♪ host: this is the washington journal for february 5. president trump had a press conference with benjamin netanyahu and president trump

posed that the u.s. should seize to gain control of the gaza strip, development and hold a "long-term ownership position." no specifics were offered but there was not only international reaction but also from capitol hill. the first half-hour of the program this morning, your comments on the president's proposal on the takeover of gaza. republicans, (202)-748-8001. democrats, (202)-748-8000. independents, (202)-748-8002. we wish -- if you wish to text us this morning on the proposal floated by the president, (202)-748-8003 is how you do that. you can post on facebook at facebook.com/c-span and on x at --@cspanwj. the major papers took a look at the proposal from the president yesterday. this is the washington post, move gazans to another country, trump urges.

politico, -- this is from the washington times, their headline. the middle of the page, trump floats u.s. takeover, division of gaza. the wall street journal, trump urges the u.s. takeover of gaza, president calls for palestinians to be removed and major breaking from policy. and the new york times, trump proposing takeover of gaza as u.s. territory, brazen plans to relocate all palestinians and rebuild war-torn enclave. these were made at a joint press session with the israeli prime minister. you can see that session at c-span.org. that is with a proposal for the gaza strip came up, and here it is from yesterday. [video clip] pres. trump: i also strongly believe that the gaza strip, which has been a symbol of death and destruction for decades and so bad for the people anywhere near it, especially those who

live there, and, frankly, who has been really very unlucky, it has been a unlucky place for a long time, being in its presence has not been good, and it should not go through the process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that have really stood there and fought for it and lived there and died there, and lived a miserable existence there, instead, we should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them who would like to do this and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million palestinians living in gaza, living and death, distraction and, frankly, bad luck. these can be paid for by neighboring countries of great wealth, it could be 1, 2, 3, four, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, but the

people will be able to leave in -- live in comfort and peace, and we will make sure something really spectacular is done. you can have peace, and not going to be shot at, killed or destroyed like this civilization of wonderful people has had to endure. the only reason the palestinians would like to go back to gaza is because they have no alternative. it is right now a demolition site. it is a demolition site. virtually every building is down. they are living under falling concrete that is dangerous and precarious. they instead can occupy the beautiful area with homes, safety, and they can live out their lives in peace and harmony instead of having to go back and do it again. the u.s. will take over the gaza strip, and we will do a job with that, too. we will be responsible for

dismantling the dangerous, unexploded bombs and weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. get a real job, do something different. if you can't go back, it will end the same way it has been for 100 years. i'm hopeful this cease-fire can be the beginning of a larger and more enduring peace that will end the bloodshed and killing once and for all with the same goal in mind. my administration is moving quickly to restore trust in the alliance and rebuild american strength throughout the region, and we have really done that with the respected nation again. a lot has happened the last couple of weeks. we are a very respected nation again. [end video clip] host: those comments made yesterday or you can see them on various platforms and comment on the proposal further gaza strip.

(202)-748-8001, republicans. democrats, (202)-748-8000. independents, (202)-748-8002. here is how axios looks at the comments made by the president yesterday, saying there are two ways to view president trump shockingly unexpected declaration tuesday evening that the u.s. should develop and hold a long-term ownership position in gaza. one, it was a wild bluff or bluster to gain leverage in the middle east. it's like threats of trade tariffs against canada and mexico, all consuming the controversial, yet instantly ephemeral, this strikes must republicans as the right interpretation. or two, the other, it fuses several trump obsessions, his hope for a grand middle east peace deal, his believe gaza will be a hellhole for decades to come, and his genuine intrigue about developing the seaside land. u.s. officials tell us trump's words were premeditated and mirror ideas he floated to some

staff and family members privately. let's hear from you as far as comments from the president. david, arizona, democrat. hello. caller: good morning. i'm so confused about what this has to do with making america great again. this is giving him a place to build new condos and stuff. there was a story he put out about a lady who needed two apples but could only afford one. well, i don't think she could even afford one now. prices have gone crazy. so how is this making america great? i'm really confused. thank you for all the hard work you put in. i appreciate your. thank you. host: have a great day. grand island, new york, michael, independent line. caller: i see this as a big

international form of terrorism, just like i saw the los angeles fires recently, where you know it is in los angeles and the coast is pure grain, plush, and you are sitting on the pacific ocean, and now we are over in gaza threatening to put people out. who are these people of the world he's talking about, are the homeless people in l.a., are we going to send them out there? who are the people of the world with this real estate terrorism that they are using with military force? it is disgusting. host: the wall street journal and its analysis of the proposal yesterday, "senator lindsey graham, a republican from south carolina, a trump ally, called the proposal 'interesting and problematic'i've said his constituents would like the idea of ruben gallego said the

president was outlining a "invasion" of gaza" and israelis called mr. trump's proposal bizarre and incoherent, going on to say none of it makes sense. is he looking to develop gaza as a beachfront property, talking about a u.s. occupation of gaza? will the u.s. force out 2 million palestinians as part of the plan? he asked. let's hear from bernie, new york, democrat on this proposal by the president floated yesterday. go ahead. caller: he is a genius. the guy is a genius. [indiscernible] i have nothing the greatest president of all time. my only problem is i think we

should take france. i don't understand why he's looking for the gaza strip. we can't make any money on it. host: why is it a genius idea in your mind? caller: well, obviously i'm -- host: you have got to watch the language callers, especially when you called in. the washington post follows up, the u.s. allies on wednesday began rejecting president trump's proposal to take over gaza, permanently moving palestinians entering the enclave into a "rivera" of the middle east. saudi arabia immediately rejected the displacement of palestinians, adding that it would not established of o-matic relationships with israel, long-term u.s. foreign policy goal, without independent palestinian state. written and france reiterated their stances for a two state solution.

reactions from egypt and jordan have been cautiously muted. this story adding that far-right israeli applauded plans to permanently displace palestinians while the hamas militant group would pour oil on the fire. robert, michigan, independent. caller: good morning. this is robert calling from the fascist caspian town of michigan. i have one question for both publicans and democrats who voted for trump. if you would have proposed to take over gaza like he's doing now, plus this canada business, and panama, and change the gulf of mexico and america, would they still vote for him? i would say the answer would be yes because there are stupid people in this country. host: specifically gaza, what is your issue with the proposal?

