will talk about the white house news of the day and the week ahead. and oren will talk about his new book and president trump's tariffs agenda. c-span's "washington journal." join the conversation live 7:00 eastern on monday morning on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. >> tonight on c-span's "q&a," jason riley argues that the racial preference policies of the 1960's and 1970's have had an overall negative impact on the success of black americans. >> there are racial differences in america, in our society, cultural differences, ethnic differences. but when it comes to public

policy and how the government treats us, treats the population, no, it should not be picking winners and losers based on race or treating people differently based on race. it has been a disaster. whether the effort was under jim crow to elevate whites or the effort was under racial preferences to elevate nonwhites. it has been a disaster. people like to say diversity is our strength in america, but i disagree. our real strength in this country has been to overcome our racial and ethnic differences and focus on what unites us as a country. that is the strength of america. >> jason riley with his book tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." you can listen to all of our podcasts on our free c-span now app.

♪ host: good morning. it is sunday, june 1, 2025. we are in the midst of graduation season, with colleges and universities sending their new alums into the workforce. but the political debate continues over how america's institutions of higher education are funded, run, and who gets to attend, with the trump administration pulling grants

and funding from certain schools as well as limiting access to foreign students. do you support president trump taking on higher education? our line for republicans is (202) 748-8001. for democrats, (202) 748-8000. for independents, (202) 748-8002 . if you would like to text us, that number is (202) 748-8003. please be sure to include your name and where you are writing in from. we are also on social media, at facebook.com/cspan and on x at @cspanwj. the ap had polling in may finding most americans disapprove of trump's treatment of colleges, finding that a majority of u.s. adults disapprove of president trump's handling of issues related to colleges and universities, according to a new poll, as his

administration ramped up threats to cut federal funding unless schools comply with his political agenda. more than half of americans, 56% , disapprove of the republican president's approach on higher education, while about 4 in 10 approve, in line with his job approval. since taking office in january, trump has tried to force change at universities he says have become hotbeds of liberalism and anti-semitism. the spotlight most recently has been on harvard university, where trump's administration has frozen more than 2.2 billion dollars in federal grants, threatened to strip the school's tax exempt status, and amended broad policy changes. the trump administration has also cut off money to other elite colleges, including columbia university, the university of pennsylvania, and cornell university, over issues including the handling of

pro-palestinian academic -- activism and transgender athletes' participation in women's sports. harvard has framed the government's demands as a threat to the autonomy of the supreme court has long granted american universities. additional polling has been done over time by gallup, checking americans' confidence in higher education. this full from last july found 36% of americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in u.s. higher education, 32% having some confidence, 32% having little or no confidence. breaking that down further in the category of those who had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in u.s. higher education, has declined over time, with 36% having a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in 2024 versus 57% in 2015. eaking the numbers further by

clinical party, republicans, 20% have a great deal or quite a lot of cnce compared that have little or no confidence in hard -- education. compared to 56% of democrats who had a great deal or quite a lot versus 12% with little or no confidence. among independents, 35% had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence versus 31% having little or none. going back to the topic of harvard in particular, a federal judge on thursday extended an order blocking trump administration's ban on foreign students at harvard. a federal judge thursday extended the order blocking the trump administration's attempt to bar harvard university from enrolling foreign students. u.s. district judge allison burroughs extended the block she imposed last week with a temporary restraining order, which allows the ivy league

school to continue enrolling national students as a lawsuit proceeds. harvard sued the federal government friday after the department of homeland security secretary kristi noem revoked its ability to host foreign students at its campus in cambridge, massachusetts. harvard's president was on npr's "morning edition" last week. here's a portion. [video clip] >> when people have views that they think are unpopular and the initiation and others have said conservatives are too few on campus and their views are not welcome. so far is that's true, that is a problem we really need to address. >> is it true? >> i think we have heard from some people that they do feel that way, so we certainly need to address that. and that means changing views in the community, making diverse viewpoints more welcome. it includes skills in speaking as well as skills in listening.

so the federal government has referred to some of these areas. as i said, we agree that some of these problems we absolutely need to address. what is perplexing is the measures that they have taken to address these. they don't even admit the same people they say are causing problems. why cut research funding? sure, it hurts harvard, but it hurts the country. after all, the research funding is not a gift. the research funding is given to universities and other research institutions to carry out work that -- research work -- that the federal government designate as high priority work. it is work they want done. they are paying to have at work conducted. shutting off at work does not help the country, even as it punishes harvard.

it is hard to see the link between that and, say, antisemitism. host: president trump defended his decision to stop international student enrollment at harvard university last friday. here is a portion of his comments. [video clip] >> are you considering stopping other universities aside from harvard from accepting foreign students? >> we will take a look at a lot of things. as you know, billions of dollars have been paid to harvard. how ridiculous is that? billions. they have $52 billion as an endowment. they have $52 billion. this country is paying billions and billions of dollars and then give student loans and they have to pay back the loans. harvard will have to change its ways. so are some others. >> on that note, a lot of ceos in the united states, big companies, our foreign. -- are foreign. what is that going to --

>> i am fine with it. we will actually be doing something in the near future that will make it possible for people to come into this country and come in and have a road toward citizenship. i think it will be very exciting. but it is too soon to speak of it. >> why do not want the best and brightest from around the world succumb? >> i do. a lot of the people need remedial math. where the students can't add 2 and 2, and they go to harvard. they want remedial math and will teach remedial math. why can somebody who can't add or has very basic skills, how do they get into harvard? then you see those same people picketing and screaming at the united states and screaming at -- "they're anti-semitic" or something. one harvard comes out with a statement that they will teach some of these students remedial

math, that's basic math, that's not the deal. host: our oppression this morning, do you support president trump taking on higher education -- our conversation this morning, do you support president trump taking on higher education? republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. let's start with flute on our line for democrats. caller: thank you for taking my call. first of all, june 1, happy birthday, son. when it comes to trump taking on education, there is no way all that money should be pumped into one university, harvard. spread that money around. put the money into some hsbc -- that money can be spent other

ways and can be spent better than building up foreign students to come here, and once they get their credentials and degrees, they take that back overseas. we need to develop the people right here in our country, and it should start at the undergraduate level. all that research and funding goes to the graduate level. but you have people in the undergraduate level here in the united states who are seeking higher education and either cannot afford it or they do not see the benefit of going into debt and when they graduate they have a degree they cannot really market. and the diversity needs to be more diverse. they need to spread the money around. there is no way that only harvard university, with the presidents and financial resources i've had in the past that they should receive that much money from the government. we need to go back to concentrating on our own. university has always been a spot for political change, even back to the 1960's.

i remember the black panthers at the colleges at los angeles. so college has always been a testing pool and a micromanagement of the united states. but where we are going now, you eliminate the department of education, i think he is doing a restructuring, and i think he is on the right path. let's go state to state and let's not always have things written in stone that harvard will always get this money or some private intrusions will always get these big funds and leave everyone else behind. at least he is making some type of change. i do not think all that money should go to foreign students. let's concentrate on students in our home land -- host: so you mentioned the federal grants going to colleges and universities. usa facts has some data they gathered on how universities spend billions in funds. in fy 2023, the federal

government provided nearly $60 billion to support research and development efforts at universities. aside from student financial aid, the federal government funds universities with grants and contracts. one major way universities use this funding is for research and development. in fy 2023, federal dollars supported $59.6 billion of university research and of element expenses. the fields that received the most funding were life sciences and engineering. let's look at what that breaks down. life-sciences received more than half of federal research and development funding in 2020 three. after that is engineering, then physical sciences, geosciences, atmospheric sciences, ocean sciences, computer information sciences, and then other fields beyond that. let's hear from joel in arkansas on our line for republican -- excuse me, in arizona on our line for republicans. good morning.

caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i got a couple questions. it is mind-boggling to me that these judges appointed by the democrat party can stop our president. they did not stop joe biden when he was in office, allowing millions of people coming into our country. and another thing i just want to say right quick, we let these foreigners come here pregnant, have their child, and they become citizens automatically. but yet when jimmy carter was in office, he wouldn't let the cubans come here pregnant and have their child -- host: now how do you feel about president trump's actions related to colleges and universities and higher education? caller: i really think -- i

really feel that the colleges are just taking advantage of these people. you don't have to have a college education in this country. you can go to trade school. now, i want to trade school and everything. i'm retired, i'm 83, and i had a very good income. and trump, i don't know why the man wants to take this pain and everything. he don't need the money. i don't understand why everyone's beating up on him. he's the only one who ever tried to stop this terrorist business. we've been paying germany, japan, all these countries we rebuild after world war ii. now, germany, they were charging us, i believe i just read somewhere, they were charging

40% of something for our ford chevrolets to be sold in their country. but when we bought a car from them, we were paying an ungodly amount. we were just gullible. the american people are gullible. i don't have but a few years, maybe, and i'm leaving this devil's playground. this earth is the devil's playground. host: democratic congressman jamie raskin, an alum of harvard law school, spoke out against the president's actions targeting the school. [video clip] >> it is definitely unconstitutional, because it was in retaliation for harvard rejecting the last round of unconstitutional attacks on its autonomy. when donald trump essentially said the federal government of the united states was going to take over their admissions process, take over their faculty hiring process, take over their

curriculum, harvard just said that is a bridge too far, no way. they stood up, and that was something cheered by colleges and universities across the country to have the oldest and wealthiest university say they were going to use their resources to reject that. in return, donald trump is trying to exact retaliation again by taking it out on 7000 students from other countries, forcing them to completely change their plans, turning their lives upside down, stripping harvard of a students. i was not surprised a federal district court in boston entered a temporary restraining order on the way to the argument about a polo -- about an injunction. this is a completely lawless situation. the administration does not get to control higher education in america and tell colleges and universities what to do. they don't get to control newspaper entities and tv networks the way donald trump has been trying to do. they don't get to control law

firms or any other private entity. they are trying to move us into an authoritarian situation so he can continue to embark on his corruption tour of the world. the guy has made more than $1 billion a month since this started. incidentally, last night, had all of these people who wore participating in his new crypto -- who were participating in his new crypto scam, that each gave more than $1 million to go to dinner with the president and rub elbows with powerbrokers in washington can a lot of those people were neo-nazis and anti-semites who bought their way in. clearly, anti-semitism is a pretext for his takeover of higher education in the country. host: the response from the white house was reported in thehill.com with, the white house slammed raskin saturday, stating harvard is facing consequences for its actions.

jamie raskin has zero credibility left after he successfully launched one liberal hoax after another against president trump, the white house spokesperson told the hill. harvard has turned into a hotbed for anti-american, anti-semitic, pro-terrorist agitators that put american students at risk, she continued. they have repeatedly failed to address the serious issues plaguing their campus. in response to our qstion to you all, via text, timbo from arkansas says lack maingnd strong-arming are not higher education policies. it is akin to a protection raet, so i do not support president trump's higher education picy at all. john in ventura, california says colleges raised their prices beusof student loans. colleges are failing to educe. and ruling anti-semitic foreign students is not diversity,

especially when they threaten jews. trump is correct grant says on x, i do't like trump, butes i wish the focus was on endi the student loan program. 's a debt trap for teenagers, has caused tremendous admission rate of bloat, and skyrocketed tuition prices to an egregious level. dr. your calls. linda is from mississippi. linda, go ahead. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i do not agree with trump. he should take a course at harvard himself. he is just trying to bully education. he is trying to tap down the federal courts. by the way, people, there are three branches, equal, co-branches of government, executive, judicial, and

legislature. equal branches, equal to the executive. trump is just on his vindictive, retribution tour. he hates for someone to push back on him. he's just a bully. and when you push back, he pushes hard. he's drunk with power. and hwen he takes those grants from harvard -- and when he takes those grants from harvard and other universities, it handicaps america. those people that called in agreeing with him, research for cancer, cutting medicaid, those people have got grandmothers in

their home getting ready to make room for them, because nursing homes run off of medicaid and medicare. trump is wrong, and everyone knows it. and, maga folks, if you can't believe anything but what trump tells you, wake up. you're in a cult. thank you. host: she mentioned some of the grants. here's a story from abc news. at least 350 harvard radical grants were terminated by the trump administration. here are some of them. amid the trump administration's battle with harvard university, hundreds of grants worth millions of dollars or medical research have been canceled. if you scroll down, it says at least three hundred 50 grants from the national institutes of health, the national science foundation, and elsewhere have been canceled at harvard medical school, excluding the school of public health and the school of engineering, a harvard

university faculty source told abc news. harvard has said the loss of research funding has interrupted work on topics including tuberculosis, chemotherapy, pandemic preparedness, parkinson's disease, and alzheimer's disease. the school also said the administration's threats endangered its educational mission. the trump administration did not immediately reply to abc's request for comment. this includes research for studying antibiotic resistance, and edifying the cause -- the earliest precursors of breast cancer, breaking barriers to deliver effective drugs for all timers, studying microbial evolution and researching cures for als. scientists that harvard say the cancellations of research grants are collateral damage. bob is on our line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning.

