Josh Turek and Zach Walls clash over Iowa's Senate race, debating economic policies like a $15 minimum wage, wealth taxes, and breaking corporate monopolies while criticizing Ashley Henson. They diverge on health care implementation and filibuster reform, with Turek refusing to support Chuck Schumer without populist commitments amidst allegations of dark money influence. The episode also features Kevin Hassett detailing a surge in foreign direct investment driven by Trump's policies and Robert Blewry analyzing tensions between conservative media and the administration regarding Iran and press freedom. Ultimately, the segments highlight deep divisions within the GOP and Democratic Party over economic justice, leadership integrity, and national security strategies. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Livable Wage and Affordable Care00:14:23
That was corporate greed, and it was hurting my constituents.
So I went to work for them.
I brought together a bipartisan group in the legislature.
I told the stories of people like my constituent Candy, a widow whose late husband had saved up to buy her a beautiful double-wide trailer at a price that they could afford.
But she was facing outrageous increases in her rent.
That bipartisan group of legislators came together to actually pass re-legislation to protect them, but then it was killed in the House by then State Representative Ashley Henson.
And that is the connection, Erin, between the corruption of our politics and the outsized influence of these special interests and the affordability crisis that is gripping our state and is gripping our country.
We need leaders who have the courage to take on these interests, who have experience doing so.
I've done that in the legislature, and I will absolutely do it in the United States Senate.
Josh Turk, what would be your top priority for lowering costs?
Absolutely.
As I've been traveling this state for the last few months, I can tell you the thing that I have heard by far the most by Iowans.
It doesn't matter in an urban area, a rural area, an affluent community, a poor community, is that Iowans are hurting.
Iowans are struggling in a real way.
We are dead last for economic growth.
We are 48th for personal income growth.
We are one of two states already in an economic decline.
You're looking at what has happened with the Trump tariffs.
We lead the nation now in farm foreclosures, what is leading to what I'm calling a farm again for our farmers, a second farm crisis.
You're looking at health care cuts, particularly in the rural communities, that have absolutely decimated me.
More than 100,000 Iowans losing their health care cuts because of the Big Beautiful Bill and Ashley Henson's rubber stamp to Trump.
The American, the ACA subsidies, 119,000 Iowans looking at health care premiums doubling or tripling.
Gas prices now going up dramatically due to this unnecessary illegal war in Iran.
And it's families like mine, middle-class families like mine, that are bearing the brunt of these policies.
And the problem is in D.C. is that we have millionaires just looking out for billionaires.
And we don't have enough individuals that are out there actually looking out for Iowa and Iowa's, looking out for the middle class.
That is why two things.
I think that we need more individuals like myself from Council Bless Iowa with the lived experience, both on the economic and on the health care side, to actually go up there and fight for the people.
We don't need any more millionaires like Zach Walls and like Ashley Henson.
But secondly, that's why this campaign is laser focused on kitchen table issues, affordability, cost, and corruption.
My campaign is about, first and foremost, raising the minimum wage and about affordable and accessible health care, affordable housing, drinkable water, and addressing the corruption that we're seeing in D.C. to ensure that the American dream can continue for the next generations of Iowans and Americans.
That's what I'll be fighting for in the U.S. Senate.
More fighters for the middle class.
And just really quickly, because we've got a lot to get to, but to each of you, in 30 seconds or less, I didn't hear anything with a Republican president because that's the reality of the next two years, regardless of what happens in the Senate.
Is there any policy, Josh, first, that you can point to that could address affordability for Iowans that a Republican president would sign?
I think that first and foremost, I think we can take back the tariffs, this chaotic tariffs that is leading to this crisis, what we're seeing, where we are leading the nation in farm foreclosures.
I also think if we're looking at being able to duplicate what we did in Trump's first midterm, where we win three of the four congressional races and we're able to win this race here in Iowa, we're looking at taking back Congress and taking back the U.S. Senate.
And I think that gives us an amazing opportunity to be able to get a lot of these across the finish line, like a livable wage and affordable housing and affordable health care.
Zach Walls.
So, Erin, I would just say there was at one point a brief conversation around cracking down on private equity, owning homes in this country.
That was something that did get bipartisan support.
There's actually been legislation that has moved through the U.S. Senate that would address some of these issues.
I was fortunate enough to win the endorsement of Senator Elizabeth Warren, who when that bill was moving through the Senate, actually called me to tell me that there were two provisions in that bill, specifically for mobile homes and trailer parks, that were the direct result of the work that we did together back in 2019 to raise awareness around this issue.
So there are definitely things that we can do.
We absolutely do need to go after the tariffs, as I said earlier.
And I would tell you that I do think that is something that there is bipartisan support for.
The problem is that you don't have enough people in Washington, D.C. with the courage to take on this administration.
Ashley Henson knows these tariffs are bad for Iowa.
She has voted for them over and over and over and over.
That is why we have to make sure that she never steps foot in the United States Senate.
Josh Turek, you mentioned you support raising the minimum wage.
To what level?
Yeah, absolutely.
One of the primary tenets of my prairie populist agenda is raising the minimum wage.
I think that we need to raise it to a $15 minimum wage, but I also think we need to attach that to a cost of living adjustment to make sure that it is going up with inflation.
Additionally, the very first bill that I will sponsor in the United States Senate is going to be a dignity and work bill.
This is going to do three things.
First, it is going to raise the minimum wage.
Second, it is going to do away with 14 C certificates, which allow a for-profit business to pay someone just due to a disability a sub-minimum wage.
And thirdly, it is going to bring collective bargaining rights back to every single one of our laborers, because we can all recognize the $7.25 is not a livable wage.
And right now, unfortunately, what we have up in D.C., both in Congress and in the executive branch, is just millionaires that are looking out for billionaires.
Zach Walls, to what level would you raise the minimum wage?
Well, Representative Turek and I agree on this, $15 an hour and tie it to inflation.
This is just one of the first steps to making sure that we have an economy that actually works for us.
I'm going to be a day one co-sponsor of the PRO Act.
This will strengthen the ability of Iowans and all Americans to actually form a union so they can negotiate collectively across the table for management good wages, fair contract, good benefits, and be able to provide a solid, decent living for themselves and their families.
Someone who grew up in a labor household, my mom, Jackie, was a union nurse.
Like I said earlier, I learned at an early age the difference that that can make, and it's incredibly important.
I would also tell you that taking on the corporate monopolies that have become so powerful in our state and our country is absolutely vital.
We need to make sure that we are challenging these monopolies head on.
We see these monopolies dominating in our agricultural sector.
We see them dominating increasingly in health care.
And what we already discussed earlier is their presence in housing.
Those are things that I believe, Kay, we can have strong bipartisan support for if you have champions for some of those issues.
But no, you have to know it is not going to be easy.
These are tough fights.
And you need somebody who has a track record of taking on these fights, fighting for people no matter who they are, if they need a champion.
That's what I've done in the Iowa Senate.
That's what I'll do in the U.S. Senate, and that is how we're going to beat Ashley Henson.
One area where Iowans are concerned with affordability is in health care.
Both of you support having the federal government provide a public option alternative to private insurance.
Josh Turek, is that a realistic goal to get done after Congress just rolled back some Affordable Care Act subsidies and has made cuts to Medicaid?
I am somebody that, well, first I'll say that we have a unique health care crisis happening here in this state.
This is a state where we have closed in the last 15 years 250 more health care clinics than we have opened.
You're looking at, because of the cuts, the big beautiful bill, what Ashley Henson supported, 110,000 Iowans looking at losing their health care, thousands more losing their basic food assistance, the ACA subsidies, 119,000 Iowans looking at their health care premiums doubling and tripling.
And as I've been traveling the state, I've run into individuals.
Out in Greene County, I ran into an individual.
His health care premium has gone from $100 to $900.
It's a real health care clinic, and additionally in a state with a growing cancer rate.
I know and understand this issue deeply and personally.
I'm someone born with a disability.
I've gone through a lot of health care adversity.