caller: my issue is like that last guy and you blocked him, and i have to laugh because this is what is causing people to say this kind of stuff. it is not going to happen. he is just not going to do it himself. it is a stupid comment to begin with. i'm not smart enough to really come up with educated answers to all of this, and i'm not that them to realize what he's proposing is stupid. host: michael, new jersey, democrat. caller: hello. so, we can say without doubt this is a fascist government. and his idea to invade other countries, you know, invading gaza, is just the ultimate

expression of fascism. the constitution of the united states and the laws of this country are at severe risk, and i believe it is time for representatives and governors to discuss this crisis. this has gone beyond. and i don't know how we survived the next four years. host: it was after the comments that were made that the national security advisor, michael waltz, talked about those challenges and rebuilding gaza in a five year time, it was negotiated under them yesterday. [video clip] >> mr. trump has spoken about cleaning out gaza. what would that look like? is there a situation where you can forcibly remove people from gaza? >> i would push back on the

comments of cleaning out gaza. you have these people that are sitting with literally thousands of unexploded ordinance and piles of rubble. at some point, we have to look realistically, how do you rebuild gaza? what does that look like? what is the timeline? people were looking at unrealistic timelines, 10, 15 years. not the five years, so that is what we have to work through, that is part of what we worked through with prime minister netanyahu. [overlapping speaking] >> let me expand on what the national security advisor said. in any city in the united states of america, if you have damage that was like what i saw and gaza, so we would know right up

hand specifically what was going on, nobody would have to go back to their homes. 30,000 unexploded munitions. it is in buildings that could tip over at any moment. there are no utilities there whatsoever, and a working water, electric, gas, nothing. god knows what kind of disease might be festering there, so when the president talks about cleaning it out, he talks about making it happen and this is a long-range plan. they have dug tunnels under their and have basically degraded the stone that you make with foundations. you have to examine that. you do it with subterranean surveys. >> and this guy knows real estate. >> it is years on top of years. the disposal and gaza, we estimate three to five years to dispose of all the things before

you can look beneath the surface of the soil and then when you get a master plan, the president plans on getting it all done correctly. to me, it is unfair to explain to palestinians that they might be back in five years. that is preposterous. [end video clip] host: tse comments from yestdaalso on, and mike johnson posted on excessod that the u.s. stands firmly with israel of the middle east, which haven't experienced peace and many, many years. violence and hatred does not have to dene the 's future. goes on to say president trump to bold action. congresswoman beth van duyne from texas, the world is lookg to the u.s. for leadership and president donald trump is delivering lasting peace. the u.s. will not continue the status quo and goes on from there. let's hear from mary, michigan, republican line. caller: just curious, does the u.s. stand with all the other

technique bodies -- ethnic bodies? do we stand with ireland. we are standing with israel here heavily and going to wage war with palestine. two points. there is a gaza marine natural gas fields off the coast. nobody has talked about that. you ought to get some experts on there to discuss that. there is a huge body of natural gas right there on the coast. and, of course, there are ulterior motives going on. the other thing is, they have tried to push on everybody, so this is one of them. i agree with that caller about the l.a. fires, they are trying to make over our country, and

thank you. host: florida, independent, david. caller: i would just like to address trump's project and gaza , my don't we bring those millions of people here to the u.s., why not let them settle here and have that be the solution? we need to stop supporting israel. thank you. host: from the wall street journal this morning -- sorry, the washington post. east majority have hotly resisted mr. trump's attacks to cajole them into taking palestinians during the reconstruction of gaza. it adds that head of the meeting between benjamin netanyahu and the president, foreign ministers of egypt and turkey, and turkey, another country involved in brokering an end to the conflict, released a joint statement rejecting any proposal to displace or resettle palestinians to "countries

outside the palestinian territories, either for short-term or long-term purposes. -- purposes." elizabeth, democrat. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. my view is trump is insane. he would like to remove the palestinian people, put them in egypt or jordan, and as you just said, jordan rejected that. he would like to cleanse the palestinian people, which is ethnic cleansing, racist and will destroy all the palestinian people. he sees palestine and gaza as a tourist destination. he would like to send u.s. troops into gaza. why u.s. troops? u.s. does not belong in the middle east at all. especially not in gaza. let the palestinian people live. they would like to stay in gaza,

they would like to live their lives and rebuild palestine, let them stay in palestine and let us help with aid. that is what trump can do, send money and help the people of palestine. that is all the u.s. can do and trump is crazy about turning gaza into a tourist destination. thank you very much. host: connecticut, republican line, anne-marie is next. caller: yes, good morning. i'm going to be addressing this for my spiritual point of view, i don't know who president trump's spiritual advisors are right now, but they have either all gone woke or they are not communicating with our president. i voted for president trump three times. i attended his inauguration in 2017. i love this man, but this is

totally preposterous. first of all, you don't divide the land, and when the palestinians are crying out from the river to the sea, they would like to push israel into the sea, you cannot negotiate with demons. hamas is demon possessed terrorists, ok, and israel has every right to eradicate that land of these terrorists. host: but the idea of rebuilding the land, what is wrong with that proposal? caller: well, first of all, what is the united states doing going over to israel? i mean, that is totally preposterous. i and this is not a lock. -- luck. most of the middle east countries hate israel. just read the bible.

they are all going to come against them. and the only thing to do is to stand with israel. i've been to israel. when you are there, you know if they would just recognize israel as a state, they could all live in peace. host: let's hear from carl, maine, independent. caller: hey, thank you for taking my call. i would like to say thank you to all the progressives who set out voting for kamala harris because they thought the democrats would perpetuate genocide since obviously they got their man, trump, who is now actively interested in committing genocide, thank you. host: michigan, democrat, hello. caller: yes, thank you.

i was wondering what happened to america first? we need to try to rebuild california. thank you. host: the proposal floated by the press conference yesterday, (202)-748-8001, republicans. (202)-748-8000, democrats. (202)-748-8002, independent. texting us is available, too. (202)-748-8003. marsha, republican line, west virginia. caller: hello. i cannot believe that we are being fooled so much. this is all just a distraction to say, look over here, look over there, and don't look at the treasury, don't look at how i'm assembling your government. don't look at that. -- disassembling your government. don't look at that. we are being full to buy it.