the first time he ran for president, i voted for him. but the second time, i didn't. they came more of an independent. i call him the wannabe little dictator. what he is doing now, especially with the grants, he is upset. remember the university he had, trump university. what a disaster. he's a bully in many ways, like other people have spoken or said about it. he is doing the same thing again. the other thing, in reference to deportations, he is totally off base on that. i've been around quite a while. matter of fact, i used to call you guys quite a while when i lived in nevada. he's going in the wrong direction. the problem is the republicans

are afraid, he is, are afraid of him. i feel, if they had a vote right now, from the people, to impeach him, he would be impeached. by the people, not by the republicans or democrats, but by the people. he's totally out of line. i feel like it is an insult to america what he is doing, especially the tariffs. and what's he's doing with the united states of america -- host: we have got your idea. let's hear from kent in illinois, our line for republicans. caller: good morning. for so many years, this has been a terrible problem in america, that these colleges have become just a hotbed for anti-american activities and anti-semitism. the idea that somehow, people

like us, who have looked at this for the last 50 years and said, why in the world are our colleges overrun with chinese students? and then people out there east, wrapping their heads in towels and stuff so we can't see them and taking over college campuses. thank god for donald trump. people say we're in a cult. i'm a vietnam vet, three times. i drive through iowa city, and there are all these chinese, vietnamese, every kind of student out there, and we are allowing them to take this education back to countries that don't like us. why are we not revoking these visas for kids that are breaking our laws? the idea that, somehow, the people that support trump are in

a cult? lady, how can you be so stupid? a cult would be like supporting the democrats blindly while they let millions and millions of people come into this country and change the paradigm. and the kind -- and the democrats are too stupid and too dumb to say this is wrong. a democrat will support even dirt if the rest of the democrat party says this is what we should do. that's what a cult is, lady. the millions and billions of people that voted for donald trump, and the god almighty that saved him when he took a bullet in the head for this country, and then you people start -- host: so you mentioned the foreign students at american universities. here's a story in the independent, british newspaper, that japan has joined china in trying to lure foreign students from the u.s. after trump's visa

crackdown. a growing number of asian universities are offering students transfer opportunities after the u.s. moved to restrict enrollment. japan asked its universities to consider accepting international students affected by the donald trump administration's decision to block harvard from enrolling foreigners. toshiko abe, the education minister, asked universities nationwide to report, within a week, possible support measures for both japanese and international students affected by the trump administration's move to restrict foreign enrollment at harvard. a few days ago, china extended unconditional offers to foreign students at harvard after the u.s. government revoked the university's certification to enroll international students, effectively forcing thousands of them to transfer to other colleges or face losing legal status in the u.s. there is an ongoing legal challenge to that case, of course. john in new jersey on our line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning.

a couple of your callers have already made some of the points i wanted to make. i can only add to that, to what's already been said, by pointing out that although harvard is a fantastic school, it does great research, those points have been made, that is what the money goes to. there are a lot of university staffed with faculties who are graduates of harvard. so you can go to a much less expensive university and get taught by harvard grads. and one more point about harvard or any other university being a hotbed of liberalism, i found the opposite. i found there's nothing a faculty member, universities i

attended, then to prove his colleague in his department is wrong about something. they are in competition for money, typically. so i think there is a picture of college faculties and what they teach and it is completely out of line with what i've seen, at the university i was educated in and the university at which i was a faculty member. that's it. host: barbara in georgia on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: what i want to say is we do have freedom of speech. and i think we are going down a dark road, when we stop people from having freedom of speech. and i also think that trump --

about the deficit and about the people being over here from these other countries. these people pay taxes when they do come over here and work. also, trump hasn't say anything at all about the deficit. and then -- that is like a dictatorship. i think he is running it like a dictatorship. i voted for him this man is mentally sick. thank you. host: eric in las vegas on the line for republicans. caller: good morning. first, you're an unbelievable moderator. maybe if i could just start by

saying i might not be clear eyed in the way i see it as a college graduate, it's -- i don't see how the executive branch -- let me say this too. i love a lot of the thing that is donald trump has done. but then there are things that he's done that really make me cringe. like the executive branch or exhibiting pressure, bringing pressure on the university system of the united states such that federal funds are going to be withheld if you go against my agenda. how can you even say that as americans? i mean, we have to i believe, in my opinion, i believe that we have to call balls and strikes. there are things that he has done that are great, there are

things that he has done that essentially he's left in my opinion. and anyone that comes on and i've heard a lot of the speakers, it seems like he's a mess eya and he can't do no wrong. and i believe that you should look at yourself and say really wrong. and i believe that you should look at yourself and say really? host: ledcation secretary mcman was on capitol hill and asked about the administration's crackdown on anti-semitism in universities and colleges. here's a portion of her answer. >> we've seen it across our college, some of the most elite in the country. and we took very strong and very decisive action against those universities who clearly were not protecting jewish students against anti-semitism those that

were attacking them. when you've seen students barricaded in library and others pounding on the glass going death to jews, death to israel, death to united states, that is unacceptable in our college campuses and we reacted. we reacted to columbia. this incident happened at columbia. and i met with the president of columbia. i've had two conversations now with the current president of columbia. we've talked about things that we need to do at those universities. we want to be able to be supportive. those universities although private do receive federal funding. we have leverage to withhold some of the federal funding or cancel some of the grants and we will do that unless it can be proven that these colleges and universities are going to respect all rights and set their policy in place and enforce

them. and i was complimentary to the acting president at columbia when i talked to her last week and i said you reacted just as you said you would to the recent uprising on campus. you are looking at whether or not you've expended students or are you -- suspended students, are you going to expel them? and that's still what she's looking at. so we've seen that kind of action can deliver results. host: columbia university's acting president was booed when noting the absence of activist cal legal in the commencement speech at that university. the columbia graduate student was supposed to attend and instead he's in immigration detention caught up in trump's crackdown on foreign students. here is a moment in that commencement.

>> we welcome the acting president of the university. claire shipman. >> welcome to columbia on this momentous occasion, this celebration of our 271st academic area. and let me also say that we firmly believe that our international students have the same rights to freedom of speech as everyone else and they should not be targeted by the government for exercising that right. and let me also say that i know many in our community today are mourning the absence of our graduate khalil. you have closed the books for now and humanity beckens.

thank you and congratulations class of 2025. host: back to your call. do you support trump taking on higher education? next up we have jean on our line for independents. caller: good morning. i would like to mention a couple things. i've been watching this saga for the last two weeks with harvard around as someone who has worked in a research and academic university research unit, i think you're going to find that the majority of people don't really understand how universities and how these research units actually operate. first thing you need to stop thinking of these universities as these noble institutions of learning. they are businesses, not for profit. but if you're a dean making over $1 million a year you bet it's for profit. what are known as r-1s, research

1 institutions which are considered top research units. if you are a researcher there or even a professor, you'd better bring in the research money and the university takes up to 68% of every grant you bring in. in other words, so while you're hearing the harvard administration getting all upset claiming our research is going to be starved off, everybody is going to die of cancer, what they're not telling you is the administration is upset because the gravy train that basically is helping pay that million dollars to the dean is being cut off. we need to stop -- that's one of the reasons also why we see much more foreign students because why? they pay double the tuition. universities are businesses and i think we need to start looking at that a little closer and understand better how they work. i know this is a bit of a wet

blanket on this but that's actually how they work. you would be amazed at how much research money comes in to a university that's paid for by a private sector, and you're actually told this is the results we want. and of course we had one that actually, at the university unit i was associated with, we did some ground-breaking study looking at texting while driving. it changed policy across the country. but a year later we had the cell phone industry organization come to us and want us to do another research study actually counter acting what the original findings and they had 1.1 million reasons for the administration to want us to do it. i don't want to go on and on here but i think it's something we really need to understand just what these universities really are and how the finances

really work. host: tony in illinois on our line for democrats. caller: good morning. i do not support donald trump going after higher education. most of the people that are talking are people that are going after are uneducated people that are supporters of donald trump that are going after the people and are going after the antisemites, i should say, that are in fact going after some of the colleges that are participating in the anti-semite situations. that's all i have to say. host: rich in ohio on our line for republicans. caller: a lot of interesting

points. the problem is that we are educating criminals and all we do is get an educated criminal coming out of there. host: i want to let you finish your point but could you turn down the volume on your tv, please. caller: yeah. and just have educated criminals. one is 9/11. they learned how to do civil engineering and then blow down a building where it was weak. the other thing is we want to help other countries and we do to get them up to speed. we let china be a developing country and they're far from that and giving them a lot of advantages over us. and we try to help other countries but then they figure ways to blow us up. it's really a hard way to do it to try to be nice to them and to give them leads. the one problem we do have is u.s. is forgetting all the things that they did right and these other countries are

picking up on it. there's no reason to educate a criminal just to have the bigger educated criminal. host: anton, good morning. caller: good morning. first the education secretary who discussed how the students barricaded themselves in a library and that wasn't going to be allowed on campuses. does everybody forget january 6th where everybody was chanting hang mike pence? that's my first point. number two, when you look at the columbia university supporting free speech, which takes me back all the way to the 60s with mario savio oth berkeley campus for this freedom o

speech movement, how many years ago was that? and whenoueal with this higher educationertaining to religion, i believe the evangelists were the ones that supported donald trump in his first election and they're supposed -- any religiousro that supports politics should be losing tir tax exempt status. isn't anybody paying attention to this reality? host: carol in massachusetts on r ne for republicans. od morning. caller: good morning. and thanyoforaking my call. agree with president trump to put some -- host: n ask you to turn down the volume on your tv and then please continue. caller: certainly. i'm rr i thought i did. i agree with president trump about limiting the amount of money we're giving to these colleges. first of all, i'm going to kind

of repeat some of the things that other people have said. a lot of of our colleges including harvard are bloated with money. they have lots of money. also the professors in the colleges themselves have a lot of money to spend on themselves and their retirement and their pleasure and their benefits that they get. they are also teaching courses that are not really good basic courses that people need to know. just as we talk about in elementary and high school and other colleges. the foreign students come over come over here, learn our way of life, and not use it against us. if it's as far as freedom of speech is concerned. if the people want to russia or china and their aggressive president or. or their way of life or their government, they would be punished. they would be censored and not allowed in that country. we have to much freedom of speech. we're actually too limited. and if they do not like this

country and our way of life, then please don't come here. but i think that they're coming to use our to get the benefit of what our knowledge or our knowledge base is. and then come back and then use it in a way that benefits themselves and their own country and not. so i and i agree with president trump giving more money to these trade schools and take away or bloated with these words loaded with that that group of people that educate know level. they're actually having a hard time getting a job. but we need lots of money in trade schools. so i agree with president trump of what it is trying to do. thank you very much. barbara is in nazareth, kentucky, on our line for independence. good morning, barbara. barbara? yes, we can't hear you very well, but go ahead with your point.

okay. can you hear me better now? yes, i can hear you better now. what do you think? we have damage u.s. here for some reason. yes. as a former person just said, i agree with president trump that getting into this information and find out what's going on with the colleges, you high class colleges, uh, why should we bring all these people from these foreign countries, bring them over here, educate them with our taxpayers money when some of our taxpayers, their own children, do not have the money or to afford to go to college or have to run up a big bill to be able to get a better education. and you're sitting there, bill, doling out all this money to foreigners that don't contribute anything back to this country. they use our money from hard working people out here that

have children. i mean, this is ridiculous. and they keep let them come in and come in and come in. they need to stop it. it needs to stop right now. there's a lot of foreigners in this country for the next 50 years. okay. there is a group that tracks international students and their economic contribution and or their economic value that called nafisa. and they've done multiple studies looking at the economic impact of foreign students in the united states. and their latest analysis finds that international students studying at u.s. colleges and universities contributed $43.8 billion and supported 378,175 jobs to the u.s. economy during the 2023 2024 academic year and the nasa partners with g international could conduct the annual state by state and

congressional district analysis of the economic contributions of international students and their families to the u.s. economy. the economic contributions of international students are in addition to the immeasurable academic and cultural value these students bring to our campuses and local communities. and this is a chart looking at their estimate of the economic contribution of these students over time from 2013, all the way up to 2023, with the number of jobs being represented here on the blue line going up a dipping a bit around the pandemic. but going back up and similar to the number of students and the economic benefit, according to their analysis. next up is audrey in richmond, virginia, on our line for democrats. good morning, audrey. good morning. hi, good morning. i had lost my first time, really trying to call in, but i am just so upset with what trump is doing with the candidate. we had the breadth and the

brightest and those university that have he a library research which i have here. a lot of people and i know what trump is really doing. he's trying to destroy in america defeat and he is tired of at the beginning, when he first got in office, even the first time he had an idea of what he was going to do. and now he is attacking the college is with the best. the best and the brightest students and this is where i really, really needed to go to college and to express my opinion. the democratic party has done great things, but he has got now the whole republican party backing him with all of that stuff that he's doing to try to tear down america and the independent state. chris is in annapolis, maryland,

on our line for republicans. good morning, chris. yes, hi there, chris. go ahead. yeah, finish the sentence and viewpoints i've been listening to and it's a very calling to say that this will be interesting because i am a highly educated i have a master's in history and theology. so i studied really i was well versed in studies away in college. you know, most was it agrees that people go into they do complete so they're not being brought because colleges are it's about money for the colleges and the fact when is free speech heat on people's right to education. you know i am completely against the entry segment so much as my husband has been preaching at all ivy league because there are elitist. and being from california, the

you know, i know i've seen all this how terrible democrats are screwed everything up. you know they've made people forget that liberals have taken over colleges since the eighties, which is chris mentioned the being from california. and there's a story here in the hill that the university of california system is now a trump administration target with the articles saying that leo terrell, senior counsel at the department of justice and head of its antisemitism tax task force, singled out the university of california system tuesday as the next target of the trump administration, saying there will be massive lawsuits against the u.s. system and other colleges on the east coast, on the west coast, in the midwest, harrell said in an interview on fox news's the faulkner focus. expect hate crime charges filed by the federal government. expect title seven lawsuits