I had my first surgery at one day old, had 21 surgeries before I was 12.
Almost all of these took place at Shriners Hospital in Minnesota because it was the only way that my family could afford it.
I'm someone that believes that health care is a human right.
And so within that human right, I believe that we should provide a baseline level of coverage for every single Iowan and every single American.
I think the best way to do that is through a public option.
But additionally, what we need to do is we need to have a fully funded Medicare, Medicaid, and the Iowa legislature.
I have been an absolute champion of this issue of making sure that we're putting caps on insulin and sponsored bills to make sure that we have dental care provided to our citizens.
And we need to crack down on insurance companies because insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies should not be dictating care.
Doctors should be deciding care.
Zach Walls, on the public option, how would this work and would it take more government investment to cover everybody?
Stephen, health care is deeply personal.
To my family, my mom, Terry, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was only eight years old.
And that was a really scary time for all of us.
She had been stumbling.
She'd been falling.
We didn't understand why.
And when we finally got that diagnosis, you know, in one sense, it was reassuring to have something that you could name it and call it.
But on the other hand, I knew that it was a devastating disease.
And growing up, I watched her, someone who I looked up to was the most important person in my life decline physically.
And that was incredibly difficult.
Health care is absolutely a human right.
Representative Turk and I agree on that 100%.
That is why actually earlier today we released a comprehensive plan that would lower the Medicare enrollment age, allow any American or employer to buy into Medicare.
And to answer the question, you're going to have a combination of increased people buying into Medicare, and that was going to pay for a lot of the increased costs by having more folks in the system.
You need to have the ability to have real competition, and far too many Iowans don't have that right now.
And that is why we have a health care system that is failing so many Iowans.
And these Medicaid cuts are going to be absolutely devastating.
We went to Joni Ernst Hometown Hospital in Red Oak, Iowa, went to Montgomery County Memorial.
We met with local hospital leaders there.
And what they told us was that these Medicaid cuts were going to be devastating because Medicaid had been, and these are their words, our salvation.
We are going to need to reverse those cuts to make those investments into the health care system.
We are going to invest more into Medicare in part by having more folks buying into it.
And we have to reverse the cuts to the Affordable Care Act as well.
My sister is one of the 100,000-plus Iowans facing massive increases in their insurance premiums of 100, 200, 300%.
That is what is costing Iowans.
It is absolutely unacceptable.
And that is exactly what Ashley Henson voted for and what Donald Trump signed into law.
And we need a senator who will take them head on.
To continue along that, and Josh Turk, I'll start with you.
You both mentioned those spending cuts.
Until Democrats are in a position to reverse those and increase Medicaid spending again, is there anything you can do to preserve health care access in Iowa, especially in rural areas?
Yeah, well, again, I think that the very best way that we fight back is we win these elections.
And if we're looking at a situation where we can duplicate what we did in Trump's first midterm, then we're going to be able to take back Congress and take back the U.S. Senate.
I think that the low-hanging fruit on this is that we can try to overturn the Big Beautiful Bill and make sure that we've got millions of Iowans that are provided with coverage and also make sure that we overturn the ACA subsidy so you don't have 119,000 Iowans that are losing their coverage.
But also, we need far more incentives, particularly to our rural health care because they are losing funding.
I mean, 250 clinics.
I was just in a Tumwa where three more clinics have closed.
As Zach said, he's absolutely right.
Two in five Iowans in the rural communities are on Medicaid.
This is absolutely their lifeblood, and they need this.
So you've got the low-hanging fruit of making sure that we restore the funding to Medicare and Medicaid, fully funded ACAs.
And then long term, I think that we move to a public option to be in place and put guardrails.
Another thing that I think that we have agreement on across the board, even amongst Republicans, is that it is egregious that you're looking at a situation where insurance companies are maximizing profits off the backs of the most vulnerable.
I'll tell you a story, is that nearly the day that I launched my campaign, my sister got diagnosed with stage two breast cancer.
And she was basically told by her private insurance, you don't have enough cancer.
And they said, because you've only got stage two, not stage three or stage four, we will not cover the PET scan to other parts of your body.
That what is so fundamentally wrong.
We have to put guardrails in place on these insurance companies and these big pharma to make sure that doctors are providing care, not the insurance companies.
Zach Walls, aside from more funding, what can be done in Congress to support rural health care especially?
Well, Aaron, one of the things I want to talk about, because I think it's really important to this broader conversation, is that the next time that we have the opportunity to pass a public option into law, we cannot let the filibuster be the thing that prevents us from getting it done.
The last time we had a real shot at a public option, it was the filibuster that killed the public option.
And that is why the next time that we have control of the Senate, it is time for us to end the filibuster.
Ending the Filibuster for Wealth Equality00:16:12
I've taken that position very clearly in this race, that it is time to end the filibuster as it currently exists.
And I believe that I'm the only person in this race who has done so.
What I would tell you is that this is something that is absolutely vital.
And we cannot let arcane Senate rules get in the way of delivering this victory for the American people.
It is something that has to happen.
And there are a lot of things that we can do when it comes to rural health care.
Another thing that we hear about a lot, something that I worked on in a bipartisan way in the Iowa Senate, is pharmacy benefit manager reform.
PBMs are middlemen that collect huge amounts of income and are crushing small town and rural pharmacies all over our state.
If you look at the map of Iowa and you put a pin in every community that has lost a small town or independent pharmacy over the last five years, the entire state lights up.
That is unacceptable.
Forcing Iowans to drive 30, 40, 50 minutes to get the prescription that they need is absolutely unacceptable.
And so I think that if we've been able to do that in a bipartisan way in the Iowa Senate, we should be able to do that in a bipartisan way in the U.S. Senate.
The problem, of course, is that Ashley Hins has taken millions of dollars from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
And so again, we keep coming back to this challenge between the connection between this rigged economy and the corruption of our politics by this big money.
That is the core problem that is at the root of so many of these issues, and that is something that we have to face head-on.
I needn't ask this next question of Zach Walls, so I will turn to you, Josh Turek.
Should the filibuster end?
I'm fundamentally in favor of filibuster reform, absolutely.
It is not enshrined in the Constitution.
This is a 20th century invention.
And I will say that the filibuster can at times be used as an effective check and balance on the majority's power.
And right now, I think there's probably a few of us that are happy that we see it in place.
But we've seen it abused, without a doubt.
What I would like to see with the filibuster is I would like to see it moved back to the pre-1974 standards and move away from the silent filibuster.
So if you're going to use the filibuster, you must speak the entire time and you must be present actually on the Senate floor.
And I think that would keep some level of protection, check and balance on the majority power, but also do away with the egregious abuse that we have seen.
Kay, if I may, just briefly, I would just say that the filibuster, it is not time for the filibuster to be talked about, reformed.
It is time for the filibuster to end.
You're talking about challenges, especially with the public option, that are of incredible importance to the future of this country.
And that is a place where it sounds like there is some real disagreement in this primary.
Zach Walls, if you are elected, would you vote to go to war?
Kay, I will tell you that I would take the decision to vote on any war incredibly seriously.
What I would not do is vote to authorize an endless war in the Middle East.
We are seeing the president lead this country into war with Iran.
That war is wrong.
Bombing innocent civilians is wrong.
As a United States Senator from this state, I will always push peace, not an endless war in the Middle East.
And what I would tell you is that there are certainly situations where this country has to defend itself.
We've seen that in the past.
But the problem is that we have seen Congress completely delegate that authority to the executive branch.
And this has been a problem in both parties for a long time.
And that is something that has to change.
What I would tell you is that with the current war that we are facing right now in Iran, that is not a war that I would have voted to authorize.
I think both Representative Turek and I spoke out on the very first day that it began.
It should not have been launched without a clear explanation to the American people of our objectives, a timeline, or how the war would be litigated.
Josh Turek?
Well, the current war in Iran, we agree on that.
I can tell you I speak from some level of personal experience on this.
I come from generations of veterans.
