Washington Journal on May 5, 2026, features Michael Cannon and Elizabeth Fowler debating how the 1943 tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance distorts markets, contrasting Cannon's "universal health accounts" proposal with Fowler's support for ACA reforms. Zachary Shemtab analyzes the Louisiana versus Calais ruling, where a 6-3 Supreme Court decision limits Section 2 Voting Rights Act claims to intentional discrimination rather than disparate impact, complicating redistricting challenges while partisan gerrymandering remains non-justiciable under Rucho. Amidst these legal and policy shifts, callers and guests grapple with midterm election strategies, gas prices averaging $4.45 since the February 28 Iran war began, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's "Project Freedom" to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Ultimately, the episode highlights how deep polarization hampers constitutional amendments like Article 5 and entrenches systemic inefficiencies in both healthcare and electoral representation. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Who Should Control Congress00:15:00
Watch as voters cast their ballots for governor, U.S. House, and Senate.
Then the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon and Johns Hopkins Elizabeth Fowler on their proposal to change how health insurance is offered by employers.
And Zachary Shemtop with SCOTUS Blog will talk about the Supreme Court's Louisiana gerrymandering ruling and other legal challenges to congressional redistricting.
Washington Journal starts now.
It's the Washington Journal for May the 5th this November.
Voters will head to the polls to decide which party will hold power in the House and Senate.
Republicans are banking on legislative achievements, especially when it comes to immigration, to prove to voters they should remain in power.
Democrats, however, are depending on President Trump's low approval ratings and economic issues like gas prices to make the case they should be the ones in charge.
When it's done, voters will determine who controls Congress.
And to start the program today, we want you to tell us which party should control Congress next year.
If you want to make those thoughts known on who should control Congress, here's how you can do so.
Call us on the lines.
Democrats 202-748-8000, Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002.
If you want to text us your thoughts on who should be the ones in charge next year after midterm elections, you can do that at 202-748-8003.
As always, you can post on our social media sites.
That's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X. That's at C-SPANWJ.
The site Real Clear Politics is well known for taking polls and aggregating them to come up with a figure when it comes to various topics.
They're doing one on the 2026 general congressional vote.
And when it stands today, that sampling of polls aggregated together, it finds Democrats with the lead when it comes to going into this year's November elections, 48.5% for Democrats, 42.8% for Republicans as it stands today.
Again, that's aggregated votes.
The Hill takes a look at some of the factors on who will determine power next year and the reasons why.
This is from the post this morning.
One of those reasons, the president's approval rating saying that it's very poor and spells trouble for the party.
Mr. Trump's numbers are at least or at or near the lowest point of his second term in many surveys.
An ABC News Washington Post poll released Sunday found 37% of Americans approving of his job performance and 62% disapproving.
The war in Iran and its effects on prices at home, particularly at the gas pump, are pushing Mr. Trump's ratings down.
The average price of gas nationwide, this as of Monday, was $4.45 according to AAA before the war began on February 28th.
The average price just under $3.
That's from the Hills taking.
It also takes a look at other factors, including this about the Democratic Party.
The Hills partners, when it comes to the Democratic decision, HQ say this, saying that organization averages party favorability ratings show only a narrow gap between the parties.
Roughly 55% of voters view the GOP unfavorably, but 53% feel the same way about the Democratic Party.
So taking all those things in mind, and we'll show you more as we go along when it comes to the November elections, six months away until Election Day, which party do you think should control Congress next year and why?
Here's how you can tell us.
202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents 202-748-8002.
And you can text us too at 202-748-8003.
It was last week that House Speaker Mike Johnson went before cameras talking about legislative efforts and making the case that should be one of the reasons why Republicans should remain in power after the elections.
Here's Mike Johnson from last week.
The net result to passing our reconciliation bill is that ICE and CBP are funded for three years, and Democrats got absolutely nothing for their political charade and shenanigans out of that.
We repeatedly offered, in good faith, I want to point out, remind everybody to negotiate on funding these agencies.
But ultimately, the sad and actually shocking truth is there's not a Democrat in the House or the Senate that believes border security and immigration enforcement should exist at all.
By word and deed, Democrats have made clear their desire to defund both of those critical functions of our government.
We also passed the FISA reauthorization to ensure that the administration is armed with the best possible intelligence to continue eliminating terrorists and defending our homeland.
We pray that the Senate can now pass our FISA bill as quickly as possible.
And you know they're deliberating over that right now.
Now, I just want to say this.
Sometimes the process around here is cumbersome.
That's the way this works.
But in spite of our razor-thin, historically small majority, House Republicans continue to deliver for the American people.
We will continue to do that for the remainder of the year.
And that is a large reason why we are going to win the midterms so that the grown-ups can stay in charge here.
Mike Johnson making the case of why Republicans should be in charge.
We'll hear from Democrats in a bit.
And we'll hear from a Democrat first up.
This is from Florida Otis on which party should control Congress next year.
Otis, good morning.
Go ahead.
Yes, good morning.
I think the Democrats should control Congress next year.
Not only Congress, but then both the Senate and the Senate also.
One reason is that we always talk about how great Republicans are when it comes to the economy.
Well, they're not great.
They're great at tearing it down.
But if you look at it, the only thing Republicans want to do is always, they say when Democrats spend money, that's all we like to do is spend it.
Democrats like spending money on people, not weapons.
That's where we got a problem.
Otis in Florida, Democrats line.
Arthur in Florida as well, Republican line, who should control the which party should control Congress next year.
Hi, Arthur, go ahead.
Yes, I believe the Republican Party should control Congress for the main part because the Republican Party ain't trying to obligate us to every country in this world and neglect our own people.
Can you elaborate a little more on that?
Well, yes, I'll elaborate a little bit more on that.
When we have all this million dollars going to Ukraine and all this million dollars going to every other country in this world, and we're letting Americans go without the help that they need.
And you think Republicans have done a good job managing that and you think we'll continue on if they win the power or if they hold power in the House and Senate next year?
I would like to believe so, yes.
Okay.
Arthur there in Florida.
Let's hear from our independent line.
Again, you can pick the line that best represents you.
This is Al in Minnesota independent line.
Hi, Al.
Go ahead.
Good morning.
I'm curious as to why D-Span and all the major media.
Continue to bring up these polls when to their advantage that it degrades the conservative movement and reinforces your obsessive Trump.
derangement syndrome.
Well, I'll only say that we're obsessive about politics.
Polls are just one of those measurements that we use in election years and off to talk about various things.
We're talking about who holds power after this November.
Who do you think that should be?
I think the conservatives they've done what they promised they would do after the last election.
They're making America great again.
Employment is at an all-time high.
Prices are coming down.
And the Democrats, for the last 18 months, have nothing, have been nothing but obstructionists in both houses of Congress.
Okay.
Alan, Minnesota there in the pendant line giving us his thoughts on who should control Congress.
It's really a two-part question if you think about it.
Who should control it?
You can also tell us why.
202748-8,000 for Democrats, 202-748-8,001 for Republicans, and 202748, 8,002 for Independents.
For some history, Brookings Institution, it was last August, published this when it comes to midterm elections and what typically, or at least happens occasionally when those midterm elections take place, saying that the president's party almost always loses ground in midterm House elections, as it happened in 20 of the past 22 midterm elections, stretching back to 1938, and both exceptions reflected unusual circumstances.
In 2002, midterms were decisively shaped by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, after which public approval of President George W. Bush soared and stood at 63% on Election Day in 2002.
The other exception, the 1998 midterms took place after Republicans tried but failed to impeach President Bill Clinton and remove him from office, even though 66% of the people approved of his job performance.
One of the other factors saying that the president's job approval has a strong impact on the outcome of midterm House elections, although there are wide variations.
The overall correction is clear, or correlation is clear.
The higher his job approval, the lower the losses that his party will experience.
As election day nears, the correlation becomes tighter.
There's more there from that Brookings piece.
If you want to take a look at the historical aspects of midterms, especially when it comes to this coming midterm in November, who should control Congress after that?
In Indiana, we'll hear from Nate, Republican line.
Go ahead.
Yes, good morning.
I am a conservative Republican, but I think we need a split government.
I think the Democrats need to take the House and Senate.
And this is why.
In 2024, if you take the interest the government paid plus the military costs, that come up to an average of $15,350 per household per year.
If Donald Trump gets his way, that number is going to be $22,807 per household per year.
Those are, that's non-government households.
I did not include military and civilian government households.
These are just private households going from over $15,000 per year to $22,000 per year.
Now, let me ask you out there.
You think about your household.
Do you want to pay $22,807 per year for interest and to increase the military by 50%?
So, Nate, with that in mind, let me ask you, why do you think a split party, so to speak, controlling one or the other, why do you think that would make a difference?
Okay.
Because if Donald Trump comes to them and asks for this $1.5 trillion military budget, the Democrats are going to stop it.
He's not going to win that.
And when the Democrats want to spend a trillion dollars on social programs, the government will veto it.
We have to do something to stop this spending.
Okay.
We've got to get it in control.
Nate in Indiana, economics, spending issues, his reasoning to who should control Congress.
Let's hear from Massachusetts Democrats line.
This is Joe.
Hello.
Yeah, I agree with that guy.
It's just you pay high gases, high health insurance.
What are the Republicans doing?
They own everything.
They own the presidency, House, the Senate, and they say they're doing everything for us.
I don't really think so.
In this war, we've been going to war with Iran for years, and we haven't won anything.
So I don't think this is going to be a win-on-won.
So, Joe, you said you agree with the last caller.
He called for a split ticket, so to speak, when it comes to control.
Is that what you're thinking?
Or do you think one party, in this case, the Democrats should control it?
That's what I'm thinking.
Okay.
What do you think it will achieve, though, if that were to happen?
Well, control Trump.
Right now, he's got free will of the world.
He rules my life, everybody's life.
He doesn't care.
I have to pay high gas prices.
He doesn't care I have to pay high health.
They say they do, but obviously they don't.
That's all I have to say, Pajo.
You do a great job.
Joe there in Massachusetts on his thoughts on which party should control Congress.
This is another Joe joining us from Maryland, Independent Line.
Hi, Joe, in Maryland.
Hello.
So as to which party should control Congress and should commune, a couple different things.
Democrats Rising in Special Elections00:15:34
But what I would expect from this year based on the election results of the last year and a half and a lot of special elections and gubernatorial races is we've seen a lot of Democrats doing well in places that they normally don't.
And, you know, I mean, that certainly reflects on, you know, the power that currently is.
But I would be very surprised to see a Republican victory across the board or even maintaining their position, even if Republicans manage to out-gerrymander the Democrats.
You know, gerrymandering gives you an advantage on its face, but it's a very brittle advantage.
When you stretch out your districts so that you have an advantage in every district, you are losing solid districts that are guaranteed.
And what we've seen in the last year and a half is that there have been, you know, swings of 5 to 25 percent in favor of Democrats compared to where they usually are statistically.
And so even if everybody gets heavily gerrymandered so that we have real red states and blue states, as far as their demographic makeup is concerned, I would still be very surprised if a lot of those five to 25 pushes that we've seen don't overwhelmingly flip heavily gerrymandered states as well,
to the point that I would be suspicious of a large Republican victory in November with all of the talk of election interference being thrown back and forth.
You know, the more that people talk about it and it sounds like a normal thing, the more people are willing to do it.
Okay.
Joe there in Maryland, he brings up gerrymandering.
This occurred yesterday at the Supreme Court.
Many outlets reporting that the court on Monday evening issued an emergency order paving the way for the effort by Republicans in Louisiana to redraw their state congressional map in accordance with the court's ideologically split decision last week to significantly weaken the Voting Rights Act.
In an unsigned opinion, the court granted a request by the plaintiffs to expedite the transmission of the Voting Rights Act opinion, which limits consideration of race and the drawing of electoral maps to a lower court.
Normally, it takes 32 days for a Supreme Court ruling to be formally conveyed to lower courts, but Monday's order cuts that timeline short, allowing Louisiana to more rapidly redraw its maps in the hopes of yielding more wins for Republicans.
We'll talk more about that in the latter part of our program, taking a look at the court's decision on redistricting, how it could impact others.
You may think redistricting is a factor when it comes to the party that should control Congress after the midterm elections.
Give us a call and tell us what you think.
This is Judy calling us in Arkansas.
Republican line on which party should control Congress.
Go ahead.
You know, both parties should control.
When you're voting to a house and you're voted to help, you're not voted just to be there.
You're to all work together to find solutions.
It doesn't matter if you're Democrat or if you're Republican, if you're Independent.
It all is about working together.
And you're right.
Power is the big play here.
You go out, you make the stance, and you don't work together.
You're individually working for your own plight.
And that's not how it's supposed to be.
It's what is best for the future of the people you are representing.
And it doesn't work for everybody working for their own ordeal and to make them better and more powerful.
It's who's going to work together for Americans to make America better, not who's going to make the biggest draw.
It's just unbelievable that you attend college, then you attend all these facilities to work together, and you come in and working as an individual for your own individual needs.
That's not how it works.
That's why we have so much problems.
People do not have to work together.
Look what happened.
Our borders were open.
The borders were supposed to be open.
Our Constitution says everybody should be vetted and screened before they come into our country.
And look how many people we have in here that we don't even know belong and who they are and what they're doing.
They don't work together.
And people should be voted to work together.
And you think a split ticket has the most power.
And you think a split ticket will achieve that?
Pardon?
You think one body controlling one party controlling one party?
Oh, okay.
Then what?
You have to work together.
You work together.
That's how you get things fixed.
You don't work separately to make a draw for your own power.
Okay.
Put it to bed and let people work together.
That should be advocated, not who's going to be in power.
Got it.
Got it.
Judy in Arkansas.
Thank you.
Let's hear from Mike in Alaska, Independent Line.
Which party should control Congress?
Go ahead after the elections in November.
Go ahead.
Oh, good morning, Pedro.
Thank you for taking my call.
The question: who should control Congress is a little bit loaded question, in my opinion, Pedro, because they're both terrible.
I think they should be controlled by, I think Congress and the Hills should be controlled by independent conservatives.
But I'm dreaming, Pedro.
I think most of Congress, in my opinion, are rank-and-file communists.
They steal our money through stimulus funds that we never get audited.
You know, they have the money computers all over our country.
You withdraw money.
They don't even know where the money's going to.
Just a massive money laundering system.
I think the only person on the Hill worth their salt is Nancy Mace.
Pedro, I'd like to see independents, the independents running Congress, but also, Alex, did you hear?
I mean, Pedro, did you hear that AlexJonesLive.com has replaced InfoWars?
Infowars has been shut down, and it is now AlexJonesLive.com.
If you want to see anything from Alex.
Okay.
Okay, Mike in Alaska there giving us his thoughts.
The Democratic Party, Senate Democrats, particularly going to social media, media, making their case for why they should have power after the November elections.
One of those reasons, gas prices focused on the president.
Here's what they put out.
Well, they're not very high.
Gas prices jumping in a big way.
The national average, now $4.39 a gallon, up $0.09 from yesterday, up 33 cents since last week.
Gas prices are now 47% higher from the beginning of the war.
To a historic degree, look at this.
Blame for the increase in gas prices.
77% say Donald Trump, a majority of Republicans blame Donald Trump for gas prices.
That is the highest ever blame for gas prices from one's own party.
Then you see 82% of independents.
Rarely do you get the trifecta of majority from across the political spectrum agreeing on something.
But here we have it.
The majority of Republicans, Independents, and Democrats all blame Trump for higher gas prices.
How much longer will Americans continue to see these high gas prices?
Well, they're not very high.
Speaking of Democrats, that Hill story that I showed you earlier has said this about where they stand as of right now in relation to November, saying Democrats plainly have the upper hand six months out.
