CSPAN - Washington Journal 05/04/2026
Aired: 2026-05-04
Duration: 03:00:59


=== Midterm Voting Plans (13:44) ===

[00:00:00]  Americans' views of the current state of the country.
[00:00:03]  And then Washington Examiner White House reporter Mbinti Quarshi previews the week ahead at the White House.
[00:00:08]  And author and CNN national security analyst Jim Sciudo on his new book on the influence Russia and China have upon the current state of world affairs and what it means for the United States.
[00:00:19]  C-SPAN's Washington Journal is next.
[00:00:21]  Join the conversation.
[00:00:33]  Good morning.
[00:00:34]  It's Monday, May the 4th, 2026.
[00:00:37]  Voters will head to the polls for the midterm elections in 183 days, or put another way, six months from tomorrow.
[00:00:44]  That milestone has meant a slew of new polls taking a look at how Americans are feeling about an election that will be seen as a referendum on Donald Trump's second term.
[00:00:52]  So this morning, we're asking if you're planning to vote in the midterms.
[00:00:55]  If so, what's the reason you'll be headed to the polls in November?
[00:00:59]  Give us a call on phone line split as usual by political party.
[00:01:02]  Democrats, it's 202-748-8000.
[00:01:05]  Republicans, 202-748-8001.
[00:01:09]  Independents, 202-748-8002.
[00:01:12]  You can also send us a text, that number 202-748-8003.
[00:01:16]  If you do, please include your name and where you're from.
[00:01:19]  Otherwise, catch up with us on social media.
[00:01:21]  On X, it's at C-SPANWJ on Facebook.
[00:01:23]  It's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN.
[00:01:27]  And a very good Monday morning to you.
[00:01:29]  You can go ahead and start calling in.
[00:01:30]  Before we get to this question, just some of the latest news within the past hour out of Iran.
[00:01:36]  This is the Times of Israel.
[00:01:39]  The headline, Iran fired two missiles at a U.S. Navy vessel after it attempted to pass through the Straits of Hormuz.
[00:01:45]  It's citing the semi-official state FARS news agency in Iran.
[00:01:50]  Fars said that the U.S. vessel was, quote, targeted in a missile attack after ignoring a warning from the naval forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
[00:01:59]  Citing local sources, Fars reports that the vessel was hit by the missiles and unable to continue its course, though that reporting disputed.
[00:02:08]  Axios reporter, foreign correspondent Barack Ravid reporting just a few minutes ago that a senior U.S. official denies that a U.S. warship was hit by Iranian missiles.
[00:02:20]  So we'll just keep an eye on that.
[00:02:22]  Again, that's all within just about the past 30 minutes or so.
[00:02:26]  So as we do that, though, we want to hear from you on this question that we're asking this morning.
[00:02:32]  With the midterms coming up in six months and one day, six months from tomorrow, we're asking if you're voting in the midterms.
[00:02:40]  A lot of folks saying that they do plan to vote in the midterms.
[00:02:43]  A new Washington Post ABC news poll out, and it's on the front page of the Washington Post, asked the question whether you are certain to vote in election 2026.
[00:02:54]  Some 79% of Democrats saying they are absolutely certain to vote in the midterm.
[00:03:00]  Some 72% of Republicans, 59% of Independents saying that they will absolutely vote in the midterms.
[00:03:08]  Though, as we know from past history, midterm turnout usually is somewhere in the mid to high 30s and 40s.
[00:03:15]  Occasionally it will hit 50%, but lower than in a presidential election year.
[00:03:20]  We'll all find out together in six months and one day.
[00:03:24]  As we look ahead to that and as we take you through some of these polls, let us know if you're planning to vote and what your top issue is.
[00:03:30]  Democrats, it's 202-748-8000.
[00:03:33]  Republicans, 202-748-8001.
[00:03:36]  Independents, 202-748-8002.
[00:03:41]  We'll start in Michigan.
[00:03:42]  This is Herbert calling in, Republican line.
[00:03:44]  Herbert, you're going to vote in the midterms.
[00:03:47]  Yes.
[00:03:48]  And I'd just like to say to the American people, when are we going to wake up and remove these uneducated six-year-olds from office?
[00:03:58]  I mean, look at the mess around.
[00:04:01]  You know, all you hear is Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
[00:04:05]  Well, that is bull.
[00:04:07]  I don't believe that.
[00:04:08]  I mean, he said the same thing about North Korea.
[00:04:11]  They now have one.
[00:04:12]  No one's ever going to use a nuclear weapon.
[00:04:15]  The only time that'll be used, and this is for you so-called Christians out there, when Christ comes back to earth, read your Bible.
[00:04:23]  Well, Herbert is dying for no reason.
[00:04:27]  You're calling on the Republican line.
[00:04:29]  How do you think Republicans are going to do in the midterm elections?
[00:04:32]  Again, asking this question because we're six months away.
[00:04:36]  I am going to vote in the midterms.
[00:04:39]  Yes, absolutely.
[00:04:41]  We have to remove these clowns from office.
[00:04:43]  They're uneducated.
[00:04:44]  They have no idea what they're doing.
[00:04:46]  And they're destroying this country.
[00:04:49]  That's Herbert in Michigan.
[00:04:50]  This is Diamond on Staten Island.
[00:04:52]  Democrat.
[00:04:53]  Diamond, you voting?
[00:04:55]  Yes, good morning.
[00:04:56]  Thank you, C-SPAN, for taking my call.
[00:04:59]  I am definitely going to vote this midterm.
[00:05:03]  The way we're going, it's just ridiculous.
[00:05:07]  They kept saying Biden this, Biden, that.
[00:05:09]  These are the Republicans.
[00:05:10]  Oh, Biden, Biden, Biden.
[00:05:12]  The minute they come into power, what do Republicans do?
[00:05:17]  They want to take, take, take.
[00:05:20]  And you know who's benefiting?
[00:05:21]  Not me.
[00:05:22]  Not even Republicans.
[00:05:24]  Republicans are not even benefiting from their policies.
[00:05:30]  This is absolutely ridiculous.
[00:05:32]  Let's not even talk about gas.
[00:05:33]  Oh, my goodness.
[00:05:35]  And yes, yes, C-SPAN, I am Staten Islander, and I will be voting for the midterms.
[00:05:41]  Thank you so much.
[00:05:42]  That's Diamond.
[00:05:44]  There are 435 House seats up in the midterm elections, 33 Senate seats, 36 gubernatorial seats, and that Washington Post-ABC poll taking a look at how Americans feel about which party they trust on various issues.
[00:06:02]  When it comes to health care, 42% of respondents in that poll saying they trust Democrats more, just 25% saying they support, trust Republicans more.
[00:06:12]  Democrats also winning on issues as in education and schools, the cost of living in the United States, the situation in Iran, and just barely on the issue of artificial intelligence and inflation.
[00:06:25]  Republicans have an edge on issues of the economy in general, taxes, immigration, and crime.
[00:06:31]  Again, this is the latest poll from the Washington Post ABC News polls.
[00:06:36]  There's a lot of them coming out right now just because of the timing of where we are with the election six months away.
[00:06:41]  Steve Philly, Independent, you going to vote?
[00:06:46]  Yes, I will definitely vote in this election.
[00:06:49]  And let me remind you that this election, this midterms, unlike other midterms where people are normally passed, is going to be fiercely fought for the House and the Senate because this will be Donald Trump.
[00:07:05]  This is going to be a defining moment.
[00:07:12]  And also, I feel that the Democrats should have started rebuilding their party long before.
[00:07:20]  I know they've caught up in these battles now, but we will see what happens.
[00:07:25]  It's going to be a very fiercely fought midterm.
[00:07:29]  Thank you.
[00:07:30]  That's Steve in Pennsylvania.
[00:07:31]  Sherry, Germantown, Maryland, Independent.
[00:07:35]  Go ahead.
[00:07:37]  Yes, I thought this was open forum.
[00:07:42]  I was calling to ask, is anybody as curious as I am about why the press or any of the representatives have not asked Trump to institute the teleworking given the high prices of the gas?
[00:08:01]  You're talking about teleworking for federal workers?
[00:08:04]  Yes.
[00:08:05]  Are you a federal worker, Sherry?
[00:08:07]  No, I'm a retired federal worker.
[00:08:10]  But you think a federal teleworking requirement or some sort of change to policy would help right now?
[00:08:17]  I think it would help a whole lot given the high price of gas.
[00:08:21]  How much do you think the high price of gas is going to impact how people are going to vote six months from now, Sherry?
[00:08:29]  Oh, absolutely.
[00:08:30]  I don't think that will be forgotten.
[00:08:34]  Sherry in Germantown, Maryland.
[00:08:36]  Back to some of the numbers from that poll, Donald Trump remaining popular with Republicans.
[00:08:41]  But as the Washington Post notes, the president has lost ground with independents, still with approval ratings in the mid-80s among Republicans.
[00:08:51]  You can see, though, dropping since a year ago among independents and others from just under 40% to just under 30%, losing some 10 percentage points over the past year with independents.
[00:09:04]  Democrats, no surprise, have very low approval ratings of the president.
[00:09:09]  Those numbers have stayed below 10% since the beginning of the president's second term.
[00:09:14]  Asking you, are you planning to vote in election 2026?
[00:09:17]  Democrats, 202-748-8,000.
[00:09:19]  Republicans, 202-748-8,001.
[00:09:22]  Independents, 202-748-8,002.
[00:09:26]  This is Lewis, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, Independent.
[00:09:29]  Go ahead.
[00:09:31]  Hi, my name is Lewis.
[00:09:33]  Yes, I'm an independent and I plan on voting.
[00:09:38]  But I think the problem with the voting is the so-called solid majority.
[00:09:46]  If the solid majority would do more for the country instead of sitting back and letting things go the way they are, nothing will never change, especially with the way they dividing up the districts.
[00:10:01]  If that solid majority in those districts would do more for the country instead of just thinking about themselves, this country would be a whole lot better.
[00:10:12]  And dividing up the districts, you're talking about the gerrymandering fight around the country, Lewis?
[00:10:16]  Yes, exactly.
[00:10:19]  A lot of those people, I mean, it's clear that they divide them up like they're taking out a lot of the black vote by, you know, spreading out the districts.
[00:10:30]  But there are, well, good people in those districts that are not black, but they keep silent.
[00:10:38]  They don't speak up.
[00:10:40]  They just sit back and let things be the way they are.
[00:10:44]  Until the solid majority step up to the plate, nothing is going to change.
[00:10:52]  That's Lewis out of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
[00:10:56]  These issues that you're bringing up this morning, it was one of the issues that was brought up yesterday on a Sunday show.
[00:11:02]  So it was Face the Nation yesterday.
[00:11:04]  Senator Raphael Warnock, the Democrat from Georgia, was on Face the Nation, and he was talking about the Supreme Court ruling on majority-minority districts.
[00:11:15]  This is what he had to say.
[00:11:17]  The current Congress, statistically, in 2025, has a record high number, 66 black members, according to Pew Research, including five Republicans.
[00:11:28]  That's the most to ever serve in Congress.
[00:11:32]  People will look at that and say, we are in a different country than we were, as Roberts once argued, as you just pointed out.
[00:11:40]  Now that we are in this redistricting arms race that both parties are playing with here, do you think that will hurt black representation?
[00:11:49]  I think that the court sadly poured fuel on this redistricting arms race.
[00:11:58]  To be clear, you support redistricting that your party is carrying out.
[00:12:03]  I do because Donald Trump, who is better at dividing us than anybody I know, instituted an arms race and redistricting.
[00:12:13]  But I actually hate partisan gerrymandering.
[00:12:16]  I don't like gerrymandering.
[00:12:18]  But we could not unilaterally disarm.
[00:12:20]  He's the one who called Texas and said, literally, give me six more seats.
[00:12:24]  And so California and other states had to respond, Virginia in kind.
[00:12:29]  But the solution to this really is to ban partisan gerrymandering.
[00:12:33]  Gerrymandering turns our elections on its head so that rather than the people picking their politicians or their public servants, the politicians are picking their voters.
[00:12:44]  Right, exactly.
[00:12:45]  Which is why I'm asking you how you could support it.
[00:12:48]  But I understand you're saying the context of the moment is an emergency.
[00:12:52]  Let me ask you.
[00:12:53]  Well, we could...
[00:12:54]  I have a bill, though, Margaret.
[00:12:55]  I have right now that would get rid of partisan gerrymandering.
[00:13:01]  And so far, I've had no Republican takers.
[00:13:04]  Senator Raphael Warnock, that was yesterday on the Sunday shows.
[00:13:07]  We're asking you this morning on the Washington Journal about election 2026.
[00:13:12]  It's six months and a day away.
[00:13:14]  And we want to know if you're planning to vote.
[00:13:16]  If so, what's your top issue?
[00:13:17]  202-748-8000 for Democrats to call.
[00:13:20]  Republicans, 202-748-8001.
[00:13:23]  Independents, 202-748-8002.
[00:13:26]  Matt, Annapolis, Maryland, Independent, good morning to the capital of Maryland.
[00:13:33]  Yes, thank you for taking my call, John.
[00:13:39]  Gerrymandering is basically the corrupt form of democracy.

=== Election 2026 Outlook (04:01) ===

[00:13:44]  It's extreme, it's pure and simple.
[00:13:47]  It's corruption.
[00:13:48]  Like the man said in the interview, is a politician choosing their voter.
[00:13:55]  When you take a block of, you know, a voting block and you chop it up into tiny pieces, you take this piece, you put it somewhere else with the Republican district.
[00:14:09]  Well, that little tiny piece cannot make a difference in that new block where you put them.
[00:14:19]  You know what I'm saying?
[00:14:20]  So it's literally, literally, is corruption.
[00:14:24]  The most destructive and corrupt form of democracy.
[00:14:30]  Plain and simple.
[00:14:31]  And then the other, two more things that I wanted to comment on why I'm on this call.
[00:14:37]  The gas prices.
[00:14:39]  I am no fan, I call a Democrat man a lie because I tend to lean Democrats, you know, especially in this time period.
[00:14:53]  I'm no fan of Trump.
[00:14:55]  I personally don't like Donald Trump.
[00:15:00]  But I can't figure out why is what's going on in the Middle East or Iran and the United States is causing the gas prices to rise.
[00:15:10]  And we're paying high prices here, but there's no shortage at the pump.
[00:15:16]  In a capitalist society, in a free market economy, the price shouldn't go up at the pump if there's an actual shortage.
[00:15:29]  That's Matt in Annapolis, Maryland on gas prices and the war in Iran.
[00:15:34]  Let me switch over to ABC's this week.
[00:15:37]  Yesterday from the Sunday shows.
[00:15:38]  It was Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy who was asked about the length of this conflict and its impact on energy prices.
[00:15:46]  Here's that exchange.
[00:15:49]  Well, I think if you listen to Secretary Hegseth and Raisin Kane, our general who's orchestrating this war, militarily, they've been wildly successful.
[00:16:00]  The president's been successful in executing the military operation.
[00:16:05]  Again, we're now navigating the safety through the Strait of Hormuz and also trying to navigate the nuclear material that Iran has.
[00:16:15]  And that's taking a little bit longer.
[00:16:18]  And that's going to play out over the next several weeks.
[00:16:21]  But per Chris Wright's point, again, you're going to start to see immediate relief.
[00:16:26]  Once the strait opens and supply flows again, we are going to be in a way better place.
[00:16:30]  I will say this, Martha.
[00:16:32]  It's important for Americans to understand we have a tremendous amount of energy in America.
[00:16:38]  And so, yes, it is priced globally, oil and gas is, but in America, we're not going to have supply shortages because we produce so much here.
[00:16:46]  And that is a net benefit to the U.S. as we look at, for me, jet fuel prices or even the supply chain for energy at the pump for American citizens.
[00:16:56]  We have deep supply here.
[00:16:58]  And I think that can't be forgotten because President Trump has focused on American energy and American energy dominance.
[00:17:07]  Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, yesterday on the Sunday shows, this is the front page of today's Wall Street Journal.
[00:17:13]  If you are a follower of President Trump's True Social page, you know this news.
[00:17:17]  President Trump saying Sunday that the U.S. would start guiding commercial ships out of the Strait of Hormuz, where they've been trapped by the war between the U.S. and Iran, in an arm's-length effort to unblock the vital supply route.
[00:17:30]  The story noting the new mechanism is effectively a coordination sell to move traffic through the strait involving countries, insurance companies, and shipping organizations, according to two senior U.S. officials.
[00:17:40]  It doesn't currently involve U.S. Navy warships escorting vessels through the strait, the officials said.

