different speech from somebody who has no money, and I have more influence.
[02:24:58]  And so I think that these things have broken down our order and made us apathetic.
[02:25:03]  We feel powerless.
[02:25:04]  Tom is in Chesapeake, Virginia, on our line for Republicans.
[02:25:08]  Good morning, Tom.
[02:25:11]  Yes, good morning.
[02:25:14]  I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I will take issue with switching Virginia districting.
[02:25:25]  So, why should us conservatives in the state of Virginia put this on the chin for the next, what you said, five years?
[02:25:32]  I think so.
[02:25:33]  We already have a governor just elected that is out of control, tax wise, law enforcement wise, gun enforcement wise.
[02:25:45]  Taxes for everything that's under the sun.
[02:25:48]  So maybe you could shed a little light on that.
[02:25:51]  Thank you.
[02:25:51]  First of all, thank you for your call, and I respect your position.
[02:25:55]  I told you in my core I'm not nuts about it, but I'm looking at the long game and the preservation of our principles of how we do democracy and governing.
[02:26:05]  And the Republicans can't, on the one hand, say, as the president and others did, we're going to go rig the vote up in Texas and other places so that we win the midterms, and then get angry when the Democrats' elections have consequences.
[02:26:17]  The Democrats won in Virginia overwhelmingly.
[02:26:20]  They have a supermajority and the governor.
[02:26:22]  So they can do this, but what I love about what they did, sir, is that they put it up for a vote.
[02:26:28]  You have a chance to vote no, and so do Virginians.
[02:26:30]  Virginians may well wake up on Wednesday morning and this thing is over.
[02:26:35]  We'll have to see how the voters feel about it, but I'm empathetic to what you're saying and I thank you for your respectful call.
[02:26:42]  Diane is in Fort Myers, Florida, on our line for Democrats.
[02:26:45]  Good morning, Diane.
[02:26:47]  Hello, Sophia.
[02:26:48]  Hello, good morning.
[02:26:49]  Thank you so much for what you've done.
[02:26:51]  I cannot wait.
[02:26:52]  To read your book, there's so many things that the callers have said before me, but I'll try to be brief.
[02:26:59]  One of them is I'm 64 years old.
[02:27:03]  So I have been around, I think my first election I voted was with Ronald Reagan.
[02:27:10]  We are so divisive anymore.
[02:27:13]  When I watch C SPAN and I see my elected representatives up there and the way they treat each other, it's just devastating to me.
[02:27:23]  I remember back in the day when there was compromise.
[02:27:27]  There seems to be no compromise.
[02:27:30]  But my main question is are we not, well, our Constitution, for one thing, should be dynamic, meaning that it does change?
[02:27:42]  For example, Do you have a right to own a gun?
[02:27:45]  I am not one to say you cannot have a gun.
[02:27:48]  I just don't think that guns out there that are for massive shootings should be.
[02:27:55]  I mean, when you can get that done in five seconds, are you kidding me?
[02:27:59]  Anyway, so my question was about the Supreme Court.
[02:28:03]  How do we expand that court?
[02:28:07]  Because right now, whoever is in power and they can.
[02:28:15]  Bring forth their nominee for the Supreme Court.
[02:28:19]  How is it always now along party lines, just about?
[02:28:24]  I just don't see us ever.
[02:28:26]  And if Trump gets two more years and he replaces Alito, it could be massively skewed one side.
[02:28:36]  What would happen if you put in, if a Democrat resigns or dies, God forbid, you can put in another Democrat?
[02:28:45]  He doesn't get to choose.
[02:28:46]  That's just, you're waiting.
[02:28:48]  And then, so then they go to the Senate and they try to get them on the court.
[02:28:55]  They get on the court again, not mutually, but how can we expand the court so that it's even?
[02:29:02]  It has to be even.
[02:29:04]  And these constructions, they have to recognize the fact that we are not living for 250 years.
[02:29:11]  So, Diane, I do want to let Sophia respond to your interesting question.
[02:29:16]  So, it's a great question.
[02:29:17]  Three things.
[02:29:18]  One, the president has the power to expand the court.
[02:29:21]  FDR did it and moved it up to nine justices.
[02:29:25]  And there have been calls, as you know, as of late to expand the court to model the district courts around the country.
