florida. the speaker pro tempore: the chair announces the speaker's appointment pursuant to 46 u.s.c. 51312-b and the order of the house of january 3, 2025, of the following members on the part of the house to the board of visitors to the united states merchant marine academy. the clerk: mr. valadao of california. mr. suozzi of new york. the speaker pro tempore: the chair announces the speaker's appointment pursuant to 10 u.s.c. 4555-a and the order of the house of january 3, twrieive, of the following -- 2025, of the following members on the part of the house to the board of visitors to the united states military academy. the clerk: mr. womack of arkansas. mrs. bice of oklahoma. the speaker pro tempore: the chair announces the speaker's appointment, pursuant to 10 u.s.c. 8468-a and the order of the house of january 3, 2025, of the following members on the part of the house to the board

of visitors to the united states naval academy. the clerk: mr. ellzey of texas. mr. franklin of florida. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 13 of rule 1, the house stands adjourned until 11:00 a.m. on tuesday, january 28, 2025. host: that was the gavel. that was just a very short pro forma session in the house. we are back with you on "washington journal." we are joined now by dean ball, a research fellow at the george mason university's mercatus center. we are talking about the a.i. infrastructure investment that has been announced. welcome to the program. guest: thanks for having me. host: before we talk about that, this is the a.p. that says that trump signs executive order on developing artificial

intelligence, quote free from ideological bias. explain that. guest: on trump's first day in office, he rescinded biden's executive order on a.i. which was one of the longest in the history of executive orders. yesterday, he replaced it with i would say a starting point. much smaller and simpler than the biden order. but also much fewer directives to agencies. basically what he said is, all the things that the biden executive order called federal agencies to do, federal agencies need to go back and look at all of them and decide whether or not they conform with trump's priorities on a.i. policy, which are economic competitiveness, national security, and human flourishing. host: the biden executive order that has now been revoked, it had this -- it says that it was meant to curb government use of the kinds of a.i. tools that have been found to unfairly discriminate based on race,

gender, or disability from medical diagnosis, chatbot spouting false information, to face recognition technology tied to wrongful arrests of black men. what do we expect will happen now? guest: i think a lot of these tools will continue to be used. by many different people. i think the discriminatory aspect of these tools -- there's not a lot of hard data on that subject. there's a lot of antsic dotes that -- antsic dotes -- anecdotes people have. at the end of the day there is still a wide variety of civil rights law at the state and federal level in the united states that protects against discrimination of all kinds. it doesn't matter whether you use an algorithm or computer or your brain. i don't think that the effect of that particular provision is going to be all that dramatic. host: the executive order says that mr. trump is talking about

a.i. dominance as a goal for his administration. how does that executive order pave the way for a.i. dominance in the united states? guest: i think that it's really much more of a starting point, i would say. it gives various officials within the administration about 180 days if memory serves to come up with new policies that will hopefully ensure dominance, but in addition to that, the trump administration has put a very significant priority on energy production and infrastructure development. both of which are going to be very important in a.i. and for that reason i think that the trump administration will prioritize fast tracking environmental permitting and other regulatory approvals for new construction of infrastructure and energy. and i think that will be hugely important for american a.i. dominance going forward. host: let's talk about

infrastructure. this is the -- there is an announcement of a partnership investing $500 billion in a.i. tell us about that. guest: this is called star gate. stargate is a company. it's owned -- it's a new venture. no public dollars going into t there is no federal or state taxpayer money going into this project. instead it's a collaboration between open a.i., the maker of chatgpt, oracle a data certainty and software company, soft bank which is a japanese investment fund, and m.g.x. an investment fund located in the united arab emirates. they'll collaborate with with microsoft and nvidia and other technical partners to build data centers across the united states. the very largest, most sophisticated and expensive data centers needed to run the most advanced a.i. phosz *r models -- models. host: this is already under way. this has already happened.