Both of my grandfathers served in World War II and Vietnam.
It was due to his exposure in Agent Orange is why I ended up with my disability of spina bifida.
I'm an example of the generational consequences of these forever wars that we continue to find ourselves into.
When the bombs stop, the consequences do not.
In my lifetime, I've seen us spend a trillion dollars over in Iraq, another trillion dollars in Afghanistan for what?
My father's conflict.
50,000 men and women don't come home from Vietnam.
I'm tired of seeing a blank check to the military-industrial complex and to send our brave men and women overseas.
And in the United States Senate, I will do everything that I can to prevent us from going into these unnecessary forever wars.
We're spending a billion dollars a day in this conflict with Iran.
Meanwhile, we've got closing schools and hospitals and roads here in Iowa.
A real America-first approach, a real Iowa-first approach is let's take care of our citizens here.
And I would be fundamentally against the war.
On taxes, Josh Turek, your policy platform says you want to close loopholes for billionaires and big corporations.
What loopholes specifically would you close?
Yeah, absolutely.
I can tell you this, is two of the biggest issues that we've got going on in this country is the wealth divide and tax avoidance.
And we are living through a second gilded age right now.
It is really have and have-nots, and everyone is feeling that.
And when you're looking at what when MAGA say they talk about make America great again, they're talking about America post-World War II.
They're talking about the 1950s when we had arguably the most progressive taxation system.
That was when we had the strength of the middle class.
That was when we had the biggest strengths of unions.
And unfortunately, because of the lack of campaign finance reform, we've had billionaires and large corporations that have outsized influence on buying off our political system.
I say we can have oligarchy or we can have democracy, but we can't have both.
I think it is fundamentally wrong when companies like Amazon and Tesla and some of these aren't paying and are paying less in taxes than a teacher or than a firefighter.
I think one of the very first places that we can start, a carried interest loophole, I know that there is a buy, borrow, die.
There's a lot that we can go after, but we absolutely have to address this wealth divide and that without question, we have to tax billionaires in large corporations.
Zach Walls, you've proposed a 5% wealth tax on billionaires.
Why that number and what would you do with the money that comes from that tax?
Stephen, I 100% think the most important thing when it comes to taxation in this country is to ensure that the wealthy are paying their fair share.
A 5% wealth tax on billionaires will ensure that we have the revenue to give American families a substantial middle-class tax cut.
It will allow us to invest in child care.
It will allow to invest in health care and it will allow us to invest in our public education.
This is not a question of being punitive.
This is a question of making sure that the wealthy are paying their fair share and that we can end the growing massive wealth disparity in this country.
It is a threat to our democracy when you have billionaires that have this massive and disproportionate influence in our politics.
You look at Elon Musk, who spent nearly $300 million in the 2024 presidential election and as a result earned billions more after Donald Trump took office.
When we talk about making sure that we have an economy that works for everyday people, that starts with ensuring that the wealthy pay their fair share, that means challenging the massive corporations that have developed monopolies in industry after industry after industry after industry, and that makes sure that we have strong supports for hardworking Iowa families.
Again, I'm really proud to have been endorsed by 25 different labor unions across this state.
That is something that I wear as a badge of honor because it means that the folks who work the hardest in this state to build an economy, to fight for workers' rights, to make sure that we have a level playing field in our economy understand that I have their back and I will go to work every day in the U.S. Senate to make sure that we have an economy that works for us, not just the billionaires.
Let's talk about the solvency of Social Security.
Right now, Americans are taxed on the first $185,000 they earn.
You've both talked about lifting that cap, but experts say that alone is not enough to fix the system long term.
Zach Walls, what more needs to be done?
So, Aaron, earlier this year, my campaign rolled out our Keep the Promise Act to keep the promise of Social Security alive for this generation and for future generations.
That plan has three parts.
Number one, it would end the cap altogether on the income tax that is paid into Social Security.
Currently, it is only about the first $180,000 of a person's income.
So if you're Elon Musk, you stop paying into Social Security basically on the first minute of the first day of the year.
That's unacceptable.
Second, it would reverse the cuts to Social Security that were put into place by Doge that Ashley Hinson voted for as a member of the House Appropriations Committee, and it would make sure that we can actually ensure that Iowans who are trying to get their benefits approved can do so in a timely way.
As a matter of fact, my campaign headquarters in Coralville is literally right next door, the same office hallway as the Social Security field office in Coralville.
And when we get to work in the morning, we often see a line out the door of people who are waiting for an appointment.
That's unacceptable.
Finally, the Keep the Promise Act would make a very simple change to law.
And it would say that the Social Security Commissioner needs to work full-time.
Because today, the Donald Trump-appointed Social Security Commissioner is a Wall Street executive named Frank Bizignano, who is splitting his time 50-50 between Social Security and the IRS.
I think that's unacceptable.
Social Security is a sacred promise that has been made to every American that if you work hard and you play by the rules, you can retire with dignity and security.
That is a promise that I will keep as Iowa's next United States Senator.
That is why we released the Keep the Promise Act.
And scrapping the cap is the first step to ensuring the long-term solvency of the trust.
It will give us decades to figure out additional changes that need to be made.
But the first thing that we need to do is make sure that we keep the promise, and that is exactly what I'll do as Iowa's next United States Senator.
Josh Turik, same question.
And does this solution include raising the retirement age?
Social Security is one of the greatest examples of a social safety net that was really successful, passed during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration.
Pre-Civil Security, you were looking at 85 to 90 percent of American elderly that were living in abject poverty.
This is an earned benefit.
To me, this is really simple.
The way that we solve this problem is we take the cap off.
As Zach said, it is fundamentally wrong that you and I and every single middle-class person here ends up paying into Social Security tax all year long.
Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk pay for the first few minutes of the first day.
That is one of the first things that we can do.
Secondly, we absolutely need to tax billionaires and large corporations.
And lastly, we're looking at a situation where we're willing to spend $1.5 trillion for a military industrial complex.
I think that it is a misuse of our resources.
Let's protect Social Security, let's take care of our elderly.
It is an earned benefit, and that is the way to keep it.
Let's turn to immigration.
Your fellow Democrats in Congress sought reform of ICE.
That didn't happen.
What did happen was the longest partial government shutdown in history.
Josh Turik, to you first.
Was it worth it?
And if you're elected to the Senate, what immigration policy changes would you support?
Yes, it absolutely was worth the fight.
I can tell you that this is an issue that is personal to me.
What a lot of people don't know about me is that I'm married to an immigrant.
I'm married to an Afro-Latina woman that was born in the Dominican Republic.
I've gone through this process.
We were denied her citizenship without even getting an interview.
We were sent papers in the mail that said, you've got 60 days or you're going to be deported.
It's far too complicated, far too hard.
I cannot believe with what and I what we're seeing with ICE in this country, it's inhumane, it's unjust, it's un-American, that families like mine are scared.
I can't believe that I have to tell my wife that she's got to keep her passport with her just to be able to go to the grocery store.
And we need reforms to ICE.
And in the United States Senate, I would have not supported any DHS funding without serious reforms to ICE.
And that includes making sure that ICE agents aren't masked, that they have body cams, use of four standards, and also protections to places like churches and schools.
Because what we are seeing right now is fundamentally wrong and un-American.
Zach Wallace.
Immigration is an incredibly important part of Iowa's present and part of our future.
What I would tell you is that when it comes to immigration, Representative Turek and I do have a very different record on this topic in the Iowa legislature.
In 2024, Governor Kim Reynolds came to the Iowa legislature and asked us to pass an anti-immigrant bill that was described by the ACLU as one of the most anti-immigrant bills in Iowa history.
It wasn't just the ACLU, law enforcement groups, the Catholic Church, immigrant right groups came to the state house.
They asked us to vote against this bill, which would have required Iowa law enforcement to take on immigration enforcement activities, which is of course a purview of the federal government, but to work with organizations like ICE on that kind of activity.
I listened to those groups.
I saw the debate and I voted against that bill.