excuse me. and then the title 12 lawsuits. excuse me. the hill has reached out to u.s. for comment. it's the first indication of where the trump administration may move next in its higher education fight after escalating its battle with harvard university to extreme heights, president trump has taken almost $3 billion in funding from harvard, threatening $3 billion more, wants to take away the university's ability to have foreign students on campus and has threatened its tax exempt status. david is in san francisco on our line for independence. good morning, david. oh, yeah, more than i. we when you start looking at the idea that doge was pretending that they were dealing with cost effectiveness, with efficiency, and one of the first things they did was to take take away telephone ins from social security. i'm calling you from 3000 miles away and 150 years ago, the

telephone was invented and it's pretty official to me to be sitting here without my shoes on and talking to the rest of the world. david, you have thoughts on president trump's taking on higher education? yes. and what i'm trying to say is ignorance is expensive. and when you look at the idea that these phonies are going to claim that destroying and education system is an act of efficiency, they're they're lying phonies. donald trump is organized crime. he's been organized crime for 50 years. and he's he can't afford to have the evidence against him be portrayed, be a stored up and put into a universities and just disseminate it. and the idea that destroying the evidence of pollution and he has

to destroy the epa, he has to destroy the banking system so that his bank frauds can't be exposed, know this is an act of of trying to destroy evidence of organized crime and the universities have been gathering evidence against him and his country forever. so this is it doesn't need to be to crumbling kid. he's going after aspects of america that have stored up evidence against criminals like another david, this time in morgan ville, new jersey, on our line for democrats. good morning, david. i yeah. so i'm taking some of this in and i try not to talk in extreme terms because i know it never works for either side, but i do want to talk to someone who also has a background in science, actually runs a company that develops innovative technologies to furnish research labs and i

think what concerns me is this extremism in two sides is, i mean, a lot of it is in both. and i do a lot in both academia as well as industry, as well as in the us and canada, in what concerns me is this extreme sensationalism of big education and liberalism in the u.s., we pay out of pocket higher education is not given to all americans. when i travel to canada, canadian students do get fully funded education, and whether i go through their research departments that are educating them in neuroscience or metabolic disorders here in the us or in canada, there's no difference. these students post-docs graduate professors, you're not talking about politics. politics is not integrated into the lab where we're heading,

where we're doing immunoassays. it's not a part of it. and i think what's really sad here is that all of this is a production and it's about extremism and taking on what we believe is an up front. and unfortunately, it's sensationalized. and what concerns me is when i hear good americans calling this show supporting something that's actually going to have a detrimental effect. and there seems to be a lack of understand of how we fund science in america. of course, institute unions have to remain viable, but to call them for profits or that they're stealing or giving back. so every dollar that is spent in science, you get $2.59 out in economic output. and i just want to say, as someone who is part of a company innovating tools to advance science, this attack on academic universities is an attack on all companies.

develop these technologies because we want to get to a couple more people before we're out of time for this segment. let's hear from mike in peoria, illinois. good morning, mike. good morning. if you follow the money, the money is not being used the way it's supposed to be used. and if you look at all those higher education, you look at where how much money they get from china and how they're stealing all our intellectual property. you realize that all those in california and the big east and whatever, they're taking money from the chinese, because that's that's they're pocketing that money. so follow the money. this idea that he's trying to shut down on free speech, you always have free speech, but you don't get to take money from the government or the government doesn't owe you money for one of your freedoms. you don't get it for religion. you don't get it for all the other stuff. would you have the government

buy everyone guns? because we have a second amendment? no. these people claim that donald trump's trying to stop free speech, but all they're worried about is the money. and you always they always have free speech. they just can't expect or demand that the government give them money for it. it's just ridiculous. but that's where it's all down. it all comes down to the money. follow the money. follow those studies that these people are talking about. and you're talking about where the money comes from. like darren is in lynchburg, virginia, and our line for independence. good morning, darren. hey, thank you. i'll be quick c-span, if you want to know why donald trump was elected, listen to the two previous day talks. i've never heard two more leaders in my life who tried to speak on behalf of the education system. he doesn't even know what they're talking about. first and foremost, harvard has one of the most wealthy board of trustees and the wealthiest endowment based harvard basically gives free education

to has the ability to give free education to college students. you can look at it. they have a program in place. so the fact that everyone is sitting here crying about harvard losing money is baffling to me. harvard has probably one of the wealthiest alumni associations out there. harvard lost $3 billion because harvard allowed anti semitic actions being taken place on its college campuses without apology. everybody keeps forgetting the real reason that harvard lost their funding. it was because people's free speech was being interrupted. you couldn't be a jewish person. going on their campus and speaking freely in support of israel. you can't be a black conservative on their campus freely talking about pro-life. that's the reason why harvard lost their money. and i'm sorry, i'm more worried about howard than harvard. so that's that's my take. and we focused way tracking you for a moment since you mentioned howard university, which is an

hbcu. there's a story here in news nation that hbcus will not be subject subjected to federal spending cut. trump says trump recently signed an order enhancing hbcu capacities and, quote, i took care of the black colleges and hbcu's and this was from an interview that they were doing with him. president donald trump told news nation on wednesday. this was back in april that historically black colleges and universities should not be concerned about federal funding cuts to their budgets in 2019. during his first term in office, president trump signed a bipartisan bill that permanently provides more than $250 million a year to the nation's historically black colleges and universities. trump said, i took care of the black colleges and hbcu's. you should know that better than anybody. so first and foremost, i do think he is a boisterous, um, jerks sometimes. and how he speaks and the rhetoric he uses.

but aside from the rhetoric you use is the bottom line is he has support at the hbcu is better than biden. better than obama. and you can statistically look that up and you guys know y'all can do. um, that's a good thing because no other race has ever had their education interrupted more than those who are more black in the united states of america. so i think that's a good thing. but at the same time, more needs to be done with those board of trustees. and at the end of the day, how were they? hampton it matters more to me than freaking harvard. so thank you. sheila is in youngstown, ohio, on our line for democrats. good morning, sheila. um, yes, um, i'm a strong supporter of israel and, um, i'd like to make a point. what is often called anti-semitism. i think is really something else. the palestinians in gaza have not had food for three months. i can't even bear to watch that anymore. the the people with their plight

is trying to get food because the israeli president won't let food come in. i don't think it's in the is semitic is an israeli objects to israeli foreign policy. president carter wrote a book about israel israel in which i believe he critiqued the, uh, foreign policy of israel and trump has had nazis at his house in mar a lago. the anti semitism is when elon musk dramatic claim made the nazi sign. the people who were at jan six had shirts that were talking about --. not enough were killed. um, but i know that we're problems with the students, how the students were treated. um, at the, uh, the university. but they, the president acknowledged that the president of the university acknowledged it, and he said, we're working on it. and i don't think that would be right if kids weren't able to get to class or they were being harassed. uh, i don't i don't agree with

that. but i think anti-semitism, i mean, i think if you could show some of the pictures of the, uh, children and people who are starved in israel, i would appreciate that. well, that's all of the time that we have for this segment today. but coming up later on, watching teen journal, we're going to hear from radio host and commentator erick erickson to discuss the trump presidency and the future of conservatism. but next, we're going to hear from matt bennett, co-founder and executive vice president for the center left group third way. here to talk about the future of the democratic party. we'll be right back. c-span's all day marathon of 2025 commencement speeches continues with leaders in politics, sports, journalism and entertainment sharing, inspiring

messages, personal reflections and hard earned wisdom for graduates. the overall umbrella of what i'm going to say today is that all things are possible because i am living proof. speakers include award winning journalist and anchor scott pelley. actor and activist jane fonda, vice president j.d. vance, homeland security secretary kristi noem. federal reserve chair jerome powell, singer and musician. usher rapper, producer and entrepreneur. snoop dog baseball hall of famer derek jeter and wnba star jonquil jones. the commencement speech marathon now through 7 a.m. eastern this morning on c-span or watch anytime online at c-span called. tonight on cpan. q&a. wall street journal columnist jason riley, author of the affirmative action myth, argues

that the racial preference policies of the 1960s and seventies have had an overall negative impact on the success of black americans. there are racial differences in america, in our society. cultural differences? ethnic differences. well, when it comes to public policy and how the government treats us, treats the population. no, it should not be picking winners and losers based on race or treating people differently based on race. it's been a disaster. whether the effort was under jim crow to elevate whites or the effort was under racial preferences to elevate non-whites. it's been it's been a disaster. you know, people like to say that diversity is our strength in america. but i disagree. our real strength in this country has been to overcome our racial and ethnic differences and focus on what unites us as a country. that has been the strength of erica. jason riley with his book, the

affirmative action myth tonight at eight eastern on c-span's q&a, you can listen to q&a and all of our podcasts on our free c-span now app journal. washington journal continues. welcome back for a conversation about the democratic party and its future. we're joined now by matt bennett, who is the co-founder and executive vice president for public affairs for third way. welcome to washington journal. thank you. good to be here. now, can you first describe a bit what is third way? and your website describes. you say that says that your ideological center left. what does that mean? well, first of all, third way is usually described as a think tank, but that's a kind of inexact term. think tanks run the gamut from places like the brookings institution, which is basically a university without students, scholars doing scholarly work all the way over to groups like ours and the heritage foundation

and the center for american progress, which are much more easily identified along an ideological spectrum. heritage is now kind of maga right. center for american progress is more kind of progressive and we are center left. what we mean by that is essentially we are moderate. we are aligned with moderate democrats, not the kind of democrat socialists of america types like bernie sanders. more, more along the lines of bill clinton, who used the term third way to describe his politics back in the nineties and then who funds you? and do you all endorse candidates? so we are funded by a mix of donors. most of our funding comes from foundations, places like the hewlett foundation and the gates foundation that supports most of our programs work. we also have some donors. kind of high net worth individuals for the most part. think tanks like ours are not

funded by, you know, small donors who have now come to fund a lot of what's going on in politics. those folks just don't give $35 a month or whatever to think tanks. it's mostly foundations and and wealthy individuals. we do not formally endorse candidates because our iras status doesn't allow that. but we do work very closely with candidates because we are organized as a five, a1c4, which means that we are permitted to do political work and we do. we work with center-left candidates running mostly for congress, and then in the presidential years, we've worked with the nominees as well. earlier this year, third way, launched in 18 month signal project, including some polling to identify the trump administration act, a trump administration and actions that are, quote, most relevant to key voters and how best to frame those issues. can you explain a bit more about that project?

sure. we were concerned in the beginning of the second trump term because he was doing so many things all at once. you know, when musk was running doge and they were cutting giant pieces out of the government, kind of vandalizing the government and what seemed to be arbitrary three ways. the problem for democrats was they didn't know where to direct their fire. there were people, you know, democratic elected officials protesting outside the department of education. we saw the protest at trump's joint session speech before congress with the paddles and shouting. that didn't seem very effective to us and well, we named it the signal project because the idea was to help democrats separate the signal, which is to say the things that voters really care about from the noise, which is the rest. of the trump and doge and musk actions that we consider important. but the donors don't pay much attention to. so right now, donors voters do

not pay much attention to. and when you when we did the poll, our first poll on signal, it came very clear what voters care about the most. no one voted for trump to come into office and begin to cut things like the people that clean the bathrooms in national parks or the people helping veterans and crisis or people doing cancer research. voters really didn't like that stuff. and when you focus them on the things that trump was doing that they don't like, they react. if you focus on things that they either support or don't care much about, like dismantling the department of education, that is less effective. so our intent was to help democrats be more effective in responding to trump. now, john cowan, who's the president of third way, just penned a piece called the debate over transgender rights, is a liability for democrats. here's how to neutralize it. that even the headline got quite

a bit of pushback online and then i wonder if you can talk about this issue and how it's affecting the democratic party. sure. that piece, which appears in politico magazine, is still available online. we didn't write the headline, but as you say, it did get a lot of a lot of notice. fundamental early johns point was that we need to approach the transgender issue in ways that resonate with the public and we can do that because you can do that without in any way sacrificing our principles or our values, because for the most part, the public believes that transgender older people deserve to live the lives they choose and should live in dignity. and they believe that the things that the trump administration are doing are cruel and arbitrary and and have no place in our government or our in our society like banning transgender or adults from serving in the military, forcing them to use the bathrooms assigned to them

at birth when they're a completely different gender. those things nobody supports. but as we saw in 2020, for the way that democrats were approaching the issue last year and to some extent that continues also really doesn't work for a lot of the voters. i think the thing that really aggravates people the most are three things. first of all, they don't like the the language police. they don't like to be told that if they don't use precisely the right terms and precisely the right order, that they're somehow bigoted. and we've seen that come up over and over. second, they're very concerned about children, you know, and parental control. and while it's true that in no state is it legal for men, school care, other surgery or even puberty blockers or hormones to be administered to people under 18 without parental consent? republicans have used that issue in ways that make it seem like schools or doctors are doing

things behind the backs of parents and democrats need to make clear, first of all, that that's not happening. second of all, that that wouldn't be good if it was happening. and then finally, there's the issue of sports. and there's been an enormous amount of discussion around that. and our view is that at the high school level and above, so high school, college, etc., if issues of safety or fairness are involved, then local sports councils, the ncaa or local sports officials should be able to make the rules. those rules shouldn't be made by congress, but we need to acknowledge that there could really be issues of both fairness or safety that need to be addressed. so it was a fairly we think, sensible way of approaching an issue in ways that we think could really resonate with a broader swath of the electorate. we'll be taking questions and comments from our callers. republicans can call in at 202748 8001.