the first data center is already under constprubgs in texas. what's new? what's being announced that's new now? guest: what's being announced is a commitment or a goal to spend up to $100 billion in the next year. and potentially as much as $500 billion over the next several years by these companies on data centers of all different types. i think that even before these figures were announced, the infrastructure build out for a.i. in the united states is one of the largest industrial build outs we have witnessed in the history of the country, particularly in peacetime, which should give awe sense of the economic -- give you a sense of economic opportunity that private investors see here. host: when you talk about the buildout and infrastructure, we are talking about data centers that essentially house these chips and processors to run a.i. models. what is actually -- describe a

data center, how big is it? what are the issues surrounding energy and water? guest: yes. a.i. data center is actually somewhat different thing from a normal data center. the main reason for that is that an a.i. data center is filled almost entirely with g.p.u.'s graphics processing units, these are the computers made by nvidia, which is now one of the most valuable companies in the world, that are used for a.i. running and training a.i. models. these chips are extremely power hungry. they are sort of just more energy intensive in all ways. they also need to be networked together really, really tightly so they can send data among one another as quickly as possible. you are talking about sending volumes of data of the entire internet, basically, across the data center at one time. they are these remarkable

industrial facilities. really the largest super computers that humans have ever built by far. that is what this venture hopes to produce many of. host: if you'd like to join our conversation with with dean ball of the mercatus center, we are talking about a.i., a.i. infrastructure, the energy required for those data centers, if you would like to join our conversation, give us a call. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. and independents, number. 202-748-8002. give us a call now. you said that these -- infrastructure is using private funds. there is no taxpayer money going into this. what is the u.s. government getting in involved for in this infrastructure? what's the role the government plays? guest: a data center in the past might have taken, a big one, might have taken 50 megawatts,

50 million. the data centers we are talking about here could conceivably be taking as much as four or five gigawatts, billion. the energy infrastructure that you need to power those facilities is just fundamentally different from what all data centers require. you asked about water, too. that is a factor as well. so for that reason to build both the data centers and the energy infrastructure, which could be natural gas facilities, it could be solar panels, could be one day nuclear power plants or nuclear fusion plants, you need federal permitting for much of that infrastructure. so the role of the federal government here, and also state governments will be quite important, is going to be, i think, primarily creating smoother regulatory pathways so that these projects don't get mired in years of waiting for permitting and years of

litigation, which is something that we have seen happen. that's thwarted green energy agendas for the past decade. and all kinds of infrastructure in the united states that i think the government role here is mostly clearing the way so that this private money can be spent most efficiently. host: elon musk has pushedback to the announcement to the a.p. musk clashes with open a.i. c.e.o. over trump supported stargate data certainty project. what's his concern? guest: i think elon musk has a long history with open a.i., the lead sort of operator of this company, stargate. he was a co-founder of open a.i. and he wanted open a.i. to remain sort of under his control, i think. and there was a falling out. he left the company. he started his own venture called xa.i.

his a.i. company. so there is a history of bad blood n this specific case -- also lawsuits. elon is suing open a.i. for a variety of different things. in addition to that on this specific instance, he has claimed that stargate does not have the money they claim they have. they don't have a path to spending $100 billion in the near term and don't have a path to spending $500 billion. at the end of the day i can't validate that. very few other people can. we don't know what exactly they have committed. i would say that the people involved here are credible people. as president trump said they are very wealthy people. and i think given what i expect the scale of the economic opportunity is, i don't think they have $500 billion in the bank right now. i would be shocked if they did. but i think there is a path to raise that money. host: axios is talking about

communities pushing back on these data centers saying i understand they are important, but i don't want them in my neighborhood. what's going on with that? and what -- i guess where can you put them that it's going to work for the technology and work for communities? guest: it can be a tough sell. data sent isers, they create a lot of jobs at the construction phase. but once they are built, even a multibillion dollar data center, might only have 100 or 200 employees. because you just don't need that many people to keep the computers running. now they are very complicated industrial facilities. they are create ago lot of economic value -- creating a lot of economic value. it's not like a steel factory with thousands of jobs that they could employ an entire community. so the pushback in that sense does make sense. people always pushback for new construction. in addition to that, they take up a lot of energy.

