♪ host: good morning. as they come at the brewery for. what -- it is tuesday, february

4. thousands of usaid contractors have been laid off, employees put on leave, and programs shutdown around the world. also, the treasury department granted musk's team access to the federal payment system which handles trillions of payments and government miniatures -- trillions of dollars in government. we are taking your calls on elon musk's influence on government and doge actions. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. we have a line set aside for federal employees. that number is (202) 748-8003. you can use that same line to text us. include your first name, city, state, and you can post your comments on social media. facebook.com/c-span and x

@cspanwj. welcome to today's "washington journal." we will start with this article from the usa today. it says musk puts employees at usaid on leave. foreign aid agency heads to the which appropriate trump administration moved swiftly monday to dismantle the usaid, putting hundreds of employees on leave and terminating contracts after tech billionaire elon musk said he was in the process of shutting down the agency that oversees foreign aid. musk claimed on social media early monday morning that he ran the extraordinary move by president donald trump and had his full backing. it raised immediate objections from democrats who said trump lacks the constitutional authority to eliminate usaid, which was established by congress as an independent agency in 1998. let's take a look at what secretary of state marco rubio said about closing usaid when he

was asked by reporters during his trip in central america yesterday. [video clip] >> my issue as i said is, yeah, there are things at usaid that we should continue to do and will continue to do. but everything they do has to be in alignment with the national interests and foreign policy of the united states. the attitude that usaid has adopted over the years is, no, we are independent of the national interests. we fund programs not respective if they are aligned or not aligned with the foreign policy. that is ridiculous. these are taxpayer dollars. every penny we spend on foreign aid needs to be aligned with the foreign policy of the united states. this is not about ending the programs that usaid does. there are things that it does that are good and there are things that it does that -- it is about the way it operates. they need to take direction from the state department. when you ask questions, when you

try to go in and find out what this program does, who is getting money, why is this getting funded, their attitude is we don't have to answer to you because we are independent, we answer to no one. that is not true and will no longer be the case. host: secretary of state marco rubio is now acting head of usaid. this is the hill. marco rubio taking over as acting head of usaid amid agency turmoil. and we are going to hear quickly before we take your calls from senator andy kim, who is a democrat of new jersey. he once worked at usaid, and he talked to reporters. here he is. [video clip] >> about 20 years ago when i first came to work for the federal government, i walked through these doors right behind me. i started off my career in public service at usaid. i just have to say how proud i was to be able to serve the country, how proud i was to be

able to work for usaid, to be part of the foreign policy of this country, and i can tell you it was really tough today walking through the same doors 20 something years later only to see it shut down to employees. all weekend long, i was getting calls and phone calls from people i worked with at usaid before, the people that are there now, people who have been disrespected by this administration that pushes them to decide, basically calls them criminals, and tells them not to show up to work. in fact, i went inside and tried to speak to the administrator. unfortunately was not able to meet with him. and i will continue to try today to meet with the acting administrator because i want to hear straight from him. is this the order that he gave? you have mysterious people within this new administration sending out emails across the entirety of usaid telling them

not to show up. i talked to the security guard. i talked to the security guard just in there. he said he has been given specific orders to prevent employees of usaid from entering the building today, and i just find that to be absolutely ridiculous. this is no way to govern. this is no way to treat public servants. this is no way for us to conduct our foreign policy as a country. i just had to show up today, see it with my own eyes, the chaos of this administration, and just their attacks on public servants in our country. host: that was new jersey senator andy kim, a democrat, outside of the usaid office building. in case you want to go to the website, usaid.gov, it has been taken off-line. this is what you get when you go to usaid.gov. it has been taken down. let's start with calls with matt in maryland. good morning.

caller: good morning. let's not sugarcoat what is going on. the richest man in the world has been given access to basically the united states main bank, the way that we pay people's social security, the way that we pay basically for everything. he has also been given the ability to take one of our most important assets for foreign diplomacy that keeps us out of war off-line. why? who knows. but he hasn't been given that access with -- but he has been given that access. with that access is information no one else has. he is a federal contractor. he has no security clearance. he could not get security clearance. and here we are. he has access to all of that information. given access to all of that information, our information that federal employees have tried to secure forever, to other people who don't have that

information. he is a federal contractor to us, but also he has contracts with china and i am sure many of our other foreign enemies. this is a coup, and we need to wake up and say this is not normal. even if you voted for donald trump, this is not normal. wake up, everyone. thank you. host: before you go, since you are a federal employee, can you tell us what is going on with you, your agency? what is happening? caller: i worked for the department of defense. it has never been more precarious and by over 20 years of working in the federal government. morality is terrible -- morale is terrible, which is the point. the emails we received from some janky server that teenagers working for elon musk put together to try to encourage all federal employees to quit. we are not going to quit.

we took an oath to the constitution. the constitution that donald trump does not believe in. and you have not seen anything because the federal workforce cares about america, cares about america, and does not care about vladimir putin or whoever the heck donald trump and elon musk care most about. host: have you been given that buyout option? caller: yes. we received it from what we thought was a phishing email as we found out sent from people who infiltrated the office of personnel management on behalf of elon musk. host: ok, but that is a real offer that you are going to have to decide on, right? caller: it is a real offer, but everyone that i have talked to has doubled down and said i care about america, i don't trust anyone involved. this is a trap.

as details have sprinkled out about this, no one that i know, certainly no one who works for me, or no one in my organization plans to take this because they don't trust anyone involved. and it does not seem legit. there are processes to do this kind of thing and they are not following it. host: got it, matt. here is ed in lawrenceville, georgia, republican. caller: good morning. i am glad i have the second caller because the first caller does not know what he is talking about. musk does not have any power at all. everything that he is doing, him and his investigators report back to president trump. and they decide if that is good or bad. if it is bad and taxpayer money is being used for illicit

purposes like giving condoms to the middle east, just all the things that go on, billions of dollars wasted all over the decades. president trump is putting an end to it. musk is doing this absolutely free. he is not getting paid to do this. he is doing this on his own time. this man wants to help america. that guy is in the defense department, that first caller? my god. host: i just wanted to ask you one you said he is not making any money, which he is not making a salary. the concept of his contracts with the federal government, how do you react to that? do you see that that could be a conflict of interest for elon musk? caller: not really. host: that he could make more money for his companies. caller: i think that his

contracts is a legitimate thing. and they were approved. and they were signed. it does not change anything. all he is doing is going after the waste, fraud, and abuse. host: all right. caller: he does not have the power to do anything. he has to report to the president. host: and this is cnn. elon musk is serving as a "special government employee." that is according to the white house. it says that he is officially serving under president trump as a special government employee. the designation means musk, who has been a force within the new trump administration, is not a volunteer but also not a full-time federal employee. according to a justice department summary, a special government employee is "anyone who works or is expected to work for the government for 130 days or less in a 365 day period."

musk is not being paid, a person familiar with his employment told cnn. musk has a top-secret security clearance that that official told cnn. he is the world's richest man and became an ardent supporter of trump during the campaign and has an office on the white house campus. here is jason in alabama, democrat. good morning, jason. caller: good morning. how are you doing? host: good. caller: i think we need to be real about why elon musk is there. elon musk is there because he gave a bunch of money to trump and bought twitter to other but everything trump is about -- to elevate everything trump is about. if elon does not have any power, why is he there? he is there because he gave money. he is there because he wants to do that she is on a mission to do what trump wants him to do. as far as not making money, he

gets access to all the data of all of us. that has been the whole fight with all of these government employees, giving him access. the buyout is a trick. right now, the government funding is on a continuing with solution ending in march. any government employee dumb enough to believe trump can buy them out when their funding ends in march is an idiot. not to mention the maximum amount of voluntary separation incentive that can be given for government employees is $25,000. so even if trump could pay them through september, he could not give them more than $25,000. i would imagine the majority of the people you start to get rid of make more than $25,000 in eight months. so all of this is the sycophantic right wing fever dream that the government is filled with demons. truth be told, they are regular

people doing their jobs to make sure things run well. and unfortunately, right wing voters don't want the government to run well. host: here is maurice in dunkirk, maryland, independent. good morning. caller: i just wanted to say, i mean, using terms like it is a coup, you don't get a choice in a coup. if they are giving you the choice of a buyout or to leave, they are not making you leave. why can't we -- the usaid was created in 1961 by an executive order. executive orders can be turned over. they are just basically putting on the brakes and stopping the crazy spending. you keep up the good stuff that it does, but you eliminate the bad stuff. people want to make it about elon. it is not about him. i mean, he is just doing his job. host: i just want to clarify something. yes, you are right, 1961, jfk did create it by executive

order, but it was in 1998 that congress established usaid as an independent agency. caller: i understand. but president trump as the executive has the right to do what he is doing to check to see what is going on. it is not totally eliminated yet, but it does help to be able to cut spending where you can, especially this wasteful spending. that is all. that is all i'm saying. people are just so emotional about it. when you have a choice, choice and coup do not go together. anyway, is a good conversation to have, so thank you very much. host: this is michael. good morning. caller: good morning. how is everything going? host: good. caller: well, the holidays were very tragic, but i will get right onto the topic this morning. i was talking about we had one tragic event after another. it just seems like the country needs some healing right now.

i just wanted to send a prayer out to everyone that is being affected by these terrible events that are happening with aviation and terrorism and things going on, school shootings once again. but once again, i would like to see bill gates get involved. i don't understand why we only have just one or two voices coming out of the business world. if we can put politics aside, and i am sure bill gates did not give money to the trump campaign or cpac or anything like that. i would just assume that is probably not the case, but if we can put that aside, give him money, not give him money, voting for someone, not voting for someone. he is our president. if he can just open invitation to bill gates, i think that

would cool a lot of heads on the left. host: so, michael, this is the michael that used to be in four oaks, north carolina, right? caller: yes, it is. host: you keep moving around. caller: no, only once. come on. host: you are in smithfield now. caller: yes. host: got it. let's go back to doge, elon musk. do you welcome the things you have seen him do so far in these first two weeks? caller: well, on a national basis, yes. i don't first caller, i am very concerned with what is going on with what he is saying. i hope things get better for him. i don't really know what to say about that. we are only being told so much and the results and things like that. i would really wish the topic could have been on tariffs this morning because there is a lot

of neat on tariffs. host: that is also going on. that is another big topic. you are right. so let's take a look at white house press secretary karoline leavitt. she was asked about whether musk or anyone with him had passed a background check. take a look. [video clip] >> elon musk is a special government employee? >> yes. i can confirm he is a special government employee. i can also confirm he has abided by all applicable federal laws. as for his security clearance, i am not sure, but i can check back with you. >> did he pass the background check? >> i don't know about the security clearance, but i can check. >> do you know about anybody on his team at usaid? >> i don't, but i can check on that for you. host: and now to amanda in north attleboro, massachusetts, democrat. good morning. caller: hi. how are you today? host: good.

caller: i am calling because i am concerned about how our constitution is written. we have three branches of government. we have the legislative, executive, and the judicial. all three are separate. and elon musk is getting his hands into something that the legislative branch should be taken care of -- taking care of. if there is probably spending, it has to be done in the legislative branch. the money he is holding onto his our taxpayer money. on top of that, he now has access to every american who has received federal money or paid into federal government, not only the social security numbers, but their bank accounts, and we don't even know if it is secure. i just want to tell republicans, those who voted for him and disagree with this, please go to

a website and put your zip code end and call your representative, your u.s. senators, representatives, and tell them this is not right. my personal information is no longer secure. host: all right, amanda. this is in hayward, wisconsin, independent rick is next. caller: thank you for taking my call. i fully support this doge effort. i think we have to start somewhere. i get it that i don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, democrat, republican, whatever. that first caller is awol if you ask me. don't we need to start somewhere? the executive order says department of government efficiency. that is why we have so many problems in the country, because we are inefficient.

i was for vivek also. unfortunately, he got put in the backseat or whatever and now wants to run for governor. he is a smart man. if he was a democrat, i would still think he is a smart man. i don't understand why we draw the line on what party you are from. i have called before, and i voted for obama in those days. and i voted for trump. i am independent. i don't think it is right that there is a democrat or republican, and a lot of times c-span spins this into racial issues. and that i think is wrong because there should be some effort to try to keep people from bringing race into these things because i don't care if you are black or white or native american or whatever. anyway, you guys do a great job, but i feel like i need to know. sometimes it is hard to know what subjects are coming up.