we have a convicted felon for a president. host: but what do you think about other republicans like yourself who are on board with the president's idea? caller: what was the question? host: what to think about other republicans like yourself or with the president on this idea? caller: i don't understand, i just don't understand. this man is mentally unstable. it is proven. history will show that if our nation can get through this, history will show him for the tyrant -- host: let's watermark, long island -- let's go to mark, long island. go ahead. caller: yes, thank you. i missed another caller earlier about why he's a genius because the idea of what he is doing, putting a friendly neighbor

against israel who has been attacked since 1948 is a good idea, and the land that is destroyed and building it and making apartments and condos and places where people can live, inviting people back onto the land with a bunch of other people from the world that like to live in peace, i think that is a wonderful idea. and to the caller who called him unstable, i think we should all be unstable like donald trump, it would be a better -- host: can i ask you why you think rebuilding the land would immediately turn people into a friendly neighbor? caller: by rebuilding and making a place nicer to live? it would be fantastic. it would be what you and i would like. it would be what america would like, a place to live, a nice place to live, not a place where israel would have to worry about being attacked every day. host: from ohio, democrat line,

gee. caller: i just wanted to let you guys know that steven witkoff, who is the middle east envoy, i just looked up his resume online and she is a billionaire real estate developer. that is what he is. host: which means what? caller: which means he's not qualified to be a middle east envoy. that is what it means. where is his diplomatic experience, you know? a world history experience, just for one. number two, anyone who decides out of the white house to go to the middle east again is missing their brain, you know? host: previous administrations -- caller: we've already had wars there under bush. -- under gw bush. host: previous administrations

worked in the middle east, why not this one? caller: of course we have, but hopefully these people were qualified. they were diplomats, condoleezza rice, not real estate billionaire developers from rhode island. come on. host: next, sacramento, high. caller: i'm a longtime listener. i would like to say that people are acting like the palestinian people are not human. and we are comparing it through the natural fires that happened. that is not what happened and destroyed them to the point of almost annihilation. we could have stopped it with just having not sent anymore.

we could have demanded. israel existed because we supplement them by billions of dollars. that is how they exist. it is not that i'm anti-israel, i'm anti-war. how can anybody think in this society, when we have seen it over and over again, especially in the middle east, that we will have peace. he is over there trying to start a war, trump and his cronies. there are a lot of people behind trump. it is not one man doing this, it is us. we are giving our independence away from this man, throwing away what is left of the constitution. host: some democratic senators giving their thoughts as well on x, rha blumenthal writing, crazy but castphic. in consequences for all sides,

it is delyestructive, indeed, just as suggeed, threatening progress toward peace and stability, sustaining d expanding the abraham accords and returning hostages. senator chris coons from delaware, gaza is amonthe world's worst humanitarian crisis. williams of people without enough food or clean water, living with disorder, chaos and dias to suggest we take over gaza while getting usaid, freezing life-saving programs and firing american aid workers, is insane. let's hear from chris, new york, republican line. hi. chris, new york. caller: yes. can you hear me? host: yeah, go ahead. caller: i just wanted to say this is absolutely the wrong thing to do. the united states has no place in gaza. if we would like to do anything for the palestinian people, we should feed them. gaza should be taken over by dubai, saudi arabia, or

someplace like that. and then i hear people saying hamas, hamas. the reason why hamas was developed was because israel was obliterating all the palestinians, and the u.s. would not come to their defense, so hamas had no choice but to save all those people who were being killed, family, children. host: i will ask you what i asked the other caller, republicans yourself agreeing with the idea, what do you think of that? caller: it is absurd. can you imagine all the enemies that we would accumulate for the u.s. of this happened? do think the other islamic people around the world would allow this to happen? that is absurd. you are going to displace the whole generation of palestinians? first we took them out of israel. then we are going to take them out of gaza? are we insane? host: go ahead. caller: i think it is a great

idea. i think the might of the united states should be used to do the biblical thing and push those people right over to egypt. jared kushner can come in and do his proposal. i am really looking forward to the troops going into mexico to take on the cartels and then we are going to get some great movies out of hollywood. host: that is steve in illinois finishing off his half hour of your calls. three guests joining us through the course of the morning. legislators will be joining us. first you will hear from north carolina republican pat harrigan. he is a member of the armed services committee to discuss the house republican agenda. later, tennessee democrat steve cohen will discuss recent airline disasters and concerns

over the influence of elon musk on washington. those conversations and more coming up. ♪ >> book tv every sunday on c-span two features leading authors discussing the latest nonfiction books. here is a look at what is coming up this weekend. angela merkel, who served as german chancellor, discusses her memoir with former president barack obama. at 8:00 p.m. eastern, a rmer georgetown law professor argues there is a decline of academic freedom and civil discourse at a lead law schools, eating a climate of intolerance. then at 10:00 p.m. eastern the

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it. i went into the infantry and special forces. i had a couple chores to afghanistan. i started a company in the defense space and it cited to run for congress after the fall in afghanistan. caller: with your service in afghanistan, you have seen what happened while you were there and after. how does that inform decisions you make on afghanistan and other members -- matters of foreign policy? guest: it heavily informs the direction i think this country should go because we made a lot of mistakes in 20 years during the global war on terror across the middle east. we spent a lot of money and we did not achieve strategic outcomes that were productive for the united states of america. we have two existential crises now. one of them is debt. the other is china. as that informs the direction we

move forward in the defense space, both of those things deserve equal respect. host: when you see efforts on china and tariffs being placed on the country, how does that fit broadly into foreign policy, particularly with armed services? guest: i think president trump is trying to get a better deal for the american people. he does not like countries that manipulate the currency that subsidizes their economies and create an unfair playing field for american manufacturing and innovation. i think he is trying to level the playing field. he did that in his first term. he is doing that again. i think that makes america more competitive particularly when you start talking about tariffs. that is specifically to protect u.s. national security and important manufacturing interests that we have to have

in the united states. >> i imagine that would include those in north carolina as well. >> all 50 states. that is a reality we have to contend with. a lot people do not care if we get ties or suits from china, but i think they care we get critical minerals that go into our fighter jets or chips that go into our computers. those need to come not from an adversary. >> when it comes to being on the armed services committee, what would you say is the focus now that republicans control the house and senate? guest: there is a clear problem with our defense spending. we are at a near historic low. we have never spent less on defense since world war ii. right now, china is at 7% of gdp. we have serious concern with the amount of money we are investing into our defense. i have serious concern that the military we have today is not

the military we need to win against china, should we not be able to successfully deter that conflict, which is what everybody really cares about, but we have to be strong to not fight. the way we are going to accomplish that is we have to reinvest in our industrial base and we have to get our industrial base into a paradigm where we are producing low cost solutions to high cost problems. right now, it is the other way around. we are producing high cost solutions to low-cost problems and that causes us to lose the economics of war and history is unkind to countries that lose the economics of war. host: what is an example of a low-cost solution to a high cost problem? guest: a stinker missile. look at the experience we had providing stinger missiles to shoot down soviet aircraft that

cost the soviets between $2 million and a million dollars produce. that is a fantastic investment. we should have made that investment. we did make that investment. not only did we cause the soviets to lose afghanistan, shortly thereafter they lost their country over it. what we are doing today sending $2.6 million patriot missiles to ukraine to shoot down drones that russia's manufacturing for $50,000. that does not work. host: our guest is with us until 8:00. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents, (202) 748-8002. text us your questions or comments at (202) 748-8003. elon musk has been tasked to find savings through the government. should he apply that philosophy toward the defense department? guest: absolutely. i will work with him to do that. we need to increase defense expenditures and i would say in