But the unusual cost currents outlined above make their success less than a slam dunk.
A key polling measure for predicting midterm results is the so-called generic ballot question.
Polsters asked voters some version of whether they would prefer Republicans or Democrats to control Congress without getting into specifics of the local candidates.
Both the decision desk HQ and Real Clear Politics showing that Democrats with a roughly five-point edge on the generic ballot question, the five-point advantage in such a polarized nation isn't negligible.
The past four presidential elections all have been decided by a smaller margin, and the popular vote, still, a five-point edge with six months to go shouldn't have Democrats popping the champagne corks just yet.
That's part of their analysis, taking a look at the midterm election six months out.
And we're getting a sense from you who should be controlling Congress after those elections.
Let's hear from Sharon, who joins us from Maryland, Democrats line.
Sharon, hello.
How are you doing, Pedro?
I'd rather vote for the Democrats because the American people went through enough with this Donald Trump.
And it's not fair.
We have future generations of children that need a better leadership to guide the children.
And, you know, families and seniors.
I mean, the Republicans don't care about the American people.
As long as they're making their money in their pockets full, then Donald Trump sure don't care about nobody but just his family.
There's a lot of families out here that's struggling and can't have make ends meet.
And what I do, I help my family out.
They don't have no my children, my adult children.
If they're low on gas, me and my husband give them gas money.
If they low on food, we give them food.
And we always call them and see if they're okay.
And we go to the market.
When I go to the market, some food I got to pull back because it's way too high.
So I shop somewhere where I could afford to buy food and stuff.
And when people see me in the market and see my cart filled up, it's because I know where to shop.
And I pray.
And I always pray.
But the best people for right now to go into the White House is the Democrats.
We had enough of Donald Trump and that insurrection.
And now he got us into war.
It just don't make no sense.
But I can tell the American people who's all listening, you got the power.
The power is in your boat.
And if you don't use that boat and have them in there or somebody else worse than him, that's your fault and you can't say nothing.
But I stay in prayer and my family and my husband as we are doing okay because I pray for this country, the United States of America, and God we trust.
Okay.
Thank you.
Sharon and Maryland.
Let's hear a perspective from Brad in Texas, Republican line.
Okay.
Never vote Democrat again.
They really do hate the U.S. citizens.
They only favor crime, unsafe elections, and illegals.
They tax the working man, and then they also push fraud.
They are the king of gender gerrymandering.
New England states, 45% vote Republican.
They only have one Republican representative.
They also are promoting Islam, which, you know, you watch them on TV or TikTok, wherever, they want to take over our country and get rid of all Christians that still live in our country and have created this country.
So why should Republicans hold power?
Democrats should ever be again.
Brad, why should Republicans hold power specifically?
Specifically, because they are the one that has potentially liberated 150 million people in the world.
They just liberated Venezuela.
It looks like Iran is next.
And then they'll be able to protect us.
Donald Trump is setting up a security blanket for America that will last forever if it's carried out.
There's no way you should have Democrats that hate the citizens of this country.
Okay.
Brad there in Texas, Republican line, giving us his thoughts.
One of the factors to consider when it comes to who will control Congress is the topic of money.
And that's an analysis from the New York Times in recent days saying individual Democratic candidates in key midterm races are doing much better financially than their Republican counterparts, but the party should not get too excited about having more cash.
That's because the Republican Party's main political committees and allied groups have built a staggering advantage of roughly $600 million over Democratic ones.
The Republican side has about $843.6 million stockpile compared to just $243 million for Democrats, accounting for debts.
The cash gap could help level the playing field financially or even give Republicans an upper hand as they pour money into advertising, field operations, and other expenses of midterm campaign.
The edge can be traced to a range of factors, including the Democratic National Committee's fundraising struggles and a gigantic war chest amassed by President Trump's super PAC, whose midterm spending plans remain a mystery.
New York Times has that analysis.
So you want to consider the money aspects of when it comes to the midterm elections.
When it comes to who should control it, let's hear from a Democrat in Maryland.
This is Mary.
Hello.
Yes, good morning, Pedro.
Good morning, C-SPAN.
And that caller sounded, previous caller sounded like he was reading something that the Republicans do a lot.
That was so much misinformation.
It gave me a stomachache.
But anyhow, I'm not happy with the Democratic Party either.
I've never been happy with the Republican Party because it just sounds very racist back in the day, Jim Crow time.
We need a progressive Congress that will not support the industrial complex that goes on and on and on to create forever wars.
We need a Congress that's not going to support the genocide in Gaza right now still going on, supposed to be a ceasefire.
Basically, I'm saying a Congress that won't support Netanyahu, not anything against the Jewish people in Israel, but Netanyahu is evil.
We need a Congress that's going to make health care for everyone.
We need a Congress that's going to have education for everyone.
We need a Congress that's going to listen to the people and make this country go forward because it's going backward to Jim Crow time, especially for us black people.
And we all know it.
And this is just evil.
And like I said, we need a progressive Congress.
Yeah, a split ticket would be nice, but where are any Republicans there that are going to do the right things?
They are in Trump's corner, locked, you know, just stuck there.
And they don't have to be.
They act like they're afraid of him.
And I don't think that's true.
They're just using him, using him to stay in power.
It's all about power.
What happened to we are supposed to be the best country?
We are not now.
We need a progressive Congress.
Schumer needs to go.
Pelosi needs to go.
They've been in office all these years.
And look where we are right now in a war with Iran.
And Iran has the cards.
And every time our president, and not mine, every time these people's president speaks to you lives, he has lied us into a war.
Ohio Senate Race Analysis00:16:53
Okay.
Let's go to Raymond.
Raymond in Michigan, Republican line.
Hi.
Hey, Cloud, Pedro.
How you doing, brother?
You're on.
Go ahead.
Yes, I think Republicans should control the Congress because I run a small business, arcalite.com, and I do support the economy.
Thank you.
Can you elaborate what Republicans will do if they do hold power and how that helps you ultimately?
Lower taxes, less red cake, smaller government.
Okay.
Raymond there in Michigan giving us this thoughts.
You can continue to do so too.
Again, if you think Republicans should control Congress next year or Democrats should control Congress, several people calling and saying it should be a split ticket when it comes to that approach.
Give us your thoughts.
202748-8000 for Democrats, 202748-8000, 1 for Republicans, and Independents, 2027488000.
Here's our plan for the remaining half hour at 8 o'clock, just about a half hour from now.
We will take you live to Secretary of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a planned press conference taking a look at the events in Iran, particularly of the last 24 hours.
We'll show you a good portion of that before, if you wish, to go to our sister channel C-SPAN2 for that coverage.
We'll continue on taking a look at this question, especially since Indiana is one of those states that is having a primary today, as well as Ohio.
And joining us to talk about the Ohio primary and what to consider there, Karen Cassler of State House News Bureau.
She's their bureau chief.
Good morning, Ms. Cassler.
Thanks for giving us your time.
Good morning.
If people are not in Ohio and they're looking towards the state, what are they looking at?
What takes place today?
Well, there are two major races here that are happening on the primary.
And of course, these are the ones that will predict what will happen in the general election.
We've got a race for governor, the first time that that seat has been opened since 2018 with Republican Governor Mike DeWine, term limited out.
And so we also have a U.S. Senate race going on where you have a rare situation, a former U.S. Senator who actually lost his seat in Sherrod Brown, the Democrat, trying to regain his seat and defeat an incumbent Republican who was just appointed to that position two years ago.
That's U.S. Senator John Houston.
So this is an interesting combination here because on the governor's side, we have two potential candidates in Vivek Ramaswamy, who is the leading frontrunner for the Republicans, and Democrat Amy Acton, who's the only candidate for the Democrats going at it this fall, who neither one of them have held elected office before.
Neither one of them have appeared on the ballot.
Whereas in the Senate race, you have two candidates who are very experienced at government, though one may have a little bit more name recognition than the other.
When it comes to that governor's race, talk a little bit then about Ohio and how it's politically made up and who does it favor at this stage.
Well, Ohio has been dominated by Republicans since the 90s.
I mean, since 1994, 82% of statewide races have been won by Republicans.
Donald Trump won by eight points in 2016 and 2020, won by 11 points in 2024.
So obviously, Republicans have had the edge here.
But there are certainly some indications that Democrats are gaining strength here.
And that could bring potentially the first Democratic governor in Ohio since in several years.
And again, the idea that this is two unknown candidates in Vivek Ramaswamy, who a lot of people might remember him from the Department of Government Efficiency.
He was appointed with Elon Musk and actually left before he could really do anything on that so he could run for Ohio governor.
And he does have some opponents in this election, but he's raised $50 million.
He's said that he's going to spend $30 million of his own money.
So he seems likely to be the one that will move on.
And then again, Amy Acton, who was Governor Mike DeWine's Ohio Department of Health director and got a lot of praise at the beginning of the pandemic, but then Republicans started pushing back on her for closing on essential businesses, closing schools.
Now they've been running a campaign against her already, calling her Dr. Lockdown, which is interesting because Ramaswamy also has some COVID connections as well with some of the things that his biotech company did.
What's the main message that both Mr. Waramaswamy and Ms. Acton are delivering at this stage?
I think both candidates are talking about affordability, and that's the issue that we keep hearing about, but they have very different ideas of how to resolve it.
Ramaswamy's talked a lot about cutting the state income tax, in fact, eliminating it, and cutting property taxes, rolling them back to pre-COVID levels.
But he hasn't been very specific on how he would pay for that.
Acton's talked about tax cuts for working families, subsidies for child care, also taking on medical debt.
But she's also said very little about how she would pay for it.
So we're hearing a lot about that and the whole question about affordability and whether the economy is really as bad as people are perceiving it to be.
That's kind of Ramaswamy's view.
Whereas Acton has done a lot more in the area of people are suffering.
We need to do something.
You talked about the Senate race.
You talked about Sherrod Brown, who previously served.
Give us more context of where he stands this day and who's challenging him.
Well, John Houston is the former lieutenant governor who was appointed to JD Vance's old seat when Vance became vice president.
That was in 2020, early 2025.
And so Houston's now running for the first time for that seat.
Sherrod Brown, again, wants to become one of the few senators who's lost a seat and hopes to regain it.
And Sherrod Brown's entry into this race got a lot of attention.
He had been talking with minority leader Chuck Schumer about getting into this race or potentially running for governor.
He ended up in the Senate race.
And this really sets up possibly, well, I don't think there's any possibility about this.
It's going to be the most expensive U.S. Senate race in Ohio history because the last two, 2022 and 2024, have been the most expensive U.S. Senate races in Ohio history.
So last time, about half a billion dollars was spent between Bernie Marino, the Republican who won, and Sherrod Brown.
And this time, it's going to be at least that.
You've got a lot of outside interests that are interested in this race, a lot of dark money coming in, as well as the candidates very skilled at raising money themselves.
We've been talking to our viewers before we had you on about which party should control Congress.
Is this a bellwether of sorts within the state and taking a look at the whole come November?
Well, Ohio definitely used to be a bellwether, but we kind of lost that status with Trump's victories in 2016, 2020, and 2024.
But I think Democrats are really seeing this as an opportunity here to gain back some of what they lost.
I mean, Sherrod Brown has actually done well in previous years when he was against Republicans and even when Trump was in office the first time.
So Democrats are really hopeful here.
I don't think there's been a whole lot of reliable polling because Ohio has been so solidly Republican.
A lot of major national polling entities have kind of ignored Ohio.
But I think we're going to see a lot more polling in Ohio that indicates where people really do stand when it comes to do they want to keep Republican status quo or do they want to give the Democrats a chance.
What does the history in Ohio at this midterm election stage, this type of race, when it comes to turnout?
What does it tell you about what to expect today?
Well, Ohio has had a month of early, no excuse absentee voting, and we've had about 358,000 ballots that have been returned, which is running way ahead of the last time that there was a race for governor in 2022, and then way ahead even more of the last time we had an open race for governor in 2018.
I think because there is this Republican contest, that may be the one that could be driving people because I think the Senate race is largely set.
I mean, Sherrod Brown does have an opponent, but once again, it seems very likely that he is going to be the one that's going to move on.
In the Republican race, you have Vivek Ramaswamy facing Casey Putsch, who is an automotive designer who has talked about abolishing property taxes in Ohio and really gone after the Vaikramaswami's Indian heritage and also after his Hindu faith, saying that he is the white Christian candidate.
That seems to have gotten a lot of interest and certainly a lot of ugly and very racist things on social media.
This is Karen Kessler, who reports for State House Newsbure.
She's the bureaucrat chief with Ohio Public Media talking about today's primary in Ohio, giving us the lay of the land there.
Ms. Kessler, thanks so much for the breakdown.
Really appreciate it.
Great to talk to you.
Again, we've been talking to you about who should control Congress, which party should control Congress after the midterm elections.
202-748-8000 for Democrats.
202-748-8001 for Republicans.
And Independents, 2027-8002.
You can text us your thoughts too at 202-748-8003.
This is Mark.
He's in Ocean City, Maryland, Republican line.
Thanks for waiting and holding on, Mark.
Go ahead, you're on.
All right.
Well, I'm just praying for Republican control this time around.
I really dread the thought of the kind of deadlock that we're going to see for the remainder of Trump's presidency if Democrats can take control.
You know, I think we're going to see reverses in all the gains that we've made in Iran, for example.
And I just see it going back to the way it's been for the previous 50 years.
But even more so than that, I'd like to pivot to gas prices because you did make a big deal out of that and Trump's approval on gas prices.
You know, I think everybody just needs to remember back in 2020 when King Biden assumed the throne and he set forth his decree that beginning in 2030, all cars sold throughout his kingdom shall be electric vehicles.
You know, so I would expect that all of his loyal subjects who voted for him would be driving around in their EVs right now.
You think that they would be flaunting how right they were, you know.
But no, right now they're just proving that they were just virtue signaling all along.
You know, they were just hypocrites about that.
You know, otherwise they'd be driving their EVs and gas prices wouldn't be such a concern.
Especially King Biden himself, actually.
You know, I mean, he took such pride in his gas-guzzling Corvette, a Corvette of all things.
You know, that's the epitome of the classic American muscle car.
You know, so please stop with this gas price thing.
Like it's such a big concern to all those Democrats out there.
Okay.
Mark there in Maryland, head a little north.
You go to New Jersey.
This is Helen Independent Line.
Hi.
Hi.
Yes, my comment is pretty simple.
I would like to see the Democrats win in the Congress so that we can restore the system of checks and balances, which was supposed to be built into our Constitution and into our political life.
We do not have checks and balances now.
The Congress and the Supreme Court seem to be pretty much in Trump's pocket.
Thank you.
That's all I have to say.
Helen there in New Jersey, Terry, next up.
He is in Texas.
Terry, go ahead.
You're on.
Democrats line.
Texas, go ahead.
Terry in Texas.
Hello.
One more time for Terry, who is in Texas.
Okay.
Let's hear from another Texan.
This is David in Texas.
Republican line.
You're next up.
Hello.
Good morning.
You know, I don't really see it makes any difference on whether or not it's the Republicans or the Democrats that control Congress, the Senate.
It's all controlled right at the moment by President Trump.
It's quite evident here in Texas that he controls our governor when he called the governor of Texas and said, I need five more votes from your state.
Do something.
And right away, boom, it's redistrict.
California rebuts it.
Texas says that's illegal.
You know, it's and then the Speaker, he can't do anything without conferring with President Trump.
Nothing's going to change.
Nothing.
I'm almost 85 years old, and I'm really tired of the Democrats, the Republicans, and the Independents.
Nothing is being done for the American public.
They're doing it for themselves.
Thank you so much for your time.
Appreciate you.
From Ohio, Independent Line, we'll hear from Jim next.