[02:29:35]  So, I think there are 13 of the circuits, if you will, around the country.
[02:29:40]  And so instead of having nine, we should have 13 justices.
[02:29:43]  I think that that's something I would like to see Congress and the president work on together.
[02:29:49]  The second thing is, to your point, and I want to be unequivocal about this the third branch of government, the Article III branch, the judicial branch, should be the nonpartisan arbiter.
[02:30:01]  There shouldn't be Republican judges and Democrat judges.
[02:30:04]  There should be impartial, justices blind judges.
[02:30:09]  We need to get back to that.
[02:30:11]  And putting in somebody because they lean your way, whether that's right or left, is not the standard we should use.
[02:30:19]  We should use qualifications, brilliant jurists.
[02:30:23]  You know, I take Justice Earl Warren, who's one of my heroes.
[02:30:28]  And but for Earl Warren being appointed to the court by Dwight Eisenhower, he was governor of California, a Republican, but a moderate centrist, you would have called him in his day.
[02:30:38]  That man single handedly went to every single justice when it came time for Brown versus the Board of Education and said, We need to look at this and we need to get rid of this odious segregation.
[02:30:49]  We need to do it within the confines of the law and we need to be unanimous.
[02:30:52]  What am I saying?
[02:30:54]  He was a leader.
[02:30:55]  He knew how to lead his fellow justices on an issue of morality, on an issue central to who we say we are as Americans.
[02:31:02]  I want justices like that back.
[02:31:04]  I want justices who don't blow with the wind and use their special privileges when a matter comes before the court.
[02:31:12]  Every justice has different circuits that they're responsible for.
[02:31:17]  This court has done that a lot.
[02:31:18]  It has been the subject of a lot of scorn and contempt, frankly, from writers about how.
[02:31:25]  They've moved a very conservative agenda when judges should.
[02:31:29]  I'm not saying the shadow docket.
[02:31:30]  Yeah, the shadow docket.
[02:31:31]  And I'm sorry, inside ball, shadow docket.
[02:31:33]  And that's not something we should do.
[02:31:36]  I think we need term limits for justices.
[02:31:39]  I think just like senators have a six year and representatives have a two year, justices should not have lifetime appointments.
[02:31:47]  18 years, maybe 24 years.
[02:31:49]  Most Supreme Court justices get appointed probably in their 50s.
[02:31:54]  Maybe it's 40s, nails early.
[02:31:55]  You've got Coney Barrett and Jackson and some others.
[02:31:59]  But They're going to serve on the court theoretically to their 80s, right?
[02:32:03]  If you go by Sandra Day O'Connor or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that means you have a justice that could be on a court for 40 years or 30 plus years.
[02:32:12]  That's ridiculous.
[02:32:13]  You need to change that, turn that over.
[02:32:15]  We've got a couple of comments that we received via text for you.
[02:32:19]  This one is from Sims Floyd from Columbia, South Carolina.
[02:32:25]  Sophia, you are a rock star.
[02:32:27]  Fabulous points made this morning.
[02:32:29]  We must take responsibility for our freedom and for our democracy.
[02:32:32]  It is like exercise.
[02:32:34]  You can't achieve it in one day, and if you only do it for one day, it doesn't work.
[02:32:38]  Social media, unfortunately, has brought out the worst in us Democrat, Republican, and independent alike.
[02:32:44]  We all own it.
[02:32:46]  Unfortunately, it creates a tension before we ever walk outdoors and interact with others.
[02:32:51]  Then, when we engage with others, the discourse is at a higher temperature than it should be.
[02:32:55]  Knowledge and respect are foremost in protecting our freedom and our democracy.

=== Celebrating 250 Years of Independence (05:39) ===

[02:33:00]  Thank you for writing this book.
[02:33:02]  I look forward to reading it soon.
[02:33:05]  Another comment Hello, Auntie Sophia.
[02:33:07]  Thank you for dedicating your book to our youth generation.
[02:33:10]  Good morning, and I'm so proud of you.
[02:33:12]  That's from Christopher in Leesburg, Virginia.
[02:33:15]  That's my godson.
[02:33:17]  Oh.
[02:33:19]  Let's hear from Earl in Indiana on our line for Republicans.
[02:33:22]  Good morning, Earl.