parallel with increasing those defense expenditures we have to change the philosophy by which we are acquiring military technology. we need to institute a principal that if it, as pete hegseth has said, we are going to align capabilities to threats. if the cost of what it takes for our country to reduce the capability exceeds -- produce the capability exceeds what costs our adversaries to produce the threat, we should not acquire capability. that needs to be the driving force behind the revolutionary attack on our defense industrial complex. push these defense contractors into providing low cost solutions. host: you have seen mr. muska

and how he has been impacting washington over the last couple days. what is the role of congress in agreeing on these cuts or pushing back on savings? guest: what elon musk is doing is necessary. what he is doing is simply diving into the balance sheet of all these agencies that make up the federal government and throwing up red flags were he sees them. at that point, it is up to the president with executive authority or congress with legislative authority to do something about that, to choose to do something about it and then what the course of action should be to get the american taxpayer a better deal for the money they are spending. host: to what degree are you concerned about mr. mosk -- elon musk's approach or congress's ability and control over his actions? guest: any time you're messing with government expenditures, it is going to create a backlash because people like to get money

from the government. our society has become very good at devoting themselves money. at some point, you look at 36 point $2 trillion of national debt and a deficit spend rate of $1.8 trillion a year. that has to change and that is not going to be a fun process. host: our guest is with us. if you want to ask him questions quit you can do it on the lines. kenny is from north carolina. caller: i want to ask him this. the first thing he said was china. it was a republican that gave china the most favored nation status and brought them in. when it comes to free-trade and nafta, it was a republican that was pushing that. it was republicans that goddess in the war in afghanistan and

all of this. they are the ones now saying they can fix it, but they do not want to take no blame for anything. it is pitiful. now they are doing it again. look at the supreme court as far as money in politics. they passed it where rich people can be citizens and it brought us to this point. everything they have done -- and the democrats are very slow as far as pointing it out. it seems like a democrats are very slow at pointing this out. i can see it and it is pitiful that these guys are the ones that created the problem and now they are saying they are the only ones who can fix it. guest: thanks for your

statements. i appreciate them. i think you have a point. i think it was a mistake that china was given most favored nation status. i think at the end of the day i disagree with your assertion that republicans exclusively were behind nafta. i think that was president clinton and you are from north carolina, i am from north carolina. i know what nafta did to our well-paid, highly skilled labor force particularly in the furniture industry, which is what we had to deal with in the 10th district. folks are now just getting back to the income and quality of life they lost 25 years ago due to nafta, but you hit on a broader topic, which is president trump is kind of his own enigma. i think you have to look at the number of votes he received versus the number of votes that republicans received in congress. he received over 77 million popular votes and congress only received 74.6.

i think we have to be understanding that folks across this country did not necessarily vote for republicans. they voted for president trump and his policies, so to some extent that that might cut through the partisan court you were talking about, i think people should pay attention to those numbers. host: janet joins us from new york city, democrats line. caller: three points. he talks about he is on this committee that deals with the budget for events, so why over these years we gave israel over $220 billion and never asked for anything? why haven't we seen their nuclear system? why are we just giving the money? now we are going to say we are going to move them because we

destroyed it? he mentioned elon musk. he is not an employee. he has never been vetted. we do not even know who he is leading in the building. that should not be. then we have our allies. if you are saying fentanyl is coming across mexico, we have border agents there. are they not doing their jobs? why are we going to penalize canada? there are things we need to answer first before we blame somebody else. we are blaming everybody for jobs we are not doing. guest: thanks for the comments. with israel, we have got to pick sides. this country historically has sided with israel and the reason is because they are the good actor in the middle east that we can depend on. they are our greatest ally in the middle east and one of our greatest allies across the globe, so we have always been

supportive of them. we cannot forget that their response to defend themselves was due to terrorist attacks that happened on october 7 and that should inform our perspective, that we must understand they do not live in a safe environment. president trump is trying to shake things up with his gaza deal. for 100 years, gaza has been a problem. it continues to be a problem. any solution that any country has ever moved forward on has not worked and not borne fruit and we continue with the same cycle of violence over and over again, so i am excited to see president trump try something new here. with respect to elon musk, i think very clearly we have serious problems in our government. i mentioned we are $36.2 trillion in debt. at some point, this debt bomb will catch up with us and cost us the world's reserve currency if we do not immediately arrest it, so what elon musk is doing now is perhaps one of the most

important things that could possibly be done at this point in time for the future of our country. we have to remember the dollars printed on paper with the full faith and credit of the u.s. government. if we lose status as the world's reserve currency, that is worth nothing, so i'm excited about what elon musk is going to come up with that the president can act on and congress can act on to get this country's fiscal health back under control. at our border, one of the biggest issues we have in congress is looking at our border situation, the invasion that we have had across our southern border, and seeing that we have all the laws on the books already to enforce our border. the problem is the biden administration and other officials at the state and local levels choose to selectively enforce that law. when we look at the crisis we have the southern border, it is not because of a lack of law. it is because we lack of

authority that our border patrol was given to actually enforce the law. so president trump is restoring those authorities. congress is what you tack on teeth and penalties into legislation to go after mayors that allow for their cities to become sanctuary cities, that just float -- flaunt federal law and do their own thing, not enforcing our laws, and allow endless amount to fentanyl to come across our border, killing 300 americans per day, killing nine north carolinians per day and allowing horrible, dangerous folks into our country that is overall increased crime and decreased law and order. i'm excited about the direction we are going and we are making progress. host: a quick follow-up on gaza. why do think the president's proposal is a good idea? guest: because it is something that is different. this idea has been floated since

the beginning of several days after october 7. people have been saying we are stuck in this cycle of violence between israel and gaza. it is not working. this concept of potentially resettling palestinians in a family nation and rebuilding gaza into something that is worth visiting is going to be a stable actor in the future world order. it is worth trying and worth investigating. host: what do you think a friendly nation is? a lot of nations have hesitancy on maintaining palestinians? >> the simple answer would be egypt. they have a problem with their economy and a labor shortage. there's a lot of synergies between folks that live in gaza, palestinians and egyptians, and that idea has been floated for some time. host: robert in north carolina.

you are on with our guest. caller: thank you for your service. and continued service. as a veteran myself, i appreciate what you are doing after you have gotten out of service. i am calling about the storm and aftermath. we are up here -- nashville getting a lot of attention, but yancey and caldwell, mitchell -- which you all know all those counties. and you know how rural they are and it is crickets and we need help here. i would really appreciate it -- i know you do not have anything to do with that, but it is bad.