Representative Turek was one of only three Democrats to vote with Republicans on passing that bill into law.
I think that was the wrong vote.
I think it was something that is not supported by law enforcement, that wasn't supported by immigrants' right groups, and it's something that unfortunately made Iowans not more safe, but less safe.
And so what I would tell the folks who are watching at home is that this is a place where there's a real disagreement in our record.
And in the United States Senate, I will fight to make sure that we fix this broken immigration system, that we overhaul ICE, and that we have a pathway to legal status for people who are in this country, who have not committed violent crimes, and who are willing to go through a full process of paying any back taxes that they owe, learning English, making sure that they pay a penalty and go through the system.
The challenge is that this administration has absolutely defunded immigration courts, which is going to make that a lot harder to do.
Yeah, this is, I think this is an example of what people dislike about politics, is leaving out important details and something.
This bill, firstly, took place during the Biden administration, fundamentally different what we were seeing in the Biden administration, the Trump administration with ICE.
Secondly, this bill only applied to individuals that had come here legally and had already been deported.
I have been very, very clear about this.
This is an issue that's deeply personal to me.
I am married to an immigrant.
I have gone through the process.
And three things can be true.
One, we absolutely need fundamental reforms to ICE, as the ones that I spoke about, because what we are seeing right now is inhumane and it is un-American.
But two, we can also recognize that there's not, these aren't mutual exclusive ideas, that we need to have safe and secure borders, but we also need to have a far easier pathway to citizenship, including passing the Dignity Act.
I want to make sure that it's easier for people.
If you want to come here, you want to work hard, you want to make your community better, there should be an easier pathway to citizenship for you to be able to work here.
The model of our country is e plurinus unum.
Out of many, come one is the beauty of the American experience of the American melting pot.
And Iowa has a long history of being very welcoming to immigrants and to refugees.
And that is exactly what I will fight for in the United States Senate.
Okay, if I can also respond here.
This issue is not over.
The bill that Representative Turek voted for, which was opposed by law enforcement at the time, was opposed by the ACLU of Iowa at the time.
The ACLU of Iowa at the time described this bill as one of the most extreme, discriminatory, and unconstitutional anti-immigrant laws in the United States of America.
Fighting Corporate Monopolies in Iowa00:14:43
The argument that Representative Turek just made is the exact same argument that Brenna Bird, Iowa's Attorney General, is making in federal court.
It is the argument that she is preparing to make in front of the United States Supreme Court in front of Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito, who are just waiting for this bill.
But here in Iowa, when law enforcement spoke out about this bill at the time, in 2024, the Republican chief of police from Marshalltown, a man named Michael Tupper, came to the State House and he warned us at that time that bills like this would erode trust in law enforcement and it would make it more difficult for local police to do their jobs if people, regardless of their immigration status, were unwilling to report that they were the victim of a crime because they might be deported.
And in fact, there are still people who are here today who are here legally who, if the Supreme Court lets this law take effect, could be separated from their families and removed from this country.
I listened to those folks when they came to the state house in 2024 and they warned us about this bill.
I voted against it then and I'm proud of that vote.
We have a lot of problems.
Just to follow up real quick, because the compare beat to Brandon Bird is fundamentally incorrect.
I voted against a bill this year that would have punished police for failure to cooperate with ICE.
I've been very, very clear that what we are seeing with ICE is fundamentally wrong.
And I have said we need to have regulations on ICE and I've mentioned the ones that we need to have.
This is an issue that is deeply personal to me.
I have gone through this process myself and I want to make this country easier to be able to come here as an immigrant and work here and make their communities better.
We can have two things and they do not have to be mutually exclusive.
You can recognize the need for safe and secure borders, but also the need to have fundamental immigration reform.
Stephen, we want to move to some other topics.
On agriculture, Iowa farmers have been struggling in recent years between high costs, extreme weather, trade policy, and other things.
Zach Walls, what's your vision for the future of Iowa agriculture and what policies would you put in the farm bill to make that happen?
Stephen, my mom, Terry, grew up on a family farm in Clayton County in Northeast Iowa.
It was a 200-acre family farm, a classic of that time.
My grandparents, my grandpa John was a veteran, came home from World War II.
My grandma Lois, someone I look back on with a lot of fondness, my grandpa John died when I was very young.
If either of my grandparents were alive today, they would not recognize what has happened to Iowa agriculture.
For the last 50 years, policymakers in Washington, D.C. have been telling farmers and farm states like Iowa that they need to get big or get out of farming, that they have to plant fence row to fence row.
And that approach has not worked for Iowa.
Over the last 50 years, 70 of Iowa's 99 counties have lost population.
Our small towns, our rural communities are suffering.
The average farm size has gotten enormous compared to when my mom was growing up.
We've seen these massive monopolies in so many different parts of the ag economy.
We need a farm bill that works for Iowa, not Iowa just working for big multinational corporations that are the only ones making any real money, which is a lot of what's currently happening right now.
The farm bill that we would call for, and we released a comprehensive plan on this topic earlier this year, it would reverse the get-big or get out approach from Washington, D.C.
It would support the next generation of farmers by going after the land access issue.
This is one of the most challenging parts of the ag economy facing young farmers.
I was actually just over the weekend talking with a former constituent of mine from Cedar County, the more rural part of my district, and he was telling me that when he and his wife tried to buy just 40 acres, it was such a burden on the cash flow of their farm that they're already thinking about selling it.
That to me is completely unacceptable and it needs real reform.
We also need to make sure that we are fundamentally changing our approach to conservation policy because the water quality and the crisis in this state is directly tied to the cancer crisis in this state.
And then finally, and I talked about a little bit earlier, we have to challenge these corporate monopolies.
And the Iowa legislature, Bayer, Monsanto, many other of these large companies have been trying to essentially get immunity from being held responsible if their products cause cancer or other life-threatening diseases.
I've been proud to vote against those bills.
In the United States Senate, we need to make very clear to these large corporations that if they are in these dominant positions in the market, that they will need to be broken up so that we can actually lower the amount of income that they are capturing from our farmers and that we have more of those farm dollars actually staying in our state so that we can actually have an ag economy that works for Iowa and help us get back to the approach that worked so well for this state for so long.
Josh Turek, what policies would you support putting in the farm bill?
I can tell you this.
I've been traveling around this state for the last few months into rural communities and talking with farmers.
It is a very dangerous place to be a farmer in Iowa right now.
I'm calling it a farmageddon.
It is really a second farm crisis.
We now lead the nation in farm foreclosures.
You're seeing farm suicide rates skyrocket.
I was just in Crawford County speaking to my friend Dave, and he said it is just one gut punch after another.
This is due to the Trump tariffs where our commodities prices are upside down.
This is due to Trump and Ashley Henson's rubber stamp.
Four times Ashley Henson voted in favor of the Trumps, which have decimated our communities.
But we've got to do more on anti-monopoly.
Lack of vertical integration is what we've seen.
Too much vertical integration on this.
This has led to input prices going up 100 times higher, 100% higher over the last decade.
We need to pass right to repair.
This is something I've been very vocal about in the Iowa legislature.
We actually just passed it through the House to make sure that farmers have their farm equipment.
We need to have mandatory country of origin labeling to our beef packers because we've lost over 100,000 beef providers in this country.
And we need to make sure that we pass a damn farm bill.
And we need to pass a farm.
We are three years overdue on this.
Pass a farm bill.
And if I'm in the U.S. Senate, I want to make sure that we pass a farm bill but not allow Congress to leave until we have passed that farm bill.
We talked about this a little bit at the top.
We want to circle back to the topic of electability.
As you well know, your party's voters are trying to decide which of you to send into the general election this fall.
Since Tom Harkin was last elected, and Josh Turek, we'll start with you.
Democrats have lost support in traditionally union-heavy areas, especially along the Mississippi River and in Iowa's mid-sized towns.
What specifically can you do, Josh Turek, to bring those voters back to the Democratic Party?
One, as I said, I am the Democrat that represents the Reddis district that was won on Election Day.
