Transcripts For CSPAN Washington 20240702

Saying it was inflation that worsened their Economic Situation spending for things like food and housing. To start the program today, tell us about how inflation has affected your Household Spending. 202 7488000 four eastern and central time zones, 202 7488001 mountain and pacific and if you wanted text us your thoughts you can do so at 202 7488003. You can always post on facebook facebook. Com cspan and on x cspanwj. From the Federal Reserve a sampling of the participants you could still find that out Federal Reserve. Gov. Here are the findings from that report when it came to matters of inflation. 72 of adults responded saying they were ok financi similar to t3 registered 2023 but inflation is the top financial concern. 55 of those said changes in prices the in 2023 made their financial situation worse. 19 said price changes made their situation worse and 13 no difference. If you want to give assistance of where you are where you live as far as Household Spending you can do that on the phone lines 202 7488000 in eastern and central time zones 202 7488001 four mountain and central time zones. Some of you are already posting this is lucas saying my income rose much faster than inflation. We go out to eat less, not that we went out to eat out a lot more before. Catherine saying that it wouldve been better without corporate greed. And Stephanie Holly saying i dont live above my means. To show you where inflation is versus where was it was at 9. 1 in june of 2021 highlighting the recession to the peak point of 9. 1 and lowering down to 3. 4 in april. That inflation idea and if it is affecting the way you are spending. Phone lines available as well as facebook and x. Show in new york, good morning. Caller i have enough that it doesnt affect me with however i spend money. Im 78 years old so i wont be around forever. I had a 14. 5 mortgage at one time. As far as inflation i know it comes and goes and as far as anyone doing anything about it it has to run its course. The only thing that would run me out of money is to be put in a nursing home. When i see prices go in my money doesnt go as far as it did. It is changed so much over the years. I grew up when the movie was . 15. You look at a factor of 15 over your lifetime and its going in the right direction. Is not going to stick around forever. If you ever really want to have to knock inflation down quickly you will need to depression so we have to write it out. Host he is sharing his thoughts as far as inflation and spending. Boris and cleveland it gives us another perspective. Caller the thing going on is the cost of going to the stores. It seems like things are going higher and price. Apartment rentals have gone up in pricing. Its hard to maintain your living expensive when you pay more than what you make it work sometimes. I hope things get better. Host what has increased the most for you . Is there a category . Caller the grocery expense and gas is probably the biggest problem we have. Going to walmart, going someplace like that means you are scrimping a little more than usual. Host boris talking about gas prices. Thank you for the call and thanks for calling in a giving your thoughts. Boris mentioning gas prices. Yesterday the Associated Press reporting when it comes to moderating those prices they said they will release barrels out of the reserve the sale from a storage site in new jersey and in will be incremented to ensure that gas can flow in from local retailers before july the fourth the Associated Press adding the move and to lower cost for family consumers. The language included will keep the Government Shutdown from happening. Gas could be one of the prices that have increased since inflation. 202 7488000 eastern and central time zone, 202 7488001 mountain and pacific time zones. In delaware, this is alex, good morning. Caller yes, how are you doing . Host fine, thanks, you are on. Caller the electric has gone up like crazy. The groceries went up like crazy, gasoline is going up again. My Car Insurance is way up. I cant believe anybody would say they are doing better. Host what kind of differences are you noticing . Caller big differences. Host on the electric side, what has changed . Caller we live in a mobile home and i usually pay one hundred 50 a month and now i paid 225 for electric. Thus giving you an example. All of the stuff has gone way up and no one is talking about that part. Biden is doing a terrible job. Host in delaware, that is alex. From pennsylvania, we have audrey on inflation and how its affected her spending. Caller good morning. I agree that electrical is high. My bill went from 120 to 220. I am mainly calling because my job is not a Grocery Store. I am the person who puts the tax up for pricing and it is really horrible. At what point it was supply chain issues and those are well past but the prices go up and up. You also hear the corporate profits are at record highs. For gasoline and food and all of these things that arent included, this is just corporate greed and whether it is trump or biden and office he does not set the gas prices or the food prices. This is about corporations getting away with this. When prices go up i put up a price tag and i have seen them go up by 50 but when they are on sale they go down by a dime. It is fed by corporate greed. Host go ahead, finish your thought. Caller i started this work and we started up 15 an hour and its the same now. Wages have not gone up. If they do everything they can to not give people raises or over time, they cut hours they treat labor like we are the enemy even though we are a Retail Business and they need us to be out there helping people. I work with the wide variety of people, ages and ethnicities and i feel bad for the young people. They live at home or they live with roommates because no one can live on their own anymore and many work two, three jobs. Its ugly for regular working people. Host the front page of the u. S. A today. They highlight swing states and top metro area of rate hikes. In morgan town, a hundred percent in wisconsin, 94 in waco, texas. Fayetteville and in burlington, North Carolina rent increases like some of you mentioned. Talk about rent, food and electricity and how it has affected Household Spending. People responding to it as well. 202 7488000 for easter, and central time zones 202 7488001 four central and Mountain Time zone. Caller i have been struggling. I am 64 years old. Host can you hear me . Caller i am 64 years old im going to be 65 and i have been on disability and one of the things in florida and matt gaetz districts insurance. It is skyrocketing. Its a matter of buying groceries or paying insurance. I just paid my flood insurance. Hurricane season is coming and if you cant afford not to have insurance and it went up from 400 to 916 which is almost a thousand dollars, a 50 increase. Host is that through the course of this year compared to last year . Caller yes it is. I keep getting messages how the governor is improving insurance conditions but i havent seen any relief and i havent had a claim. I have never had an Insurance Claim and i pay close to 3000 year compared to what other people pay isnt that bad, it is really hurting people in florida. Instead of matt gaetz showing up at trumps trial perhaps you should worry about the people in his district. We have way more republicans in our district then democrats so he is assured of always getting reelected. Host that is dorothy in florida saying insurance is an issue. Rort says wendy government prints money prices go up. Inflation is killing people. You can text us at 202 7488003. The Washington Post took a look at prices and what they should be versus what they are. My wifes car needed new windshield wipers in my book the brand that was top rated to wipers that 30 each. I went back for the ones rated lower how much should it cost . My prepend to make sense no longer applies. When he talks about food he does what should an entree caused in washington . I thought about 20 bucks at Southwest Waterfront the cheeseburger one of the cheapest option on the menu were 25 with the entrees in the 30s and 40s and side dishes around nine dollars each. These are menu prices. The fact many restaurants charge an extra fee for the staff outside of gratuity. You can tell us stories from where you live. In connecticut, this is surely. Caller thank you for taking my call. I wanted to let everyone know this is a republican and democrat issue. Trump gave everyone in Corporate America a tax break so they can help us with trickle down economics but it never trickle down to regular people. Our prices are the result of price gouging and when our democratic governors started to say we will check your prices, the major retailers that most of us go to drop their prices. My Grocery Store, its a big chain. When they started to hear that they were going to be investigated by the authorities they drop those prices down. Of course this is price gouging. The inflation issue has nothing to do with the fact that we have a problem with getting items like we did during the pandemic and of course, prices are going to go up, taxes are going to go up and insurance is also price caging. Thats where the inflation issue comes from that were all experiencing. We dont have extra funds coming in through our finances like if you are retired. Those on disability cant work to make more money and be able to catch up with the inflation issue. Those in florida, i feel for you. We have more republicans here and they dont care what their representative does. He can go on trial and go on vacation before a storm and you have to wake up so they can know you mean business for voting for someone looking out for their own interests. Host she walked around specific retailers but this is been announced from npr when it comes to reactions that target is announcing they are cutting prices on 5000 items including milk, butter and pet food. If you are paying more for certain things, many of you sharing your stories with us this morning. 202 7488000 for democrats, im sorry 202 7488000 for Eastern Central, 202 7488001 mountain pacific. Some of you posting on facebook. Marie said my savings account is dwindling down and she may lose her house. If you want to share thoughts on social media sites or text your thoughts feel free to do that. Lets hear from ray and pennsylvania. Caller how are you doing pedro . The lady hit the nail right on the head. Lets go back to my situation. If you look for sales they are there in the discounts. You can keep your eye out for that kind of stuff. Secondly, then lady hit the nail on the head. Inflation is some minor part of why prices are going up. You mentioned wind shield wipers. What shortage was there that would cause them to go up so high in price . The same thing with rent, insurance. Is not a matter of there being a shortage. Its inflation. Everyone hears the word inflation and people who sell things from the smallest drugstore to big corporations they love to hear that word because its an easy out to what they can do when they count you. And then you say why is this price so high and they say inflation and youre supposed to believe that. These people are making serious profits. I challenge you on cspan to get someone on there like katie porter who could bring the stuff out and show how these people are ripping everyone off just using the magic word inflation. It is just a magic word. Labor was getting an advantage and now they want to come down on labor so you dont make enough money to buy the stuff you want because it was getting out of hand. Look at the otter worker strikes , they knew labor was getting out of hand so we will stop this labor and raise prices. Host lets hear from charles in new york. Caller hi, how are you doing today . People have to wake up and realize whats going on here. There is inflation but most of it is caused by fuel. All of these drugs if their delivering stuff, they think its just inflation. Biotin is causing it. Open the borders all of that. Is not a good thing. We have to look at the view of everything. Host what surprised where yea what is the price of gas where you are living . Caller three dollars we have to take care of us our own people who live in this country. Host our thoughts on inflation and how its affecting Household Spending. From Thomas Friedman he said consider the price of food at home, groceries. In the chart the red line that shows the overall level of prices on the evil of the pandemic while the blue line shows the change in prices over the same period. Grocery prices are up 25 overall but the rate at which they are rising is falling. The latter number is what they mean when they say inflation is down. Many people wish we can get to where prices were but it would be a bad idea. This is a fairly innocent source of confusion. Im sorry, the paul krugman piece from the New York Times. You can add those thoughts to the mix when you tell us about Household Spending and how inflation is impacting that. 202 7488000 Eastern Central time zones, 202 7488001 mountain pacific time zones. Caller good morning, i was just going to comment on the price gouging argument. Nobody really believes that. If you believe that you will have to admit or say that colleges and universities are price gouging because nothing has gone up higher than that other than health care. We know education has increased because we give away education to certain segments and charge exorbitantly high numbers for other people to make up the difference. It has gone up since the early 2000s. Theyre not all of a sudden price gouging. Host pat in virginia, exdria not too far from here. Caller inflation has hit my house. I stayed up all night crunching numbers. Host ok. Caller i went from paying 1000 a month to 1400 and i used to put away 9000 and only put away 7000. Host and that is due to what you are seeing with pricing and alexandria . Caller it is mostly at the Grocery Store and utilities. Host can you give us an example of either . Caller i said in the dark but my electric bill is 60. I cook twice a month of my gas bill was 60. I really feel that pinch. Host you are cooking meals for a long stretch of time so you dont have to cook things every day. Caller i cook for an hour twice a month and my gas bill is 60. Host thoughts and alexandria, virginia. This is jeff fro massachusetts saying o heowners insurance double. We dont live in a floodplain or toado alley we dont have sinkholes or wildfires and dont live near the coast. He as shareholder and ceo greed . Program, the Federal Reserve put out a report yesterday taking a snapshot of household sign a 2003 and how economics are affecting them. One thing coming out from that report, inflation was a key concern for those who express that. You can find that report at federalreserve. Gov. You can also comment on the topic of inflation as far as how it is affecting you now. 202 7488000 for the Eastern Central time zones. 