=== Party Held Afloat (13:13) ===

[00:17:46]  Although, again, there was that reporting out of the Middle East, the Times of Israel, and others reporting that Iran's semi-official state news agency saying that it had shot two missiles at a U.S. warship in the strait.
[00:18:01]  The U.S. denying that the ship was hit, but that could impact this plan that the president posted about on his true social page yesterday.
[00:18:08]  We're all finding out together.
[00:18:09]  We'll keep an eye on it for you as we hear from David in Millville, Delaware, Republican.
[00:18:15]  David, go ahead.
[00:18:17]  Hey, good morning.
[00:18:17]  It's first time I got through in 25 years.
[00:18:19]  I'm stunned.
[00:18:21]  Definitely.
[00:18:22]  David in the midterm elections?
[00:18:23]  I'm glad you did, but I'm sorry that it's taken 25 years to get through.
[00:18:26]  Usually it doesn't take that long.
[00:18:28]  I literally call it for 25 years on and off, and it's always busier.
[00:18:31]  It calls and it drops before it even rings because the line is so full.
[00:18:35]  Debbie voting in midterms.
[00:18:36]  I'm from Maryland, but I moved to Delaware a couple years ago.
[00:18:41]  The gerrymanding thing is just so insane.
[00:18:44]  Listening to Adam Schiff saying that this court decision will allow for racial jurymanning when it absolutely prohibited it.
[00:18:50]  That's the entire point of it.
[00:18:52]  I just don't know how those kind of comments get made.
[00:18:58]  We have a delegate McBride here, Democrat, up and for the only delegate we have in Delaware and definitely looking forward to voting in the midterms.
[00:19:07]  That's David in Millville, Delaware.
[00:19:09]  Don't let it take 25 years for you to call in again, David.
[00:19:13]  That's David.
[00:19:14]  We'll go to Deshaun, Bishopville, South Carolina, Independent.
[00:19:18]  Go ahead.
[00:19:22]  Deshaun, you're with us.
[00:19:26]  Got to stick by your phone, so we will head back to Annapolis, Maryland.
[00:19:30]  Shea, Democrat, go ahead.
[00:19:34]  Hey, can you hear me?
[00:19:35]  Yes, sir.
[00:19:36]  What is the question?
[00:19:37]  Can you repeat it again?
[00:19:39]  Are you planning to vote in election 2026?
[00:19:42]  Oh, absolutely.
[00:19:43]  I think we're going to be heading for a blue wave.
[00:19:48]  I think this Republican Party is, quite frankly, I think they are just being held up basically afloat by Donald Trump.
[00:19:57]  And I think what we've seen with all the cuts, the doge, and with this Supreme Court ruling, I think... the gerrymandering, I think that is going to be really problematic for Republicans because they simply will not win that battle.
[00:20:15]  But I predict that the Democrats are going to take the House.
[00:20:19]  I think they're going to, it's going to be tough in the Senate because the Senate map, quite frankly, does not favor them.
[00:20:26]  But I think they're going to pick up a couple seats.
[00:20:28]  And I think this is really the beginning of the start of the progressive Tea Party rising.
[00:20:36]  I really do.
[00:20:37]  Shea, as a Democrat, what defines success in the midterms and what would you consider a failure in terms of chambers controlled, seats picked up?
[00:20:48]  Do you have a sense of what you would consider successful midterms?
[00:20:53]  Key for me is we need more progressives in Congress.
[00:20:58]  And what we have seen, in particular with this DHS funding, and we're seeing a lot of these corporate Democrats on the Hill, they are starting to lose their grip because I think the progressive wing is getting sick and tired of these wars, especially the war in Gaza.
[00:21:13]  I look at, quite frankly, I do not want Hakeem Jeffries as the speaker.
[00:21:19]  We need to have an opposition party to go up against this cult.
[00:21:23]  And we're starting to slowly see that with all the protesting, and we're seeing that in early primaries so far.
[00:21:31]  So that's just about it.
[00:21:33]  That's Shea Innapolis, Maryland.
[00:21:35]  Let me come to what's called the generic congressional ballot, another one of these polls.
[00:21:40]  And this is a question that often gets asked when you are several months out from an election, asking voters of all states, would you vote for the Democratic candidate or the Republican candidate in the midterm election?
[00:21:53]  Again, it's just the general ballot.
[00:21:54]  They don't put specific names to it, just the Democratic candidate or the Republican candidate.
[00:21:58]  You can see back in July of last year, Democrats held a slight lead with 44% of respondents saying they'll vote for the Democratic candidate, 42% saying they'll vote for the Republican candidate.
[00:22:10]  And you can see how that has changed to the point where Democrats now have a 10-point lead on that question among respondents, 50% saying they'll vote for the Democratic candidate, 40% saying they'll vote for the Republican candidate.
[00:22:23]  That's the Emerson College polling.
[00:22:26]  They also just had a new poll out.
[00:22:28]  And again, that's because we're six months from Election Day, and a lot of these polls come out around this time.
[00:22:33]  This is Harold in Memphis, Tennessee, Republican.
[00:22:36]  You going to vote?
[00:22:38]  Yes, but I don't think we will win anything.
[00:22:41]  Like what the last guy said, we need like more younger GOP far from MAGA because MAGA is what is ruining our party.
[00:22:51]  I believe that we need, you know, younger people, for example, like Zachinette from Miss Weather Media and more younger people, like for Nashville, too.
[00:23:02]  And I don't think we will win unless we have good, proper candidates who aren't 90 years old, like Zachinette and a Stinky Road.
[00:23:10]  Thank you for taking my call.
[00:23:12]  Goodbye.
[00:23:12]  That's Harold in Tennessee.
[00:23:13]  This is Melissa in Pennsylvania, Independent.
[00:23:16]  Go ahead.
[00:23:18]  Yes, I plan on voting for the simple fact that if Trump and this continue on, Aben Independents will be going after the vote.
[00:23:26]  Thank you.
[00:23:28]  That's Melissa and Independent.
[00:23:29]  And this is Rick in Milwaukee, Democrat.
[00:23:32]  Go ahead.
[00:23:34]  Yes, I will be voting.
[00:23:36]  I'm glad about the mail-in voting because chances are the gas is going to be so high that I wouldn't be able to afford to drive to the poll if I had to drive.
[00:23:45]  Gas prices right now are nothing compared to what they're going to be.
[00:23:49]  And Donald Trump is nothing but a snake, and we need to get rid of him very, very fast.
[00:23:55]  Thank you so much, and God bless.
[00:23:57]  That's Rick in Milwaukee.
[00:23:59]  Let me come to another recent poll.
[00:24:01]  This is the Gallup polling company taking a look at Americans' top financial concerns.
[00:24:08]  Financial concerns have for a very long time been the top issue among Americans when they're asked about it.
[00:24:15]  And then they break down those concerns into various categories.
[00:24:18]  So 31% of Americans saying the high cost of living and inflation is the top financial concern for them.
[00:24:26]  Then there's energy costs and oil and gas prices.
[00:24:28]  13% saying that's the top financial concern.
[00:24:32]  The cost of owning or renting a home, also at 13%.
[00:24:35]  Healthcare costs, always up there, 8%.
[00:24:38]  Those are among the top financial concerns among Americans who responded to the Gallup poll, that poll, in the field in April leading up to this six-month mark to midterm election 2026.
[00:24:53]  This is Ed in New Jersey, Independent.
[00:24:55]  Go ahead.
[00:24:56]  Yeah, good morning, everybody.
[00:24:59]  I'm going to be voting in November.
[00:25:01]  I'm going to be voting independent.
[00:25:04]  I want a big change in this country.
[00:25:08]  I am particularly concerned about why we don't have proportional representation in this country.
[00:25:15]  I am soon going to go back and start reading about how we wound up with this two-party system.
[00:25:22]  There can't be any change until we have some kind of proportional representation.
[00:25:27]  I'm fed up with the Democrats, Hakeem Jeffries, Schumer, Blumenthal.
[00:25:32]  I'm fed up with the Republicans and Donald Trump.
[00:25:35]  I'm tired of all these wars, and we need big change, and we need it very soon.
[00:25:40]  So, Ed, is there an option for you in Glassboro, New Jersey, to vote for a third-party candidate in this election?
[00:25:49]  Well, actually, I will be voting.
[00:25:51]  I'm not in my home right now.
[00:25:53]  I'm actually, I live in, I'm calling from New Jersey.
[00:25:58]  I live in Pennsylvania.
[00:25:59]  Yes, there are some alternatives.
[00:26:02]  I might vote Communist Party.
[00:26:04]  I might fight Socialist, but I certainly will not be voting the two major parties.
[00:26:10]  That's Ed from Pennsylvania, currently in New Jersey, and we head to Alabama.
[00:26:13]  Nancy, Republican, you are next.
[00:26:19]  Nancy, you with us?
[00:26:20]  I might vote.
[00:26:22]  I can hear your TV, Nancy, but I think you stepped away.
[00:26:25]  So I'll go to Lance in Fort Lauderdale, Democrat.
[00:26:30]  Good morning, John.
[00:26:31]  How are you this morning?
[00:26:32]  Doing well.
[00:26:35]  Yes, I'm going to vote.
[00:26:36]  When I was a teenager, I fought to lower the voting age to 18, and I've been voting ever since.
[00:26:41]  I always vote.
[00:26:43]  As I tell people when I walk out of the polling place, it's always a pleasure to vote.
[00:26:47]  Half the world wishes they could.
[00:26:49]  I'm not usually pleased with the people that are up there.
[00:26:53]  I would love to have someone that I could vote for.
[00:26:56]  That would be a unique experience for me.
[00:26:59]  But I will vote.
[00:27:00]  And I tell people that, hey, you know, if you complain about Congress and you want term limits, there are term limits every two years.
[00:27:08]  I'm asking everyone out there to take the promise I made to myself that I will not vote to anyone for a third term, whether I like them, whether I love them.
[00:27:18]  Two terms is enough, and I will not vote for them.
[00:27:21]  And if people did that, things would change.
[00:27:23]  And that's two terms for senators, two terms for members of the House?
[00:27:28]  Yes, two terms is enough.
[00:27:30]  Then go home and have a life.
[00:27:33]  Maybe then the perks would go.
[00:27:35]  They wouldn't stick around for the pensions.
[00:27:37]  We wouldn't get the kind of nonsense we have now.
[00:27:41]  I was raised on the idea of statesmen.
[00:27:42]  We don't have many statesmen in there.
[00:27:44]  Although I will remind people that there are 500 people in Congress, and you only hear from five or six of them.
[00:27:51]  And to please remember that most of the people in Congress are working hard for the people back home.
[00:27:57]  That's why they're not jumping in front of a microphone to promote themselves.
[00:28:03]  It's a slow process in this country.
[00:28:04]  It always has been.
[00:28:05]  Lance, you mentioned fighting for the voting age to be lowered to 18, the 26th Amendment, 1971.
[00:28:13]  Do you think the voting age should be lowered, 16, 15?
[00:28:18]  No, no.
[00:28:19]  18 is a good number.
[00:28:20]  The reasoning we had for doing it back then was a clear one.
[00:28:24]  We wanted the voting age to be lowered to 18.
[00:28:26]  The Vietnam War was going on.
[00:28:28]  And I lost many friends in that war.
[00:28:31]  And we felt that if these people in Congress could tell you to go die for your country at 18, that you ought to have a right to vote for who that was that told you.
[00:28:39]  And that argument worked.
[00:28:41]  It took a while, but it worked.
[00:28:43]  16 is too young as far as I'm concerned.
[00:28:47]  I don't think that would help anything.
[00:28:49]  And I'm a lifelong Democrat, and I'm not pleased with my party.
[00:28:53]  I agree with the fellow who was talking before, I don't know which party he was from, that said that the idea of Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker of the House is just an anathema to me.
[00:29:03]  I can't believe that this would do anything better.
[00:29:05]  And I'm sure if the Democrats get in, the first thing they'll do, whether they have the Senate or not, is move to impeach President Trump and waste another $10 million on something that they know won't work.
[00:29:18]  So what should they do if they win control of the House in November?
[00:29:23]  How about appointing the Speaker as the person who does the most bipartisan work instead of the person who raises the most money?
[00:29:32]  That would be novel.
[00:29:33]  How about going to President Trump and saying, what can we work on together to make things better for people here?
[00:29:42]  What can we do that we could work on together rather than fighting each other all the time?
[00:29:47]  That would be novel.
[00:29:49]  That would be nice.
[00:29:50]  Who's somebody who does a lot of bipartisan work?
[00:29:53]  Who would you want in that position if that were the requirement for that job?
[00:29:57]  Geez, I don't know.
[00:29:59]  I mean, I've seen my representative on Ceasefire and was very pleased with him.
[00:30:04]  I don't agree with everything he does, but Mr. Moskowitz has the right idea.
[00:30:08]  I love ceasefire because at least you get to see some of the ones that are trying to work together.
[00:30:14]  I just wish, note on ceasefire, after the first half hour of interviewing them, I would love to have open phones for them.
[00:30:21]  That would make the show a lot better, at least I think so.
[00:30:24]  But, you know, in America, it's oh, I was always taught that this is the slowest, dumbest, messiest way to do anything.
[00:30:33]  But as I believe Churchill said, there's nothing better.
[00:30:37]  Better than the alternative.
[00:30:38]  You're right.
[00:30:39]  I mean, people say two steps forward, one step back, and they get angry.
[00:30:42]  And I go, well, two steps forward, one step back.
[00:30:45]  Isn't that one step forward?
[00:30:48]  Lance, thanks for the call from Fort Laudale.
[00:30:50]  I'll pass your suggestion along to the ceasefire team.
[00:30:54]  Appreciate you watching.
[00:30:55]  Phil, in Harpswell, Maine, Independent, you are next.

=== Stop Partisan Crap (15:06) ===

[00:30:59]  You voting?
[00:31:00]  Hi there.
[00:31:03]  Go ahead, Phil.
[00:31:03]  How's it going?
[00:31:05]  Yeah, I mean, we've seen firsthand what the Republicans are all about.
[00:31:11]  They've been begging for a chance to get control of everything.
[00:31:14]  Now they're in control of everything, and we've seen them actually done nothing for their people.
[00:31:18]  They've destroyed this country.
[00:31:20]  We've taken about 50 steps backwards.
[00:31:22]  I mean, all they've done is serve the rich.
[00:31:26]  I think it's high time that we start stop this partisan crap, start thinking for ourselves, start doing what's right for the people that make this country up.
[00:31:37]  I mean, it's supposed to be up by and for the people, not up by for the select billionaires.
[00:31:45]  I think Donald Trump needs to get out of politics.
[00:31:49]  I mean, the man lost more money than any other American in American history.
[00:31:54]  He's bankrupt, you know, seven-plus companies.
[00:31:59]  Even his old man called him a big, stupid baby.
[00:32:02]  I mean, the guy's an epic failure.
[00:32:05]  Other than lying to a bunch of gullible people.
[00:32:08]  I mean, if you're still considering thinking about voting for Trump, you're obviously the most gullible people in this country, and you are the weakest linked.
[00:32:18]  That's Phil in Maine this morning.
[00:32:20]  It's just after 7:30 on the East Coast asking you, are you planning to vote in election 2026?
[00:32:26]  If so, why?
[00:32:28]  We've been showing you various polling that's out on this topic.
[00:32:31]  Here's that Gallup poll again.
[00:32:34]  The financial issue is always the top concern.
[00:32:37]  The non-economic, non-financial issues that are most important to Americans.
[00:32:44]  Here's the list from that Gallup poll.
[00:32:47]  The government and poor leadership, 28% of Americans saying that's the biggest non-economic issue facing the country right now.
[00:32:56]  Immigration at 11%, war in the Middle East, wars in general as well, and unifying the country.
[00:33:03]  Some 4% saying that's the most important non-economic issue facing this country.
[00:33:09]  Alan in St. Louis, Independent.
[00:33:12]  Good morning.
[00:33:14]  Yeah, I think I'll vote for 2026.
[00:33:18]  But if Trump manages to run again, I'll not vote ever again.
[00:33:24]  I have voted since I was old enough to vote.
[00:33:27]  My first vote was cast for Ronald Reagan.
[00:33:30]  But if his nominees can't say that he lost and his nominees can't say he can't run again, I'll never vote again.
[00:33:41]  Thanks for your time.
[00:33:43]  It's Alan in Missouri back to the Garden State.
[00:33:45]  This is Edward in Jersey City, Independent.
[00:33:49]  Go ahead.
[00:33:51]  Hi, good morning.
[00:33:52]  I'm so happy I was able to get through because the truth is the lines were busy.
[00:33:56]  I called a few times.
[00:33:58]  Yes, I'm planning on voting in the midterm elections.
[00:34:02]  Obviously, I live here in New Jersey in District 8, and the two Democrats that are running, I basically have my eye on.
[00:34:09]  One is the former Senator Menendez, his son.
[00:34:13]  Mr. Jr. is running, and we have a candidate who is a young guy, a progressive Musab Ali.
[00:34:22]  And I'm just waiting for more debates to happen.
[00:34:26]  You know, I'm against any candidate who's going to support Israel and more genocide in this war.
[00:34:32]  I'm against any candidate who's not for campaign finance reform, who's not for abolishing ICE.
[00:34:38]  So those are a few of my tidbits I'm going into the fall elections with.
[00:34:43]  But Mr. John, you asked a couple of callers a couple of questions that I was very excited about this morning.
[00:34:48]  Earlier, one Democrat caller, you asked him, what would be success for you as far as the Democrats go?
[00:34:55]  If they win Congress, what would success be to you?
[00:35:01]  And it's not just Democrats winning, more progressives winning.
[00:35:04]  I'm also for that.
[00:35:06]  But it's actually what bills will come at the end of Democrats winning.
[00:35:13]  Will we get campaign finance reform?
[00:35:16]  Will we get more than just a ceasefire?
[00:35:21]  No support with bombs for Israel.
[00:35:23]  There's so much.
[00:35:24]  You asked another caller.
[00:35:25]  I don't know how the war came up and the effort about the voting age, but absolutely, if you're 18 and you're serving in our military, you should be able to vote.
[00:35:35]  But I'll go further than that.
[00:35:36]  If you're 18 and you're serving in our military, United States of America, you should be able to buy a pack of cigarettes across the states.
[00:35:43]  You should be able to drink across the states.
[00:35:45]  You should be able to legally drive across the states.
[00:35:47]  And lastly, you should be able to legally own a firearm and carry across our states.
[00:35:54]  Let me let you go.
[00:35:54]  I won't take over your show, but thank you so much.
[00:35:57]  That's Edward in Jersey City.
[00:35:59]  This is Cheryl in New York.
[00:36:02]  Line for Republicans.
[00:36:03]  Go ahead.
[00:36:04]  Yeah, I agree with that other caller.
[00:36:06]  Anyone who is still going to vote for Trump, they're just crazy.
[00:36:11]  I mean, Cheryl, you're calling in as a Republican.
[00:36:14]  You feel that way as a Republican?
[00:36:16]  Yes, absolutely.
[00:36:17]  After everything he's done to this country, how could I not?
[00:36:21]  I mean, older people.
[00:36:22]  Who's the last Republican that you voted for that you supported in Atlanta?
[00:36:27]  Romney.
[00:36:27]  I'm a Romney Republican.
[00:36:30]  And, you know, there are some working class people who will still vote for Trump, and he makes fun of them, and his cabinet makes fun of them.
[00:36:39]  He calls them the highly uneducated.
[00:36:41]  The transportation secretary tells them, get dressed up when you go to the airport.
[00:36:45]  The agriculture secretary says you can have chicken and broccoli for $3.
[00:36:50]  Everyone in his cabinet is a billionaire, and they're just making fun of the American people.
[00:36:56]  It's embarrassing.
[00:36:57]  And Trump is paying off these windmill companies.
[00:37:01]  He's destroying solar.
[00:37:02]  So we're not going to have any other sources of energy.
[00:37:06]  Sure, what is it?
[00:37:08]  What does a Romney Republican believe in?
[00:37:10]  You said you're a Romney Republican.
[00:37:12]  Yes, small government, freedom.
[00:37:16]  You know, Trump is trying to clamp down on people with free speech.
[00:37:21]  And he's just not a Republican.
[00:37:23]  He used to be a Democrat years ago.
[00:37:25]  We know him from New York.
[00:37:26]  He's a con man who'll go any way he can, wherever the money is.
[00:37:31]  And also, I never thought I'd say this, but Bernie Sanders has a lot of very good ideas.
[00:37:38]  And I like his stance on Israel because I feel like we're a colony of Israel.
[00:37:42]  We go to work, we have to hand over our money to them.
[00:37:45]  They start a war, we have to fight their war.
[00:37:48]  And anyone who is still supporting that, I definitely cannot vote for.
[00:37:55]  That's Cheryl in New York.
[00:37:57]  This is Nathaniel in Louisiana.
[00:37:59]  Line for Democrats.
[00:38:01]  Go ahead.
[00:38:02]  Yes.
[00:38:02]  Yes, sir.
[00:38:03]  This is Nathaniel.
[00:38:04]  I'm from Louisiana.
[00:38:07]  I'm calling, I'm visiting Paris, totally blind.
[00:38:10]  But from what I'm hearing and I'm listening, I will let everyone know within the country, get much information as you can.
[00:38:21]  And once you have the information, then you process it and you take charge, you take action.
[00:38:28]  We are America.
[00:38:30]  We've been through a lot, black, white, racism, slavery.
[00:38:35]  We pass all that, okay?
[00:38:37]  Yeah, things can happen.
[00:38:39]  But let's get past that.
[00:38:40]  And let's come together as a United States citizen, as American, and let's stand for what we believe in that's going to benefit and cause the country, the citizen to be prospered.
[00:38:55]  Okay?
[00:38:56]  That is my word to everyone within the United States of America.
[00:39:00]  You guys are doing an outstanding job, and I thank you guys.
[00:39:02]  Y'all be blessed.
[00:39:04]  That's Nathaniel in Gretna, Louisiana.
[00:39:08]  Some more numbers from the Washington Post ABC news poll that just came out on election 2026.
[00:39:15]  Americans disapprove of President Trump's handling of the situation in Iran by 66% to 33%.
[00:39:23]  His rating on the economy has declined by seven points to 34 percent as gas prices have spiked.
[00:39:28]  His approval rating on inflation has fallen five points in that time to 27 percent, and his lowest rating comes on perceptions of his handling of the general cost of living, with 23 percent approving versus 76 percent disapproving.
[00:39:42]  His disapproved disapproval has reached 62 percent, the highest of his two terms in office.
[00:39:48]  Again, the latest Washington Post ABC news poll.
[00:39:52]  We've been looking at some of these polls that have come out and also taking a look at some of your comments from social media.
[00:40:00]  Brian on Facebook saying he will absolutely vote in election 2026.
[00:40:04]  I've never seen the job market in worse shape while simultaneously the cost of living continues to rise.
[00:40:08]  Affordability and economic security are extremely motivating factors.
[00:40:12]  I literally wish the election was today.
[00:40:14]  I can't wait to vote on 11-3-26, six months and one day from today.
[00:40:21]  This is Joseph saying, Yes, Republican, otherwise, we won't have a country left with zero leadership on why Joseph is voting.
[00:40:30]  And one more: you're dawn gone right.
[00:40:33]  I'll be voting this November.
[00:40:35]  We've got to protect the Republic, is what another viewer wrote in on Facebook.
[00:40:40]  So, some of your comments, we're taking a look at them, and we mostly want to hear from you on the phones.
[00:40:45]  202-748-8,000 for Democrats, Republicans, 202-748-8001.
[00:40:51]  Independents, 202-748-8002.
[00:40:54]  This is Ronald in the Yellowhammer State Independent.
[00:40:58]  Go ahead.
[00:41:00]  Yes, sir.
[00:41:00]  Thank you for letting me be on.
[00:41:03]  Yes, I'm going to vote in the general election, and I will be voting for a Democrat.
[00:41:11]  So he says, We have a governor's election this year, and they're trying to shove Tommy Tubberville down my throat.
[00:41:21]  And I do not like Tommy Tubberville at all.
[00:41:26]  And the man that's running against him has run and tried to run as an independent in this state, but there's no independent party twice.
[00:41:36]  And he is a good man.
[00:41:38]  And I think he needs to be our governor.
[00:41:42]  So I will be voting for him.
[00:41:45]  Ronald, how long have you been an independent?
[00:41:50]  Well, I've always voted the way I see the person is.
[00:41:55]  I think the best man is the winner.
[00:41:58]  I voted for Donald Trump three times, and I am very disappointed in this third time.
[00:42:05]  I wish a thousand times I wouldn't have voted for him.
[00:42:10]  You know?
[00:42:11]  Why did you vote for him in 2024?
[00:42:15]  In 2024, because I thought he was the best man for the job.
[00:42:19]  What did you like about him?
[00:42:22]  I like what he was saying, but for some reason or another, half of what he says has not come through.
[00:42:29]  I mean, I'm like everybody else that calls in.
[00:42:31]  He's for the rich man.
[00:42:34]  I understand that a lot of the rich man put food on the table.
[00:42:38]  But, you know, us poor folks has got to buy that food.
[00:42:42]  We've got to have the money to buy it.
[00:42:44]  And for instance, I'm on disability and Social Security.
[00:42:48]  You know, I draw Social Security now since I'm 65.
[00:42:55]  I filed for food stamps here in Alabama just a few months, just last month.
[00:43:00]  They give this poor white man $24.
[00:43:04]  $24 for food stamps because they've cut that stuff down.
[00:43:09]  I mean, you know, they've done it under pretense that they're getting rid of fraud.
[00:43:14]  But I'm going to tell you about the food stamp.
[00:43:16]  I got a stack of papers over there almost a foot high, Kelly, made to turn in for all the people.
[00:43:22]  I see you type of work at the rear end that don't mean daily splat.
[00:43:27]  I mean, they're wasting money.
[00:43:29]  They waste money everywhere.
[00:43:32]  That's Ronald in Alabama, one of 36 states having gubernatorial races this year in this midterm election.
[00:43:41]  There's 33 Senate seats up, and of course, 435 members of the House.
[00:43:45]  Got about 15 minutes left here asking you if you're planning to vote in election 2026, and if you are, what's your top issue?
[00:43:53]  This is Crystal out of the Tar Hill State Republican.
[00:43:56]  Go ahead.
[00:43:58]  Good morning.
[00:43:59]  Thank you for taking my call.
[00:44:02]  I know things are getting pretty tough.
[00:44:05]  I have voted for Donald Trump all three times.
[00:44:10]  I'm not a fair-weathered voter, so I'm going to be voting Republican in November, but I'm filling the heat with the gas prices.
[00:44:20]  I understand everybody's problems.
[00:44:25]  But I'll tell you, I've been alive for 50 plus years, and Iran has been a thorn in the world's side the whole time.
[00:44:35]  So it's a really tough situation because we needed somebody to pull the plug on them.
[00:44:42]  And that's what's happening.
[00:44:44]  Things are expensive, I know, but I feel like if we just hold on, that things are going to get better.
[00:44:51]  I'm really hoping and holding out for it.
[00:44:54]  Here in North Carolina, we have a lady running for office, and we haven't even seen her face because she's covered in a burqa.
[00:45:03]  And I don't understand how people can just blindly vote Democrat just because times are a little bit tough.
[00:45:14]  You know, things are going to get better.
[00:45:16]  Rates are going to come down.
[00:45:18]  Gas is going to come down.
[00:45:20]  I hold up a lot of respect for Mr. Trump, President Trump.
[00:45:26]  I'm a Navy veteran, and I'm watching that straight, and I want our service members to prevail.
[00:45:34]  Thank you for taking our call.
[00:45:36]  Have a good day.
[00:45:36]  Bye-bye.
[00:45:37]  That's Crystal in North Carolina.
[00:45:39]  Several of President Trump's cabinet members were on the Sunday shows yesterday.
[00:45:45]  Among them, his budget director, Kevin Haset, was on CBS's Face the Nation.
[00:45:50]  He was asked about the economic impacts of the war in Iran.
[00:45:54]  This is some of what he had to say.
[00:45:56]  You said the blockade is still on.
[00:45:58]  A blockade is an act of war.
[00:45:59]  Are we at war with Iran?
[00:46:02]  Iran shut down the straits.
[00:46:04]  Iran shut down the straits.