[02:33:25]  Yeah, this lady's on there to sell a book.
[02:33:27]  We got one book that we never talk about.
[02:33:32]  And we talk about laws.
[02:33:33]  We got 10 commandments we're supposed to live by.
[02:33:38]  God doesn't change his.
[02:33:41]  Earl, Sophia mentioned her Christian faith earlier.
[02:33:44]  Did you have a question for her?
[02:33:46]  Yeah.
[02:33:48]  What do you think the world's coming to?
[02:33:50]  All right.
[02:33:51]  Well, Earl, I couldn't agree with you more that I would love to see us be kinder and to the tenets of the Ten Commandments.
[02:33:59]  However, we are a democratic republic.
[02:34:03]  We are not a theocracy.
[02:34:05]  We don't use, we have a separation of church and state.
[02:34:08]  And we believe that everybody has a right to have faith, enjoy their faith, or not.
[02:34:14]  You can be an atheist in this country, and that's okay too.
[02:34:18]  But yes, I agree with you that it gets back to that moral and virtuous government that John Adams spoke about.
[02:34:25]  It is essential.
[02:34:26]  And right now, we are not seeing the best of us represented in office.
[02:34:31]  We have men and women alike, tragically, who it's what can I do for my personal gain?
[02:34:36]  How can I demean somebody?
[02:34:38]  You cannot have, and I talk about this a lot in the book, the presidency is bigger than one man or one woman.
[02:34:45]  It is an institution.
[02:34:47]  And what comes from the presidency, that bully pulpit, literally affects policy around the globe.
[02:34:54]  And when the president of the United States demeans female journalists and calls them piggy, And tells them to shut up or get out or calls them stupid or dumb.
[02:35:04]  Not only is that incredibly sexist and unkind, it's just not the way a president of this country has ever spoken to anybody in a public way.
[02:35:13]  And the fact that we tolerate it and it's just glossed over, oh, that's just the way he is.
[02:35:19]  No, that is not the way he should be in our presidency.
[02:35:23]  And I look forward to a day when we have a president that acts with respect and decorum and treats reporters and respects the First Amendment as well with decorum.
[02:35:32]  Chris is in Dayton, Ohio, on our line for Democrats.
[02:35:35]  Good morning, Chris.
[02:35:37]  Good morning.
[02:35:38]  I'd like to talk about the 250 year anniversary of our democracy.
[02:35:43]  How can we define democracy or freedom when we continue to go backwards?
[02:35:51]  We're not working towards a more perfect union.
[02:35:56]  It's hard to define.
[02:35:57]  But 250 years ago, we were fighting against a king, a real king.
[02:36:03]  And now, Again, 250 years, we are fighting against our wannabe kings.
[02:36:13]  But we have a legislature, we have a judicial branch, and the executive branch.
[02:36:19]  And those are the people who are to blame for where we are today.
[02:36:25]  These are the people.
[02:36:26]  Instead of when you go back and read a Declaration of Independence, the framers found 27 arguments against the king.
[02:36:38]  And if you go back and read it in the present day sense, you'll find at least 10.
[02:36:43]  Against this present government, the executive branch, the judicial branch, and the legislative branch.
[02:36:51]  So, I love this caller because I wish I could pull up the section in the book, but I actually dig into this and I go through what King George was accused of and some of the things that the current president and administration is doing.
[02:37:06]  And when you put them side by side, it's a little frightening.
[02:37:09]  And so, I think to your point, we agree that.
[02:37:14]  This country has an amazing story.
[02:37:16]  It's a great experiment.
[02:37:18]  I keep going back to old Ben Franklin when asked, What form of government do we have?
[02:37:24]  And he says, A republic, if you can keep it.
[02:37:27]  The question is at this semi quincentennial, will we keep it?
[02:37:31]  I am optimistic that we will, that we can.
[02:37:34]  I agree, we go forward, we expand, we grow while holding to the core tenets of our principles of freedom, equality, Equanimity, justice, fairness, civility, integrity, honor.
[02:37:52]  It's why we were that, as was said by John, I think, Winthrop or Althorpe in the 1600s about that shining city on a hill and that that's what we should aspire to be.
[02:38:05]  And America was seen as that, the beacon of light to all the world.
[02:38:10]  You know, France is our greatest old friend and ally.