it is still bad and you know that. those fema trailers are still packed up at the hickory airport, as you know, sitting there with a fence around them, not being used. host: thanks for the perspective. guest: i appreciate it. thanks for taking the time to call in. i landed a helicopter in a parking lot in burnsville the day after the storm. i was up there trying to do what we could as private aviators helping you all out, getting people out, bringing you supplies. i know how badly hit her in seville was -- burnsville was. it is heartbreaking to see what happened and the aftermath of what transpired between early october and where president trump was sworn in on the 20th of january. it is frustrating at i think all north carolinians share that frustration.

disaster response is supposed to be locally executed, state managed, and federally supported. i think most of us that are seeing clear i'd say this disaster response has been locally executed but state mismanaged and federally obstructed. that stops now and i think you saw president trump flying down to asheville and western north carolina, fulfilling the promise he made during the campaign to never forget about western north carolina, naming some very powerful folks in north carolina to oversee and provide oversight to what is happening at the state level and federal level and trying to work secret is asian between emergency management of north carolina that operates at the state level and fema that operates at the federal level and increase that interoperability and make sure funds flow from the federal government to the state

government and from the state government to local executors who will make life better. i know you have a lot of infrastructure problems up there in burnsville, so there is a heavy emphasis from president trump on getting engineers up there to fix that now and that will help you guys a lot. host: grace is in virginia, independent line. caller: i wanted to bring attention to something i do not think has been part of the conversation in regards to the recent elon musk actions. i am a federal contractor myself. the recent decisions to clean out the federal workforce are concerning to me because i think a lot people forget that the federal contracting complex is designed to do the least amount of work and make the most amount of money. the more that we divest from our federal workforce, the more that we are relying on these firms and agencies that take advantage

of contracts. i have seen this firsthand, so i think it might be worth examining contractor relationships instead of cleaning out the federal workforce where people actually have an incentive to do a good job. as a federal contractor, i aspired to work for the federal government because i knew it was a place where i could actually make a difference and inspire change and actually realize change. in a contracting firm, you do not realize change. you are moving things around. i think this directive by elon musk is misplaced. i wanted to share that comment. guest: i appreciate that perspective. thank you for what you do and i appreciate your aspirations. i think we have to step back and understand everybody has the same aspirations. we are all americans, all trying to push the ball forward in the right direction, the productive

direction. this deficit that we have every year, we have to say we have a serious spending problem. we have to look at both sides of that equation or this whole thing is not going to work. a lot of what is going on now is idea generation and throwing up red flags. host: the president early on directed executive orders to the military and i want to ask a few questions about it. one dealt with discharged soldiers over covid. you have legislation looking at the same thing. guest: they are basely identical, which was fantastic. we were happy to see the ideas that senator cruz and i had to reinstate the service members wrongfully dismissed from the military for refusing the covid vaccine and reinstating their

benefits, particularly, g.i. and health care benefits and ability to serve. we were excited to see president trump that. however it gets done, nobody cares about the credit. we care about outcomes. so the one thing that remains from our legislation is that our legislation took away authority from the president and secretary of defense on with the vaccine schedule should be for our service members and put it in the hands of congress. what that does is slows that process down in the future, so we will not have willy-nilly or spur of the moment ideas on what our vaccine schedule should be and what we are pumping into the veins of service members. it will require broad consensus of congress to do that in the future and that is what is most important, so this does not happen again. host: to show the folks at home

me othe elements of the americanct to restore justice for service members 20 president said, consistent with the militaryon a dod policy, expressing a false gender identity div from an individual sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standard necessary for military service. what do you think of that idea? guest: i think the president was right to dismiss trans individuals from the military. i don't think they should have been let in. you have to look at our overall readiness in the military and say, we need to focus on deploy ability. for folks that are not in the military, you can be non-deployable. we have to understand with the surgical changes that happened and the hormonal drug cocktail that trans folks have to be on for their entire lives -- when you make that decision, you are committing yourself to be a

medical patient for life. those folks do not belong in our military. they are not ready to deploy and that harms our readiness and the culture of our military. i think president trump made the right decision. host: is that just deployment or any aspect of the military? guest: you have to understand we had -- i have heard numbers upwards of 15,000 trans troops come into the military because it is the one place in the federal government you can have all your surgery and drugs paid for simply by signing on the dotted line to come in and serve. i do not think that is the right intention for service. host: there was a recent opinion piece by a staff sergeant who identified herself as the first publicly transgender infantry soldier. she said the tth is those calling for a military ban hide behind rhetoric about standards with an understanding every transgender person currently serving has me. the military does not lower

bar for anything, certainly not for us. we have hadear it dragging extra weight. every trans guest: i couldn't disagree with that statement more. that is so far off base. there has been a systematic reduction in our standards in the military to meet whatever cultural norms that our executive branch at the time wanted in place. this has drastically harm our military readiness and ability to win our conflicts. host: let's hear from ronnie in wisconsin, democrats line. go ahead. ronnie, hello? let's try warren, richmond, virginia, republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. thank you for your service. guest: thank you for paying our taxes. i couldn't have done it without you. caller: i want to go back to

what you were talking about the efficiency of the weaponry and defense center. we have had costs overrun and lack of accountability. there are some emerging companies coming out advocating for a fixed price in performance based contracts. given that, what do you think would be needed to ensure greater accountability and technical advancement? guest: you are very well informed. we do need to move to a fixed model. when we give effectively unlimited rain, what happens in the contracts is the contractors come in and underbid the contract, knowing that they can win it and that they will eventually get paid a cost plus whatever their expenditures are

as they overrun both on time and money on these contracts. ultimately, that delivers a very poor outcome for the american taxpayer and it really sets our defense back. there are new innovative companies, hundreds of them. you mentioned the most commonly recognized company that is really providing destructive outcomes in this space. we need to continue moving forward with companies like that underneath fixed firm contracts. host: our guess is a member of the armed services and for caucus. what is that? guest: it is a bipartisan group of republican and democrat veterans that are intent on increasing the number of veterans that we actually have in congress. this is a really important thing because we are now at a point where we are so divisive between republicans and democrats that we fundamentally don't agree on problem statements that underlie

the solutions we are trying to overlay on top of those. we have always disagreed in this country and had healthy debate about what the solutions to our problems ought to be. we are in a new paradigm where we don't even agree on the problems themselves. veterans do and it doesn't matter what party they come from because we have a common experience that gives us a realistic expectation for the way the world works. veterans, even republican and democrat veterans, we are not arguing whether the grass is blue in the sky is green. we know that the grass is green and the sky is blue. three cycles ago we were at historic low of veterans and 11% of congress were veterans. historically in the time after world war ii through the end of the 1970's, we were in the 60% to 70% percentile range of congress being veterans and we have to get back to that. host: first time on the program.