202 7488001 for mountain pacific time zones. Caller thank you for taking my call. We talk about how priced things are. We all got a lot of money from the government. The trump in the Biden Administration. People started price gouging. That is exactly what happens. Like the one fella said, i wish you would put price early for a lot of places the last two to three years. The stock market, 40,000 points the other day. I tell you, price gouging has a lot to do with it. Now that Lindsey Graham is on board cutting Social Security and stuff, that sure aint going to help inflation. There are a lot of people out there who are hurting. We all took a bunch of money. The poorest people got 500 600 dollars. A lot of people working. These fast food restaurants have to pay more because these kids got tired of working for nothing. I dont think we are doing that bad. Gas prices are coming down. The Oil Companies arent price gouging. I think more electric cars and one pair health care bill. Host the market watch report that came from the Federal Reserve report highlights things that tommy said. The rate of inflation slowed to 2. 3 at the end of 2023 from 6. 5 at the beginning of the year but still more than double prepandemic levels. There was good news. About three quarters of families say they are doing ok ok or living comfortably. Adults fell into one of these categories, the same as 2022 but down from a peak of 78 i may 2020 one. Highlighting the fact that households received generates government stimulus payments in the first few years of the pandemic. As expected, higher income households were doing the best financially helped by a rising stock market. Lower income families were doing less. 70 could not pay their prior bills in full because they did have enough money. In some cases they didnt have enough to eat or skipped medical care because of the cost. When it comes to inflation, if you think inflation and how it is being affected, you can share thoughts. On how corporations factor into this. This is from peter i naomi annoyed joining us. Go ahead. Caller i just wanted to throw in my two cents. When you have 10 Million People coming across the southern border, you are putting tremendous demand pressure on where to live. These 10 Million People have to live somewhere. Theyre going to have to eat. They are pushing up prices just because of the demand. Then what happens . The government has to try to take care of them and they will push up your taxes on your home, and that pushes up prices automatically. When you have all these people coming in it helps inflation tremendously. Not to mention that the government is just printing money helterskelter. Host i night ellen noy, personally what you are seeing eye night that china illinois, what are you saying in illinois . Caller at a food store i was paying 40 more to things that i paid 40 less a little while ago. My son has to pay 1900 a month for a one bedroom apartment. It is like, you have to be bringing in 40 grand before you can turn on the lights in your home nowadays. That is before you pay taxes and everything else. Its getting pretty tough out there. Host peter in Illinois Joining us with his story looking at inflation. The guardian, which we showed you the graph where inflation is, they did a snapshot of the political spectrum and if inflation is increasing. 80 of republicans say that they believe inflation is increasing and affecting things. 74 of independents registering that. 61 of democrats say inflation is increasing. This is the headline from the guardian. If you want to find that online. In North Carolina, hello. Caller inflation, for those of us who grow up in the 1960s and 1970s, wage control, the government trying to control the process didnt help, you just had a lot of money piled into the economy from the government during covid with a lot of people who were not working or going into the office you had that money to go out and spend and buy things. It is simply supply and demand. Coming off of the oil embargo in 1972, 1973, 1974, the basic prices of things went up. The reason that you have insurance going up to the price of housing has almost doubled during covid. Obviously, insurance is going to go up. It is just a spiraling cycle that has to get brought under control. Volker had a tough job during the reagan administration, the Carter Administration had nixon. It is just a tough thing to get under control because there is too much money facing too many goods. Host the Federal Reserve report highlighted housing when it comes to Economic Health and households, saying challenges paying rent increased in 2023. The median payment was 1100 in 2023 up 11 from 2022. 19 percent of renters reported being behind at some point in the past year, up by 2 is points in 2022. My people percent of adults were affected financially by a Natural Disaster in the prior year. 4 of homeowners did not have homeowners insurance. This year it was higher among certain populations. Two in 10 homeowners in the south with an income less than 50,000 did not have homeowners insurance. That is the economic wellbeing of u. S. Households report. 2023 put out yesterday, you can find it at the Federal Reserve site at federalreserve. Gov. Mohammed, thank you for calling in. Caller thank you for taking my call. No one is talking, the manufacturing is not increasing the price, they are selling the less quantity at the same price. If you go to the restaurants most of the time the serving sizes are reduced. This is another charge for customers. Host i think youre talking about what is commonly known as shrinkflation . Caller that is correct. Host what do you notice it most in do you think . Caller i dont want to put names, but if i go to the store i will give you an example. Two years back it was four quarts and now it is three quarts at the same price. Host we havent talked about it yet. Thanks for bringing it up. If you go to Yahoo Finance there was a story that came out in the 19th of this month, five reasons why Small Businesses are embracing what is known as shrink inflation. The first reason is profitability, saying that according to the survey they found that businesses have tried shrinkflation and 64 say the reason of using the tactic was to remain profitable adding shrinkflation can improve profitability because its charging the same price for units sold and receiving the same revenue while reducing cost for units sold. Supply chain says they are using it to offset rising production for supply chain. The past few years left workforce shortages and supply chain disruptions have been challenging for Small Businesses. Number three is to improve business operations, amongst other things. If youre interested in that topic you can see that at finance. Yahoo. Com. Randy i nagin kentucky is up next. Caller there are so many fingers involved and so many extensions of all of the inflation as it reaches out. For my car to give you one example, my automobile, because of the rise of prices of unions and the Union Agreement that they got in the strike, when i go to pay my taxes now my auto property taxes, those prices have gone up 35 . Insurance has gone of equal amount. When i get my vehicle worked on it has gone of equal amount. It is all of the fingers that goes out there. One of the things that really bothers me is that unions are an unfair price upon the consumer. You on cspan and other networks are unions and you wont talk about your brothers like this negatively when the strike was going on. You didnt tell people what was going on and what would happen. This is unconstitutional and illegal what unions are and what you are doing. We have to have fair and honest news media. You are so biased that you cannot report a simple thing like the unions with automobiles that will branch out through the whole economy. Host as i recall correctly going back in time when the strikes were going on, we did quite a bit looking at not only the actual situation with automobiles but how it impacted unions overall. I dont have total recall over it, but if you check the website you can find out more there. Caller i never saw it. 8 in the unions, you look at where the 8 are. You add it to the government, they just naturally raised prices whenever they want to raise benefits. They never are going to say anything. They love the increase that we got from the uaw on taxes. Inflation is a tax. We have to pay for those peoples greed, your greed, your union. People who arent union have to pay for the greedy. Also, i called many times since covid was going on, exactly what was going to happen. If you have 1 million in the bank, 30 inflation during that time, you have lost 300,000 of that 1 million, people. Host randy in kentucky to show you one way that we looked at the end of the uaw strikes, as the caller referenced. This is a segment on november 1, 2023. If you want to check it out again, go to the website, cspan. Org, to find out more. Mary in michigan. Hello. Caller im calling from a small town of 30,000 people in northern lower michigan. Things here are going pretty good. My car and Health Insurance are only up about 10 , which i would expect. The one thing that has gone up his property taxes, because house prices have gone up because there is no inventory. They havent built a new home here in 20 years. Unless it was a custombuilt expensive home on one of the lakes. Im 64 soon to hopefully be retired. In the past three years, i worked as a nurse, my income has gone of 15 an hour in three years which to me is shocking. Being a nurse ive always felt i was underpaid. In this area, walmart sets the price. When they came in 25 years ago many stores and gas stations left the area. They set the price of everything. I went into walmart yesterday and i was shocked. They had halfprice on things like ketchup and bread. I dont know if it was because of memorial day or what, but they had many items that were halfprice yesterday at walmart. I couldnt believe it. Host where is alpena . Caller northeast michigan 100 miles south of the mackinac bridge on lake huron. I have family that lives in maryland and virginia. When they come to michigan in the summer, they are shocked. The same house that i have here in alpena is two to three times more expensive where they are at. So much so that i have had a nice move niece and her husband last year move to ann arbor. I was approached on monday out of the blue by a realtor. Without even coming into my house, just by going i dont know how they knew how big my house was they wanted to know if i wanted to list my home. They came yesterday and it was in three years time my home, the value of my home, has gone up 30,000. Im shocked. My thing is, where would i move . [laughter] there are no apartments, no housing available, unless you are very low income. If you are a senior and very low income we have housing, but we have no low income for families or anything like that. Another thing i want to say, i watched your show, and i kind of live on a busy road. Truck after truck, bluecollar workers in gasguzzling trucks, and i am in michigan so cars are a thing, go by my house to work. Bluecollar workers. When we had the gas problems in the early 1980s and stuff, we carpooled. The young people do not carpool. They own expensive trucks. They pay more for their trucks than i pay for houses. If they are not driving a truck they are driving an suv. You dont need a truck or an suv to get to work, but that is the way that this country is. Host mary in michigan telling us about the story of inflation and the impact on Household Spending. Feel free to add yours to the mix. 202 7488000 for the eastern and central time zones. 202 7488001 for the mountain and pacific time zones if you want to add your thoughts. You can always text us. This is a viewer in rhode island texting what some of you have said this morning when it comes to the idea of inflation. President s dont control price gouging. Stop blaming President Biden. It is greedy corporations. That is the thought from paul in rhode island. If you want the text us you can go ahead at 202 7488002 at 202 7488003. Steve in massachusetts. Caller how are you . Host i am well, thank you. Caller i am 55 years old. I want to talk about my life how we started in america with a singlefamily income going on. Americans could live that way with just dad going to work and mom staying home with kids. As life has gone on, we needed a double family income. We survived with both parents working. Now, there is double family incomes and you cannot survive with it. First, you wonder why people arent having children anymore. It is because people are working, both parents, full days. Our prices in massachusetts are out of control, our insurance is out of control. We pay taxes on everything. I understand how taxes are going up because my. House has doubled in price of course my tax and insurance has to go up because of the cost of everything. All of these people coming over the border, how are they ever going to survive on their own in this country if couples who have lived here their whole lives cant do it now . That is my question. Where is our country going . You look at where it has gone in my lifetime and it is continuing to go in a direction that to me is not a positive thing. Those are my two cents. Host steve in massachusetts giving us his thoughts. Another person giving thoughts on the matter of inflation was Christopher Waller who talked about inflation and trends that he saw at a recent event in washington dc. Here is a portion of the event from yesterday. [video clip] after six months of decent data we got a shock in january. A huge price increase. There was a lot of discussion. It is seasonal. It is temporary. It is the beginning of the year. A bunch of factors. Driven by a big input of prices no one was expecting. It was thought that it will disappear after a month. February didnt quite disappear. And then the story was, well some of it is bleeding through. It will be fine. In march, you know at some point after three months it cannot be a temporary seasonal thing. There is something more fundamental going on making inflation a little stickier. We saw at the end of last year. That was after the march data. We were concerned that this wasnt going the way we thought it was going to go. This last month, the key thing for me is that its showing that inflation is not accelerating. We can rule that out. In january we didnt know. In three months we are looking real good. How much progress we are going to get towards getting to 2 . It may be a lot slower than we saw at the end of last year, but whatever the factors were in the first three months they have not completely disappeared. There might be something more fundamental going on. I dont know exactly what that would be. We are trying to figure out what it is. Host that was yesterday in washington dc. This is from josephine in new jersey. Caller good morning. You had on a guest a month ago from the wall street journal who was a young man who made a comment that stuck in my mind. I said he was absolutely right. The question was asked of him, why is inflation so high . He said, because businesses can get away with it. He said people have jobs, they are willing to spend the money even if they dont have it because they have a job, and you look around. Your airlines are already planning for the busiest year in history. Your vacations are ready for the busiest year in history. It isnt because we are in a recession. We havent been in a recession in years. You know a recession. Im old enough to tell you that when i bought my house in 1980 that recession is 18 Interest Rates not 3. 