do you only take calls like once from each person in a 30 day period or can you call whatever you want? host: no, it is every 30 days just to give people a chance. caller: i have a hard time getting through sometimes. this goes back to vivek. anyway, go ahead and take your other calls. host: this is john in california, republican line. caller: good morning. everybody is all excited about elon musk. almost every president has had outside advisors that were friends or acquaintances or college roommates or in this case a guy who had done real well in the private sector. they used to call it the kitchen cabinet. so the man that said musk does not have any power is exactly right. he goes to trump, he tells trump what is going on. in this case, he said this is not just a bad apple. it is a bowl of worms. and what happens with this, number one, it goes to a lot of

countries that absolutely hate the united states. number two, it goes to a lot of despots and dictators and does not get to where it belongs. number three, and this is the big scandal about the foreign aid and whatnot. it goes to foreign governments and will come back in the form of political donations to our politicians. it needs to put under the auspices of the state department. and it needs to be overseen by the secretary of state, whether he is a democrat or republican. it does not need to be this little agency that will decide where these billions and billions of dollars go. we are $37 trillion in debt. we are not going to be able to tax the rich as the democrats keep preaching out of this. it will seek the country if we don't change it. there is a huge amount of waste.

the defense department guy that called, what about all of these g 12 level employees of the government making $150,000, $200,000 a year that were not going to work during the last four years since covid? is that kind of wasteful? i think it is. that is what elon musk has petitioned to try to clean up. he is going to check it out. he is going to check back with trump. as a guy from massachusetts, we got to start somewhere. we cannot continue. the guy from the defense department that said morale is very low, who has been running the country for the last four years if morale is so low? the federal government is bloated beyond belief. money goes where we don't know. we have to change that. it has to change. we will sink in this $37 trillion debt if we don't. yeah, a lot of people are not

going to like it. but i would rather do that than die under this to be $7 trillion in debt. host: got it, john. here is newsweek about usaid. this is the map. it shows where it spends the most money, and this is the map right here. you can take a look. if you would like, you can press on each one and see. it says the u.s. is by far the largest provider of you miniature in aid. billions of dollars in humanitarian, development, and security assistance in more than 100 countries. the u.s. spends less than 1% of its budget on foreign assistance, a smaller share overall than some other countries. and this is taylor in knoxville, tennessee, democrat. taylor, you are next. caller: yeah, hi. ok. so first, for any moderates or

conservatives, i suggest you invest in some earplugs because you are going to hear the weeping and wailing like you never heard from the left. all right, second, these people's gravy train with biscuit wheels have hopped the tracks. their livelihood is at stake. it happens in the private sector all the time, not so much in the federal government. they will have to go get jobs. frank zappa had a song that i suggest you give a listen to. it is a good one. elon musk and doge i think -- i am not super up-to-date on what he is doing. but if it is exploratory, great. and these people probably have a spacex t-shirt in the back of his closet because he was a darling of the left about five to 10 years ago. thank you. host: this is the washington post with this. it as trump preps order to dismantle education department. it says president trump is aiming an executive order aimed

at closing the education department and in the short term dismantling it from within. the draft order acknowledges only congress can shut down the department and instead directs the agency to begin to diminish itself. these, people that said that the work is underway -- these people it said that the work is underway already. employees on an minister to leave and pressuring staff to voluntarily quit. roughly 20 people with elon musk's department of government efficiency known as doge have been inside the education department looking to cut spending and staff. and it says at least some doge staffers have gained access to multiple sensitive internal systems, including a financial aid data set that contains the personal information for millions of students enrolled in the federal student aid program. that is at the washington post

if you would like to see the rest of that. this is mary, independent, in richland, washington. good morning. caller: good morning. what aggravates me so much is the people who call in and don't realize that everything -- that democracy has got away. the people that hold the purse is the congress. when elon musk got all of that information, that is all of your social security numbers, all your information on yourself, the people before you, your grandchildren. the only reason he got it was because he paid $390 million to get trump elected. there are other people in there that have given him -- how can i say it? information, this, and that.

but as the first person they did not like called, elon musk makes his cars in china. he has been to russia. and who knows where he goes? because he has his own private plane. he is the richest man in the world. and the other thing is i don't know where in the constitution are the legislature and any of the other papers. but i thought he had to be voted in, not just given permission. and then they fired the guys that would not give him, you know, access to our top security. so everybody that does not read or does not pay attention needs to pay attention. it has only been two weeks. and people are going broke. it is crazy.

you know, read that paper on 2025. that will scare the hell out of you. and he is doing what he said. host: this is project 2025. project 2025? caller: yeah. when trump says something, like he said he was going to be a dictator, i took him. you have to take him for what he says. that is the way i feel about it, and i think the congress and the senators and the people that love this country and my father and my husband and all of those who fought for this country, i think it is a doggone shame and i don't want to lose my democracy. and i don't want to get all the people in the world mad at us. we have never taken countries from other people like greenland and other stuff. host: let's hear from president

trump. he was asked about the legality of unilaterally shutting down an independent agency of the government. here is what he said. [video clip] >> does it take an act of congress to do only with usaid? >> i don't know. i don't think so, not when it comes to fraud. if there is fraud. these people are lunatics. if it comes to fraud, you would not have an act of congress, and i am not sure you would anyway. but we just want to do the right thing. it is something that should have been done a long time ago. went crazy during the biden administration. they went totally crazy, what they were doing, and the money they were given to people that should not be getting it and to agencies and others that should not be getting it. it was a shame. tremendous fraud. but we will be doing a report. we will be giving you that report at the appropriate time. i love the concept of it. yeah. i love the concept. but they turned out to be

radical left lunatics. and the concept of it is good. it is all about the people. host: back to the phones now. to mark, a democrat in westwood, new jersey, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i just want to give people a heads up because they voted for trump because prices are so high. well, they are about to get a lot higher, folks.these tariffs are a ridiculous idea. giving and oligarch -- an oligarch like elon musk access to all of our information, access to the treasury department, that just seems insane to me. you don't do things like that. but this is what people voted for. they are going to have a very rude awakening because they never want to cut the things that need to be cut like the ridiculous waste of the bloated pentagon. they always want to cut

education and medicaid and food stamps and things that help people. it is just a crying shame that americans, you know, voted for a crooked businessman, and now he has all of his other crooked businessman friends in there to go ahead and remake this country into their kind of utopia where they can do anything they want. it is a fact that elon musk and jeff bezos have hundreds of lawsuits against them because they hurt their employees, won't let them organize, and that is all going to go away. and that is what it is all about. they bought access. our government has been for sale to the highest bidder for a long time. it is now in overdrive. host: here is aaron in new mexico, republican. good morning. caller: hail trump. i think it is wonderful what must and trump are doing for our

company as a gen x'er to see the government operate in full transparency in the face of the american people, the usa. it is great. i don't think we are doing enough. they are not doing enough. they need to address these school shootings. i think these american parents are depraved for sending their kids to school where they have to go under a desk. school shootings in america. hail trump, america. host: there was some conversation about elon musk's level of security clearance. and this is what is in the guardian. this is from december of last year. it says that elon musk will not receive the highest level of government security clearance. the spacex head has been advised to not seek the

same top-secret clearance over his drug use and contracts with foreign nationals. it's as it is unlikely to receive government security if he so applied, even as his spacex lunch company blast military and spy agency payloads into orbit. he is the first person to exceed $400 billion in self-made personal wealth. we will find more information about that as far as what he currently holds as a security clearance, if it is top-secret or not. and we will talk to anthony in florida, independent line. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i am a younger guy. i am an independent with some very strong left-leaning tendencies when it comes to american forest projection and other international policy. but i am pretty fiscally and socially conservative. so i often don't really like

where the national competition goes. around the doge question and shutting down usaid, i really did not know what this agency did. it has taken a long time for me to read and research a bit so i understand a little bit more. one bit of context i have found that has helped me kind of understand what is going on here and evaluate with a bit of a cooler head was that usaid was part of american power projection overseas. they have been involved in attempts to destabilize the cuban government. there was some very unsavory things done with the sterilization of indigenous folk in peru. at the same time, that type of aid went out to completely legitimate causes, causes that i think are worthwhile. for folks who are a little bit worried about neoimperialism, i

wonder why there is so much outcry over this agency being reined in a bit. at the same time, i understand because i think that the shutting down of usaid kind of has an overlap with the tariffs where we kind of see a global trade order starting to become more regionalized and more focused on trade protectionism. we are entering another season of that. in america, as many listeners know, has had a long history of trade protectionism, particularly in the early 1900s, and tariffs can work in the long run. and they can also make things really tough in the short run. i would encourage folks to check out and economics explained youtube video where "can tariffs actually work?" is the title. it was informative to be and helps me think about these issues in a way that, i don't know -- everyone is freaked out right now, and i get that.

but now is the time to recommit to democracy and becoming informed citizens as best we can. that is me trying to see the good in things. i did not vote for trump. i dislike him but i am try to see the good he could be doing instead of demonizing him. thanks for taking my call. host: could you tell us how old you are? you said you are young. caller: i just turned 30. not as young as i used to be. host: all right. some information for you on usaid. as far as the mission, it leads international humanitarian and development arm of the u.s. government. established in 1961. the workforce totals more than 10,000 with approximately two thirds of that workforce serving overseas. in 2023, usaid provided assistance to approximately 130 countries. that is according to the congressional research service. regarding the budget of usaid, so this would be fiscal yea

2023, $40 billion in combined appropriations, represting more than one third of the funds provided in the fiscal 2023 department of state, foren operations, and related programs appropriation, and international food aid provided in the agriculture appropriation. this is kathleen in georgetown, delaware, democrat. caller: good morning mimi and buddy out there. i have concerned. i don't know if everybody happened to see this but there was a robbery and at the end but it was not certain elon musk n gave th -- elon musk gave the nazi salute. i saw that. there was a rally in germany and he was up on the stage jumping

up and down at a neo-nazi celebration or whatever. it makes me wonder, do we have a nazi in the white house with access to everybody in the country's financial information, everything about us? i don't think there has ever been a president who took the authority to go and gather all of this kind of information on the citizens of this country. like i said, elon musk may have given trump $300 million or whatever and then all of a sudden they were buddy, buddy. so elon musk interjects himself into the white house, makes a department specifically for him. it is like, what is this? ed trump is like -- and trump is

like his buddy, buddy. money, money, money, how to spend it, how to make it. like i said, he is in front of the neo-nazis jumping up and down real happy about it. he did give the nazi salute at the rally here. we might have a nazi in the white house gathering up all the information he can on every citizen in this country. i don't know if anybody else saw that. a lot of people love him. i am a little bit leery of what is going on. thank you. host: i would just remind people that we do have a line set aside for federal employees. that is (202) 748-8003. if you work for usaid or you are a contractor for usaid especially, give us a call. we would like to hear your impressions of what is going on. this is senator elizabeth warren, a democrat of massachusetts.

wrote a letter to secretary bessent. here is a portion of what she wrote to him about what is happening at the treasury department. she said this. e musk team's unprecedented demand for total access to the system reportedly caused serious concern at the department particularly given that the system has historically been closy held because it holds iormation on americans and sends out virtually every federal payment, including payments that are critical for the economy and national security. controlling the system could allow the trump administration to "unilaterally" and illegally cut up payments r millions of americancome opening at risk the financial security of families andusinesses based on political favoritism or the whims of mr. musk and those on his team who have worked their way inside. that is senator elizabeth warren writing to treasury secretary

bessent. we would love to hear your thoughts on that and the influence of elon musk, of doge. do you support it? david in minnesota, republican, what do you think? caller: well, i think we have to sit back and realize what is going on. when you sit down and think on this, on this usaid, it is that they are looking to see because like they say there is money being spent that was done for the wrong purpose, and this has been going on for years. and the biggest thing is that first thing out of the left was, oh, he is going to affect social security and he is going to affect this. social security has nothing to do with usaid. so i don't know where they come

up -- there is too much hatred in this country to the left and right. how can we actually unite people to get into the facts of how much money is being wasted or spent for things we should not even be spending it on? and yes, we have our checks and balances in government. but it is like the tariffs to canada and mexico. already, canada and mexico backed off. mexico has to control their border coming in. why should these people be allowed to come into mexico to go to the united states? they could stop the flow there. and canada, the same thing.