Jim, go ahead.
Yes, hi.
Colin, what is being done on this Congress voting?
I think the Democrats should vote him in.
Also, the Democrats should take over, put President Trump and his whole cabinet out of the White House.
He has cost all of us all of our high utilities, our groceries, lies to the people.
They should put him out of office.
Well, let's stick with as far as the actual control of Congress since that can't control putting the president out of office unless both bodies became Democratic and decided to impeach him again.
But why do you think the Democrats should hold power?
Just let's start there.
Because we get nothing done.
All they do is argue back and forth.
Nothing gets done.
And it's just ridiculous.
Okay.
Jim in Ohio there giving us his thoughts on which party should control Congress.
Plenty of you calling in with your opinions.
You can continue on.
Do the same.
202748-8,000 for Democrats.
202-748-8001 for Republicans.
202748-8002 for independents.
In Michigan, this is from Don.
Don, in Michigan, Democrats line.
Go ahead.
Good morning, Pedro, and good morning to the American people.
I think I hope the Democrats win control of the House and really start putting some checks and balances to what is going on in the country.
We have a president that lies to us daily.
We have a headset that thinks being a tough guy is the way to solve our problems in the country.
This administration with the Republicans in charge has shown us that they don't care about civil rights.
They don't care about people starving in the streets with gas prices.
This administration has been a failure to the country.
So what do you think as far as checks and balances are concerned, would a Democratic Congress provide?
Well, we would probably get a proposal on this ward that was started without the people's input or the House input.
So just back to normal, normal policies where we talk and bring things to the floor and debate them and vote on them.
This Johnson Don in Michigan.
Hello.
Go ahead and finish your thought, please.
I just think Johnson is just a rubber stamp for the administration.
We need a party that are going to ask for questions and have a solution to the problems instead of just listening to Trump and his gut feelings of what's going to happen.
It's just ridiculous.
Okay.
Small Business Growth in Delaware00:03:47
In Delaware, Republican line, I think it's Alyssa, maybe Elisa.
Apologies going into it, but call her go ahead.
Hi.
Just to get back to where the Democratics in Maryland were discussing about they think the Democrats should remain in power.
I know.
I lived in Maryland.
Maryland's getting run down to the ground.
Democrats with sanctuary cities, it's grossly, it's bad.
Maryland cities, Montgomery County, Prince Georgia, Georgia, a few of them, Baltimore, are there getting run down about that.
And now I think the Republicans should stay in power.
Just look at California.
Look at Chicago.
Look at New York now.
Look at what they're trying to do in Texas with Sharia law.
Okay.
I want closed borders.
Okay.
I want the fraud out.
Okay.
Even in Republican states also.
Okay.
Look over COVID, making you take the shots.
Okay.
Doing all that.
I was more scared under Joe Biden than I am under Trump right now.
Okay.
I feel safer now for my families.
And I hope they keep the midterms and they win because this thing with the border, hopefully the border stays closed.
They're a party of just no law and order.
They just keep the criminals running amok, you know.
And in Delaware, even Delaware.
It's Baylink Democratic.
So I have a fight to try to do something here in Delaware for the seniors.
Okay.
That's Alisa there in Delaware.
The president and co-hosting a small business forum yesterday at the White House spoke about his economic record to date.
Hear some of his thoughts from yesterday.
Let me begin by saying congratulations to the small business people of the year from all 50 states.
It's a big deal.
It's a big deal, and you can be proud of yourself.
Our country is made up of a lot of small businesses, and that ends up being a really big business.
As small business owners and operators, the people in this room represent the 36 million small businesses who create 40% of all economic activity in the United States.
Think of that.
A group of people added together.
You're essentially the most important factor business-wise in the whole country.
And this country is leading the whole world.
We are now.
And I can tell you by a lot.
You're the lifeblood of the American economy.
And with your help, we're truly making America great again.
We're doing record, record business.
We have a stock market that hit even with this military operation.
Call it whatever you want.
We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon.
We hit all new highs, and I said we have to take care of business because we can't let that happen.
So we did a little detour, and it's working out very nicely.
They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have no anti-aircraft equipment, they have no radar, they have no nothing, they have no leaders, actually.
The leaders happen to be gone, also.
But can't let them have a nuclear weapon, or you're going to have problems like nobody would believe, and it's going very well.
The president from yesterday at the White House, that full speech and the comments from the president available at our website and our app.
Immigration and Local Vandalism00:02:50
We are expecting in about 10 minutes from now to hear comments from the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth when it comes to latest in Iran.
We're going to show you a good part of that coverage.
And if you're interested in seeing the whole thing after a while, as we show it to you here on our main channel, you can go to C-SPAN2 to watch that.
We will take that when it begins.
When it comes to the vice president's efforts in campaigning leading up to midterms, JD Vance going to Iowa today, marking his first visit since taking office to a state where Republicans in less than two years will cast the first votes to pick their party's next presidential nominee.
He's seen one of those potential strongest candidates.
He's making the trip to campaign on behalf of Republican Representative Zach Nunn, who faces a competitive race to keep his Des Moines area seat in the midterm, November midterms.
And this adding that the visit offers the vice president an opportunity to test his reception before Iowa voters.
The Associated Press has that story.
Let's go to David, David, and New Jersey Independent Line on which party should control Congress after midterms.
Hello.
Good morning, Pedro, and thank you.
My answer to that is whichever party is going to control illegal immigration, but not only illegal immigration, but illegal immigration that results in the kind of vandalism that happened in our HOA community here in Raritan Township, New Jersey, just outside Flemington.
The contractor who was brought in ended up hiring people who I believe were gang members.
And I worked with a statewide New Jersey gang task force, and I believe they were gang members, and they vandalized homes here and caused tens of thousands in damage.
And my problem, and I've told Mark Wayne Mullen and Tom Holman this, you're not going after the roots of the problem.
The roots of the problem are not the individual who may have come in illegally, who's really just trying to survive or escaping a bad situation.
The people they brought into this Homeowners Association planned community in Raritan Township vandalized our homes.
So what that means for as far as control of Congress?
For control of Congress, it's very important to me after witnessing vandalism to my home.
It's very important to me that the party who comes in goes after the homeowners associations because Newark Ice Field Office told me, Pedro, when I contacted them, they said, unless your HOA bylaws specify that the people brought in to do work must be vetted, we will not hold the HOAs accountable.
Okay, David, they're in New Jersey.
Global Threats to US Unity00:09:18
Let's hear from another Republican.
This is Stephen in Massachusetts.
Go ahead.
You're next up.
Stephen in Massachusetts.
Hello.
One more time for Stephen.
Okay.
Let's hear from Maryland.
Democrats lying.
This is Terrell.
Hello, Terrell.
Okay.
How you doing, Pedro?
Good morning to you.
Hey, I want the Democrats to take over Congress and I want to see strength from the Democrats because the prevarication that's in D.C. today is astounding.
You know, Donald Trump lies to no end.
You had Steve Scalise and Tim Scott lying about gas prices.
Like, they don't care.
You know, whatever Donald Trump wants, he gives.
So I want to see a check on Mikey Johnson, you know, who's done nothing, who's a Donald Trump troll.
And I want to see him taken care of.
Do you want to ask me anything, Peyto?
Nope.
You said if you're done, if you've said your thoughts, we'll go on.
You go with that?
I tell you what, Peyjo, he's lying about the war.
His poll numbers are down.
Gas prices are up.
But Republicans do not want to talk about that.
They know that they are in trouble and they're doing anything to try to make it right with the people, but there's nothing that they can do, just like there's nothing that he can do to get out of this war.
Thank you, Pejo.
That's a viewer in Maryland in the Washington Post this morning.
There's this story by Emily Davies saying the White House Counsel's office is giving private briefings to the administration's political appointees on how to best prepare for congressional oversight as staff begin to brace for the likelihood of significant Democratic victories in the November midterm elections, according to two people briefed on the topic.
The roughly 30-minute briefings have included a PowerPoint presentation about how Congress' congressional oversight works and best practices for handling, according to the two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Staff from the council's office have encouraged political appointees to be careful about what they put in writing and provided guidance for how to respond to congressional inquiries in a timely manner.
There's other information there, but that's the story from the Washington Post.
Stephen, Republican line in Massachusetts.
Hello.
Good morning.
How are you, sir?
Fine, sir.
Go ahead.
Just real quick, I know it's almost 8 o'clock.
I just want to say I watch a lot of news in my life, and C-SPAN, I have to tell you, is the most bipartisan that I've ever watched, and I want to thank you for that.
Second, I think Republicans should keep the House.
Why?
Because out of all the news I've watched all these years, this has to be the first time that things have been shaken up and things are going to get better.
I understand the people are hurting.
I understand all the gas prices.
But one thing I want to say before I hang up, I would like everyone just to look forward.
If we didn't do, if the Republicans didn't do what they did this year, think about what we wouldn't have known and what the country would look like in years to come if Iran caught the nuclear weapon.
And I just want everybody to calm down and to look ahead and see what would happen if we didn't have this president this time.
And I appreciate it.
Thank you very much, sir, and you have a nice day.
Stephen there in Massachusetts, Indiana, one of those states having a primary today.
This is Vicki in Indianapolis.
Democrats line.
Again, we don't know when the press conference from the Defense Secretary will start, but it's expected to start soon.
Vicki, go ahead, please.
Yes, I am a Democrat.
And the reason why I think that the Democrats should be into office, because All of the Republicans have been complacent with everything that Trump has done.
And every time Trump talks to Putin, things happen.
I believe that Putin's got the Epstein files over Trump.
He's got something on him because every time Trump talks to Putin, crap happens.
And I just think the Democrats are trying to put this world, United States back together.
So if they take control of Congress, what would you want them to do specifically?
Well, check some balance on the Republicans president.
And quite a few of those Republicans are in the Epstein files, too.
So, I mean, there's a whole lot of cover-up.
And he's got to do something every day to keep people from talking about the Epstein files.
I wish that everybody would look at the Rachel show last night and see how they broke down, she broke down everything he's done.
Every time he talks to Putin, something happens.
Now he's after the black folks.
Well, we're not going anywhere that fast.
Okay.
Thank you.
Vicki there in Indianapolis.
Let's try to get in Doyle from Tennessee Independent Line.
Doyle, jump in, please.
Don't care who gets here, but I want the right ones to get in.
There's been lies and lies and lies and lies.
Even talk about the weapon of mass production is wrong.
Kennedy told Iran, Iraq, North Korea not to get a nuclear weapon because it'll make people start getting nuclear weapons all around the world.
And I was on a NATO ship, and I know it was a good thing.
And one more thing: North Korea didn't get a nuclear weapon until 2017.
Well, with all those issues in mind that you talked about, what does control of Congress do for all of that in your mind?
Because the Congress should have the crown.
They should be the king.
The president has two jobs.
His job is the commander-in-chief and to make treaties.
Congress makes the law.
The Senate, the Senate, and the House of Representatives is the Congress.
And the Supreme Court is to tell what the Constitution means.
Tell if it's constitutional or not.
Wrong.
And all this stuff about North Korea.
It was three countries.
North Korea.
Kennedy told Israel, don't make a difference.
But they did.
They lied.
They lied.
Okay.
Look it up.
Okay.
That's Doyle there in Tennessee.
Again, we'll show you, and we're showing you now the lead up to this press conference expected just about now when it comes to the Defense Secretary.
We'll take it to you live.
We'll try to get one more call and let's try Edna and Tennessee Democrats line.
Edna, go ahead and jump in, please.
Well, I would like to see the Democrats back in office because I'm just absolutely.
I'd like to see the Democrats back in office because at least they steal from us quietly.
I remember when Herbert Hoover was president.
My granddaddy used to say, all politicians, Republican or Democrat.
But you know, America is lazy.
People are just lazy.
They don't understand.
It can get worse.
I remember when the banks crashed.
My mama had $50 in the bank.
She got back five cents on the dollar.
And what that means for Congress?
As far as who controls Congress specifically, what does that mean?
Well, like I said, when the Democrats are in office, all this cussing and fussing and stuff that's on TV is just ridiculous.
I believe that at least the Democrats are quiet.
Okay, that was Edna.
Protecting Global Shipping Routes00:10:03
We'll take you to the Pentagon right now.
Well, as you know, President Trump has directed U.S. Central Command to restart the free flow of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz under the umbrella of Project Freedom.
To be clear, this operation is separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury.
Project Freedom is defensive in nature, focused in scope, and temporary in duration, with one mission, protecting innocent commercial shipping from Iranian aggression.
American forces won't need to enter Iranian waters or airspace.
It's not necessary.
We're not looking for a fight, but Iran also cannot be allowed to block innocent countries and their goods from an international waterway.
Iran is the clear aggressor, harassing civilian vessels, threatening mariners from every nation indiscriminately, and weaponizing a critical choke point for its own financial benefit, or at least trying to.
For too long, Iran has been harassing ships, shooting at civilian tankers from all nations, and trying to impose a tolling system.
Iran's plan, a form of international extortion, is unacceptable.
That ends with Project Freedom.
Two U.S. commercial ships, along with American destroyers, have already safely transited the strait, showing the lane is clear.
We know the Iranians are embarrassed by this fact.
They said they control the strait.
They do not.
So American ships led the way, commercial and military, shouldering the initial risk from the front, as Americans always do.
And right now, hundreds more ships from nations around the world are lining up to transit.
CENTCOM, along with partner nations, is in active communication with hundreds of ships, shipping companies, and insurers.
All of these ships from all around the world want to get out of the Iranian trap that they have been stuck inside.
As a direct gift from the United States to the world, we have established a powerful red, white, and blue dome over the strait.
American destroyers are on station supported by hundreds of fighter jets, helicopters, drones, and surveillance aircraft, providing 24-7 overwatch for peaceful commercial vessels.
Except Iran's, of course, which is why our ironclad blockade remains in full effect as well.
In fact, six ships tried to run the blockade out of Iranian ports as Project Freedom commenced, and they were all turned around.
This is more than strategy, it's also humanitarian.
By breaking Iran's illegal stranglehold, we're protecting the lives and livelihoods of sailors from dozens of countries, securing global energy routes, and preventing shortages that hit the world's poorest people the hardest.
Once again, America is using its strength to lift up others.
Iran is trying to subjugate the world.
To what remains of Iran's forces, if you attack American troops or innocent commercial shipping, you will face overwhelming and devastating American firepower.
The President has been very clear about this.
We prefer this to be a peaceful operation, but are locked and loaded to defend our people, our ships, our aircraft, and this mission without hesitation.
To Iran, let innocent ships pass freely.
These international waters belong to all nations, not to Iran to tax, toll, or control.
To our partners, allies, and the rest of the world, this is a temporary mission for us.
As I've said before, the world needs this waterway a lot more than we do.
We're stabilizing the situation so commerce can flow again, but we expect the world to step up.
At the appropriate time and soon, we will hand responsibility back to you.
To the incredible Americans executing this mission right now, simply thank you.
Your courage, your readiness, your unmatched professionalism and precision are why the world can breathe easier today and every day.
You are and always will be the greatest fighting force in human history, unmatched always.
Project Freedom is underway.
Commerce will be flowing, and America is once again leading with strength, clarity, and purpose for the benefit of the entire world.
Our will is unshakable.
God bless our troops, and God bless the mighty United States Navy as well.
Mr. Chairman, over to you.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and good morning, everyone.
Thanks for being here.
On Sunday, at the direction of the President, CENCOM initiated Project Freedom with the objective of facilitating the safe passage of international commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Over the past seven weeks, Iran's repeatedly threatened and attacked commercial shipping in the strait in order to effectively cut off commercial traffic and damage the global economy.