5 . You are being duped by a particular party. It is to their advantage to tell you, oh, the sky is falling. Its not. I tell you one way of controlling it. Just like you are seeing snowballing. You notice wendys, mcdonalds, all of them are starting to get a reasonable menu. Havent you noticed . People are getting angry. If you get angry enough and you dont use your feet to go into a store, guess what happens. They lower prices because they finally reached the ceiling of which you will tolerate it no more. You have it in your control. Dont buy and you will get it. Host peter is in illinois. Caller yeah, the taxation is what the problem is. I am 86 years old. Whenever you see taxes, it has cost 32 trillion for what the Republican Party has done on this. The only way that you can lower the price is taxation and you have to tax the rich to where they cannot make money over a certain amount of money. It will bring inflation down and everything will work out. Otherwise, the government is putting taxes on i dont know how you call it, but anyway they are trying to raise it up and try to do something with it that way. You cant do that because the rich dont pay taxes. My gosh, people have to realize it. They have another billion dollars tomorrow. Thank you. Host austin, texas where cindy is. Caller i want to address my comments to i believe his name was randy in kentucky blaming the uaw and union pay increases for inflation. He needs to go to school. He is misinformed. It is not the working men and women of this country breaking their backs on the Assembly Lines raising inflation. They are not, as he said, the grady. The the greedy. The greedy are ceos of wall street corporations and banks. Jamie diamond announced yesterday, the head of Jpmorgan Chase for over 18 years, the longest ever ceo, he is worth 2. 2 billion. His salary last year was increased to 36 million for 2023. Dont blame the working men and women who have 35 to 40 an hour. Even if it was 60 or 70 an hour, that is not the increase. What is your wage worth . It is someone working their butt on the line worth less than someone sitting who owns 20 Different Properties in this country . Give me a break. You need to go to school. You have been propagandized by the Republican Party that it is the poor people. It is the rich people. Host the hill highlighting the fact that it was inflation far and away the issue going into this years elections. The Economic Outlook and President Bidens Approval Rating varied by ethnicity. When asked how strong they think that the economy is today it was 42 of respondents saying that it was strong. 58 perceiving the economy is weak. According to the Online Survey of 1600 plus people, 34 of those respondents said that they believe that the economy is on the right track. That answer varied significantly depending on if the respondent was republican or democrat, 13 and 59 respectively. So, that is the pole that came out yesterday. The hill catching up on that and writing about inflation matters, especially as it plays into an election year. From andy in michigan, the last call on this. Go ahead. Caller how are you guys doing . Im enjoying the program. My quick question, or statement, is, i dont think we understand or want to understand supply and demand. The wages are going up. Mcdonalds is now making 15 an hour. The owner is either going to raise prices, cut heads, or take the loss. They are not going to take the loss. They want to keep the profit margin where its at and that is where its going to stay. You either pay it or you dont. It is simply supply and demand. American greed has a lot to do with it. That is what i believe. Maybe im wrong, but that is what i believe. Thank you for taking my call. Host the last call on this topic and thank you to all of you who participated today. A couple of things to watch out for on the networks today, at 10 00 on cspan3 is where you can see House Homeland Security committee Holding Hearings to examine how Artificial Intelligence and help defend and secure the homeland. That will be at 10 00. Cspan3. You can watch it on cspan now if you wish and our free mobile app and at cspan. Org. Later today Antony Blinken will testify about his recent trip to ukraine, the fighting between israel and hamas, and the president s 2020 five budget request in front of the House Foreign Affairs committee starting at 2 15 this afternoon. If you want to see that hearing, cspan3 is how you do it. You can view it on the up and the dot org. Coming up throughout the course of the morning, next we will hear from Simon Rosenberg, a democratic strategist who writes on sub stack talking about President Bidens reelection effort, the challenges that he faces. Later on in the program as we look at the future of iran in the light of the death of his president , Behnam Ben Taleblu with the foundation for defense of democracies joins us for that discussion. That is coming up when washington journal continues. Cspans campaign 2024 coverage continues live with the threeday Libertarian National convention as they choose their partys minees for president and vice prede beginning friday at 3 30 p. M. Eastern. Highlights include independe president ial candidate robert f. Kennedy, jr. Followed by Vice President ial debates featuring a former contender. And then at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, former president and Presumptive Republican nominee donald trump will speak before the delegates. On sunday at 9 00 eastern the president ial nominee for the election. Libertarian National Convention live friday at 3 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan, cspan now our free mobile video aand ppline at cspan. Org. Since 1979, in partnership with the cable industry, cspan has provided complete coverage of the halls of congress from the house and Senate Floors to congressional hearings, briefings, and committee meetings. Cspan gives you a front row seat to how issues are developed and decided with no commentary, no interruptions, and completely unfiltered. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. If you ever miss any of cspans coverage, you can find it anytime online at cspan. Org. Videos of hearings, debates, and other events with markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. The points of interest markers are on the right side of your screen when you hit play on selected videos. Making it easy to give you an idea on why what was debated and decided in washington. Scroll through points of interest on cspan. [gavel] [video clip] the house will be in order. Cspan celebrates 45 years of covering the house. We have been your primary source capitol hill, providing balanced, unfiltered coverage of government. Taking you to where the policy is debated and decided, all with the support of americas cable companies. Cspan, 45 years and counting. Powered by cable. Be up to date with the latest in publishing with the book tv podcast about books with current Nonfiction Book releases, bestseller lists, industry news, and trends through insider interviews. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Washington journal continues. Host our first guest of the morning, Simon Rosenberg, writer on sub stack, democratic strategist, mr. Rosenberg thank you for giving us your time. Guest great to be here, pedro. Host tonight you are doing a public presentation laying out your latest take on the 2024 election. You added that bottom line, i would much rather be us than them. Guest my basic take on the election is that joe biden has been a good president , joe biden is better off for the American People. We are raising tons of money and we are fired up and ready to go for the election. The republicans are selling a flawed candidate that is far more diminished from where he was in 2016 and 2000 20. His agenda is far more extreme and dangerous. The Republican Party itself is a huge shambles, a huge mess. We go into the election with a huge organizational advantage and a better candidate. Over the next 5. 5 months, i am looking forward to the debate and i think we will win the election. Guest is the strong host is the strong case mainly based on not donald trump . Guest no. Anything about what biden inherited in january of 2021, right down the street from here, right, we were the vaccines had not been distributed yet. Donald trump had mismanaged the covid crisis. The American Economy was struggling. The Global Economy was struggling. We had just had an attack on the capital. Insurrection, first time we had not had a peaceful transfer of power in our history. Joe biden inherited one of the worst circumstances in our history and look at where we are today. The strongest economic recovery of any advanced recovery economy in the world. Inflation is lowest. Best job markets since the 60s. Lowest uninsured rate in history. Startup boom. Three big bills that biden passed that are creating opportunity and jobs for people for a generation to come. We are accelerating the energy transition. He has been a good president. Crime is down. The flow to the border plummeted last year. We have a strong case. The country clearly better off. That is what the election will be about, in part, and i will be talking about what he is going to do in the second term versus what trump does. Host when you look at items like polling, in your lifetime you have looked at polling, when you see these most recent ones about he states where trump leads and concerns over biden in certain sectors, how do you read that . Guest we got some more from bloomberg that literally came out that shows that the election is close. Its a close election. Close in the states. There is a limit to how accurate polling is. Today, for example, we are tied in nevada. In the times bowl, we were losing by 11. Poll, we were losing by 11. The fairest way to read the data is that the election is close, the other side is leading or ahead, and at the end of the First Quarter of a basketball game, its tied, there is three quarters of the game ahead of us. Most of the election will take still. Having been through a lot of campaigns, looking at the total landscape, i would much rather be us than them because we have a better candidate, argument, and organization beneath us to prosecute a campaign for the next five months. Host when you are seeing data like this around the election, does it concern you because it is not further out . Guest no, we have work to do. Im not pollyanna. Joe biden is not where he wants to be and so too, donald trump is not where he wants to be. Close election, tie game at the end of the First Quarter. As i said, structurally there is not as much attention in washington right now to the financial, structural, organizational advantages that deming thats have right now. This has been underreported. We have never seen a candidate three times to four times more money than the other candidate this late in the cycle. Republicans have not even begun to build a general election operation. We are many months into it. These kinds of general election operations, its like building a battleship. The republicans are past the point or they will be able to build an effective general election operation. Look, im saying what the likelihood is. The likely thing is that we win. Is it guaranteed . The higher seed still has to win the game and beat the other team, right . I am sanguine, optimistic, and confident that what is in front of us, i would much rather be us than them. By the way, early voting starts on september 20. The election begins in four months, not five and a half months. Its incredible. Host if anyone would like to ask Simon Rosenberg for deming 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488000 four democrats, for democrats, 202 7488001 for republicans, 202 7488002 fors independent. How much of a factor is the economy in the election . Guest its a big factor. There are obviously concerns. Of all of the polling data i have seen in recent months, the data that gives me the most optimism, the wall street journal did a poll of battleground states and asked if things in the last two years had gotten better in your state. Not nationally, but in your state. In every state there was 15, 25, 30 point majorities saying that things were better. Things are better, people believe in the battleground states that things are clearly better, thats the whole argument in the election. Its going to be easy for us, in relative terms in a campaign, to say you think things are better in arizona . That is because of joe biden. Because its true. For us to be able to make that connection between the sense that things are better in their states, where the elections are taking place its not a national election, its in these states, there is a clear sense that the country is, that where they are things are better. They may think the country is not doing so well, but the election is happening in seven states, not across the country. Even in that New York Times siana poll last month, they asked about lifestyle. 74 said they were satisfied their lives. Only 24 that not. People were happy with jobs, incomes at the highest levels. So, there isnt a sense of rebellion and anger in the country. If there was, democrats would not have been winning elections across the country for the last two years. There is a normas life and Job Satisfaction beneath this in the sense that things have improved and that is one of the reasons i think we will win the election. Host before we go to calls, one thing that was featured frequently in the last few months was bidens age and his mental faculties. Are those still concerns . Guest that is a legitimate issue, of course it is, and we have to make the argument that ayden has been a successful president because of his age, wisdom, and experience. The most experienced person to ever come into the oval office guided us through this choppy time in history, going to work every day for the American People, getting things through despite the divided congress. I view age as a balance sheet, assets and liabilities. Assets, deeply experienced guy in the office during a time of challenge. There liabilities are obvious. Its not fair to view his age solely through the prism of liability. Thats not the case. Host jason, indiana, democratic line for Simon Rosenberg. You are on with the guest. Go ahead. Caller icu recently on the bulwark podcast. I listen to it every day like i listen to cspan, washington journal every morning. Ive got to tell you, im so angry about how ineffectual democratic messaging is versus republican messaging. I will give you an example. In the last couple of weeks, this week with george stephanopoulos, come all simmons, Kate Bettinger on their , there is a republican senator on their. He mentions the joe biden border crisis, the joe biden border crisis. This is the guy from texas who voted to impeach trump. A reasonable republican, but he still got his talking points down. Hes got them tight. They both failed to mention the bipartisan border bill that biden would have signed and that trump tanked through mike johnson. Another example, this weekend with george stephanopoulos, i forget her name, she was also a part of the, you know, they used to work in the Vice President s office, whoever, shes on there and they are talking about samuel alito flying the traditionalist flag and asking her about it and shes commenting and she says you know, its not just the best decisionmaking to put that flag out front. Host we will let you guest well, listen, as long as im here [laughter] look, we think this is going to be a long campaign. 