I'm battle-tested.
I know that there's something specific about my story, my background, my resume, and my politics, focusing on prairie populism, just like Senator Harkin did, that has the ability to resonate with these folks in the rural communities in a very real way.
What am I going to do?
One, I'm going to be very disciplined in my messaging.
I'm going to go out there and I'm going to talk about the kitchen table issues.
I'm going to talk about cost, and I'm going to talk about the need to address corruption, corruption both on the need to change campaign finance reform, pass Citizens United, make sure we pass the Disclose Act so that every dollar that is donated to a campaign, to a PAC, to a super PAC is accounted for.
Also, making sure that we have ethics reforms in place, term limits, banning members of Congress and their families from trading stocks, and making sure that we mandate every single member of Congress to have an annual town hall to be accountable to their constituents.
But I'm going to go out there and I'm going to talk about these prairie populist ideas, and I'm going to go into each and every one of these 99 counties, every one of these small and rural communities, and not go after them and vilify them.
I understand why they voted for Trump, because Trump accurately identified that the status quo was not working for the average Iowan, for the average American, for the middle class.
But every single one of his policies have been faux populism.
So I'm going to go out there and talk about that, get in front of them.
I know I won't win every single one of them over, but what I have learned representing a very, very red district is you can win enough of them over, especially with a candidate like myself with a message of prairie populism.
And we go to all 99 counties, every single one of these small and mid-sized communities.
It's enough to trim the margins.
And what I've learned in representing such a red community is these are double votes, one out of their column and one in my column.
But we're only going to be able to win this with a candidate like myself.
Zach Walls, you both have policies for what you would do to help rural Iowa, but Democrats have struggled in rural areas in recent election cycles.
As someone who has run exclusively in a safely Democratic Statehouse district, how do you convince those voters to vote Democratic?
Well, Aaron, when I first ran in 2018, my district, as I'm sure you recall, did include Cedar County and Muscatine County, two districts, two counties that voted for Barack Obama in 2012, Donald Trump in 2016, and for Zach Walls in 2018.
And what I would tell you, just zooming out, is that we have to be honest with voters about how rigged the economy has become and that that is directly tied to the corruption of our politics, that those two problems are in fact the same problem.
The corruption of our politics is why you see the massive influence of billionaires and super PACs that are weighing in on elections and that is what they use to maintain a failed status quo that is keeping them in place.
And the problem is that you have establishment politicians in both parties who have benefited from the changes to these laws.
And in fact, we are seeing outside spending in this race happening right now.
I will tell you, I was very clear on the first day of this campaign that I will not vote to continue the failed leadership of Senator Chuck Schumer as Iowa's next United States Senator.
It was Senator Chuck Schumer, Aaron, who said on national television that the Democratic Party can write off rural voters and blue-collar voters and that for each one of those votes that we lose, we're going to pick up two more in the suburbs.
That math might work in New York.
It definitely does not work in Iowa.
And frankly, Aaron, that is not the Democratic Party that I want to belong to.
Since the New Deal, this is the party that has fought for workers' rights and for civil rights and for women's rights.
We are the party that fights for every person who needs a champion, no matter whether you are a factory worker who has seen their job shipped overseas, someone who has seen their job replaced by artificial intelligence, or you're the scared eighth grader watching the television wondering if the government is going to come for your family.
And that is why I will not vote for any leader who thinks that our party should write off rural voters and blue-collar voters.
We are not going to be able to win them back until we have a new vision and new leadership for this party.
And I'm the only person on the stage here tonight who has said that I will not vote for Senator Schumer for leader unless Representative Turk wants to join me in making that commitment here tonight.
I'll tell you, I agree with you that the way forward with this party is that we have to move away from being corporate Democrats and that we have to once again be the party of the people, the party of the middle class, the party of workers.
I'm not a D.C. insider.
I don't know these folks.
I only have one idea with this, and that is I am not measuring the drapes.
I'm not up in D.C. If I have the amazing opportunity to be able to represent Iowans in the U.S. Senate, I will go up and I will ask whoever is deciding to run for leadership three questions, maybe four.
What are you going to do for Iowa?
What are you going to do for Iowans?
What are you going to do for the middle class?
And ultimately, who is going to be best aligned with me on my prayer populist agenda of a livable wage, affordable housing, affordable health care, driving private equity out of health care and out of housing, doing something about our drinkable water, but also maybe most importantly, doing something about the corruption that we're seeing, both on the campaign finance side and the lack of ethics reforms inside.
And whoever gives me that answer, that will be who I support.
We have about five minutes left for the questions that we'd like to ask here.
So you have both expressed concerns about monopolies, and I'd like to focus on that for voters for just a minute.
Zach Walls, it's the executive branch that enforces current antitrust laws.
Are you suggesting that the Senate and the House should pass new antitrust legislation?
Okay, I want to just briefly go back to the answer that we just heard because we are not going to beat Ashley Henson with an answer like that.
It is a very simple yes or no question.
The leadership of Chuck Schumer has failed the Democratic Party.
It has failed this state and has failed this country.
And it is not measuring the drapes to expect that Iowans can get a straight answer to a yes or no question about the vision of your future for this party and for our country.
Dark money, which is flooding into this state to the tune of $6.7 million in climbing from a super PAC closely linked to Senator Schumer, dark money has an agenda.
And that agenda is to protect the broken status quo and the failed leadership of Senator Schumer.
And if you want to learn more about all of the money that is coming into our state, you can go to joshdurek.com to see a lot more information about what is currently happening in the state.
Okay, to your question about anti-monopolies, the Congress absolutely needs to reassort its authority here to make sure that we actually have antitrust laws in this state that actually work.
Because right now, you are not seeing, you are seeing so much concentration.
Two companies control virtually the entire chemical market.
You're looking at four companies that control 90% of the global clean trade, two companies that control 90% of the North American corn market.
That is not acceptable.
And so if the executive branch won't do its job, then absolutely Congress needs to reassert its control and make sure that we actually have competition in the market.
That is what we need to have, right?
When you look at what is currently happening now, the lack of competition, that is bad for workers, it is bad for innovation, it is bad for growth, and that lack of competition is what results in higher prices.
Breaking up these companies, enforcing these antitrust laws, and if the executive branch isn't willing to do it, then Congress can pass new laws to do so.
That is what has to change.
Josh Turek.
Yeah, we absolutely have to break up the monopolies and we have to have antitrust enforcement.
Unfortunately, what we have seen is we have seen the erosion of checks and balances and we have seen the move to an imperial executive branch and from tariffs to as well of anti-monopoly enforcement.
We need that back into the hands of the Congress.
This is another reason why we have got to win these elections going forward so that we can actually put legitimate checks and balances back in place.
Dark Money and Election Integrity00:03:58
One last thing just to respond to what Zach said there is if he wants to talk about influence of dark money, one is while he was in the minority leadership, he took $250,000 from a crypto felon and left the Iowa Democratic Party $200,000 in debt to pay that back.
He also, up until last year, was a director of a dark money pack and even took $10,000 from that pack into his campaign right now.
We are not the same.
Zach is a millionaire.
I am not.
He's taking the salary for his campaign.
I am not.
When he was in leadership, he took $30,000, five times more than any other person in minority leadership.
I didn't even take reimbursement for my gas mileage.
He was the director of a dark money pack.
I've been the director of a nonprofit organization for disabled kids.
We are not the same.
Zach?
Well, it's categorically false.
And look, it's absolutely true that when I was the minority leader, we were the victims of a fraudster and that person was brought to justice.
And that is absolutely what should have happened.
It was a terrible situation.
I would also tell you that when we would talk about the influence of dark money that is currently flooding in to this state, we all know why it is happening.
Senator Schumer is trying to come into Iowa, trying to buy an election to the tune of $6.7 million in climbing.
And the reason, Kay, why this is so frustrating to me is that when we talk about how we can win in this state, we are going to have to be honest with voters about the failures of leaders in both parties.