By obstructing one of the world's most critical maritime checkpoints, a vital transit route for approximately one-fifth of the global oil consumption, Iran is weaponizing the global supply chain.
This action disregards established navigational rights and the law of the sea, and the regime led by the IRGC is effectively attempting to hold the entire global economy hostage.
Let me give you an update of the last few days of activities.
And if you take a look at the map here, as the Secretary said, the United States has established Project Freedom to open up the Strait of Hormuz.
This graphic highlights the kinetic engagements that the Iranians have attempted to make or have taken against the region.
The green dots and blue dots show the groupings of commercial cargo and tanker vessels.
And the United States has established a significant presence over the strait here in order to open up the free flow of commerce, noting the blockade still continues along the eastern flank.
The map shows the examples and samples of Iranian attacks against commercial vessels in the strait as well as the Gulf of Oman and up in the Arabian Gulf.
Since the ceasefire was announced, Iran has fired at commercial vessels nine times and seized two container ships.
And they've attacked U.S. forces more than 10 times, all below the threshold of restarting major combat operations at this point.
You can also see the group of tankers and cargo vessels in the U.S. blockade line, as I mentioned.
As a result of Iran's indiscriminate attacks across the region, there are currently 22,500 mariners embarked on more than 1,550 commercial vessels trapped in the Arabian Gulf, unable to transit.
In addition to shipping, Iran has continued to deliberately attack its neighbors.
Just yesterday, Iran attacked Oman once and the UAE three times, including an attack on Fujairah oil terminal, which was successfully defeated.
They also launched cruise missiles, drones, and small boats at U.S. forces defending commercial shipping in the straits.
United States Navy MH-60 helicopters and Army AH-64 Apache helicopters successfully defeated those threats.
Thus far, today is quieter.
Let me describe this defensive operation just a few clicks down for you.
As the Secretary said, Project Freedom is designed to protect commercial shipping and help restore the flow of commerce through the strait and sustain freedom of navigation.
CENTCOM has established an enhanced security area on the southern side of the strait that is now protected by U.S. land, naval, and air assets to help defeat further Iranian aggression against commercial shipping.
I'd like to share a little bit more about U.S. capabilities, but for operational security purposes, I'm not going to get into specific details out there.
On the surface, guided missile destroyers and other warships are detecting and defeating Iranian threats.
This includes fast boats and one-way attack drones.
In the air, more than 100 fighters, attack aircraft, and other manned and unmanned aircraft, synchronized by the 82nd Airborne Division, are in the air 24 hours a day providing defensive overwatch for the enhanced security area and its approaches that I discussed.
These forces are comprised of over 15,000 American service members and have established localized air and sea control to protect against Iranian threats.
Commercial vessels that transit through the area will see, hear, and frankly feel U.S. combat power around them on the sea, in the skies, and on the radio.
And as of this morning, as was mentioned prior, two U.S. flag merchant vessels have transited, and we anticipate more to transit over the coming days.
Further up the Gulf, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command continues to work to identify and mitigate any threats.
Beyond Project Freedom, CENTCOM and the rest of the joint force remain ready to resume major combat operations against Iran if ordered to do so.
Military Readiness for Missions00:03:24
No adversary should mistake our current restraint with a lack of resolve.
And the President has said, as the Secretary has, that now is the time for those with equity stake in the strait to come assist.
Before I turn it back to the Secretary, I want to take a moment to highlight part of our joint force today.
And today I want to talk about the paratroopers of the United States Army 82nd Airborne Division.
When the President or the Secretary need immediate, scalable, and lethal combat power in CENTCOM or elsewhere, the All-American Division answers the call.
The 82nd is the core of our nation's immediate response force and ready to deploy within hours of notice.
These paratroopers are capable of accomplishing any mission in any environment, constantly training, constantly ready to jump from Air Force aircraft into ground combat and seize key terrain if ordered to do so, just like their predecessors did in Sicily and Normandy in World War II, or to secure or enable the follow-on forces to flow into theater as they did in Grenada or Panama.
They can do the range of missions from counterinsurgency to counter-terrorism operations to power projection, as they have many times over the course of the history of this great division.
They can do all these things because they're incredibly well trained, well equipped, and well-led, but also because of the indomitable spirit of the all-American paratrooper.
Every single one of them volunteered for this role, volunteered to go to airborne training, and volunteered to serve.
But this division is now more than just a formation that we use for forcible entries.
For example, just today, they are out there coordinating, integrating, and synchronizing land, air, space, sea, and cyber forces using all joint all-domain command and control.
They use next-generation tactical networks that are AI-enabled to augment intelligence and operations, and they seamlessly synchronize all of these effects and are doing so in support of Project Freedom as we speak.
The relentless focus on technical innovation allows the commanders out there in the field to see, sense, and understand the opportunities that are in front of them along with the associated risks and make smart decisions out on the objective.
With incredible courage, tenacity, and grit, they are going all the way every day.
And whenever the nation calls on them, they are there to answer the call.
We are grateful for their service and their leadership.
Lastly, before I close, as I often do, I want to remember some of our fallen.
Today, we remember Sergeant William Rivers, Specialist Breonna Moffat, and Specialist Kennedy Sanders of the 718th Engineering Company, U.S. Army Reserves, out of Fort Benning, Georgia.
They were tragically killed on January 28th, 2024, when attacked by an Iranian-backed proxy force at Tower 22 in Jordan.
We continue to carry on their memories.
We remember their names.
We remember their families.
And the Secretary and I are deeply grateful for all of our deployed forces who are out there doing our nation's work.
Defending American Naval Assets00:06:08
And sir, with that, I'll kick it back over to you.
Very good.
We'll take a few questions.
Go ahead.
Thank you.
Alexandra Angersoll, one American News.
Do you assess, Mr. Secretary, do you assess what's left of this small boat fleet to be a significant threat or a nuisance to be managed?
And then, secondly, what is your message to critics who say that the U.S. doesn't have a strategy in this mission?
Well, any threat needs to be taken seriously.
And just like those six attack boats that the chairman mentioned were taken seriously and dealt with before they were any real threat to the American military vessels that they were approaching.
And that is small craft like that are all that Iran has left.
Their ability to get close with a destroyer of the capabilities that we have is limited, but we're going to take it very seriously and kinetically, quickly.
We're not going to allow a threat to gather.
And I can tell you, even from just this morning, the strategy remains laser focused.
In fact, what I think you see from Project Freedom is that we're not allowing ourselves to get distracted.
This is a separate and distinct effort, temporary in nature, that we plan to hand over to the world.
The world has expressed a desire to be a part of this, as is often the case, or maybe almost always the case.
American leadership is required.
So the president was willing to undertake this, send commercial ships through, send destroyers in, provide this red, white, and blue bubble of protection, and encourage the world to step up.
Because ultimately, this waterway is, as I said, far more crucial to the rest of the world, and they need to have the ability to defend it.
So I think this is a reflection of a laser-focused strategy, actually.
Right here.
Morning, Mr. Secretary, Mr. Chairman, David Zia, Real America's Voice.
I wanted to ask you: of any of the fast boats that have been either sunk or identified, are there any armaments larger than, say, small, you know, AK-47 type stuff or any anti-ship cruise missiles identified?
And my second question is: if there's a divide between the IRGC and Tehran, is there a way to get Tehran to agree to let us go after the IRGC that is doing these attacks without violating the ceasefire?
Well, right now, anything coming at our crafts, regardless of what's on it, has to be defended against, and that's the case.
I don't know what the exact armaments over on those fast boats.
Small arms.
Nothing significant on the fastboats.
Rifles or small machine guns.
There were some small coastal cruise missiles shot down as well.
So there's been, I think there's some frothiness in the beginning aspects of this that were dealt with very directly by our destroyers.
And we're communicating both overtly and quietly to the Iranians to allow this defensive operation to happen on behalf of the world.
There are some actions the IRGC takes sometimes that are outside the bounds of what maybe Iranian negotiators would like.
That's their job to rein that in and ultimately create a condition for a deal, right?
That's not something I talked about in these remarks, but that's happening in real time.
Iran has an ability to make that deal.
But what we're demonstrating with Project Freedom is they don't control the strait.
I mean, we know Iran is embarrassed by the fact that our blockade is holding and we can run ships through and we're going to help the world run ships through.
And if they hold it at issue, the whole world knows who's doing it.
It's not us.
We're willing to open it up.
It's Iran.
And that creates a dilemma for them.
We hope they make a deal.
Yes.
Thank you, sir.
My first question is for General Kane, Mary Margaret, with the Daily Wire.
You said that the attacks by Iran so far are below the threshold of restarting major combat operations.
What is that threshold?
And then for Secretary Hagsack, are there still concerns about mines in the strait?
And can you kind of clarify these reports of kamikaze dolphins that we've heard about?
I haven't heard the kamikaze dolphin thing.
It's like sharks with laser beams, right?
The threshold of restarting is a political decision above my pay grade.
What I'll say is it's low, harassing fire right now.
It feels like Iran is grasping at straws to try to do something across the southern flank.
To your question, David, their command and control structure remains very fractured, and I think they're struggling to maintain control down echelon at the edge.
But we're still, it's still pretty low-level kinetics at this point in time.
The Defense Secretary Pete Hegseff, the Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Kane, in a press conference talking about the events of yesterday, the so-called Project Freedom.
And you can continue watching that if you wish.
Go over to our sister channel at C-SPAN2.
If you want to continue on watching the press conference, you can always see it later on our app at C-SPANNOW and our website at c-span.org.
You can also comment on the comments from both the Defense Secretary and the Joint Chiefs Chairman, amongst other things, during open forum if you want to participate.
202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents, 202-748-8002.
That's how you can call in and participate in open forum.
Make those calls, and we will get them in as soon as they start coming in.
The Wall Street Journal posting a story from the press conference you just heard.
This is the headline saying the Defense Secretary is saying that U.S. operations to unblock the Strait of Hormuz separate, according to his estimation in that press conference from the Iran conflict overall, saying that the operations to free up commercial shipping are separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury, the name, the conflict with Iran, according to the Defense Secretary, saying that Project Freedom is defensive in nature's focused in scope and temporary in duration,
with one mission: protecting innocent commercial shipping from Iranian aggression.
Again, a lot in those opening moments.
You can still see that on C-SPAN 2 and our app and our website.
Cheryl has been holding on well before Open Forum in Maryland Democrats line.
Cheryl, thank you for holding on.
Go ahead.
Good morning.
Lawyers Dominating Congress00:05:41
I just wanted to say that I hope that the Democrats, well, I'm a Democrat and I hope the Democrats get in.
However, I'm very displeased with both parties.
And I hope that whatever party gets in, that they're going to start putting checks and balances on this administration.
And I'm always baffled by Republicans who always think that the Republican Party is doing the best by the people because they, every time they get into office, the deficit seems to climb.
And yet they always purport that they are the party of fiscal responsibility.
And they create these situations where we wind up having to shoulder the burden of their irresponsibility and spending.
And I'm just so disappointed with this Congress where everyone is accepting money from APAT.
And that means that there's really no distinction among the parties.
And I hope they're doing something about that.
Okay.
Okay, Cheryl there in Maryland.
Let's hear from Thomas in Texas, Independent Line.
Good morning, America.
Listen, I want to pray for all the people who were hit by the tornadoes up there, man.
That was devastating.
And I like to tell the farmers, look out for JD Vance.
He's buying up a bunch of farmland there for unforecures.
But the recent statements that your Department of wherever it is, war, I guess, listen, if you look at CNN, 16 bases in the Middle East have been hit by the Iranians.
16 American bases.
I don't know why you guys don't report it, but it's, you know, we're not really winning the war.
But another thing is, look, people, man, vote.
Vote to save yourself and your neighbors.
That's all, man.
You know, you know you need health care.
You know, you need clean drinking water.
Come on, man.
You know, common sense is not common anymore.
Thank you guys.
Take care.
Patricia is next in Florida Democrats line.
Go ahead.
Yes, I have never heard so many different words for war.
Now it's low-level kinetics.
I mean, it's just, this is just these clowns.
I mean, how many can they fit in the Volkswagen?
You know what I mean?
It's just one lie after another.
And one, you know, they just substitute words, you know, for what war is.
I mean, it's going on, you know, and it's going to go on for a long time.
And these gas prices aren't going to come down for a long time.
So, people, you better save your money to put in your gas tank or find, you know, some other way to get around.
You know, it's going to be cheaper than a car.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Here from Chuck in Alabama, Independent Line.
Good morning.
I'll tell you what, I watched a lot of the May Day stuff that went on, and that is totally scary.
Those people are, I mean, that's who the Democrats are.
I wish you would show a lot of that May Day stuff where the people are waving communist flags, communist slogans.
I mean, it's ridiculous.
They want to get rid of all money, all the cops, ICE.
They want to get, you know, they want to just destroy America.
You need to show a lot of that May Day stuff, and maybe it'll wake some of these people up that are crazy.
Let's go to Frank on this open forum.
Frank in Florida, Independent Line.
Good morning, Pedro.
I sort of look at this as an independent, very simple.
Our problem with Congress is most of them are lawyers.
Okay, so they are skilled in what they want.
So we put an independent in there, a businessman or something, and I don't think he has much power.
Congress is made up of lawyers.
And our problem is if we want change, if we don't agree with the lawyers, then we have a problem.
And that's our problem in the state of Florida.
It's called automobile insurance.
The advertising on TV is killing us, all right, because of lawyers.
We should regulate their fee.
They're getting 40%.
Number two, when the war, these people complaining about the gasoline prices, Biden gave that country money.
It didn't go anywhere.
We are doing good there for that part of the region, and the rest of the world is not helping Mr. Trump.
And number two, employment is down tremendously.
He's not a lawyer.
He's a bull in a china shop trying to make change, but it will go back to its own way.
And some of the people calling in about the rich, which I am not, if we had all people that were on welfare, where would we be?
The rich pay an awful lot in taxes, but these people never look at the figures.
That's our problem.
The lawyers are running Congress.
We need real people in there.
Okay.
Frank there in Florida giving us his thoughts on this open forum.
You can do the same.
202-748-8000 for Democrats, Republicans, 202-748-8001.
White House Shooting Aftermath00:02:54
Independents, 202-748-8002 here in Washington, D.C.
It was yesterday afternoon.
A man was wounded.
This is according to local news outlet, WTOP.
A man was wounded in a shooting involving U.S. Secret Service officers after he allegedly shot them near the Washington Monument Monday afternoon, according to the agency's deputy director.
The shooting happened at 15th Street and Independence Avenue here in D.C.
It was near a building where the Forest Service is headquartered, and a child whose age isn't publicly known was also struck by a bullet during the exchange of gunfire.
According to Secret Service Deputy Director Matthew Quinn, he made comments at a news conference shortly after this incident.
Here's a portion from yesterday: plainclothes officers and agents that consistently patrol the outer perimeter of the White House complex identified a suspicious individual that appeared to have a firearm.
They called in support from our marked uniformed Secret Service police to make contact with that individual.
Upon making contact, that individual fled briefly on foot withdrew a firearm and fired in the direction of our agents and officers.
They returned fire and engaged.
That individual was hit.
He's since been transported to the hospital.
I have no comments on his condition.
I can tell you that at least one, only one, bystander was hit by the suspect.
That individual, it's a juvenile, did not sustain any life-threatening injuries, but he's also receiving treatment at the hospital.
I'll point out that not long before this shooting occurred, Vice President's Motor Cake did transit through this area.
The investigation itself, in terms of the use of force in the shooting, will be conducted by Dutch Bomb Police Department.
A couple of follow-up stories this afternoon from the shooting that took place at the White House correspondents dinner.
This is video analysis done by the New York Times this morning saying that initial hotel security footage shared by the president on Truth Social was too grainy and fragmentary to reveal much.