hope you come back. guest: thank you. host: we will hear from democrat steve: and he will talk about the actions of president trump and elon musk. but first, open forum. if you want to participate, (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for republic -- democrats, (202) 748-8002 for independences -- independents. >> american history tv, saturdays on c-span 2, exploring the people and events that tell the american story. this weekend at 2:00 p.m. eastern, historians discuss president lincoln's views on race and slavery. at 5:45 p.m. eastern, we will talk about new media creators on sharing history topics on tiktok, youtube, podcasts and

sub stack. at 7:00 p.m. eastern, watch the series first 100 days, as we look at the start of presidential terms for this week we focus on the early months of president andrew jackson's first term in 1829 and is policy agenda and controversy surrounding his cabinet. and on lectures in history, a louisiana state journalism professor, john maxwell hamilton, talks about the propaganda efforts during world war i. watch american history tv, saturdays on c-span two and find a full schedule and your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. >> 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, important public affairs throughout the day and catch washington today, listen to c-span any time.

just tell your smart speaker, play c-span radio. c-span, created by radio. >> c-span's shop.org is c-span's online store. browse our latest products, apparel, books, home deor, and accessories -- decor and accessories. at shop anytime at beenshop.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: you can call by (202) 748-8001 come for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats, (202) 748-8002, independents. you can post on social media sites all day even after the

program is done. a couple of updates on confirmations, political order that yesterday the president's nominee pam bondi was confirmed by the senate 54-46. she will now assume the role of top federal prosecutor and poised to be a key figure in efforts to transform the department of justice which the -- also when it comes to confirmations, the senate confirming the pick to run the department of veterans affairs with broad support from democrats, doug collins, georgia republican, played a key role in defending president trump in his first impeachment. only democrats opposed the nominee who will now inherit an agency that historically struggled to provide quality health care to the millions of veterans it serves. this is kevin in indiana, a republican line. caller: i was just watching mr.

harrigan speak and he gives me faith that this country will survive no matter what type of administration we put in there because as long as we have individuals like that who have common sense and articulate and have the thought for this country and that understand the values this country stands for and sees how the rest of the world is in reality and what this country is not based on that. that diet gives me hope. and i have a 24-year-old son who just got back from afghanistan as a combat marine and i can tell you be changed. from the time he left as a fine young man but came back a very seasoned and disciplined and mature individual. that is because of his service in the military and they gave him a perspective i don't think he could have gotten going to college in this woke

institutions that tear down america and tell us how bad we are and we are always bad in this country was founding on racism and all these other things that destroy and divide us as a country. he saw and worked with all kinds of races and individuals who were his brothers and they had bullets flying over their heads and all they were concerned about is protecting themselves and each other and getting the mission completed. and that bonding that representative harrigan talked about in that understanding in the common understanding of reality versus emotion and this utopia on earth that the sometimes extreme left tries to create and sometimes the extreme right is what is missing our country up. thank god you brought that individual on. host: let's hear from jim in

kansas, democrats fine. caller: i would like to comment, and i couldn't get in when mr. harrigan was on, but i just want to remind you, don't forget to take him down from the top of the flagpole because he had been run up there. i have never seen anyone. he must be somebody that the president is so proud of for everything that the president has ever done, ever said. that man has drink a lot of kool-aid. just wanted to let somebody know. host: from san diego, independent line, this is dave. caller: the previous caller couldn't be wrong -- more wrong. mr. harrigan, we need more people like him. it is not about nomination or anything. we have to get back to doing the

right thing. i wanted to bring up february 1 two that a comment from a democratic representative, and they said about the guacamole and beer at 5:53 p.m. and was allowed to text again and broadcast twice from senator schumer his opinion, and i don't think that is really fair that he should be able to call in twice because everybody else has to do it once. but all and all, you do fantastic work and i really do mean that. host: i think when it comes to senator schumer, we showed two of his posts on x back to back. he didn't call in. caller: when i understand you can only text or call only once, unless i am wrong. host: i see where you are going

and appreciate that. we were talking about the issue when it comes to the terrace and he was posting directly about them that we showed both of those. but thank you for watching the program so closely that you see that. let's go to erin in virginia, republican line. caller: i would like to say, donald trump diverted the service altogether and he should be our president regardless of that. american companies operating in china and they should all be able to be made to come back to america and hire american people and pay the wages they need and cut operations with china altogether. if we can get out of china, we can cut china off in china will not have a hold over america as it has.

as far as the palestinians, they should resolve their own problems. trump should not be trying to take over their prime land. he should not have the right to do that. israel needs to leave the palestinians alone. that is the palestinian land they are on. gaza is attacking the palestinians in israel because they should settle their own problems. host: when it comes to the nomination process, the hill reported that tulsi gabbard and robert f. kennedy, jr. on tuesday cleared crucial hurdles toward winning senate confirmation and handing president trump a key win as he looks for an early display of loyalty. kennedy overcame high-stakes committee bows that went down to the wire in the bid to lead the u.s. intelligence apparatus and firm in of health and human services, respectively. skeptical republicans on each committee made the decision to back them in the final votes

after trump officials including vice president vance and other republican leaders cajoled them into maintaining an unblemished slate of nominees. one was talking about his decision to distort -- support robert kennedy was bill cassidy, the chair of the senate health and pension committee explaining the yes vote. [video clip] >> facebook of the assurances on vaccines and his platform to positively influence american s'health, it is my consideration that he will get this done. as i said, it has been a long intense process, but i've assessed it as i would assess a patient as a physician. ultimately restoring trust in a public health institution is too important, and i think mr. kennedy can help get that done. as chairman of the senate

committee with oversight authority of this position, i will do my best to make sure that is what we accomplish. i want mr. kennedy to succeed in making america healthy again. his success will be tied to the health of our nation. he has the opportunity to address the most pertinent issues affecting americans' health. we also need to reform institutions like fda and nih, and those are already my priorities as chairman of that committee. i look forward to his support in accomplishing this. if confirmed, i look forward to working together with mr. kennedy to achieve president trump's mission of improving the health of all americans. and with that, i yield. host: on the independent line from tampa, this is ken. caller: i am calling to say that