5. 5 months are ahead of us. There will be a lot of forums like this. You have to recognize that in the country, republicans have a much more powerful day to day Propaganda Machine. We are better in campaigns and where we have been evening things out in recent elections like in 2018, 2020, 2 thousand 22 in 2023. Its because of the support of the American People, the money we are raising and the powerful campaigns we are building, we can close the gap with the republican Propaganda Machine. But in the day to day, in discussions like this, we are still a bit outmatched. Fox news, the huge Propaganda Machine on the right has created imbalance in the daily discourse. So, we start a bit behind everyday. Where we make up ground and get ahead is where the campaigns begin. Its another reason why we are so confident. As we get out and talk to voters , we have seen again and again, when that process begins, we win, republicans lose. Its one of the reasons we are so fundamentally confident about the moment. Host sam, florida, republican mine. Caller i do agree with you on the organizational part, the Democratic Party is vastly superior in their organization and how they go about getting there voters out for getting the votes out from there voters. I have a couple of questions that i would normally disagree with you about. First question is i seriously dont think, as an everyday american, you have been out of d. C. In the last 24 years. Things are not better. Things are not better. You cannot take a inflation rate of 1. 4 up to nine and then drop it back to three or four and say that things are better. You cannot go to a publix in the state of florida and look at the prices and say that things are better. I would also ask you i can understand why you are confident about the vote because of the organization. I would also ask you to cling to me explained to me where you think ask you to explain to me where you think the propaganda is when you have the entire media with the democrats. Guest the first one that sam asked will be the central debate in the campaign. What i was saying is that people in the battleground states believe that things are better. I think that they are better objectively. So, part of it is, sam, im referring to a question done by the wall street journal, owned by rupert murdoch, people think its better in the country. I understand about the inflation shock that happened. The majority of voters do not believe it is joe bidens fault. Its an important mindset about inflation. By the way, it is not joe bidens fault in reality. Inflation was a global phenomenon that happened across the modern world, driven by covid, supply chain disruptions, opec cutting production and raising prices. If you are angry as an american citizen about asked prices and inflation, you should be really mad at Vladimir Putin. The central reason our gas prices and food prices went up in the big spike of 2022 was because of the war in the ukraine. Then the subsequent efforts by opec to cut production and raise gas and oil prices. So, we know just from the economics of this that a big chunk of the nation that happened was not due to American Government policy. It was universal around the world. Sam, you should realize that inflation is lower here than any other advanced economy in the world. Its a global phenomenon that we have managed better than everyone else. Is it where we want to be . Absolutely not. We had encouraging Inflation Numbers yesterday, but we have work to do. Im confident that if we have this debate, we can make our case and ring some of you along that might be skeptical about that. The second question about propaganda is look, fox news is essentially a very powerful machine for pushing republican talking points and views everyday that have no there is not an analog on our side. I dont believe that the Mainstream Media is aligned with the Democratic Party. As someone who worked at abc, dealt with journalists growing up everyday. Yesterday i had one of the hardest interviews i had ever done in my career with the new yorker, with a lefty socalled magazine. The media is not aligned with the Democratic Party. The media everyday tries to stay in a middle course, stay objective. This idea that there are right wing organizations fighting our Mainstream Media that is aligned with us, i dont think thats a cave thats the case. Host do you think that fox news embraces former President Trump as they did . Guest i think they move stories that denigrate joe biden with incredible enthusiasm, force, and effectiveness. Fox news is very effective. Its a formidable adversary. We dont have an analogous thing. As i said earlier, my view from day to day is that our discourse and discussions, the calls you get here, are more heavily shaped by republican institutions than the Mainstream Media or the democrats area where we make up ground are our enthusiastic supporters across the country and allowing us to build the biggest campaigns weve ever had and control the information environment in the states and when. For democrats, we have got work to do to try to create some kind of Strategic Response to fox. Guest host President Biden has agreed president host what are the liabilities for President Biden engaging in debate . Guest i think its good for democracy. Trump skipped the third debate in 2020, skipped all of the debates this cycle. I think that joe biden wants a debate. I think its good for the country. Trump said that he would debate anywhere. Trump agreed and now we will have a debate in june and a debate in september. There are two things about the debates that are important. One, early voting, as i mentioned earlier, starting september 20. Our election system has changed in recent years. Many of these debates were happening long after people had already started to vote. The Biden Campaign said no, we want the debates before people vote, to help inform the decision. The debates will happen before the voting begins, its good for everybody, right . I do think that bringing the election earlier in june is good for everybody. Its a big decision that people have to make about the future of the country. Lets give them more information rather than less. If donald trump is going to skip debates like before, lets find out in june, not at the end of september. Im so skeptical that he will show up. We will see. Host albert, independent line. Caller my wife says that there are not enough crazy people in this country to reelect trump. I agree with her. I think that should be a talking point. Second of all, the Washington Post said that at an event trump told 30,573 lies in his four years in the white house. It came out to about 20. 9 lies per day. That has to be put out there. I love everything that you say and i think you are the smartest operative in the country. Thank you very much. Guest i will take that one. [laughter] not all calls are like that you listen, i think the question about trump as a leader, as a man, as a moral figure in the country is fair game. I mean, mitt romney has said repeatedly that the reason he cant vote for donald trump is because he doesnt believe that somebody who paid for sex with a foreign star and has been found by a judge and jury to have committed Sexual Assault should be president of the United States. I agree with that. Donald trump, given his legal track record, would not be able to be the leader of any Public Institution or private institution in the United States. Why do we have lower standards for president then we would for a university or even a high school. Right . Donald trump has been adjudicated and found by two courts to have committed Sexual Assault, raving eugene carol raping eugene carol in new york in a department store. Committing fraud. Those are facts and facts on the ground have already been decided. These are legitimate questions, for someone who would not be able to be hired to be a cashier at a costco, how are they eligible to be president of the United States . These are legitimate and fair grounds and i appreciate the caller bringing it up. Host North Carolina, republican line. Caller dude, you are so full of it. Number one, the Propaganda Machine, the only thing that you can mention that the conservatives have is fox news. Rupert murdoch hates donald trump. You know, weve got 80 of fox news, 20 hates trump. Thats the only organization that you can mentioned that has conservative ideas out of abc, nbc, cbs, the bbc, all of them . You even mentioned that you worked with abc or nbc or one of them so real quick, lets talk about an nation. What was it that is on video that cspan wont play of joe biden going up to that College Student and saying were going to destroy fossil fuels. We are getting off of fossil fuels. Read my lips. Here we are, the inflation spike was way before this Vladimir Putin thing came up that you all just love that you use an excuse as for every bad thing that goes on in the world. When fuel prices went up, when fuel prices went up, that is when inflation went up. Fuel goes into every single thing in this world, almost, even the streets are paved with petroleumbased product. You, sir, are a liar. Guest roy, i think the big lie, as you brought up liars, which we knew would come up today, is the argument that joe biden created higher as prices and inflation. Higher gas prices and inflation. Joe biden said he wanted to transition the American Economy to a more renewable and cleaner economy, which every country in the world is working towards, even saudi arabia apparently. Somehow through those magic words that generated higher gas prices . The truth is, 2023, america produced more oil in any year in American History than any other country in the world. We exported more natural gas than any other year in American History and we produced more renewable energy. We are more Energy Independent and we have been in decades. This argument that somehow joe biden has waged a war on oil, if you did, its the worst war anyone has ever waged, we just saw the highest production of oil then any country in the history of the world. The argument that biden is responsible for higher gas prices is false, untrue, and despicable that the republicans continue to do it, its created cover for the people who are responses responsible, Vladimir Putin and the Saudi Arabian government. If you are angry at higher gas prices, you should be mad at Vladimir Putin, not joe biden. Guest host how do the sharp rises and inflation factor in . Guest lets go back to what happened with. It happened universally because of supply chain problems that made it harder to get to its to the u. S. And the developed world. But then it spiked, as several of your callers discussed. Early 2022. It happens after the ukrainian war. The reason why is gas prices went up around. Importantly, your callers that something important, gas is a mobile higher patient. Anything transportation defendant, prices go up. Most fertilizer is petroleumbased. The reason that food prices went up in the United States is because of Vladimir Putin. Because of his attack on the ukrainian grain supplies that drove up food prices around the world. He tried to drive up inflation as a strategy to make the United States and the west walk away from the ukrainian war. It was a part of his war strategy. That spike, if you are pissed, dont be mad at joe biden, who has got inflation down, be mad at Vladimir Putin, he solely responsible for the inflation spike. Host is a decrease because of the biden policy or are there other factors should mark guest its a combination of things. Theres been a Clear Strategy in the United States and other economies in the world to bring inflation down. Supply chains were reestablished, right . Prices came down. Gas came down. Gas, way down from where was 2000 when he to, right . Yeah, there was an effort, even the attacks on biden for selling the teacher Petroleum Reserve designed to bring down gas prices, joe biden did a big and important thing to bring down gas prices. Of course he wants inflation to come down. We have to recognize that we are not where we want to be, but man are we not at 9 anymore. We are down into the low threes. The whole goal of Economic Policy is to create robust growth and keep inflation under control. We just went to one of the largest economic shocks in global history with covid and in my belief, this is what the election was about, i think we have done a good job managing. There is clear data showing that we managed it better than any other advanced economy in the world. Is there other work to be done . Absolutely. We are not where we want to be. But even like the gas prices in the last four weeks, they are going down, not up. Lets hope that continues for everybody watching. By the way, food prices, the other thing that its mentioned, they dropped last month. Target Just Announced that they are cutting the prices of many goods. Mcdonalds is going to cut prices. Host isnt that more reactionary . Guest yeah, but thats all about the good news when it comes. We can say that things are better but that still have work to do. Things are better america we are not where we want to be. Host where can people find you on some stack . Guest its called hopeium chronicles. Check it out on my website. Its a community of about 75,000 people. The water is warm. You get content six days a week. Live events, speaking tonight, everyone for free. Its been a great project and i have really enjoyed it. Host kim, democratic line, hello. Caller i want a question. Black people are 14 of this country. What have the Democratic Party done for black americans other than i remember 2018, 2019, 2021, they put up a bill after george floyd that didnt pass in the senate. Voting rights didnt pass. So, why is not joe biden putting executive orders on everything . I still see around the country, the police have not been reined in for accountability. I still see black children getting hurt by officers. He has not done things, but talks about the economy. Most black americans, especially the young ones, are having a hard time finding jobs. Paying rent. What is he going to do . Whats it going to do for black americans . I would like to know what, how the Democratic Party of the last 50 years, what have they done for black america . The last person that did something was bill clinton. So, what are they going to do . Host gotcha. Thank you. Guest a few things. I want to recommend to the caller that she reads the president s speech that gave it Morehouse College on sunday, where he addressed many of the questions she had. I learned something about joe biden that i didnt know in that speech. I had read about it, but he reminded us that his political career began because of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s in that wilmington, delaware, was a city after the urban riots of 