But the higher quality version of the footage from inside the Washington Hilton Hotel that the FBI released helps firm up the sequencing.
The New York Times was able to also synchronize that footage, which did not have audio with audio captured by another camera from inside the dining room.
Together, the analysis indicates that the gunman fired first at a Secret Service officer.
There's more of that in that story.
Also, when it comes to the legal proceedings of Cole Thomas Thomas Allen, the Washington Times picks this up in a story by Carrie Pickett.
Judge apologizes to the alleged gala gunman for treatment in jail, saying that the judge promised Cole Thomas Allen that he would try to get him a cell with a window and a Bible magistrate, Judge Zia Farqui, addressed Mr. Allen directly in a court hearing, telling him, Mr. Allen, I'm sorry things have not been the way they are supposed to.
Honoring Veterans in Jail Hearings00:04:37
The jail is going to let me know by Tuesday about what's going on with your housing situation.
We should be able to get you into the medium portion of the jail with windows.
The judge told prosecutors during the hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington, quote, I can tell you I've never had a January 6th defendant who was put in a five-point restraint or a safe cell.
Again, there's more there from the Washington Times website if you want to read that.
Let's hear from Scott in Illinois, Republican line.
Go ahead.
Thank you for taking my call.
Good morning, America and fellow veterans.
I just want to say something just a little off topic.
Here in Illinois, we send our older veterans, and I went to the honor flight last year.
And this year, today, we're sending 100 of our old-time veterans, Korea up to Vietnam guys, and they're going to land in D.C. today.
I please ask all D.C. residents and anybody that sees any of our veterans, thank them for what they've done.
And we're the fathers of the guys in battle now.
So I just want to say, please, D.C.'s been great.
They've opened arms for all of us old vets.
And just say hi to the guys.
They'll really appreciate it, okay?
Thank you so much.
What got you involved in that program in the first place?
Well, they've been after me for 10 years to go.
And I went last year and I almost died.
And I won't get into it.
Tammy would remember it.
But the thing is, just the honor of God, when we came back from Non, a lot of people know what happened to us.
But just a thank you for the guys and even the younger guys.
I talk to them all the time.
And I go, thanks for, you know, not thank you for your service.
But that's just something else on my mind.
But it's just, we're all girls, guys, families, everybody.
We're all in it together.
I did top secret computer work, but my best friend was a cook and the nurses.
This is what we are all in it together.
So let's get together as a country again and honor our veterans.
Don't fight them.
We're all together.
We're family.
We're Americans.
And on that note, God bless America.
Thank you.
Scott in Illinois there.
Let's hear from Mike in Kentucky, Republican line.
Morning.
Good morning.
I'd just like to make one comment about this judge apologizing to a man who rushes a ballroom and shoots an agent, and the judge apologizes because he doesn't have a window in his cell.
I mean, what is this country coming to?
I mean, I just, I mean, when you're in jail, you're in jail.
If you don't have a window, well, so be it.
Okay, thank you.
Almonzo is next up in Alaska.
I'm sorry, Alabama, Alabama, Independent Line.
Go ahead.
I can understand getting Alaska and Alabama mixed up sometimes, but I'd like to just say thank you to Scott, who just gave a good report for the veterans from one veterans to another.
Scott, thank you.
And as an American, we need to continue to do that.
And I just want to represent Alabama that we all don't think like that person who spoke earlier from Alabama.
But with that being said, thank you for the opportunity to say thank you to Scott.
And God bless America and keep praying.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said to meet with Pope Leo XIV.
A story in the USA Today saying the visit would be the first meeting between the Chicago-born pontiff and a senior member of the administration since the president sharply criticized the Pope last month.
An official Vatican calendar notice said the meeting was due for May 7th.
A spokesperson for the State Department confirmed Mr. Rubio's trip and said the visit to Rome would run from May 6th to the 8th.
The purpose of the visit is to, quote, to advance bilateral relations with Italy and the Vatican, according to the State Department spokesman, who went on to say that Mr. Rubio would meet with the Holy See leadership to discuss the situation in the Middle East and mutual interest in the Western Hemisphere.
Gary in Texas, Independent Line on this open forum.
Go ahead.
Good morning.
Here again, I'd like to tell Scott thanks again.
Also, as a helping out our country as a veteran, but my question is this: On C-SPAN, you all do a great job of trying to be open to everybody.
Republicans Running Country into Ground00:03:26
My only concern is on the call-in numbers.
You don't have anything listing socialist or communists on there.
They have found a way to kind of weasel into the Democratic Party and hide themselves.
I think they need to be exposed when they call instead of on the Democratic line.
So I just wondered if you would consider that as part of your venue there.
Thank you.
Greg is next.
Greg in Fort Lauderdale, Democrats line.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
Just a couple of quick points.
You know, back in the 80s, the conservative movement was all about making sure that the Supreme Court did not legislate from the bench, as they used to say, you know, and that they're strict constructionists and their literal interpretation of the Constitution, et cetera.
And then they come up, then now the Supreme Court has really stepped in with regards to this voting rights decision that they made not too long ago.
And basically, they're just contradicting themselves and just outright betraying their own principles.
I don't understand how people can't see that the Supreme Court has now become a tool, basically, of the government, which was by design, by design of Donald Trump in the first place.
And speaking of Donald Trump, I don't understand why people cannot see that this man is an activist president.
Anything he feels like he has something to say about it, he'll stick his nose in it.
And without regard for the guardrails that were set up by the Constitution as far as the separation of church and state.
I mean, it's really kind of getting to be.
I believe that the Democrats are correct.
Donald Trump is the biggest threat to the Constitution that we have ever seen in the whole history of this country.
And I just don't understand why the Republicans can't see that over the past 20 years or so, they have really run this country into the ground, starting with creating the economic crisis in 2008.
And Barack Obama had to come in and the Democrats to save the country.
And then the same thing happened with Joe Biden had to come in and save the country with the COVID crisis.
And every time the Republicans get involved in something, they run the country into the ground.
They basically trample on the Constitution.
And then the Democrats have to come in and fix it up and try to rectify the situation.
Okay.
Greg in Fort Lauderdale, he mentioned the Supreme Court, Justice Samuel Alito acting as his part of the court.
And when it comes to the abortion pill, Mifipristone saying that the justice Monday temporarily restored full access to the abortion pill, suspending for now a lower court ruling that barred doctors from sending the drug through the mail without first seeing a patient in person.
Alito's action, which came in a pair of brief orders known as administrative stays, puts the lower court's ruling on hold for one week and gives the Supreme Court time to consider emergency appeals from drug companies that manufacture Mifipristone.
It is the latest development in a case that has put abortion back on before the justices in an election year.
That's more there from the Wall Street Journal if you're interested in reading it there.
Let's hear from Mike in Illinois, Independent Line.
Yeah.
Good morning, Pedro.
Rebellion vs Political Ambition00:03:19
This line the president drew for Iran for the war to end seems to be a line that's too far to meet.
By him saying he wants Iran to have no nuclear ambitions is kind of vague when just a thought can be an ambition.
Let me finish this out, please, Pedro.
The ambition could be a thought.
So in other words, a never-ending war.
So Trump is basically painting a target on the backs of American citizens and our military, similar what Bibi Meniahu did in Israel with the genocide war, painting a target on the backs of all Israelis, because the Palestinian genocide seems to be the flavor of the day with the blockade in Iran and the blockade in Cuba.
It is telling me that the land is more valuable than the people that are on it.
And here's a few reasons why there's danger for our military and our country.
There's no quarters, meaning we don't want any survivors that we're fighting, which tells our enemies that we're basically wanting everybody to die.
Also, Pete Hegford hired his lawyer and made him a general without any background checks.
And this guy sits through all the hearings or all the meetings, firing generals and whatnot.
And also, the 103rd was parachuted on Carg Island with no cover.
We lost six heroes and many more wounded.
Gerald R. Ford's been at sea for over 316 days, which is record-breaking.
The whole group of their own.
Gotcha, Mike.
Gotcha.
Let's go to Eric.
Eric in Minnesota.
Democrats line.
You're next up.
I just want the country to take a deep breath and read through its own history.
Learning from history is how you advance safely into the future.
If we go into this history, we see that there was a rebellion.
There was a rebellion.
Somebody broke into our capital and desecrated it and tried to change an election.
I think normally in our country's history, that would have been a rebellion that would have been put down.
And rebellions like Shea's Rebellion in the 18th century, they were put down forcibly so it couldn't cause rot.
Well, in this instance, it went on to our top judicial body, the Supreme Court.
And instead of putting down a situation that was out of control, they gave the leader of that rebellion immunity.
Okay, so you've created a situation which is not political.
This was a kind of illegal rebellion.
And so who do they ask for help?
They ask the Democrats.
This is not a political situation.
This was a rebellion.
And it now has been allowed to fester on into the future.
The Sleeping Giant of Article 500:03:28
And we're looking for easy answers.
Good luck.
How are you going to put down a rebellion that's now stuck its spider web way out into the hinterlands of our leadership?
Okay.
Eric there in Minnesota, the Pulitzer Prizes were offered for various works of nonfiction.
One of those recipients, We the People, a History of the U.S. Constitution by Jill Lapore, the Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, offers a lively account of Americans' long frustrated efforts to change the country's chief governing document, drawing on the stories of mostly unknown figures and making a case for what present-day Americans can learn from their efforts.
She had a chance during a book fair last year to talk with her own Peter Slent about the book and the findings in it.
Here's a portion of that interview.
You opened this book on the history of the U.S. Constitution with a quote.
It was intended to be amended.
Who am I quoting?
By the great American philosopher, Bugs Bunny.
And what does that mean?
You know, during the bicentennial of the Constitution in 1986-7, CBS did these bicentennial minutes with Looney Tunes.
They're hilarious.
I encourage everyone to go to YouTube and look up Bugs Bunny's Ode to the Amendments.
He sings to Daffy Duck and just makes a case that the Constitution was intended to be amended, which indeed it was.
And my book is really inspired by that idea, right?
We've kind of forgotten that a foundational principle of constitutionalism is repair.
Well, you write that Article 5 is a sleeping giant.
What is Article 5, and why do you call it a sleeping giant?
Yeah, so Article 5 is the amendment provision of the Constitution.
It's kind of the least used part of the Constitution.
It's a sleeping giant because although the Constitution was written with the idea that, look, if you're going to write down fundamental law, which is a great thing to do because then it's transparent, we can inspect it and say, is our government abiding by these rules that we set, we the people set out, you also have to have a mechanism to fix it, you know, to improve things, to fix something that goes wrong.
And yet, the way they set up the mechanism for amendment turned out to not work especially well.
Why?
The requirement is a sort of a double supermajority.
To amend the Constitution, you have to pass, the proposal has to pass by a two-thirds supermajority at both houses, and then it goes to the states and has to be ratified by three-quarters of the states.
At the time, they came up with that.
You know, it's a math problem.
And this is their good math solution, their best solution.
There were no political parties when the Constitution was written.
And it turns out that once you have parties, that math doesn't work very well.
And when you have polarized parties the way we have today, I mean, you know, Congress is a very hard time passing a law, meeting, you know, challenging a filibuster.
It's just, it's become very difficult to amend the Constitution.
And it has really always been so.
So it's a sleeping giant in the sense that we tend to have long periods where Article 5 is just asleep.
Like no one even remembers that you can amend the Constitution.
And then suddenly the giant wakes, and then we tend to have bam, bam, bam, a number of amendments all at once.
Bridging Divides with Civility00:03:48
If you want to see more of that interview, by the way, go to our the book TV website, which you can find on the main C-SPAN website.
You can type her name in the box at the top there, too, if you want to find it.
One more call.
This will be from Georgia Republican line.
We'll hear from Ulysses.
Go ahead.
Hello, good morning, sorry.
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak.
I want to say I'm so happy I'm living in the world's greatest country.
The world's great.
People wake up and start unifying kids.
Have a better society to live in again.
God bless each everywhere, Americans.
Thank you.
Ulysses in Georgia, finishing off this round of open forum.
Thanks all of you who participated.
Later on in the program, we will take a look at actions by the Supreme Court, specifically when it comes to redistricting.
Zach Shemtab of SCOTUS Blog will join us for that conversation.
But first, two people from different sides of the healthcare debate discuss their joint idea to improve health care for workers.
We'll hear from Cato Institute's Michael Cannon and John Hopkins Bloomsburg School of Public Health's Liz Fowler joining us next on Washington Journal.
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Democracy depends on heavy doses of civility.
You can fight and still be friendly.
Bridging the divide in American politics.
You know, you may not agree with Le Dokron on everything, but you can find areas where you do agree.
He's a pretty likable guy as well.
Chris Coons and I are actually friends.
He votes wrong all the time, but we're actually friends.
A horrible secret that Scott and I have is that we actually respect each other.
We all don't hate each other.
You two actually kind of like each other.
These are the kinds of secrets we'd like to expose.
It's nice to be with a member who knows what they're talking about.
You guys did agree to the civility, all right?
Rethinking Health Care Taxes00:15:29
He owes my son $10 from a bed.
And he's never paid for our own.
That's fighting words right now.
I'm glad I'm not in charge.
I'm thrilled to be on the show with him.
There are not shows like this, right?
Incentivizing that relationship.
Ceasefire Friday nights on C-SPAN.
Washington Journal continues.
Joining us at our C-SPAN table to talk about health care, particularly as it affects those as it affects workers in the United States.
Two guests with two different perspectives on health care, but coming along with an idea that they share.
We are joined by Liz Fowler of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
She's a distinguished scholar.
Also, Michael Cannon of Cato Institute.
He's their health policy studies director to both of you.
Thanks for joining us today.
Let's set the parameters, though, is generally when you come to the issue of health care, just so what approach do you take?
Because there's a difference there between how both of you approach it, Mr. Cannon.
So before I answer that question, Pedro, I have to acknowledge today is the 5th of May at Sanco de Mayo, which means it is the anniversary of my mother's 39th birthday.
So I have to say, happy birthday, mom.
I'm still proud to be your favorite child.
So, and how do we approach this?
So, Liz and I have very different approaches when it comes to health policy.
Liz helped to write the Affordable Care Act, and I have fought that every step of the way and still support repeal of that law.
But one thing we agree on is a lot of the problems that the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare tried to fix are problems that the government created when it created an income tax and a payroll tax, and then had this weird feature that says if you get health insurance through your employer, it's not subject to either one of those taxes.
Now, that sounds like a wonderful tax break.
But when you look at how that operates in practice, it denies workers of control of $20,000 of their earnings.
It denies them control of their health insurance decisions.
It creates incentives that make consumers and employers price insensitive.
So prices rise and rise as a result of this policy.
And it's the number one thing, the number one factor in the U.S. health sector that it's driving up prices and creating huge gaps in coverage so that people lose their health insurance when they get sick.
Ms. Fowler, he described the problems.
Do you agree with those problems?
And how did you come to working together on this op-ed?
So I do agree this is a problem.
It's sort of a nominally.
It's an anomaly in the U.S. health system.
You don't see other countries in the world that are tying health coverage to their employment.
And I think, you know, this was an issue that I worked on when I was a congressional staffer and came back to it, I think, after HR1 passed when there was this effort to tie Medicaid coverage to work requirements.
And then it brought up all of these sense of why are we tying work to health care coverage?
It doesn't make sense.
And this particular provision is something that at least the committee I worked for in 2008 through 2010 tried to address, but we were unsuccessful.
And so sort of brought back up, you know, maybe we ought to revisit this issue and think about it again.
A portion of the piece reads as such, because wages are taxable, but employer-provided health benefits are not, the tax code encourages compensation in the form of health insurance rather than cash.