[02:38:14]  England, after we break free and And become our own nation, becomes our great ally and friend.
[02:38:21]  The King of England will be here next week with his wife, and they will be here, interestingly, to celebrate this 250th anniversary of breaking free from England.
[02:38:31]  How ironic is that?
[02:38:33]  I say all that to say, have faith, we will get through this, and we do need to focus forward.

=== Affordability and Inflation Rates (08:33) ===

[02:38:40]  Sophia Nelson, thank you so much for joining us here on C SPAN.
[02:38:44]  Again, the title of her new book is Redefining Freedom.
[02:38:48]  Thoughts on bridging divides and renewing the American promise at 250.
[02:38:53]  Thank you so much.
[02:38:54]  Thanks for having me.
[02:38:55]  I'll also point out that you can find all of C SPAN's coverage of America at 250 on our website, cspan.org.
[02:39:03]  Now, coming up, we'll have open forum.
[02:39:05]  It's your chance to call in, and we want to hear from you.
[02:39:08]  Our phone lines for Republicans, 202 748 8001.
[02:39:12]  For Democrats, 202 748 8000.
[02:39:15]  And Independents, 202 748 8002.
[02:39:18]  We'll be right back.
[02:39:32]  Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series.
[02:39:36]  Today, with our guest, three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, author Alice McDermott, who has written several novels, stories, and essays.
[02:39:45]  Her novel, Absolution, was a New York Times instant bestseller and named by many publications as one of the best books of 2023.
[02:39:54]  She joins our host, renowned author, and civic leader, David Rubenstein.
[02:39:59]  So when you graduated from college, what did you do?
[02:40:02]  I took a class my second year at Oswego that was called The Nature of Nonfiction.
[02:40:08]  And it was taught by a retired Air Force colonel, Dr. Paul Breon.
[02:40:14]  And the first assignment that he gave our class was to go out and write an autobiographical essay.
[02:40:20]  So I went back to the dorm and I wrote a three page story with a first person narrator, someone of my age and ilk, but it was entirely made up.
[02:40:33]  None of it had actually happened to me.
[02:40:35]  I made up a story and I presented it as a piece of nonfiction.
[02:40:40]  And after he had gone through what I had written and corrected my spelling and my grammar and my terrible use of commas, he said, McDermott, I want to talk to you after class.
[02:40:51]  He said to me when I sheepishly went down at the end of class, I got bad news for you, kid.
[02:40:58]  You're a writer and you'll never shake it.
[02:41:02]  Watch America's Book Club with Alice McDermott.
[02:41:05]  Today, At 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C SPAN.
[02:41:13]  you Washington Journal continues.
[02:41:23]  Welcome back.
[02:41:24]  We're an open forum ready to take your calls.
[02:41:26]  We're going to start with Robin in Schenectady, New York on our line for Republicans.
[02:41:30]  Good morning, Robin.
[02:41:32]  Good morning.
[02:41:33]  I'm going to use this for an example because it's a microcosm of a bigger problem.
[02:41:38]  The city council in Schenectady is having a few problems which mirror what's happening on a bigger level.
[02:41:46]  And the council president openly bragged about the help that he received from the Black Panther Party.
[02:41:52]  You know, I walk down the streets in Schenectady.
[02:41:55]  I do volunteering there.
[02:41:57]  And I see they're using poor people as a front and saying what they're doing to help them.
[02:42:01]  But they're doing very little.
[02:42:02]  They go out and they show boat a day here or there.
[02:42:05]  And those of us that are out there day in and day out doing our volunteerism just can't believe the money that they rake in.
[02:42:12]  And then they get people elected with it who, again, say that they're helping the poor.
[02:42:16]  But frankly, they're doing nothing.
[02:42:18]  So it's not quite, you know, illegal money.
[02:42:23]  But it's so close to the line.
[02:42:26]  And then each of these little groups that goes out and says, Oh, look at what I've done for a day, blah, You know, they go out a day, then they go back to the city council and say what they've done.
[02:42:35]  The city council says how great they are.
[02:42:37]  And the rest of us look at them and say, You're crazy.
[02:42:39]  We don't say that, but.
[02:42:41]  And that's how my local elected officials get elected.
[02:42:45]  And that's frankly what's happening on the bigger level, right?