68, it had a longer occupation the National Guard than any other city in america. I didnt know that. He began his career, quitting a fancy law firm, going to work as a public defender. A young guy in his 20s in his 20s and the Civil Rights Movement delaware, running for the senate. His whole career has been based on and began, how he got into politics was over civil rights. A few things, the black Unemployment Rate has been lower in the biden presidency than any other in American History. The uninsured rate for African Americans lower than its ever been. Its helping people to stay healthy and lead lives. He has made unprecedented investments in historically black colleges and universities, to help bolster those. Schools for opportunity. He also appointed the first lack woman to be his Vice President. Kamala harris is the first woman of color to ever sit in the presidency or vice presidency. His appointment to the Supreme Court was a black woman, right . In terms of fighting for civil rights and freedoms every day, joe biden has made the fight for democracy and freedom of the central argument of his entire presidency and reelection. He understands the gravity of the challenges that we face. So, i think he has a strong ace to make africanamericans that he has been on their side. I encourage the caller to read his Morehouse College speech, where he directly addresses this more articulately than i will. To me it was one of the most important speeches of his presidency, actually. It was a powerful and personal reflection on america since 1968. Host you can still see cspan. Org, if you want to check out that speech. To what degree do you think that the president might lose constituents because of gaza and the u. S. Policy there . Guest look, i think gaza is, the debate around gaza and israel is giving biden an opportunity least of his strength. He is a strong Foreign Policy leaders. Hes focused on that area through his career and the country needs to have a big discussion about what is happening in ukraine, the middle east, and china. Right . These are things where our lives are changing. We are leaving a time in america that was relatively peaceful into a world that will be more choppy, adversarial. We should have an honest conversation with the American People about it. We shouldnt run away from this debate. Theres nothing to fear. Polling, and these things can change, right . Suddenly we have debates, have them a week ago. Elections changed. For many americans, it is a distant concern. An important issue, but people are concerned about patient, health care, reproductive freedom, loss of democracy if trump becomes president , climate change, immigration for republicans this is a central issue. I think its likely that it will be a secondary issue in the election. Not unimportant, but other things matter more. Host john, california. Hi caller . Caller i want to address hi. Caller the issue of the sex scandals with donald trump when you had a president , bill clinton in office having sex in the oval office. You have got jesse jackson. You have got weiner. Theres all kinds of president kennedy with marilyn monroe. All of these politicians, he says hes not qualified and yet you have all of these other politicians doing the same thing. I want to know what you think about that. I will take your answer online. Host sure. Guest i will do this quickly, because i think we should move on, but there is a difference between consensual sex that happened and what happened with donald trump and e. Jean carroll, where it was determined that he raped her. Host sexual abuse. Guest right, it was described as rape under the law in new york. We know what is happening in new york right now. From she did on his wife, who had a young you are a child at home, paid off, you know, had an adulterous affair with Stormy Daniels and then now is trying to cover it up in the election of 2016. My basic points, though, any leader who have been indicted 88 times for felonies, who had been found guilty of sexual or rate, who had already been found to have committed massive financial fraud and fined hundreds of millions of dollars, he and his two sons have been banned from doing business in new york state, anyone with that track record would not be at eligible to get a job working at costco in the United States, let alone lead in a position. Why it is that we have a lower standard for the most important Political Office in the world than we do from being a cashier, i dont really understand. Host dennis, ohio, democratic line, good morning. Caller good morning, gentlemen. I would like to make a comment. I have noticed that trump supporters, including my brother, are in denial. They look the other way. They dont want to hear. I think that the democrats want to do, if they want to win an election or even a short at, they have to keep repeating over and over the things trump said about women, people in the military. Just short snippets showing him saying these things. So that the republicans who support him cannot be in denial about these things. Guest look, i think there are a lot of things voters will come to learn. I didnt want to get into it earlier, but one reason i am optimistic that we are going to win is that a lot of the things people are going to learn about trump that they did not know about the things after he lost the election, they will be difficult for him to overcome. The other things in the news today, the issue of the stolen documents. Donald trump stole from the United States hundreds of classified documents. He lied to the fbi about possessing them, a level crime. He shared the secrets with other people. We know that. That, to me, is another one of these things that should be an out and out automatic disqualifier. Why did he take these documents . The news this morning is that even after the fbi raid, where they thought they had gotten all of the documents, he hid and kept documents from the u. S. Government after the fbi came to maralago. The government made it clear that he needed to return everything, but they continued he continue to hold back documents. The question is, why . Why was it so important to hold things back . Theres only one real organization, he was trying to sell them or use them as political leverage over other people. Theres no good answer. This is also something to your callers oink, there will be a lot of things will come to learn about trump that they didnt know about him in 2020 that will make it difficult for him to win. Host ezra klcently wrote this, the mistake democrats keepaking is assuming that the untry will see him as they see him, but hst w after pandemic. Democrats ought to run against the threat he poses to democracy and if democracy is still a sacred cause. The most uent russian of our time, that is what joe biden said, but it is not working, or at least not working well enough. Guest i agree that we have worked to do. Host did you just say its not working . Guest no, i agree with ezra that we have work to do. That is where i agree. I go back basic idea, you know, the way that campaigns are built in order to the public about things you want them to know about your candidates about the other candidate, right mark that is why campaigns exist. Our campaign right . That is why campaigns exist. Our campaign is in the early stages. The American People over the next 5. 5 months are going to learn a lot of things about trump aide before and he will make it difficult for him to win, because they will make it difficult for him to win, because he is a unique figure that represents a threat to our rights and freedoms. Rights and freedoms of over half the population have been stripped away in recent years because of him. This is a debate that i am sure is going to be happening over the next 5. 5 months. Host republican line, terry, minnesota. Caller good morning. Let me help you out, simon. War, inflation, open border, highest homelessness in history, riots in the street over palestine. I think you are deluding yourself thinking that biden as an excuse, saying its always someone elses fault. Putin, someone else. If hes not capable of controlling anything, what the hell good is he as a president . You know what is tawdry . When joe biden made his teenage daughter shower naked host ok. Guest outrageous. Thank you. Caller makes some valid points, things we will have to address. If you are concerned about the border and you discussed this earlier, you should be angry at donald trump. Republicans in the senate, the democrats in the senate came up with a bill that would address many of the concerns we have had about the border. Donald trump told congress not to pass it, because he want the border to be chaotic. So, the democratic already is the party trying to fix the border. Its the Republican Party fighting for open borders, not us. We know, even just just because of joe biden housework, the flow to the border has plummeted in the early part of 2000. Its much lower than it was 2023 early part of 2024. Its much lower than it was 2023. People are actually surprised, to some degree. You have commentators discussing this. Part of this is that mexico and the other countries that, you know, see the flow of people coming in, they have really clamped down. Why . We asked them. We are working diplomatically to control this. There are those on the program who care about immigration on the border. Joe biden has exhibited the ability to get the flow down. We got the bill that would bring resources, unprecedented, to get control of the border. The people blocking that are donald trump in the republican already. Man, i would be angry at trump for that, if i were a republican right now. Host if this is about messaging, like you started with, what is the one bit of advice for the Reelection Campaign that they could do right now . Guest we just have to ratchet up the campaign, right . We have to be fighting at fullbore in all of the ways that you fight in the campaign. We have to let the folks in the states start engaging daytoday with republicans. My basic premise, today, my one strong argument to make, get going. Thats why im here. Weve got to take our case to the American People. Make our arguments. On one issue area where i think we have to do, the central issue i think people care about, the economy, we have to make sure that our argument is as tight and persuasive as possible. I think a lot of the election down host down to that. Host Simon Rosenberg, think you for your time. Guest thanks, pedro. Host coming up, we will be joined by Behnam Ben Taleblu to discuss the death of the iranian president. What does it mean for iran and the United States . That conversation, coming up. Cspans campaign 2024 coverage continues by reading the rotarian National Convention, the president and Vice President. Beginning friday, highlights include robert f. Kennedy, jr. , independent president ial kennedy candidate, debates with vivek ramaswamy. Saturday in stern, the Party Announces that saturday, the nominee the Libertarian National convention, live on cspan, cspan now, free mobile video app, and online at cspan. Org. Cspanshop. Org is our online store for apparel, books, or, and accessories. There is something for every cspan fans. Every purchase helps to support our nonprofit operation. Shop now or anytime at eastman shop. Org. The cspan bookshelf podcast feed makes it easy to listen to all the podcasts featuring Nonfiction Books in one place so that you can discover new authors and ideas. We make it convenient for you to listen to all episodes with authors discussing current events, culture, history, with book notes plus and q a. You can find the cspan bookshelf podcast feed and all of our podcasts on the free cspan now mobile videopp and on our website, cspan. Org podcasts. Washington journal continues. Host Behnam Ben Taleblu serves as the senior fellow of defense of democracy. Here to talk about the death of the iranian president and what it means about the future for iran, thank you for joining us this morning. Guest glad to be with you. Good morning. Host i dont know if you had a chance to see it, but the headline of the wall street journal, bracing for volatility enron, to what degree do you think that might happen . Guest well, its entirely possible. Volatility can be defined several ways. Volatility within the regime itself, which could become a more ultraconservative. The presidency had defined that to a t. The iranian people, who had a vastly different vision of the world had a different conception of the public good of the authoritarians who over them. Environmental issues, religious issues, even Foreign Policy crises, showing to the world how different they are. You may remember the 2022 2023 protests that were the largest ever nationwide protests in the history of the republic since 79. As protests loomed, boy cats boycotts grew. The most recent round of parliamentary elections, 8 to 9 of the figures in tehran turned out. Host western officials do not expect to run to make a major policy shift, no matter who the next president will be. To what degree do you think that is possible . Guest i concur with the assessment and i would add one about the allis he, where the president is important with domestic policy is filed, with Economic Policy is style, Economic Policy, working with parliament, that is where substance of the presidency can have an impact. For all policymakers to be aware of, the recent crash was largely assessed to be on the shortlist to succeed the current octogenarian Supreme Leader, Supreme Leader meant to be taken literally, the most important political position most man, most powerful man across wrong irans byzantine power structure. Because that individual will no longer be on the shortlist, that shortlist just got a lot shorter. Many people are looking to the Supreme Leaders son as a contender. Theres obviously the potential for a dark horse candidate or direct military involvement, but were the entire thing matters most is what the future of the Islamic Republic Islamic Republic looks like, succession. Host when it comes to those philosophies, how similar are the contenders to the former iranian president s philosophy . Guest basically, there is a body composed of clerics, called the assembly of experts. Its largely online, like the former president , falsely styled is a moderate in the west, he tried to get on the body because he was a cleric, but was prevented from doing so. This body is supposed to monitor the these of this, we know they dont really do that, but they are supposed to create a process and vet the next Supreme Leader. If it functioned as it was supposed to, it would be to make sure that the boundary for acceptable ideological political differences would be zero. A fancy way to say they might expect things to get worse, not better. Looking at the social views, religious views, of a potential next Supreme Leader, you are likely going to see more demolition devolution than evolution. Host what could change or worsen with the election of the next president . Guest iran is in the business of wrapping up its fiveday mourning period since the president and others work infirmed to have died in a crash. Its a five day 50 day runoff. 