Economists across the political spectrum have noted that making employer coverage tax-free encourages more comprehensive plans than many workers might otherwise choose, which reduces price sensitivity.
That means higher prices, higher premiums, and more health care spending overall.
Elaborate from there.
Well, and I don't want to point fingers, but the difference in the university's health system between more comprehensive coverage and a more high-deductible plan is $50 a month.
Why would you choose a higher deductible when you can get more comprehensive coverage for $50 a month?
That's not to say that high-deductible is the best option for everyone, but there's not, you're sort of hiding the cost of what it actually costs to provide that extra coverage.
And that extra coverage has implications for the rest of the system in terms of how we pay providers, how we think about financing health care.
And so, you know, if you had a choice and one was tax-free, why not choose the more comprehensive coverage that doesn't have any implications for your family?
And how would you answer that question, Sarah?
The choice is like this.
Say you could save $3,000 on your employer plan.
Either you could choose a less expensive plan with a higher deductible or use tougher negotiating strategies with hospitals and drug companies or your employer could make that choice for you, whatever.
If the premiums come down by $3,000 and your employer then gives you that savings as cash, the IRS takes a third of it.
So that's a huge disincentive for people to try to economize on health care, choose the more economical, affordable health plans.
And that makes it easier for, and because people opt for the more comprehensive plans, they're less price sensitive when they go to the doctor, when they go to the hospital, when they go to the pharmacy.
And the doctors in the hospitals and the drug companies get the message, our customers aren't price sensitive.
They keep raising the prices and raising the prices.
And then when insurance companies try to negotiate tougher prices or lower prices, we're right back in the same place because the only way they can negotiate lower prices with a drug company or a hospital is say, look, if you don't agree to our terms, we're going to exclude you from our network.
But the workers won't put up with that because they don't see any of the savings.
When the workers see the savings, we have seen prices fall for expensive hospital procedures by 25% over a two-year period.
Hospitals have gone to insurance companies and said, let's reopen the contract because we're getting killed on market share by all these price-sensitive consumers who are breaking our monopoly power.
But we're not able to see those experiments spread and bring down prices and make health care more affordable and universal because of this provision of the tax code.
Go ahead.
Just one more point that I think I failed to make earlier.
And I know, Michael, you don't like the word regressive, but I consider this tax really a regressive, or this tax subsidy really regressive because who's more likely to get very generous health benefits?
It's people with better jobs at the higher end of the income scale, and they get more benefit from the tax break because they face a higher marginal tax.
And so, but who pays the higher prices if you don't have the coverage is the people that don't have employer-sponsored coverage.
So the system, it's really distorting the system, and I think in ways that are not fair and not equitable.
I know you don't like the words, the use of some of these words, but this is how I- Well, I don't like saying that the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance benefits high-income people.
It hurts everybody, and it hurts low-income people the most.
And I think that is inequitable.
It treats similar people differently, which is inequitable.
So if you are a low-wage worker at a firm that offers health insurance, you get to lower your tax liability relative to an otherwise similar worker at a firm that doesn't offer health insurance.
They have to pay higher taxes.
That's totally inequitable.
And I think the most inequitable part of this provision of the tax code is that it raises prices and creates huge gaps in coverage, which hurt low-income people the most.
Go ahead.
Well, we're looking at trying to achieve universal coverage.
In my mind, that's the goal, is universal coverage that's fair, that's equitable, that everyone has access to and that's affordable.
And I think this is a big stumbling block to that.
And it's created this two-tier system, probably more than two-tiers, but it's something that it's time to take another look at.
Both our guests are going to be with us until 9.30.
And if you want to ask them questions about their proposals, especially the large overall issue of health care, here's how you can do so.
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If you want to text us your questions or comments for our guests, you can do that at 202748-8003.
There is a term in your piece called individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements.
It's a long-term.
What does it mean, and what does it mean in the context of what you're trying to propose?
It means let's give employers this opportunity to give funding or payment to their workers to be able to choose a different option than what's offered through their employer.
And I think the reason it's appealing and the reason it ties with this proposal is it just gives a little bit more flexibility to choose something different.
And maybe you choose a health insurance option that can be portable and with you when you leave.
So you leave your employer, perhaps you can keep your coverage.
And so I think portability is something we haven't talked about here, but I think that those ICRAs, especially if they strengthen the individual market as I would like to see the individual market, it could bolster the ACA underlying framework.
Is that the same as when people or Republicans maybe talk about health savings accounts?
Let's give people the option to do that.
Is that the same or are there differences?
It's a little bit different.
Michael probably is more attuned to the details of the Republican proposals of HSAs and HRAs, but I think the point is more freedom and more flexibility to take your dollars and choose the insurance that works best for you, and especially if that insurance is portable and it strengthens the market that underlies it, where a lot of people that don't have employer-sponsored coverage can go.
She talked about portability, and I suppose there's the ability there to make this easier as a transition.
I agree with the importance of portability, but it's sort of a weird term, isn't it?
I mean, we don't talk about portability of our car insurance, our homeowners' insurance, or other types of insurance.
We only talk about portability of health insurance because we don't have it, because our health insurance disappears when we leave our jobs.
And that's one of the harmful consequences of this provision of the tax code.
And as far as these ICRAs, the individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements, ICRAs, and the health savings accounts, HSAs, as far as they go, those are all efforts by government and various special interest groups to try to give back to workers the freedom that this provision of the tax code takes away from them.
When the tax code says we will tax income that your employer gives you if they give it to you in the form of cash, but not income they give to you in the form of health insurance.
What they're really saying is we're going to penalize every dollar.
We're going to penalize you if you want to take that your compensation as cash and make your own health insurance decisions.
That takes away your right to make those decisions yourself to buy portable coverage or the kind of coverage that meets your needs.
And things like tax-free flexible spending accounts, tax-free Archer medical savings accounts, tax-free health savings accounts, tax-free individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements, this whole gamut of weird features of the tax code are all just efforts to try to restore the freedom that this one provision took away from workers.
So I would say I don't think we agree on what comes next.
So if we adopt this policy, I think there'd have to be a healthy debate about where the money goes and what you would spend it on and the level of government regulation of what you can use the money for.
But I think the first step in the debate is really revisiting this provision of the tax code, which I think we haven't covered yet, but it is the most expensive expenditure in the U.S. tax code.
It is $300 billion a year in lost revenue, and it is more than the interest deduction for your mortgage.
It's more than the charitable deduction.
And so if you think about where the U.S. distributes its dollars and how it decides what revenue comes in and what doesn't, this is a big opportunity to really rethink how we organize our tax code, how we finance our health care, and how to make sure we have affordable, accessible, and hopefully universal health care.
Is there a model that you're proposing that shows that this would work if it were put into place?
You know, I look a lot at other countries.
No other country in the world has a system like this.
Employers might contribute to health care.
Even in Germany, which probably has the closest tie to the U.S., where there is a role for employers, people can still choose another option, another coverage option, and there's competition among those coverage options.
And so you're not tied to something that your employer is offering, and your employer is not negotiating to try to negotiate what those coverage options look like.
Other countries in the world really don't have a system like this.
People want to see us move to a single payer, universal coverage.
This is a big roadblock standing in the way there, too.
So I think there's a lot of reasons why we need to look down this road.
And I think probably a lot of agreement, at least in the front end, and then a lot of negotiation and discussion that comes on what happens afterwards.
Before we take calls away.
Liz and I disagree about whether the government should be guaranteeing access to care for people through a guarantee of universal health insurance coverage.
But we agreed on the goal of providing universal health care to people.
I think the way that we do that is by putting as much downward pressure on prices as we can in the health sector.
Reforming this provision of the tax code is a crucial part of that.
And in the op-ed that we wrote for the Washington Post together, we lay out sort of a basic architecture of what reform could look like.
Every attempt to try to fix this provision of the tax code has failed, including what I think is one of the least bad parts of the Affordable Care Act, which was this thing called the Cadillac Tax.
Congress repealed that almost unanimously because the politics of this are so tough.
But what we talk about in the op-ed is if we could do something like what the Cadillac tax did while still giving workers, while tying that to giving workers more control over the money that their employers are spending on their health insurance, that's money that the workers earn.
That's $1.2 trillion per year.
If we do that, if we tie those two things together, then maybe we could put together a bipartisan coalition of Democrats and Republicans that would each get something that's very important to them out of reform, and maybe that reform would be durable.
Michael Cannon from Cato Institute and Liz Fowler of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health for this conversation.
Here's the op-ed.
This policy is at the root of unaffordable health care, and you can find it in the Washington Post.
Let's hear from viewers.
This is Dale in Ohio.
Republican line, you're on with our guests.
Good morning.
Good morning, Dale from Ohio.
Got a few questions for your guests today.
First of all, the different insurance companies, they all pay different prices to their insurance companies.
For instance, if you don't have insurance in your self-pay, they'll charge you a certain price.
If you have Blue Cross Blue Shield, that insurance company for the same procedure will charge you a different price.
Then if you have another insurance company for the same procedure, it's all based on the Medicaid or Medicare standard.
ICP codes that they do.
Universal Cost for Everyone00:15:07
It's just they need a universal cost, not health care for everybody, but they need a universal cost.
If you go in, for instance, I have a friend that just was in Portugal, went to Spain, had double bypass surgery.
It cost her $14,000 for a two-week stay in the hospital.
You go to Cleveland Clinic, that same procedure would cost her hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Dale, we got your thought.
Thank you for calling.
We'll let our guests respond, Mr. Cannon.
And that's a great point, and a consequence of this provision of the tax code.
So if you have the government setting the price everywhere, as Dale suggested, well, that's what the Medicare program does.
It often sets the prices way too high.
You don't want that.
You want price competition.
And the reason we don't have that in healthcare right now is because this provision of the tax code encourages us all to demand more comprehensive health insurance.
So our insurance covers more stuff.
So the hospitals and the other providers are dealing with the insurance companies more than they would otherwise.
And they engage in this game where, because there's not a cash market really where they have to post transparent prices for the consumers, it's just the insurance companies paying, they engage in this very opaque game of what the Commons call price discrimination, where they set a very high charge master price, a list price, and then to go shipped as small a discount as they have to for this insurance company or that, depending on the insurance company's market power.
And it's all different prices, and it makes no sense, and the prices are all way too high.
And it's not until we encourage consumers to demand less insurance and buy more of their health care directly that they will start exerting this sort of price sensitivity that sparks price competition that brings those prices down.
Like in the, you know, there have been experiments in California.
Prices for hip and knee replacements fell by 25% over a two-year period without anyone foregoing any services just by making the consumers price sensitive.
And we need to do that across the board.
Ms. Fowler.
Well, Dale raises a really good point.
And I think we've seen that across the board.
This is not a new issue.
I think one point just to make, and maybe it's tangentially related, is we all point a finger at each other and different parts of our health system.
It's the insurer's fault.
It's the hospital's fault.
It's the drug company's fault.
We have a system that fundamentally isn't working.
And it's too expensive.
It's bankrupting people.
It's leading to people to seek care after they're already sick instead of trying to get preventive coverage.
There are so many things wrong with our health system.
I think it's really time to take another look.
And I think, as Michael said, and as we said in the op-ed, this is one place to start to look at what is sort of distorting some of these issues in the market.
And I think it is tied and it is related to the issue that they're going to be able to do.
Dale should give more power to the consumer in this case when it comes to health care.
Potentially.
And I know there have been efforts to say that price transparency is going to help.
If we just had hospital prices more transparent, people would be able to choose.
I don't know how to sort out the information that's provided, even for a specific procedure.
People point to, well, you know, you can choose a LASIC I procedure and you can choose based on cost, but that doesn't help if you have an emergency procedure like, you know, needing to go into the hospital and be hospitalized for something that's urgent.
So I don't think you can expect it's not all up to the consumer.
There's sort of these fundamental, I think, underpinnings of our system that just aren't working and need to be revisited.
Let's go to Georgia.
Let's hear from Richard, Democrat's line.
Hi, you're on.
Good morning.
To Mr. Cannon, when the Affordable Care Act was established, I signed up for it, and you know what my health bill was?
Eight cents.
Okay?
Eight cents.
It cost me more for a money order to pay for the 12-month period than what it's costing now.
The problem is, why couldn't we have signed up for the exchange program that the Congress has, which would afford people the chance to get cheaper insurance under the health care system that Congress have, under their exchange program.
And now the insurance companies are gouging us.
Congress is doing nothing about them.
And consequently, we have the high prices that we have now because the Affordable Care Act is and still is a good program that can work if Congress will get off their laurels.
And please, Mr. Cannon, let's face it, you are lobbying for the Republican Party in that they are not going to do anything to care about American health care in this country, whereas the Europeans have a health care system that is single-payer like Canada, and they are doing quite well with their health care system compared to the United States because of greed.
Okay, Richard, Richard, you got your thought out.
We're going to have to move on.
Sir, I guarantee you my frustrations with the Republican Party on health care are greater than yours.
I agree with what you're saying.
They have not paid the attention to health care that they need to.
I disagree with what you're saying about the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare.
That law has dramatically increased premium.
I'm going to start a fight with Liz here.
I don't want to do that.
It has eroded the quality of health insurance.
But nine times out of ten, sir, when people enroll in the, what we call the Obamacare exchanges, it's because of this problem that Liz and I are trying to fix right now.
It is because they didn't have seamless health insurance that would stay with them between job changes.
So they got sick, they lost their job, they lost their coverage, and now they have a pre-existing condition and they couldn't buy health insurance on the individual market before.
If the government had never gotten involved, just left them alone, they would have been able to buy cradle-to-grave health insurance that covered them between life changes.
And I'm not saying that there wouldn't be a problem of preexisting conditions.
What I'm saying is that this provision of the tax code, this government action, has made that problem so much worse, and we need to fix it.
Ms. Fell, I'll let you come in.
I just want to say thank you.
And it was a privilege to work on the Affordable Care Act.
And I think it has helped millions of people and helped them get a coverage that's affordable and works for them.
And I think it's been a really important improvement in our health system.
I know Michael doesn't agree with me, but we have to keep working on our health system.
It is not done yet.
It was not a perfect law.
It didn't work for everyone.
And there's still issues that we still need to solve.
And I am really concerned about some of the provisions in the HR1 that are starting to look at stripping away coverage for some people that already had it.
And so you're right.
We need to, it's like a garden.
We need to keep tending the garden and we need to keep working on it.
And the Affordable Care Act was an important step.
We need to keep working together.
Let's go to Max.
Max and Marilyn.
Hello, Independent Line.
Hi, good morning.
So I'm in my 60s, and I've watched our health care system get fixed by decades and decades of series of band-aids on top of it.
Nobody wants to deal with the actual issue of the system that we have that is completely broken.
And I have a suggestion that I wanted to put out there because One thing that I've noticed is that the deeper the pockets the consumer has, the more a company is going to charge.
The healthcare companies do not are just in there for the profit, right?
So the first thing we need to do is consider that health care is a human right, right?
And it shouldn't be a for-profit business.
The second thing is that we should get the employers out of the health care business.
I would propose a law that says employers cannot use health care as a benefit except for maybe a gym membership or something like that to keep health and well-being of the employee.
And take away all that extra money from the health care system and actually fix it.
Okay, Max, we got your point.
The interference is getting there, but it goes against this idea of making employers change the way they do it.
But Ms. Fowler.
Max, you are speaking my language.
I believe that health care is a right.
I think everyone has a right to health care.
I think it should be affordable and accessible.
You should be able to take it with you.
You shouldn't have to rely on your job.
And I think we should get employers, maybe not completely out of the business of health care, but I think we've offered a path to at least give them an exit ramp and hopefully make our health care system more affordable and more sane.
Because right now it's really not working for anybody.
Do you get a sense that if you present this, your idea to employers that they may consider it or are they resistant at this point?