Because it is leaders of both parties who have failed to pass a farm bill, as Representative Turek earlier said earlier, that happened while Senator Schumer was the majority leader.
It is leaders of both parties who have voted for trade deals, for policies that have been terrible for our economy.
And unless we are honest with voters about the shortcomings of our own National Democratic Party leadership, winning back the voters who this party has lost over the last decade plus is not going to be easy.
And while I appreciate Representative Turek trying to suggest that he's the only person who can win in a state like this, that's simply not the case.
We have seen time and time again that when candidates speak truth to power, the people of Iowa resonate with that.
They trust that vision and they are willing to join a part of be a part of a new coalition that can win in this state.
That's what we're going to do in November.
Final question, a yes or no question.
Do you support term limits and should there be a retirement age for members of Congress?
Zach Walls?
Yes and yes.
I've promised to serve only two terms if elected to the United States Senate.
Josh Turk?
Yes, absolutely.
We need term limits not only to members of Congress, both to the House and to the Senate.
We also need it to the Supreme Court, along with ethics reforms in place.
Term limits, banning members of Congress and their families from trading stocks, and mandating them to hold an annual town hall.
That is one of the best ways we can address the corruption in this country.
We have reached the limit of our hour together on this stage.
Thank you, candidates, for being here and sharing your views.
If you missed any part of this debate, you may watch it online at iowaps.org.
For everyone here at Iowa PBS, thanks for watching today.
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From the campaign trail to election night, follow Campaign 2026 on the C-SPAN networks, C-SPAN, bringing you democracy unfiltered.
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Foreign Investment and Fast Regulations00:05:42
I don't know how anybody can say otherwise.
You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country.
I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices.
You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds.
I absolutely love C-SPAN.
I love to hear both sides.
I've watched every morning and it is unbiased.
And you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments.
It's probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country.
You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions.
Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark.
Up next, remarks by National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, speaking about the state of the U.S. economy and projected economic growth.
He also talks about Trump administration economic policies and notes the influence of artificial intelligence on markets.
This was at an investment summit being held just outside Washington, D.C. Thank you.
Thank you.
It's such an honor and a privilege to be before this fantastic group.
Again, the Gaylord is such a great place for a meeting.
I'm sure you're having a blast.
And there are leading business people from all over the world here.
And that's why it's so important for us at the White House, the elsewhere government.
I know you heard from Howard Luttnick yesterday to meet with you because one of President Trump's top priorities is to encourage foreign investment into the U.S.
And as the director of the National Economic Council, one of my jobs has been to smooth out the process for foreign investment through the CPIAS process.
And if you have someone, if you're a foreign investor who's had to go through the CIPIAS process, you might have noticed that President Trump wanted CFIA's case as resolved in Trump time, and that's happening now.
It's much, much easier for people to invest in the U.S. than it used to be, either through greenfield investment or for acquisitions themselves.
Now, the amount of success that we've had in the last year with the President's leadership and with Howard Leptik's leadership is truly astonishing.
And those of you who know me know that I usually don't bring notes.
I usually just have the things in my head that I want to say.
But I had a long list of things that I wanted to talk to you about, about you, people in this room, and your colleagues.
And it's just a list of the foreign investments that we've booked through negotiation since President Trump took office.
And I'm going to read them all, in part to impress you with how much progress we've made in such a short amount of time, and in part to make you feel, if you haven't invested yet, like you might be a little late to the party, but you're still welcome to come in.
So, TSMC, who you're going to hear from shortly, they announced a $100 billion investment in U.S.-based chip manufacturing.
And I was just told backstage by a representative of TSMC that the correct number now is $160 billion.
Roche, the Swiss drug company and diagnostic company, has announced a $50 billion investment in the U.S.
And we think that's going to create up to 12,000 jobs.
Hyundai has announced a $26 billion U.S.-based investment, including $5.8 billion, for a new steel plant in Louisiana, which is one of the President's top priorities, is to onshore steel production, because you know how important for national security steel is.
Novartis, the Swiss drug maker, has announced a $23 billion investment to build or expand 10 manufacturing facilities across the U.S. UAE-based DAMAC Properties has announced a $20 billion investment in data centers.
France-based CMACGM, a global shipping giant, announced a $20 billion investment in U.S. shipping and logistics.
And that one, each one of these is about this.
That one our Council of Economic Advisors estimates will create instantaneously before Magnifier affects 10,000 jobs.
Nippon Steel has announced a $14 billion investment in U.S. Steel's operations, and they're building a $4 billion new steel mill.
Belgian-based drug maker UCB announced a $5 billion investment in a new U.S.-based factory.
South Korea-based Tanwa Group announced a $5 billion infrastructure investment at the Philadelphia Shipyard.
Again, one of the President's top priorities is making American shipping great again.
Global Wafers, a Taiwanese silicon wafer manufacturer, also a $4 billion investment.
Mitsubishi has announced a $4 billion investment in energy.
I could go on and on, and I just am sorting down to $4 billion, but we could spend the rest of the evening going through all of the onshoring that's happening in the U.S. because the U.S. is the most attractive investment climate in the world right now.
How come this is happening?
I think that it's happening for a number of reasons, but I think that the main reason is that President Trump has told us that we had to make it easy for foreign investors to invest here, and then has told the cabinet agencies that they have to make regulations go fast.
Capital Spending Drives Future GDP00:05:47
And so when we got in, we were told that a new data center would take five years to get perverts.
And we've knocked that down at times to less than a year.
And then finally, we have the great big beautiful bill, which not only expenses equipment purchases, but for four years, the four years that President Trump will be in office, expenses factory builds as well.
And for those of you who follow geeky tax policy, expensing a building is one of the biggest, most effective things you can do to create a race to onshore, to create a race to onshore production here in the U.S.
And so think about it.
If you build a factory in the U.S. today, you get to expense it.
You get to expense the whole thing.
A big multinational firm, you could expense it and take the credits back to wherever you're paying taxes and zero out those taxes.
But if you wait, then it's going to be depreciated over 37 years, 37 and a half, technically.
And so there's a race to get stuff into the U.S. to produce in the U.S.
And I read you some of the names of the companies that have seen that they need to get going and they need to get going fast so that they get the expensing in while the four-year window is open.
And again, to do that, you need to get going now because you've got to get the perverts, you've got to get the building, the construction underway, and so on.
But the effects of all this, I mentioned the individual companies, are super visible in the aggregate data as well.
And I'll give you a couple of tidbits about that.
So in March, we get orders for non-defense capital goods in the U.S.
And it was when I worked at Alan Greenspan back in the 90s, and I was a junior economist at the Fed, it was his favorite indicator because orders aren't GDP.
Shipments are GDP.
And so when you get orders, that it's future GDP.
And so if you want to know, are Americans optimistic about the future?
Well, the typical delivery lag for a capital good order is somewhere, if it's a car, it's about a month.
If it's a truck, it's about a year.
If it's an airplane, it's a couple years.
And so orders are really, really important for telling us the optimism of Americans.
And in March, orders for non-defense capital goods, excluding aircraft, because aircraft are kind of bumpy, were 3.3%.
That's not at an annual rate.
They're up 3.3% for the month.
So if we had more months like that, we'd have a 40 or 50% increase in capital spending in the U.S. for the year, making it potentially the biggest capital spending year in the history of America.
And that was evident as well in the GDP release that we just got that showed that the number one driver for GDP growth, it's a very healthy number, was capital spending.
And the only thing that was a negative, the only thing that was a negative in the data was that all of the things that we're importing are capital goods.
And so the trade deficit went up, but the trade deficit went up because we're importing all the stuff that's going to make future GDP in the U.S.
And so when we look at the quality of capital investment in the U.S., it's unlike anything you've ever seen.
If you look at the quality of imports, the U.S. is now buying machines instead of carnival stuffed animals from China.
And that means that this economy's growth is going to be something that significantly outperforms what we've seen in the first term of the President Trump.
And so with about a minute left, let me say, how should you think about the growth outlook of the U.S.?