=== Incentivize Voting (11:15) ===

[00:46:06]  Right.
[00:46:06]  And the only ones they were letting through were Iranian ships, and President Trump didn't think that was acceptable.
[00:46:13]  So we are still at war with Iran.
[00:46:17]  You know, I don't know what the definition of war is when we're not shooting and we're negotiating and they're under a lot of pressure.
[00:46:24]  There's no reason, I think, right now to do anything other than what we're doing.
[00:46:29]  The fact is that that regime has destroyed the country.
[00:46:32]  Let me put it in perspective.
[00:46:34]  In 1978, before the Ayatollah came in, then the per capita GDP in Iran was about the same as for Japan and Italy.
[00:46:41]  Now it's about the same as for Honduras.
[00:46:44]  So they've run that country into the ground, and that's before the straits were closed.
[00:46:48]  So it's really, really a country that's on the rocks.
[00:46:51]  Sure, and we're negotiating with them.
[00:46:52]  So we're going into week 10.
[00:46:55]  I'm wondering what economic modeling you have done here because the president had originally said the war was going to last four to six weeks.
[00:47:02]  We are now at the national average gas price of $4.45 a gallon.
[00:47:08]  Can we end the conflict without taking back the straight of Hormuz?
[00:47:15]  Well, what's going on right now is that we're doing an all-of-the-above approach to get energy to Americans and increase energy production around the world.
[00:47:24]  And I think if you look out into the future, what people are saying, no, so as an example, we waived the Jones Act.
[00:47:31]  The price of the U.S. is $10 a barrel less than it is on the world and in the world exchanges at all the West Coast was buying world price of oil, but now they're buying U.S. price of oil.
[00:47:41]  So we've made an enormous number of strides to reduce the short-term disruption.
[00:47:47]  What House Budget Director Kevin Hassett on the Sunday shows yesterday, about 15 minutes left here on the Washington Journal this Monday morning, asking you if you're planning to vote in election 2026.
[00:47:57]  It is six months and one day from today.
[00:48:00]  183 days.
[00:48:01]  Terry is in Westville, Illinois, Democrat.
[00:48:04]  Go ahead.
[00:48:06]  Thank you for taking my call.
[00:48:08]  I am going to vote because you got to.
[00:48:12]  I feel sorry for that guy who said that Trump got in again.
[00:48:14]  He's never voting.
[00:48:15]  Well, that's the third turn for him.
[00:48:17]  He can't be in.
[00:48:18]  Unless he makes new rules like he's been doing all along, like this war is supposed to be over and all this.
[00:48:23]  It's amazing how the rules, but they control everything, the Republicans right now, so you've got to tolerate it.
[00:48:28]  So you've got to at least vote.
[00:48:30]  And a guy like, you know, Bernie Sanders, I was for him too.
[00:48:34]  These independents that did succeed, like the one in Minnesota, you know, the wrestling guy, they really did great there for those states.
[00:48:41]  I'm going to tell you, but if you vote that way, what are you going to do?
[00:48:45]  Talking about Jesse Ventura?
[00:48:47]  Yes.
[00:48:47]  What'd you like about Jesse Ventura?
[00:48:49]  I read his book and I read, you know, I know I had a big wrestling fan, but I just read the book and how he did that state is doing.
[00:48:58]  And I said, Bernie Sanders has a lot of good things, too, but everything is he's too old.
[00:49:03]  He should be a cabinet member.
[00:49:04]  And if you need, you know, take one of these poor people like that guy from Alabama on $24 a month food stamps.
[00:49:10]  I bet that guy knows how to run a budget.
[00:49:12]  You know, if you ain't got it, you ain't got it.
[00:49:15]  And Trump, I knew if he got the second turn, they're really going to feel it because he's going to gut the country like gecko on Wall Street.
[00:49:22]  He don't care if he's losing money, it ain't his money.
[00:49:25]  Like they give him that $400 jet from wherever it was.
[00:49:30]  And now we got $400 million.
[00:49:31]  And we got to spend $400 million to refer to it to make sure no bugs or bombs are in it.
[00:49:36]  But he's going to go and build a base in Colorado to train pilots.
[00:49:41]  I don't understand that.
[00:49:42]  It's Terry in Illinois to Chesapeake, Virginia, Paul Independents.
[00:49:47]  Go ahead.
[00:49:49]  Yeah, John.
[00:49:52]  I do plan on voting in this election if Virginia ever gets their gerrymandered districts straight.
[00:50:02]  You won't vote yesterday.
[00:50:03]  I am an independent.
[00:50:04]  I claim to be, you know, there's not really a line for me because I'm actually libertarian.
[00:50:10]  But, yeah, we're trying to get the district straight here in Virginia, and God only knows what's going to happen with that because we still have two court cases.
[00:50:20]  They're saying, you know, and the way they worded the ballot measure was that it was for fair elections.
[00:50:33]  Well, we have five Republicans and six Democrats.
[00:50:37]  I think that's pretty fair.
[00:50:39]  Not nine Democrats and one Republican.
[00:50:43]  So the other thing, now that's just me now, just my opinion.
[00:50:50]  And for a governor that said the same thing that Warnock said earlier when you showed his thing, that he was against the partisan gerrymandering.
[00:51:04]  Well, that's the same thing that our newly elected governor said.
[00:51:10]  And then she turns around and does this.
[00:51:13]  Now, this is some of the problems I'm having with Democrats: they're telling me one thing just to get elected and then turn around and do something else.
[00:51:27]  Paul, for folks not in Virginia, this was the question that you and your fellow Virginians were asked to respond to, the ballot question on the redistricting effort.
[00:51:38]  This is how it was worded: Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections while ensuring Virginia's standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census.
[00:51:58]  And prior to that, just three, four years prior to this, we had a bipartisan districting commission set by the Constitution and voted for by the people.
[00:52:15]  So, here four years later, now they wanted to change it.
[00:52:19]  Now, another thing I would like to just throw in here is what people have to remember.
[00:52:25]  I hear, and all I ever hear, I don't hear policies from Democrats.
[00:52:30]  I just hear Trump is a bad man.
[00:52:33]  Okay.
[00:52:35]  I haven't heard any real policies.
[00:52:40]  And the thing that people, I think, really need to remember if they are voting in this election this time is that you have to remember that all these elections,
[00:52:54]  as you had mentioned earlier, they're governor elections, they're senatorial elections, and they are the House of Representative elections, which means those are elections for the local people and those states.
[00:53:13]  Now, Bernie Sanders, Hakeem Jeffries, AOC, Chuck Schumer, even Chip Roy and Donald Trump, they just need to stay out of my state's elections.
[00:53:28]  I mean, because I want people who are running for me and not the party.
[00:53:34]  And this is what I believe a lot of this is coming to is that it's all about the party and not the people who are supposed to be the ones that are selecting the government.
[00:53:54]  They're supposed to be working for us, not for themselves or a party.
[00:53:59]  That is socialism at its finest.
[00:54:03]  Thanks.
[00:54:04]  That's Paul in Chesapeake, Virginia.
[00:54:07]  The chart we referenced earlier, voter turnout rates, whether it's a presidential election or a midterm election, the blue line from the electionproject.org chart is the presidential election turnout, the orange line, midterm elections.
[00:54:24]  It's usually somewhere about 15 to 20% lower for turnout during midterms, although you saw that spike in 2018 with some 50% turnout in the midterms.
[00:54:38]  That was after Donald Trump was elected in 2016.
[00:54:43]  And then the presidential elections, the numbers have spiked up in recent years.
[00:54:49]  But you can see generally midterm elections, much lower turnout than presidential.
[00:54:53]  This is Craig in Arnold, Maryland, Republican.
[00:54:57]  Craig, go ahead.
[00:55:00]  Yeah, I'm definitely going to vote, and I'm not going to let the place of gas dictate my vote.
[00:55:06]  I believe that under Anytime there was a new all-time high for gas, it was always under Democrats.
[00:55:13]  So I think it's crazy that people keep bringing this up.
[00:55:17]  Nobody wastes any type of crisis.
[00:55:20]  And that's the problem because it's great.
[00:55:24]  It's only 20% of the world supply, but none of that comes to us.
[00:55:29]  A majority of our gas comes from home or down in Venezuela.
[00:55:33]  For our vehicles, certain fuels that come from the ground, it's not as easy to clean it so that it could go into your car.
[00:55:44]  And that's what's crazy because it's just people take advantage of every crisis, just like DX.
[00:55:49]  Craig, what do you think?
[00:55:51]  What do you think is going to happen if gas prices are still $4.40 a gallon six months from now or higher?
[00:56:01]  I don't see it going higher, and I see it coming back down.
[00:56:04]  I don't see, I know that if all of a sudden Democrats come back in, because that's not due, it's Tom and Jerry in the House, right?
[00:56:13]  So every time you turn around, the Democrats are shooting to get rid of fossil fuels and have electric, and Republicans are always like, no, we need the fossil fuels.
[00:56:24]  I don't understand why we can't integrate and let the people choose what they want to drive.
[00:56:31]  All of a sudden, they shouldn't wipe out so nobody can have a regular car if they want to.
[00:56:37]  And I think that's crazy.
[00:56:38]  I don't understand why they can't just integrate it.
[00:56:41]  And if they really want to try to help people push towards the electric, give them more of the credits, right?
[00:56:47]  Like tax credits, rebates, all that stuff.
[00:56:50]  If you want to try to incentivize people, but don't just mandate it and then make car manufacturers try to get more fuel miles per gallon in their cars, because that's another reason why a lot of the newer cars today are having so many problems with GM and stuff.
[00:57:08]  They're trying to push out too much.
[00:57:12]  Should the government be incentivizing certain things?
[00:57:16]  Occasionally you hear that being referred to as picking winners and losers in the market.

=== Founding Promise Gap (15:16) ===

[00:57:21]  Yeah, I think they should incentivize.
[00:57:24]  If they want to try to encourage people to go a different way, incentivize it.
[00:57:28]  Don't just force it and land to the free home of the brave, right?
[00:57:32]  Isn't that what we are?
[00:57:33]  But that's not how it is.
[00:57:35]  That's Craig in Arnold, Maryland.
[00:57:37]  Last caller in this first segment of the Washington Journal.
[00:57:40]  Stick around.
[00:57:41]  Plenty more to talk about this morning.
[00:57:43]  Later today, author and CNN national security analyst Jim Schudo joins us to talk about his new book on Russia, China, and world affairs.
[00:57:53]  But first, we're wondering how you feel about the United States on its 250th birthday.
[00:57:59]  A new poll from Ipsos takes a look on that topic, and Alec Tyson from Ipsos joins us to talk about it.
[00:58:06]  That's right after the break.
[00:58:08]  Stick around.
[00:58:08]  We'll be right back.
[00:58:18]  Best ideas and best practices can be found anywhere.
[00:58:21]  We have to listen so we can govern better.
[00:58:23]  Democracy depends on heavy doses of civility.
[00:58:26]  You can fight and still be friendly.
[00:58:28]  Bridging the divide in American politics.
[00:58:30]  You know, you may not agree with Le Dokran on everything, but you can find areas where you do agree.
[00:58:34]  He's a pretty likable guy as well.
[00:58:36]  Chris Koons and I are actually friends.
[00:58:37]  He votes wrong all the time, but we're actually friends.
[00:58:40]  A horrible secret that Scott and I have is that we actually respect each other.
[00:58:43]  We all don't hate each other.
[00:58:45]  You two actually kind of like each other.
[00:58:47]  These are the kinds of secrets we'd like to expose.
[00:58:49]  It's nice to be with a member who knows what they're talking about.
[00:58:52]  Liz did agree to the civility, all right?
[00:58:54]  He owes my son $10 from a bet.
[00:58:57]  And it's never paid fork it over.
[00:59:00]  That's fighting words right there.
[00:59:01]  I'm glad I'm not in charge.
[00:59:02]  I'm thrilled to be on the show with him.
[00:59:04]  There are not shows like this, right?
[00:59:06]  Incentivizing that relationship.
[00:59:09]  Ceasefire, Friday nights on C-SPAN.
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[00:59:56]  C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered.
[01:00:02]  Washington Journal continues.
[01:00:04]  For America's 250th birthday, Ipsos Public Affairs set out to get a sense of how Americans are feeling about the state of the nation right now.
[01:00:11]  The results of that effect, that effort can be found in a new report.
[01:00:14]  Alec Tyson serves as lead pollster for Ipsos.
[01:00:17]  Thanks for coming in to talk about it.
[01:00:19]  Start with that question of when you ask Americans what does it mean to be an American?
[01:00:24]  What are they saying in this semi-quincentennial year?
[01:00:27]  Yeah, it's a great year, and I think it's a really important question, right?
[01:00:30]  So it's at the top of the list is treating all people equally.
[01:00:34]  And I found that really interesting.
[01:00:35]  It's not about a single attitude, a single creed, but just this idea of treating all people equally.
[01:00:40]  When you ask folks, what's the most important thing to being an American, that's at the very top of the list.
[01:00:45]  What comes in second, belief in freedom and justice, really the resonance of sort of the founding principles idea of the country.
[01:00:51]  So those are the top two items when you ask folks in their own words or give them a survey question, what does it mean to be American?
[01:00:56]  And those are the top two responses.
[01:00:58]  What demographic in the country is most likely to be thinking about these ideas of what it is to be an American right now?
[01:01:06]  Well, that's what I liked about our survey is that the founding principles and ideals, our read of the data, is that they continue to have wide resonance with Americans.
[01:01:14]  So sometimes when you're talking about politics, it's those who are most engaged, who are following it most closely.
[01:01:19]  They read about it, they always vote.
[01:01:21]  But in our survey, what we found here, when you get up to 84, 85% of the public expressing a view, that's a signal to me that many Americans are still, these ideas are resonating widely across the country.
[01:01:31]  So it's not just older folks who are thinking about this being reflective, it's younger folks as well.
[01:01:35]  I think on many of the items, that's exactly right.
[01:01:38]  There are some questions that do get, you do start to see these splits.
[01:01:42]  How close are you following politics?
[01:01:44]  How important are your constitutional rights?
[01:01:45]  There you do start to see some differences where those who are more engaged have different attitudes.
[01:01:50]  But on these broad principles, do they still resonate today?
[01:01:53]  We saw that across Americans of all walks of life.
[01:01:55]  How many people did you talk to for the survey?
[01:01:58]  When was it in the field?
[01:01:59]  All the demographic questions.
[01:02:00]  Yeah, large survey said we did over 4,000 interviews for this one because we wanted to look at groups of, you know, across the country across demographics.
[01:02:07]  And we fielded this last month.
[01:02:09]  And we're excited to do it in advance of America's 250th birthday to commemorate the moment and see where Americans stood.
[01:02:14]  How are you sure that the views of these 4,000 or so individuals are a representative sample of the views of 340 million Americans?
[01:02:23]  Yeah, it's a great question.
[01:02:23]  You should always ask questions about surveys, but it's address-based recruitment, which is we know folks around the country.
[01:02:30]  Everyone has an equal opportunity of selection.
[01:02:32]  We recruit them by mail, then invite them to take surveys on our panel, and from there they answer the questions that we fielded in this survey here.
[01:02:39]  And one of those questions was, is the American dream still achievable?
[01:02:43]  What do people say?
[01:02:44]  This one I think is really interesting because it's so critical in this country to feel that it's within reach.
[01:02:49]  And about three-quarters of Americans say they've either already achieved it or they're on their way to achieving it.
[01:02:55]  So that's the good news.
[01:02:56]  Three and four say they either they have or on their way.
[01:02:58]  But about one in four say, I don't know if this is in reach for me.
[01:03:02]  And I think that's really concerning, right?
[01:03:03]  The idea of prosperity, it's central to this country, whether it's in reach for you or not.
[01:03:07]  So that one quarter of the public who says, I don't know if this is in reach for me, I think that's of concern here.
[01:03:13]  What is the American dream?
[01:03:15]  How do you define it?
[01:03:15]  Well, it's a great question from a survey perspective because you could give a definition, but the way we approached it is that Americans have a definition in their own mind.
[01:03:23]  It might be a little bit different depending on who you are, how you think about it.
[01:03:27]  But we just wrote it broadly and say, however you define it, do you feel like you've achieved or are on your way to achieving or is it out of reach, the American dream?
[01:03:36]  We're talking about America at 250.
[01:03:39]  This survey from Ipsos, it's available online.
[01:03:42]  You can go in and click through it yourself.
[01:03:44]  We're going to be going through plenty of the slides as we do it with Alec Tyson of Ipsos.
[01:03:49]  As we do that, we want to hear from you your questions and doing so on phone lines.
[01:03:54]  As usual, Democrats 202-748-8000.
[01:03:57]  Republicans 202-748-8001.
[01:04:00]  Independents 202-748-8002.
[01:04:04]  Bring it back to the semi-quincentennial.
[01:04:06]  How often are Americans thinking about the founding documents and going back 250 years in 2026?
[01:04:14]  Yeah, I thought this was really interesting.
[01:04:16]  We did want to explore the idea of the founding documents.
[01:04:19]  So the idea of constitutional rights, that's very relevant, very silly.
[01:04:23]  Majorities of Americans say they think about their constitutional rights or that they're important.
[01:04:28]  But there are some generational gaps here.
[01:04:30]  You mentioned demographic differences.
[01:04:31]  Younger folks, a little bit less likely to say that the founding documents are relevant to them today.
[01:04:37]  Older folks, Gen X, baby boomers, and older, they're more likely to say, no, these documents remain relevant in my own life.
[01:04:42]  So you do see something of a generational split here.
[01:04:45]  75% of baby boomers saying they think about the constitutional rights and the founding documents and the relevance of them.
[01:04:52]  59% of Gen Xers saying that.
[01:04:55]  45% of millennials, just 35% of Gen Z. Any other of those demographic splits where older folks are more reflective right now?
[01:05:05]  A bit.
[01:05:06]  And so there's an interesting question here because part of age in politics is just life cycle.
[01:05:11]  As you get older, you're more likely to vote, you're more likely to be engaged in your community.
[01:05:15]  So what's the interesting question here is how much of what we're seeing in a divide like that that you just read is that will Gen Z and millennials will they become more resonant in the founding documents as they age?
[01:05:25]  Or is this going to be a difference where there's just a, we call it a cohort difference where folks just have a different attitude than another generation that came before them.
[01:05:33]  What about instead of looking back, looking forward, who's most optimistic right now at America's 250th birthday?
[01:05:39]  The way I like to put this is there's optimism alongside pessimism.
[01:05:44]  So we asked this question, how often do you feel hopeful about the country's future?
[01:05:47]  And about a majority of Americans say that, 67%.
[01:05:50]  We ask a parallel question, how often do you have serious doubts about the country's future?
[01:05:54]  And about a little bit more, 70-some odd percent say that.
[01:05:58]  77%.
[01:05:58]  77%, thank you.
[01:06:00]  So I think that's really interesting because both can exist alongside one another.
[01:06:04]  You can have optimism for the future and also some concerns about the future.
[01:06:07]  And it does feel in many ways that we're at a pivotal moment as a country.
[01:06:10]  Do Americans feel like they need to be more involved right now because of the times we're in, because of the issues we're facing, or because of the anniversary we're celebrating?
[01:06:22]  I really like that question because it allows us to speak to one of the really important parts of the survey is as much as the founding ideals continue to resonate, two-thirds of Americans say there's much more for the country to do to live up to its founding promise.
[01:06:36]  And then to your question, about that same share of Americans say, I'd be willing to do more, I'd be open to more opportunities to help.
[01:06:42]  So it's not all Americans, but it's a pretty sizable share who say, listen, I'd be willing to do more to help the country.
[01:06:48]  It comes back to that question of how do you define the American dream.
[01:06:51]  How do you define America's founding promise?
[01:06:54]  What is that?
[01:06:55]  Well, I think what folks say in the survey, it's economic opportunity, it's democratic values, it's treating people equally.
[01:07:02]  Those were the notes that really resonated in the survey, and so that's how I think Americans define the country today.
[01:07:07]  And we are six months and one day from Election Day 2026.
[01:07:12]  What are Americans saying about their elected officials or the election coming up?
[01:07:17]  Well, they're not thrilled with their level of representation.
[01:07:20]  That's been a trend we've seen for many years, regardless of who's in power.
[01:07:24]  You know, we've seen this decline in trust in government over the past 10 or 20 years.
[01:07:29]  So you ask folks, do you feel that folks in Washington or elected representatives care about people like you?
[01:07:34]  Pretty modest share say yes, only about one in three.
[01:07:36]  It's about two in three who say really the opposite, and I'm not feeling great about the level of representation that I'm getting in Washington.
[01:07:43]  Ipsos.com is where you can go to find this survey that we've been walking through.
[01:07:47]  Alec Tyson is with us, a lead pollster at Ipsos, and was involved in this survey.
[01:07:52]  The name of the survey, Enduring Values, Evolving Identity, came out just last month, just a couple weeks ago, and we're going through it this morning on the Washington Journal.
[01:08:02]  And as we do, we really want to hear from you.
[01:08:05]  Did any of those questions that we brought up resonate with you?
[01:08:08]  How would you respond?
[01:08:09]  Phone lines, Democrats, 202-748-8000.
[01:08:12]  Republicans, 202-748-8001.
[01:08:16]  Independents, 202-748-8002.
[01:08:19]  And folks calling in already, we'll get to a few of them.
[01:08:22]  Herndon, Virginia, Mary Ann, Republican.
[01:08:26]  What did you think about some of those survey results we talked about?
[01:08:30]  Hi, good morning.
[01:08:32]  Well, I think the survey is really quite interesting.
[01:08:35]  I do have a couple of questions for your guest.
[01:08:40]  I'm curious to know whether or not he asked for the sample's political affiliation or whether or not they felt it was relevant.
[01:08:48]  And the other question I have, was this a survey open to everybody or did you require U.S. citizenship and if they were U.S.-born or naturalized citizens?
[01:09:00]  I'm just curious.
[01:09:01]  No, very interesting question about survey methods there.
[01:09:03]  And at the end of our surveys, we do ask about how you lean politically.
[01:09:07]  And you can say independent or that you don't align with either major party, but we do collect that information so we can analyze our results by that information.
[01:09:15]  And then we don't ask about citizenship in our survey, but if you're a resident of the United States and you were invited to participate in the survey, that's the pool of all U.S. adults who could have been included in the survey.
[01:09:26]  How do you make sure you didn't accidentally interview just 4,000 Republicans or 4,000 Democrats?
[01:09:31]  Well, exactly right.
[01:09:32]  This is actually a great benefit of the Knowledge Panel, our primary data collection tool at Ipsos, is we have that information when we recruit them and invite them to be part of our panel.
[01:09:40]  They give us some basic information about themselves.
[01:09:42]  And so that's a way we can help ensure that we get a balance of folks in our surveys.
[01:09:46]  Another question from the survey in the graphic is helpful to view as we go through this.
[01:09:51]  Who's responsible for bringing the country together?
[01:09:55]  It's seen as a bit of a shared responsibility, though 71% of respondents to the survey said the President of the United States is responsible for helping bring the country together.
[01:10:05]  62% say it's members of Congress.
[01:10:07]  62% also saying state elected officials.
[01:10:10]  By the way, you could have more than one answer to this question.
[01:10:12]  That's why the numbers add up to more than 100.
[01:10:14]  58% saying it's just ordinary Americans who have this responsibility.
[01:10:19]  And then some other interesting ones.
[01:10:21]  32% saying technology companies are responsible for bringing the country together.
[01:10:26]  39% saying religious organizations.
[01:10:29]  45% saying news organizations.
[01:10:32]  49% saying law enforcement.
[01:10:34]  50% saying local community groups.
[01:10:37]  Anything surprising in those results for you?
[01:10:39]  I liked it because it's almost an all of the above, right?
[01:10:41]  Who's responsible for greater unity of the country?
[01:10:44]  Absolutely national political leaders, but also ordinary Americans, also leaders in the community like law enforcement.
[01:10:49]  So that's actually one of my favorite questions because it points to sort of a collective responsibility for greater unity.
[01:10:56]  You have all these questions that you've asked in previous surveys that you can kind of compare the results to 10 years ago or 20 years ago.
[01:11:05]  Would we have gotten the same responses on whose responsibility it is to bring the country together?
[01:11:10]  It's a great question.
[01:11:11]  I wish we had trends on more of these items.
[01:11:13]  Often we do have trends in survey research, but we tried to write this survey almost from scratch for this occasion to celebrate or commemorate America's 250th.
[01:11:21]  So in this instance, some of these questions are new.
[01:11:23]  I look forward to asking them in five years or 10 years or maybe even 50 years from now.
[01:11:27]  Give me another new question for this one.
[01:11:30]  Well, let's see.
[01:11:32]  This is a really interesting question, and it's perhaps a note of concern.
[01:11:36]  But a new question we asked is: do you think other Americans would be willing to put the country's interests ahead of their own interests?
[01:11:44]  And I'm not even sure if it's in the slide deck we have today, but two-thirds of Americans say they're not sure other Americans would put the country before their own interests.
[01:11:53]  I found that quite notable and a bit concerning, right?
[01:11:56]  If you ask an individual, would you be willing to do more?
[01:11:58]  They say, yes, I would be willing to do more.
[01:12:00]  But if you ask folks about other members of the country, would other people in the country put the country first?
[01:12:05]  They're not so sure.
[01:12:06]  So that was a new question, and I found those data quite interesting.
[01:12:12]  And there's the slide for you: 57% saying that they're not sure, and 40% saying that they are sure.
[01:12:20]  We're showing it to our country.
[01:12:21]  Oh, great.
[01:12:21]  Terrific.
[01:12:21]  Terrific.
[01:12:22]  Barry, Hammed in Connecticut.
[01:12:24]  Democrat, go ahead.
[01:12:26]  Yeah.
[01:12:27]  Why is it that every time this American Dream thing comes up, I always feel like it's always about material things like, you know, having a house and et cetera.