And if so, why?
From my experience trying to address this issue through the Affordable Care Act, I think there's probably a split.
Some employers feel really strongly that they want to keep that role of providing health benefits because they think it offers a competitive advantage when they want to hire workers.
And some are really tired of dealing with increasing premiums and having to choose a plan every year, potential liability now as a fiduciary if the coverage is not affordable and there's, you know, could have been a better option.
And I think some employers would, if given the off-ramp, choose to take it, but it probably depends.
Mr. Cannon.
So the health sector of the economy resists reform of this provision of the tax code.
Because think about it.
The tax code effectively penalizes workers 33% for every dollar they don't spend on health insurance and health care.
If there are a provision of federal law that penalizes workers 33 cents on the dollar for every dollar they don't give to C-SPAN, C-SPAN would be lobbying like crazy to preserve that provision.
And large employers also benefit from this provision of the tax code because when they offer health insurance to their workers, the administrative costs per member are smaller, which means they have more money to plow into salaries, so they can offer higher salaries than their smaller competitors can.
And so they don't want to change this part of the tax code either.
It was that resistance from those two groups that led Congress to repeal the Cadillac tax, which was the Affordable Care Act's effort to try to do something about this.
The politics is really tough, but we think that there's an asset here that no prior reform has tried to exploit, which is that $1.2 trillion of workers' earnings that employers get to control as a result of this provision of the tax code.
If we give that $1.2 trillion to the workers who earned it, and we're talking $20,000 per worker with family coverage, we add that to their salaries, that's a pretty good political sweetener.
It's an effective tax cut, and it restores to workers what I think, I agree that people have rights when it comes to their health care.
Their most important right is the right to make their own health decisions.
That approach would restore much of their right to control their health care dollars and decisions.
If it goes to cash to the worker, doesn't taxation take away from that, though?
If you change the current tax preference for employer-sponsored insurance into a tax preference for compensation that workers put aside for health care expenses, then no, most people's taxes don't have to go up at all.
And even if you're a high-income earner who then does have to pay some amount of tax, like you would have under the Cadillac tax, the fact that you get to control that first $18,000, $20,000 of your earnings where you didn't before, that is an effective tax cut that I think offsets the impact of that higher tax liability.
I mean, this is the problem, though.
Essentially, you know, you are going to pay, if the same dollars flow to you, you are essentially going to have to pay some tax.
We looked at trying to cap it.
So I can't remember what the average premium was back in 2009, say it was $20,000, cap it at 80%.
So you're only paying tax on that last, you know, 20%.
It still counts for some people.
Wow, you increased my taxes, even if you're trying to use the money to make it more affordable in a more affordable system.
So I think these are trade-offs.
And if you work on legislation and you look at all of these trade-offs, you have to think, where are we winning?
Where are we losing?
And how can we make the system better off for more people?
But there are always trade-offs, and these are complicated.
Sorry.
No, no, no, go ahead.
I should add the Cato Institute will be releasing a paper in the coming weeks that lays out a proposal to do just this.
We call it universal health accounts, where we're trying to thread that needle of the very difficult politics of this issue.
Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute you just heard from.
You also heard from Liz Fowler of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Let's hear from Margaret in Florida, Republican line.
Well, I've already changed what I want to say.
You know, it's unbelievable.
You're listing all the issues that are a problem with this.
And to get back to the basic where people really had their money and could go out and buy normal insurance like we do for cars and houses and so forth.
But here's the problem that I see, especially this part where you're talking about individual control and individual responsibility.
The world isn't the way it used to be.
Intelligence among people and delayed gratifications, especially with things moving toward the 401ks, how do you see people being able to do this?
I know people that just, if they have extra money, there is no way they're going to put it into a health care account.
They're going to go out and buy things now that they enjoy.
I can't see anything good coming from it except people using ER rooms and so forth.
I mean, you have to admit that different people have different capabilities and intelligence doesn't and delayed gratification doesn't come to all of us.
So how are you going to take care of people that really won't put money away before Social Security?
And even we know now some people think Social Security was supposed to be able to support them.
Okay, Margaret, thank you.
So I think if you reform this provision of the tax code the right way, the only incentive you're creating for people to put money away, the only incentive you're adding, because people could do this now, they could work for an employer that doesn't offer health insurance, take the higher cash wages and spend it on beer and pizza if they want to right now.
If you reform the tax code with what I call universal health accounts, then the only incentive you're creating to save rather or not to buy health insurance is for people who want to put money away tax-free for health care expenses.
Complications in Federal Intervention00:10:39
And that creates its own built-in incentive to buy health insurance.
Because if you build a nest egg there and a universal health account, you're going to want to buy health insurance to protect that from getting wiped out by one hospitalization.
But even more important than that, and I think this speaks to Margaret's concern.
Once, we're talking about a trillion dollars of health spending that employers control right now, and workers don't.
Once we move that trillion dollars to the workers and they're spending it in a more price-conscious way and sparking the kind of price competition that I've been talking about, healthcare is going to become more universal.
That's how we've made food so universal that 8 billion people are alive on the planet right now, something humanity has never pulled off before, by driving down the prices of food.
It wasn't a government program that did that.
And we need that sort of universality for healthcare.
Once we have that sort of price competition in healthcare, then it's going to be easier for people to care for themselves.
They're not going to have to give up as much beer and pizza or whatever in order to get health insurance or the primary care that they need.
But right now, and for as long as we leave this provision of the tax code in place, healthcare is going to become even farther out of reach for more and more people.
Well, I think you've put a good point out there.
And I think what the debate over the enhanced subsidies, renewing the enhanced subsidies for AACA showed us when Congress didn't renew them and premiums went up, people care about health care.
They want health care.
They want affordable health care.
And so I do agree there's probably a segment of the population.
And it's hard to get them to focus, hard to get them to spend their money here.
All sorts of provisions that Congress has considered in the past, automatic enrollment, automatic re-enrollment, trying to find people who are eligible for programs and getting them in.
It's an issue, but I think people do care about health care.
And so I think we shouldn't just assume that there isn't the attention span to spend and pay to these issues that are really important to pocketbook to the pocketbooks of millions of families across the country.
Let's go to John.
John in Florida, Democrats line.
Hi there.
Go ahead.
Hey, guys, I really enjoy listening to you.
I like when people get together like this and start getting ideas because we definitely need to change the system.
A couple of things I want to mention.
I was all for Obamacare when it came out, but listening to some of these callers, the guy that called before said I was paying eight cents, come on, man, eight cents for an insurance policy.
That's fantasy land.
And that's why Obamacare has imploded because you just can't.
I have friends here that have a family of four.
They live in $500,000 homes, and they get subsidies.
They're getting subsidies paying $50 and they got upset when their rate went up to $75 a month.
That's just not, healthcare is expensive.
I mean, it's way too expensive, but you can't just expect a family of four to be paying $50 a month.
Another thing is my employer was offering health insurance here.
You know, last year, he was paying 85% of the premium.
We had like 90% participation.
The next year, he was offering 50%.
The people that were saying, oh, healthcare is so important, they dropped off.
People in this country, they want health care when somebody else is paying.
That's how I feel.
I'm a Democrat, and I really feel when somebody else is paying for it, they all want to join it, how important it is.
The minute when they have that skin in the game, that's when they start saying, eh, nah, it's not for me.
And then one other thing I wanted to say is, you know, the system itself, I've learned through experience that I really don't, like my insurance plan, to me, it's a catastrophic.
I don't care to give you copates here and there.
I expect to pay everything up until my maximum out of pocket.
I know I'm going to pay because you know what?
When I go to the hospital, God forbid, I get bills.
You need like a secretary to help me analyze my bills.
I mean, it is insanity.
This doctor bills this, that doctor bills that.
You call the insurance company, they don't even know what the hell you're talking about.
The system is destroyed.
So you know what?
Maximum out of pocket.
I know I'm going to pay $10,000 no matter what.
That's the way to go.
John, thank you for the input, Ms. Fowler.
I mean, thanks for raising that point.
Some people do choose that sort of option.
They'd rather have a high deductible with the, you know, with, they know they're going to have to pay it.
Some people want something different.
I think it's really hard to say everyone wants the same thing and everyone wants the same thing out of the system, but I do agree that it's impossible to navigate our health care system right now.
And I think it is good that at least we're having this conversation and let's get these ideas on the table.
Let's hear from more people about what's not working and actually try to come together and figure out how to fix it.
Does your approach simplify things, though?
Would you say that it's that easy and we're going to snap our fingers to simplify the U.S. health system?
No, no, it will simplify.
I mean, once the consumers control the money, the industry is going to have to make health care simpler.
I use the example of my sister-in-law.
She had brain surgery through Kaiser Permanente.
This is a type of health plan that the government has blocked and regulated it like crazy and inhibited.
So there's only one of its type in the United States right now, but it's a fully integrated health system.
It makes health care much simpler.
Prior authorization basically doesn't exist.
When she needs to go to the pharmacy, it's on the next floor.
It's not across town.
And she says she doesn't recommend brain surgery.
But if you're going to have brain surgery, do it through that sort of simplified system where they coordinate care and use electronic health records.
They've been using electronic health records since the 1960s.
Healthcare can be much simpler, but the wrong people are controlling the money.
And it's not until the consumers control the money that will the industry have to cater to consumers.
And that's why I have news for John.
You're always paying 100% of your employer premiums.
The workers didn't control the first 85%.
And so they didn't see the full premium.
And then once they saw just 50% of it, they said, you said a lot of them said, forget it, maybe some got health insurance from their spouses.
But that's what the industry is afraid of.
They are afraid of price-sensitive consumers saying, this is nuts.
We are not paying these outrageous prices.
Go ahead and finish, please.
I would just say, I've worked on health policy for 25 years, and I just don't think you should be able to say, yes, it will become simple without understanding that there's all sorts of trade-offs.
So nothing in our health care system is simple.
The solution, I think, explaining it would be simple, but the actual mechanics, it starts to get complicated really fast, which is what makes it so hard to get anything done.
Is that people start thinking, I have something to lose.
Somebody else is getting more than I'm getting over here.
We start with a principle that coverage should be universal, that healthcare is a right, that we want people to get prevention.
We want it to be affordable.
We don't want it to bankrupt people.
I think healthcare is bankrupting too many people in our country.
But I just don't want to make a promise that it's going to be simple because I just don't think it is.
In fairness, I think the approach you write in your piece, there are trade-offs.
And at every point, you have to make a trade-off of some type.
Exactly.
Let's go to Nelson in Florida, Republican line.
Hi, you're on.
Hi, good morning.
I just want to get right to the point.
I'm 77 years old.
I remember the days before Medicare, et cetera.
And it seemed that people had health insurance in those days.
Everyone seemed to be reasonably well covered.
There were clinics that were available for the poor.
There were organizations that came run by immigrants who established health care facilities that people paid into and had coverage for their entire families.
All of that has slowly disappeared as the federal government has gotten more and more involved in health care.
Ms. Fowler talks about universal health care.
Well, we were pretty close to universal health care before the federal government started sticking its foot in it.
Now we have a big mess.
And now it's going to take a continuation of all of these entities to try to fix the mess.
We also have a tremendous problem with fraud, which is just incredible down here in South Florida.
Anyway, I just wanted to make that point.
And I'd like to hear what... the two guests have to say regarding that.
And thank you so much for taking my call.
Okay, Ms. Feller.
Yes, there was a time when health care was simpler.
There was a time when a lot of things were simpler.
I think health care generally has gotten more complicated, but also more expensive.
But there's also cures for things that we didn't have cures for before.
Saling gene therapy, for example, and figuring out how to finance that, how to get it into the hands of people that need it, that need those therapies.
I think this is what it's all about.
And so I'm not sure that we can go back to this time when things were simple.
And there's probably a role for government in there, but there's a lot of different actors in the healthcare system and a lot of different reasons why our system has become so complicated.
I'm not sure I would blame it all on the federal government.
Mr. Cannon.
Well, I disagree that health care was more universal or Medicare or that there weren't problems because this provision of the tax code that we talk about in this op-ed has its roots in the 1920s.
And the reason that Congress created the Medicare and Medicaid programs in 1965 was that that provision had been operating for about 40 years, driving up prices and creating gaps in coverage.
And Congress looked around, you know, 40 years later and said, wow, we tied health insurance to employment.
And now there's all these retirees without health insurance.
How did that happen?
We need to create the Medicare program.
And the prices for health care are so high that low-income people are really struggling to afford it.
Well, we need to create the Medicaid program.
So I agree with, I don't agree with the caller that everything was fine, but I agree that the ways that the federal government has intervened, and state governments as well, but the way the federal government has intervened by creating this provision of the tax code and then trying to solve the problems that that provision creates by intervening more through the Medicare program and the Medicaid program.
And we could rattle off others, COBRA, HIPAA, the Affordable Care Act, lots of things that the government has tried to do are all trying to fix the problems that it created with this one faithful provision of the tax code.
Unbiased Supreme Court Coverage00:03:46
Just going back, if we could rewind history, we've made a series of policy choices that really are just band-aids on the system.
And I think it does date back to the original choices when we decided to go with this employer-based system and then didn't sort of course correct at that time.
I think there have been many opportunities throughout history.
If you read social transformation of American Medicine, for example, and look at all the times that we tried to achieve universal coverage and haven't been successful.
But a lot of the problems, I do agree with Michael, go back to this sort of fundamental reliance on employer-sponsored coverage that we're now trying to revisit.
But our system has gotten more complicated the more band-aids we've put on it.
And I think it's time for another conversation about how to have a more comprehensive and universal fix.
The ideas for our conversation today, the op-ed is in the Washington Post.
Here it is.
This policy is at the root of unaffordable health care.
Two authors, Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute.
He's their health policy studies director, has been on this program several times.
And Liz Fowler of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, distinguished scholar, first time on this program.
Hope you come back.
And to both of you, thanks for the conversation.
Thank you.
Coming up, we're going to talk about the Supreme Court's latest decisions when it comes to redistricting.
Joining us for that conversation, Zach Shemtab of SCODIS Blog.
And he'll take your questions when Washington Journal continues.
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Washington Journal continues.
Joining us to talk about the recent decisions of the Supreme Court when it comes to issues of redistricting, Zach Chemtab of SCODIS Blog.
He serves as their executive editor.
Good morning to you.
Good morning.
And for people who may not be familiar with SCODIS Blog, how do you describe it to people?
I would describe it as we cover everything having to do with the Supreme Court through news, which could be breaking news or deeper analyses.
Redistricting and Race Proof00:10:28
And when it comes to that world of breaking news, it was yesterday the court made a decision when it comes to voting rights.
It's posted on your blog.
Court agrees to immediately finalize Voting Rights Act's decision.
Describe what happened yesterday and then put some context of how we got here.
So not an easy thing to do.
But yesterday, what occurred was the Louisiana, which basically the party which had prevailed in the Voting Rights Act case, Louisiana, asked the Supreme Court to finalize the decision it had made in Louisiana versus Calais immediately because typically there's a 32-day period from when the court issues its decision and when it's finalized, which means it can kind of go into effect.
What's called a mandate is issued in legal speak.
And Louisiana said, we want to, you know, redraw, look about redrawing the map.
We want to see if we can, you know, base what we're going to do off of the decision you issued, but we can't do that until the decision itself is finalized.
So please finalize it.
And the Supreme Court decided to do so.
They said, you know, okay, we will do that, you know, as quickly as possible.
They put that into effect.
And there was then a heated back and forth between Justices Alito and Justice Katanji Brown Jackson.
What was the crux of those arguments?
The crux of the argument from Justice Jackson was you are doing this procedural irregularity and it looks biased and essentially partisan to aid Louisiana in their redistricting and therefore aid the Republicans there.