people can fly to canada and then they come across our border in the united states. so the tariff part of it is these countries can control a lot for the united states to prevent this. host: all right, david. here is joe in baltimore, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. it is interesting you mentioned elizabeth warren because i wanted to ask since everyone is listening, has this ever happened to you? you file your taxes. you go around trying to figure out what to sign up for. you are going on turbotax, all the websites. it is frustrating have to pay for it. and you say to yourself, why do i have to figure out how much i owe the irs? they are going to get mad if i don't pay an amount. they already know how much i

have to pay. why don't they just tell me how much i have to pay? so, a couple years ago, the irs started doing something they call direct file, which is a system that will just tell you how much you have to pay so you don't have to go use turbotax and pay additional money to file your taxes. elon musk and his doge boys have gone in and shut down direct file. what i want to know is, what about this is governmental efficiency? we had an agency that was using its data and connecting that data to people directly so that they can save money. and now that is shut down. they talk about how they are getting rid of trans comic books

in ecuador or something. but it is like social issues while they are doing things of economic significance that they are hiding. turbotax, intuit gave $1 million to trump's campaign so all i am seeing is patronage for corporate welfare queens. host: this is a federal employee in alexandria, virginia. mike, good morning. caller: hey, good morning. i am flabbergasted, man. this whole thing that elon musk is doing right now is just on its face so illegal. and just as a fed, i am trained to do the right things because we took an oath. where is his oath? this guy came in. he is a special government

employee with a next capacity of 130 days to do all the damage he can do before he has to leave. but on what legal authority is he doing all of this? we are getting harassing emails from an email address we all thought was spam. there is no signature block so he was violating digital and any communication laws we have right now. he's running around unchecked, and i don't hear a freaking thing from my elected officials. i don't hear anything other than, well, guys, we are just going to evaluate. you have heads of agency dictating payment policy and saying congress will -- how can you say that? how can you honestly look people in the face? this is their livelihood. how can you just overtly lie to people like this? that is my question. go ahead. i'm sorry. host: i was going to ask, what do those email say? you said you were getting harassing emails. caller: the fork in the road.

the first one we got was replying to this emailed by hitting yes and we thought it was spam. we sent it to our cybersecurity folks. i did not know what was going on. we get one that says, hey, guys, you should take a vacation. you are authorized to work a second job. this is telling us to break the law. it is and you can go out and open a second business, have a second job -- have another job. we will pay you through september. because this guys track record at twitter where he stiffed people will hold up. i cannot wait for the reckoning. i cannot wait for the lawsuits and leading this guy out in handcuffs, honestly. i am flabbergasted. i am beyond angry. and i don't speak for all the federal employees here. i really don't. i speak for me. i can tell you right now the sentiment is we are angry. we are so upset this is happening. host: can you tell us what agency you are at? caller: i am in a dod entity.

i work in d.c. host: let me ask you this. you can just answer for yourself, but what do you think would be the impact if a lot of people took the package in your agency, in your office? would the mission change? or would it just be a huge savings in taxes for the american people? caller: mancaller:, i wish i could say it would be a huge savings but the line being put out right now is if anybody takes that resignation, their position will go away. so if you have somebody that is managing a program that has a lot of impact on something and they go away, that billet gets absorbed back into the system. they may or may not backfill it. here is the other thing to think about. as people decide if they want to take this resignation live or not, whenever they leave, i

don't think everybody understands what the federal hiring process is like. so to backfill somebody who is managing, let's say, something that is infrastructure related, these are the guys in charge of safety or infrastructure projects around the country or whatnot, and he leaves. they have somebody that is maybe qualified to get in there but they have to backfill the position as soon as they can because otherwise it will be this unmanned thing. so no, the impact is you will have a diminished workforce and it will be backfilled with a bunch of yes-men that may or may not be qualified. it is just so frustrating. i cannot see. here is one more thing, and i'm sorry. i am a conservative. and i cannot wait to vote blue. i really can't. because just the overreach that this is happening. yeah. host: all right, mike. keep us updated.

call us back in like 30 days and let us know what is happening, ok? caller: ok. host: donna in missouri, republican. morning. caller: good morning, everyone. i am on the older side, so i witnessed pretty much in the way of different political parties over the years. you know, i have been where i have lived paycheck-to-paycheck and i have lived where i have been a little more on the affluent side. but you know, most people have to realize the government is on a budget. just like every one of us. unless people are extremely wealthy and they don't have to worry about budgets. but the majority of the people have to worry about budgets. so, why shouldn't our government? i don't understand how people are getting upset because the new administration wants to get rid of spending that does not help the american people.

this usaid organization, too much waste. all doge is trying to do is go in and expose the areas that the government is abusing our tax dollars. i don't understand why americans -- i don't care your party affiliation. i don't understand have to get rid of the excess spending. the american people are very bighearted, and we contribute a lot to charity when we can afford it, so if we can get our economy back to tiptop shape, the american people have a big heart, and they will go out and fund the organizations that they feel will help people that are not as privileged as americans. so, again, if you don't have to live on a budget, well, good for you.

but the majority of us people do have to live on budgets. so please keep that in mind. and the gentleman that works for the government or possibly laid off now, i feel really bad for him. i do. nobody likes to lose their job. again, if you ever worked in corporate america, which i did not prefer to. i like small businesses. i did accounting. but if you ever worked for corporate america and a new ceo comes in, what are they going to do? they are going to put people in that they trust, that they know, that they also know can do the job. so, again, they are just coming in, they are putting in the people that they trust to do the job for them. host: got it. let's take a look at what president trump said when he was asked about elon musk and his team getting access to the treasury department payment system from yesterday. [video clip] >> why is it important for elon

musk to have access to the payment system? >> well, he has access only to letting people go that he thinks are no good if we agree with him, and it is only if we agree with him. he is a very talented guy from the state point of management -- the standpoint of management and costs. we put him in charge of seeing what he can do with certain groups and certain numbers. some of the numbers are horrible what he has found. 100, think of it, $100 million on condoms to hamas. condoms to hamas. and many other things that are frankly even more ridiculous. they are finding tremendous waste. really, waste more than anything else i think you could probably save -- more than anything else. i think you could probably say fraud and abuse added to it. but bad things, bad spending.

you have been writing about some of it frankly and some of the things they have been doing is just terrible. elon can't do and won't do anything without our approval. and we will give him the approval where appropriate. we are appropriate, we won't. he reports in. it is something he feels very strongly about, and i am impressed because he is obviously running -- if there is a conflict about it we will not let him use it. he has a team of talented people. we are try to shrink government and he could probably shrink it as well as anybody else if not better. where we think there is a conflict or a problem, we will not let him go near it. host: the white house has mentioned that usaid sent $50 million for condoms in gaza. the washington post fact checker has looked into that claim and says there is no evidence for

that claim. it says that figure would rain one point $5 billion of condoms on an area only double the size of the district of columbia. it says last year the state department launched a five-year, $50 million program to improve health care in gaza. but the contractor said it was not supplying condoms. you can read that at the washington post. here is connie in tacoma, washington, a democrat. hi, connie. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. the reason i am calling is i am kind of curious on what usaid costs us versus what our military is costing us. because i look at our efforts with usaid as soft power versus our military power is hard power. and i think it is important to provide goods and services to the world and supplies to these

developing countries. i think it is in our best interest for national security for on down the line. and i am wondering, all of these people that want to hamper our efforts in that way -- i am a christian. i am wondering, where are our values? i look at this as we are a wealthy nation. i pay taxes. i work full-time. i am more than happy to help the less fortunate people around the world. that is what my values, my christian values dictate. i think, what would jesus do? that is exactly what he would have me do. i don't understand where we are hurting ourselves. that we are hurting ourselves in our long-term security interests and our own personal values. i look at this administration trying to gu uncle samt.

and it breaks my heart. he sows hate, fear, and division. that is all i see. i wish he could see the positive power that he has in the world and use that effectively. that is really all i have to say. if you give me the numbers on the military versus usaid, that would be great. host: usaid department of defense, i don't have it offhand but i want to say it is 800 to $900 billion range. don't quote me on that, we will find that for you. this is kristen illinois to send us a text. muska's a billionaire private citizen with his own agenda and with blatant conflict of interest. considering the multibillion-dollar relationship between spacex and the u.s. government. he was not feted, he was nonelected and the only

qualification he has for this invented post is his loyalty to trump. everyone in the usa should be outraged at this, and this from john in california, usaid is like a dead tree with roots that must be pulled. reminder to all the national debt of $35 trillion and unsustainable. and that is the time that we've got this segment. more to come. next we will discuss the trump approach to legal and illegal immigration, the center for immigration studies. later, bloomberg reporter on the elon musk-lead department of government efficiency ended influence at usaid and the treasury department. we will be right back. ♪

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washington your continued. host: we are joined now by the executive director of the center for immigration studies. mark, welcome. guest: thanks for having me. host: start by telling us about the center and what position you take on legal and illegal immigration. guest: this is our 40th anniversary, and our mission is to critique current immigration policy in a case for tighter enforcement and lower levels of immigration. host: so even legal immigration you would like to see reduced. why is that? guest: large-scale integration is incompatible with characteristics of the modern society. conditions have changed from 100 and 200 years ago.

we are a post-industrial knowledge-based economy. advances in transportation and communication have shrunk the world. all of those things mean the situation we are in is fundamentally different from anything we've faced before and large-scale emigration creates problems and is inconsistent with the kind of society we have now in a way that wasn't necessarily true 100 or 200 years ago, even though even then immigration was a challenge, but it was easier to deal with back then. host: and what data do you point to to come to the conclusion that we are at a point now where we just don't need as much legal immigration? guest: we are a country with one third of one billion people. we don't actually need any immigration. the issue is are there particular groups of people whose admission is so compelling that we let them in any way, and that would be husbands, wives and little kids of american

citizens, which is actually more than you think. that is 400,000 people per year. a handful of real geniuses, einsteins, and a handful of humanitarian immigrants who literally have nowhere else to go at no other option's. you add that up to something like half or less than the current level of 1.1 million immigrants. host: and when you look at the economy, are there certain jobs for instance in agriculture, and home health care that are predominantly staffed by legal immigrants? if that were to go away, with that impact the economy and the services that americans expect? yes: the first thing to keep in mind is that any changes in immigration policy, whether it is or spent or legal policy will result in the process of change, not an overnight event. you don't wake up overnight and all the immigrant workers are gone.

the issue is how do we sort of a just to a different situation and in a market economy, there's no such thing as jobs that americans won't do. there are jobs that americans won't do with particular wages in particular ways with particular benefits but almost all categories of jobs that people think of as immigrant-dominated in fact, nativeborn americans do most of them. whether it is janitorial work, construction work, all of those kind is. this only a painful of relatively narrow slice of the job market that are-dominated. picking fresh fruits and vegetables is one of them. but there aren't that many people who do that and there are technological solutions to that to mechanize that work so there are still people involved, but fewer people. and the incentive to move to that kind of higher productivity economy is undermined when we take in lots of people from overseas.

host: if you'd like to join the conversation about immigration, you can do so. lines are by party. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independent, (202) 748-8002. let's talk about the immigration raids. what has been your reaction for these first two weeks? guest: we really needed this kind of restart of immigration enforcement because immigration enforcement was for all intents and purposes stopped under the biden administration, especially inside the country. so what the borders are -- border czar has said is we are going after the worst first, they are going after criminals but also people who have had filing orders of removal. ordered to be deported and they just ignored it. this close to a million and a half people like that. so the idea that we are now

restarting immigration enforcement, that if you just ignored in order to leave the country, you don't just get away with that anymore and it is essential to end that kind of impunity. i applaud what they've been doing so far. host: you said a million and a half. . guest: caller: i think 1.4 million with the last number i saw. host: do we have an idea of how long those immigration raids would last? guest: i couldn't come up with a number, i have no idea. part of the strategy of course is not just to arrest everyone they need to arrest, but also incentivize people to go home on their own. in other words if they are not going to get away with this anymore, it is time to pack up, and frankly leave on your own terms in a more dignified way so you can pack up the car, pack up the family, and leave ahead of ice coming to get you. host: and do me know if that is happening? guest: it always happens to some degree.