50 minus five, 45 days, but that hit Major University exam dates, so they will be having a special election, if im not mistaken, in early to mid june to pick the next president. Lest we forget, next spring there were supposed to be elections as well. Those president ial elections according to the vetting council in iran, the spring election is canceled. So, whoever wins in july will serve at least a fouryear term. Why this matters, given that the ayatollah is 85 years old, if he dies on the watch of the person at the home of the presidency, that person could use a position like presidency as a springboard into greater political providence in iran, propel themselves into any of the domestic debates over who will control iran next. For as many concerns as washington has about drums, missiles, terrorism, domestic issues, cyber, human rights, all of those could get worse, not better, in a domestic crisis scenario. Host if you want to ask our guests about but the death of the iranian president is for the future of iran, you can call our lines. Its 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488001 for republicans, 202 7488002 for independents. Send us a tax th text at 202 7488003. To what extent do you think there could be a nefarious cause behind Helicopter Crash tied to the United States or other countries . Guest its occams razor. For a regime that is conspiratorial, they have not come out guns blazing like they traditionally do, pointing fingers at america, israel, what have you. Even they have disconnected it the israel iran shadow war in the tough realities that you see if the post october 7 middle east. Its likely a combination of issues affecting a helicopter that was old, not believed to be well maintained, that combination proved lethal on sunday into monday, but it was indeed ported that the entire cabin was found reported that the entire cabin was found with no sign of life at all. Host yesterday Antony Blinken appeared before the senate and a legislator asked him about the official condolences that the United States delivered and the tone it was delivered in. I want to play a bit of that exchange and get your response. [video clip] yesterday the state department issued a statement mourning the death of the iranian president. I assume you share it . We expressed the official condolences that we send out when countries, adversaries or not, lose leaders. It changes nothing about the fact that mr. Raisi was engaged in reprehensible conduct, repressing his own people as a judge and later as president. Its something we have done many times in the past, going back Many Administration over many decades, and we do it as a normal course of is this. It should be. Its shocking that the United States should mourn the death of the butcher of tehran. I think it was a terrible mistake, mr. Secretary. Host thats the exchange from yesterday. What you take away from that . Guest i have to be frank with you, its an own goal from the state department to sound like that. Zooming out of it, some of the messaging of the state department circa december to march of last year, into this year, had improved somewhat. You could see strong rhetorical support for the plight, especially after the women let freedom protest rattled iran. There were good statements about standing with the iranian people. Things like this quickly erode the product the positive will thats built over that time. The Administration May talk about diplomatic niceties, but the people who are not already iranian people themselves. Are the iranian people themselves. Within hours of the helicopter having crash, with no crashed, with no official confirmations on who was dead or not, you had so many memes, jokes, solicitations, celebrations from iranians inside and across iran, soliciting what they hoped would become the death of raisi. Use of videos circulating about people engaging in celebrations you saw videos of people engaging in celebrations. Its a 180 degree opposite you of the public conception of the good life and what it looks like. How the regime and the government officials in iran are mourning raisi majority are not. And you saw that within hours. For the administration that is claiming to stay on the side of the iranian people to look into listen and what the iranian people are saying. Host lets hear from alan in hawaii. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I want to focus in on something for months which is the scenario and i know you may not know much about anything getting information on the i guess may be politico and a few sources believe hes been investigated, hes been working as a professor. He is buddies with blinken. What do we know about the actual intelligence he supposedly leaked and if that was useful to iran in scoping their situation as we move into this new crazy part of the conflict. I had more questions but if you answer that that would be very helpful. Guest good morning morning, a great question. I dont know much more than that which has been reported about that case and one reason for that how tightlipped the administration has been. How tightlipped they had been even in the run up to his actual dismissal or his lead without pay. If you look at the spring of last year there were so many lines of questions by various reports about why this official hadnt shown up and the official excuse and then when a couple of bombshell stories begin to break , first about his suspension and ultimately as you mentioned the story and some political stories about his background and about his time during negotiations. The picture looks worse and worse. The more room for speculation in conspiracy theories has grown significantly. I mean this in a nonpartisan way had you had Something Like this in a Different Administration be a different democrat or republican there be a different constellation of people there the press wouldve been going much wider than they are now. So unfortunately i dont have any data for you on what he may or may not have told the around the ins. But what they couldve learned quite easily from several years of indirect diplomacy with the Biden Administration is this administration sees this contestation which is why Irans Nuclear program has grown during peak periods of the Biden Administration to contain that program. Iran made three irreversible gains, a hop skip and jump away from 90 purity which is weapons grade. The production of uranium metal which is used in actual course of Nuclear Weapons using 20 enriched uranium which is highly enriched. And centrifuges which ares the machine that enriches uranium. The fact you get rich these are all being done is the Administration Try to reset the course. Talking out of diminishing runway or window for diplomacy. So with or without i think the signals from the administration has been what actually got us into this position that we already take. Host 2027488000 for democrats. 2027488001 for republicans. 2027488002 for independents. Factors into their future decision saying the iranian real trades about 577,000 to the dollar over the brutal soup the potential for severe instability and regime collapse is real. It is. When you look at irans byzantine economy and power structure theres at least a Government Exchange rate, a subsidized government important Exchange Rate even though they are trying to subsidize and create an Exchange Rate not consistent with the macroeconomic realities and the level of foreignexchange they have inside the country and theres the rate that you mentioned which is called the free rate or the free market rate than that governs the actual price. Theres a series of exchanges the can over charge because the value of the riau is indeed so weak. There are Major Economic bumps in the road but some were built into the fact the government had been managing this way but other bumps were predetermined that iran for example continues to take their revenues or use their revenues whether it comes from humanitarian or the jeopardy secretary of the treasury secretary in the month of april. And put them towards the irgc as well as other major earnings like petrochemical earnings which are still sanctionable and bolster the program. That economic crisis might begin to be the trigger as we saw in 2017 and 18. And yet another state versus state contest and that something not just officials in tehran will be ready for but policymakers across the Transatlantic Community in london and brussels and roman berlin and certainly most certainly i would say in washington standing with the iranian people. This would be the time now in a preprotest scenario to think about what it means to stand with the iranian people in practice and not just in principle. Host lets hear from charles in colorado, independent line. Caller my question was basically how can the western world help promote a democracy in iran and it seems like a majority of the people on the street do not want the byzantine dictatorships there and democracy the world would be much better if iran was democratic with the western world. Thank you. I think you hit the nail on the head right there and it comes at the height of ironies. In iran for example you have one of the most fundamentally antiAmerican Governments in the entire region but you also have fundamentally one of the most proamerican populations in the region. Within the u. S. For example you have americans vote for three very different men which would with very different governing philosophies who ultimately in their campaign pitches said one fundamentally very similar thing. Whether that was barack obama or donald trump, or joe biden, all of them have made the case and a been elected by the American People because they are saying they want to push away from the table in the middle east altogether. Now these things dont really square with one another because if you want to push away and focus on power competition you will have to get the iran issue right. As the Iranian Missile attack showed and the fact that as you mentioned the matter of when not if the round iranian protest against their own autocratic regime will show. We cannot afford to get caught flatfooted on the iran issue again. In terms of strategy and values and what we care about in the middle east. Thats fundamental to get iran right and if we come up with a Bumper Sticker for it its maximum pressure against the regime in tehran and support for the iranian people. What that actually looks like is support to make sure iranians are not dying in the darkness they had in 2019. And a couple of weeks as the state repressed massive antiregime protests in multiple cities. Neil on the republican line he is in south carolina. Good morning. I am celebrating the death of the president of iran. As a son my son was killed by a bomb manufactured and made and shipped to iraq and the president of iran is responsible for this bomb. So a personal standpoint im in celebration today. I regret that he can only be killed one time. Host go ahead sir. Guest i was can essay if he had died in the 2003, 2011 iraq war or not because many of the efp said, from iran and really that strategy for lack of a better word was directed by irans who the trumpet musician killed in january pre2020 in iraq and was matched up with one of the most important u. S. Policy decisions ever made. In the 45 year history of the u. S. And iran conflict. Because some soleimani has blood on his hands, but lots of blood on his hands on the region as well. I think in terms of bureaucratic it might be that was responsible for the we respect and honor his service here. More broadly i think now is the time for moral clarity. Injury of hundreds of stories like this across not just america, but thousands across the world. About the people of the Islamic Republic of killed or maimed and this is a time for moral clarity not issuing condolences or prayers. Host how do you think the region is looking at this transition going on and how is israel looking at this transition. Guest ultimate power does not come from the presidency of iran, some the Supreme Leader. Most important Political Institution yet people in the region particularly understand when the regime sometimes it tries to overcompensate for this weakness and tried to project strength abroad. Ill give you a couple of examples. In 2022, 2023. The early parts of the protests the regime began to fire close range Ballistic Missiles into kurdistan inside iran, but in neighboring iraq. And there were at least three Ballistic Missile operations from september to november of 2022 and within one of those operations for the first time in history, a Ballistic Missile killed a u. S. Citizen and so the family that u. S. Citizen is seeking justice. This is e example how in the reme feelseakest it tries to project strength above and thats why despite an analytical assessment shared by arabs and israelis that they know the president is not in charge of foreignbased Security Policy they are so tense because they can understand what that state versus street contest could look like for Foreign Policy and the regime and try to make up for loss of that and perceived lack of legitimacy by trying to flex its muscles. Host li is in bronx, new york, democrats line. Caller how are you sir . Guest im well, sir. Caller you mentioned a couple of setbacks progress is iran made on their Nuclear Weapons program. How about when trump pulled out of the negotiations for the nuclear deal that obama had in place . How did that affect irans progress . Did it accelerate the progress or were there certain things that were done that the whole thing fell apart that caused iran to go unsupervised and carry on their program that could have been mitigated the actual deal was in place. That is lee in bronx, new york. One is the expansion of the program and one is the verification of the program and the monitoring the new desk u. S. Nuclear watchdog does. On the website if you navigate their me and my colleague, shes a nonproliferation effort expert and we kind of meat in the middle. Weve got the info graphic weve updated several times of the pace and timeline of Irans Nuclear advancement. You are absolutely right that on may 8, 2018, donald trump withdrew the u. S. From its commitments under the jcpoa nuclear deal. But irans response to the u. S. Withdrawal was slow and tested. May 2018 to may 2019 what they were doing was absorbing the unilateral economic pressure the u. S. Was putting on. 2019 to 2020. What the iranians were doing was beginning to engage in incremental escalation. You may remember a busy 2019 with the aramco attacks by iran, of the shipping attacks in the persian gulf. Starting in the spring and going into the summer of that year. When shinzo abe Prime Minister starting in late 2020 once the winds began to shift was going to come into office. Iran move from incremental escalation to significant escalation. So testing and facing out how far they could get away with in response to the u. S. Pressure policy which was when donald trump left the deal, major escalation happened under diplomacy, of the major escalation happened under restraint. Thats one of the challenges of dealing with iran. While no one can doubt in good faith the Biden Administration has and try to play cap on the Nuclear Program and tamp down conflict it its