Here's how I do it.
There's a new study out that says that artificial intelligence is making everybody do their job more productively.
And it's not costing jobs right now.
In fact, initial claims for unemployment insurance in the U.S. are the lowest they've been since the 1960s.
And so nobody's losing their job.
Everybody's thriving.
AI is creating a productivity boom that's increasing productivity by between 2.5% and 3.5%.
And so what that means is that the U.S. economy is going to grow 2.5% to 3.5% if we don't invest more, if we don't hire more workers, if we get no growth out of capital spending or labor, that we're going to have 2.5% to 3.5% growth.
But our estimate is that capital is going to give us 1.5% to 2%, and labor's going to give us maybe half a percent to a percent.
And so if you remember when the dot-com revolution really got going in the 90s, that we had growth rates in the fives and the sixes.
And we're poised to see that again.
And so the message should be there for that you need to invest now so you can get your expensing there before the window is closed.
And you need to be really, really ambitious and aggressive about how much you invest because you're investing into an economy that really will be one of the best in economic history before the history is written.
So thank you very much for your attention, everybody.
Pentagon Access and Press Restrictions00:06:43
You're watching C-SPAN.
Democracy unfiltered.
You look back on what you've achieved in your life.
What makes you the happiest of what you've achieved so far?
This interview is the absolute apex.
Leaders seem to like to wear wigs.
How come he didn't have a wig?
President Trump said, I made a mistake the first time.
I should have given it to you the first time.
That isn't what he said.
Your first book was called A Time to Kill.
How many publishers turned that down?
Well, all of them.
It's very rare to see Donald Trump laugh.
He doesn't like to smile photos.
He has what they call the stare.
How would the stare?
When you go to the Oscars and everybody say, oh, there's the author.
All the beautiful people go this way.
And then they have another little path in the Oscars where the people like I go.
So you wrote a book about somebody who lived with wolves.
I interviewed a guy who lived with wolves.
Yep.
And is that safe to do that?
Absolutely not.
So I know you were not complaining.
You were opinionated about the situation.
Which is why we love you, David.
Today, former Secretary of State under President Biden Anthony Blinken will speak to the Economic Club of New York.
Watch live coverage beginning at noon Eastern on C-SPAN.
C-SPAN now, our free mobile app, and online at C-SPAN.org.
Welcome back.
We are joined now by Robert Blewy.
He is president and executive editor of the Daily Signal.
Rob, welcome to the program.
Thanks.
It's great to be here today.
So tell us about the Daily Signal and what you focus on and how it came about.
Absolutely.
Well, the Daily Signal focuses on not only covering the institutions here in Washington, D.C., but increasingly state capitals where we've expanded with a state news network.
We aim to focus on the policy debates, primarily those issues that are animating public conversations, much like you do here at C-SPAN.
The Daily Signal was founded in 2014 by the Heritage Foundation, a think tank, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
And there was a frustration at the time, not only I think with conservatives broadly, but specifically at Heritage, that too much of the media coverage ignored some of those big issues like the national debt you were just talking about, right?
There are so many other topics that tend to dominate the news cycle that those issues and debates that happen in places like Congress and the White House don't necessarily get all the attention they deserve.
So Heritage created a news organization to focus on those policy issues.
We've built a team of reporters and commentators to do exactly that.
And so we're available at dailysignal.com or across any social media platform or YouTube to get our videos.
And now are you still associated with the Heritage Foundation or are you separate?
We are not.
And it's interesting pertinent to the topic that we're discussing today.
In 2023, President Joe Biden and his White House changed some of the rules for the requirements to have a press credential at the White House.
And Fred Lucas, who was our White House correspondent at the time, had served in that position under President Obama and President Trump's first term, found himself being kicked out of the White House.
And so we began the process shortly thereafter about spinning off and becoming our own independent entity separate from Heritage because what we heard consistently, not only from the congressional press galleries, but also the White House, is that they were just not going to deem Heritage a news gathering organization.
And so for the Daily Signal to get the access that we felt we needed to cover the institutions in Washington, and I should add the Supreme Court in there as well, this was the step that we took.
And so I'm pleased to report today that we do have reporters who are credentialed in Congress.
We have a reporter who's at the White House, was there yesterday with the president in the Oval Office.
We have reporters who attend Supreme Court oral arguments, and we have reporters occasionally at the Pentagon today.
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the Pentagon specifically because there's been that issue of trying to get them out of their office there at the Pentagon and putting more restrictions on what they're allowed to report and what kind of access they have.
What kind of access do you guys have?
Well, sure.
Well, everything, I feel like everything's a little bit in flux today because of the court decisions and appeals and things that are going through the judicial process.
What happened was last year, Secretary Hagseth put together a memo that he asked all of the correspondents in the Pentagon to sign, agreeing to certain rules for them to be in receipt of a press credential.
Now, the Pentagon, as you indicated, does have a correspondence corridor.
So they have office space.
Media organizations have office space.
They even have studio space as well as a briefing room similar to the White House where they would have those types of engagements with the secretary and other military officials.
Many of those news organizations, in fact, most of those news organizations said, no, we're not going to sign this document.
It put restrictions on their ability to share classified information.
It put restrictions on their movement within the Pentagon building itself.
The Pentagon put an offer out there to other news organizations to see if they would be open to filling some of those spots that were left vacant by other news organizations.
The Daily Signal did sign the document, but that document today is we did.
And I was there on December 1st when they opened it up and the secretary and other Pentagon officials did a media row.
And so we were there in the briefing room for that opportunity.
Now, I should note, though, that a judge has ruled against the Secretary of War in this particular case.
And so what you've seen now, just this week, for instance, Secretary Hagseth had a press briefing, and you saw many of those same news organizations that had been in the Pentagon for years back in the briefing room asking him questions because that policy is not.
What's the situation, Rob, with who gets to ask a question at those Pentagon briefings?
Because I think that there's certain, like everybody's got a seat, and then only certain organizations can ask a question.
Everybody else is going to have to like yell it later once he's done.
Well, that was my experience too, back in December.
I mean, and I think it's probably the experience of anybody who's been to the White House press briefing room.
It's ultimately the prerogative of the president or the press secretary, or in this case, the secretary, to call on the individuals.
I mean, remember, Joe Biden famously had the list of reporters that was pre-screened for who he was going to call on.
So I don't think it's a Republican or Democrat thing.
I think it's more of a control thing that if you're a politician or a political leader, you have a certain type of reporter that you're looking to call on.
Now, sometimes, I will say, they like the adversarial nature of those conversations.
He will specifically call on somebody from NBC News, for instance, whom he might think asks a provocative question where he can be a little bit more combative.
And we've seen that in the past.
Presidential Media Control Tactics00:12:29
All right, so here's something I want to show you, and I want your reaction to it, because this is from the Pentagon briefing yesterday.
It's a Newsmax reporter who is typically very friendly to the Trump administration.
And here's the exchange, and then we'll talk about it.
I want to first express my gratitude and admiration for the work you do and for everyone involved in our armed forces, and also for the accomplishments of Operation Epic Fury, which I think are too often dismissed too lightly.
But those accomplishments don't obscure, I think, a central default that has occurred here, and I would like you both to address it.
On the first day of this conflict, President Trump addressed the Iranian people directly and said, when we're finished, take over your government.
It'll be yours to take.
And then on the seventh day of the conflict, in a Truth Social post, the President said, quote, there will be no deal with Iran except all CAPS exclamation mark, unconditional surrender.
What happens to that pledge to the Iranians?
And when did the president decide to capitulate on his demand for unconditional surrender?
James, I wouldn't.
I wouldn't.
You started out nicely, but you ended exactly where we knew you would end.
The president hasn't capitulated on anything.
He holds the cards.
We maintain the upper hand, and Project Freedom only strengthens that hand.
And so he will ensure that whatever deal is made or whatever end state is reached creates ensuring that Iran never has a nuclear weapon, which is A number one, and he's been focused on that, and the deal and discussions are centered on that.