even under the biden administration there were illegal immigrants who left. the goal is to have fewer people coming in illegally and more of the people who are here illegally leave either on their own or in custody. host: in this new center being built, can you explain what that is and who would be there, who would be detained? guest: this is actually just restarting something we've done a number of times under the clinton and other administrations where we would contain illegal immigrants of one sort or another at guantanamo. it is a big place, it is not like they are going to be with the terrorists. it is its own facility. in of the way the trump administration has talked about it is that is where they are going to put the criminals that their own countries aren't taking yet. in other words it will be sort of a hole facility while the administration applies pressure to what is called countries that

are not honoring their international obligations to take their own people back. and there's a lot of countries like that. venezuela was one of them but the president seems to have persuaded them either with carrots or steak or both to comply with their international obligations. there are still other countries that are doing that, so as i understand it, that is one of the main reasons they are setting up this facility. so they can get people out of the united states until they can get the paperwork in the travel documents, etc. to send them home to their own countries. host: and is there information about how many people they will be able to hold, openly? guest: the capacity they reported is up to 30000 and frankly in earlier crises back 30 years ago now, there was a cuban-haitian crisis, a held more than 20,000 people at one point or another. it would be a moving target but as i understand it, maximum

capacity of 30,000. host: and of course president trump was threatening tariffs against mexico, that has been halted for 30 days. what do you think of that as a method of decreasing illegal immigration flowing over the southern border, and can that be, is there more that you think should be done? guest: mexico is what you would call a gatekeeper country for us. is the country that illegal immigrants passed through to get to our country. and they play an essential role in limiting illegal immigration into the united states. mexico never used to care too much because they were mainly mexicans and they are not going to stop their own people from traveling, but most illegal immigrants are not mexican anymore. so mexico actually has interest in working with us to stop third country illegal aliens coming through their own country and in fact with regular voters in

mexico they are sick of foreigners using the country as a doormat. i think there really is a confluence of interest year in both stopping illegal immigration, but also drugs which is the other top thing even though that is not my area, that is the other thing that the president has stressed. host: let's talk to callers. this is rob, a republican in massachusetts. caller: good morning. there he familiar with your organization. bostonians against sanctuary cities. we are in the middle of ground zero and we have all these convoluted laws to support all these people, and we are all full here. and the problem i think personally is that the reason why they want all these illegals here is for all the other people

who left. they need a new congressman. what do you think? guest: i don't think there's actually that kind of strategy behind sanctuary cities or at the national level when the biden administration was allowing massive illegal immigration. i think their perspective is that immigration controls are immoral. stopping anyone who wants to come here is simply not allowed, it's not acceptable morally. it is racist, oppressive, etc. so everything kind of follows from that. i really don't think there is sort of a thought out strategy about why they are doing this, it is just a kind of natural reaction to the rejection of the very idea of immigration like this. host: trump made changes to the cpd1 app it was a way for

asylum-seekers to ask for a hearing in front of a judge. that has gone away. there are reports that even those appointments have been canceled. can you tell us what is happening with that and what your view is on asylum-seekers in the united states and what should happen to them. guest: it was developed during the first trump administration but it was just a traffic management and for us lines and truck lines to smooth out the traffic at the border. the biden administration turned it into a tool for illegal immigrants or potential illegal immigrants to schedule their illegal immigration's. because these were people who were inadmissible, they had no right to enter the united states. host: including asylum-seekers? guest: silent, a request for asylum is a defense against for tatian. you say i want asylum, please don't deport me.

nobody has a right to enter the united states illegally just to make an asylum claim. but the biden administration was using this tool, cbp1 as a way for people to come in and then to make an asylum claim. the biden administration was violating the law. the people coming in with the cbp1 app for not jumping the border illegally, it was the administration that was breaking the law for them by letting the men. it had to be ended and frankly, and this is a whole other show, but asylum is a surrender of sovereignty. the illegal immigrants says you have to let me in, you have to let me stay. that is not sustainable and we need a bottom-up reassessment of what our asylum policy is. post: do you think those who are already in the country and seeking asylum should have their case heard in front of a judge,

and determine whether or not they should be allowed to stay based on that asylum claim? guest: if they are in the pipeline, we end up having to inevitably give them their day in court. the problem is the law requires that everyone making that kind of asylum claim as to be held in detention into that decision is made. the problem is if they don't show up to court or if they get a negative finding as most of them will, then what did you do? that is why they are supposed to be detained. the biden administration just let them go. host: so would it be your organization's policy to continue that but to detain them as they are waiting for -- is sometimes given that there's not enough judges, six years, 10 years, they are waiting for that hearing. guest: the law requires they be detained. a lot of the people who came in with this app haven't even undergone the initial screening

interview. it is called a credible fear interview. screen out the people who really obviously have meritless cases. that has to be done and yes, they need to be taken into custody so that when they get a negative finding they can be removed rather than just disappear into the country. host: let's talk to jay in washington, d.c., democrat. caller: thank you for c-span i have a few things to say. first, you did the numbers about usaid but the company -- country needs to understand usaid only make some 0.4% of the federal budget and what elon musk has access to now is the entire treasury including everyone's tax returns. concerning guantanamo, a $30,000 increase to house actual prisoners in guantanamo would equate to the largest private prison project in the history of this country. the largest prison in this country can only support a thousand people. i'd be curious to hear with the

guest has to say about marco rubio's recent trip to el salvador in terms of taking not only illegal or undocumented immigrants from their country, but also from other countries and to take the possibility of criminals from the united states, so that as american citizens being deported to another country for their prison term. i would also like to say if anyone feels that this is too much and they feel that this is an overreach by bureaucrats, which elon musk is, there are protests around the country today including 1500 pennsylvania avenue at the department of treasury. thank you very much. guest: the salvador think that the only thing i think i'm qualified to talk about. the idea of sending alien to our prisoners to a different country to be imprisoned is fine. the idea that american prisoners would be sent there as i understand it is something that the president of el salvador

just brought up. i have no idea whether that is part of it or not. but obviously not only salvadoran prisoners would be returned to salvador as i understand it to finish out their sentences, but also criminal aliens from other countries sent there to finish out their sentences if their own countries wouldn't take them back. that's actually a great idea and i'm delighted to see it. host: here is john in arlington, virginia, independent line. caller: the 14th amendment according to trump is only for the descendants of american slaves. is that the overriding factor? i am in immigration law, how does that really help that unemployment?

i'm talking about indigenous black people, american citizens, that these immigrants are being deported. so those are the two things i'm concerned about. the 14th amendment and how will this affect black people? guest: the 14th amendment issue is the birthright citizens of issue and it says everybody born in the u.s. and subject to the jurisdiction of the u.s. is a citizen. the whole point of it was to make sure that the southern states, once the army withdrew, didn't strip citizenship of the newly freed slaves. it was essential, it was an important amendment and had nothing to do with illegal immigration. nothing to do with tourists coming here to have children because that is a widespread phenomenon. nothing to do with foreign students or foreign workers having kids and getting citizenship. so yes that was obviously and specifically intended to ensure

that black americans were not stripped of their citizenship. the other question was what is the effect of immigration on black workers, and it has been quite serious over the years, over a long time. in fact, in 1986, congress for the first time ever prohibited the employment of illegal immigrants. in 1990, senator ted kennedy tried to undo that and make it legal again to hire illegal aliens. but they failed because caretta scott king, martin luther king's widow got an open letter with other black leaders and set under no circumstances should that lobby changed because it is important that we preserve opportunities for black americans, and that is clearly something this of ministration is also concerned with. host: on the republican line, charlotte, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. my concern is with these studies

your industry is doing, did you send any red alarms to the president or to anybody about this inhumane situation that is happening to all these people and secondly, that now we have a situation where all these people , essentially the criminals have to gather and be taken away to be out of harm's way, but are there any contribute factors to this that you're not being on top of the situation because biden has to have this thing now we are facing the terrible impact of it?

i will wait for your response. 0 guest: there is just no question that when you have years of bad policy, it is difficult to undo and in immigration, even more so. if you have tax policy that you don't like, whether it is too high or too low, you can always change that and it will have effects, but it is easier to turn around. immigration is about people. and if you have an administration like the biden administration that let in to the united states millions of illegal immigrants, that is harder to undo because people don't just disappear with the snap of a finger. so yes, absolutely bad policy has long consequences that have to be dealt with. post: renee in north carolina, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. so i want to go back to the term undocumented immigrants, and the

question i have or the statement i have is that when we look at people coming here for asylum or for immigration, they have the right and it is in the law that they can come on land and seek asylum. there are also people who seek asylum prior to coming to the u.s. there is a whole application process. and so the app that you were referring to that were shut down actually supported those people seeking asylum before they actually land on u.s. soil, as well as the one to show up first and then ask for asylum. so what do you suggest as a support for those who have done the proper documentation to seek asylum prior to coming? now they don't even have the app to track their progress for the other sweeping judgments are taking away a lot of their

options that solve that whole problem, and they actually have true reasons for seeking asylum and may have done it the proper way. that affects everything. guest: just to be clear, no one has the right to enter the united states without prior permission. no one. just because you're going to make it asylum claim, that doesn't give you the right to enter the united states. in asylum claim is a defense that legal aliens makes who has already broken the law about why he shouldn't be returned. there are no numerical limits on asylum, and easily 3 billion, 4 billion people around the world could under some interpretation of the law qualify for asylum. this is why asylum was created after world war ii and after the red army takeover of eastern europe, and it was supposed to be a narrow thing, a narrow exception, and emily exaggerating a little, handful

of russian ballerinas, that is it. it has become a vehicle for mass illegal immigration not just here but in europe, australia and israel, and it needs to be fundamentally rethought. you have no right to come here just because you say you are going to claim asylum. host: i want to play you a clip of a recent interview with new york city democratic representative who talks about concerns about immigration raids in his cities, and then i will have you respond. >> first and foremost, everybody should be afforded due process in our nation. i don't think we should compromise due process for anybody. but if you committed a violent crime, you are found guilty, there are laws in the book that allow for you to be arrested, convicted and ported. we are concerned about the broader picture, the casting out of a broader net. a nonviolent offense could be

scooped up and deported as well. these navy fathers, mothers. they have families and we are concerned that this is going to hurt new york city and the country. guest: deportation is not a criminal punishment. this simply administered of action to return you to your own country because you don't have a right to stay here. so everyone who is not authorized by the government of the united states is deportable at all times. due process if you are a criminal, even if you're an illegal immigrant, you get the same due process rights as anyone else because that is a criminal process. you get your miranda rights, you can have a government-funded attorney, the whole thing. deportation is a different thing and due process in deportation matters as the supreme court has said is whatever congress says it is, because it is an administrative process and we have set out certain rules. if you illegally here, even if

you are not committing a crime, the clip refer to people who jumped a turnstile and somehow came to the attention of police and they shouldn't be deported is what he is saying. if they are illegal immigrants, of course they should be deported. host:host: this is tom, republican. caller: i have three questions. these illegal migrants or undocumented workers, even if they are documented, would you say the technology of ai is sufficient enough to replace them so that these workers that come in would be obsolete? my second question is these people, these illegals, criminals, would it be cheaper or more cost-effective to keep them housed in guantanamo instead of these liberal federal facilities or state facilities

or county facilities? and my last question was -- and trying to think what it was. host: that's ok, we can take the first two. guest: those two are plenty. not even just a iva just generally technological advancement replacing a lot of low skilled jobs, this has been happening obviously for hundreds of years, and ai may well accelerate that process. this is why the idea of bringing in less skilled workers at a time when technology is eliminating the need for as many less skilled workers is kind of crazy. and we had an enormous untapped workforce in the united states. the share of working age men who are not working is higher than it has ever been, and this is a problem we need to deal with. bringing in foreign workers, they are perfectly normal people.

but it removes any incentive for us to grapple with this basic issue. and as far as the cost of deportation or detention, the whole point should be to reduce the cost by getting these people home. so whether it costs less or more in guantanamo or in some detention facility or county jail, it is an important management question, but the main thing is to get them out so it doesn't cost us anything. host: i want to ask you about the visa program that is for highly skilled foreign tech workers. where do you stand on that? guest: is actually not all that highly skilled. there is a handful of genuine top talent but is mainly a vehicle for tech companies to import cheap labor. people say they are not cheap, they are getting paid $80,000 a year. but given their jobs and where they are, it is cheap labor, that is all that is.

and the craziest thing about it is that we get out those visas by lottery. so that anybody who applies, you've got a big pool of people, most of whom are kind of middling at best, and yet we pick them by lottery rather than reform that i think we're going to see in this administration. they tried last time and it failed. give it to people based on the highest salary offer so that the businesses who value the workers the most are the ones who are likely to get the people. that is not a perfect solution but it is a real solution that will improve the program. host: market, executive director for the center of integration studies. thanks so much for joining us. up next, the elon musk-led department of government efficiency as making news all over washington. we will talk to gregory with the latest, and later, you'll meet democratic freshman class president julie johnson and learn about her priorities in congress plus concerns over