[02:42:49]  These small groups, and they're bigger and bigger and bigger, collect a lot of money.
[02:42:53]  We don't know how it's gotten.
[02:42:55]  They get their people into power.
[02:42:57]  They make a lot of money.
[02:42:58]  They spread it around to their friends to say, Oh, look what we've done.
[02:43:01]  And they've done very little.
[02:43:03]  So, again, how money is given and maybe the end of the two party system, frankly, basing it meritoriously, some other way to get people into office.
[02:43:16]  Thank you.
[02:43:17]  Next up is Barbara in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on our line for independence.
[02:43:22]  Good morning, Barbara.
[02:43:24]  Hi.
[02:43:26]  I want to talk about the border and another thing.
[02:43:32]  Every day on this show now, there's three hours of this lying about Biden.
[02:43:37]  Why is this going on every single day?
[02:43:41]  As man tells you, he didn't have any inflation.
[02:43:44]  Biden is the one that got inflation down.
[02:43:47]  He was handed 9.8% inflation and he handed back two something.
[02:43:54]  And that border.
[02:43:57]  Why don't you show us an open border?
[02:43:59]  You're trying to say Biden just didn't have no one down there taking names or anything.
[02:44:04]  Biden sent back 90%, 90 something, over 90% of the people who came across the border when he was in there.
[02:44:12]  And y'all say that, oh, he just let them flow.
[02:44:16]  No, he didn't do nothing.
[02:44:18]  He sent all of them back.
[02:44:20]  This man is sitting up there.
[02:44:22]  First, he, oh, God, when he first came, Around.
[02:44:28]  All he does is sit up there and say things that just blow your mind.
[02:44:33]  When he told us he wanted to blank his own daughter, are you kidding me?
[02:44:39]  I just couldn't believe anybody would vote for someone who would say that to you.
[02:44:44]  We have a pedophile and a nude model up there in our White House, and we're at pretending that they're not that.
[02:44:52]  And all of this going on is just ridiculous.
[02:44:56]  We didn't have an open border with Biden.
[02:44:59]  Every single president since.
[02:45:02]  Dwight Eisenhower, that is a Republican, Dwight Eisenhower was great.
[02:45:08]  But the Republicans, since every single one of them hand over a busted economy.
[02:45:15]  And you can look that up and you can tell these people that are listening to you the truth about this man.
[02:45:23]  And we wouldn't put someone in there like that.
[02:45:26]  This is ridiculous that he's destroying our whole country.
[02:45:29]  We're going to get a new ballroom, but no health care.
[02:45:33]  All right.
[02:45:34]  I think we have the idea, Barbara.
[02:45:36]  Let's hear from Bob in Logan, Utah, on our line for Democrats.
[02:45:39]  Good morning, Bob.
[02:45:41]  Good morning.
[02:45:44]  Sophia Nilsson, that is the type of person that should be leading this Democrat Party.
[02:45:52]  The people that are leading it don't say enough, they don't say anything intelligent.
[02:45:59]  If the Democrats are smart, they should beggar to take over being the leader of the Democrats.
[02:46:05]  Party.
[02:46:06]  And I guess if anybody knows her, tell her what was said about her.
[02:46:12]  Thank you.
[02:46:13]  All right.
[02:46:14]  David is in French Lick, Indiana, on our line for Republicans.
[02:46:18]  Good morning, David.
[02:46:20]  Good morning.
[02:46:21]  I just want to speak on the affordability issue that you discussed in the first hour.
[02:46:27]  A gentleman asked what the rate of inflation was during the Biden administration.
[02:46:36]  He seemed to have difficulty finding that.
[02:46:39]  It took me one second.
[02:46:40]  Oh, he was asking about gas prices during the Biden administration.
[02:46:43]  Okay, gas prices, that's what I'm getting to.
[02:46:46]  21.5% interest, I mean, inflation, the highest gas that I paid in the Orange County, Indiana at the time was $5.25.
[02:46:58]  Oil, as you probably are aware of this, is down to $82 a barrel.
[02:47:04]  When the Iran conflict started, it was $72.
[02:47:07]  That's a $10 difference in the price of oil per barrel.

=== Senators Should Return Salaries (13:09) ===

[02:47:13]  So, you know, that's just kind of where I want to be.