representative from north carolina, how come he said he landed a helicopter with the guys in north carolina where the flood took over but he never mentioned that those people should return back their own homes and yet he is supporting trump to not allow the palestinians to return home. and the last thing is they have elon musk access to the u.s. treasury while trump is doing all these distractions to keep people off of them coming in through the back door of the u.s. treasury while distracted on other things. what about the price of eggs, gas. eggs, none on the shelf. when is america going to wake up and understand that all of this is a fraud? host: john is up next in alabama, democrats line. caller: i would like to talk

about the 2024 election, and it was mass voter suppression that took place on that election. there is a documentary out called "vigilante, inc.." the creator was on the thom hartmann show and i watched the video, and the mass voter suppression is done now with computers. they have not over 5 million people from voting, people who had been voting for 20 or so years in their address hasn't changed in when they went down to vote, the vote was challenged because of the new voter suppression thing that they use and they called it "right to

vote." it was used in 41 states and that is, donald trump won the election. host: washington state, republican line, this is faith. caller: i want to say a couple things about health and what our country needs. i will go first and say it needs jesus. don't we think we just all need jesus? i am a veteran and my son is a veteran and i see things happening in the v.a. over the last 20 years that i really don't like. i have seen a craft shop for veterans that combat veterans were using to get there mind back and that got shut down. but also, it is a good thing they got what's his name, the guy for the health, because

vaccinations are deadly. they have killed so many people. i am not the only one. i lost my mom and dad because they got covid vaccinated. my dad died six months after the vaccination and my mom got alzheimer's and ended up dying. so vitamins, herbs and minerals kill the covid virus. vitamin c, magnesium, zinc pair that can knock out any cold virus. our country has been dumbed down. use herbs, vitamins and supplements to be healthier and america should let people have the freedom to not get vaccinations if they are taking the right supplements. host: let's hear from frank in alabama, independent line. caller: i was just fascinated this morning and seeing the 21

charges that netanyahu had in seeing him together with president trump. when are they going to talk about his crimes and when is he going to go to court and do think with trump being a convicted president, it is almost a non-issue, it appears. i will await a time when netanyahu or his subordinate will come on the show where we can talk about what is really going on with him, especially with him cosigning the application of mass moving them to another nation when they are living on stolen land can't 1948 when they gave the jews their land. the gentleman that was just on, he sure would have been -- he

should have been vance and i know he really had it together. i know it probably had something to do with his aeronautics. i would hope you guys would do something about the installation from what is it in colorado, colorado springs, to bring that whole outfit to huntsville and i am wondering if trump is going to try to bring it back. host: the associated press reporting the trump administration said yesterday it is pulling almost all u.s. agency for international development workers off of the job and out of the field moving to end the mission to shore up fighting starvation and funding education. the notice was posted on line

and the latest and the dismantling of the agency by returning political appointees who call much of the spending of the programs overseas wasteful. it was yesterday that several democratic leaders got together to introduce legislation called the stop the steal act and pointed directly at the actions of elon musk and specifically at the treasury department. [video clip] >> today leader jeff reese and i are joining together to push legislation to prevent unlawful meddling in the treasury department's payment systems and protect americans across the country. our bill aims to do a few simple things. one, to deny access to special government employees, employees that don't have to disclose their conflicts of interest or any other ethical agreements. two, to deny anyone with lack of

-- and include personal tax information into existing privacy protections. we call on legislation, stop the steal. whatever doge is doing, it is not democracy. it is not secret, you do two sides of debate and then the elected officials make decisions . democracy doesn't work in the shadows. democracy doesn't skirt the rule of law and it doesn't give a special privilege to the ideas and needs of a group of ultra-wealthy people at the expense of american families. of course we should talk about reform. perform is a worthy cause. everyone agrees we should find ways to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of

government, but you know what history shows when it is done in the dark of night, it always leads to bad results. when thesedoge people propose a program, they just in such a rush to cut anything they can so they can keep tax breaks and give deeper tax pranks to the wealthiest of americans, undoubtedly not. host: the washington post looks at the legality of actions taken by d oge from the reporting and set specific terms include the deferred resignation that muska teams are offering which experts say runs afoul of federal spending law and whether muska staffers will use the treasury payment system to reverse spending that is already been approved for federally employees who sued accessing the system.

it was written that doge have only read access to it. several are worried about them taking government system that holds americans personal information including student loan data and also to use artificial intelligence on a government database. the washington post is where you can find it. this is john in illinois, democrats line. caller: i have three quick points i wanted to read off. it is good to know that $10,000 for two technically cleanse gaza. it is truly gross and grocer that it would be to build luxury condos over genocide people. crime is down despite all the migrants coming in but -- is set people who are hurting against those with no power like immigrants, gays, trans, the goal is to privatize and

socialize the cause. it is annoying living where elon musk and netanyahu can come and hang out at the white house. in the media pretense like they aren't nazis. they are. as -- host: martin in pennsylvania, a republican line. caller: the gaza strip is an area of 42 square miles. trump wants to take it over. the total destruction would take approximately 15-20 years before anybody can move back. i suggest they build an area like the arlington cemetery that the people could go back and respect their loved ones. host: james from florida, independent line. caller: i am calling about gaza.

what i see it going on is netanyahu has been after that land for a long time. he has a few reasons for doing it. i don't call it a war, i call it genocide. he wants to get people out of gaza to take over the land for themselves and make the american taxpayer pay for it. years ago when obama was president, netanyahu told him, he said we need to double the billions you usually give us because we have to build our contractors have to build new housing for the israeli people to live in, and new housing on occupied land and now they are going to try the same thing with gaza, use american money to clean the place up and the israelis would take it over. all they look to do is expand over there. that is what is going on and i can see right through it but most people don't. trump is going to send them to some make-believe place that

will be wonderful and he doesn't name the place. when you talk to egypt and the other countries, they don't want the palestinians and trump said the other countries are willing to take them in. the whole plan is for them for israel to expand into gaza and take it over. host: if you are interested in the topic of doge and its actions, on c-span-3, the organization or the group doge to reduce spending and increase government efficiency. an oversight and government committee meeting on the efforts on government efficiency. the hearing you can see at 10:00 on c-span 3 and also on c-span now and online at c-span.org. john in falls church, virginia, democrats line. caller: good morning, pedro.