persistent outreach and willingness to stay at the table despite whatever game the iranians have been playing has ended up underwriting the next cycle of escalation and thats why historic threats the they have made back in 2011 and 2012 about enriching to 60 purity which is what they have today and they claim they needed this for nuclear propelled submarines with diesel electric submarines. They felt comfortable acting on that threat, starting literally the month the Biden Administration began negotiations. So while i understand for some people the trigger is may of 2018, what broaden the picture the vast majority of this escalation is coming under a more conciliatory not more pressure based u. S. Foreign policy. The website joining us for this conversation with the foundation on the defense of democracy for those who dont know what your organization, how would you describe it . Is a nonprofit nonpartisan institution. A think tank in washington compared to some of other they think tanks we are in a little over two decades old. We got our start shortly after the 9 11 terrorist attacks against the u. S. , the majority focus used to be on statesponsored terrorism threats, really now to navigate over to the website, our coverage far beyond the middle east focusing on north korea and russia, focusing on china. Latin america, and we have three centers that basically functionally cover many of the threats of u. S. National security but through the prism of policy options we have a center on military political power with a center on economic financial power and we have a center on vibrant technical innovation. Go ahead. I used to have a car that had a Bumper Sticker on it that said iraq and the queue was blocked off. For 20 years, your organization seems a little bit like a shill for israel which is not a democracy. Israels been trying to entice us into a war with iraq iran for 20 years. Your talking points today seem very warmongering and i wonder why you would be trying to draw us into a regional war because israel is not it is kind of an evil empire. Guest i was there at the peak of protests last summer, a protest that were covered in many other outlets around the world. But putting israel aside for one second i believe theres a question that im trying to promote some sort of warmongering. Lets take an empirical look at the facts. Look at what iran is doing in the middle east. This is not just in response to some kind of u. S. Pressure based policy. Its a time of peak american attempts to reconcile with iran. No one can blame the government of joe biden for trying to tamp down the situation. End of the Nuclear Front try to tamp down the situation. Even by european accounts whats been going on the iranians have not been negotiating in good faith since the fall of 2022. Thats why the u. S. Is engaging in all these different diplomacy deals in 2023, signed deals in 2023. The proliferation of stories for 2023 and 2024 talking about indirect u. S. Iran meetings. Because the major framework for negotiation has collapsed in that framework of negotiations has collapsed because of warmongering not because of joe biden, but because the government of the Islamic Republic of iran has a view and they have spent money to articulate and act on that view and this is not some kind of freebie situation. This is the stolen money of the iranian people so this is why when they have been protesting in round after round against their own government they go in front of government institutions and they chant our enemy is here. The u. S. Clearly even under some of the more hawkish president s in a postcold war periods, president xi donald trump have done everything to not get into a shooting war with the government of the Islamic Republic. That he should have responded to the iranian Cruise Missile and drone attack against saudi oil facilities. But he should have responded to the biggest Ballistic Missile barrage in history after world war ii against the u. S. Position which was in january of 2020 in response to the killing of cost him soleimani. One can only look empirically at what theyve been getting away with on the nuclear and the regional side. As well as what people inside are saying to try and make a better situation out of this. Host chris, republican line, he is from texas. Guest im glad the washing caller im glad the washington journal finally put someone on the nose whats going on in the area. My question to the guest. I guess all this money the democrats and biden giving all that money to iran didnt help them stop their Nuclear Program is that your opinion . Guest yes. A lot of the humanitarian relief, a lot of basically the sanctions relief the Biden Administration has built into this iran policy is fundamentally predicated on one philosophical assumption. In mind in my view weve seen this be disproven time and again which is you can pay to play with the government of the Islamic Republic. You can pay to delay, but what weve seen from iran in response to a lot of these things is they will accept the payment, they will take the macroeconomic boosting, they will do whatever. However, they will not be thrown off course so iran continues to advance its Nuclear Program, continues to pose a robust asymmetric maritime threat and something we really didnt get to talk about today, iran backed the october 7 terrorist attack against israel and has literally been getting away with murder over the past sevenish months in the middle east. A multifront war against israel and america. That philosophy of paying to restrain and delay. To push back and failed has failed fundamentally. Host a viewer from tas in North Carolina saying why was the shaw so easily overthrown but the current government so difficult to change . Guest its a very good question. One needs to only look back at some of the accounts particularly european diplomatic accounts. The talked about the shah projecting weakness in the face of strength and strengthen the face of weakness. Multiple times during his career when he was confronted with major street protests or Game Changing decisions he would try to push away from the table. And fundamentally looking back at some of the labels revolutionaries misappropriated as some kind of butcher. If he was a butcher he wouldve engaged in bloodletting during multiple rounds of protests. But that individual chose to flee because he thought the iranian people, one of the most famous lines, we can debate or litigate irans 1941 to 1979 to we are blue in the face. But that individual consistently when presented with this opportunity because he did not want to do that which many governments, not just the government of the Islamic Republic but the Libyan Government of gaddafi or the regime of Bashar Alassad which is to slaughter their own people. This was something that i think was one of the actual highlights and defining features of the shaws career. He did not want to keep his throne soaked in blood. And when you push away from the table and look at this, putting him in the category of a whole series of alleged u. S. Supported rightwing dictators is both unfair and unfounded given that he would push away from the table when push came to shove on conflict of life and death situation like this. The regime was formed against that backdrop. They sensed blood in the water when the shaw said that very famous line ive heard the voice of your revolution. Thats why round after round has been so violently suppressed by the government of the Islamic Republic of iran. With something about who you are and how much you value life. This is Robert Douglas off of x asking what it would in light of thee of the president for the iranian or rsn Resistance Movement to upscale to a fullfledged armed and organized rebellion. The real challenge with the question on that is the word armed. It wouldnt be particular productive for anyone. I think with the population will have to be able to do is support the massive street protests which are social with strikes which would give the economic pressure against the regime. Once you have this combination of street protests versus strikes particularly in major revenue earning sectors such as the petrochemical sector that are critical to the function of the economy, you bring together these forces, labor strikes and street protest and on top of that with a robust architecture of support, designated tensions and macroeconomic pressure against the regime. Support to the protesters and ultimately creating some fund to be able to support the u. S. With solidarity at the tail end of the cold war. This is going to be this is key to be able to reset the relationship with iran for the next time that the population goes on the streets because looking at the problems we talked about today, the social issues. The political issues. They cannot afford to get caught. Now is a time for a nonpartisan or bipartisan protest policy playbook. Because those in round of protests will be. Tell me what youre watching for the next couple of weeks when it comes to iran. Obviously as we discussed there is the special election or shall we say selection of irans next president im also watching the commentary of iran Supreme Leader about regional matters. There continues to be a major regional war. They continue to leverage a proxy, of the who these right now which havent had many of their defense drones intercepted are actually digging underground with the limited military operations of the u. S. And Coalition Partners in yemen. Theyre also pivoting away from iran looking at the israel lebanon war thats a major flashpoint to keep in online. Broadly emphasizing the value of the iranian as they continues to fluctuate in response to political shocks inside iran and im looking for washington to not engage. Host joining us early from san francisco, think you for your time sir. We will finish the program today and ifou want to participate call now. For republicans and independents, we will take the call when washington journal continues. Cspan now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of whats happening in washington live and ondemand. Keep up with the biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearing from the u. S. Congress. White house events, the courts, campaigns and more from the world of politics all at your fingertips. You can also stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and scheduling information for cspan radio. Plus a variety of compelling podcasts. Cspan now is available at the apple store and google play. Scan the qr code to download it for free today or visit our website cspan. Org cspan now. Your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. 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Find all the podcasts by downloading the free cspan now app. And on our website, cspan. Org podcasts. Washington journal continues. You can participate by texting us at 2027488003 and also call us. 2027488000 for democrats. 2027488001 for republicans. Independents, 2027488002. Here is a rundown of those election the took place across the state holding primaries and also a special election in california. The Associated Press picking that up the California State Assembly member backed by former President Trump on a special election tuesday to complete the remainder of the term of the former u. S. House speaker kevin mccarthy. A mccarthy protege who also the former speakers endorsement, beating a fellow republican in the 20th Congressional District in the states central farm belt. That took place yesterday focusing on georgia, lucy prevailing over to challengers in the sixth district. A former delta Flight Attendant who became a guncontrol activist after her son was murdered in 2012 now favored to win a fourth term in congress. She will face are publican Jeff Criswell in the newly drawn district that is both majority black and democratic leaning. Also in georgia it was the District Attorney fani willis, the prosecutor who brought a sprawling racketeering case against homer President Trump shes won the democratic primary in her bid for reelection. She defeated christian wide smith and is now set to face off against republican Courtney Kramer in the fall. There is more from the Associated Press. A sampling of the contest the took place across the United States. We will roll that into open forum. This is jane, go ahead. Caller good morning. This has been on my mind for such a long time. Nobody ever addresses whose can it take care of the unwanted babies. It is as bad as them being murdered when theres no one to take care of them. That is my comment. Nobody ever seems to think further then antiabortion and whos can it take care of the unwanted babies. Are they can attract the mother to make sure that shes taking care of them. Thank you. Goodbye. Thats jane there in may. Independent line. Hello. Good morning. Caller i wanted to talk about hacking of hospital records the local hospital approximately two weeks ago was hacked and the records are unavailable to most of the people who need them even today. This has not been covered very well by any local news or it doesnt seem to have been brought to the attention of the national news. Host how did you become aware of it . Caller nobody takes care of it. Caller im a patient with one of these hospitals and i have to go to see members of that hospital to take care of my diabetes. And i talk to these people that are supposed to be taking care of me and each of them has told me of this problem. , but i dont understand why its been has been pushed by the socalled media. That is maurice in michigan. In the house this week theres expected to be plans on noncitizen voting in the district of columbia on the senate side yesterday the Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer reiterated his intention of bringing back a vote on the bipartisan immigration bill paid hear some of his comments from yesterday. A few moments ago i filed cloture on a motion to proceed to the bipartisan border act. The same building go sheeted three months ago by the Bipartisan Group of senators murphy, sinema and lankford. The senate will vote on this porterville on thursday. Last night the president for both leader mcconnell and speaker johnson and urge them to go forward with our bill. All those who say we need to act on the border get a chance this week to show they are serious about fixing the problem. The bipartisan border act was made especially to win support from both parties for input, significant input from both sides. Its an exercise in legislating. Hr two is not. When republicans pushed it through they could not get a single democratic vote here in the senate much less all Senate Republicans for that matter. It was not a serious bill, but what we are voting on this week is serious. Its the same bipartisan bill both sides negotiated for months last winter. The same bill endorsed by the National Border patrol council, a very conservative group by the chamber of commerce and by the very conservative wall street journal editorial page. By any objective measure it is strong and realistic and most importantly a bipartisan proposal. If our bipartisan bill was good enough to win the support of the union that represent Border Agents why wasnt good enough or