without -- unless that's properly managed and we build the infrastructure that's necessary for them in a very aggressive way, then the reality is that this will drive up energy costs. i think it's important to build the amount of energy that we need to really have an abundance of electricity so that does not happen. also some of these facilities, in fact a lot of the ones, especially the place where is you train the biggest models, those don't need to be close to pop pou hraeugs centers -- population centers. those can be in the desert. because -- host: then you need water which is not easy to find in the desert. guest: you can recycle a lot of the water. but as long as you have the energy and, yes, a path to get water, you can build in remote areas. you can build in alaska for that

matter. that might be even better because you have free cooling because it's cold. that's what the water's for. it's to cool off the data centers because the g.p.u.'s run very high. host: talk to callers now on the independent line, here's alan in rhinelander, wisconsin. good morning. caller: hi. i have two questions. the first question is, with half of the partners in this project being from japan and saudi arabia, i don't see a public benefit there that redowns to the united states, and my second question is, it's really the same as my first question. what is this doing for the united states of america? why should the u.s. government be investing in this? i see it taking millions of jobs for the 200 or so jobs that it gains running a data center. it just seems ridiculous to me.

and the investors as i said are 50% foreign. host: let's get a response. guest: it's a great question. i think -- first of all i think it's worth pointing out that the federal government is not investing any taxpayer dollars in this project. that is worth clarifying. to your point, yes, there are foreign investors who will be part of this project. at the end of the day, american companies are going to lead the construction. those facilities will be populate with american g.p.u.'s and run a.i. steupls developed by american companies. most importantly, i think, they will be in america. the alternative here could be a situation in which a country like the united arab emirates builds these very large facilities on their own soil. we have no control over them. and we have potentially security and privacy and all kinds of other issues.

i think that to that end this is a way to structure this that uses the fact that foreign capital wants to invest in this country, but to the benefit of the country. host: just to follow on that. the caller mentioned saudi arabia. this is i believe cbs, it says, saudi arabia plans to invest $600 billion in the u.s. over the next four years. that's according to the crown prince of saudi arabia saying that in a call with president trump. any security issues there with this kind of -- this level of foreign investment? guest: i think it's extremely important when it comes to security that the companies that actually manage these data centers -- these are familiar american names for the most part like amazon and microsoft and google, they are the leading companies that build these data centers. very important that they manage the facilities. it's also very important that they have high security

standards for frontiere a.i. -- frontier a.i. systems. because of saudi arabia in particular, but the facilities -- there will be a future in which they are important military assets in addition to being important economic assets. they'll be targeted by america's rivals for hacking, for sure. i think that high levels of security are extremely important. that's why we are doing this, i think, in a smart way, that ensures that companies we trust, companies that the american government can regulate thoroughly, are going to be the ones who build and manage the facilities. host: here's ruth, a republican in hemp hill, texas. caller: good morning. i was very -- i'm 76 and i'm blind. i was very skeptical of a.i., but then i thought about how

worried people were about railroads in the 1800's. and how everything progresses to help us. my original -- i'm nervous, sorry. my reason for calling was i used a.i.app yesterday for the first time to help me. my assistant downloaded an app where i can just hold an ipad camera up near an object, and it will tell me what the object is, read the document. i can actually hear what the labels are on my prescriptions now. so i don't get them confused any longer. it's opened just from yesterday has opened up a new world for me that i have been in for 20 years with this blindness. host: that's interesting, ruth. glad you shared that with us.

any comment? guest: i think that there are going to be profound medical innovation that is come as a result of -- innovations that come as a result of a.i. there is a chance, there is -- elon musk is working on a company that might allow the blind to see again. with neural devices and a.i. working together. curing cancer. being able to give people who can't speak a voice again. all these things that seem miraculous will become commonplace. yes, a lot of things will change. and there will probably be some parts of the change that we don't like as there is with any technological change. my strong suspicion is that the good is going to out way the bad by quite a bit. host: are there any regulations that you would support? i know you are coming from the mercatus center which tends to be libertarian, what guardrails

do you want to see on a.i.? guest: absolutely. the first thing that's worth noting is a.i. is a general purpose technology that will be used by all of us in many -- already is used by all of us and will be used in increasing numbers of ways just like you use computers and the internet for a mind-boggling number of things. in that sense a.i. is already regulated by all the laws that exist. we have a few of them. there is that. but also i think there are some ways in which a.i. demands specific regulations. i have written a report about deep fakes, for example. i looked at the state laws in every state and found that there are actually situations in which a person could contribute a malicious deep fake of somebody and not have legal liability for doing so because of loopholes that exist in the law because nobody anticipated something like a.i. deep fake. that's an example of plug that hole in the law. i'm all in favor of that.