=== Defining Happiness (03:16) ===

[01:12:38]  It's just about freedom.
[01:12:39]  And in the first one or two, in whatever three, you know, the Bill of Rights, they're really great, but here's what I think we need.
[01:12:46]  And tell me what you think.
[01:12:48]  We need a constitutional convention.
[01:12:50]  I know that's pie in the sky, but it's really got to go through with a fine-toothed comb.
[01:12:56]  And basically, money is not speech.
[01:12:58]  Money is the most unequal thing there is.
[01:13:01]  I believe we need a strong independent party.
[01:13:04]  We need term limits.
[01:13:06]  Get the money out of politics.
[01:13:08]  You know, everybody could agree with stuff like that.
[01:13:10]  We need a party like an independent party that is a moderate party, that are people like us in the middle.
[01:13:18]  We believe in this, this, and this.
[01:13:20]  I can go on, but that's too long.
[01:13:22]  You know, because the Republicans are more upper class, and the Democrats are more cultural issues of gender, et cetera, et cetera.
[01:13:31]  The state of the country, to me, is about freedom.
[01:13:34]  And I have freedom.
[01:13:36]  I could go to A to B. I'm fortunate I have money.
[01:13:39]  I'm lucky.
[01:13:40]  A lot of people aren't.
[01:13:41]  So it's very hard for a lot of people.
[01:13:44]  And it's not for me as much.
[01:13:47]  So, Barry, would you say that you have achieved the American dream?
[01:13:52]  Well, I don't know what it means.
[01:13:54]  Freedom.
[01:13:54]  Yeah, I'm free.
[01:13:55]  Basically, I'm a free person.
[01:13:57]  I could come go to play.
[01:13:58]  I could say what I want.
[01:14:00]  I could write, I could call in.
[01:14:02]  I have a lot of freedom, yes.
[01:14:06]  But a lot of people don't.
[01:14:09]  And I feel like, you know, it's a bother when people call into you and things like that are really hurting.
[01:14:16]  And I hate that.
[01:14:17]  You know, nobody should struggle.
[01:14:19]  They always say this is the richest country in the world, this and this.
[01:14:23]  You know, I could go on and on.
[01:14:25]  You know what I mean?
[01:14:26]  It's just, we need an independent party.
[01:14:28]  Barry, thanks for the call.
[01:14:30]  From Connecticut, 34% of Americans, like Barry, say in response to your survey that they have achieved the American dream.
[01:14:38]  Another 39% saying that they're on their way to achieving the American dream.
[01:14:44]  And then 23% saying that the American dream, it's out of reach for them.
[01:14:47]  Yeah, part of what I heard in the caller's comments was this idea of prosperity.
[01:14:51]  And we actually asked a question, it's a personal question.
[01:14:54]  What defines happiness and success for you?
[01:14:57]  The top response, family.
[01:14:59]  The second response, having enough money to live your lifestyle or support your lifestyle.
[01:15:04]  So absolutely, prosperity is something that's central both to the American dream, but also to what folks say makes them happy in their own life.
[01:15:11]  Families first, but closely followed by just the ability to support your lifestyle or prosper.
[01:15:16]  Sixth on that list of what defines happiness or success is religious or spiritual life.
[01:15:24]  Has that number fallen in the time that you've been asking that question?
[01:15:28]  Well, it's interesting.
[01:15:29]  So we know in this country that it remains a very religious country.
[01:15:32]  About nine in ten believe in some higher power, God, or higher power belief.
[01:15:36]  But we also know that affiliation with religion has fallen over time.
[01:15:40]  So I thought that was very interesting because the founding language of one nation under God, belief in God, about half of folks say that this is essential or really important, both to what it means to be American or to your own success.
[01:15:52]  But another half of Americans say, for me, not so much.

=== One Nation Under God (02:35) ===

[01:15:54]  So you see a bit of a split here on that question.
[01:15:57]  What about this one?
[01:15:58]  34% of respondents saying the success of political leaders that they support defines happiness.
[01:16:06]  Yeah, so that's interesting.
[01:16:07]  You can read it two ways.
[01:16:08]  On the one hand, it's less than half, right?
[01:16:10]  But for a third of Americans, the political leaders...
[01:16:12]  They're not happy unless their party is winning.
[01:16:14]  Well, in as many words, I think that's true for some.
[01:16:17]  Now, it's true for 34% or so.
[01:16:19]  Maybe two-thirds it's not so true for, but even that 34% is quite a meaningful share of the country who really think politics shapes their outlook in life.
[01:16:27]  Alec Tyson with us of Ipsos.
[01:16:28]  Again, ipsos.com is where you can go.
[01:16:30]  We're showing you some of these charts, but you should go through it for yourself and see what stands out to you.
[01:16:36]  Enduring values evolving identity is the name of this survey coming out timed with America's semi-quincentennial this year.
[01:16:44]  This is Bob in Texas, Independent.
[01:16:47]  Go ahead.
[01:16:48]  Yes, I'm calling about the Declaration.
[01:16:51]  There's one sentence in U.S. law that is more important than the sum total of millions of sentences that follow it.
[01:17:00]  Unless we know what our founders learned 11 years before they declared independence, we will forever remain divided.
[01:17:11]  And that answer there is l-o-n-a-n-g.com.
[01:17:16]  And then you can add a slash blackstone after l-o-n-a-n-g.com.
[01:17:23]  So, Bob, I guess I'm not following you.
[01:17:25]  So, what is it that we need to know about our founders?
[01:17:30]  We need to know what they united under when they declared independence.
[01:17:36]  And what do you think they were uniting under?
[01:17:39]  I know what they were united under, and that's in the first sentence: laws of nature and of nature's guide.
[01:17:47]  And what they learned from Sir William Blackstone is that no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.
[01:17:56]  And that can be found at a link, lonang.com slash blackstone.
[01:18:05]  That's Bob in Texas.
[01:18:07]  You can also go to the National Archives, archives.gov, if you want to read the Declaration of Independence in its entirety.
[01:18:15]  It's very easy to find, and it's one of their most searched pages.
[01:18:21]  You can read the entire Declaration in Congress July 4th, 1776.
[01:18:26]  Rick in Boston, Democrat, go ahead.

=== Hopeful Country Future (09:58) ===

[01:18:30]  Make a couple of comments about the American way.
[01:18:34]  I mean, you look at how voting is run in this country, right?
[01:18:37]  You got people who've been running this place.
[01:18:41]  I'm 70 something years old.
[01:18:42]  You know, Republican, Democrat.
[01:18:44]  It doesn't matter.
[01:18:45]  But the thing is that everything's supposed to be equal.
[01:18:48]  You know what I'm saying?
[01:18:48]  You run for an office and run.
[01:18:50]  You win.
[01:18:51]  Like, for example, this Donald Trump.
[01:18:53]  He comes in the out of armies.
[01:18:55]  Geez years.
[01:18:56]  We never hear nobody complain about no damn voting.
[01:18:58]  You know what I'm saying?
[01:18:59]  Oh, this is Vig, this Vig, this Vicks.
[01:19:01]  Now, when he loses, when he loses anybody, it's Rick, it's Rick.
[01:19:05]  And he got enough of these stupid people out there voting for this clown here.
[01:19:08]  He's taking over the country.
[01:19:10]  He's trying to turn it into country.
[01:19:11]  I mean, I'm telling you, he's trying to turn the whole country into America, to a white America.
[01:19:14]  He don't want no national, any immigrants in here at all.
[01:19:17]  Got your point.
[01:19:18]  That's Rick in Boston.
[01:19:19]  What else did we find out about voting?
[01:19:21]  Well, that's an interesting note in the caller's comment.
[01:19:23]  Is one thing we asked folks about is what about respecting election results?
[01:19:27]  Whether your candidate won or lost, how do you feel about respecting the results of election?
[01:19:31]  In a very large majority, 85%, almost 90% said that, listen, it's really important to respect the results of an election, whether or not you're preferred candidate won or not.
[01:19:40]  So I found that very resonant, you know, very intense times with our elections and in politics.
[01:19:44]  But you ask Americans, is it important to respect the results of elections?
[01:19:47]  And they say, absolutely.
[01:19:49]  But more of the good with the bad or the bad with the good?
[01:19:53]  32% of Americans, just 32%, agree that elected officials care what people like me think.
[01:19:59]  Yeah, I think that's a real concern for Americans, the sensor, the quality of the representation that they feel they have.
[01:20:05]  Right now, it's not very high.
[01:20:06]  They don't have a sense that elected officials care what they think on a day-to-day basis or that necessarily they all understand the challenges they're facing in their own life.
[01:20:14]  If people do go online and click through this, there's quotes throughout the survey that you've added from various people, and you've asked them for their wish for America on America's 250th birthday, their birthday wish.
[01:20:30]  Explain why you did that.
[01:20:32]  Well, it's so powerful sometimes to hear folks in their own words, right?
[01:20:35]  And it is America's birthday, 250th birthday.
[01:20:38]  And so if you had one wish, I think it'd be a good one for the callers to reflect on.
[01:20:41]  If you had one wish for the country at 250, what would it be?
[01:20:45]  Very powerful responses to hear people in their own words.
[01:20:47]  So often when you write a survey question, we design the response options.
[01:20:51]  But in this case, it was just an open end, meaning that they could say whatever they'd like.
[01:20:54]  So I enjoyed reading those.
[01:20:55]  And I think one of the most powerful responses or themes that we got was a call for greater unity in our political and civic life.
[01:21:02]  Very powerful.
[01:21:03]  And I thought that was the top response and quite a thoughtful one.
[01:21:06]  Greater unity in government, no politics, no grandstanding, just doing the most for the people.
[01:21:11]  One of those birthday wishes, allowing people to say whatever they like is kind of what we do here.
[01:21:17]  So we'd love to hear your response.
[01:21:18]  We've got about another 20 minutes or so with Alec Tyson of Ipsos.
[01:21:22]  So give me the wording of the question.
[01:21:25]  Well, it was just that.
[01:21:26]  On America's 250th birthday, what would be your one wish for the country?
[01:21:30]  Go ahead and call in with that.
[01:21:31]  And also with your thoughts on this survey from Ipsos.
[01:21:34]  Alec Tyson with us.
[01:21:36]  It's ipsos.com is where you can go.
[01:21:39]  Simeon in Rapid City, South Dakota, Republican.
[01:21:43]  Go ahead.
[01:21:46]  Well, I didn't say Republican, Independent, because I'm a real patriot.
[01:21:52]  I don't pick a side and vote based off of one side or what the other sides think because there isn't any sides.
[01:22:00]  There's one party and it's called the Uniparty.
[01:22:03]  And I've been listening to the C-SPAN game for about 10 years now.
[01:22:07]  And I've noticed that the channel goes whichever way they're told.
[01:22:12]  So if that's the America now that we're going to reside in.
[01:22:15]  Told by who, Simeon?
[01:22:18]  Told by who?
[01:22:19]  Oh, you're told by those people in that big white building behind you.
[01:22:24]  So in the United States.
[01:22:27]  Sure of that.
[01:22:28]  There's other capitals around the world also, not just America that now run this country.
[01:22:34]  So if that's this America that we're going to live in where money printing and lawfare and favoritism and contracts rule rude the roost, Well, then that's exactly what you're going to get, are record low approval numbers, record low confidence, record low morale in this country, just in time for your big birthday bash.
[01:23:02]  So remember, remember, voting has consequences, and messing with the votes have even more dire consequences.
[01:23:12]  Enjoy your America.
[01:23:17]  Simeon, in South Dakota, are we at record low morale in this country?
[01:23:21]  Well, it's hard to say when you think about how to define that.
[01:23:24]  Are we at a moment of low trust in government?
[01:23:26]  Absolutely.
[01:23:26]  Is there a sense that the quality of representation could be better?
[01:23:29]  Absolutely.
[01:23:30]  We've talked about that with some of the figures we have here.
[01:23:33]  At the same time, is there still a sense of optimism in this country that can be found?
[01:23:37]  That's what I really liked about this survey, that we talked about the share who feel hopeful about the country's future.
[01:23:43]  And there's an acknowledgement that there's a desire, really a call for greater unity.
[01:23:47]  But why that matters is at the end of the day, 83% of Americans say that when we're united in common cause, there's nothing we can't achieve as a country.
[01:23:57]  That was such a powerful finding.
[01:23:58]  It's one of the final slides of the deck.
[01:24:01]  And I think it speaks to this idea of this enduring or resilient America.
[01:24:05]  Even our challenges are our differences.
[01:24:06]  At the end of the day, 83, 84% of Americans say when we're united in common cause, there's nothing we can't achieve as a country.
[01:24:14]  And let me come to another one of those final slides.
[01:24:16]  The question, what would make the nation's 250th birthday most meaningful to you?
[01:24:22]  52% saying it would be elected leaders of both parties committing to greater cooperation and unity.
[01:24:29]  And 46% saying it's honest reflection on our history, both the good and the bad.
[01:24:35]  Well, that's a point that's worth talking about from the study as well, is there's this question, sometimes you have these conversations about history.
[01:24:42]  Should we only focus on the successes and the high points, or should we engage with our failings and flaws?
[01:24:47]  And Americans say both in this survey.
[01:24:49]  A majority, about six and ten, say, yeah, we need to talk about our past failings and flaws.
[01:24:53]  And at the same time, they say we should also talk about our successes and our great achievements, right?
[01:24:59]  And so that's a note that I hear in this honest reflection.
[01:25:02]  It means reflecting both on the moments we've fallen short and on what's made us great as a country.
[01:25:07]  So one of those examples you get into in the survey is immigration and whether that is an important part of the success of this country or not.
[01:25:17]  What did you find?
[01:25:18]  Well, on the one hand, we find that as an idea, this idea that America is a nation of immigrants, 80% of Americans resonate with this idea.
[01:25:26]  And then we asked a few follow-up questions because immigration is such a complex debate in our country today.
[01:25:31]  We said, do you think the fact that many different folks of different walks of life make up the country, is this a good thing, a bad thing, or does it make not really any difference?
[01:25:39]  And by 63% to 9%, folks say it's a good thing.
[01:25:42]  It strengthens the country that we have a variety of folks from different backgrounds in the country.
[01:25:47]  But then you go forward and you do start to see a little bit more difference.
[01:25:50]  This idea of should there be significant levels of immigration into the country going forward?
[01:25:56]  Certainly it's been a part of our past.
[01:25:57]  Should it be a major part of our future?
[01:26:00]  Six in 10 say yes, about four in 10 say no.
[01:26:03]  And here is a point where you do see a partisan difference.
[01:26:06]  A large majority of Democrats, about 80%, say significant immigration in the future is really important to the country.
[01:26:12]  Only about 40% of Republicans, about half as many, say the same.
[01:26:16]  So there is a moment where you see some difference along partisan lines today.
[01:26:20]  How many surveys would you say you've been a part of in your work at Ipsos?
[01:26:23]  Oh, goodness.
[01:26:24]  That's part of what I love about my job is we are very busy.
[01:26:27]  But I'd say probably about 100 plus.
[01:26:30]  I'm in my first year here, so about 100 or so.
[01:26:32]  Do you have a sense that people are more or less trusting of polling these days than they used to be?
[01:26:38]  It's a good question.
[01:26:39]  I think trust in institutions is lower generally, but what's great about polling is the methods always evolve, right?
[01:26:45]  In early days, it was face-to-face surveys, and in some places around the world, that's still the best methodology.
[01:26:50]  And then there was sort of a golden age of telephone polling, and then landlines transitioned to cell phones.
[01:26:56]  And now, what many surveys do, like ours, is they recruit by an address-based file and then invite or enlist people to take surveys online, which is more convenient for folks.
[01:27:05]  So, survey methods evolved to kind of meet how we, the information environment, and how people respond and share their views.
[01:27:11]  And that's a natural evolution, I think.
[01:27:13]  Some folks think that every methodological change is the biggest one ever, but it's important to reflect that the industry has evolved over time to meet the moment.
[01:27:21]  To be clear, you've been involved in polling a lot longer than a year, though.
[01:27:24]  You're at Pew Research for two decades.
[01:27:26]  Two decades, yeah, a great run there, a great place to train.
[01:27:29]  What is Pew for people who don't know it?
[01:27:30]  Well, it's essentially a think tank or say a fact tank.
[01:27:34]  It's a nonpartisan institution that tries to put out good information in the world, and they rely quite a bit on surveys.
[01:27:40]  Ipsos.com is where you can find this survey that we've been talking about, and just about five or ten minutes left to take your calls on it.
[01:27:48]  Jack in Maine, Line for Democrats.
[01:27:51]  What's your question or comment?
[01:27:53]  Yeah, good morning.
[01:27:54]  Thanks for taking my call.
[01:27:55]  Yeah, I am going to vote.
[01:27:58]  In this particular election, I'm going to vote straight Democratic.
[01:28:02]  That's not a basic rule of my life because I prefer to go with the great ideas.
[01:28:07]  And sometimes Republicans have very good ideas, and sometimes Democrats do.
[01:28:12]  I'd hate one.
[01:28:13]  What my one wish for the country is, by the way, is that we stop demonizing each other from Democrats and Republicans and trying to kick each other when we're down and be more like brothers and try to help each other succeed.