And what the Iranian people take advantage of after the fact is up to them.
And he's been very clear about that.
And maybe you do it now, maybe it happens later, but ultimately he's also been clear, we're not going to entangle this into some nation-building project.
Our objectives are clear.
They've been pursued from day one.
Hopefully the Iranian people take advantage of that because they're being taken advantage of by this regime.
As you know, 45,000 Iranians, innocent Iranians, killed before the outset of this.
That's what this government does, kills their own innocent civilians.
Getting out from underneath that is going to be a challenge of the Iranian people, and we certainly hope they take advantage of that.
Thank you.
Robert Bluey, were you surprised when you heard a Newsmax reporter say, ask the question, when did the president decide to capitulate?
Not necessarily.
I know the reporter in question, James.
I mean, he asked tough questions.
He asked them of Republicans and Democrats, and I'm not surprised that he would in this particular case.
Newsmax, I should note, also was one of the news organizations that refused to sign the memo that the secretary had put out last year because they felt that it had gone too far.
And so I can't say that this particular instance surprised me.
I think it may surprise viewers more broadly, though, because you typically would find, you would typically expect, I think, a conservative-leaning news organization to be perhaps a little bit more friendly to the Trump administration.
But I think it's the same reason why when we go into these conversations, whether it be a press conference on Capitol Hill with Speaker Johnson or Leader Thune, or a press briefing with the White House, that sometimes there is going to be conflict.
Conservative media does not necessarily subscribe to all of the Republican policies.
Remember, conservatives oftentimes say they are the ones who are holding a certain line of principles.
And when they believe that the either Trump administration or a Republican politician is in violation of those, it's their responsibility to ask those tough questions.
If you'd like to join the conversation with Robert Bluey, he is executive editor and president of the Daily Signal.
You can start calling in now.
Democrats are on 202-748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
President Trump has filed several lawsuits against news organizations.
Some of them have been dismissed.
Some of them have been settled.
What do you make of that?
And do you think that that in the end helps the American people or harms the American people?
It's a good question.
And it's one of the things that sets this president apart from his predecessors, who in many cases didn't take that step.
There was frustration, obviously.
You can go back to the founding of this country between a president and the press and their concerns about bias or unfair coverage.
I think this president probably has endured his share of attacks from the press that have pushed him to this point where he does feel he needs to take up these cases in a court of law.
As you indicated, it's ultimately going to be decided by a judge.
And in some cases, the president has successfully been able to get some of these companies to settle out of court.
They'd rather not go through the discovery process and have a lawsuit drag out.
And so CBS or ABC will decide that they'll do a multi-million dollar settlement with the president and make a donation to one of his causes.
In other cases, you're correct.
He's lost on these grounds.
We were just talking about the Pentagon case where news organizations sued the Pentagon.
And so ultimately, I don't think it poses the threat to the First Amendment or freedom of speech because I look at this administration, and I just gave you the example of what we endured during the Biden years, which I didn't feel received nearly the kind of coverage that it should have from the press when here was a presidential administration revoking the credentials of 442 White House correspondents, and it was a story that really flew under the radar.
Here you have a presidential corporation.
And that was revoked.
Why was that?
Because you were part of the Heritage Foundation and not considered a news organization?
They revoke the credentials of White House correspondents who did not have as a prerequisite a congressional press credential.
So anybody who was not previously credentialed by Congress, and Congress has a number of press galleries controlled by journalists who determine who gets access to the U.S. Capitol, if you did not have that as a prerequisite, the White House said you were going to get the boot out of their briefing room.
And so that's one of the things that we did to rectify our situation.
We said, okay, we're going to first get the congressional credential.
It worked out in our case, but in other cases, there were people.
There was a reporter, Simon Atiba from Today News Africa, for instance, who often clashed with Karine Jean-Pierre, who ended up suing the Biden administration in court over the loss of his credential.
And so I think that there are always going to be those tensions.
I agree with you that President Trump has taken it to a new level, but I also think, and it's evident even just this week in the case of the Pulitzer Prize Awards, they tend to highlight and amplify an anti-Trump agenda at every opportunity.
Are you salty about not getting the Pulitzer nomination?
Conservatives created their own awards, by the way, to counter the Pulitzer.
So it's quite interesting.
Well, so the FCC has threatened, though, to revoke licenses of broadcast networks that the president has complained about being critical of the Iran war.
What do you think of that?
And should broadcasters be limited in their coverage?
Well, the FCC chairman Brendan Carr has said that part of the responsibility, particularly of an ABC, NBC, or CBS, who do have these broadcast licenses that's different from cable news, just to distinguish, obviously, they have a certain responsibility in the public interest to tell the truth and be held to a higher standard.
And so ultimately, I don't know if those are going to be successful.
I would imagine those networks would challenge them in court, right?
But I think that what you've seen, the two big disputes that have come up were the one last year in the case of ABC and Jimmy Kimmel, and then more recently in just days before the White House correspondence dinner.
And so I think that Brendan Carr is trying to, on the one hand, send a signal that you need to take your responsibility more seriously.
And joking about harming an individual like the president can lead to ramifications.
In fact, there was a poll out just in the last few days that the American people do believe that the media has an influence in terms of how people think about violence in our society and whether or not they do take it to that next extreme.
So I do think all of us who work in media need to keep that in mind, that the actions that we take and the coverage that we provide does have consequences for our audience.
And just to clarify, Jimmy Kimmel says that he was not joking about someone harming the president, but the age difference between the president and the first person.
So let's talk to viewers now.
Let's start with Thomas, Daytona Beach, Florida, Independent.
Good morning, Thomas.
You're on with Robert Blewy.
Yeah, good morning.
My question to him is, he sits up there right now, smiling all the time and talking about open, free press.
We don't have an open, free press, and our president is acting more like a dictator than a president.
Are you going to be happy when you get to have to salute him?
Is that your goal?
I mean, why do you think that he's becoming a dictator?
Spell that out for us.
Well, I mean, you start a war and you don't even ask.
You tear half of the White House down and you don't ask a damn soul.
And now you don't even want to go in front of Congress to ask them for money so you can carry the war that you started by yourself on.
Things he is doing is things that dictators have done in the past.
Want to be fascists or an authoritarian leader?
I hate to tell you, pal, but you know, you're in the United States of America.
We elect presidents, not dictators.
All right.
Let's get a response.
And there will be obviously an election coming up in November where there will be members of Congress from the House and the Senate up for election.
And in each of those cases, I think this issue could be a referendum in which voters decide to send a clear message to the president.
So we do in this country, President Trump, a lot of people said, would not leave the White House after in 2020.
Obviously, he did.
There was a peaceful transition of power between Joe Biden and President Trump, just as there has been going all the way back to the founding of our country.
So I do think some of the concerns are a bit overblown.
I will say that conservatives have been some of the most critical of President Trump.
I mean, there's been a real divide among the Make America Great, again, movement when it comes to his decisions on Iran.
In fact, Daily Signal reporter Elizabeth Mitchell, who was at the White House yesterday, asked the president about that clip, comment related to the clip you played about Secretary Hegseth.
What are you going to, you've talked about the importance of giving the Iranian people an opportunity to have this uprising.
And she asked him if he was going to provide arms and give them maybe the means to do so.
And so I think that conservatives do ask critical questions of the president.
And in fact, it was, I think, just last week that the White House rapid response account criticized Elizabeth and the Daily Signal, along with a whole bunch of other reporters.
And so there's going to be tension, even with conservative media and this administration.
And just as there was when I was a reporter covering the Bush administration in the 2000s.
And so that's just the nature of how the news media and political leaders operate.
Rob, are you comfortable sharing your opinions on the Iran war with us?
Sure.
I mean, we cover the story.
So, I mean, I personally think that the president does have some political risk here.
I think, as successful militarily as the war has been in terms of taking out Iran's capabilities, there are political consequences here in the United States that could have coverage on C-SPAN.
And that is starting to have real repercussions of course.