[02:47:18]  We've got to hang in there.
[02:47:19]  Oh, as far as the deductions on the taxes, I'm 67.
[02:47:23]  I receive a $6,000 deduction for my taxes.
[02:47:27]  I paid zero federal income tax.
[02:47:30]  So, you know, your slant is always do a poll and then back all the poll numbers up with articles from left wing media sources.
[02:47:47]  So continue that and good luck on the PBS NewsHour.
[02:47:52]  Okay.
[02:47:53]  Don is in New Orleans, Louisiana, on our line for independence.
[02:47:57]  Good morning, Don.
[02:47:59]  Yes, a very good morning.
[02:48:01]  And the Pope Leo XIV is in Angola, a country in southern Africa.
[02:48:09]  But in Louisiana, we have a supermax penitentiary, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, that's called Angola because it was a former plantation that the captives, the enslaved, were from the country of Angola.
[02:48:26]  Mainly.
[02:48:27]  So we don't call, we wouldn't call LSU football team Angola, even though it has the same demographics as Angola, Louisiana State Penitentiary personnel.
[02:48:41]  White guards, black inmates, majority.
[02:48:44]  But my point is, where I want to talk about the Pope and this back and forth with President and Vice President, the Catholic Church painstakingly was brought to the mat on child.
[02:48:58]  Abuse cases.
[02:48:59]  Many priests have gone to prison.
[02:49:02]  They're reaching financial settlements with some of the victims.
[02:49:05]  So, if the President of the United States is going to challenge the Pope and the Vice President is going to challenge him on theology and on the scriptures, let them be an example and come out and put the Epstein's files out into the public and address the Epstein's files as courageous as the Catholic Church, willingly or unwillingly, is addressing the child abuse cases that's been going on for many, many decades.
[02:49:31]  And so that's the thing.
[02:49:32]  And the other part is, I'm going to give President Trump some credit.
[02:49:36]  He did say he was not taking his presidential salary, that is $400,000 a year.
[02:49:44]  And so many of these senators and congresspeople who have become, some come into office financially very wealthy, I would challenge them to give up their $179,000 a year salary and give it back to the government since we're in such a deficit.
[02:50:02]  And set an example.
[02:50:03]  Many of them have many hundreds of millions of dollars in net worth.
[02:50:06]  And some have, such as Marjorie Greene, became wealthy since they joined the Congress with insider trading that has been allegated.
[02:50:16]  So let's set this.
[02:50:18]  I'm going to give the president some credit where credit is due because President Obama had student loans and he couldn't afford to get back his $400,000.
[02:50:25]  He had to pay off his student loans from law school.
[02:50:27]  So let's set the examples.
[02:50:28]  Let's give credit where credit is due.
[02:50:30]  But let's follow the church, the Catholic church, and what they're doing.
[02:50:34]  To address child abuse allegations and convictions for many years that released the Epstein's files.
[02:50:42]  Danny is in Jamestown, South Carolina, on our line for Republicans.
[02:50:46]  Good morning, Danny.
[02:50:48]  Good morning.
[02:50:49]  Thank you for taking my call.
[02:50:51]  No, I don't think somebody brought up Miss Sophia should run for politics.
[02:50:56]  I don't believe that should be the case.
[02:50:58]  I heard her bring up the two people that got shot in the city for interfering with the legal.
[02:51:06]  ICE arrests they were trying to conduct.
[02:51:09]  But I didn't hear her bring up Mr. Trump being tried to be assassinated twice or Mr. Charlie Kirk being murdered by the Democratic Party.
[02:51:18]  So I'll leave it at that, and you'll have a nice day.
[02:51:23]  James is in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on our line for Democrats.
[02:51:27]  Good morning, James.
[02:51:29]  And can you please turn down the volume on your television and then go ahead with your comment?
[02:51:34]  Thank you.
[02:51:36]  I am astonished and shocked to hear not only some of the Republicans, but Democrats brag on Trump for taking, giving up $400,000.
[02:51:50]  And he's the only president in history and his family to make over.
[02:51:58]  $2.5 billion in county.
[02:52:03]  And we are not talking about the elephant in the room.
[02:52:10]  Republicans and Trump don't want to see low income people have anything because we are black.
[02:52:22]  All these comments you're getting from these ridiculous people just criticizing the lady for being on.