give people the right to bring people to court if somebody distributes a malicious deep fake of them. and i would also say i'm quite supportive of transparency efforts, particularly at the frontiere of a.i. where these -- frontier of a.i., these systems we are building they pose risks that are novel that could be totally novel things for us. the ability to doll autonomous cyber attacks, for example, is something people talk about. those risks haven't manifested themselves. it's not obvious how we would regulate them -- a risk we can't see the shape of. but transparency and information from the companies that are developing this where they have to tell us how are you evaluating these models? how are you testing these models? what kind of security provisions do you have around the models? all these kinds of things i think are very wise. so that the public could see and the people and the public and

researchers can comment and contribute and make these plans better over time. ultimately those kinds of plans will be the governing documents in some sense. in my view. i'm very in favor of work like that. host: this is terry in bellwood, illinois. democrat. hi. caller: my question about this a.i. is what benefits -- we understand about the benefits that it's supposedly going to affect all of us, but what all of us going to have to contribute to garner this ben knit? are we going to have to have another super computer in our homes? is there an ethical board? who is going to be overseeing this? it's going to affect all of us. i think it will be a good thing, but we have to have some regulations to protect us as citizens, regulations that will

protect us as americans. you have all these foreign investments. whose interest are they looking out for? is it part of crypto currency? these are questions we need to ask. guest: i don't disagree we should approach this with seriousness and even some degree of caution. i think the question about regulation and the thing where you have to be careful is that you can really easily go too far. yes, you can quash innovation with regulation. that's definitely a concern. it's not the only concern. another concern might be that regulation causes the industry to centralize because no start-up can comply with the regulation. and so only the biggest people can survive. and as a result of that, actually all these problems we worry about with a.i., things like ethics and concentration of power and privacy, all these things are made worse by the regulation that we try to have

help ourselves. i think that you -- it's not that we shouldn't do regulation, it's that we should be extremely thoughtful and careful about t we should be knowledgeable of history anti-ways in which regulation has gone wrong over american history. host: independent line, john in houston, texas. hi. caller: hi. just have a question. the future job loss. it's going to affect a lot of folks, especially college graduates. there will be a lot of job loss. more money for investors. it will lead to the elimination of millions of skwr-bs. just last year elon musk he was worried about the pace, and then all of a sudden he's for it. do you think the cons will

outweigh the pros in the long run? guest: i think that the good will outweigh the bad in the long run. but on the job issue in particular, you're not wrong. there is going to be some job loss. i think there are going to be types of jobs that just go away. which has happened in the past. we used -- computer used to be a person. used to be a person who did math. then we automated that. what happened? well, the computer made a lot more jobs. there are people who spend their entire day doing jobs on computers that would have been inconceivable 50 or 100 years ago, much less 500. i think that there will be some things that get automated, but at the end of the day i don't expect for a.i. to automate away the need and desire that we will have for humans to be in the

workforce. and those people, the great part about technology is that if a.i. automates 75% of my job, well, the other 25% will come to fill a larger part of my time. the loss will be entirely new things that can i do with a.i. we probably don't have words for today. and i'll make a lot more money. so will everybody else. because i'll be way more productive. and that is how we increase prosperity over time. host: one more call for you. this is michael in johnstown, colorado, republican. caller: hi, dean, how you doing this morning? i want to thank you for coming on the show and being a great american to discuss this a.i. i've been interested how we can tap into the stargate and become a landing spot here in northern colorado. we had a meteorite land over 100 years ago during a funeral first meteorite witnessed by humankind

and studied by nasa. a piece is down there in washington and the denver museum. how do we get in contact with sam altman and yourself to be a landing spot to start this infrastructure process? guest: well, i can't help you there. but i would say open a.i. actually does have a form on their website if you google stargate project. i looked at it this morning. they have a form where people interested in providing infrastructure can fill it out and talk directly with open a.i. i encourage people in the city to do that. all over the country to do that. because i think there's no way -- this is going to be a whole of country effort. the whole country is going to have to contribute to this. seguio graphic distribution i'm in favor of. host: one more call? guest: sure. host: deborah in cocoa, florida. democrat. caller: hi. my question is i heard that

these data centers could be extremely noisy. if so, what are your thoughts about that? as far as regulations since we have to have power, and you are talking about nuclear power, i don't think i'd want that in my neighborhood, would you? guest: well, actually i used to live in new york city. 25% of our power in new york came from a nuclear power plant that was a few miles up the hudson river. nuclear power's heavily regulated in america. probably in my view actually overregulated. it's one of the safest forms of energy. it's much safer than coal or natural gas in terms of documented evidence, physical harm or death. that's come as a result of it. in terms of data center noise, it's a great question.