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minutes on point of interest. wednesday, a look at ways to increase government efficiency and reduce unnecessary spending with isla governor kim reynolds and citizens against government waste president, schaap. watch it live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span three, c-span now, and online at c-span.org. democracy. it isn't just an idea, it is a process. a process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. it is where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nations courses charted. democracy in real-time. this is your government at work. this is c-span. giving you your democracy unfiltered.

onday, trump u.s. trade represented of nominee j greer will be on capitol hill for his confirmation hearing. his work on international trade law previously served as chief of staff during rst trump administration. from the senate finance committee, watch live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 3, c-span now or online at c-span.org. listening to programs on c-span through c-span radio is easy. tell your smart speaker play c-span radio and listen to washington journal daily at 7:00 a.m. eastern. important public affairs events throughout the day and weekdays, catch washington today. listen anytime. just tell your smart speaker play c-span radio. c-span, created by cable. washington journal continues. host: welcome back. we joined now by white house and

politics reporter for bloomberg news gregory corti. welcome to the program. let's start with elon musk. he has spoken more broadly about his efforts and plans for doge beyond what just happened at usaid. what have you learned about those plans? guest: he is really systematically going to the federal government agency by agency and trying to get access to data about how they are spending their money and looking for examples of what he sees are a great, egregious waste of taxpayer money and trying to turn off the spigot. president trump yesterday was asked by reporters in the oval office whether what kind of access elon musk has. the president said look, he can see everything but the decision on whether he could hold a particular payment is still up to the president and the appropriate government officials, but it is really about a wide-ranging, broad

mandate to look throughout the federal government for waste, fraud and abuse. host: let's look at a portioof that executive order. this is part of what it says. it says establisheshe department of government efficiency to implement the president'd doge agenda by modernizing software, efficiency and productivity. this seems more like a technological change, not we are shutting down a department, we are cutting off email to all employees, you are not allowed in the building, the website has gone down. what do you make of that? guest: it is a very rapidly evolving mission. let's go back to last august when trump first floated this idea. this is something that must have talked about, a department of government efficiency. it's not really a department because only congress can create departments but the idea was to bring in regulations, spending

and make government more efficient. when we got this executive order that trump signed on inauguration day, it did have what appeared to be a more narrow game. leveraging technology to modernize government operations, to implement the president's agenda. it never defined what that is, but a separate executive order also put musk in charge of hiring and coming up with a federal hiring plan to ensure that government employees had american values and interests. so it is really a broad mandate and musk doesn't appear to be limited by the four corners of that executive orders are on the executive branch of the government but they are really the president's to enforce. if the president is giving musk more leeway to go beyond the charter of doge, as long as he

has the president's support, he can do that. host: there is something more in the executive order that i wanted to bring up. agency heads will take all necesteps in coordination with the u.s. ds, which is the united ste doge service administrator. and to ensure u.s. ds has full access to all unclassified agency records, software systems and i.t. systems. first, what is the u.s. ds? now it is the united states doge service? it used to be the united states digital service, created in the aftermath of that healthcare.gov debacle of a decade ago where people went to sign on to get health care plans under obamacare, the website crashed, so this was an office within the office of management and budget that was going to help with these kinds of systems, to use

technology to modernize federal systems. the president has rebranded the u.s. digital service. that appears to be sort of a working staffing part of this. host: that is what i wanted to ask you. is it rebranding or are all of those employees now working for doge? guest: it is unclear but it may well be that they are different employees than the ones that worked for u.s. digital service. musk has brought in people from the outside. there's also a related organization, part of that executive order is to create doge itself which is a temporary organization, and that is a particular term of art in the law that until now has only been used in national security to create high-level study groups. we've added a study to the military draft in military aviation safety. it's the first time it's been

used outside national security, but it allows the president to circumvent the civil service laws, competitive examinations, those kinds of things hiring up really quick, allowing him to accept a volunteer. usually there is a ban on having volunteers working in the federal government. and it makes musk what is known as a special government employee. so we don't know if he is getting a salary, it is a probably irrelevant to him, but it makes them subject to all the conflict of interest law that a regular employee would be subject to, but with a couple of different exceptions. one is that he has to file a financial disclosure but it is not public. from the other is he does not have to divest his considerable wealth. it appears that musk himself is doge and then the u.s. doge service is the staff that helps them to implement this agenda.

host: because we've been hearing about musk allies, doge teams. do we know who these people are, how many there are, what kind of salary they might be taking, what kind of conflict of interest they might have? guest: the third component of this are these teams, and those are at least four officials at each federal department and agency that are the teams that come out of the agency and help to implement this agenda are the liaisons back to elon musk. we know some of the names of these people. a lot of them tend to come from tesla, spacex. they are people that are loyal to him and there's a little bit of a culture shock going on right now because they don't necessarily understand how government works. they understand how technology works, but you have culture shock on both ends because you also have these agencies with people coming in from silicon valley, sort of imposing

different ways of doing things on them in a very short time. host: if you'd like to join the conversation with gregory corti, white house and politics reported a bloomberg news, you can call in now. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. explain to us what happened over the weekend with the doge team at the u.s. treasury department. guest: elon musk has been trying to get access to the treasury payment system. there is a very old and complicated system of databases and computer networks that ensure that the government can process tens of billions of transactions a day. these are everything from social security benefit checks to tax returns to the contractor payments, employee payroll.

that all the agencies of the federal government will send to the treasury department for processing. it's up to the agencies to determine whether it is a legal payment, and that the appropriations are there for congress to actually pay it, but if you wanted visibility into every single cent coming and going out of the federal government, you would want to do that at treasury. that is where everything happens. so the senior career official who was in charge of those systems resigned suddenly last week. he had been the acting treasury secretary for a short time after trump was inaugurated and before scott bessent came and took the reins. but he is a career treasury department official who understood how all these systems work. he resigned suddenly. host: why did he resign? guest: he did not give a reason in his resignation letter, but

the timing obviously coincided with the musk takeover or at least access to these federal payment systems. now, the president said yesterday that musk has visibility into all this, but isn't able to actually modify any of that payment data. there are members of congress and others who say they have reason to doubt that is true. they think that musk has his finger on the button and he has not disabused anybody of that notion. he was on twitter all weekend talking about payments that he was stopping. he has talked about delete, delete, delete. he wants to go through these federal payment and stop them because he believed they are illegal. the president says he has the final authority on that but musk is acting as if he is the one in charge. host: wanted to ask you also about what that would kind of indicate as far as privacy.

there's a lot of information in that system as far as social security numbers and all kinds of things like that. i mean, are we sure that is still secure, or is that now in the hands of the musk team? guest: there is certainly a lot of concern about that both from members of congress, federal employees and from others. there's been at least one lawsuit over his access to this and you are right. the systems in order to process the payments need social security numbers, taxpayer id numbers, both of taxpayers and federal employees. there may be sensitive information to contractors and when and how they get paid. beneficiaries of medicare and social security programs all have their data at the treasury department. the executive order that trump signed did say that doge would

have to put in place information security protocols to make sure that information isn't privatized, but there is still some concern about the world richest man and his team of brand-new federal employees having overnight access to some of the most sensitive, unclassified information the government has. host: i'm going to play you a clip of chuck schumer introducing legislation to prevent elon musk from meddling with that treasury department payment system that we are talking about. >> the treasury secretary must revoke doge's access to the treasury payment system at once. if not, congress must act immediately. that is why leader jeffries and i are working together on legislation which we will introduce to stop the unlawful meddling in the treasury department payment systems. we must protect social security payments, medicare payments, tax

refunds from any possible tampering by doge or any other unauthorized entities. let's be very clear. doge is not a real government agency. it has no authority to make spending decisions. it has no authority to shut programs down or ignore federal law. to give it a chokehold on treasury payments is outlandishly dangerous. it is like putting a tiger into a petting zoo and then hoping for the best. it is impossible to overstate that this is playing with fire. the bureau of the fiscal service which oversees these treasury department payments executes over one billion transactions a year worth $6 trillion. if these payments were ever intentionally or even accidentally halted or manipulated, it could paralyze

our economy if we are not careful. one mistake and people social security benefits could freeze. disability payments, aid to veterans, loans to small businesses, they could all be in danger. the treasury department is already using extraordinary measures to ensure we do not default on the debt. if doge's careless meddling caused us to default, it could trigger a worldwide financial crisis. host: what do you think about the possibility of that legislation passing? guest: we all know what the math is in congress right now. the senate, house are both controlled by republicans, but by relatively narrow margins. so you would still need a small number of republicans to join into any kind of effort to restrict or rein in.

and it is one of the president's top policy initiatives. i can imagine that republicans would close ranks around the president on something that the president feels is very important. host: we will start with annie in texas, independent line. caller: yes, good morning. i have a question. so they are getting all this information on people for doing social security and what else. we have no financial information on elon musk, we have no financial information on the president and his family. i don't think that is fair. that is all i have to say. guest: president trump has defied the tradition, it is not a law or a requirement of the president to divulge their tax return information. there's been some information that has leaked out over the years that he's been in public

life. we do know a little bit about his assets. those are required to be disclosed, and we also know a lot about elon musk's considerable holdings just because he owns or is the ceo of one publicly owned company and the names of his companies are sort of household words in america today. spacex, x formerly known as twitter, x ai, amy less known the boring company. he's the richest man in the world. but the point the color makes i think is a legitimate one in that he wields considerable influence over the executive branch and he has many conflict of interest because his companies are contractors with the federal government. $20 billion of contracts with

spacex, with the department of defense and nasa and also his companies are regulated by federal agencies. tesla's regular did by the national highway safety transportation administration. the faa helps to regulate spacex. so there's a whole lot of interest that elon musk has that are implicated by this powerful position he now holds. host: let's talk to ed in connecticut, republican. caller: i'm somewhat interested in the oversight of grants to states. i think recently one program that was granted to the states, $180 billion was stolen by organized crime, and yet i think of this year we are going to grant another trillion dollars to the states. it seems to me that there is significant room for improvement in oversight and think those might be helpful in that

respect. guest: i just don't know the details of that specific criminal case that you mentioned, but there's a lot of different grant programs. some are formula grants were congress says that the amount of money the states get is dependent on the population or the number of highway miles in the state. there are others that are more competitive where states have to come up with programs that meet the criteria and apply in some federal agency decides which states get the money. there is some oversight, varying oversight depending on the nature of the program. some are less restrictive, some are on a reimbursement basis. there are federal auditors who look at how that money is spent, but the nature of audits is that sometimes they can be spotty. that you can't audit everything, you have to pick the highest risk programs and prioritize those.

and it has actually been a priority for republicans for quite a while to spend less from the federal government and use more to the states. let states decide how to implement programs in a way that made the most sense for their states. so there is this government official could push, this idea to limit the size of the federal government. host: what is the status of federal grant. are those grants flowing now or are they frozen? guest: it probably depends on the nature of the grant program. what the trump white house his said is that they are revoking that memo that put a temporary freeze on all grants.

but the president has also signed a number of executive order that limit grants and prohibit grant money from being used for what he calls gender ideology programs, dei programs, other programs many things are against the policies he would like to promote as president. anything that smacks of those biden-era policies i would put reproductive health for abortion programs in that bucket as well, those continue. host: linda in missouri, line for democrats. caller: good morning, and good morning. i'm just calling because i am totally opposed to elon musk running amok with united states of america. i am 70 years old and i've never seen anything so crazy in all my life that you could go into a system and you could just pull

all of our information, all the data. you haven't been elected for anything, you are not even a citizen, and yet this is what you were able to do? you can go in and fire people because they did their jobs and found trump guilty of things that he actually did commit? they didn't have to be fired. this whole thing is just superduper crazy. i've never seen anything like this in my life and i would support anything that is going to improve our systems, but this just sounds crazy. they act like this name just quits his job all of a sudden. he quit his job because he was forced out of his job. if there were issues with things, you need to try to correct them. you haven't even had time to investigate before you start letting all these people go. guest: i would correct the color on one thing. my understanding is that elon musk is a naturalized citizen,

worn in south africa. he does have all the rights of citizenship. but there is a legitimate point from this caller that mosque's power and influence in the government seem to go beyond the president's kitchen cabinet. presidents always get advice from people. sometimes they even bring them into government. a study project, something that looks at and studies a problem as opposed to what musk appears to be doing which is actually actively rolling up his sleeves, going into the agencies and in some cases locking the doors, shutting people out of there email accounts and making host: policy. host:republican line in west virginia, diane, good morning. caller: i have what is kind of a

statement and then a question. we are $37 trillion in debt? our deficit is $2 trillion every year which means we are spending more every year than we are bringing in. where is that $37 trillion? i didn't get any of it. none of but is benefiting me. maybe it is a good idea to go through every single pocket in washington, d.c. and find out where did the money go, couldn't we freeze that? elon musk, he doesn't need the money. it is the bureaucrats in d.c. who are putting the money in their pockets and giving it to their friends and having it brought back to them. not elon musk.