=== Stop Political Demonization (14:38) ===

[01:28:28]  Have a nice day, you guys.
[01:28:30]  Jack, thanks for that.
[01:28:31]  We've been asking for your birthday wish because, as part of this poll, they did the same thing at Ipsos.
[01:28:36]  Here's another one from the survey: My wish is for the next generation to inherit more opportunity.
[01:28:43]  You find some of the general themes throughout those birthday wishes?
[01:28:46]  Absolutely, and many of them connect back to the founding ideals of the country: life's liberty, and the pursuit of happiness or pursuit of prosperity.
[01:28:54]  You hear that in some of the wishes: a return to more opportunity, both for the current generation but also the future generation.
[01:29:00]  To Elizabeth in Vienna, Virginia, Independence.
[01:29:03]  Go ahead.
[01:29:05]  Good morning.
[01:29:06]  I wanted to say what gives me hope for America is the next generation.
[01:29:11]  On Saturday, I listened to the program, the tutorial, I guess it was, for the AP History exam on Tuesday, and actually, my granddaughter will be taking that.
[01:29:20]  Oh, Elizabeth, thanks.
[01:29:21]  Glad you watched that one.
[01:29:23]  I was so impressed with those young people and their knowledge.
[01:29:28]  And I just wish that every high school student would have an opportunity to take that course.
[01:29:35]  And so that's what gives me hope for America.
[01:29:37]  It's the Advanced Placement U.S. History Test.
[01:29:42]  We call it our cram for the exam.
[01:29:44]  We have a professor call in and talk about studying for that exam.
[01:29:48]  The exam is, as I recall, Friday, May the 8th.
[01:29:52]  And if you want to cram for the exam, we have one for both AP government and politics, but also AP U.S. history as well.
[01:29:59]  And we aired that on American History TV on Saturday.
[01:30:03]  Let me get a few more calls while we have Alec Tyson with us.
[01:30:06]  This is Al in Poughkeepsie, New York, Republican.
[01:30:09]  Al, go ahead.
[01:30:13]  Good morning.
[01:30:14]  Good morning.
[01:30:16]  I'd like to comment on your immigration comments that you made on television.
[01:30:22]  Go ahead, Al.
[01:30:23]  We're listening to you.
[01:30:25]  All right.
[01:30:25]  First of all, immigration is good, but it has to be limited.
[01:30:29]  And the reason why it has to be limited is the impact on the economy.
[01:30:35]  For example, during the Biden administration, either they let in 10 million, 15 million, whatever the number is.
[01:30:41]  Okay.
[01:30:42]  But there was no plan.
[01:30:45]  There was no plan for housing these people.
[01:30:47]  There was no plan for supporting these people.
[01:30:51]  They just let them in, which you can't do.
[01:30:55]  That's the problem with Democrats.
[01:30:57]  They come up with these ideas, but they don't plan them.
[01:31:02]  Okay?
[01:31:02]  If they would have planned it, what should have been done was they could have looked at the immigration policy and say, well, it's limited to $1 million a year.
[01:31:11]  We'll make it $2 million.
[01:31:12]  No, they let all these people in.
[01:31:14]  No housing for these people.
[01:31:16]  No food for these people.
[01:31:18]  These people are now taking products that normal Americans do.
[01:31:23]  So as a result, prices raise because now there's more demand for those products.
[01:31:29]  No plan at all by Democrats.
[01:31:32]  Al, can I ask you, before you go, Al, just on this question of immigration, I want to come back to another question from this survey.
[01:31:38]  Is there something that an illegal immigrant could do that would increase their chances, in your mind, that they should stay in this country more permanently?
[01:31:50]  Is there something that they should pay taxes or learn English?
[01:31:53]  What would, in your mind, should increase their chances of staying in this country?
[01:31:57]  Okay.
[01:31:58]  They must apply legally.
[01:32:00]  If they want to increase that number from 1 million to 2 million to 3 million, fine.
[01:32:05]  But plan how these people will be housed, how they will eat, and how they will be supported.
[01:32:10]  Make them go to English classes because you can't understand half of them.
[01:32:15]  That's Alan Poughkeepsie.
[01:32:17]  Your thoughts on Al?
[01:32:18]  Well, immigration is absolutely part of what we explored in this survey and other surveys.
[01:32:22]  And the first place that I would start is when you ask Americans what they want in immigration, they want more than one thing.
[01:32:27]  They want strong borders.
[01:32:28]  They want enforcement.
[01:32:29]  They want good training of border officers.
[01:32:31]  They also want a path for citizenship for folks who came to the country illegally.
[01:32:35]  And that can be surprising to some folks.
[01:32:37]  Some of those are more conservative ideas.
[01:32:39]  Some of them are more liberal ideas.
[01:32:41]  But Americans are really open to all of the above, right?
[01:32:44]  And in our survey, what we did is said, thinking about immigrants who are here illegally, should certain things make it more likely that they could find a path to legal status or less likely.
[01:32:54]  And some of the things that folks said would make them more open to gaining legal status were these ideas like if you have a job, if you were brought here as a child, perhaps, perhaps if you have a child in this country legally.
[01:33:06]  These are some of the factors that made folks say, well, I'd be more open to a path to legal status for immigrants who meet those characteristics.
[01:33:13]  Other characteristics rank lower on the chart there.
[01:33:17]  Another one of those is if it depends on how long they have been here living illegally, if it's 10 plus years, according to your survey, folks seemed more inclined to allow them to find that path to citizenship as opposed to somebody who just came in within the past couple months.
[01:33:34]  Absolutely.
[01:33:34]  So if you have deeper roots in the country, perhaps contributing in your community, that does shape people's opinions about legal status.
[01:33:40]  To Stephanie, Largo, Florida, Independence.
[01:33:44]  Go ahead.
[01:33:44]  Thanks for waiting.
[01:33:46]  Hello.
[01:33:47]  Go ahead, Stephanie.
[01:33:49]  Yes.
[01:33:50]  I mean, if the politicians today were the founding fathers with the founding fathers, they'd have never signed the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.
[01:34:00]  They have too much fun fighting with each other.
[01:34:03]  Did you see what happened in Louisiana this morning?
[01:34:07]  Democrat was elected to office.
[01:34:09]  The Republican politicians eliminated the office.
[01:34:14]  He no longer has the place to go.
[01:34:16]  It's a disgrace.
[01:34:18]  Stephanie, do you think we'll be here in another 250 years?
[01:34:21]  Do you think the country will be here, not us?
[01:34:24]  Oh, yeah.
[01:34:25]  We'll be here.
[01:34:27]  What gives you that confidence?
[01:34:29]  We are based on very sound principles.
[01:34:32]  Everybody has their own principles.
[01:34:34]  I mean, Benjamin Franklin didn't want politicians to be paid.
[01:34:38]  He thought they'd draw in the greedy and the power-hungry.
[01:34:42]  Who's to say?
[01:34:43]  We learn from our experiences and we advance from there.
[01:34:48]  That's Stephanie in Florida.
[01:34:50]  Anything you want to follow up on?
[01:34:51]  No, just thoughtful comments.
[01:34:53]  Andy, Red Bank, New Jersey, Democrat.
[01:34:56]  Go ahead.
[01:35:00]  Andy, you're with us.
[01:35:02]  First time getting through.
[01:35:04]  Can you hear me?
[01:35:05]  Yes, sir.
[01:35:06]  Great.
[01:35:08]  So my comments on the question of the state of the country I think is very much connected to the state of American education.
[01:35:19]  And I really believe as a society, we are doing ourselves a disservice for the long term in not preparing people for work, for being a citizen.
[01:35:34]  And I'm sure, you know, this is a complicated problem, but it seems pretty simple.
[01:35:41]  In my period, in the 60s and 70s, I believe there was way more civic education, and people actually took it seriously.
[01:35:51]  And this is during, say, the Nixon era and the Ford era, and an era where in some senses there's similarities to political confusion that's going on.
[01:36:04]  I don't think the partisanship was as harsh then, but the dialogue is.
[01:36:09]  And the dialogue, I believe, is a function of poor education.
[01:36:13]  I'm a scientist by training, and it's really important, I believe, that people get their facts together first before they start to argue and start to come up with some construct of an argument that is either for or against something or just simply stating their opinions.
[01:36:30]  But without facts, without an analytical perception of how you take facts and turn them into some sort of a thesis, you're just babbling.
[01:36:43]  And I just see politicians, I see people that really should be at the top of the game in terms of their education, in terms of understanding, in terms of analytics, and they sound like complete idiots.
[01:36:56]  Alec Tyson, let me let you jump in because I got a few more callers I want to get to.
[01:37:00]  Absolutely.
[01:37:00]  So the note on civic education or education generally, there's a finding in the survey that we did about the importance of the country supporting prosperity.
[01:37:08]  And that can mean a number of different things, but I think absolutely one of the things is education or what's the education system in this country.
[01:37:14]  So when I think about the caller's comments, I go to that question, that there are things that the Americans want the country to do to support prosperity.
[01:37:22]  That could be affordability.
[01:37:23]  That could be access to education.
[01:37:25]  That's the note I would draw on from the survey here.
[01:37:27]  To Carl, Maine, Independent.
[01:37:29]  Thanks for waiting.
[01:37:32]  Sir, what I wanted to talk about is what I never hear anybody talk about, including politicians.
[01:37:39]  And it's going to affect every American in less than 3,000 days.
[01:37:44]  People in this country, since Social Security has not been deemed solvent since 1983 for 75 years, if Congress does not act and several bills have been introduced and tabled,
[01:38:02]  then several Americans, including in the state of Maine, where it's an elderly state, I'm going to be out of my home and several people with the price of the rent have doubling by cutting your Social Security check down.
[01:38:18]  So my question to you is: that's a very important thing to the lives of thousands of people.
[01:38:25]  Why doesn't either side want to do something about it?
[01:38:29]  Alec Tyson, Social Security.
[01:38:31]  Well, I'd go back to one of the themes we talked about earlier, which is only a third of Americans say they feel that elected officials care about basically the issues they're facing in their life.
[01:38:40]  What I hear from the caller is an issue that's very important to them that they don't hear their representatives talking about.
[01:38:45]  And I do think we see signs of that in the survey about wanting stronger representation among Americans.
[01:38:52]  To the volunteer state, this is Mark Kingsport, Independent.
[01:38:55]  Go ahead.
[01:38:57]  Yes, sir.
[01:38:59]  I love your show.
[01:39:01]  I've been blessed.
[01:39:02]  I've traveled all over this country, worked in plenty of states and around the world.
[01:39:07]  And one thing I've found in this country is I believe everybody just wants the next generation to be better.
[01:39:17]  We need to pull together, do away with this Republican-Democrat stuff.
[01:39:23]  There needs to be a party in the middle.
[01:39:26]  You can't have just two parties and really get anything done.
[01:39:30]  You've got to have somebody in the middle that they're going to mediate.
[01:39:35]  So, Mark, you're saying we got to stop hoping that the next generation does it and we can just do it ourselves?
[01:39:41]  Yeah.
[01:39:43]  We can do it.
[01:39:46]  I believe in this country.
[01:39:47]  I fought for it.
[01:39:49]  And I know that all we got to do, hey, the people in the middle are the ones doing the thinking.
[01:39:56]  The greedy people like Donald Trump, I don't like him at all.
[01:40:01]  But, you know, I didn't like Joe Biden either.
[01:40:06]  That's Mark in Tennessee.
[01:40:07]  Well, I think what I hear in the caller's comments are some of the notes we heard in the survey about at the end of the day, there's acknowledgement that we're divided in many aspects of our politics.
[01:40:16]  But I really come back to this enduring American optimism that there's a desire for greater unity in the country.
[01:40:23]  Folks don't necessarily like this level of polarization.
[01:40:26]  And the finding we touched on before is that when we're united, Americans believe that there are no limits to what we can achieve.
[01:40:33]  So that's the American optimism, that quintessential American spirit that I think does persist even as we're having some debates about our politics.
[01:40:41]  To the Magnolia State, this is Charlotte Democrat.
[01:40:44]  Thanks for waiting.
[01:40:46]  Hello.
[01:40:47]  How's everyone doing?
[01:40:48]  Doing well.
[01:40:50]  Okay.
[01:40:51]  This is my first time speaking, and I really do admire the conversations that's going on.
[01:41:01]  And I do appreciate that we do have channels like this where people can, you know, talk about the issues or their problems.
[01:41:12]  My wish is that for more individuals who are in politics or whatever they choose to do to be more professional about it, to be more caring about their job because everybody has a job.
[01:41:30]  So when you do your job, just make sure that you're qualified for that job.
[01:41:35]  That's my wish for America.
[01:41:38]  Bye-bye.
[01:41:39]  That's Charlotte in Mississippi.
[01:41:41]  Yeah, nicely said.
[01:41:44]  A question from one of the viewers, and there have been plenty, but this is Annette from, I think this is X. Did the survey ask people where they got their news?
[01:41:55]  Well, it did, and this is an important one, right?
[01:41:58]  Because we talk about our media information ecosystem, how it's a little bit different than it's been in the past.
[01:42:03]  And so we do have that information on folks.
[01:42:05]  And to some extent, it shapes their views.
[01:42:07]  But on some of the more widely held attitudes, those are attitudes that are held across the board.
[01:42:12]  So if there's something we've talked about today where 70 or 80 percent of Americans felt that way, that's probably true across folks who got their information from a variety of different sources.
[01:42:20]  We try to get one more call.
[01:42:21]  Bill in Jacksonville, Florida, Republican.
[01:42:24]  Go ahead.
[01:42:25]  Yeah, just real quickly, thanks for being on the show.
[01:42:28]  You asked about the question, how long will we survive?
[01:42:31]  My response is that as long as the law courts stay honest, it will give us the best chance of survival.
[01:42:40]  Well, we haven't noted that in the surveys.
[01:42:42]  There's absolutely bedrock belief in the justice system and the court system, but there are some doubts that folks are treated equally under the law, irregardless of power and influence.
[01:42:51]  So both are true at the same time.
[01:42:54]  Like the caller, I think many Americans say it's fundamental that we have strong courts and legal processes.
[01:42:59]  At the same time, there are some doubts today about if the average person on the street is going to get a fair treatment through the court system if they're not a powerful or an influential person.

=== Democracy Unfiltered Start (03:39) ===

[01:43:07]  What else does Ipsos have going on for America's 250th birthday?
[01:43:11]  Well, we hope this to be the start of a continuing conversation.
[01:43:14]  We want to do more research.
[01:43:15]  We have some qualitative work, which basically means even listening even more in people's own words, pulling together some short videos.
[01:43:21]  And then we'd love to be part of events in the run-up to July 4th, just getting out America's voice and thoughts on the future here.
[01:43:27]  America at 250: Enduring Values, Evolving Identity.
[01:43:31]  That's the name of the survey.
[01:43:33]  You can find it at ipsos.com.
[01:43:35]  Alec Tyson is Senior Vice President and Lead Polster there.
[01:43:38]  We appreciate your time.
[01:43:39]  Great to be here.
[01:43:41]  Coming up a little later in our program, we'll be joined by Jim Sciudo of CNN National Security Analyst and author of a new book, The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next World War.
[01:43:54]  But first, it's open forum.
[01:43:56]  Any public policy, any political issue you want to talk about, now is the time when we turn the program over to you.
[01:44:01]  Go ahead and start calling in right now, and we will get to your calls right after the break.
[01:44:31]  Democracy Unfiltered.
[01:44:34]  C-SPAN brings you democracy unfiltered in real time.
[01:44:38]  Democracy doesn't take sides, neither does C-SPAN.
[01:44:42]  In a world full of opinions, C-SPAN gives you direct access to the people and institutions that shape our nation.
[01:44:49]  Unfiltered coverage of Congress as laws are debated and decided.
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[01:44:56]  Presidential speeches, briefings, and historic moments as they happen.
[01:45:00]  No commentary, no spin, no agenda.
[01:45:04]  Just the democratic process presented in full without interruption.
[01:45:08]  So you can watch the debates, hear every word, and make up your own mind.
[01:45:13]  C-SPAN's respected non-profit service has offered Americans unfiltered, gabble-to-gabble coverage of their government in action.
[01:45:21]  C-SPAN, bringing your democracy unfiltered.
[01:45:26]  C-SPAN is brought to you by the cable, satellite, and streaming companies to provide C-SPAN as a public service.
[01:45:33]  Campaign 2026 is underway, and the stakes couldn't be higher.
[01:45:38]  Every seat in the United States House of Representatives is up for grabs, along with 33 U.S. Senate races.
[01:45:44]  And the outcome of both could reshape the balance of power in Washington.
[01:45:49]  Voters will also decide 36 gubernatorial contests.
[01:45:52]  From the campaign trail to election night, follow Campaign 2026 on the C-SPAN networks.
[01:45:58]  C-SPAN, bringing you democracy unfiltered.
[01:46:06]  Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series, Sunday, with our guest, best-selling author Heather Cox Richardson.
[01:46:14]  She's a professor of history at Boston College and whose books span subjects from the Civil War and Reconstruction to the Gilded Age, the American West, and the history of the Republican Party.
[01:46:26]  Her most recent book is the best-selling Democracy Awakening.
[01:46:30]  Her newsletter, Letters from an American, reaches over 6 million readers.
[01:46:34]  She joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein.
[01:46:38]  Some people who have written about the Revolutionary War say the indispensable person was George Washington.
[01:46:43]  Had he not been the general, we probably would have lost the war and so forth.

=== Reconstruction Era Parallels (06:10) ===

[01:46:47]  Do you agree with that?
[01:46:48]  In terms of the ideology, the person he was, and his willingness to walk away from power, that was extraordinary.
[01:46:56]  I always tell my students America has lucked out a number of times.
[01:47:00]  And the first time it lucked out was with George Washington in that position of extraordinary power.
[01:47:05]  Walking away from the Army first, and that's just why that's in the rotunda of the Capitol, but then walking away from the presidency is an extraordinary thing.
[01:47:14]  Watch America's Book Club with Heather Cox Richardson Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
[01:47:32]  Washington Journal continues.
[01:47:35]  Time now for our open forum.
[01:47:36]  Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, now is the time for you to call in.
[01:47:41]  Here's how you can do so.
[01:47:42]  Democrats, 202-748-8000.
[01:47:45]  Republicans, 202-748-8001.
[01:47:48]  Independents, 202-748-8002.
[01:47:52]  And we will be in open forum for about 25 minutes or so.
[01:47:56]  Just a reminder about where the House and Senate are.
[01:48:00]  They're not here today, although there is a brief pro forma session in the House, but it'll be a mostly empty chamber, as you know, when those pro forma sessions happen.
[01:48:08]  That's at 10.30 a.m. Eastern.
[01:48:10]  But the House and Senate away this week on the district work periods, the state work periods.
[01:48:16]  And so we're with you for three hours every day this week and glad to be joined by you on the phone lines.
[01:48:24]  This is James in Rome, Georgia, Independent.
[01:48:27]  Up first, go ahead.
[01:48:30]  Yes, hey, how y'all doing?
[01:48:31]  I would just like to say that this America is taking us back to right after slavery, to Reconstruction.
[01:48:38]  There's a lot of things that are going on trying to erase black people's history.
[01:48:43]  You can't do it, but we are the ones who actually built this country with our labor, blood, and soil, and gave all these other immigrant people coming to her the right to be over here.
[01:48:54]  And they really unappreciative of that.
[01:48:57]  I don't really know why, but also, Trump, what he's doing, why don't you all go into some of those Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, English neighborhoods in New York and all these cities around here and round them up?
[01:49:11]  I don't see none of that.
[01:49:12]  They are the ones who are most local with those visa overstays.
[01:49:16]  It's not the people coming in illegal.
[01:49:18]  It's the people who are here illegal.
[01:49:19]  You're going by people's skin color.
[01:49:22]  The majority of people over here, yeah, there's a lot of Indians and different type of people, but the majority of them are from Europe, Russia, China, and these different type of places.
[01:49:32]  And I haven't seen one film, one video of you all in those neighborhoods.
[01:49:37]  But it's a racist white privilege agenda.
[01:49:40]  That's what it is.
[01:49:40]  Thank you.
[01:49:41]  Same as Hitler.
[01:49:42]  Thank you.
[01:49:42]  Gotcha.
[01:49:42]  That's James in Georgia to Patrick in Asheville, North Carolina, Independent.
[01:49:48]  You're next.
[01:49:49]  How do you do?
[01:49:51]  I was just wanting to know if we're even going to have an election this November.
[01:49:57]  And the reason why I say that is because the evidence is almost self-evidential.
[01:50:03]  You think Trump's going to give it up?
[01:50:06]  So it's a midterm election.
[01:50:08]  It's not a presidential election in November, Patrick.
[01:50:11]  Yeah, but I think he's not going to allow the midterm in order to...
[01:50:16]  Because if there's a Democratic sweep, you think he's really going to tolerate that?
[01:50:21]  So you think...
[01:50:22]  Do you think he's going to tolerate that?
[01:50:23]  Do you think the president is going to cancel the midterm elections?
[01:50:26]  Oh, he's going to pull some kind of Louis.
[01:50:29]  Yeah, some kind of emergency thing or something.
[01:50:31]  I think anything's possible with this guy.
[01:50:36]  It's Patrick, North Carolina.
[01:50:38]  This is Alice in Colorado, Republican.
[01:50:43]  Good morning.
[01:50:44]  I'm calling about, I've got a couple things.
[01:50:47]  I love immigrants, but I wish that they would learn English.
[01:50:51]  I taught school, and the younger children learned English very fast, but it would help.
[01:50:57]  I think all people are welcome in our country.
[01:51:01]  My main thing I was calling is about ceasefire.
[01:51:04]  I watched it a couple of times when it first started, and I just thought it was just too vanilla, too goody-goody, both parties.
[01:51:12]  I really like when people have their definite view and give some points about it, because I will definitely would change my opinion if I heard something that was worthwhile.
[01:51:24]  This Friday, you had Sean Spicer on and an older gentleman, a black gentleman, and I really enjoyed it.
[01:51:33]  It was just really good.
[01:51:34]  So I will watch it again.
[01:51:36]  And the other thing I wanted to talk about is that Colorado is going to have a vote for their governor this fall.
[01:51:42]  And it's really hard.
[01:51:44]  Colorado is, I'm a Republican, but Colorado is definitely a Democratic.
[01:51:48]  So I don't know whether to vote for a Republican who will lose or vote for the lesser of the two evils.
[01:51:54]  But I just really like Barbara Kirkmeyer.
[01:51:58]  And then my second choice would be, I'm trying to think of his name, but I don't like Phil Wiseman.
[01:52:06]  But anyhow, thank you so much.
[01:52:07]  I enjoy your show so much.
[01:52:09]  That's Alice in Colorado.
[01:52:11]  Just an update on that story.
[01:52:13]  We began our program with today the latest out of the straits of Hormuz.
[01:52:19]  Iran state media saying that a U.S. ship had been hit by two missiles, the U.S. denying that a frigate was hit by missiles in the Straits of Hormuz.
[01:52:30]  The reported attack by Iran comes after President Trump announced a naval mission dubbed Project Freedom to guide stranded ships out of the Straits of Hormuz on Monday.
[01:52:43]  So that's the latest of where we are, the U.S. denying, again, that any frigate or Navy ship had been hit by those missiles.
[01:52:53]  This is Marilyn, Dallas, Texas, Democrat.