they can be noisy. absolutely. you are talking about large industrial h vac systems running to keep the g.p.u.'s cool. and power generation and all of that. i don't think they are louder than -- i think there are a lot of other industrial facilities we have built in american history that have been way louder. we have industrial zoning for a reason. i wouldn't suggest building one of these data centers right next to someone's house. in most circumstances. we have a big country. we have a lot of land. so i think there are -- there's room for all of us. host: all right. that's dean ball, research fellow at the george mason university's mercatus center. thanks for joining us. guest: thank you for having me. host: coming up, more of your phone calls in open forum. start calling in now. democrats, 202-748-8000 democrat.

republicans, 202-748-8001. and 202-748-8002 for independents. we'll be right back. ♪ >> sunday night, on c-span's "q,"art two of our interview with with historian nigel hamilton, author of "lincoln vs. davis." he talks about the military faceoff between these two american presidents during the civil war and the impact the emancipation proclamation had on the war's outcome. >> from that moment the first of january 1863, the south was doomed. until then jefferson davis had been allowed by lincoln to frame the war as a noble white southern fight for independence.

pure and simple. but from the moment that lincoln said no, you, jefferson davis, and your commander in chief robert e. lee, have attacked the north which is what they did in september of 1862. the equivalent of pearl harbor if you like. once you attacked the north, you changed the whole game. >> nigel hamilton with his book "lincoln vs. davis" sunday night at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span's "q&a." listen to "q&a" and all of our podcasts on our free c-span now app. >> be up-to-date with the latest in publishing with pwaofplt tv's podcast with books. with none fiction book releases

and best serl list, and industry news and trends through insider interviews. you can find about books on c-span now, our free mobile app, or wherever you get your podcasts. >> democracy, it isn't just an idea, it's a process. a process shaped by leaders, elected to the highest offices, and entrusted to a select few regarding its -- guarding its basic principles. it's where debates unfold, decisions made, and the nation's course is charted. democracy in real time. this is your government at work. this is c-span. giving you your democracy unfiltered. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. we are in open forum. a couple of things for your schedule later today. president trump is traveling to

asheville, north carolina, today. he is en route there as we speak. to meet with those who are impacted by hurricane helene back in september. this morning he'll receive an update on recovery efforts and we'll bring that to you live at 11 a.m. eastern right here on c-span. also on c-span today at noon it's the 52nd annual march for life rally in washington, d.c. the event will include house speaker mike johnson, senate majority leader john thune and ron desantis and other advocates. live from the national mall at noon here on c-span. both those events are on our app, c-span now and online at c-span.org. the president also travels to los angeles to survey damage from the wildfires. we'll take your calls up until the end of the program in about 15 minutes. we'll start with marcy in north

carolina. republican. caller: yes. i was just calling to see why the "washington journal" -- we have 15 minutes left and this is the first mention of the march for life rally. last year it was covered by a pro-abortion activist. and this year you have totally ignored it. host: i don't think we are ignoring it. we are covering it in full starting at noon. caller: "washington journal's" ignored it. there is a difference in c-span and "washington journal." host: what's the difference between c-span and "washington journal"? caller: last year you had someone on the "washington journal" that was pro-abortion activist. host: i see. caller: this year you have not had anybody to represent the march for life on this segment. host: got it. i understand your feedback. thank you for that, marcy. this is william in burlington,

north carolina. independent line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. a couple things. one, i completely disagree with the executive order on birthright citizenship. it's in the constitution. these people that are trying to find loopholes in that particular amendment. if you are born -- it's not like it's unique only to the united states. almost all of the european nations, asian nations they all have the same thing. two, on the a.i. issue, i have a question. wouldn't it be more prudent if these processing or these plants for the a.i. had their own separate energy grid so that it doesn't interfere with the grids of the entire united states? and the desert seems to me to be a good place, yes i know water might be hard to get, wouldn't it be easier to get water in there than have it play in these metropolitan areas or rural areas where people will complain all the time.