[02:52:29]  Earlier, because he's a diehard racist.
[02:52:33]  And that's what we need to be addressing in this country racism.
[02:52:39]  Everything that's going on right now is because of race.
[02:52:46]  Next up is Mustafa in Jackson, Michigan, on our line for independence.
[02:52:52]  Good morning, Mustafa.
[02:52:54]  Good morning, Kimberly, and thank you for taking my call.
[02:52:57]  As a U.S. Army veteran and foundational black American, I did not appreciate you cutting off the previous edit.
[02:53:03]  FBA caller in your last segment.
[02:53:06]  You seem to cut off all the FBA callers while letting the anti FBA Democrats harangue.
[02:53:12]  FBA, this is what I wanted to say on the last segment.
[02:53:15]  FBA care deeply about freedom and democracy.
[02:53:19]  That's why we ask where was the Democrats' support when we call for lineage based reparations?
[02:53:25]  When Philando Castile was unalived despite being a legally armed citizen?
[02:53:31]  Or when our children were pushed through the school to prison pipeline?
[02:53:36]  Yet the DIMs crash out for illegal immigrants.
[02:53:40]  And one more note as I land my plane please stop calling FBA people African American.
[02:53:46]  We are a distinct lineage with a unique history in this country.
[02:53:51]  My family, for example, was enslaved here and have no lineage that traces to Africa.
[02:53:57]  And that identity deserves recognition.
[02:54:02]  Thank you, Katie McCall.
[02:54:04]  Next up is Chaz in Wisconsin on our line for Republicans.
[02:54:07]  Good morning, Chaz.
[02:54:09]  Good morning.
[02:54:09]  I have a couple things written down.
[02:54:11]  First, I want to comment to the older lady that called in open forum not understanding that the border was open.
[02:54:19]  Well, the only news station that was even at the border, Eagle Pass, Texas, and whatnot, was Bill Malusion from Fox.
[02:54:26]  And the Biden administration went after them for flying drones over these fenced in areas where all these illegals were.
[02:54:35]  And you could see them walking right around the fence.
[02:54:38]  So it's out there.
[02:54:39]  You just got to watch.
[02:54:41]  Open your mind to more news.
[02:54:43]  Also, Kimberly, to the guy that asked you about the Joe Biden gas prices, it was very easy for me to find some numbers that weren't just written within this week during the Iran conflict.
[02:54:56]  So, in 2019, the average gas price that year was $2.60.
[02:55:04]  Under Biden, it was at $3, went to $3.95 in 2022, $3.52 in 2023, $3.30 in 2024, and in 2025, it was at $3.10.
[02:55:15]  So, people, stop freaking out.
[02:55:18]  The gas isn't that bad.
[02:55:20]  And if you're in a blue state, that's where your issues are, your state representatives.
[02:55:26]  You know, you guys should do some more reporting on Gavin Newsom and all these companies that are fleeing the state of California because of his regulations.
[02:55:35]  And taxes.
[02:55:36]  But Kimberly, I wish you got called out this week for being on another program and showing your true colors.
[02:55:42]  Wear that D on your sleeve, girl.
[02:55:43]  So, sorry, I haven't been on another.
[02:55:48]  Someone mentioned PBS NewsHour.
[02:55:49]  I was not on PBS NewsHour this week.
[02:55:51]  I'm not sure what that reference is to.
[02:55:55]  Mark is in Beechwood, Ohio, on our line for Democrats.
[02:55:58]  Good morning, Mark.
[02:56:00]  Good morning.
[02:56:01]  So, my comment is that Trump and the Republican Party in Congress plan to stay in office.
[02:56:09]  My thinking is that you don't rob a bank if you know you're going to get caught or punished.
[02:56:15]  They are taking down our democracy and stealing our tax dollars.
[02:56:18]  For example, where is some of the money from the tariffs?
[02:56:25]  Where is that going?
[02:56:25]  Who's taking that?
[02:56:27]  So they're stealing our tax dollars because they know they can't get caught or punished.
[02:56:32]  This leads me to believe they are going to fix the election.
[02:56:36]  All right, next up is Tim in Gasville, Arkansas, on our line for independence.
[02:56:42]  Good morning, Tim.