quit making enemies, please. and when democrats please just sit down? guest: she said she had a comment and a question, i'm not sure i ever heard the question. not sure there is anhing for me to answer. host: this is a text, what will the trump administration do with the extra money? do they want to pay down the debt or will it go to fund their tax cuts? guest: that is an interesting the money we are talking about is appropriated by congress. congress has the power of the purse. congress has said there's a certain amount of money we spend on, for example, foreign aid programs. just because the trump administration is not spending it now does not mean the money does not exist. presumably, that money will be reprogrammed or reallocated towards programs the president does agree with. there's a looming battle over

impoundment, the theory that the president has the ability to not spend money that is appropriated by congress. it is a controversial constitutional argument. congress in 1970's passed the anti-impoundment act to prohibit the president from withholding money duly appropriated by congress. trump said he will challenge that statute and reassert the presidential control overspending. that is where this may rear its head. yeah. in the meantime, if the president can find efficiency, congress would love to have that in his pocket to balance the budget, to cut taxes, whatever their priorities are. it is ultimately congress' decision. host: that is gregory korte at bloomberg news.

you can find his reporting at bloomberg.com. thank you for joining us. coming up next in half an hour, democratic freshman class president julie johnson who discusses how she sees her role with a republican-controlled congress and white house. first, open forum. you can start calling now. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. we will take your calls right after the break. ♪ >> listening to programs on c-span is easy. tell your smart speaker to play c-span radio and listen to washington journal daily at 7:00 a.m. eastern, important public affairs events and weekdays catch washington today. listen to c-span anytime. tell your smart speaker play c-span radio. c-span. created by cable. >> thursday morning, president

trump joins lawmakers for the annual national prayer breakfast. live coverage begins at 8:00 a.m. eastern on c-span2, c-span now, and online at c-span.org. >> c-spanshop.org is c-span's online store. browse our products, apparel, books, home decor, and accessories. there is something for every fan and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations. shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. >> on thursday, trump u.s. trade representative nomineeon greer be on capitol hill for his confirmation hearing. trade and previously servednal as chief of staff to the trade presentative during the first administration. from the senate finance committee, which live at 10:00

a.m. eastern on c-span3, c-span now, for online at c-span.org. cap o -- or online at c-span.org . you can find c-span's coverage online at c-span.org. videos of key hearings, debates and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. these points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen you hit play on select videos. the timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. scroll through and spend a few minutes on c-span's point of interest. >> washington journal continues. host: welcome back to washington journal. open forum. a couple of programming notes for you. 10:00 a.m., right after this program, members of the senate finance committee will vote on whether to recommend the nomination of robert f. kennedy,

jr. as health and human services secretary. would go to the senate floor for a vote. that is live at a.m. right after this program here on c-span. on c-span now and c-span c-span.org. at 10:30, on cpan3, the dea and congress have listed ntanyl as a schedule one drug under the corolled substances act. this listing expires imarch. there is a hearing on the need for a permanen scheduling of fentanyl featuring advocates, physicians, law enforcement officis. the senate judiciary committee will have that live and we will cover it live at 10:30 a.m. eastern on c-span3. also on c-span now and c-span.org. just a quick update on the news about tariffs. the new york times has this on its front page. allies step back from the brink of a trade war.

trump delays tariffs. mexico and canada val to stem the flow of drugs and -- vow to stem the flow of drugs and migrants. this is jane in olympia, washington. the publican. -- republican. caller: i'm calling about the usaid controversy. whatever citizens don't know is that it has been documented that the agency is rogue. the people spend money like you don't have any accountability to the executive branch. they have actually -- the usaid money, it is documented they have spent money and funded the mystic things such as funding the soros prosecutors. it is documented on twitter. host: wait. mike benz.

caller: mike benz cyber. he was an official in the first trump administration and he has lots of videos and documents online with his subscribers document in the flow of money from usaid to different groups. people are interested, that is where they can find that documented information. host: michael in florida on the line for democrats. caller: yes. i called because that guy gregory had a comment i wanted about -- wondered about elon musk. people don't realize was going on. they don't member but when hitler took over. they are taking control of the purses. they will put people under their thumb. that is what is going to happen. he's doing exactly what hitler did. he reads hitler, trump does. people need to wake up. republicans need to wake up.

they need to stand up against him. republican senators in congress need to stand up. host: edward in manhattan, republican. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i noticed president bush is saying -- we are sending troops, national guard to the border. host: president trump? caller: all this sounds good but reality is the cartels pretty much run the seven northern states of mexico. they generate between $75 billion and $100 billion a year in revenue. that's from fentanyl and the travel business, which has been profitable for them in recent years.

that is not going to do it. sending troops to the border. biden did that. the national guard ended of going to the border to do paperwork. host: what do you think of mexico sending troops to the border, to their border? caller: that's what i'm getting at. what would be necessary, because i don't trust the mexicans -- the mexicans love the dollar reserves coming out of the cartels' businesses. they -- what would work would be a joint operation. the u.s. army and the mexican army, mexican marines, whatever force they have to go into the seven states and, you know, kick you know what there and get the cartels under control. it is a shadow government. it's almost anarchy there. there is a shadow government.

the mexican government has allowed them to operate unimpeded for decades. the other thing i will say is that everyone thinks about the drugs coming to the states, coming north. for all the drugs coming north you have to move cash south. the cash moving operation is enormous. i never hear anybody focus in the media on that very much. i would like to draw attention to that. a backpack carries about $600,000 in cash from what they have captured. they have all kinds of methods and ways of getting it. the border is very, very porous. unless we have an incursion of u.s. combined forces and mexican forces into the seven northern states, i don't think you will

see any improvement at all. the cartels also have their own armies with weapons. the weaponry is very sophisticated in those armies. host: monique in washington, d.c., the line for democrats. caller: i want to make this as quick as possible. i have two issues. to the lady in west virginia, the reason why elon musk isn't in the treasury department is because he received $20 billion in funds from the united states. the d.e.i. -- to all the people making it as if the dei is the issue for african-americans, we literally can adjust to any culture. the true recipients of the dei are white women.

the second is latinos and asians, lgbtq. after -- african-americans are the last on the list for any kind of dei initiatives. the dei is not specifically for us. it is to ensure everybody within that specific work organization knows how to communicate with each other. you don't want to say the wrong thing to your asian coworker or latino coworker. you don't want to do things like that. the purpose of the program is to ensure we have respect for each other, we understand each other's cultures. i'm confused. i'm shocked. we have to do better. this company has to stop looking at race and culture and everything else and making it the number one thing that is bad within the united states of america.

host: monique. for your schedule, prime minister of israel benjamin netanyahu is in town. this is cbs. trump and netanyahu to hold a joint press conference at the white house today. we will cover that on c-span. it is scheduled for around 5:00. be watching the network for more information on that so you can watch that live. mary jo from pennsylvania, republican. caller: good morning. i was thinking why nobody has brought up term limits for congress. it seems like they get elected. i don't how much work gets done, because they are back on the campaign trail trying to get reelected again. i wonder why nobody brought up term limits for congress. host: what would you like the term limit to be? how many years were terms?

-- or terms? caller: maybe two. host: for the house that would be four years? caller: yes. host: what about for the senate? caller: maybe three. two or three. it was not set up for somebody to make a career. you serve your country by being a senator or congressman, then you return to private life. like the president. it is not made to be a career. but a lot of politicians have made it that way. i think a lot more work would get done and people with focus on the job at hand if they didn't have to worry about getting reelected every few years for lord knows how many decades. host: scott in florida. caller: i've enjoyed listening to last couple of weeks as we

have been watching what the new administration has been doing. it has been surprising to all of us. most people who are calling in and after listening are older like me and have seen this country is a country that swings on a pendulum. day goes back and forth, back and forth -- it goes back and forth. the country became exhausted by what was happening with the current administration. the country voted them out. not everyone calls in. i don't know who is right. i don't know who was wrong. no one knows but the scorecard, the report card will happen in the midterm elections. if you are upset with what is happening now, in the midterm elections america says let's keep it going, that means what the trump administration is doing is fine.

if the scorecard says no, we want the democrats in control, because if they getting control of the midterms you can guarantee there will be impeachment. you can guarantee there will be a total shutdown of any progress in our government. at that point america is saying enough of that as well. let's let mr. trump and his administration do what they were asked to do. then let's let the midterms decide what we think. have a great day. host: linda in massachusetts, the line for democrats. caller: good morning. i agree with the previous caller about the pendulum. i have been trying to reassure friends. this is not a pendulum for republicans and democrats. it is democrat to what people are unceasing are nazis. i'm a liberal person. i raise my sons -- raised my sons to honor our country.

three of my sons were eagle scouts. i taught the kids a patriotic song every month. so proud to be an american. no longer that. i put the picture of the president open my classroom. -- up in my classroom. and i could not do that now as a teacher. i'm retired. i could not do it. how can we admire someone who is in this for his own personal and family's financial gain? who mocks our laws? mocks everything about what our country has been established with the constitution? putting elon musk, who parades his tiny child around like a decoration on his shoulders, you expect people to go back to the office on a week's notice. are they going to be able to bring their children to their meetings? our country is in such a mess and it is so embarrassing. i wish the pendulum idea was as simple as that but i don't think it will be. i think we are headed for a

change in our structure of our country with no longer 50 united states. host: mary jean in edgewater, maryland. republican. caller: good morning. i am building on some of the comments from the former people -- former callers. i was 43 year government employee. i went to georgetown university. i'm on the republican line but sometimes i feel a little sad our country has come to the point where we label people nazis and things like that. my concern is that when anybody, as a gs-2, i had to take an oath of office and swear to support and defend the constitution. i have a lot of friends. i have been democrat most of my life. i voted for obama twice.

i was disappointed when hillary lost. i think the pendulum swung the little too far off. the strength of this country was always it is not what we do, it is how we do it. we were supposed to support and defend the constitution. i don't know if elon musk took the oath of office. i don't know if his employees took the oath of office. i don't think he was confirmed by congress. are we bypassing the constitution here? that is all i have to say. host: benjamin in alabama, independent line. caller: good morning. i would like to make a statement. to make truth telling a criminal offense. to discourage the sharing basic necessities for living. and cooperation. to deny justice. to make expectation of others a legal and lawful practice.

the endorsement and foundational support for the explication of human beings. to worship and a petabyte -- the manifestation of selfish greed. the use of cruelty, violence and an aside to achieve power -- genocide to achieve power over ever societies. these things can make a nation a leader of an evil empire. having its chosen paradigm for greatness to be nazi germany or the zionist government of israel and the american plantation system, including the means i which america acquired its land from the indigenous inhabitants. how one defines rightness is very important -- greatness is

very important. keeping in by the actual relationship between the means and ends. host: here is jill in woodward, iowa. democrat. caller: i find it interesting you knew i was a democrat because he never asked me. are you keeping track these days? host: you called on the democrats line. that is how we know. caller: my big thing is, this is going back to citizens united. we have so much money in politics. that is why the congress has been completely made irrelevant. trump will threaten to primary anyone and he has the money to back him to knock anybody out that he wants. until we get the money out of politics nothing will ever get fixed. now that the professional grifters are actually in charge of everything, it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon. for all the people they keep talking about the weaponization of government and everybody going after trump, the problem is, he's a lawbreaker.