i think a.i. will eventually be a good thing, but i do concern myself with the amount of money behind it. is it going to be one of those things controlled by only wealthy people. i appreciate your time. i hope you have a great day. host: william, are you still there? william? caller: i'm here. host: when you talk about the energy, do you know about three mile island, the nuclear power plant. the plan is to reopen that and to have that power microsoft data centers, have you seen that information? caller: i had not seen that information. i think that's a great idea. i think the three mile island plant -- i know there was that accident years ago. it's just sitting there. it might as well be utilized. it's cost a lot of money to build them. if you have one already in place just getting it restarted is probably a great idea. i would be all for that. host: all right. this is eric in freeport, texas,

democrat. good morning. caller: hello. host: hi. caller: am i on? host: you are. caller: i really like "washington journal." i watch it every morning. i just got one statement. we pay all tariff taxes, china has never paid one red cent in tariff taxes, please fact check me. thank you. host: frank in clear lake, california, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i was calling in about the guest on earlier this morning, the republican talking about the climate and the county where i was born and raised. these people down there in washington don't know anything about california or living in the woods or the mountains. these fires like lamalfa, he believes in stripping the land clean down to nothing. planting trees which only maybe an eighth of those trees will

survive. over 300, 400 years before the trees can be harvested for lumber. yet these -- they just want to streupt land in california. i don't understand that. this guy is wrong about everything he said about the climate. if we don't change this climate, california has regular weather like it used to have when i was a child, the bark beetles don't die, the mosquitoes don't die. hence why we have outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases. host: what do you think is the best way to fix the climate as you put it? caller: i'm not an expert. i was just born and raised in the woods. lived in the woods my whole life until i had to move away because so many people from the valley moved up there who had no idea how to live in the woods. i got tired of dodging human feces on every road i went down to go deer hunting or turkey

hunting or take my wife out camping. they come up here from texas, indiana, missouri. all these other states they all seem to hate california, but yet they move here. i would just as soon they move back to where they came from since they are destroying my way of life in california. we can't drink out of any of the waters or streams in the mountains anymore because people are using them as toilets. we don't have beaver in california. so a disease is present because people are using our creeks as toilets. host: some news from yesterday from "the new york times." trump revokes security detail for pompeo and others despite threats from iran. officials had been part of an aggressive posture against iran during president trump's first term. their security -- secret service details have been revoked by president trump. and this is daniel in pine city, new york. democrat. good morning.

caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. host: go right ahead. caller: i just wanted to make a comment about jenny, her support for hegseth. after all these been through for her to change her vote, i just don't believe her vote is going to make one bit of difference. the vice president -- for what she's been through and then to turn around and change her vote. she knows what guys like this are all about. and i just think she has to have more respect for herself. do you agree? host: this is joni ernst you are talking about? caller: yeah. host: the latest on that, daniel, is that the votes are scheduled for today in the senate this evening. be sure to watch that. here's punch bowl news that says hegseth own on tap for weekend senate votes. we are expecting -- hegseth, who

lost two republican votes during a thursday cloture vote will likely be confirmed during a 9 p.m. vote series. senate majority leader john thune will then move to a cloture vote on kristi know kwrepls nomination to lead d.h.s. if no time is yielded back know kwrepls confirmation vote would occur on sunday morning. be sure to follow that over on c-span2. and this is david stanton, virginia, independent line. hi. caller: good morning c-span. thanks for taking my call. i had a couple of issues. number one, potential solution to the war in ukraine would be to have the citizens of the donbas region have a referendum super advised by the u.n. or some other neutral third party, and then people in the very --

various staoeuts of the donbas region would decide whether they vote pro-russian or pro-ukrainian as far as their future citizenship. that way the department of state, marco rubio, could have one more suggestion in his toolbox for that. the second thing is that with the a.i. centers and a lot of other things, the federal government owns 640 million acres of land that they super advise. mostly under the bureau of land management or under dougburgham's land. they could take 1 3erz of that, 10,000 square miles, and put power generation or data centers in those regions. and then could solve that problem about not putting them

in urban areas. plus, the federal government kohl lease that -- could lease that. have money coming in from the lease, as well as possibly a tariff -- not a teur riff but a tax on -- not a tariff but a tax on the generation of the power or a.i., whatever is utilized. there is a lot of unutilized federal properties, buildings that could be lesioned out to private concerns -- leased out to private concerns to provide income to the federal government. host: all right, david. jennifer in new jersey, independent. caller: hi. actually i think i called in on the republican line. that's ok. morning, mimi, happy friday to you. i was calling in today just to say -- three. it's my 50th birthday and i got to call in for c-span. i love watching c-span. host: happy birthday. caller: thank you. two things. two comments. first one is the pardons for the