democrats at 202748 8000 and independents at 202748 8002. for questions for matt bennett. now matt, next week republicans are going to be taking up the gop's reconciling nation bill. the national republican congressional committee announced a digital ad campaign last week targeting 25 vulnerable house democrats for voting against the bill is called the one big, beautiful bill act. here's one ad targeting representative adam gray, a freshman from california's 30 north district. let's watch and i'll get your response. you're working harder than ever. so why is adam gray voting for the largest u.s. tax hike in general, asians, while illegal immigrants get taxpayer funded meals, housing and benefits? adam gray would punish american families making them pay thousands of dollars more. illegals get freebies. you get the bill. tell adam gray, help americans,

not illegal immigrants. so there will be more of these ads as this debate continues over the reconciliation package. what's your thought on that messaging? well, it depends on which families you're talking about. it is true that very wealthy families would see a tax hike if this bill doesn't pass, because the way that trump and his allies designed his tax cuts the first time he was president was that they expire. and the reason they did that was they used the same device they're using now to avoid a filibuster in the senate and allow them to pass it without any democratic votes. to do that, the senate rules require that it doesn't technically increase the deficit. and the trick they used to get around that was that the tax cuts would go away after ten years. and at so it was just a device to get around this rule. it was always going to increase

the deficit. and that's why if they do nothing, taxes will go up. but they will go up. almost not entirely, but largely a very, very wealthy people. and not on average families. in fact, if you look at the totality of what's in this gigantic bill, it will do two things. it will raise the national debt by $4 trillion or more. could be more, but it's at least $4 trillion by giving these enormous tax breaks, extending these tax breaks for very wealthy people and it will take away health care from 8.5 million people on medicaid, 8 million people, more than 8 million people will lose health care. rich people will get a gigantic tax break. and this is how they're selling this bill. i think voters will see through that and democrats will certainly make sure that they know the facts. another issue that's come up in the democratic party quite a bit is how they're responding to

trump's crackdown on immigration. now, there are reports that leader jeffries wants to stop member trips to el salvador. there's a story here in the bulwark about this that jeffries wants dems to put an end to the el salvador trips. cory booker and the hispanic caucus were planning on going the democratic leadership seems to want the el salvador trips to stop for a while. these are visits to go advocate for the return of kilmer. a year ago, garcia. what do you think of where the democrats have been on this issue and where they should go? well, it's pretty clear in 2024 that we were on the wrong place on this issue. all the polling shows that it was a major issue, a major reason that trump was able to win. i think the leadership is right and this is kind of a key part of the single campaign that we were talking about earlier. look, mr. garcia should not have been deported. there is no question. and his due process rights obviously revealed. and the place that they're sending these deportees in el salvador is barbaric.

so we understand the instinct to try to fight against this. and i think on balance, we certainly agree garcia shouldn't be there. and basically nobody should be there. but that is not how the public sees it and that is not the place that we should be waging. the fight against trump because it just is not a winner for democrats. mr. garcia himself is accused credibly of of domestic violence. this is just not a great test case for us. i mean, there are hundreds of thousands of people being deported. there are far more sympathetic cases that we can point to. and this is in a place where democrats should be putting most of their energies. instead, what we should be saying to the public is, look, we believe the the border must be defended. we cannot have open borders. we cannot have chaos at the border. and by the way, by the end of the administration, the biden team was doing that through an executive order that had basically shut down the chaos of the border.

and we believe in due process and we believe in a path to citizenship for people like the dreamers who were brought here as children. those are things that the public does support. those are the places where democrats should be focusing. governor tim walz is a democrat governor of minnesota, called on democrats to be meaner at the south carolina democratic state party convention. last night, i want to play a bit of that as well. i'm getting called out on this because call donald trump a wannabe dictator. it's because he is. it's because he is. oh. the governor's being mean and the governor speaking out on that. well, maybe it's time for us to be a little meaner. maybe it's time for us to be a little more fierce because we have to ferociously push back on this. and again, i'll speak to my teacher colleagues in here. the thing that bothers a teacher

more than anything is to watch a bully, to watch this bully and to stop it. and when it's a child you talk to them and you tell them why bullying is wrong. but when it's adult like donald trump, you bully the -- out of him. back. you push back. you make sure they know it's not there because at heart. at heart, this is a weak, cruel man that takes it out and punches down on people what they don't want to do is stand toe to toe and punch back with someone who's calling them out for what they do, who's being there. and for democrats, here's what we need to know. you need to embrace this. we win hearts and minds. we win the issues. if you go ask people if they want children to eat, they'll say yes. if you go ask people if want smart things to make sure our children aren't shot in schools, they'll say yes. if they say, do you want us to pay our public servants a decent wage, they will say yes. we win the hearts and minds.

they win power. and when they take power, they move with it. in exercising. what do you think of this idea from the former vice presidential nominee for the democrats that democrats just need to be meaner? i actually don't really understand what he's talking about. i certainly agree that trump is a bully and a terrible person who punches down. i'm with the governor on that 100%. but i don't understand is what he wants. democrats do. exactly. i think it's very easy if you're outside of washington, if you're not kind of in a position to fight with the president directly, at least on national issues. to say that, to say that democrats need to be tougher, they need to do things differently. but frankly, hard to figure out what he's wants democrats to do. the problem in our system is that when we're out of power, as democrats are now, when they control all the levers of government, the executive in both houses of congress and for the most part, the judiciary, we

just don't have the means by which to punch back. democrats have been saying that trump is acting like a dictator loudly and persistently since january 20th, when he was sworn in. i don't think there's any shortage of that. i just don't understand what governor walz wants democrats to do to try to stop him or to stand toe to toe with him. trump loves a fight and he likes to be mixing up with democrats and i don't think yelling at him louder is the solution here. i think making sure that people understand precisely what he's doing to them is going to help us in the long run. let's go to your calls for matt. if you matt bennett of third way, if you want to call in, our line for republicans is 202748 8001 for democrats 202748 8000 for independents to 02748 8002. we'll start with tom in hyde park, new york, on our line for republicans.

good morning, tom. good morning. i just want to ask your guests, what are the democrats plan for dealing with our budget deficit and massive amounts of government debt that we've acquired? all i ever hear from a democrat is, oh, the trump plan is is horrible. they're looking to throw your grandmother off a cliff. cliff or you earlier babies down the stairs. i mean, it's all always this apocalyptic sort of presenting of of trump's budget ideas. but i haven't heard anything from a democrat about how they are going to handle what is arguably the the worst fiscal problem this country is facing. thank you. well, tom asked a very fair question, and i think we have to first establish the fact that the trump budget that, he has proposed the reconciliation bill, the big, beautiful bill that he loves so much, would add $4 trillion, at least maybe 6 trillion, depending on how the

economy goes to the national debt. and the reason there's a difference there is because the bond markets are reacting already to the idea of adding this much debt and increasing interest rates. and right now, america spends more to service our debt by paying interest on the debt that we have than we do on the military. and that could get even worse. so let's just be clear that what the republicans are proposing to do here as they've done many times before under president george w bush and first president trump is massively increase the debt by giving gigantic tax cuts mostly to the wealthy and to corporations, which i agree with tom is very dangerous and very bad. having $26 trillion in debt right now is disturbed, rising and very important thing for us to deal with. i think tom also makes a perfectly fair case. the democrats haven't done a good job of talking about what

we would do to restore some fiscal balance. but i think and i think some democrats are guilty of constantly wanting to increase spending in ways that are not sustainable. but i think what we'll see when we get into the kind of presidential cycle as we approach 20, 28 is a bunch of democrats running for president with proposals to try to handle the economy in ways that are responsible. some will be proposing a lot of spending, some will be proposing much less. and much more fiscal responsibility. but the final point i'd make is spending increases the deficit, but so do tax cuts. those are called tax expenditures. when you cut the taxes on people, particularly the people who don't need them, who should be paying a lot more, you are adding to the deficit and we need to make sure that that debate is kind of balanced in that way. maxwells in culpeper, virginia on our line for democrats. good morning, maxwell. hey, how are you doing? good.

my thing is, it's been a long life democrat, whole family being a democrat man, y'all have like your skin, the sky. i just gave the go ahead. and on one like you can't just call him out for what he do. a jet. really? a jet, though. president the united states of america ever accepted anything from foreigners overseas? well, know all a coin with you sitting there saying it's okay. crazy. so i want to get you to respond to maxwell's point. but i also wanted to flag and maxwell referred to a coin, and this has caused quite a bit of controversy. there's a story here in politico, trump's week of crypto embrace continues despite ethics, red flags, members of trump's inner circle headlined a

crypto conference in vegas while the trump family maintains personal crypto ties. there's obviously this meme coin related to the trump administration. can you talk a bit about these things? well, first of all, let me tell you, i couldn't agree more with with maxwell. it is absolutely insane. this guy is not only the most corrupt american of all time. he he is doing it by orders of magnitude billions of dollars, or at least perhaps $1,000,000,000 of corruption, just in the last month or so. and. but i do disagree about what democrats the way we've been reacting. we've been screaming from the rafters that this is corruption. this is bribery. this is the jet that they're getting from, you know, from an arab country is a violation of the emoluments clause of the constitution. it is clearly illegal. it is incredibly unethical, and it is happening right out in the

open. in fact, the white house press secretary has said, well, we're not hiding anything. so obviously this isn't corruption. that's not how corruption works. i mean, you can't announce that you're going to rob a bank and make it illegal to rob the bank. so very much agreed that what this president and his family are doing is obviously blatantly massively corrupt. and but i don't agree. democrats have not responded. we have. but as i noted earlier, we just don't have the power at the moment, at least to stop the the you know, the acceptance of this jet or the or the crypto scams that are being run by the trump organization. trump family, or the club that his sons are opening, that cost at least half a million dollars to attend. and they've promising cabinet secretaries will come. i mean, none of this is legal. none of this is moral. all of it is outrageous. and democrats will continue to point all of that out. russ is in pitman, new jersey,

on our line for independence. good morning, russ. hey. morning, guys. how's it going? good. yeah. so the thing with trump is that he is a i don't know what the answer is for democrat. what they're doing is not working. but he lies directly to your face. he does illegal things in plain view. and the reason that well, one of the reasons that nothing is being done about it is because the people who voted for him don't care. i don't know what the answer is that democrats need to do, but it needs to be something that's good. trump's base is going to double take and actually think about this. they don't care about don't slip on billionaires, you know, huge tax breaks and the whole tax bill that wouldn't a tax increase if the republican republicans didn't limit the last one in the first place. and they're limiting this one to to increase the deficit. the question i have for you, though, is, um, because you were

saying something right before i jumped on and it was, um, that we don't have the power to do anything. why do you think that is? well, first of all, very much agree with your core point that trump just does everything right out in public. and it does seem that his base voters don't care. i he famously said he could shoot somebody on fifth avenue and his supporters wouldn't care. that may be true. he's testing. he's getting right up close to that level of criminality. and there doesn't seem to be any reaction from his from his base supporters. but let me make one point on that. i do think that voters generally, a majority of voters will care when they begin to feel the downstream impacts of the things that he is going to do. so, for example, when you show up at a national park this summer and the bathrooms are locked because they've cut the staff, people are going to feel

that when social security officers are closed or the phone lines are not responsive, people will feel that when veterans are unable to get their care, when people are in cancer research trials, can't get their care, that will be things that people will feel and they will respond to. and the biggest thing, of course, are is the trade war. people will feel the impact of the tariffs when they go to buy almost anything, certainly when they buy cars, but when they go to walmart, when they go to the grocery store, the prices are going to go up and they're going up because trump made a decision not to engage in a trade war that we didn't need to fight. so he's done this to you on purpose for no reason. and i do think people will respond angrily to that. i in terms democratic powerlessness, it's just the nature of our system and the way it has evolved. so for example, in the senate, the filibuster has been greatly

watered down by some rules to get around the filibuster that make it impossible for the minority to stop things like this big, beautiful bill that the trump people are trying to press through. and it made it impossible for us to stop cabinet appointees like robert kennedy and tulsi gabbard and pete hegseth and kash. mattel's were clearly not only unqualified but dangerous to put in the jobs that they got. now, to be clear, democrats are responsible for some of that change. democrats, led by harry reid, changed the rules in the senate around nominations. so i'm not blaming republicans for the rules changes, but i am saying that's why we're so powerless. richard, as an elder in south carolina on our line for republicans. good morning, richard. hello. hi there you're on with matt bennett. okay. well, actually, i'm in north carolina. oh, excuse me. sorry about that. that's all i, uh. okay. first thing is problem with the

problem with the democrat party. they spied on his campaign. they lied about russia. they changed. they changed laws. so they could bring charges against. him. and you want to talk about corruption? they're $500,000. paintings by hunter. you want to talk about corruption? you're sitting there lying to a straight to our face, and you want to talk about corruption. the people that back here, the people that back your think tank are the most corrupt people there are. can you want to say anything about that? i have no idea what you're talking about. i do want to point out that the things that i was noting that trump has done in the last few months that i believed to be corrupt. he has not been hiding. he's been bragging about it. he's taking a plane from a petro state that hamas.