=== Biblical Principles Debate (05:55) ===

[01:52:57]  Go ahead.
[01:52:59]  Good morning, John.
[01:53:00]  Good morning, America.
[01:53:02]  One thing that is most important to me is the debt.
[01:53:08]  It is unsustainable.
[01:53:10]  Everyone, companies, people, everyone needs to pay their taxes because if we don't have money in the treasury, we are in trouble.
[01:53:20]  And these politicians, they need to make laws that take care of the people of this country, not the greed and the power that seems to be most important to them.
[01:53:32]  It's all about fairness, as it should be, because we can't, it's just unsustainable.
[01:53:40]  And the debt is just getting to be too high.
[01:53:46]  The U.S. national debt, $39,199,702,000,000 in counting.
[01:53:54]  The federal tax revenue of the past year was about $5.5 trillion, though the United States spent $7.1 trillion in the past year, thus the federal deficit at $1.6, about $1.7 trillion.
[01:54:13]  All available at usdebtclock.org.
[01:54:16]  DJ, Virginia Independent, go ahead.
[01:54:22]  Our country was founded on biblical principles, but I have not seen those in action for some time.
[01:54:31]  I have not seen the Christian churches going out and Trying to bring in new members or even keep the ones that they do that they used to have.
[01:54:43]  And we have had a lot of people, a lot of people are deceased now, so our churches are hurting too.
[01:54:51]  The only person that I have seen in 40 years come to my house was a Mennonite.
[01:54:59]  And our country was founded on biblical principles in basically the first four gospels in the Bible.
[01:55:09]  And they state that we have to lay down our desires and needs and follow the cross.
[01:55:25]  And our country was founded on biblical principles, but I don't see those in action in Washington.
[01:55:33]  And consequently, I don't see them in the small towns either.
[01:55:37]  Got your point.
[01:55:37]  That's DJ.
[01:55:38]  This is Brian, Boulder City, Nevada, Republican.
[01:55:41]  Go ahead.
[01:55:45]  Love C-Spin, long-time listener, first-time caller.
[01:55:49]  This story is on the Southern Poverty Law Center.
[01:55:53]  And it comes out, the Southern Poverty Law Center, about 10 years ago, maybe it was nine years ago, when we had the Charlottesville thing, and you saw the people that were supposedly racist that were all walking to college.
[01:56:08]  It turns out they were just getting paid by the Southern Poverty Law Center to do that.
[01:56:13]  And the reason I bring this up is because by being a Republican for, you know, a new Republican in 2015, I've been accused of being a racist by people in Massachusetts for a long time.
[01:56:24]  And I just want to say that was manufactured by America and by Russia to make us not like each other.
[01:56:31]  Turns out it was totally not true.
[01:56:33]  And there's not as much racism in America as people say.
[01:56:37]  Brian, why did you?
[01:56:38]  You said you were a new Republican in 2015.
[01:56:41]  Why did you change in 2015?
[01:56:43]  And what were you before?
[01:56:44]  Well, I was a Democrat.
[01:56:46]  I was a Democrat, you know, and I went to a free speech thing in Boston.
[01:56:52]  And there was literally only three people there for free speech.
[01:56:55]  Turns out they were kind of racist.
[01:56:58]  But then like 3 million people showed up against those three people.
[01:57:03]  So the thing is, there's not as much race.
[01:57:05]  There's a lot of calls on this channel because I watch it all the time.
[01:57:08]  People calling in talking about so much racism.
[01:57:11]  In the last 10 and 20 years, there's not that much racism.
[01:57:15]  Before that, maybe there was a lot more.
[01:57:18]  But the last 10 years, America should calm down.
[01:57:20]  They're not as racist as people think.
[01:57:22]  What happened in the past 10 or 20 years that lowered levels of racism in this country, Brian?
[01:57:29]  Well, I mean, one thing is Barack Obama got elected president.
[01:57:33]  I mean, you know, that's race ever since that kind of happened.
[01:57:36]  Like for me, I always thought he was a great president, good president, and he was black, and I had no problem with that.
[01:57:43]  But as soon as I said that, I was voting for Donald Trump.
[01:57:46]  All of my friends back east, that's why I live out west now, I'm saying I was racist.
[01:57:53]  You know, and all Republicans are racist.
[01:57:55]  I was born, and you know, when I was raised, I was raised to believe that every Republican was racist.
[01:58:02]  But since I've been watching politics, it turns out that that's not true.
[01:58:07]  Racism, it's more about class warfare in America, about how much money you make, not about the color of your skin.
[01:58:13]  And that's all I want to say to anyone that, you know, I feel bad about what happened before now, but the last 10 or 20 years, it's not the color of your skin, it's how much money you have in your wallet.
[01:58:25]  That's Brian in Nevada.
[01:58:26]  This is Z in the Grand Canyon State Independence.
[01:58:30]  Go ahead.
[01:58:31]  Hi.
[01:58:32]  Good morning, John.
[01:58:32]  Thanks for taking my call.
[01:58:34]  Just got a what if.
[01:58:37]  What if America had all the bold attorneys in the 50 states to file a class action suit for billions against Trump for post-traumatic stress disorder?

=== Trump Administration Disapproval (06:04) ===

[01:58:53]  I know that's funny, but that should be taken into account because this president continues to have conflict every day.
[01:59:02]  We don't know which way he's going.
[01:59:03]  Today we look up, tonight we have to look down.
[01:59:06]  He's coming to the American people from all sides.
[01:59:10]  And I think that this is unfair to us.
[01:59:13]  And I would like that to be considered because to me, we're getting, we don't know what's happening today.
[01:59:21]  What is he throwing out?
[01:59:23]  And he's taking away from the senior citizens.
[01:59:26]  It's a myriad of problems and conflict that this president loves.
[01:59:30]  And I just think he needs to be confronted by the people that are backing him.
[01:59:36]  And I know they know right from wrong, but nobody is bold in that in the White House to go to him and have a sit-down with him.
[01:59:45]  He's not going to listen.
[01:59:47]  Got your point.
[01:59:48]  On the issue of what's happening with the president today, we'll head up to the White House.
[01:59:55]  It's the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue at 1600, where we're joined by Mabenti Kwashi of the Washington Examiner.
[02:00:04]  There this morning at the White House, Mabenti Kwashi, start on this effort that the president announced on his Truth Social page, Project Freedom, as he calls it, to move ships out of the Straits of Hormuz and this missile attack apparently against U.S. ships.
[02:00:19]  What have you found out today from the White House about those issues?
[02:00:23]  Yeah, so basically Trump is in a quagmire.
[02:00:26]  This ceasefire with Iran is dragging on.
[02:00:28]  This was supposed to be a war that he claimed was done in four to six weeks.
[02:00:32]  We're now in, we've passed two months and we're heading into three months.
[02:00:35]  And so basically on Sunday, Trump gets on Truth Social, announces Project Freedom.
[02:00:40]  Basically it says we're going to be assisting ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
[02:00:45]  Iran says if the U.S. does that, one, they're going to attack and two, that will be a violation of the ceasefire, which could technically restart a war that Trump on Friday told Congress had actually ended because he has the 60-day war powers resolution.
[02:00:59]  So essentially the war technically has stopped according to Trump, but Iran is threatening to end the ceasefire if the U.S. assists ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
[02:01:08]  Iran says, or it claims that it has struck a U.S. ship in the Strait of the Hormuz.
[02:01:14]  CENTCOM this morning basically said that's not true.
[02:01:17]  Basically, I think we are in the process of seeing this Iran-U.S. ceasefire fall apart.
[02:01:22]  If Trump and Iran, if they don't tamp down tensions today, we could see an escalation of fighting, which means Congress is going to essentially have to decide, are they going to approve of a war or are they going to rebuke Trump and essentially enact the 60-day wars resolution?
[02:01:41]  Where is the president today?
[02:01:42]  What's his schedule and where is he going this week?
[02:01:44]  Well, so the president, he got back to D.C. last night.
[02:01:48]  He has one open press event today.
[02:01:50]  It's a small business summit.
[02:01:52]  We're not sure if he's taking questions, but media will be there and obviously we'll be trying to get him to speak on the Iran war.
[02:01:58]  And obviously, he tends to post on Truth Social, so we will be monitoring that.
[02:02:03]  A couple other friends events that Trump is doing this week is on Wednesday.
[02:02:06]  He'll be doing a, you know, this week is the week right before Mother's Day, so he'll be doing a Military Mother's Day event on Wednesday.
[02:02:13]  And then on Saturday, we expect him to be doing another Mother's Day event, and then he will be also going to his National Golf Club in D.C.
[02:02:20]  So we don't expect him to be heading down to Mar-a-Largo this week, but he will be here in D.C.
[02:02:25]  It's just a matter of whether he will speak to the press repeatedly every single day.
[02:02:29]  And then his cabinet members making some high-stakes trips this week.
[02:02:34]  Marco Rubio headed to Italy.
[02:02:36]  What will the Secretary of State be looking for from that trip?
[02:02:40]  Yes, so Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be in Italy on Thursday and he will be meeting with Pope Leo, who has famously, I don't want to say feuded, but has gone a little bit back and forth with the Trump administration, essentially over the Iran war.
[02:02:53]  Pope Leo has taken a little bit of offense with Secretary of War Pete Hegset's comments that the war has been blessed by God and Pope Leo, especially during the Easter weekend, basically said that God does not bless leaders who engage in war.
[02:03:10]  Trump has also sort of slammed Pope Leo, especially when he's on the South Lawn taking questions from us.
[02:03:16]  So this trip that Marco Rubio is taking, I think, is to help sort of temp down tensions between the Vatican and the U.S. One, because Pope Leo is the first American Pope that we've had.
[02:03:26]  But two, this administration has been backed by religious conservatives.
[02:03:30]  And there have been people, especially Republicans, who are a bit uncomfortable with the Trump or Vice President JD Vance essentially feuding with Pope Leo.
[02:03:38]  You mentioned the South Lawn.
[02:03:40]  I know you wrote last week about the latest construction around the White House in anticipation of America's 250th birthday and the UFC fight that is set to take place at the White House.
[02:03:53]  What more can you tell us?
[02:03:54]  Okay, so as you all know, this UFC fight is unprecedented.
[02:03:57]  It's pretty historic.
[02:03:58]  We've never seen that at the White House.
[02:04:00]  It's coming on Trump's 80th birthday, June 14th.
[02:04:04]  He says it's tied to the America 250 celebration, which technically should be July 4th, but we're going to see it happen on June 14th.
[02:04:12]  So the UFC is being in this big, massive call on the South Lawn.
[02:04:16]  There will also be an arena at the ellipsis because obviously most people can't or won't be able to get on the South Lawn for the big fight that's going to take place here.
[02:04:25]  But Trump is saying that about 100,000 people will be able to be at the ellipsis and to watch the fight.
[02:04:31]  They're hoping to make this a very big celebration.
[02:04:34]  We'll see if it's going to be big.
[02:04:36]  There's a lot of disapproval with the Trump administration right now, if you have seen the latest polls.
[02:04:42]  And Trump is a big, he talks about being a real estate developer.
[02:04:46]  So this sort of plays into his sort of big spectacle that he wants to make of the America 250th celebration, especially coming off of a very tough year for the president.

=== Bridging Political Divide (15:40) ===

[02:04:58]  LaBetiquati covers it all for the Washington Examiner, their White House reporter.
[02:05:03]  It's WashingtonExaminer.com if you want to see her and her colleagues' works.
[02:05:07]  Thanks for getting up early for us and joining us from the White House.
[02:05:10]  Thank you.
[02:05:11]  Have a good one.
[02:05:13]  Back to your phone calls.
[02:05:15]  It is open forum for about another 10 minutes or so here on the Washington Journal.
[02:05:19]  202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans.
[02:05:25]  Independents, 202-748-8002.
[02:05:29]  Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about?
[02:05:32]  Now's the time to call in.
[02:05:33]  This is Randy in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, Democrat.
[02:05:37]  Go ahead.
[02:05:38]  Good morning.
[02:05:39]  Good morning.
[02:05:40]  God bless America.
[02:05:43]  Can we talk about polls for a minute?
[02:05:45]  Go for it, Randy.
[02:05:48]  How those numbers are gathered and what attitudes people have.
[02:05:54]  It's all based on the information that they receive.
[02:05:58]  And all the information that they receive is from every platform you can imagine.
[02:06:02]  You've got news agencies, talk shows, you've got the internet and all the podcasts.
[02:06:10]  And the majority of those that are really highlighted by the other media, the newspapers and your evening newscast and even your program refer to the printed media.
[02:06:25]  It's all information provided by the same people that provided the information about the dossier, which you guys just harped on forever and never came with any specifics on what was, you know, that was proven about you don't trust polls, Randy, is what you're saying.
[02:06:47]  Well, I would like to say I trust polls.
[02:06:50]  I just, I think people are using propaganda to make their decisions.
[02:06:57]  All they know is what they hear, and all they hear are lies from the same people that said the dossier was real and the laptop was fake and Ashley Biden's diary was not real and that the 57 intelligence agency guys that said the laptop wasn't real, it was Russian disinformation.
[02:07:20]  They knew that it was not.
[02:07:22]  They knew that it was real.
[02:07:23]  And Randy, you say all this as a Democrat?
[02:07:28]  I say all this as a Democrat and an American first.
[02:07:33]  The Democrats are supposed to stand for the people that are suffering, trying to help, you know, make sure that if you're in a wheelchair, you've got a good wheelchair and you can go to the hospital and you can get taken care of.
[02:07:48]  The Democratic Party now, they want to take care of everybody.
[02:07:52]  And it seems there's not enough people in America, so they want everybody else to come to America so we can support them.
[02:08:00]  So Randy, why are you still paying my taxes?
[02:08:03]  Why are you still a Democrat?
[02:08:04]  Why would you ask that?
[02:08:06]  Because you're calling in on the line for Democrats.
[02:08:09]  And I'm speaking as a Democrat.
[02:08:12]  Are you saying that a Democrat has to agree with what its party's doing?
[02:08:16]  What I'm saying is the Democratic Party, we're supposed to help the underprivileged and the needy and the kids that have illnesses and the old people that need help.
[02:08:29]  And what we're doing is we're putting so many people that really the system wasn't designed to support on that system.
[02:08:38]  Even our military, the Veterans Administration, when I got out of the Marine Corps, you had to have a military-related illness to get any kind of benefit or any kind of medical services.
[02:08:51]  Now, anybody that served in the military, you can sign up and get disability benefits.
[02:08:57]  Even if it's an accident that disabled you years later, you can just fill out a form and say, no, it was actually service-related.
[02:09:06]  So we're loading as many people on to that and Social Security and Medicare and trying to make Medicaid or one or the other, the one for the seniors.
[02:09:19]  They're trying to expand that to cover everybody in the whole country.
[02:09:22]  Our Democratic Party has, and I just, I mean, I appreciate you asking me questions, but I have a couple of points I'd just like to finish with.
[02:09:31]  Randy, got a lot of your points.
[02:09:32]  I got a lot of people waiting, and I've got four minutes left in open forum.
[02:09:35]  Let me go to Janine in Kentucky, Republican.
[02:09:38]  Go ahead.
[02:09:40]  Yes.
[02:09:40]  Hi, Janine Bellsmith, Crescent Spring.
[02:09:44]  My main concern is the debt.
[02:09:46]  I know Eleni spoke to that a little bit earlier.
[02:09:49]  I'm in District 4 of Thomas Massey.
[02:09:51]  Thomas Massey has the famous debt pin that he wears, and I was able to receive one from Thomas.
[02:09:57]  But when you look at that debt, we cannot afford to put ourselves in any more debt.
[02:10:03]  It's about the debt, America.
[02:10:05]  Listen, stop spending money.
[02:10:08]  And I'm not sure how we're going to basically pay for all these wars.
[02:10:12]  But Thomas Massey has the answer.
[02:10:15]  Let's cut down the debt and stop it.
[02:10:17]  And also, I'm supporting Rand Paul.
[02:10:20]  And I have a second question or concern, too.
[02:10:23]  And that is we have these slot cameras that are being posted all over the entire United States of America.
[02:10:30]  These slot cameras are 24-7, 365 surveillance of the people of the United States of America.
[02:10:37]  And they are going to be powered by these AI data centers, which are all over the entire country using a humongous amount of energy and also much water for cooling.
[02:10:49]  So my contention here is there is a movement moving along to stop these cameras.
[02:10:56]  And it's D-E-F-L-O-C-K.org, D-E-F-L-O-C-K dot org.
[02:11:05]  And if you go to that website, you will be horrified at the multiple cameras that you will find all over the entire United States of America that are surveilling our people 24-7, 365.
[02:11:18]  Got your comment, Janine.
[02:11:19]  I did want to show viewers, you mentioned the debt pin that Thomas Massey is one of the things that he is famous for.
[02:11:27]  There's a picture of it from Roll Call newspaper, the digital debt pin that counts up the national debt.
[02:11:36]  Though this picture seems a little bit dated because the debt, if I'm reading it right, was $31 trillion in the picture.
[02:11:44]  It's closer to $39 trillion at this point.
[02:11:47]  Mark, South Dakota, Independent, go ahead.
[02:11:52]  Yeah, just a quick comment.
[02:11:56]  Government shut down, get some professor from some college that knows about Constitution science, have him sit down with Brett Trump and everybody and read him the Constitution because we know Trump can't read and have them talk about what's going on.
[02:12:19]  And my other comment was that Trump said that the big beautiful ballroom was going to be paid by private donors.
[02:12:31]  And now they want to put $400 million or billion dollars or whatever it is on taxpayers.
[02:12:40]  And I think it's time for Congress to step up and tell Trump, you know, it's time to stop your lies.
[02:12:49]  And if you're going to want something, hurt yourself.
[02:12:53]  Terror Ann Paul's.
[02:12:57]  Mark, got your point.
[02:12:58]  Let me go to Mo in Santa Ana, California, Republican.
[02:13:02]  Go ahead.
[02:13:02]  A couple minutes left here.
[02:13:05]  Yeah, well, the ballroom, I think the White House, they need a ballroom because all the presidents, they build all kinds of stuff.
[02:13:17]  But look at what happened on the Hilton in LA.
[02:13:23]  So we need the boardroom so we can have all the security on the new ballroom that is happening that Trump wants to build.
[02:13:35]  So that's one of the reasons why I'm against those people that don't want the boardroom.
[02:13:42]  All right.
[02:13:42]  That's Mo.
[02:13:43]  This is Marcus in the Bronx, Democrat.
[02:13:46]  Go ahead.
[02:13:48]  Hello.
[02:13:48]  I'd just like to say that I'm almost 90 years old, and I've gone through a lot of things about racism and over the course of different presidents trying to settle out differences.
[02:14:02]  Our financial differences is everything.
[02:14:05]  But what I found to be true was if the racism still exists, we still don't have the power of equal as far as blacks and whites in America is concerned.
[02:14:17]  And I'd like to know, is there really anything we can do?
[02:14:22]  because looking back at all my years, I loved America.
[02:14:28]  I made my daughter go into the service.
[02:14:30]  I spent my time in the service and made her understand that, besides, you can't take advantage of America without having served it.
[02:14:39]  So I would like to know, before my life is over, what is it that can be really done about this?
[02:14:46]  I'd just like to see the people behind me get a fair share and a break from all this.
[02:14:53]  Thank you.
[02:14:54]  That's Marcus in the Bronx, our last caller in Open Forum.
[02:14:58]  45 minutes left this morning.
[02:15:00]  In that time, we'll be joined by Jim Shudeau.
[02:15:03]  He, of course, is CNN's chief national security analyst, also the author of the book, The Return of Great Powers, Russia, China, and the Next World War.
[02:15:13]  We'll talk about it right after the break.
[02:15:22]  In a divided media world, one place brings Americans together.
[02:15:26]  According to a new MAGIN research report, nearly 90 million Americans turn to C-SPAN, and they're almost perfectly balanced.
[02:15:33]  28% conservative, 27% liberal or progressive, 41% moderate.
[02:15:40]  Republicans watching Democrats, Democrats watching Republicans, moderates watching all sides.
[02:15:46]  Because C-SPAN viewers want the facts straight from the source.
[02:15:50]  No commentary, no agenda, just democracy.
[02:15:53]  Unfiltered every day on the C-SPAN networks.
[02:16:00]  You look back on what you've achieved in your life.
[02:16:02]  What makes you the happiest of what you've achieved so far?
[02:16:05]  This interview is the absolute apex.
[02:16:07]  Leaders seem to like to wear wigs.
[02:16:09]  How come he didn't have a wig?
[02:16:11]  President Trump said, I made a mistake the first time.
[02:16:14]  I should have given it to you the first time.
[02:16:16]  That isn't a wayside.
[02:16:17]  Your first book was called A Time to Kill.
[02:16:20]  How many publishers turned that down?
[02:16:22]  Well, all of them.
[02:16:23]  It's very rare to see Donald Trump laugh.
[02:16:25]  He doesn't like to smile through it.
[02:16:26]  He has what they call the stare.
[02:16:27]  How would the stare?
[02:16:29]  When you go to the Oscars that everybody says, oh, there's the author.
[02:16:32]  All the beautiful people go this way.
[02:16:33]  And then they have another little path in the Oscars where the people like I go.
[02:16:37]  So you wrote a book about somebody who lived with wolves.
[02:16:40]  I interviewed a guy who lived with wolves.
[02:16:41]  Yep.
[02:16:41]  And is that safe to do that?
[02:16:43]  Absolutely not.
[02:16:44]  So I know you were not complaining.
[02:16:46]  You were opinionated about this situation, which is why we love you, David.
[02:16:58]  Best ideas and best practices can be found anywhere.
[02:17:01]  We have to listen so we can govern better.
[02:17:03]  Democracy depends on heavy doses of civility.
[02:17:06]  You can fight and still be friendly.
[02:17:08]  Bridging the divide in American politics.
[02:17:10]  You know, you may not agree with the Democrat in everything, but you can find areas where you do agree.
[02:17:14]  He's a pretty likable guy as well.
[02:17:16]  Chris Kins and I are actually friends.
[02:17:17]  He votes wrong all the time, but we're actually friends.
[02:17:20]  A horrible secret that Scott and I have is that we actually respect each other.
[02:17:23]  We all don't hate each other.
[02:17:25]  You two actually kind of like each other.
[02:17:27]  These are the kinds of secrets we'd like to expose.
[02:17:29]  It's nice to be with a member who knows what they're talking about.
[02:17:32]  Liz did agree to the civility, all right?
[02:17:34]  He owes my son $10 from a bet.
[02:17:37]  And he's never paid for it.
[02:17:38]  Fork it over.
[02:17:39]  That's fighting words right there.
[02:17:41]  I'm glad I'm not in charge.
[02:17:42]  I'm thrilled to be on the show with him.
[02:17:44]  There are not shows like this, right?
[02:17:46]  Incentivizing that relationship.
[02:17:49]  Ceasefire, Friday nights on C-SPAN.
[02:17:57]  Washington Journal continues.
[02:17:59]  C-SPAN viewers know Jim Schudo.
[02:18:01]  He joins us now.
[02:18:02]  He is the author of the book, The Return of Great Powers, Russia, China, and the Next World War.
[02:18:08]  The paperback edition just came out in March, originally published in 2024.
[02:18:12]  I want to get to the book, but let me ask first just what you've heard about President Trump's Project Freedom, this effort to move ships out of the Straits of Hormuz, and anything you've heard on this missile attack that may or may not have damaged a U.S. ship.
[02:18:26]  Right.
[02:18:26]  So, first on the strait, it's not 100% clear exactly what support the U.S. is offering here, right?
[02:18:34]  Or how it would work exactly, because guiding ships is different from escorting ships.
[02:18:39]  Escorting ships would be a military operation, right?
[02:18:42]  And you would presumably fire back at threats and provide defenses around them.
[02:18:46]  So, this seems to be something of a coordination effort, right?
[02:18:50]  Combining intelligence, what they know about safe passage.
[02:18:54]  He's even mentioned communicating with the insurers to give them some, because that's of course a big piece of this.
[02:19:00]  Will you have confidence that you would be insured if you're damaged when going through?
[02:19:05]  I mean, it strikes me that this is part of an example of the president trying to calibrate the continuation of this war, right?
[02:19:16]  To what degree is this a hot war or does it become sort of a slow burn kind of war and what level of military involvement?
[02:19:25]  As you know, as we've reported and others reported, the president has new military options on the table to strike Iran again.
[02:19:33]  And as we're finding out, it's not just the president's decision because Iran plays a role here with this missile attack that we heard about originally reported by the state news agency, and then U.S. officials saying that no U.S. ships were struck.
[02:19:46]  Right.
[02:19:47]  To date, that's what we're hearing as well, that no U.S. ships were struck.
[02:19:51]  And by the way, listen, Iran has an incentive to advertise its military power, its ability to strike U.S. ships and therefore to strike fear in other ships that might go through there, because this is a pressure point.
[02:20:05]  This is a piece of leverage for Iran.
[02:20:07]  Now, big picture, as much as the president has claimed victory at this point, Iran still has leverage.
[02:20:12]  I mean, they have a vote in the continuation of the war.
[02:20:15]  Do they strike, continue to strike Israel, where I spent a number of weeks recently, Gulf allies, et cetera?
[02:20:23]  Or do they hold back too, just in terms of striking their neighbors?
[02:20:28]  And then how much do they exercise this ability to close the strait by striking not just commercial ships, but also threatening U.S. military?
[02:20:34]  Well, we might learn more from the president himself today.
[02:20:36]  He does have one public event, so we'll see if he says more.