j6 rioters and all of the hubbub around that. if you think about it, the people served their time. honestly a lot of them did not cause a lot of damage and cause a lot of pain to people. there were a few select few that did. and those people i'm sure are being punished as they should be. those other sentences are communicated. it's just one of those things people have to come to grips with. if you compare that to president biden's pardons, the preemptive pardons, where these people supposedly didn't do anything wrong in his whole term. he said my son this, and -- backing behind the j6 committee. and liz cheney. now turns around and he gives them preemptive pardons. there is no outrage for that. it's weird. these people served time and they are citizens. they are people. we should view each other as one and stand united with that and

realize they were done wrong. and then the second thing was with the executive order with regarding to the ending of the citizenship. compare that, the one that trump just signed now where he's going to end it, or was trying to and now the court -- it will be dragged into the courts. compare that to the biden administration's executive order for the student loan repayment where the courts said that you couldn't do that, but yet they continue. there was no outrage for that. if you look up the amount of money that was spent and given back to people after the court said no, no, it just should be all viewed separately. there is a president -- precedent that's been set now. and that's probably why trump signed what he did. and if you take into consideration that our founding fathers probably never accounted for the amount of illegal immigration that's happening in this country at this time, which would call for a change to the amendment in the constitution.

that's all i have to say this weekend. host: all right, jennifer. this is adrianna in los angeles, california. independent line. caller: good morning. i am an attorney in california and worked for three different prosecutorial agencies. when i first became a prosecutor in the d.a.'s offers hi to go through training. one of the premises we were taught was that as prosecutors that we are not there to win. we are there to do justice. in other words, if we see that there's evidence that points to innocence or points that there's insufficient evidence we are required to act fairly. not go prosecuting against individuals for crimes where there is no evidence. i'm concerned because this january 6 pardoning has brought up a lot of other issues rargd the misuse of power by our

justice department and how now it's acceptable in law schools and in prosecutorial agencies throughout the country that it's ok to win at any cost as long as you are winning for whatever cause you believe in. and i'm very concerned about it. for example, in los angeles we had a district attorney who had philosophical beliefs and forced the prosecute kwrours to follow his philosophical beliefs even though it violated all the rules that prosecutors were trained to follow. and i'm worried that we are going down a very dangerous road when we are training attorneys in law school to win at any cost rather than to make sure that the truth prevails and that justice prevails. it's going to hurt a lot of people if we have prosecutors who just go after people without any legal basis and misuse the

system. and i think that it started in biden's administration from the very top with merrick garland. he had no reins on his political views. and he abused his position by having the prosecutors go after people to promote their philosophy. host: i want to get one more call in. michael in indiana. democrat. go ahead. caller: good morning. i have a few things written down here. then i want to -- that i want to read to you. it is frightening to think of donald trump is back in the white house. i have two words to describe donald trump, liar and criminal. he is a big-time liar, and a big-time criminal. he's a tyrant. his only purpose to occupy the white house is to become the richest man in the world. if he could get hold of the so-called keys to the u.s.

treasury, he would wipe it out. to enrich himself, his family, and friends. or he would wipe out the social security trust fund for the same reason. this country is dangerously in peril with trump in the white house. most of his talk is rhetoric. a smokescreen. it is something for people to talk about. as well as the news programs. he doesn't care about the american people or this country. his only real purpose is to become the world's richest man by robbing the american people and anyone else he can rob. and he has people to help him do that. i'm sure the plan has been in the books for several years. also look for so-called scandals. these are only diversionary tactics they use to divert your attention away from what he's

really wanting to do, and that is to rob the american people. host: michael. we got that. we are atthanks to everybody wh. thanks for watching. we'll be back again tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern on "washington journal." have a great day. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] ♪ >> today is the 52nd annual march for life rally in washington, d.c. the event will include house speaker mike johnson, senate majority leader john thune, florida governor ron desantis, and other pro-life advocates. watch the rally live from the national mall at noon eastern on c-span. c-span now, our free mobile video app. or online at c-span.org.

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