[02:56:44]  Good morning, Timberly.
[02:56:46]  Where did the tariff money go?
[02:56:47]  Well, unfortunately, the court run by Roberts decided to reverse and now put all the tariff money into limbo.
[02:56:56]  But I'm a little upset.
[02:57:00]  You let that woman from Oklahoma just go on and on and on.
[02:57:07]  Is there any time anywhere where you stop somebody and say, wait a minute, that's not true?
[02:57:12]  She doesn't think Biden brought a million people over the border, and somehow that was inviting them over wasn't dangerous for them.
[02:57:25]  How many thousands died?
[02:57:27]  How many children disappeared?
[02:57:28]  But she doesn't think Biden brought them over?
[02:57:31]  She doesn't think the inflation started after Biden's two bills, the $2 trillion IRA bill and the other one.
[02:57:41]  You don't think that caused the inflation?
[02:57:44]  There's a lot of misinformation that comes out of this channel.
[02:57:48]  I'm sorry.
[02:57:50]  As far as she mentioned, as other people mentioned, this Renee Good and the other fellow that got shot.
[02:57:57]  Renee Good was led to the slaughter by her ideology and her partner friend.
[02:58:04]  Her partner, her and her partner, looked on their app and said, Hey, ICE is over here.
[02:58:09]  Let's go screw with them.
[02:58:11]  So her friend got out and filmed while she positioned her friend positioned her car.
[02:58:18]  In front of the ICE agent.
[02:58:20]  And then her friend yelled, Drive, baby, drive.
[02:58:24]  Where did you get that information, Tim?
[02:58:27]  You could watch the video, dear C SPAN.
[02:58:32]  You guys played the video.
[02:58:34]  You can hear just before the shots, just before she puts her foot on the gas, her partner says, Drive, baby, drive.
[02:58:41]  It's right there.
[02:58:42]  That's the same as saying shoot, okay?
[02:58:47]  All right, next up is Howard in Somerville, Texas, on our line for Republicans.
[02:58:52]  Good morning, Howard.
[02:58:54]  Good morning, ma'am.
[02:58:54]  How are you doing?
[02:58:55]  Doing well, thank you.
[02:58:57]  Has C-SPAN looked into all the health care fraud in the billions?
[02:59:02]  In the billions?
[02:59:04]  Have y'all talked to anybody about that?
[02:59:06]  It's definitely come up as a topic, the accusations of health care fraud in a variety of places on the show at different points in time.
[02:59:13]  Go ahead.
[02:59:14]  How many people could that help, the money they took of people, you know, the Americans here that truly need it, those billions?
[02:59:20]  Schools and people not getting meals and everything.
[02:59:23]  I mean, couldn't that help them?
[02:59:25]  So, y'all looked in it pretty strong, huh?
[02:59:30]  All right.
[02:59:31]  Next up is Joe in Iowa on our line for Democrats.
[02:59:34]  Good morning, Joe.
[02:59:37]  Yes, hi.
[02:59:38]  Thank you for having me today.
[02:59:41]  I just wanted to say I am just so blown away by Sophia, the previous guest.
[02:59:46]  Sorry I'm a bit behind, but I got in just at the last moment.
[02:59:50]  I just would like to let her know.
[02:59:53]  I certainly don't have apathy for our system and fighting for what we believe in, but sometimes you're just exhausted.
[03:00:03]  And when you have health issues among yourself and your family and so forth, I really wish there was something I could contribute, but I just feel depleted and exhausted.
[03:00:12]  And I just wanted to see what she would have said to that.
[03:00:15]  I'm sure it would be very empathetic.
[03:00:18]  All right.
[03:00:19]  Well, thank you to everyone who called in for Open Forum as well as the entire show.

=== Ceasefire Talks Begin Tomorrow (00:36) ===

[03:00:23]  That's it for today's edition of Washington Journal.
[03:00:25]  We're going to be back with another show starting at 7 a.m. Eastern tomorrow.
[03:00:29]  But next up, ceasefire.
[03:00:46]  Welcome to Ceasefire, where we look to bridge the divide in American politics.
[03:00:49]  I'm Dasha Burns, Politico White House Bureau Chief, and joining me now on either side of the desk, two foreign policy experts Kirsten Fontenose, former Senior Director for Gulf Affairs.