=== Inevitable Conflict Theory (15:32) ===

[02:20:38]  Let me come to the book, The Return of Great Powers, Russia, China, and the Next World War.
[02:20:43]  So the book, The Hardback, originally published in 2024, and then the paperback came out in March of this year, gave you a chance to talk about Operation Midnight Hammer, to write more about the president's strike and Israeli strike in Iran back last year.
[02:20:58]  And then it's published amid a shooting war with Iran.
[02:21:01]  I guess the question is: do you feel like sometimes the writing can't keep up with the news events?
[02:21:05]  You have to constantly update in this environment, right?
[02:21:08]  I mean, I wrote a new forward for this book, but of course, even since the book came out, we have new events involved in a new war in the Middle East.
[02:21:16]  But I do think that you are getting a picture of Trump's foreign policy, right?
[02:21:22]  We have a sense of that.
[02:21:24]  And I think you could describe it as America first with exceptions, right?
[02:21:29]  Because Trump has pulled back from some U.S. military engagements abroad.
[02:21:34]  He's decided the Ukraine war is not a U.S. priority, right?
[02:21:38]  It's Europe's problem.
[02:21:39]  U.S. aid to Ukraine has dropped by 99% since the president came to power.
[02:21:44]  But he is still willing to exercise U.S. military power abroad.
[02:21:48]  We're certainly seeing that in Iran, second time in the span of 12 months or so.
[02:21:52]  We saw that with the operation in Venezuela.
[02:21:54]  So it's something of, you know, the way I'm describing him now is he's a situational isolationist and a situational interventionist, right?
[02:22:04]  Willing to use military power where he sees fit and elsewhere decide, just not my problem.
[02:22:10]  And it's interesting because when the book came out a couple years ago, I sat down with a number of former Trump senior advisors, John Bolton, who was his national security advisor, John Kelly was his chief of staff, Matthew Pottinger, who ran his Asia policy and others.
[02:22:24]  And I asked them, what would a second Trump term look like?
[02:22:27]  And there were three points they made.
[02:22:30]  And they've been proven largely right.
[02:22:32]  One was U.S. will stop aid to Ukraine.
[02:22:35]  They're right about that.
[02:22:37]  Two was at a minimum the president will diminish the U.S. relationship with NATO and might very well pull out of it.
[02:22:43]  And we're seeing this happen.
[02:22:45]  We're in the midst of that right now.
[02:22:46]  The third one they said was that Taiwan should be worried, that Taiwan should not count on U.S. military support in the event of a Chinese attack.
[02:22:55]  That's still an open question at this point.
[02:22:57]  There have been some signs that perhaps President Trump is not so interested, but there have been other signs where we've been selling weapons to them.
[02:23:03]  So, you know, that's still an open question.
[02:23:06]  But his advisors saw a lot of this coming.
[02:23:09]  Well, I want to get to Taiwan, too, but staying on Iran for a second, how does it fit into this larger great power struggle that is the theme of this book, but also a theme that you've been writing about for years before?
[02:23:20]  It is.
[02:23:20]  So, you know, prior to President Trump, there was a bipartisan, there was bipartisan agreement in this country, but also agreement among America's closest allies in Europe, in Asia, that the U.S. and its allies are locked in a historical conflict with Russia and China, with these authoritarian powers who want to rewrite the rules of international relations.
[02:23:44]  They want to tear down the rules-based international order.
[02:23:48]  They want to weaken the U.S., weaken its allies, weaken its alliances, et cetera.
[02:23:52]  That was not a minority viewpoint, as you know.
[02:23:54]  This was Republicans and Democrats on the Hill, U.S. intelligence agencies, our partners, et cetera.
[02:23:59]  Trump comes into office.
[02:24:01]  He doesn't see it quite that way, right?
[02:24:03]  He believes that he can make deals with Russia and China that will mean we won't go to war.
[02:24:11]  And by the way, no one wants to go to war with Russia and China.
[02:24:14]  But he believes he can turn unfriendly relationships into friendly relationships with them, particularly business partnerships.
[02:24:21]  And he also believes that our alliances are not so much advantages for the U.S., but disadvantages.
[02:24:31]  You've heard this language for months, right?
[02:24:33]  That they are freeloaders, we don't need them, we're spending all this money.
[02:24:36]  He doesn't see the framing that actually, yes, while the U.S. invests in its allies, the Allies make the U.S. stronger in these conflicts.
[02:24:43]  So he's turning what was a bipartisan, but also a U.S. alloy-eyed viewpoint of the world on its head and just saying, I don't want to play by those rules.
[02:24:55]  Now, that doesn't mean that he never wants to get involved, as I was saying, because he's going to war with Iran, which is, as you know, something that Republican and Democratic presidents considered for years.
[02:25:06]  All of them said, no, the risks are too high.
[02:25:09]  Trump said, I'm going to go, and here we are.
[02:25:11]  On the roles that he plays by, your book before this was 2020, The Madman Theory, Trump Takes on the World.
[02:25:17]  What is the Madman Theory?
[02:25:18]  What's the historical context?
[02:25:20]  So what Trump's advisors said when I wrote that book a few years ago, they said that his unpredictability is an advantage.
[02:25:27]  And by the way, not accidental, it's deliberate.
[02:25:30]  That he likes to keep everybody on edge.
[02:25:33]  So they don't quite know, will he fly into Caracas and take the Venezuelan leader out by helicopter?
[02:25:41]  Will he strike Iran twice, right?
[02:25:43]  And again, an operation that U.S. presidents of both parties shied away from for decades.
[02:25:50]  He believes and continues to believe that that's a form of power projection, in effect, right?
[02:25:56]  You know, I'll go farther than anybody, and you don't know when I will, and therefore that gives the U.S. an advantage.
[02:26:02]  In recent months, since President Trump came to power, I've been spending a lot of time with U.S. allies in Europe and Asia, senior officials, because I'm writing another book about Trump's approach to the world.
[02:26:13]  And what many of our allies will say is it's not just unpredictability.
[02:26:21]  It is haphazard.
[02:26:22]  We as allies don't understand what is the guiding principle for the U.S. anymore.
[02:26:28]  And by the way, we don't trust the U.S. as a partner anymore.
[02:26:32]  So what Trump advisors will describe as a strategic advantage, I'm tough and you don't know when I'm going to strike, many U.S. allies will say, we just don't know what the U.S. is anymore.
[02:26:43]  Are they an ally?
[02:26:44]  Are they going to come to our defense if Russia were to attack?
[02:26:47]  Is there any real plan?
[02:26:49]  Because you will hear that criticism, and you hear it from inside this country, but I'll hear it from officials of U.S. allies in Europe and Asia.
[02:26:56]  They're not sure how the decisions are made, right?
[02:26:58]  Is there a national security process?
[02:27:00]  For instance, just this week, last week, you have the president saying on Friday he's going to reduce troops to Germany by 5,000.
[02:27:08]  I spoke to Europe's chief trade negotiator the same day, and I said, do you believe this decision was made based on a national security assessment?
[02:27:18]  Did the U.S. say this is less of a priority to U.S. national security interests than it was Cold War, therefore we're reducing our commitment?
[02:27:26]  Or do you see this as payback because Germany did not support the U.S. in the war?
[02:27:32]  And German's top trade negotiators said, oh, there's no doubt to me it's because Trump's angry.
[02:27:38]  So they don't see a grand plan.
[02:27:41]  They see a reactive kind of decision-making.
[02:27:44]  That book, The Madman Theory, this book, The Return of the Great Powers, this next project that you're writing about, is this all part of one big writing project, trying to make sense of sort of the history that you're covering on a day-to-day basis?
[02:27:56]  It's become that.
[02:27:57]  It's almost like if you were a fiction writer and you find yourself writing a trilogy.
[02:28:03]  You start with one and you write the next one and the next one.
[02:28:06]  I mean, I didn't begin that way.
[02:28:08]  I did years ago begin to see the outlines of a new Cold War unfolding, right?
[02:28:15]  You and I, you know, I'm probably a little older than you or whatever.
[02:28:17]  From our generation, we remember the end of the last Cold War.
[02:28:19]  It's all done.
[02:28:20]  1991, the wall came down, Soviet Union collapsed, warm and fuzzy, land of milk and honey, peace will follow.
[02:28:30]  In the last 10, 20 years, it's become quite clear that that was intermission, right, as opposed to an ending.
[02:28:38]  Russia has shown its willingness to change the borders of Europe by force, Georgia, Ukraine in 2014, Ukraine again in 2022, China as well.
[02:28:47]  Massive land grab in the South China Sea, right, in the Spratly Islands, continued threat to Taiwan, that we are back in a new Cold War.
[02:28:57]  And this one is different in that it's not one-on-one basketball anymore, right?
[02:29:00]  It's one-on-two.
[02:29:01]  You have the U.S. against Russia and China and other middle-power allies like Iran and North Korea.
[02:29:08]  So when I wrote the shadow war, which was kind of describing this conflict in 2019, that was the first picture.
[02:29:16]  When I found myself in Ukraine in 2022 during Russia's full-scale invasion, it struck me that we were in a new, hotter era of this conflict.
[02:29:24]  It wasn't below the threshold of open warfare, a shadow war, a hybrid war.
[02:29:30]  It had broken into a hot war in Europe.
[02:29:33]  So that was the second book, The Return of Great Powers.
[02:29:37]  Now the book I'm writing is Trump enters the stage and he has an entirely different view of this conflict.
[02:29:43]  No sense of the U.S. with NATO and Japan and South Korea standing up, but maybe I could be better friends with China and Russia than I can with Germany.
[02:29:53]  It's a pretty remarkable switch.
[02:29:54]  Jim Shudo's book, The Return of Great Powers, Russia, China, and the Next World War, the paperback just came out in March.
[02:30:01]  You can read about his updates when it comes to Operation Midnight Hammer and the Iranian conflict.
[02:30:07]  And you can call in and ask him questions yourself.
[02:30:10]  Here's how you can do so.
[02:30:10]  Democrats, 202-748-8000.
[02:30:13]  Republicans, 202-748-8001.
[02:30:16]  Independents, 202-748-8002.
[02:30:19]  For viewers who maybe just know you from your work at CNN, talk about your career outside of journalism at the State Department.
[02:30:27]  Sure.
[02:30:27]  So, gosh, this is like 15 years ago or so.
[02:30:31]  From a very early age, when I was in college and after college, I was very interested in China.
[02:30:35]  I focused on Chinese history as an undergraduate.
[02:30:38]  Then after college, I went to Asia first on a Fulbright, and I stayed as a reporter in Asia for a number of years in the 90s.
[02:30:46]  So early on, I was bitten not just by the international affairs bug and wanting to be a foreign correspondent, but about drawn to the relationship between the U.S. and China, and then later Russia.
[02:31:01]  Early on in my career, as I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, one thing I discovered was that being a journalist, I always describe it as a, particularly as a foreign correspondent, as a paid traveling education.
[02:31:13]  You get to go to these countries where history is happening before your eyes, write about them, try to explain what was happening in the moment, but also the importance of what was happening in the moment back to an audience in the U.S.
[02:31:25]  And also just experience it yourself.
[02:31:27]  I mean, to this day, 30 years into my career in journalism, I still get a thrill when I hop on a plane to go most recently to Tel Aviv or to go up to Alaska with U.S. forces on training exercises.
[02:31:40]  I still enjoy that purely from a personal standpoint, but also from a professional standpoint, from a mission standpoint, I'm excited by the mission of covering events of our time and trying to bring them home to Americans.
[02:31:55]  I want to come back to Alaska and the Arctic in just a second.
[02:31:57]  But let me tell you, sorry.
[02:31:58]  So when I went to the State Department, so about 15 years ago, I got a job.
[02:32:01]  We had a new ambassador to China, Gary Locke, and we met at the White House Correspondent's dinner.
[02:32:08]  Were you there?
[02:32:08]  I was there.
[02:32:09]  I was there a week ago as well.
[02:32:11]  And we got to talking about China.
[02:32:12]  And he was quite clear to him that I was interested in China.
[02:32:17]  And over the course of the weeks that followed, and by the way, I did not expect this to happen.
[02:32:20]  I certainly wasn't looking for this to happen.
[02:32:22]  He said, hey, listen, I need a chief of staff.
[02:32:24]  Would you be interested in taking a break from news?
[02:32:27]  And it struck me as an exciting opportunity because you could be inside the room as the U.S. is meeting, going head-to-head with Chinese officials and a witness from a different perspective of that relationship and the events of our time.
[02:32:44]  And then I made a call to my wife and I said, would it be okay to move to Beijing?
[02:32:49]  Would you be up for it with our two young children?
[02:32:51]  And she said, yeah, let's do it.
[02:32:53]  So that was the origin of that adventure.
[02:32:56]  On China, just on page 51 of your book, you used the term the Thucydides trap.
[02:33:02]  What is that in describing where we are with China?
[02:33:05]  Well, the idea, you know, I'm not the only one to talk about this with China, is the idea that historically you have an existing power, in this case the U.S., and a rising power, China, that history has shown that that, in effect, leads to inevitable conflict because the existing power wants to protect its influence and power and doesn't want to be challenged, and the rising power wants to exert its influence.
[02:33:30]  And by the way, from a Chinese perspective, just so you know, they're not a rising power out of nowhere.
[02:33:35]  From China's historical perspective, this is a resurrection.
[02:33:39]  It's a return, right?
[02:33:40]  And that we were held down by the colonial powers.
[02:33:42]  And, you know, this has really been an intermission.
[02:33:45]  China has been one of the great powers for thousands of years.
[02:33:48]  It's only for a couple of years that we've been kind of lying in wait, and now we were returning to our rightful spot as one of the great powers of our time.
[02:33:56]  So There are a lot of historical precedents for rising, and you just look at Europe in the 20th century, rising in existing powers.
[02:34:06]  I will say this, though, that when I've spoken to U.S. officials of both parties, both administrations, European officials, Russian officials, Chinese officials, and U.S. intelligence assessments of Russian and Chinese intentions, is that no one really wants that war, right?
[02:34:24]  Even Russia and China are not gunning for or relishing the idea of a war with the United States.
[02:34:31]  They know, as we know, that that would be a devastating conflict.
[02:34:35]  So, now that said, history has shown us that you end up in a lot of wars you don't want.
[02:34:42]  So, the worry is that you have so many points, and this is what I write about a lot in this book, you have so many fronts where the great powers are coming into conflict that one of those could escalate into the Great Power War.
[02:34:54]  And one of those fronts, and the officials that you talked to that I found particularly interesting, was the Taiwanese officials, members of the military.
[02:35:01]  As we've heard about that flashpoint for so long, as they watch what happened in Ukraine and then what's happening in Iran, what lessons are they learning?
[02:35:11]  What did they tell you?
[02:35:12]  So, first of all, on Ukraine is that no one I've talked to for any of these books, you know, or since does not connect Ukraine to Taiwan.
[02:35:20]  The reason being that they believe that China is watching the world's reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine to see what the costs and reactions would be if China were to make a land grab for Taiwan.
[02:35:34]  How long does the world stay invested?
[02:35:36]  What are the economic costs?
[02:35:37]  Does the U.S. stay invested in the defense of Ukraine as an indicator as to whether it would stay invested in the defense of Taiwan?
[02:35:46]  So, you know, for instance, when I went to Taiwan and spent a lot of time with the Air Force and the Navy and the Army there, they all said that the moment Russia invaded Ukraine, they said, we're next, or we might be next, and we have to defend ourselves and we have to improve our relationship with not just the U.S., but Europe, other Asian partners.
[02:36:05]  And there was a lot of fear, as you write about, that that could happen at the same time as Ukraine, thus creating a two-front conflict.