he continually breaks the law. everything he got was what he earned. he has broken two laws when he fired the ig. there's a lot about notifying congress. he did not do it. now he's breaking the empowerment law. congress made a specific law that the president could not refuse to spend money congress had already allocated. now he's breaking that one. he's going to continue to break laws, because there is no way to stop them with a government that has been bought and paid for by billionaires. i think it is so disgusting that the richest man in the world is now taking the food out of the mouths of the very poorest, and medicine, out of the sickest people in the world. i'm sorry. elon musk group in apartheid south africa. we were his third choice. i don't think he did swear an

oath to the constitution and he sure as hell is not following it. host: lee in burlington, vermont. republican. caller: i live in a state that is very blue. i have been a republican my entire life. i have to say that i find people's shock at his approach in the last two weeks -- the shock and awe has to do not only with the people that he has chosen to surround himself with, including musk, but also the people he is choosing to run the agencies. he has chosen a vaccine denier to be in charge of our health care system. he has chosen a person who has called the biggest traitor in

our history, snowden, in charge of our intel community. he has chosen somebody who has never served in law enforcement as our fbi director. these are insane choices. they are insane picks. i don't care what side of the aisle you are on. these are people who should not be in charge of these agencies. musk is a whole other level of crazy. what is he doing? why is he there? i agree with the callers before. this man has not been confirmed by congress. what is his position? i'm asking you to explain it to me. i have read article after article after article from

various sources. i still don't understand a thing that he is supposed to be doing. i would like to see him hauled before our congress and senate and have an actual hearing about the man and what his intentions are. that is all i have to say. host: brenda in michigan, the line for democrat. caller: good morning. first of all, the united states has been destroyed within. we have a gangster the white house. our supreme court is wicked. elon musk. i was always told you must be born in the united states to hold a government job. host: no. you have to be an american citizen. by the way, we will take a look at outside the white house.

this is the white house for this person. >> do you know? >> i have not heard that report nor have i been made aware of the president seeing that are not. i can check. as for mr. wikoff, we will hear from him today and try to make them available to talk to the press. >> about china and the tariffs, is there an update on when the president is expected. to speak with president xi? any reaction to the 50% tariffs? -- 15% tariffs? >> i don't have an update. it is being scheduled and will happen soon. the president made it clear with the 10% tariff on china he will not allow china to continue to source and distribute deadly fentanyl into our country. that was the reason for this tariff. it was a retaliatory tariff for the last four years of their unprecedented distribution of fentanyl into our nation's

borders. when the call happens, we will provide a readout like we always do. >> what you expect from [indiscernible] ? why is the president confident [indiscernible] ? >> you will hear more from both president trump and the prime minister later this afternoon and i think the fact this is the first working visit from a foreign leader at the white house shows president trump will continue to stand strongly with israel. he's wholeheartedly committed to ensuring all the hostages return home and we stand with our israeli allies. thank you, guys. host: back to the calls. we are an open forum. william from anderson, south carolina. independent line. caller: how are you this morning? host: good. caller: i'm 67 years old. i have been a student of politics and history my whole life. i was in the first grade when jfk was assassinated. clear vietnam and the rights of

the 1960's, watergate and the whole bit, i have never been more fee for -- fearful for our country than now. as was previously set, we have a criminal in the white house. things are out of control because he's got the supreme court evidently in his pocket as well. all the republicans in congress are feeling in their oaths and showing nothing but cowardice. i hope the american people will wake up, raise hell, call their congressman and put a stop to some of this foolishness. they are throwing due process and the constitution out the window. trump has gone crazy with his crypto stuff. total violation of the emoluments clause with how many conflict of interest, we can't even count. the people have got to wake up and raise hell. our leadership is failing us. it is up to we the people, i believe. host: janine in north

manchester, indiana. democrat. caller: thank you. if the people rise up now that they have our financial information are we concerned they are going to cut off our funds, social security, all of our benefits? it seems to me that guantanamo bay would make a great auschwitz. host: john in louisiana, independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have never called before. i have been listening to c-span for a little while now. i am more or less concerned about the hysterics i hear from republicans and democrats. the proof is always in the pudding for me. i'm a 70-year-old man. i have watched a lot in my life. i'm really concerned about the

hysterics and the vitriol that come from both sides. i believe it is brought on by the media and brought on by what we listen to and set of our trust in god and our faith. i wish more people would stop and take consideration. i know we don't always worship i know we don't all worship the same god but i do know that peace is a tenant of about every religion. the proof is in the pudding. give the man a chance. we gave biden a chance for four years preyed i didn't argue about that either. you know what, i wish america would wake up and -- host: what kind of media do you watch? where'd you get your news? caller: i rarely watch it all -- i tend to watch it all. what i don't watch live i sometimes dvr it and i just, it

is amazing the differences of opinions on the same exact subject. somewhere involved is truth and i don't think it's available much anymore. but i do think it -- if we pray, people of faith and you know the bible tells us god puts leaders in positions at the time he puts them there. and there are reasons for it. i pray for america, i pray for the divisiveness and i hope that we can come together and be a godly people again regardless of the god you worship. host: that is it for open forum. up next we have, could a freshman class president julie johnson who joins us to discuss not only concerns she and other

democrats have about their publican agenda but also the actions of the trumpet administration preyed stay with us. ♪ >> democracy, it isn't just an idea, it is a process, a process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few regarding its basic principles. it's where debates unfold, decisions are made and the nation's course is charted. democracy in real-time. this is your government at work. this is c-span living you your democracy unfiltered. >> live today on c-span at 10:00 a.m. eastern the senate finance committee will vote on the

nomination of robert f. nnedy, jr. to be secretary of health and human services. then at noonhe u.s. house will work on several bills including a measure on e operation security and maintenance of the 9/11emial museum. another bi that would require e agriculture and interior departments to evaluatthuse of new aerial wildlands fire fire technology. police -- politico hosts a discussion on tariffs and u.s. trade policy. senate lmakers will hold confirmation ves for doug collins to be secretary of veterans affairs and pamondi to be attorney general. on c-span3, the senate judiciar committee will hold a hearing on a proposal to classify fentanyl as a schedule ondrug. these events stream live on the c-span now video app and online at c-span.org. >> if you ever miss any of c-span's coverage you can find

it anytime online at c-span.org. videos of key hearings, debates and other hearings feature guiding highlights. these points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen. this timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. scroll through and spend a few minutes on c-span's point of interest. >> washington journal continues. host: welcome back, we are joined by represented julie johnson a democrat of texas and a member of the foreign affairs and homeland security committees. >> great to be here this morning. >> tell us about your background and what your priorities are. guest: i, from the state legislature so i have served three terms in the texas house, judiciary, and focusing a lot about health care policy.

unfortunately texas leads in the nation in undesirable statistics. we lead the nation in maternal mortality, in infant mortality and lead the nation in persons without access to health care. that was something i focused a lot on in the legislature and i hope to do that in congress and i'm a lawyer, i practice law in dallas for 33 years, i am married and have two sons. host: you have been a month in, how is the first month. guest: it is crazy. it's been a fire hose for sure and use to it. i think having the legislative experience from the state really does give a leg up to those of us who have that experience and the freshman class i'm really amazed at how many of us, from the state legislature. i think we have one the most capable experienced freshman classes coming into the congress it really has made a difference and so a lot of my staff for a long time understands the process getting used to d.c. and try to figure out my way around

those tunnels. >> i mentioned that you are the foreign affairs homeland security, you recently took a trip to new orleans which is where the super bowl is going to be played. tell us about that trip. guest: i am on the emergency management subcommittee and organized a trip down there to inspect the area where the attack occurred on january 1 and make sure security measures have been remedied to prepare for the super bowl. it is the top level of security that the federal government at all levels are involved in that. the thing that is really disturbing was that the fbi special agent charge for new orleans was terminated. and right before the super bowl after years of planning, i thought it was irresponsible and reckless on his part. host: who's in charge of

security for the event. guest: there are folks in the department of homeland security and they are doing a great job. but it is a multi-governmental event. there are multiple agencies, they all have pieces and as you know whenever there is a weakling did any of it it exposes all of it. i was just really disgusted at the complete disregard, dismantling of the fbi, the agency that is responsible for homeland terrorism investigation and many other things and that they would remove somebody who was so critical to that mission to keep people safe in new orleans. i thought that was a responsible by the trump administration preyed >> if you would like to ask any questions you can do so. our lines are republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats 202-748-8000. and independents 202-748-8002. your website says you are the

first openly gay member of congress from the south. i want to ask you about a couple of things. the first is the trump administration's revoking of the order to allow transgender troops to serve in the u.s. military. tell us about how many people that would affect as far as active-duty and reserve and what impact that might have. guest: it is my understanding it affects about 10,000 servicemen and women. and again, we had people who are willing to put their life on the line for this country, who are willing to put themselves in harm's way to defend the values of equality for all, for everyone. and the transgender members serve with valor, they serve with distinction, they serve with honor and bravery. and to just unilaterally wholesale dismiss them is

disrespectful to our men and women in the military, all who serve. to say that you can be summarily discharged from our military service even though you have served with exemplary honor, just because the president does not like a characteristic has nothing to do with the quality of your service. it is just disrespectful to everyone who serves and it is really unfortunate we don't have enough people wanting to serve our country in that role and to start filtering out a whole segment of folks not because of their abilities, but because of the political ideology that has nothing to do with their service is really unfortunate. >> how do you think the congress should respond to that advocates who disagree with that and other orders related to lgbtq+ issues.

how do you think they should respond in today's washington? guest: i think we need to pass legislation, the equality act that confirms the lgbtq community cannot be discriminated against. but we deserve for lee equality and not bigoted biased policies based on who we are. the other thing that is really disturbing about this situation is the trump administration has summarily removed transgender included people from all government websites. travel advisors, anything. if you go on the government sites it used to beast -- it used to say lgbtq and now it just says lgb. they just took it off. it is so irresponsible, bigoted discriminatory and biased. it is outrageous to me. host: what are the chances of any quality act passing in a congress dominated majority

republican. guest: probably not very high unfortunately. but there are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people in every single district across the country. every single member of the united states congress represents people in the lgbt community and they have an obligation. host: i want to ask you about tariff policies since you are from texas. in 2020 texas exported $130 billion worth of goods to mexico. it is also home to the nation's largest port in laredo along the southern border. what do you think of the tariff policy so far? guest: i do not agree with it. i think the tariff policy will increase prices and make life harder for people in this country, it will make groceries expensive. we import vast amounts of our produce from mexico, texas is

the ninth largest economy in the entire world. more than many other countries just the state of texas preyed and mexico is our largest trading partner. and so these tariffs will wreak havoc on our markets, it will increase prices on a variety of issues in areas where people cannot just afford it. they could not afford it before and they certainly cannot now. so for a party that supposedly campaigned on lowering prices, his policies will do everything but. i thought it was interesting that after he announced the tariffs the stock market plunged and was on a deep dive and it was the stock market the force that correction. >> the mexico tariffs have been paused for 30 days, you think this is a good negotiating tactic by trump. guest: to pause the tariffs? host: to say we will get concessions, pause them maybe

get more concessions. guest: he hasn't gotten any new concessions from the biden administration didn't already have. he is not getting concessions. he responded to an uproar in the stock market crash because his financial policies going to be destructive to our economy. and recognizing that this tariff policy and trying to bully mexico is just not responsible governance. >> let's talk to callers, and independent in bowdoin, georgia. >> good morning. i am totally in favor of equality as long as it includes everyone. however, my question is why should we believe that any -- what any democrat tells us in the same people are telling us to never question biden's cognitive abilities. and told the american people he was fine. host: what do you think?

guest: i couldn't hear very well. host: she was saying why should we trust the democrats when they were not forthright about president biden's cognitive abilities and telling us he was fine. host: the thing is you agree with his policies and the reality of it is you're not his medical providers, i agree with many of what president biden did. i thought the infrastructure bill was transformative for our country, he certainly did not show cognitive decline in that. i think the president biden had great policies but really turned our economy around. if you look at our economic indicators are economy did better under the biden administration than the previous trump administration. i think that demonstrates he was able to manage that. >> this is mark in pennsylvania, line for republicans. mark, go ahead.