he has made $350 million on a crypto scam that has cost his supporters who have invested in these crypto coins that have become worthless. his sons are opening a club where it's between $500,002 million to join to get access to the cabinet. those things are obvious points of corruption and he's not denying it. so i don't really know what you mean when we say that, that i'm lying about trump's level of corruption and i have no idea what you mean about our supporters. the things that you referenced. go back to 2016 and those are things that trump and his supporters in right wing media have been harping on for the last ten years. i understand that you're upset about it, but i think they to the extent they are, they were improper or corrupt. they in comparison to the level of corruption we're witnessing right out in the open, right now, as an example of what you're talking about of trump's supporters, is bringing up some of the things about the biden

family. house speaker mike johnson was on cnn on last sunday and was asked about trump and his family's dealings. and let's watch that exchange you oversaw as speaker a congressional investigation into president biden's ties to his son. questionable business dealings to enrich him. you seemed to think it was your responsibility to look into this, this sort of thing. then. yeah, jake, the big important distinction the biden crime family, as they were named, was earned. that that title. why? because the u.s. shell companies fake llc series of what appeared to be money laundering operations and and hunter biden course with his his his his difficult past and his the corruption and his past the family on the public dole or on the president stole the president lied about his involvement in the business dealings. all of that the evidence just piled up. and by the way, at the same

time, the evidence of his diminished mental capacity, subject of your book, of course, i wish had been published a year earlier because everybody saw it, everybody saw what was happening. he used the autopen. and by the way, there's investigations right now going on in the house. jamie colmer and the oversight committee or will be investigated in the use of the autopen when the president's mental capacity declined and all those things are even legally valid. now, given the obvious that he was not the one making the decisions, it's a huge implications from all this. and so i think the american people had a reason to doubt and we had great reason and i think a responsibility to investigate those things that the difference, of course, is president trump does everything out in the open. he's not try to hide anything. there's no shell companies are fake llc or fake family businesses. he's well, he's putting it out there so everybody can evaluate for themselves. on the book, i wish the more than 200 people that talk to me and alex, my coauthor, after election day, i sure wish that they had talked to us a year ago. i agree with you on that.

but on this matter with the crypto, shouldn't we at least just know who was at the dinner? wouldn't you want to know that list of people. i guess, i mean, again, i don't i don't know anything about that dinner. i do that president trump is the most transparent president in the most transparent administration in probably in history. he has nothing to hide. and he's out there trying to advance america's interests. that's what america first policies are all about. and that's what big reconciliation bill will deliver for the people. we're really proud of the product. matt, your thoughts on that exchange? i mean, where to begin? the speaker made the point i made earlier, which is trump does his crimes right out in public and therefore somehow they're crimes. that is just not how crime works. i mean, it is true that trump is transparent. it is true that he is, you know, family like to brag about the things they're doing that are massive corrupt. it's true. we all knew that they had this

dinner last week with, you know, these crypto who were, you know, paying millions of dollars to be with him and get tours of the white house. it's selling access. he's selling pardons. i mean, he gave a pardon to a giant just last week. oh, that's true. he's doing it in public. it doesn't make it any less corrupt. it's also true that hunter biden was things that were not appropriate. it is not true that the president that president biden lied about his involvement with hunter. and it is not true that it had any impact whatsoever on decisions made by the biden white house. but at the level of corruption in the trump white house is so massive. so as to be to sit unprecedented, massively understates the case. and the fact that the speaker won't even engage on any of this is proof as to how much control

trump has over his party and over the leaders in congress. mike is into hunger. california on our line for independence. good morning, mike. yes, mike, can you joining us on your tv. please, and then go ahead. oh, that. my name is mike. everybody knows who i am. i'm a second coming of christ. some of them believe that. all right. let's go to brian in missouri on our line for democrats. good morning, brian. hello. yes, you are. go ahead. okay. i kind of got a hypothetical and a question about the big, beautiful bill. i'll start with the big, beautiful bill. all the tax cuts that we got in 2017. sound like they're being just. duplicated here in this one because our tax cuts are

expiring and the billionaires aren't. so, you know, i guess i just don't understand what we're getting out of this. oh, it's a good question. and the answer is that you're right. the tax cuts passed under trump, one would expire. if this bill is not passed and so to the extent you got a tax cut last time, those taxes would rise. but that is true for everybody across the income spectrum who got tax cuts in 2017. the overwhelming over whelming majority of those cuts went to the very, very top of the income scale. the people at the top got enormous. the people in the middle got small cuts and people at the bottom got nothing. what this bill would do is extend all of that so the people at the bottom get nothing. the people at the top get a lot, but it would do a whole bunch of

other things as well because to comply with senate rules for bills that are passed on party line votes, they've got to cut other places in the place they're going to cut is support for the poor. around snap, which is food stamps, essentially, and medicaid. just to be clear, 62% of americans in nursing homes are they're on medicaid. so a giant cut to medicaid is going to affect lots and lots of american families, not just the poorest of us, but lots of people in the middle class as well. so that's you get with this bill as extension of the cuts. so you won't see any benefit going forward. and enormous pain for people in the bottom two quintiles of the economy. brian, did you also have another question? but but is this just hypothetically say trump wins in 2020?

are we talking about this today? one of time, brian? what was that question? well, it's like you say, it's hypothetical. if if trump actually did win in 2020, which i believe he didn't, but if he did. are we talking about this big tax cut today? do you see what i'm saying? we wouldn't be here talking about this if trump had already served his time because he said that tax cut up for the poor, the poor people to run out in ten years after what his second term would be. you see what i'm saying? yeah, you're exactly right. that's why they structured it that way. trump wanted it that way for two reasons. one, because he he presumed he would be president for another four years and it would have ended prior to he would have been out of office by the time we were having to deal with this. and two, because they knew that would balloon the deficit after ten years and that would have violated the senate rules. so that's why they wrote it that

way. but but you've got a good point that trump wouldn't have had to worry about any of this if he had been elected two consecutive terms. maureen is in philadelphia on our line for republicans. good morning, maureen. good morning, mr. bennett. thank you for taking my call. just want to ask you, you're so perfect on your information regarding the trump family. let's talk about the biden family. i am shocked that c-span has jake tapper following on a segment regarding cnn and never talked about his book. i am shocked that mr. bennett is not discussing how the irs employees receive free summer day camp money that they perfectly put in themselves. they they did that.

i am tired of the public sector. mr. bennett are us taxpayers are not able to do and they're not giving anything. i am tired of you, mr. bennett, not talking about the biden corruption and how he was had no brain in the last four years that is corrupt at its finest. who was in charge in the last four years? thank you. okay. well, leaving, said the rhetoric. i do agree that there are questions about how the biden team protected him. i was around the president a little bit when he, you know, the last four years. i that he was capable of serving as president. but it's very clear that he was not capable of running for

president or serving for another four years. and i do think that the. tapper raises real questions about how the biden team handled that and the culpability that they have for how the election played out. i don't that decisions that the biden white house made were impacting any way by the president's declining health. but i do think that our politics were affected enormously. and i think that it contributed greatly to the reelection of donald trump, something i believe to be catastrophic for america. so i don't buy the idea that biden was unable to do the duties of office when he was there. but i do think that there that he and others share some of the blame for the mess that we're in right now. sara's in ellicott city, maryland, on our line for democrats. good morning, sarah. oh, hi. i'm really enjoying this conversation. i want to learn more about this organization because. i feel like i finally found an

organization that is addressing the real problems we have as a democratic party. i voted for larry hogan, and i wish i had won in the senate because i think he would be a strong voice for reason and unfortunately, i don't think our two senators are helping the democratic party at all to make a good position. anyway, my point is, i'm wondering how we are ever going to get some good candidates on the democratic party to speak for moderates like myself. and the going to these extremes and having a big back and forth and back and forth from extreme left to extreme right, i want moderation right in the middle. thank you. well, thank you for that. look, you are not alone. if you look at nonpartisan studies that have done very large ones, there's a group called more in common that have done enormous studies of the american electorate. what they find is that about 40% of the electorate is either on the fairly far left or the fairly far right.

and the vast majority, 60%, are in what they call the exhausted majority and exhausted middle. and you and i belong there. we are tired of the extremes that are pushing our country in one, you know, fairly radical direction or the other. and that, in my view, at least, is that extremes have completely taken over. the republican party. the maga forces are very extreme and they're entirely in control. there are almost no moderate republicans left. i mean, they used be like the buffalo, you know, they they roamed the plains in great numbers, but they've been hunted into near extinction. on our side, there are plenty of moderates left. there's the largest group in the house democratic conference is the new democrats. and then there's the smaller group called the blue dogs. those are all moderates. there's plenty in the senate. and i think what you'll find when we begin the nomination process is there are plenty of people running for president in 2028, more moderate every nominee that we've had since 1992.

you can quibble over john kerry, but for the most part have been moderates. i think we'll end up that way again, because most democratic voters are like you. they they are looking for center left voices for moderates and sensible solutions. so i'm hoping that you all have a little bit more faith as we move towards 2028, because i think you'll find the candidates more to your liking. well, thank you so much, matt bennet, who is the co-founder and executive vice president for public affairs of third way. we appreciate your time. thank you. now up next, we're going to be joined by erick erickson, radio show host and commentator, and he's going to discuss the trump presidency and the future of conservatism. we'll be right back. rick atkinson has just published

the second volume of his america and revolution trilogy. the book is called the fate of the day and covers. ears 1777 through 1780 of the american revolution. is initial 800 page volume focused on years 1775 to 1777. first volume was titled the british are coming. the first book in the trilogy was published in 2019. mr. atkinson won the george washington prize for his beginning look at the revolution. the second book in the trilogy covers middle years. stationed in paris, benjamin franklin was wooing the french and pennsylvania. george washington was pleading with congress to deliver the money. men and materiel he needed to continue the fight. this volume is timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the american revolution. author rick atkinson with his book the fate of the day the war for america, 40 cataloguer to charleston 1777 to 1780. on this episode of book notes

plus with our host, brian lamb. book notes plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the c-span now app. there are many ways to listen to c-span on radio anytime, anywhere in the washington, d.c. area. listen on 90.1 fm. use our free c-span now app or go online to c-span dawgs radio on sirius xm radio on channel 455. the tuned in app and on your smart speaker by simply saying place c-span radio. here are live call in program washington journal daily at 7 p.m. eastern. listen to house and senate proceedings committee hearings, news conferences and other public affairs events live throughout the day. and for the best way to hear what's happening in washington with fast paced reports, live interviews and analysis of the day. catch washington today, weekdays at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. eastern. listen to c-span programs on c-span radio anytime, anywhere.

c-span, democracy, unfiltered. washington journal continues. welcome back. we're joined now by eric erickson, who is the host of the erick erickson show to discuss the trump presidency and the future of conservatism. welcome to the show. thanks for having me. can you talk a bit about your background in politics and your radio show? sure. so i actually i grew up in dubai, not in this country. i'm from louisiana. and a move back to louisiana moved over to georgia for college, got involved in the college republicans and became a lawyer. begrudgingly really wanted to go to washington. my wife wasn't a big fan of going to washington, so i stayed practice law and helped start redstate.com and then got hired by cnn as a contributor and then by fox news. at some point, when herman cain decided to run for president, i was offered his job by wsb radio in atlanta, georgia, and then

ultimately, after my friend rush limbaugh passed away, moved into his slot noon to three nationally, and now i'm on about 70 stations nationwide and do noon to three eastern and get to talk about whatever i want to talk about, which often is is politics. but sometimes culture, religion, whatever. just keeping it interesting for people. and how would you describe your political or ideological bent? i'm an evangelical christian and a conservative. even before i would say i'm a republican, i was elected republican for a while on a city council. but i just i'm i kind of view it more in the mold of ronald reagan than anything in a recent column. you expressed your opposition, the gop budget bill known as the one big, beautiful bill. the headline is the to bankruptcy. why do you think that this bill falls short? because it uses budget estimates that everyone knows aren't. we are going to see an exploding

deficit we can't get agreement on real cuts from republicans in washington and something got to be cut. i mean, the bottom line is, if we were to tax everybody in country 100%, including billionaires, we still wouldn't be able to close or make a dent the national debt given our spending. so at some point, something's got to be cut in washington. and frankly, the easiest to do is to reform entitlements. but the president and the republicans took that off the board immediately. so unless we're going to fix entitlements, everything else kind of doesn't really mean much. so what do you think that the gop led senate should be doing with this piece of as they move forward? i think they are going to have to look at entitlements, more reform to medicaid, more reform to social security. well. i interviewed mitch mcconnell august. i do an annual conference and mcconnell of the point made, made, made the case that until the actual financial for congress arrives, no one's going to do anything because if the republicans do something,

democrats blame them. if democrats do, republicans will. so until we actually the bankruptcy, no one is going to be willing to do anything, which is kind of scary. but honestly think he's probably right. it's not reassuring for people like me with kids who are going to have to foot the bill moving over to the executive branch. what are your views on president trump and how his term has been going so far? probably more complicated than people think i am. i supported president in the election and i criticize him frequently. it gets me lots of hate mail from trump supporters. there are things i disagree with, like terrorists. but also i do actually think his heart is the job to improve things. he certainly has got, i think, a more grown up, mature foreign policy than joe biden. and i do think that some his domestic initiatives regarding immigration and the like are fine. i just i think tariffs are a terrible and i got to remind myself occasionally that trump's background is actually more of that of a 1950s, 1960s democrat than a republican he became a

republican over time. but is. economic views haven't really changed and i'm very much a believer in free markets. one of the criticisms you've recently leveled at him was over his accepting the plane from qatar. here's a headline in the york post conservative radio host erick erickson rips trump over $400 million qatari plane purchase with the same money used to murder citizens. would you like to expand on that idea? yes, i think it's a terrible idea. look, i don't think that donald is taking a bribe from the qataris, and that's how it's portrayed. i think he's smart enough to realize that the qataris are trying to influence by doing this. and there's enough press coverage that red flags would be raised if policies were changed at the same time, my problem is that qatar is a funder of terror around the world. they have been a great subsidizing of hamas and, other groups that are hostile to the united states. and i don't think the president of the united states should be accepting a plane and using his air force one when the country

that funds the murder of americans around the world are ones giving him the plane. switching over to foreign policy, late last month, president trump said that president russian president vladimir putin has gone absolutely crazy for increased attacks on ukraine and that putin was playing with fire. and that prompted the former president medvedev to raise the possible of world war. in the past, trump spoken favorably. putin i want to read what trums words about putinegarding playing with fire and really bad ings happening to russia. i onl of one really bad thing worl war. i hope trump understood stands this. what do you think of the development of this relationship between trump and putin over time what's changed? well, first, i would note that medvedev has multiple times referenced world war three in the last not just year or so,