Senate Republicans. Our Senate Republicans saying they know better than our agents patrolling the border . I hope thats not true. I hope our republican colleagues are ready to join us. We do not expect every democrat or republican to come out in favor of this bill. Thats why as ive said before the only way to pass this bill or any border bill is with broad bipartisan support. Taking a look at the house and senate there the last day or so that the majority leader Chuck Schumer in talks with the House Speaker mike johnson about extending an invitation to the israeli Prime Minister to address congress. Lets hear from george. George in ohio, republican line. First of all i wanted to mention something else. Its just propaganda. When Biden Took Office in the very first day if not the first few days he signed all these executive orders opening the border. They must think the average person is stupid. They think the average person is just dumb. As far as the trial with trump, look yesterday, he admonishes the witness for a facial expression. Hes got something to hide. If a facial expression bothers established judge, his daughter is a fundraiser for the Democratic Party by the way. Hes got a problem. Its not the witness who has a problem. Hes trying to hide something. And we are talking about unwanted babies. The previous caller it couple of callers ago. Who is taking care of all the illegal immigrants. Lets get real there some anyways to prevent pregnancies it takes two to tangos two to tango. Wheres common sense anymore. Prosecution defense resting their cases moving on to jury deliberation. The New York Times picking up the story saying prosecutors would give what legal experts call in determining whether mr. Trump was greeting a false record, the prosecutors argue even if mr. Trump did not manufacture the record itself jury could find him responsible if the creation was a reasonably foreseeable consequence. The justice appeared disinclined to do so as prosecutors had asked. He said he would weigh the arguments from both side before reaching a decision. Adding the defense lawyers appear to lose arguments as well as they they wanted to mandate the jurors reach unanimous agreement mr. Trump at falsified records to conceal a conspiracy to win election unlawfully. Gina is a new york, independent line. Hello. Caller im here. I wanted to know i really want this to go out. I feel as though this debate we are having between biden and trump, i really think it should be with the public. The citizens of the United States should be the ones to ask the questions. We already know what they are doing. It is about what they did here. We know that. They have been doing it for months. Let civilians ask the questions. These are the things that we are concerned about and those of the things i feel personally that need to be spoken about. What question would you ask . Caller i would ask them what is the relationship between israel and the United States since they are so close. I do not know. I am trying to figure it out because it seems like they are close. And it seems like what they say goes. For us, we send in our congress to go in there and to fight for us but it seems like we do not get that done. So i want to know what is the relationship, what is it that israel does that has them so close that they say everything goes. Host this is from arizona yesterday, nine arizona republicans two criminal charges stemming from keeping donald trump in the white house by falsely certifying he won the state in 2020. This also included mr. Trumps former lawyer Rudy Giuliani who evaded prosecutors for weeks as they attempted to serve his court summons. It was ordered to place a 10,000 bail bond. This is joe marie in arizona. Republican line you are next up on open forum. Good morning pedro i would like to talk about the guest you had on previously, that lied about everything about trump and biden. His argument was how could we elect a president who had documents which President Trump had permission to have them. We know that joe biden had them first for how many years. 30 or 40 as senator, as Vice President. We know for a fact that he shared the information and these people are like blind. Are we that stupid that we dont know that the only reason why biden is not in trouble is because hes elderly and incompetent to stand trial. But he can be president of the United States. Really . We all know that the man is ill, demented and thats a big problem. The fact that the republicans and trump doesnt want that senate bill for the border, that is what about hr to that the house passed that had everything in it to secure the border. We dont talk about that. The senate wont even look at that. Dont blame the republicans. Everything is exploding, crime, inflation, the border, everything and its all bidens fault. Related to the documents this from yesterday in politico saying for months after the fbi raided his maralago estate donald Trump Lawyers that revelation was cited by the u. S. Judge in a newly unsealed 2020 opinion prosecutors presented compelling evidence to trump knowingly stashed National Secure the documents and then tried to conceal them when the Justice Department tried to reveal them. Thats a followup story from the Associated Press saying this or to the former president s residence follow standard protocol which would include a standard policy state limiting use of deadly force. The statement was response to a true social post trade that inflamed his conservative allies and included repeated claims about President Bidens Justice Department, the fbi followed standard protocol as we do for all search warrants which include the standard policy statement limiting the use of deadly force. There was no departure from the norm in this matter. Steve in washington state, democrats line. Caller i would like to say in the upcoming debate they should be people should be given a clear visual choice of what they are voting for. Biden should come dressed as an angel, trump is the devil and Robert Kennedy in a clown costume. Host independent line. Caller good morning. There is some black air force veteran was shot by police or something a couple weeks ago. Im surprised the media is not talking about this. If i was any mayor of any town or county executive of any county i would do this. Bar police from interacting with blacks, theres a problem with police and blacks in this country and its only going to get worse. Lets hear from array in syracuse, new york. Good morning. I had a comment about the previous guest talking about the regime change in iran. I was actually in iran when the shah left or just before. I was in the navy so we were there for about a week, and we had a state dinner. I dont know the dignitaries because they did not tell us. But everyone seems to be getting along and i went to school to learn my trade through the navy and in the great lakes. We had students that were from iran so we were very friendly with them and we had a great time. We went off the ship every single day whilst we were there. We left and headed to kenya. I cant remember exactly maybe two or three days going into mom boss and we were told where to turn around and go back by iran. We went to iran and we were told to load our guns and we were not able to get in inside the port. We had to stay anchored off the coast. With a number of other naval ships. And we were told that the we had to protect against people coming up underneath of us. And placing bombs on the ship and stuff like that. So it was very tense compared to the previous week where it was so collegial. Its hard to believe a change that fast. And then i heard your guest mention it the turnaround from then to now was because the leader at the time was willing to lead. He left pretty quick and we were only there a few days extra and we ran out of food. We were there before and we were thereafter. Host connie in kentucky, democrats line. Caller i heard the guy say we were close to israel. Hamas attack them first so they all to get all the hamas out and take care of them. Starting to call into this, this program. Because ive never seen people people saying trump want to be a dictator, he was a draft dodger and he was friends with russia and china, the dictatorship and i dont understand how these people can call in and act like he is so great when hes never done nothing except lie and cheat on his wife and everyone else. It doesnt make sense to me. But i would like to know if you had a way to check and find out who these people are that call in for him. If they are all the or americans. That is tommy in kentucky. One of the new stories of the last couple of days was featured on former President Trumps true social site. The ad talking about issues and the focus on the unified right. The ad a portion of the ad says thats where the term appears in that circle. The ad caused a reaction nonetheless. This is axioss reporting saying it was a video reposted to the former president true social account discussing what would happen winning the 2024 election. It goes on to say although Trumps Campaign emphasize this was not a Campaign Video and a staffer inadvertently reposted President Bidens campaign seized on it. It also highlights the fact it was the Associated Press first reporting the text won one of the headlines seem to be verbatim from a wikipedia entry on world war i that states german industrial strength and production as a gift given the increased after 1871 driven by the creation of a unified right. Other headlines say the landslide trump when and at times the headlines echo the narrators comments including when the voice says the economy booms just to give you a sense of what happened here is the ad that was on the former president site and also reaction on the Biden Campaign. What happens after donald trump wins . What is next for america . The economy booms, American Energy is unleashed and it ends crushing taxes. The border is closed and the largest deportation in history is underway. No more wars as we focus on home come along order is restored. The American Dream is back. And the best is yet to come. Make America Great again. What is next for america. Is this on his official account . Wow. Thats hitlers language. Its not americas. I care about you. Lets go to roseann, a republican line. Hello. You are just not being fair. That last person you interviewed was completely off track. If trump is not the one after asking to deliver his gym bag and hes not the one who share a word showered with ashley biden. Host those are accusations against the current president and identified as such but go ahead. Caller it was published that he swam nude in front of the sievert secret Service Agents and its also published by many whistleblowers that he met in the homes of judge sullivan in delaware with children. Host those are statements we will go on to barry in georgia. Caller yes sir. I believe a lot of americans are blind because if the person you had on first, he stated america is producing more oil than ever. If thats the case then why is joe biden depleted the National Strategic oil reserves and pulling 100,000 gallons of oil out of another reserve we have. If we are producing all this oil like he says we were then why is it that we have to drain all of our reserves . I can understand that one. And im a truck driver and when my costs go up everyone elses go up. Thats just chain reaction. Host walter in california, democrats line. Id like to talk about americans that have stuff. I mean houses, cars, they are whining about high interest on their porsche. They can take their vacations when everybody else is just going paychecktopaycheck trying to get through and particularly minorities praising trump. Dont forget about the sacrifice of the people in this country that got us where we are today. It did matter and it does matter. It matters to the world, it matters to me and people who care about humanity and want america to be more than just a dollar bill sign for the world. We are better than that. In so many ways. I hope american stop whining. Inflation is a world issue. The president is doing the best he can with no support from a party just like obama. So it has to be said and repeated over and over again, stop whining with your pockets full. This coming in from the new york post. That quarters of the public and National Committee were put on lockdown this morning. It was unclear what caused the security alert but one source said it sounds like vials of ludwick scented a package and something broke open. We will hear from and in oregon. Republican line. Good morning. I wanted to answer the gentleman from kentucky who had a question about who is calling in. Im an american and we may not all like trump as a person prayed we like his policies. We all know things were better when he was president. Biden seems to be a globalist and does not care about america or its people. Look how bad things are in the world. Theres wars, inflation keeps going up the more he spends, the higher inflation goes. I just want people to wake up and see the roses. From our democrats line this is vera in North Carolina. Im a democrat. To get some more to be our president , we need to drop both of them and start with somebody whos got some sense. Because this is just too much for the United States. Thank you. Massachusetts thats where steve is on her independent line. I just wanted first point out trump spent more than obama did in obamas two terms prayed i would like to point out a few callers back pointed out about the judge in new york how his daughter raises money, what about alito, or what about thomas who has all kinds of accusations but thats ok . It seems to be a double standard on the republican side over democrats. Thanks, love your show. A couple things to watch out on the networks. A topic of Artificial Intelligence, the ability to be used in Homeland Security issues that will be before the House Homeland Security committee at 10 00 this morning just a few minutes from now you can watch that on our network cspan3. As well as cspan. Org and then also this is from the secretary of state who will testify to 15 this afternoon in front of the House Foreign Affairs committee talking about issues not only of ukraine but israel and hamas also the president s 20 to five budget request. If youre interested in the world of Foreign Policy in the Current Issues at play, cspan3 is where you can see that hearing at 2 15. The app is cspan now and you can watch it on cspan. Org. The house just about to come in. Republican line in nevada, go ahead. I would like to comment on the illusions and comparisons to adolf hitler. In regards to donald trump. Or really any person to make those comparisons you have to tread very lightly, that is an ugly and horrible comparison to make about anybody, unless you can show any direct connection either through your platform or your worldview, to make those allusions is completely incorrect. I would remind you that President Trump has an Orthodox Jewish daughter and Orthodox Jewish soninlaw and an orthodox little jewish grandson. So i think it is a horrible mainly coming from the left to make those allusions completely out of line and its a tactic i think that tactic is underhanded and i thinkhe