=== Two-Front War Fear (14:44) ===

[02:36:11]  100%.
[02:36:12]  As I was in Ukraine for the Russian invasion in 2022, a lot of members of Congress, clearly there was a briefing about this, said, watch Taiwan closely now, because we're concerned that Russia may take advantage of the world's focus on Europe and Ukraine, sorry, that China would take advantage of that and try to make a grab for Taiwan, thinking that the world just couldn't handle two invasions.
[02:36:36]  This many years into the Ukraine war, less concerned about that or more?
[02:36:40]  Well, I would say it's both, which is not a satisfying answer.
[02:36:43]  On the one hand, China could reasonably learn the lesson that it's not so easy, right?
[02:36:48]  You remember in the early days of the Ukraine war that even U.S. intel assessments was that Russia was going to swallow it up in 72 hours.
[02:36:55]  Didn't happen, and here we are four few months later, and arguably Ukraine might be winning this war, right?
[02:37:01]  At a minimum, they're holding their ground.
[02:37:03]  So China could look at that and say, hmm, might not be so easy.
[02:37:08]  It also has the advantage of being surrounded by water, which makes the Taiwan invasion even more difficult.
[02:37:13]  Now, on the flip side, China can look at the U.S. retreat from Ukraine and say that, well, maybe they wouldn't get involved if we were to go in now.
[02:37:25]  Plus, they've been learning a lot about the weapons of war that work there.
[02:37:28]  I mean, there's a reason, I did a story recently on this, that the whole world is focused on drone warfare, because Ukraine has taught the war, taught the world how to make this stuff quickly, fast, cheaply, and defend itself against a bigger attacker.
[02:37:43]  And I think in one of the greatest cases of poetic justice, you know, geopolitical poetic justice, post-Iran war, where did all the Gulf nations and the U.S. go for help?
[02:37:56]  They went to Ukraine.
[02:37:57]  Because Ukraine is now the seller as opposed to just the buyer of this.
[02:38:02]  A lot in this book, The Return of Great Powers, Russia, China, and the Next World War.
[02:38:06]  Jim Shudo is the author, and a lot of callers already for you.
[02:38:10]  Got them stacked up.
[02:38:11]  Joanna, in Germantown, Maryland, Mine for Democrats, you're up first.
[02:38:15]  Go ahead.
[02:38:16]  Hi there.
[02:38:17]  Hi there.
[02:38:18]  I've done a lot of reading of Russian history.
[02:38:21]  I find it absolutely fascinating and intriguing.
[02:38:24]  And I have three takeaways, and I wanted to hear your guest opinion on these.
[02:38:29]  Number one is they've always been expansionists.
[02:38:33]  They've always been historically imperialistic.
[02:38:36]  Number two, they've always been paranoid, very paranoid.
[02:38:41]  And number three, it doesn't matter whether the leader's title is Tsar, Soviet Premier, or President like Putin.
[02:38:49]  They've all been brutal, cruel dictators, every one of them.
[02:38:54]  It doesn't matter.
[02:38:56]  And there's a reason why, first of all, Russia is very large and very unwieldy, and that's problematic in itself.
[02:39:04]  They have the highest alcoholism rate in the world.
[02:39:08]  And creativity and sensitiveness has always been stifled.
[02:39:13]  And so those are my takeaways from it.
[02:39:16]  In fact, I just got finished reading the book, Ras Putin in the Fall of the Romanoff.
[02:39:20]  That's my latest book that Brian Lamb interviewed the author.
[02:39:24]  I was going to point out, Joanna, that was on Book Notes Plus, if viewers want to listen to that interview.
[02:39:29]  Joanna, let me give Jim Shudo a chance to talk about that.
[02:39:33]  Expansionists, paranoid, and cruel was her takeaways of Russia and its leaders.
[02:39:38]  Well, listen, in terms of Russian expansionism, there is a school of thought that, again, post-1991 was an intermission, was a departure as opposed to a new Russia, right?
[02:39:52]  There's a common thread between the Soviet Union, even going back to the monarchy and the current Putin-led, you know, Putin-led Russia in terms of the way it operates in the world, expansionists, et cetera.
[02:40:08]  There's also, I mean, from military tactics perspective, I was meeting with the Ukrainian ambassador the other day that when you look at Russian war tactics in Ukraine, a lot of commonality with World War II.
[02:40:19]  You know, heavy artillery, but also, you know, maybe disdain is too strong a word, but not particularly interested in saving the lives of its own soldiers, right?
[02:40:28]  I mean, it's quite happy to send, you know, to send cannon fodder into the field, that kind of thing, a different approach in terms of casualties.
[02:40:35]  I will say, on the other hand, in the course of my reporting in recent years, I've been able to meet with a lot of Russian dissidents, became close with the family of Alexei Navalny, that there are Russians who think quite differently, right?
[02:40:50]  And there were movements in the 90s and since then, right?
[02:40:57]  Political movements to take Russia in a different political direction.
[02:41:01]  They were crushed, right, quite deliberately by Vladimir Putin.
[02:41:05]  There's a reason he poisoned Navalny, you know, and others and killed Boris Nimtsov because he does not want internal challengers.
[02:41:13]  And there's a reason that he crushed civil society in Russia that existed.
[02:41:17]  And there were at least independent news operations in Russia that exposed the crimes of the government.
[02:41:23]  Navalny was made famous for exposing the corruption, the financial corruption of Putin, which of course Putin didn't want exposed.
[02:41:30]  So I, you know, personally, in my interactions, I don't believe that there is one sort of national personality of the place, that there is diversity there.
[02:41:39]  It's just that the current leadership has been able to crush that diversity.
[02:41:43]  What are your thoughts on the Russian-Chinese geopolitical relationship, that sort of side of the triangle here?
[02:41:49]  There's a lot of questions.
[02:41:50]  Listen, it was notable that the no-limits partnership between Russia and China was announced.
[02:41:56]  Putin and she announced that just a couple weeks before the Ukraine invasion, right?
[02:42:02]  And that China since then has stayed on Russia's side in the midst of the largest, bloodiest war in Europe since World War II.
[02:42:08]  It hasn't physically sent Chinese tanks or missiles to Russia with sort of a Chinese flag on them and handed them over, but there is a lot of Chinese technology in Russian missiles.
[02:42:19]  So they've supported the war effort and they bought a lot of Russian oil just with the tiniest veneer of deniability in terms of military support.
[02:42:29]  They are on Russia's side in this war.
[02:42:32]  So that relationship has held because China has calculated it's in its interest to occupy the U.S. in Europe, occupy NATO, etc.
[02:42:43]  The question is: is this an alliance the way, say, NATO was before the current administration of, if not equals, mutual interest, or is it kind of a short-term tactical partnership, right?
[02:42:59]  That over time, Russia kind of wants to crush, sorry, China kind of wants to crush Russia too, or make Russia the junior partner in this.
[02:43:08]  And there's worry in Russia, too, that we're going to become a vassal state to China if we don't watch out.
[02:43:13]  And that is actually a U.S. strategic view of that relationship, that China definitely has the upper hand, and that over time, Russia will be kind of under China's sway.
[02:43:24]  We had to Albert Kirk.
[02:43:25]  This is Brian Independence.
[02:43:27]  Thanks for waiting.
[02:43:28]  Go ahead.
[02:43:30]  Hey, good morning, gentlemen.
[02:43:32]  You know, what concerns me the most is, you know, our world seems to be ruled by criminal gangs.
[02:43:38]  Vladimir Putin is just a gangster.
[02:43:41]  There's no two ways about it.
[02:43:43]  That's how he runs his country.
[02:43:44]  That's how he interacts with other people.
[02:43:49]  And I would throw in the Saudi royal family.
[02:43:51]  And many other government entities are just gangs.
[02:43:55]  And of course, our president, who is mentored by a famous mob lawyer, is really nothing more than a gangster himself.
[02:44:03]  He acts like a gangster, thinks like a gangster, talks like a gangster.
[02:44:08]  And what's so mister, there's many mysteries to me.
[02:44:11]  Number one, why is Donald Trump so submissive to Vladimir Putin?
[02:44:17]  Why does he seem to admire him so much?
[02:44:19]  And then the second big mystery is: why is it our corporate media never seems to want to look at these things?
[02:44:25]  They just ignore it and they just act mystified when Trump does and says certain things in regards to Putin when it's just very obvious he thinks like a criminal just like Putin is that's Brian Jim Shudo.
[02:44:38]  Yeah.
[02:44:39]  Well, listen, I wouldn't say we don't look at it, right?
[02:44:42]  I mean, I spent a fair amount of time in this book and in previous books.
[02:44:46]  I've asked senior officials of the Trump administration and the Biden administration, diplomats in Europe, Asia, for their view.
[02:44:57]  I've asked the direct question: why does Donald Trump seem to admire Vladimir Putin?
[02:45:03]  And the answer, the most consistent answer I got, is that he admires Putin's and to a similar degree, Xi's unlimited power and envies that power to some degree.
[02:45:16]  That he wants to be able to operate and sees himself as the elected leader of the U.S. as having that right, right, to do what he wants.
[02:45:26]  He's the decider, right?
[02:45:27]  And that, you know, sometimes, you know, laws, courts, et cetera, you know, that there are impediments to him exercising his rightful power.
[02:45:35]  But that when he looks at Vladimir Putin, that he's somewhat jealous of that way of operating.
[02:45:41]  And the thing I would say, just in addition to that, to your earlier point, is that Trump does not have, and I'm not making this up, this is in his public statements, the same interest, it seems, or he does not value the values that previous Republicans and Democratic presidents valued, things like the rule of law internationally.
[02:46:06]  When the president says we're behaving like pirates in the strait, he sees that as a rightful exercise of U.S. power that puts allies and adversaries in their place.
[02:46:20]  Whereas I think you could reasonably say that previous presidents would say that the U.S. is on the side of the rule of law.
[02:46:25]  This is in our interest to support that and defend that, to defend the rules-based international order.
[02:46:33]  It's the most boring phrase in geopolitics, but it has things that matter.
[02:46:38]  You and I as consumers benefit from open waterways, right?
[02:46:42]  Because it makes things cheaper.
[02:46:43]  It means that you can buy stuff from all over the world.
[02:46:46]  And if those waterways are threatened, whether that be in the Strait of Hormuz, by the way, that's the reason all of our summer vacation flights are more expensive, right?
[02:46:54]  Or stuff that you buy that's manufactured in Asia, it gets to us easily and more cheaply because the U.S. has stood in defense of open waterways, the law of the sea.
[02:47:06]  When that begins to collapse and becomes purely about power projection, those things begin to, we begin to lose the benefit of those as well.
[02:47:15]  And this is, you know, it's, you know, we have a president with a very different view of those values, principles, legal precedent, et cetera.
[02:47:28]  Have you ever met or interviewed Xi or Putin?
[02:47:31]  I have.
[02:47:32]  I've met Xi, Jinping, when I was in China as a diplomat.
[02:47:36]  I've tried to interview both of them, but it's a difficult thing to do.
[02:47:40]  Kevin, Virginia, Republican, go ahead.
[02:47:44]  Good morning.
[02:47:45]  Good morning, Jim.
[02:47:47]  My question has to do with Iran and the comment by the Germans.
[02:47:54]  The question I have for you is: do you believe that if the Iranians get a nuclear capability, a nuclear bomb, that that would cause a threat to the United States and not only to the United States, but the neighbors and even to Western Europe.
[02:48:09]  And that the cure for stopping that is very expensive.
[02:48:14]  And so when the Germans don't want to cooperate with the effort to establish a cure here, that Trump sends a signal to them to let them know he's not happy about the fact that we're not getting a NATO support in getting this cure.
[02:48:34]  Or is your position that perhaps we're going to resign, that Iran is ultimately going to have a nuclear bomb, and that's okay?
[02:48:45]  I mean, that's the issue that regular Americans are out here looking at.
[02:48:49]  They're not interested in Trump's personality and the Germans thinking that Trump is mad.
[02:48:55]  They want to know where we stand on this issue.
[02:48:58]  It's a fair question.
[02:48:59]  I mean, that's a central question here.
[02:49:01]  You know, I covered North Korea for years prior to North Korea acquiring a nuclear weapon.
[02:49:08]  And by the way, today, North Korea is a nuclear power with the ability to project nuclear power far beyond its borders.
[02:49:14]  It's got a ballistic missile program.
[02:49:16]  It's got submarines, et cetera, and submarine-launched nuclear warheads.
[02:49:21]  As you know, multiple U.S. administrations, Republicans and Democrats, said they would never let North Korea become a nuclear power, and it is.
[02:49:28]  And that has changed the balance of power in Asia.
[02:49:31]  It's arguably made North Korea impregnable, right?
[02:49:35]  Because no one wants to risk a nuclear war over attempting to remove that regime.
[02:49:41]  Would North Korea, is it an existential nuclear threat to the U.S.?
[02:49:45]  No, the U.S. has many thousands of warheads.
[02:49:49]  But that doesn't mean it hasn't changed the balance of power and isn't a threat to the U.S., because, of course, we have an ally that's right across the border, South Korea, a treaty ally.
[02:49:59]  Multiple U.S. presidents of both parties have said they don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
[02:50:04]  Do I believe that Iran with a nuclear weapon or do U.S. intelligence estimates say that that would be an existential threat to the U.S.?
[02:50:11]  No.
[02:50:11]  Again, the U.S., its nuclear deterrent is quite large, many times larger than Iran would have in any sort of near timeframe.
[02:50:19]  I know the Israelis have quite a different view, right, because they're much closer and they would absolutely view that as an existential threat.
[02:50:26]  Then the question becomes: what's the best way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon?
[02:50:31]  Now, I'm not President of the United States, I'm not a CIA director, I have interviewed these people over time, and there's a school of thought that by negotiation, if you look at the JCPOA, that it pushed out Iran's nuclear program by many years much further than military action to date.

=== Escalation Warnings (09:25) ===

[02:50:56]  And we don't know where the rest of this war is going, but how is that possible?
[02:50:59]  Well, we know this because Iran has more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium today post the exit from the JCPOA.
[02:51:08]  When the JCPOA was still operating, it didn't have anything close to that, right?
[02:51:11]  Because they weren't enriching, and you did have IAEA inspections, et cetera.
[02:51:16]  And you think that that's all still intact from the July bombing to what's happened in the past 65 days?
[02:51:23]  It's not removed.
[02:51:24]  The best assessment from the U.S. perspective is that it's buried underground, right?
[02:51:28]  It's not been destroyed.
[02:51:29]  It certainly hasn't been extracted.
[02:51:30]  I do know that from an Israeli perspective, they would not consider this war won unless that material was extracted.
[02:51:37]  So today, by Israel's estimate, the war is not won because Iran still maintains that nuclear material and has far more nuclear material today than it had under that agreement.
[02:51:47]  That agreement had flaws and it had a sunset provision, but they're closer today than they were then.
[02:51:55]  Now, will military action totally nullify that problem?
[02:52:00]  It hasn't yet, right?
[02:52:02]  And again, that's not me saying that, that's the Israelis saying that, who are quite close to this issue.
[02:52:07]  You could have a president decide to continue this war, including ground operations, to take that program entirely away.
[02:52:14]  And that would be necessary to get.
[02:52:16]  So you're talking about hundreds of U.S. special operators on the ground for a great length of time to extract that material.
[02:52:22]  Is that a price that Americans are willing to pay?
[02:52:25]  Is it a risk that the U.S. president is willing to take?
[02:52:28]  To date, it doesn't appear so.
[02:52:30]  That's the question.
[02:52:30]  I mean, these are, you know, if you or I were president, we would have to sit around a table and decide the risk-reward profile of each of those decisions.
[02:52:41]  The book, again, The Return of Great Powers, Russia, China, and the Next World War.
[02:52:45]  And Dan in Pennsylvania focuses on the subtitle, saying, so is the next world war a prediction or is it unavoidable?
[02:52:53]  I don't believe it's unavoidable.
[02:52:55]  I also ask this question of many U.S. and European officials and Asian officials, and they don't believe it is unavoidable.
[02:53:05]  And again, just throwing back to what I said a few minutes ago, because they believe that neither Beijing or Moscow wants that war, right?
[02:53:13]  That they see that it would be devastating.
[02:53:16]  The casualties would be devastating for all involved.
[02:53:20]  That said, the risk is the war that you don't want.
[02:53:24]  And there are a lot of fronts where the great powers come into friction where the worry is that it could escalate.
[02:53:32]  You already have one going right now, and that is the bloodiest war in Europe since World War II.
[02:53:38]  There are concerns that if China were to take military action against Taiwan, that could be.
[02:53:42]  But there are also other smaller interactions.
[02:53:45]  I interviewed Bill Burns, the then CIA director for this book, and he says right off the top, what keeps him up at night are the smaller interactions that escalate.
[02:53:55]  Let's say you see Russian and Chinese warplanes flying around U.S. airspace in Alaska all the time.
[02:54:02]  U.S. jets scramble.
[02:54:05]  They come quite close to each other.
[02:54:06]  You clip a wing there, a pilot goes down, a U.S. pilot is dead.
[02:54:10]  How does the U.S. respond?
[02:54:12]  Do you then escalate into something bigger?
[02:54:15]  That's the concern, right, is that you get the war you don't want.
[02:54:20]  And I recount in this book how during the Cuban Missile Crisis, just as a matter of historical precedent, John F. Kennedy had his whole cabinet read the Guns of August.
[02:54:31]  And if you remember the Guns of August, this is the story of the march to World War I. Again, a war that the European powers did not want.
[02:54:39]  They did not think they were starting on a four-year war that would kill millions of people.
[02:54:44]  Because Kennedy, and I'm sort of paraphrasing his quote here, but he said to his advisors, this is in RFK's own diaries, he said, I don't want someone to write a book about me called The Missiles of October, right, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, that we ended up in a war we didn't want.
[02:55:02]  And, you know, some of that wisdom probably had an historic effect because he and Khrushchev were able to sort of dial it back from what was the closest that the U.S. and Russia came to nuclear war.
[02:55:12]  And dialed it back because of communication, back-channel communication.
[02:55:16]  And that's what I said.
[02:55:17]  But Bill Burns, who you talk about, is talking about going off to the races if one of these conflicts ends up blowing up.
[02:55:23]  And he says, so that's why I'm a huge believer in intelligence channels.
[02:55:27]  If you're not talking to them, it's very hard to be able to manage crises, which inevitably are going to be coming.
[02:55:32]  Absolutely.
[02:55:32]  And this is why, you know, you talk, these little things that come out of meetings, you know, Trump meets Xi, Biden meets Xi, you know, or the Russian leader.
[02:55:43]  When you hear about military-to-military communications, when that's one of the deliverables from these meetings, that may sound like a small thing.
[02:55:49]  That's a big deal.
[02:55:51]  Because if, again, you've got a Russian bomber off the coast of Alaska, they get a little close, you want to be able to call up the commander on the other side and say, hey, guys, that was an accidental wing-to-wing contact, right?
[02:56:04]  We do not want to go to war.
[02:56:07]  This kind of thing, because you want to be able to dial it back.
[02:56:09]  So many reporters have Donald Trump's phone number, a way to get in touch with him.
[02:56:12]  Do you think Xi or Putin have his phone number?
[02:56:14]  Oh, I'm sure.
[02:56:15]  And by the way, even if you didn't give the least secure device you could walk around with anywhere in the world, and our U.S. president has one with him at all times.
[02:56:24]  But, you know, that's the way he operates.
[02:56:26]  Time for just one or two more calls before we add.
[02:56:28]  David has been waiting in Michigan Independent.
[02:56:30]  Go ahead.
[02:56:32]  Yes, good morning.
[02:56:33]  Just one more thing to the people that are listening.
[02:56:35]  If they have trouble watching news in this country, I mean, go to the Middle East, go to Asia, go to the Oxford-Cambridge Union, go to China, go to Russia, go to India, go to France, go to Germany, wherever.
[02:56:49]  There's one thing I just couldn't get.
[02:56:52]  It came from your channel.
[02:56:54]  It was on the day that everything was going here in Ukraine.
[02:57:00]  I had never seen this guy before.
[02:57:03]  And he made a comment to, I guess, one of your interviewers from CNN that the shooting did not come from the Russian side.
[02:57:14]  That was Dr. Stephen Cohen, I believe.
[02:57:18]  I was wondering if you could possibly clear that up for me.
[02:57:21]  And I thank you so very much.
[02:57:23]  Jim Schuter, you spent a lot of time on this in your book.
[02:57:26]  Well, I was there, and the fire was definitely coming from the Russian side.
[02:57:32]  I was there as the kind of missiles were flying overhead.
[02:57:35]  We had my colleague Fred Pleitkin, I don't know if you remember this.
[02:57:37]  He was on the border as the Russian tanks were rolling across the border into the Kharkiv region.
[02:57:44]  So, listen, it's quite obvious who started the war.
[02:57:48]  And it's interesting, actually, and I talk about this in the book, that in the weeks and months leading up to the invasion, U.S. intelligence assessments were showing not only that Russia was massing forces for a possible invasion, but the U.S. was intercepting communications among Russian field commanders preparing for that.
[02:58:06]  invasion.
[02:58:07]  And by the way, this is intelligence that the U.S. shared with its European allies, shared with Ukraine as well to say the invasion is coming.
[02:58:15]  And what's remarkable is that at the time, and you'll remember this even from public comments, that a lot of folks were like, ah, there's no way he's going to do it.
[02:58:23]  This is just Putin play acting here.
[02:58:25]  He's playing three-dimensional chess.
[02:58:27]  There's no way he, it's way too risky a move.
[02:58:30]  Massively misread.
[02:58:31]  He was absolutely willing to invade, and here we are four years later.
[02:58:34]  When were you convinced that that invasion was coming?
[02:58:38]  Me personally, listen, I was not, to be clear, because sometimes people will say, well, were you rooting for an invasion?
[02:58:43]  Absolutely not.
[02:58:44]  I spent a lot of time in Ukraine, and I've seen a lot of suffering there.
[02:58:48]  I've spent a lot of time in war zones, and I have no appetite for war.
[02:58:52]  It was pretty clear to me, based on that force buildup, that Russia was going to invade prior.
[02:58:56]  And in part, it had the vast majority of its conventional forces amassed around Ukraine.
[02:59:02]  And it was even borrowing forces from way out in the east, you know, on the border with China where it normally would want to have those forces.
[02:59:09]  It struck me it was highly likely.
[02:59:11]  When does the next book that you're talking about come out?
[02:59:14]  So plan is for next year.
[02:59:17]  I'm working on it now.
[02:59:18]  I got to hand it in in a few months.
[02:59:22]  But like you said, there's constantly new material, so you've got to stay on top of this stuff.
[02:59:26]  And if you want to stay on top of Jim Schudo's latest, it's the paperback version of the return of great powers, Russia, China, and the next world war.
[02:59:34]  Appreciate you joining us to talk about it.
[02:59:36]  Thank you, and thanks, everybody, for your questions.
[02:59:38]  And that's going to do it for us on the Washington Journal this morning.
[02:59:41]  We'll, of course, be back tomorrow morning.
[02:59:42]  It's 7 a.m. Eastern, 4 a.m. Pacific.
[02:59:45]  In the meantime, have a great Monday.
[03:00:14]  Democracy Unfiltered.

=== Great Monday Closing (00:37) ===

[03:00:21]  You look back on what you've achieved in your life.
[03:00:23]  What makes you the happiest of what you've achieved so far?
[03:00:26]  This interview is the absolute apex.
[03:00:28]  Leaders seem to like to wear wigs.
[03:00:30]  How come he didn't have a wig?
[03:00:32]  President Trump said, I made a mistake the first time.
[03:00:35]  I should have given it to you the first time.
[03:00:37]  That isn't what he said.
[03:00:38]  Your first book was called A Time to Kill.
[03:00:41]  How many publishers turned that down?
[03:00:43]  Well, all of them.
[03:00:44]  It's very rare to see Donald Trump laugh.
[03:00:46]  He doesn't like the smile.
[03:00:47]  He has what they call the stare.
[03:00:48]  How would the stare?
[03:00:50]  When you go to the Oscars and everybody say, oh, there's the author.
[03:00:52]  All the beautiful people go this way.
[03:00:54]  And then they have another little path in the Oscars where the people like I go.
[03:00:57]  So you wrote a book about somebody who...