but in the last decade. so he seems to go to that one pretty quickly. i have viewed this the entire time as the president trying to engage in a negotiation saying nice things about putin to signal to the russians that he wasn't joe biden. he was willing to give them a fair hearing, unlike joe biden and was willing to give them to the table. and the russians have the offer. and now trump is changing his tune. and at the same time, we now have a mineral rights deal in ukraine that. if donald trump wants to actually, having spent the time to get it, wants make use of it, he's going to need to ensure the security of the ukrainians if the russians and who are cooperating with the chinese, the north koreans are able to take over ukraine. that deal, is it the paper it's written on? let's go to a caller. joe in oklahoma. oklahoma, on our line for democrats. good morning, joe. morning, guys. thanks for having me on. i was kind of hoping to get through to the guy from the third way, which was claiming to left of center when they're actually right of center for

your guest. i think i to come down to the granular level of some of the teams, the bible. and one of the things that's clear in the bible that god hates literally hates it says this in proverbs is a lying tongue. and the republican party, though, they take both on the bible, come into office, they just lie. even like john says, the worst liar of them all. but here's last question for the guest. when jesus fed the hungry, when he turned that 5000 people with fish and bread, did he have a work requirement? i'll take my answer all fine. thank you. well, you know, first, i would say that all politicians are liars, frankly. and so judging politician by the standards of the bible, probably not the best thing they're all going to need to repent. democrats. well, we just went through a four year cover up of joe biden's mental with democrats saying he was fine when he wasn't. as far as jesus know, jesus did

feed the poor. he did a lot of great things, but he didn't make the government them. he said, render into caesar what is caesar's. and i just think that both sides have to be careful co-opting the bible to say the government should do something when it's our individual responsibility. and as a conservative, i personally think that we've abdicated too much responsibly to the government so that we ourselves don't have to get our hands dirty and we would be better and in a better fiscal position if you and i stepped up individually to do these things instead of making the government do it. this one of the goals of the doge effort led by elon, and he's officially announced that he's leaving the government as a special government employee. what do you think of his work for the federal government and his lasting impact? you know, i think it was a good effort to begin with, but i know a lot of conservative groups, fiscal conservative groups, very frustrated that doge seemed more interested in using the cuts to wage a culture war than rein in the federal government. and you know there have been lots and lots of research whether from heritage foundation

or aei or, cato or the institute and other great conservative groups on to make substantive cuts to the federal bureaucracy. and a lot of those guys were ignored in favor of the culture war cuts. and while i support him, there were so more they could have done and more construct out of efforts to able to fully cut the size and scope of the federal government. and they paid attention to some of these long standing conservative efforts, reform the bureaucracy. so we'll get maybe $175 billion out of the first claim, $2 trillion. and that's a great start. 175 billion is good, but it could have been much higher. and i hope they'll continue. my hope now is with russ vogt, who's a friend of mine in charge of omb pretty committed to cutting the size scope of government over time. so i'm hoping that this is the beginning of a longer term effort. rein in the size and scope of government. for folks who have questions for erick erickson, you can call in republican. 202748 8001 democrats 202748

8000 and independents 202748 8002. and of course you can text us at 202748 8003. now you mentioned earlier that you feel like the government should have less of role in many sectors and there's one area where the trump administration has been pulling back and even cracking down, which is higher education. we discussed it earlier in the show. what do you think of the trump administration's efforts regarding, higher education, particularly the attempts to ban international students from enrolling at harvard and his policies towards foreign students overall? you know, on one side, look, i think the ivy league in particular has gotten out of control. we don't see the anti-semitism on ivy league campuses that we've since october seven, 20, 23 sec schools or even ask schools. a lot of the state run schools and smaller private colleges. it's not there. it's it's a problem in the ivy league. and i think to the extent that

donald trump is forcing tough conversations among those institutions as to why is that it's festering there, that's a good thing. i do think some of the heavy handed targeting of harvard, while part of me enjoys it, i don't actually think it's constitutional. and i do think you set a bad precedent for the future and at the same time, for democrats say this will happen to republicans if you're not careful. a lot of republicans think, it already did with lawsuits against college by the department of justice in the past and other conservative institutions. i think both sides need to try to stop picking winners and losers. i'm afraid the republican party has chosen a path right now of well, they did. so we're going to do it, too, and give them a dose of their medicine. the problem is the ratchet always tightens and we're just going to have this -- for tat moving forward unless there's some level of de-escalation on both sides. bill is in newfield, new jersey, on our line for independence. good morning, bill. good morning. the reason i'm calling is the national debt. i want the national debt to be

reduced and where i suggest a national be reduced is at the present time. social security is collected on earnings only up to $877,000. everybody should pay social security like the big ceo for the health company that got killed in new york. he made $10 million. there's no reason why social security wasn't collected on that from him and from his. if they collect it. so to security for everybody, their money going into social security will, probably triple or maybe even quadruple. and my suggestion is that we're lost. how many years it would take the the workers party social security would go directly into the services security fund, the employers part of the social security would go directly into a fund to pay down the national debt. would it also that gets down to a certain level, say, $5

trillion. the bill should be passed, can never go above that again unless. it's a national emergency, like an hour. a world war or a natural disaster, some sort that would be catastrophic. that's my suggestion. and i feel that the i suggested this what we will want have a democratic congresswoman. she agreed with what i said. but done. so, eric, when i think of those ideas, you know, we've got to reform it in some way. i for the life of me don't understand bill gates and warren buffett and other billionaires actually need their social security money. i realize they paid into it, but it's more of a tax and not really an iou system. there's got to be some reform to social security. we're going to solve the national debt. we've got to lower the debt to gdp ratio by stimulating the economy more to stimulate the economy. we do need a tax regulatory reform to simplify system so that american small businesses can grow with the growth of a i frankly, i think we're going to see a trajectory where more

americans are working for small business anyway. we've got to spark small businesses. we've got reform, social security. neither side wants to touch social security. really. they give great lip service to it. but until we're to fix it, raise the retirement age, alter the deductions, allow social security dollar for dollar all the way, regardless of earnings. we're not going to get any changes. no one. washington seems real serious about it yet. jack is in framingham, massachusetts, on our line for independence. good morning, jack. hello. yes, go ahead. you're on with erick erickson, right? well, this refers more to your previous guest, but i'm sure erick could contribute something to it. my idea is basically this message that should be sent out to the world by the democrats because they don't seem to have a strong message when referring to trump. i think they should use the term would be dictator. what bernie sanders talks the

possibility for the next generation of leaders he's talking about an oligarchy, which is a word that most americans probably don't even know exists. so that's my main message message. your thoughts, eric? yeah, you know, i would say that a majority of americans will not a majority, but a plurality of americans voted for donald. he won the popular vote in. the democrats were saying, i mean, joe biden had that very famous speech in 2022 with the red lights in the marines behind him and the independents all saying that donald trump was a threat to democracy. and the republicans were. and the voters actually the exit polling 2024 showed that the people who are most concerned about democracy voted for donald trump, not for the democratic party. and the democrats have never wanted to assess that data and why voters distrusted them. the fact that the democrats did continuous slowly attack donald trump as a threat to democracy,

a would be authoritarian or a dictator. and voters still sided with them. there's never been that self-reflection of the democrats as a partizan republican. one of the things i always say is that when democrats lose, they always say it was the message, not the issues. and i think they're going to need to reassess their issues. why did so many nonwhite men, even hispanic women, move towards the gop in the exit polling? if they can't assess that issue accurately, they're going to keep losing. and i think that's one reason republicans in congress, to some degree, seem a little bit by the numbers right now that maybe midterms, which historically go against the party of the white house, they might lose the but it might actually not be as bad as people think. now, one of the other ideas the caller mentioned, bringing up the idea of an oligarch and trump through a black tie gala for the top 220 buyers of his meme coin in may at the virginia golf that he owns. and he also flew on a marine one and spoke at a lectern emblazoned with the presidential seal last week.

representative jamie raskin, who's the ranking member of the house judiciary committee, sent a letter to president trump demanding release of the invites. the people who attended this gala honoring, the top buyers of the meme coin and this letter, he said, i write today to demand that you releaseames of all the ats tohis dinner and provide information about the source of the money they eacho buy the trump coins so that we can prevent illegal foreign government emoluments fromocted without congressional consent. publication of this list also let thicaneople kw, is putting tens of millions of dollars into our president's pocket. so we castt to figure out what beyond worthless meme coins they are getting. exchange in exchange for all of this money. two issues there. this idea that democrats have complained about quite a bit of the people around trump, particularly the wealthier people from the tech industry, and also your thoughts on this dinner in general.

you know, this is one of the better avenues for democrats moving forward. but for what joe biden did, leaving the white house, his pardons for family members, the corruption was what i think that americans kind of on both sides don't like. and if democrats were instead of using a word like oligarch talk that most people don't even know what it means, focus on tying donald pardons to donors and making a scandal of that. that would undermine the credibility of the white house. you know, i go back to the 2024 campaign. one of the most effective ads, the trump campaign ran against the democrats ended with the tagline. it was on the transgender issue. people might remember that kamala harris is for them donald trump is for you. if the democrats were able to pivot and turn that on trump with pardons and the donors and tie those together, they might have an issue to undermine the credibility of donald trump being the working class. it's certainly an issue that donald trump is vulnerable to. at the same time, with joe biden's pardons as he left the white house for his family

members, the republicans have an opportunity to. reflect it. but it's donald trump of the white house now saying he wouldn't operate like joe biden and not joe biden. peter is in wilmington north carolina on line for independence. good morning, peter. thank you. when peter, your line is breaking up. i just want to see if you move it, maybe move someplace a little with better reception. i'll try. is that better? yes, that is better. go ahead. all. i was glad the first time. i've been trying for years to call and say that when jesus said 5000, he. he wasn't ordering the caesar to do it. anybody can do it. but like keeping things that are caesar's and other things along with people. the reason i'm calling you mentioned something has to be done with entitlements, and i'm thinking about the types of entitlement and the sources of funding and things like social

security, which is a central program that people work and stay. it makes sense to be short term, but i think it is or there you know you're breaking up again. about whether or not to have a child would be more make more sense to be states that would be state programs. but i think the resistance to moving funding from federal the states is because lot of the states have done it. so they can't borrow the way it doesn't pay in. line is breaking up a bit. but i think we've got your ideal and eric respond i listen i kind of agree with you that the states should be doing more of this. when the founders created the country, the government's a limited government. article section one in does force covers the powers under article one, section eight rather covers the powers congress. they're very limited a social safety welfare and it was something envisioned by the states at the time. now we've expanded it over time

and world war two with franklin roosevelt, lyndon johnson and the great society program expanded it further. but at this point, we're a nation where our population rate is going down. our future success was premised a growing population reminded of w bush, who wanted to privatize social in the early 2000s, and even republicans resisted what was a very good plan. and if you look back now, the people hitting retirement age would be far better off with less strain on the federal government. had we gone down that route and at some point we're going to have to do that while also recognizing that states and individuals are going to have to do more. one of my concerns, pet peeves is a is an evangelical christian and a conservative is that churches and individuals and charitable efforts have so much divested themselves to the federal and said the feds are going to do this and we can be a part of it as opposed to, i mean, bearing their cross and doing it themselves. jeremiah 29, where my favorite versus the bible says, seek the welfare of the community in which you live. and there you'll find your welfare. and instead we're all looking to washington, d.c., instead of our

own backyard. i think if every american started focusing locally, instead of to washington, all of us would wind up improving the country overall. we have a question that we receive from barb in long grove, illinois. text. does mr. erickson maga threatens the future of conservivism in the us? you know, we i go back and forth on this. that's a great question. i to a degree, i think a lot of republicans are moving towards populism. i'm not really conservatism and a lot of people who said they were conservative now say they're conservative, but they've embraced a populism that's unmoored from historic ideas. my sense of things, though, if i can pause for a moment, can you explain what you mean by populism? yeah. so populism is, ideas that are popular with the working class now, there's not a coherent c to the ideas. it's people like this thing, this thing in this thing. let's do them without any any sense of historic understanding, political philosophy. no, that sounds very.

but essentially conservatism understands that as washington grows and as taxes grow and we pick winners, losers, the economy slows down, society regresses. and that's kind of where donald trump is. he's picking ideas that sound popular. tariffs sound popular to lot of people. but we know as conservative as historically, they don't work. now. populism historically that was tied to movements of individuals, charismatic figures. and when they go away, either at the state level or the national level, the movement kind of collapses. so i actually think what we're going see happen is when donald trump, who is term limited and will step aside in a few years goes away, there's going to be a fight. what maga means it's going to be maga that evolves more than the conservative movement. and historically when that happens you revert to the mean. so you move back towards more traditional conservatism. it's not going to be the same as it was, but it will be more recognizable once trump is gone than while he's here organizing a populist movement. stephen is in wilmington, illinois, on our line for a democrats. good morning, stephen.