caller: i just wanted to ask you have these like how do you trust these democrats. you had this lady on talking about transgender and they are going to get rid of 10,000. what about trump's appointees? how about richard grenell, how about the secretary of treasury. do you ever talk about them? two openly gay men who have children. guest: i don't know about the sexual orientation of those two individuals that you referenced. i can only look at what the trump administration is doing policy wise towards the lgbtq community. by removing all transgender servicemembers from the military we see whole swats of the lgbtq community from governmental websites and programs, that's what i am looking at and i find to be very discriminatory towards our community. >> joseph in florida,

independent you are next. caller: yes, good morning. host: go ahead. caller: i am calling because i have two questions, the first question is in reference to federal funding. and the responsibilities of our federal republic insofar as normal citizens when they own property, they have a right to cover themselves by paying for homeowners insurance. what i don't understand is why our taxpayer funds are being used yes it is a shame that there is a tragedy such as a hurricane, etc.. but should we make normal american citizens pay for others who don't take the responsibility to have let's say homeowners insurance.

another question that ties a little bit into it is constantly i'm hearing a lot of representatives constantly saying we are a democracy. now while it is true that we vote democratically when we vote officials into office, but we are actually a constitutional federal republic the devotes democratically. and the responsibility of the government is simply to protect individual rights, it is not supposed interfere so much into our private lives and that's with our new administration coming in, i am an independent and i am happy donald trump got in. but the main problem i have is that there is too much today interference into the private lives of our citizens including federal spending and all of that.

when are we going to go back to being a country of individuals where our lives are private again. instead of being exposed. the government does have the right to protect individual rights and if individual rights are being violated yes, than the government has a right to step in. but to force people to pay for others through our taxes, to get involved in people's lives whether for example different sexual orientation, that is their business. that's their business. host: let's get an answer on those two things. guest: let's talk about insurance first. yes, we have private insurance and private markets. we have private insurance companies, they measure risk and they decide whether or not they are going to accept risk and ensure appropriately for them. a lot of times though there are

some areas where there are not insurance carriers or they choose not to engage in the market. the texas gulf coast, the texas storm insurance association which is sort of a collaboration of reinsurance to make sure people have affordable insurance, you of the national flood insurance program. we as the richest country on earth have a society where our government is not going to let thousands and thousands and thousands of its citizens suffer due to a natural disaster, it is to destructive to the life of our country and to destructive to our economy and it is not the moral values that we have. so oftentimes insurance will act as sort of a reinsurance as an extra backstop to cover a lot of things regular private insurance won't cover. and i think that as a society

that is something we all want. and it is the right thing to do. with respect to our democracy we are a democracy. i agree with you in that there are certain aspects of life that you either want privacy in the bedroom, privacy in the physician-patient relationship, i think there is a lot of governmental overreach with abortion access trying to regulate how physicians practice. those are fundamental differences in the two parties we have right now. with republicans and democrats. i think democrats believe in those privacies you advocated for in terms of not being able to invade lgbt people, not to be able to invade the doctor-patient relationship with women's health care. i think it is a good distinction. host: toledo, ohio, democrat you

are on. caller: well i am kind of in a tizzy here because i've been trying to get through and thank you. i'm just going to hit two things paid i'm 85 years old and i listened to a lot of women in my age group and what i am so appalled at, my heart is beating quite fast right now is i live through 13 administrations and i am so afraid for this country and mainly my children and grandchildren. one of the things that has got me so -- is j six. was the most deplorable thing i've seen to say it was not -- it was disgusting and the fact that we as americans is excepting that is unbelievable. and also people need to reread the constitution because we are taking it as a joke and this is serious. this is why other countries are

laughing at us. we are at the bottom. in the confirmations they are a joke. are these men so afraid of another man? this is all in the line of dictatorship and the whole nine yards. this is unbelievable. i am so concerned like i said i've lived through quite a bit, my eyesight might be getting better but i can see through bs. guest: i agree with you. i think that january 6 pardons were outrageous. we had people who attacked our country who were seeking to overthrow our government, who were seeking to execute members of our political leadership on both parties. because they did not like the election results. they were trying to steal an election. and the fact the capitol police

served with honor, bravely. they got injured and were attacked violently. and the fact and then these people were duly charged, convicted by a jury of their peers in our court system which is one of the best legal systems of structure in the world, the fact that we have an independent judiciary and an independent judicial process, they were all convicted. and for the fact of president trump to come in on day one and absolving them all is so disrespectful to our court system, to the values of democracy, to the rule of law, he is trying to diminish the value and the import of the rule of law in this country and once we see falling into the abyss of absolute and other -- utter lawlessness where are we?

it is one of the most concerning aspects of the last 30 days. and, unfortunately republicans have been silent. where are they? why are they not standing up. how can you be a party that claims you back the blue, that you support law enforcement and support the pardons of the january 6 the rioters who viciously attacked capitol police. it is inconsistent. so i think one of the takeaways is the democrats are the ones who truly support our law enforcement. we want law enforcement to have the tools they need, we want the rule of law that they are seeking to enforce be upheld, to be enforced and respected and the republicans have clearly abandoned all fidelity to law enforcement. >> cbs news reporting the fbi's disturbing a questionnaire

probing agents work on january 6 and the capitol riot cases according to sources paid what is your reaction to that? is there anything you look to be doing about it. guest: it is horrible. i know members of the judiciary committee that have that jurisdiction are certainly looking into that and figured that out. i wish i served on that committee to get square in the middle of that as well but i think the fact leadership of the fbi -- in the trump administration is coming in and trying to purge anyone in the fbi that had anything to do with a january 6 investigations is outrageous and is something we should all be screaming about. it is undermining an agency that's whose sole mission is to enforce law in order prosecute dangerous criminals in this country and keep us safe. and to be able to weaponize the fbi in such a political fashion is nothing like we have ever

seen in this country. and again if you value law enforcement, if you value the bravery, if you been that -- value the judicial system that supposedly free from corruption and intimidation, then you need to be outraged by this. there are countries in the world that have a corrupt to dishy or a system where people cannot get a fair trial, a fair prosecution in the system and when you start undermining and politically weaponizing a major branch of law enforcement it's really disruptive. >> let's talk to jonathan a republican in connecticut, good morning. >> good morning thank you congresswoman. the worst crime we see is in the sanctuary cities in california has common sense to finally pass some laws to prosecute you know people going into stores and just ripping stuff off. i think one of the biggest things you didn't mention is the

powers they have is too much. president biden dismisses you know his brothers for possible -- that is more outrageous to me than anything. during covid, $250 billion was stolen from the american taxpayer, and this is from ap news if you don't believe me. we are upset about all of these things. this country has been run to the ground since nafta, clinton, allowing wall street to control our economy, they sold out the money so we've elected a guy that's very sketchy. we want the billionaires running the country or all the dems and republicans were looking for the money running the country. this country -- i ran away from san francisco. in 1972.

in new york city. i'm tired of watching -- we have to bring some morality back to this country. >> any response? >> there was a lot going on there in that. let me just address the immigration part in all of that that you put out there. there is no doubt that our immigration system is broken in this country and needs to be fixed. our border has been a mess. we can have people coming to this country being smuggled in to the back of trucks. the system must be overhauled and i think it is going to take a bipartisan coalition of people i'm hopeful to be part of that, i got assigned to the border committee on homeland security and i'm excited about that. what we need to do is we really need to address the visa system

and the work permit system. there are a lot of businesses that need labor that do not have an adequate workforce. there are a lot of people to want to come to this country to work but our visa structure has not been overhauled in decades and we need to really revise their ability to work here go back and have seasonal back-and-forth. in texas we have a lot of need for seasonal agricultural work were people come in and work and they go back home. we make it very difficult for people to do that. we have a chronic shortage of employees across a variety of sectors of our workforce and our immigration population has always felt the need in our economic -- filled the need in our economic structure for that. so i do think we need to look at strictly more security. we need to have a fair fast and final immigration system where people can get processed in a timely way.

getting the resources to people who get a hearing within 60 days, not six years. it should not take, a physician i know in dallas took her 16 years to get a citizenship. 16 years, that is outrageous. host: you said there is an economic need for immigrants in your state. our previous guest said we have enough people in this country to handle all those jobs, it's just a question of paying them fairly and under the right circumstances. how would you respond to that? aren't there americans to take those jobs? guest: that's not what the industries are telling me. when i meet with businesses and meet with industry groups, what is one of your biggest needs, workforce development is one of them. for example, the hospital association. they are having a heckuva time getting nurses in our hospital. we have nursing programs, but

they are not wanting to do that work. working in a nursing homes. i meet with hotel chains, they have a hard time finding people to do cleaning and to clean rooms and to help do all that kind of work. there is a lot of work in this country that needs to be done to keep our economy moving, and it's hard, it's not glamorous, it's not sexy, it's not stuff the people necessarily want to do, but it is still work that needs to be done. these industry groups when i meet with them are saying they have a huge shortage and huge need for increased workforce. host: connecticut, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. the republican voters voted in a convicted felon, and shame on them. i called the republican party the party of take away party. please give an example of what the democrats have done for us over the years. thank you. guest: well, a great example is making sure that we have our social safety nets, social security and medicare, to stay functioning.

it is a critical part of the morality of our country that we are not going to have our seniors living in abject poverty. i think that. i also think biden's infrastructure bill most recently. our national infrastructure has been crumbling. we need investments in our airports, our bridges, our roadways, our cybersecurity. all of those issues are fundamental to our national security, our quality of life, and i think biden and the infrastructure bill and the chips act tried to bring in manufacturing of key computer equipment and chips that really are propelling our country forward, was very significant that happened in recent time . host: tom in west baldwin, maine, republican. caller: how are you doing? host: good. caller: i've been paying attention to this back-and-forth

between democrats and republicans and this and that. i watched jeffries say it is going to be a smooth transition and everybody is going to get along and we will be the best in this country, and then two hours later he is on the same house saying there can be fighting in the streets and fighting in the government to stop trump, ok? it's really sad that they're doing this because trump is trying to turn this country back around so that we can get back on our feet. the conviction they made on him was all lies, and the government knows it. everyone just turned their back. i think the government needs to shut them out and tend to the country, stop fighting and not you children. maybe we have them all ice cream

-- host: all right, tom, let's get you a response. guest: tom, i disagree with you. trump was duly convicted, the rule of law worked in that instance. the democrats are willing -- i have worked in a very bipartisan fashion in the texas legislature as a democrat and i passed a lot of legislation and work very productively with my republican colleagues on bills that were rational, that made sense, that help to the american people. democrats are in that space. we have always said if we can come together and work to lower your grocery prices, to make cars more accessible, to make it easier to get a mortgage, reduce the regulation in that space, improve our country, we are all here for a what we are not here for is an unconstitutional power grab where he is try to take the power of the person power of the congress away from the legislative branch and consolidate even more power in the executive branch. he has no legal authority at all to not put out the funding that

was duly appropriated by congress in previous sessions. his wholesale cancellation of usaid is unconstitutional. his putting in elon musk, a private citizen, to take your confidential data out of our treasure database is alarming and not ok. and he is trying to redirect the power of the purse and consolidate all of that power and really dismantle our constitutional protections and that our framers put in place that of cap the country strong over 200 years now. what he's is doing is absolutely immoral and wrong. host: marcus in indiana, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. really i just had a question -- host: real quick, marcus. caller: as far as dysfunction in our country, it boils down to money and politics. i have a question for the congresswoman, do you take corporate pac money? if so, from whom? guest: yes, i take corporate pac

money. corporate pac money is from employees of companies who give $20 a month out of the paycheck to see to it that they have a better life. most of these employee pacs want equality for all people, good access to health care, and i'm representing those values in the united states congress. host: representative julie johnson, democrat of texas, thanks for coming in. guest: my pleasure, thanks for having me. host: that will do it for us today on "washington journal." back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. we will take you to the senate, where senators are gathering for a senate vote on the nomination of robert f. kennedy, jr., as health secretary. [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]

>> on this tuesday morning and washington, d.c. can waiting for the senate finance committee needing to get underway. coming up in 10 to 15 minutes, we expect lawmakers to vote on whether rfk, jr.'s nomination as health and human services secretary to the forefront nomination. here is how we think things will play out -- first we will hear from committee chair mike crapo of idaho and democrat ron wyden of oregon.

each expected to speak for five minutes. then the vote. then there will be statements from any other members of the committee who wish to speak. one lawmaker we could hear from his senator bill cassidy. now, last week the louisiana republican said he was struggling with the nominee's reticence to publicly support vaccines despite the overwhelming evidence that they are safe and effective. republicans' one-vote edge in the finance committee means senator cassidy could ultimately keep rfk, jr., from getting a favorable recommendation from the panel should all the democrats vote against waiting for chairman crapo to gavel in the session. while watching live coverage -- you are watching live coverage on c-span.