And Justice Lito said essentially this has to be answered.
We're doing no such thing.
And that actually Justice Jackson's opinion lacked restraint.
Let's take then a step back to the actual case itself, Louisiana versus Cal A.
A 6-3 decision ultimately.
What were the justices asked to consider?
So the justices were ultimately asked to consider whether the states being Louisiana's creation of a second majority minority congressional district, that's a majority black district, violated the 14th or 15th amendments to the Constitution.
So a very complicated question, but that was the direct question.
And it fed into this idea of, so we have the Voting Rights Act and specifically Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
And Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits any standard practice or procedure that results in a denial or abridgment of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race.
And so that in itself is a little complicated, but it was all about, and the decision became really about whether when it comes to section two, whether you just look at the result or you look at the results.
So you look to see if redistricting led to a racial group being disadvantaged, or you need to show something more, which would be that they were intentionally disadvantaged.
There was racial discrimination in actually putting that district together.
If you look at the decision in 6-3, it was the ruling, was it, quote, an unconstitutional racial gerrymandering?
In as simple terms as possible, how did the justices arrive to that?
Well, so the justices ultimately decided that Louisiana had not originally engaged in an unconstitutional racial gerrymandering, at least based on what was before them, and that you could only say the Voting Rights Act was violated, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was violated when circumstances give rise to a, and this is the court, to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred.
And so the upshot here, what's actually going on here, is the court is saying that in order to challenge redistricting, you need to show pretty strong proof that the map was drawn for racially discriminatory reasons.
You can't just say, okay, the effects of this map being drawn disadvantaged a racial group.
You need to show intentionality.
And that in turn makes it much, much harder for challengers to maps they believe to be racially discriminatory to succeed.
We'll continue on our conversation about this decision by the Supreme Court with our guest, Jacques Zach Shemtaub.
If you have questions for him, it's 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents 202-748-8002 for independents.
As far as determining intentionality, as you described it, in a 6-3 decision, the justices ultimately thought that that case wasn't made.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but lead us to why they thought that.
So you're entirely correct.
In all honesty, there's not a lot in the decision based on that because that deals with some pretty difficult facts.
And the court is a court of law, not of facts.
And so they basically said that here, based on the record we have, there is not an indication that when Louisiana did the redistricting, it was based on intentionally based on race.
However, this is kind of the twist and what makes things further complicated.
A lower court judge had originally found that actually it was based on race.
That judge then said, okay, you need to redraw your maps because it was based on race.
And it was the Supreme Court was reviewing that decision.
And they essentially said the original decision to redraw the maps was, you know, not, there's not a finding, a strong finding of intentionality based on race.
But the decision to, the judge's order to redraw the map, that was based on race because the judge was saying, oh, this had occurred for racial reasons.
So it needs to be redrawn on racial reasons.
And the court said that's not acceptable.
So I know that's pretty convoluted, but it gets to a lot of the difficulties of this case.
And I feel like a lot of the rhetoric around it in general has been a little simplified when there's a lot of complex things coming into play here, not only with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, but how we understand redistricting along race or ethnic grounds in general.
And on that front, can you elaborate then on the rhetoric that you hear versus what was decided ultimately by the justices?
So there is no doubt that this case has massive implications in the sense that it is going to affect redistricting across much of the country.
And it is very likely a loss for the Democrats.
And the reason is black voters tend to vote, you know, we're Democrat.
That's changed a little, but overall, more on the Democrat side.
And if it's more difficult, you know, to show racial discrimination and black voters are disadvantaged, that's obviously going to carry over and have effects on the Democrats.
I think a lot of that rhetoric is, or a lot of that talk is definitely, that's the case.
But I don't think we can fully know the implications here and how it will affect the midterms and the political picture moving forward, because there's just so much uncertainty about how states will respond to this, whether they'll be able to respond to it, how the so-called blue states will react, et cetera.
So while we have the court's decision, I think it's too early to say what the major implications will be or what the picture will look like for the midterms.
Does this case service as basis only on redistricting cases that are based on race issues, or does it go into other areas of redistricting in a larger sense?
Well, it certainly goes into other areas of redistricting based on the larger sense.
It's also grounded or are part of this is a case called Ruscho versus Common Cause, which was decided in 2019 by Chief Justice Roberts.
And in that case, which is very important for understanding this picture, the court said that a state could, you know, a federal court could not hear cases of redistricting based on partisanship.
So classic gerrymandering where a district is drawn based on purely partisan reasons.
In the past, that could potentially be challenged.
In Russia, they said no.
If a state draws a district along purely partisan grounds, that can't be heard by a federal court, which essentially means they can go forward with that.
And how that plays in here is that what one could theoretically say is, say, Louisiana or another state redistricts, they could say, okay, you know, we did not redistrict based on racial lines.
We redistricted for purely partisan reasons.
And if they have a decent showing of that, even if it disadvantages racial or ethnic groups, then the courts essentially need to say, okay, well, we can't hear the case.
Zach Shemtaub, our guest for this segment, let's hear from Loretta.
Loretta is in Ohio.
Democrats line, you're on with our guests.
Good morning.
Oh, good morning.
Good morning, Zachary.
If you got to make a chocolate cake, what would be the main ingredient you would need?
I have a feeling.
Okay, go on.
All right.
I mean, you would need chocolate to make a chocolate cake.
So the Supreme Court said you have to make a chocolate cake without chocolate.
That's what this decision says, in essence.
Okay.
And I don't know what to, I just, what, what, how do they come to just tell me, how do you make a chocolate cake without chocolate?
Okay, Loretta in Cleveland, thank you.
Mr. Shemtab.
Yeah, I mean, there is a it's a very difficult decision here.
Protecting Minority Voters Rights00:12:00
I mean, a lot of folks agree that at the heart of Section 2 is, and I certainly agree, is the idea that you are trying to protect minority voters in terms of being discriminated against based on things like redistricting.
Now, by the way, Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, actually wrote a concurrence disagreeing with that altogether, which is a, you know, a much more extreme position, but the majority did not agree with that.
The majority ultimately said, yes, you can have a claim for racial discrimination in redistricting.
They just made it a good deal harder to show than was previously the case.
So the claim can still exist.
It hasn't been thrown out altogether.
It's just much more difficult to bring forward than before.
From Illinois, this is Carl, Democrats line.
Hello.
Hi, can you hear me?
You're on.
Go ahead.
Okay, great.
The reason why I'm calling, I've been watching this over a period of few days, and I'm just saying to myself, you know, how did this ever happen?
And I see, you know, the only way the Republicans can win is only by cheating.
And how can you ask for black Americans to participate in the tax system, but yet they cannot participate in the voting system in the South?
It's almost like it's just another Jim Crow Confederate flag type of situation, another racist situation.
We've been through this before, and we will survive.
And the best way we can survive it, I'm telling every black, not the ones that support Donald Trump, because I don't know what's wrong with them.
Instead of 35% of us coming out to vote or 40% of us come out to vote, 90% of us can come out to vote.
And that's how you can overturn this garbage.
And we will continue to be strong, and we need to start on, continue to start on businesses like they did in Black Wall Street.
We need to kind of be our own people and have our own strengths and do our own thing and stop depending on America.
We tried to simulate with this country and look how they're treating us and look what they've done to us.
And once they're done using us, they're going to use the white women.
They're going to use these people that support Trump.
They don't care about us.
It's all about the rich versus the poor.
Look at all the things that's being taken away from people in America, black and white.
They don't care about you guys.
They don't care about you.
Okay, Carl.
We got it.
Thanks.
Mr. Shemtaub, we talk about a narrowing of the Voting Rights Act.
What is preserved of the Voting Rights Act after this decision?
Well, again, so in a previous case, Shelby County, Section 5, which was the pre-clearance provision, also interrelated with Section 4, was struck down.
We could certainly go into that, but essentially that shows that there was another provision that was essentially invalidated by the Supreme Court.
Section 2 still remains in place.
The court was presented with the opportunity to strike it altogether as in conflict with the Constitution.
They chose not to do so.
So, again, as you said, it exists, but in a limited form, as we've discussed, but it has not been struck altogether.
And I think that this indicates the court is unlikely to do so.
But for those who lost this case, those on the other side, that's pretty cold comfort.
It was Justice Elena Kagan who wrote the opinion.
What did she add to ultimately, as far as the three were concerned, what did she bring to the table as far as what she wrote?
I mean, she wrote a very impassioned opinion.
It was far longer than the majority opinion.
And she put the point forward, you know, the absolute importance in her view of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
And this was to preserve voting power or allow, you know, blacks and other minority groups to vote who had been prevented from doing so.
Indeed, that was the point of the Voting Rights Act.
And what this did is left it a dead letter or an empty letter.
And it would be now impossible for or extremely difficult for anyone to challenge what she saw as racial gerrymandering.
So even though they kept it in place, it was as a husk, and that betrayed the very spirit as well as to her the text of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Who brought this case when it comes to those wanting to keep the map?
So it was so in terms of, so there were two maps, but the challenge to the map saying was racially discriminatory was just it was a group of non-African American voters.
Let's go to April.
April is in Long Island.
Democrats line, you're on with our guests.
Good morning.
Yes, good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I have a question.
It's pretty simple.
There's a lot of terminology that's being used that I think there are a lot of people that perhaps don't really understand what it means.
Like redistricting, I don't really understand what that means or how that would affect minorities from voting.
I know that sounds pretty naive or simple, like someone should have that understanding.
But what does it mean if a community is redistrict and there are a large majority of African-American, brown people, any other people other than white people, I imagine?
I think that's what you're saying.
I'm not really sure.
How does that affect minorities or prevent them from voting?
It's not taking away your right to vote.
So can you explain how deliberate redistricting can prevent minorities from voting?
How is that going to prevent us from voting if it's not taking away our right to vote?
Okay.
April, thanks for the question.
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question.
Really happy you asked that.
What it does is you have these congressional maps.
So essentially, Congress has a certain amount of representatives who represent people in each state.
And when something is redistricted and can be done on the state, then ultimately it means that it's making it harder for a group or easier for a group in a certain district to elect representatives to Congress.
So here, I think the direct answer to the question is: how does it affect, how can it affect black voters by making it more difficult for them to elect representatives to Congress?
And that in turn will mean they will have less people in government representing their interests.
So I think that's ultimately the easiest way to put it.
Cindy, in Maryland, independent line.
Go ahead, please.
Hi.
Thanks for taking my call.
I'm curious as to why nobody has brought up the fact that people are gerrymandering regarding political parties.
Wouldn't that be just as discriminatory as trying to gerrymander districts due to race?
I mean, I mean, what am I going to say?
I'm a white gal.
I'm 68.
I vote for people who can bring something to the table.
I could care less their ethnicity.
So, and I think a lot more people are acting in that way.
It's less about race and more about what are you going to do for us, not do for your party.
So, why isn't somebody bringing up the fact like, what's her name over there, Shane Berger in Virginia, she redistricted the whole thing to have and knocked out, you know, all the Republicans, I think, except for one.
And even in Maryland, we have one Republican and all Democrats.
I don't understand why that kind of gerrymandering is not discriminatory.
Cindy, in Maryland, thank you.
Right.
That's exactly what we were bringing up earlier.
That's why I brought up the Russia decision, because partisan gerrymandering or political party gerrymandering, as the caller said, is rife through the system.
And most people recognize it's a real problem.
In this case, Russia versus Common Cause in 2019, the Supreme Court said, okay, we recognize this is a problem.
Even the majority opinion said, okay, this is disfavored, but they found it non-justiciable, which in legal speak means that federal courts cannot hear it.
And the idea was that when it comes to partisan gerrymandering, it was just too complicated.
They don't want federal courts having to look at these maps and all these techniques and saying, okay, well, was this too Republican?
Was this too Democrat?
They thought it would not only be too complicated, but get courts involved in politics as well.
And so the Supreme Court effectively threw up its hands and said, when it comes to partisan gerrymandering, this is not something that we federal courts can hear.
So it means at least on the federal level in this regard, partisan gerrymandering can move forward.
And so I suspect she brought up Virginia.
That decision is still at the Virginia Supreme Court.
It could come up before the justices in this case or with that case.
And could that be impacted by decisions they made recently?
Yeah, absolutely.
All these decisions come into play there.
My understanding, I don't know a great lot about it, but there were issues with the ballot and how perhaps, you know, and so, but yes, these questions can come up everywhere.
And every single state that now redistricts when it comes to the cases on race and redistricting are ultimately going to take Louisiana versus Calais into effect, and it will now make them easier to redistrict on those grounds.
But when it comes to partisan redistricting, that has, you know, I don't want to exaggerate, but that has led states to go wild with the partisan redistricting, as we've seen in many states, not only red states, but as we saw, for instance, in California.
Let's go to Guy.
Guy is joining us from Florida, Independent Line.
Hi there.
All right, I may be very naive about this, and we've, in my 80s, we've talked about eliminating the Electoral College for my entire life.
And I don't understand why that doesn't cure most of the problems that we seem to be dealing with with gerrymandering from state to state and county to county.
Wouldn't that basically put everything on an even scale?
Thank you for the time.
So the Electoral College is: one, it would be incredible, you'd have to amend the Constitution, so it would be incredibly difficult to do away with.
But the Electoral College is a separate issue because ultimately that comes down to the presidency.
And now we're talking about Congress.
So it wouldn't, you know, it would certainly be could be part of a massive electoral reform package.
But again, that's focused on the presidency as opposed to Congress, which is what we're discussing now.
Abortion Pill Legal Pause00:03:09
Zach Jump Top, I know we're discussing redistricting, but I did want to ask you about this decision from Justice Alito yesterday when it comes to the abortion pill.
Can you set that up about the decision itself and why he weighed in on it?
So, again, a bit procedural and technical, but one in law isn't.
So, here, Louisiana filed its lawsuit.
And basically, what happened is the abortion pill, Mithiprestone, was challenged by the state of Louisiana, which said that it incurred medical costs for the state and its usage was in direct violation of Louisiana's strict abortion laws.
And so, they went before a lower court and then the appeals court, the Fifth Circuit.
And the Fifth Circuit said that for the time being, while the effects of Mithiprestone are evaluated by the FDA, they're going to pause it being allowed to go through the mail, which obviously has huge implications.
The makers of Mithiprestone then came to the Supreme Court and said, Can you pause the Fifth Circuit's decision?
The Supreme Court the other day, through Justice Alito, issued what's called an administrative stay, which means that he temporarily paused the Fifth Circuit's decision, allowing Mithiprestone to still go through the mail nationwide while the court considers the challenge before them.
So, it didn't fundamentally resolve anything, but it means that Miffet Prestone can continue through the mail until the Supreme Court decides some of the issues in play here.
And is it definite that the Supreme Court will take up this case formally, or where does it go from here?
Well, so for now, the Supreme Court is going to consider whether the stay should be in place, which again is the pause, you know, put in place by the Fifth Circuit.
If they say no, if they lift the stay and say that the Fifth Circuit should not have issued it, then for the time being, Miffoprestone will stay, you know, will be available by mail throughout the country.
But it is possible they may say, actually, we want to hear this, Kate, on the merits, meaning that we want to really not only deal with these technical issues, but decide, you know, all these underlying issues about Miffoprestone, the effects.
There are other complicated issues on who can bring the suits, et cetera.
And they may, you know, potentially, I don't necessarily think this is going to happen, but there are scenarios in which they say, okay, we want to hear this in the next few weeks, or they could say, okay, we want to hear it next term, which would begin in October of this year.
So there's a lot of uncertainties now, but right now they're just dealing with really preliminary issues.
Scotusblog.com is our guest website.
Zach Shemtab is the executive editor walking through these legal issues with us at the Supreme Court.