yeah, i'd like understand how evangelical could support a combative fornicating adulterer who bears false witness, but i do know it was just so they could get judges. and then secondly, i haven't heard any republicans call out trump for saying he doesn't know if he has an obligation to the constitution after taking the oath of office twice. first of all, i've actually written about the second one, and instead it is remarkable that you said that. and he should recognize his obligation to the constitution. and as to the first one. you know, in 2016, i didn't support trump on the issue of character. it became pretty obvious to me by 2020 that we were going to have a republican or a democrat. and as much as you don't like republicans and don't like donald trump or don't like his character, there are a lot of evangelicals who look at democrats and look at joe biden or barack obama who sued nuns to try to force them to pay for abortion, or joe biden, who went after christian colleges and went after christian businesses in the country and tried to force them to adhere to a democratic progressive social

agenda and said, i don't particularly like either side, but i got to go with this guy who's not out to get me and persecute me, my friends and my businesses. if the democrats would have tone down, think some of their progressive social agenda you might have seen more christian conservatives be willing to say, i may sit it out, but as long as you've got people try to put boys and girls sports sue christian businesses to either bake certain cakes or perform abortions or pay for abortions, you're going to have evangelicals say, i can't sit this out. richard is an advanced carolina on our line for republican. good morning, richard. hey, good morning, ma'am. and good morning. my question right stems from a political opinion. i have, which i personally see the democratic party as shrinking right now and that's an opportunity for republicans. so how do republicans be the republican party, be politically attractive to people who hate trump but feel politically homeless? thank you, guys. oh, that. you know, i've spent a lot of time on this issue about it.

and i think one of the things republicans have to do first is, one, don't sound don't elevate voices like marjorie taylor greene or lauren boebert so much and also sound reasonable that a willingness to attract people to the party. one of the advantages i actually think the republican party has right now is on these cultural issues where there are a lot of people who have historically democrat, but actually they're institutionally, philosophically, socially conservative as the democratic party, increasingly a party of of higher income white voters, particularly white college educated women. a lot of the working class voters have been voting for the democratic party are naturally going to move to the republican party. don't be off putting them. and how you talk about their issues try to relate to them, but also don't pander to them. working class voters in particular, i think probably have a greater sense of discernment when people are trying to pander to them than upper income voters and they don't want to be lied to. they just want to be respected. if the republican party does that, these cultural issues continue to fester on the

democratic side, i think the republicans are probably in a better long term, four years. you know, we talked about demography was destiny. and because black hispanic voters were democrat, republicans days were numbered. and actually what we're seeing is those voters are transitioning to the republican. and demography is only destiny. if you demand that it be. and rarely is that the case. once again, phone lines for questions for eric erickson. republicans 02748 8001 democrats 202748 8000 independents 202748 8000 to david is in saint florida on our line for independents good morning david. hey um how are you doing today? i um yeah. so i'm trying to understand, um you know, obviously we have a ton more, you know, people this country, um, population is is growing drastically since the last time there was a supreme

court justice and senators in congress, people added to the out of to the, you know. do you know why? why haven't there been you know, we had increased the numbers because know obviously the population in the united states has grown and. talk a little bit about how that works and how um you know what would and goes into getting more um congressmen statement senators and supreme court justices. oh in so this is probably one of the areas where my republican and conservative friends get mad at me. but i actually think that the house of representatives should have at least a thousand members, maybe thousand members. the house is one supposed to represent the people. the senate represents the states. two senators per state so without changing the constitution drastically, we're not going to be able to improve that number. the senate and the house together could expand the numbers on the supreme court. i don't know that. we need more than nine justices. they handle the workload fine, although we could expand the number of circuit courts.

congress can do that by acting it. it'll be filibustered unless you find a way to get republicans democrats to to agree to ration the picks of republicans and democrats, appointees to the circuits. but house is the big one. the house should be much larger that the we started. i want to see the number was less than 100,000 people per member of congress. something like i want to see. it was 25 to 50000 and now it's 750 or so thousand to get it back to a reasonable area where people actually know their member of congress, you've got to dramatically expand the people in the house of representatives. and i actually think that would be a good moderating influence on the house to have people closer to those who represent them, most americans now don't know they're a member of congress. historically, prior to the early 1900s, most people actually had a connection to their member of congress because of the ratio of to congressmen. we've got to expand the alpha representatives. robert is in cape may, new jersey, on our line for independence. good morning, robert.

good morning. i as an independent, i find it decent heartening when i talk to my friends in either side of the aisle, republicans or democrats, that they don't to necessarily include me in their movement or their party. when i disagree with their foreign policy, whether it's biden or, trump, and i just i just think that, you know, when elon musk calls social security ponzi scheme and we've the democrats and republicans support it, $15 trillion diverted to military spending after the fake weapons of destruction narrative as an i'm looking for somebody will bring home bring and repatriate that money home for social programs for education, infrastructure, health care and just doesn't seem to be possible way our primary process is run by the donor class. would you comment, please i think j.d. vance is probably more aligned with you than you might realize. he's actually a pretty good proponent of returning most of

our over overseas military the like to the us for social programs behind fortress america. i like j.d. vance, a great deal. he's much more isolationist than me. i do think the question that was the role of the united states and both parties have typically aligned on the idea we are the leader of the world, which means we have to deploy resources around the world. and until that changes, it might be changing. now, with donald trump, there was a story in the new york times last week that he's taking this great powers approach of three great powers dividing world. you may see more repatriation of resources to the united states in the western hemisphere under trump than most people realize. you know, this brings up the topic of foreign policy. and last week, reporters at the white house did question president trump about some of his recent comments about president vlad russian president vladimir putin. i'm going to play this you and get your response. do you believe the russians are being disrespectful when they say your criticisms of putin are

simply an emotional response? and do you still believe that putin actually wants to end the war? i can't tell you that, but i'll let you know in about two weeks. within two weeks, we're going to find out soon. we're going to find out whether or not he's tapping us along or not. and if he is, we'll respond to a little bit differently. but it'll take about a week and a half, two weeks. we have mr. wyckoff is here. he's doing a phenomenal job. is dealing with him very strongly right now. they they seem to want to something. but until the is signed, i can't tell you. nobody can i can say this, i can say this, that and disappointed at what happened a couple of nights where people were killed in the middle of what you would call a negotiate. and i'm very disappointed by that. please. what stopped you from imposing new sanctions on russia? only the fact that if i think i'm close to getting a deal, i don't want to screw it up by

doing that. let me tell i'm a lot tougher than the people you're talking about. but you have to know when to use that. if i think. it's going to hurt a deal. this isn't my war. this is biden's war czar, lynch's war and putin's war. this isn't war. i'm only here for one thing to see if i can end it to save 5000 lives a week. and a lot of the money being much less important. eric erickson, what do you think of how president trump is handling the situation, russia and ukraine? i'm very much in support of defending ukraine and supporting ukraine, and i appreciate the president to rethink things. i mean, for example, historically, if you go back to his first term, people had always said they wanted to move the embassy in, israel, from tel aviv to jerusalem. he did it over protestation and it worked. lots of his foreign policy has been thinking differently from others in d.c. i do think, however, that he's committed to this notion a little bit too much that he can bring about peace and.

needs to reconsider that. we probably do need to support the ukrainians against the russians large part because the russians the chinese, the iranians, the north koreans, they are building. maybe you don't want to see an of evil, but they are building this eastern powers coalition against the western world that is led by the united states. and if he can't get vladimir putin to come to peace, which i don't think he's going to be able to do, we probably do at least need to help the ukrainians kill the russians so we don't have to. steve is in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, on our line for, republicans. good morning, steve. good morning. as i sit here with my wire haired wrestler, i wonder if democrats, republicans really consider the fact if harris would have been in the white house as president, we would never have known a cover up. we would never have known what was going on. the best thing that happened when trump won is that we now know what the democratic party's all about, and they've got to get their act together.

the two most dangerous people. god forbid they ever get the power. it's hakeem jeffries and mr. schumer. those are the two that have to be alleviated from our government. and i that that would eventually happen in the next elections. but you got to thank trump for saving our democracy. bringing you out the truth of what happened in the biden administration. one of my biggest frustrations over the last number of years is that you and i could see with our own eyes were problems with joe biden. and it wasn't just the democrats but actually a lot of members of the major media outlets as well who refused to acknowledge it, dismissed it, used the phrase cheap fakes. one of the most interesting things to me that's come out of this, jake tapper, alec thompson is alex thomas is now said twice on on two separate media outlets that even senior staff in the white house were amazed by how willing members of the media were to believe the excuses they came up with, like the phrase cheap fake. when republicans were showing videos of something with joe biden.

and i do think until greater accountability also for members of the press and how they handled the last four years, trust of the press isn't going to go back up. and also, i do think that the democrats are going to have to come to terms with people's trust of them. kind of in the vein of of chuck todd and others, that if are a member of the joe cabinet looking to run for president 2028, you might have a hard time given that people are going to tie you to cover up. any is in tampa, florida on our line for democrats. good morning. any morning. good morning, eric. i just want to say the drama of the last caller hysterical. i to be so afraid of hakeem jeffries. well, but that's what trump wants is to put fear. i'm just going state the obvious and say that, you know you don't have to be corrupt for trump to go you department of education and judges top generals which are guilty of being democratic the pardon from biden they were not to find a crime.

they were kicked by trump from going after them with, you know, with lies and fake obviously, again, he can arrest anybody with absolutely crimes. there's zero corruption. the only thing i want to ask, eric, is why trump takes all of our money. he takes all american's money, but he won't talk about the money. he won't say where any money is going. and i'm just want if he can help me with that money. what money? what money are you specifically? every investment he cut, every program. so he's cutting, you know, as as you to just cut billions. you know, all the programs that you know, usa, i mean everything under the sun. oh, also j.d. vance. it's not you fooled. he was for the warrant. i want to let eric respond, is your question. is the money that's been cut from these programs, where is it going? yeah, exactly.

thank. you know, so the money is somewhat on pause right now as the president prepares a rescission package. the money is there. the president doesn't want to spend it. he's sitting on a rescission package to congress asking to pull the money back to the treasury. if they don't do it within 45 days of the rescission letter, the money's going to be spent. so it's in pause. it hasn't disappeared somewhere. the president's just not inclined to spin it. i wouldn't know. by the way, your point on j.d. vance of the war, if you read his book, he did have an eye opening experience in his time in iraq, and it certainly changed his positions and his views of forward engage with us. he was he was much more in favor of u.s. foreign policy engagement around the world before he actually served in the military in iraq and came home. and it was kind of an eye opening experience for him. and he's now much more isolationist than i think you might give him credit for. patrick is in canton, georgia, on our line for republicans. good morning, patrick. good morning. yeah, i just wanted to ask about i heard you make the statement

about we should support ukraine and killing russians so we don't have. and would a we'd like to know, is why do we have to. why should we be the police of the world? or, like you said, why? you know, we're the leader of the free world and why is that? we're in a pluralistic country. and also, i would like to hear your thoughts about where you think the world would be at now if they took the offer of russia. join nato. thank you very much. so, you know, the russians, i think it's always been naive in american foreign policy to think the russians wanted to be part of the west. the russians have always wanted their sphere of influence. peter the great historically, if you go back to the tsarist era, had flirted being welcome into the western fold, but by the time of catherine the great, the concrete of crimea the russians established themselves as their own sphere of influence. and it's always been a pipe dream, western intellectuals, that somehow the russians could be brought into a western fold.

we saw that with possibly bringing them into nato's, which was ill advised and we got to got rid of it. the reason the united states leads the free world, though, is because of world war two. after world war two, we were the only free power that wasn't in shambles, given the war in europe. and so the western powers, including that led by winston churchill, gaulle and others, kind of entrusted world free leadership to the united states. and we've led fairly well for, a very long time in that. and i, as we feed back from that, the world goes into more turmoil. the united states is going to have to decide, do we want to lead the world or not? and if we don't, there are consequence sources that we can't feel right now, for example, being the world's reserve currency, long as we're leading, we prefer exchange rates. we have better inflation rates. the rest of the world, we have better economic transaction rates. the rest of the world. that all goes away when we stop leading the world. and there are a lot of people who say it's too expensive for us to continue in our leadership of the free world. we've got to step back. and i would argue to them it's actually going to be more

expensive for us to step back. i mean, if you look at great britain, which used to have an empire that spanned the whole world, that they no longer lead and their inflation rate is higher than ours their unemployment rate is higher than ours, their exchange rate is higher than ours. their transactions higher than ours. it's a massive financial penalty if we choose not to lead. not only is it a massive financial penalty, it actually jeopardizes the united states more because the only others who could lead the world right now are the chinese and the russians. and they are diametrically opposed to our values. john is in vicksburg, michigan, and our line for independence. good morning, john. good morning. generally, i watch c-span quite often and, uh, you have guests on generally they were either leaning or left leaning. occasionally you'll have an independent, but the common thread in all of these is that is the what about ism that goes on? it's. what about trump?

what about biden? what about the democrats? what about the republicans? what about bush? what about obama? and the conclusion that you can draw is both sides are generally corrupt and the only real way real solution is to get of everything and restructure the entire government. thank you. yeah, a lot of people have your view, but it's probably going to happen. the only thing that democrats and republic hate more than each other is a third party. so ballot access laws in all 50 states are designed to restrict the access of third parties to make it difficult to get through. that's also one reason why we have more stable governments, other powers. when you look at european powers, you have maybe 5 to 10 political parties. they jockey for position on ballots. they use various allocations to get into government. we have democrats and republicans. it provides a level of stability where neither side particularly likes each other, and they love to call out the sins of the

other side and ignore the sins of their own side. but at the same time, we know the president is going to be a democrat or a republican the next is going to be democrat or republican. and because of that, it requires those parties to not have niche ideas but to try to broaden themselves. that's one of the problems i think the democratic party has had the last few years, is they became very niche on certain cultural issues, alienating a lot of americans from broader cultural conversations. they're going to have to probably moderate themselves to be able to get back into power because we we don't do niche parties in this country. we have broad coalitions. joanne in rutland, vermont on our line for democrats. good morning, joanne. good vonnie. i was just wondering why on election night, trump was all of his voters and making these promises to them, how he was going to change their lives and everything and oh he's done is taking the poor, poor people and

and given to his wealthy friends, paying their taxes and everything he lied to every. one of those voters and made their life worse, not better as he promised. and, you know, i would just say that donald trump's popularity has actually rebounded in the last month of the regular politics polling average has gone back and the working class actually feel like he is helping them. so your view may be that he's taking from the poor and giving to the wealthy, but when you look at the polling of the working class right now, they feel like he's on their side and he actually is giving the business, so to speak, to wealthy democratic donors to the democrats, to this very high ideal that the republicans are somehow the party of the wealthy. but they certainly have elon musk. but most of the billionaires in america voted democrat. they've got people like george and alec soros and others on their side. this idea, the republicans are the party of the wealthy. when the democrats have hollywood and these other billionaires i think is is pr

for the democrats but also not grounded in reality. kathy is in michigan and i line for republicans. good morning, kathy. yes, hi. i'm a big supporter of president trump and i don't know who named the well, the big, beautiful bill inside is that tax supposed cut everyone's talking about. but i don't know who called it a tax because it's not a tax cut. it's a tax increase piece. and everyone that democrat man you had on the guests before he was he he is misinformed, but it's going to increase everyone's taxes because what it is, is the tax we point one trump it's going to expire. so that's a tax increase. so everyone is going to get a tax increase, right?

or will it just nothing will. so how will that work? the way that this bill works is president trump's tax plan from first administration was time to expire january 1st of next year unless they renew it so with this tax bill does is it extends the tax cuts again so we will have a tax increase if they don't pass anything they do pass something our taxes won't go up but in some cases some rates will down. so if this gets passed some people will see a tax cut, a lot of others won't see anything. but if nothing gets done, everyone will see a tax increase, including corporations. well, that is all the time we have. thank you very erick erickson, who is the host of the erick erickson show. we appreciate your time this morning. you and now we're ready to head open forum after a short break. and so you can start calling in now republicans at 202748 8001 democrats at 202748 8000 and

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featuring leading authors discussing. their latest nonfiction books. vicki nguyen of nbc news about her family's 1979 escape from vietnam and their journey to become americans. in her book, boat baby. the new yorker's michael luo, author of strangers in the land traces the experience of the chinese in america, chronicling their persistence amid anti-asian violence. journalist alex thompson. jake tapper talk about president biden's to run for reelection in 2024 amid concerns that he was experiencing cognitive decline. in their book original sin, and then on afterwards, republican oklahoma senator lankford shares his book, turnaround where he speaks about his faith, the challenges the country faces and what he believes needs to happen to improve the country. he's interviewed by wall street journal, congressional reporter siobhan hughes. watch book tv. every weekend on c-span. two and find a full schedule on your program, guide or watch

online any time at book tv dot org. c-span shoptalk is c-span's online store. through our latest collection of c-span products, apparel books, home decor and accessory. there's something for every c-span fan and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations. shop now or any time at c-span shop dot org. washington continues. welcome back. we're an open forum to hear your comments. our phone lines again for republicans. 202748 8001. for democrats. 02748 8004. independents 202748 8002. we'll start with rudy in sun city on our line for democrats. good morning, rudy. good morning, kimberly we had a

president one time after he won his second term consecutive that he directed his administration and himself to go out and bind up the wounds of the nation. this is why donald would never make that threat to greatness and always be relegated to the five bottom rungs of the ladder. okay. thank you, kimberly. i you by mike is in doylestown, pennsylvania, on our line for independence. good morning, mike mike. hello. hello. who am i speaking with on the right now? well, it's me, kimberly adams, but we're an open forum so you can give your own thoughts, presumably. high thoughts about what's going on. first, i'm an independent myself right now. i left the democrat party after biden and the democrats

gaslight. you know, trying to help the democrats like this. but not being honest with us after we all lost for, we watched on television and, you know, i've been currently employed there and 24 we lost the same figure out, you know, what to do, what what we can all do right now as independent as republican, democrat is read the legislation that our congressman write. you. there's been a lot of talk in the media about who medicare and. you know, those are the bills that are important to the stuff including work requirement or medicare and work. yes certain measures and. how many people do not have health care? you know, there's these two provisions in the bill.

i with section one, i'll read one or one. and then the follow on one was section one one. the section two. the third part actually is actually for talked of taking away work in, artificial intelligence. the fact that i have a mother who is you just can't stand donald trump. he will ask that i'm my uncle, my best friend. he far to the right and. i just hear them talk about it all the time. i've just been a mediator my entire look at these things, though, and i don't want to just i don't want to even have to be political by saying this. it's just to this big, beautiful bill that the the republicans the republicans passed in the house and they have something that no money are going to talk about within the oval office because it's just going right back to your idea. let's hear from edna in illinois. and on line for a democrat.

good morning, edna. good. kimberly, how are you? fine, thank you. i can see how the company is going to the docks. why don't some of these senators, congressmen, whatever, bring the point of fifth amendment in the constitution? there are a lot of people who are illiterate. these are the people that trump said he recognizes. explain what they're doing their fifth amendment means. we know that j.d. has to invoke it, but not bring it up. it is, scott. it let people know what they're doing the fifth amendment phrase. if you have a leader who is not stubborn and he can be kicked out of office and trump needs to be kicked out of all. right? next up is willie in sarasota on our line for independence. good morning, willie. how are you doing this afternoon? my call is today is to say that all the infighting and all the things is going right now, that's not the way america was.

i'm old soldier and i actually went out and tried serve this country. i'm proud of my country. i will stand for the flag. but what we need is a real leadership in this country who is not on tv every day. so thank you for my and by the way, i'm not a party. i'm just an american who was the right leadership and not a dictatorship. thank you very much. liz is in marlton, new jersey on our line for democrat. good morning liz. good morning. i've been watching the beginning of this administration and i did not vote for president trump because i realized he was given the criminals. and just think something. well. but i think, liz, i'm wondering, you can hold your phone still. we're losing your a bit of it. okay. got me now?

yep. go ahead. so i think i think it'll take time. but i do think the courts will rein in some of the of some of this current president. and i think. we'll get back to more of a stable footing that we have to we can. four years of chaos so that that's all we've basically inaugurated a second time. thank you. ryan is in louisville texas on our line for republicans. good morning, ryan. the morning. how are you today? fine, thank you. all right. so i wanted to ask the president so i'm really impressed with how you're running the country, especially when it comes the economy. everybody's making great. so here's my advice on your next move when it comes to your tariffs, kind of ease off on

that. you've just gone to the table we don't want to fight. that's a good one. number two, when it comes to china, i need to stress this to you that they're not trust communist china. don't forget how we don't forget how they did us coke. i don't want to forget number three. and most important. we need to get those. as far as i'm aware each citizen just saved over $4,000 is plans to give a five day. i don't know about you, but that's a i've changed month. but that's all. i just want to say. thank you for your time. this is a good day. ryan, the tariffs and. last week, trump told us that he would double on foreign steel to 50%. here's a story about that from the associated president donald trump on told pennsylvania steelworkers he's doubling the tariff on steel to 50% to protect their industry, a

dramatic increase that could further push up prices for metal used to make housing, autos and other goods. in a post later on his social platform, he added, aluminum tariffs would also be doubled to 50%. he said both tariff hikes would go into effect wednesday. here's a portion of president trump giving those remarks during a discussion on the u.s. steel's merger with japan's nippon steel. and this is when he made that announcement. so soon after initially taking office, i imposed powerful 25% tariffs at all foreign steel and each and every one of the biden exceptions and. and today i have a major announcement. and are you ready to hear this. this is on behalf of scott sector terry of treasury. howard lutnick, secretary commerce and all of the great geniuses and people we have

working. and they are smart, but i don't think you'd be a good steelworker. scott, i'm sorry. we're going to have to put a little more muscle to that guy. but he's great. he's great on what does. we are going to be imposing a 25% increase. we're going to bring it from 25% to 50%. the tariffs on steel into the united states of america, which will even further secure the steel industry in the united states. nobody's going to get around that. so we're bringing it up from 25%. we're doubling it to 50%. and a loophole. and by the way. i have to tell you, i believe that this group of people that just made investments right now are very happy because that means that nobody's going to be to steal your industry. it's at 25%. they can sort of get over that

fence at 50%. they can no get over the fence. so congratulations to everybody and to you for making a great deal. you just made a better deal, right? back to your calls. open forum. brenda is in michigan on our line for independence. good morning. good morning. the gentleman that was on and in saying that people are getting to republican party, i don't believe that's true. and when you what has not been proven by the democrats and what is being proven before our eyes about, donald trump, you can't even compare. donald trump has integrity. he thinks he's doing his show that he used to do on the tv and the man is it something's wrong with his head. he is not for the united states of america.

he is ruining united states of america within. he no integrity. he tells rise. he talks about other people in jail. he should be in jail. that's he should be in. donald trump. and he is not good for america. so you can't even compare. that has not been proven by by the democrat but we see before our eyes that donald trump is doing he is destroying america within all these that he's taking away from people is just terrible. the people are going to suffer. children are going to suffer. fear is just terrible and. i've always i hope people wake up. i don't tommy. is in kentucky on a line for a democrat? good morning, tommy. yes, ma'am. paul, i'm wondering everytime they passed that big bill the bill they put here and republicans say made them vote,

he puts fear or in our question farthest the fear he's putting on them. why does he even have a fake up fear of him? they should be shown some representative. they ought to get out if donald trump knows he could blackmail them with hate, they ought to get out of the people worried about them out. why in the world, though, you sit back and ask somebody, they put beer in them. but nobody asked us for beer or she putting in as he putting them beer and he's going to all the money. there's a very got something on them that they've done richard. but matt gets as paul but is this and then the americans back and take all this bull it's all that's all he does. and i don't understand why people the world don't get together and have been impeached. he he has done nothing but mark

and maggots. but nothing for america. i like to know what my guy has ever done for america. bedrooms have fit the walls, not my god, they get back in fact back and get money. alvin and all that. he gives lovely la mosca all of us proud of how. they do that. but he hasn't. they run from this country. so people sit back and keep their eyes closed. but want to have their -- love at. he's got potent fear and senators and persons divorce. unless he has got something on a massage, money, they all got the money he's got around them. let's hear from fred in spokane washington on our line for republicans. good morning, fred. hi, kimberly. thanks for taking the call. like to address trans men competing in women's sports and i don't have a problem with them competing with women, but i have a problem with them competing

against women. so a possible solution, this i don't know if makes any sense or not is to have a just for the trans. so let's say there's a race a one trans person is going to win that race and they will stand on their state or their schools podium for winning that race, that women will again be on the women's portion when they're first, second, third. now, that goes on with every now the trans will automatically promote from state to district to regional. and then on to national. and with the small group of people who are trans, who are competitive. so all those will actually end up on the national level and they compete against themselves that point in time in their own. so i don't know if that makes any sense or not, but to me

that's a possible solution to not invading on a women's to compete against women in world that makes sense. next up is michael hartford, connecticut, on our line for independent. good morning, michael. good morning. i'd like to know how a convicted felon could run for president and the office the president. oh, no. is it all america? well, a guy like him who got elected and on the court and to to run for president and no cause is no for who the law how the record let him run for president. other countries wouldn't tolerate that the clinton that ripped it and is still for the

president of america. no what he's doing when corruption gives a sucker outcome for a foreign country making deals on the side just sitting there that happen in the congress, little what's going on? okay. next up is ingrid in garland, texas, on our line for democrats. good morning, ingrid. well, morning, kimberly. it's an honor to be able to get in to with you first. i have a couple of things. one thing is thinking about this big bill that they talk about. it. they are it's tearing away all the kids from the older americans and all this stuff. and i just wonder, why do they have such a short term. short term solution to a

generational thing that's going to come down the pike? you're doing all this upheaval and all of this stuff to to people you don't listen to your constituents on either side? i don't think so. and it's like i watch the the different town hall meetings and stuff and i hope to tune in and just like no one, no, the american voice is not being heard back and think. i wonder why all of these senators and, you know, you can see in their faces they have no moral fortitude. you know, they half of this stuff is not right. and it is sickening to me that. i live in a country that i always thought it was like freedom. let freedom ring and it's not ringing. and then the third thing that i wanted to mention is that why are letting this president a sitting president, play in our faces and monetizing your your office, you're selling merch, you're you're making money, all this stuff goes and all this stuff is doing. they're looking from within. a lot of the frauds waste and

abuse is coming from some donald trump in accepting planes and making deals and. i'm just i don't, i don't understand. can can you enlighten me on this? thank you for your time. all right. next up is, robert in north carolina on our line for independence. good morning, robert. good morning. good morning. look here, everybody, about trump. look at george bush in his dad. we had eight years we had 12 years, eight, nine, ten. there. we had 12 years of the bush ministry creation with war, high gas, $5 a gallon. everybody talking about trump. look at george bush. okay. hillgrove is in johnston on our line for a democrat's good morning. hillgrove. good morning. can you turn down the volume on your tv, please, then go ahead with your point. sure. yeah. my point is, what is the democratic represented was on

earlier. mr. bennett. he never mentioned the fact that the that the moody's analytics said that the biden administration had the best economy in 35 years. and i never hear too many democrats say that when they're on their on show. but that's a fact. and if that's exactly it, how a person with dementia runs of government, i'd rather have a dementia than stupidity like that, like trump. you know, every trump inherited a great economy from biden. he also inherited a great econom. he inherited a good economy from biden and obama. these are things that the democrats tend to forget about. not me. i will bring it up as long as i can call. that is the only thing i want to say today. thank you. host: that is all the time we have for today. thanks to everybody who called in today for "washington journal ."

we will be back with another edition of the show tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. we hope you will join us. have a great day. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪

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