you are doing an excellent job of informing us of what is going on. i am not an anti-trooper and in fact i am moving towards his views -- anti-trumper, in fact i am moving towards his views. but i was wondering how mr. trump expects to pay for the rebuilding of gaza. and remember everybody, we are the united states of america. united we stand, divided we fall. host: one more call from bill in alabama, republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am a first time caller and i just want to say that the previous color from alabama said something about 5 million people trying to vote in alabama. we don't even have 5 million in

the whole state. this shows the intelligence of so many of my compatriots in alabama. we need education and they got smart and started hiring managers instead of educators. the same is true of government. we need managers and that is what we've got. in the folks who talk about transparency, they are responsible for the hypocrites, liars, certain parties are full of them. thank you for taking my call. host: bill in alabama finishing off this round of open forum. two more guests set to join us during the course of the morning. up next tennessee democrat steve cohen, a member of the transportation subcommittee. we will talk about those recent air liep disasters. also president trump's actions on the federal work force. later we will hear from politico economics correspondent victoria

guida. those conversations coming up. >> john dickinson is one of the most significant founders of the united states who is not well-known by all the american public. author jane calvert is trying to change that with her new biography. john dickinson is known for his nine essays under the title fabius published anonymously in newspapers during the time that the states were deciding on whether to approve the new constitution. john dickinson of maryland, delaware, and pennsylvania was the only founding figure present and active in every phase of the revolution, from the stamp act crisis to the ratification of the constitution. >> author jane calvert talks about her book, a biography of john dickinson, on this episode

of book notes +, available on the free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> c-spanshop.org is our store. browse through our slks of bookd accessories. there is something for every c-span fan. shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. >> democracy, it isn't just an idea. it's a process, a process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices, and entrusted to a select few with guarding 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. giving you your democracy unfiltered. >> "washington journal" continues. host: representative steve cohen joining us now, democrat from tennessee, a member of the transportation and infrastructure aviation subcommittee. he is the ranking member, also a member of the judiciary committee. representative cohen, good morning. guest: good morning to you. host: from that hat to the judiciary committee taking a look at the actions of elon musk, what are the legality questions? guest: there are lots of legality questions concerning what elon musk is doing. it's unclear what his authority is and what authority his 19 to 24-year-old kids running amock in washington screwing things up, casting people who have careers and children and families lives in chaos. it's unclear what authority he has, and what laws he has violated, breaking going into building, access to computers

without security clearance, seeing classified data and what they might be doing with. the fact they're in possession of it might raise problems concerning hacking. there's all kind of possible law violations. you have to remember, elon musk is a man who said when we had our first budget proposal before the administration had come in, he sound the alarm. he was our paul revere saying how terrible the bill speaker johnson proposed in working with democrats to dweel the past budget was wrong because number one, legislators were giving themselves a 43% pay raise, outrageous. he is right about that, but it was a 3% pay raise, not a 43% pay raise. he said the bill gave the d.c. government $3 billion to build a stadium, a football stadium in washington. false. gave d.c. and a lease at r.f.k. stadiums, the rights around there but nothing about money for a football stadium.

he said it gave ukraine $60 billion. i don't know what it was. gave nothing. he said we cut off the opportunity for the republicans and others to look at the january 6 papers. so elon musk is a man who can't even raid a -- read a bill and understand it. he puts out language that is false to the american public which is scary and some people are amazed because he is the richest man in the world doesn't make him the smartest man in the world. there have been a lot of rich people that weren't so smart. you can start with the president of the united states, who has said we have given $50 billion worth of condoms to hamas. we have not done that. we gave some condoms to a place called gaza that's in northern africa, not gaza that's in the middle east. he doesn't understand his geography. he said it two or three times. the only condoms we need are over his mouth. host: so in response to criticism from you and other democrats including senator

schumer, mr. musk responded like this, saying hysterical reactions like this is how you know that doge is really working, doing work that really matters. this is the one shot american people have to defeat bureaucracy, the rule of the bureaucrats, and restore democracy, the rule of the people. we are never going to get another chance like this. what 0 you think? guest: who said that? host: that's elon musk. guest: he must be off his meds. host: what do you mean by that? guest: the man is not rational. because he is rich, he took over tesla and took over twitter. he ruined twitter. they've lost a lot of money. for him it's great because he can tweet all he wants. he doesn't a lot of twiddly dumb. he is not necessarily a great businessman. i hear him on t have -- tv. the smartest man in the world. he is brilliant. he is not brilliant. he is rich. albert einstein was brilliant. he was not rich. einstein cared about helping people. that's what god intended us to

do on earth, not to make more money and plant a flag on mars. i don't think mars wants our flag and i think it's a waste of money. if you want to talk about america first, america first, mars about 433,000th. host: specifically the usaid, how would you defend usaid in light of the things that mr. musk has said about it and its operation? guest: one of the first things i learned in congress -- it's my 19th year -- was from my senior members who were republicans. some bills came up to take money from usaid. they told me and they were experienced guys, they were conservatives, traditional republicans. they said usaid is one of our most important programs because it not only helps people, which is important directly on a one-on-one level, but it helps america because we are seen in the world as a helper in crisis situations where there's poverty, where there's need for water, need for food. we do a lot. we do more than anybody. the other people out there are doing things for people are russia and china.

if we are not on the playing field doing good things people respect about america and it says usaid from the american people, russia and china get all the perks and they get all of the minerals that we want to gret the congo and wherever else in africa, provide batteries that make teslas and give el on busk a bunch of money. host: is there a case to be made that efficiency needs to come to organizations like usaid? guest: i don't know they're efficient or not, nor does elon musk. i know they don't get much money, much less than musk made last month. values of tesla and other investments he has. but i don't know they're inefficient. just because you say they're inefficient -- the agencies, the people that are supposed to be responsible in our government for rooting out fraud, abuse, and waste, that's all you hear, trips off their tongues. those are the i.g.'s, trump

fired all of the investigative -- investigator generals, and he fired every one of them. none of them did anything wrong. he did it illegally. he gave no notice to anybody. he took out the people whose job is supposed to root out fraud, waste and put in musk, who doesn't know what he is doing. he can't read a bill. host: this is representative steve cohen joining us. if you want to ask him questions concerning topics of usaid, elon musk, or other things, 202-748-8001 for republicans, 202-748-8000 for democrats, and independents, 202-748-8002. if you want to text us, it's 202-748-8003. we have seen private lawsuits against mr. musk' actions. what is the role of congress at this point? guest: we are in the minority in the house and senate, so there is a lot we can't do. congress can have a standing to sue in court, but the democratic caucus cannot.

individual congressmen don't have standing but we work with legal groups and we are going to work with legal groups to bring lawsuits. the government employs union, brought recent lawsuits concerning the firing of certain officials in these letters they put out to suggest people should voluntarily quit and they'll get this great -- go to the bahamas, fabulous vacation, wonderful deal. you know, donald trump is famous for not paying his subcontractors, his contractors on jobs. he doesn't pay. the man is not somebody you want to do business with. the man is nobody you want to make a deal with, a contract with, because he doesn't fulfill his promises. i hope the government employs -- stick with their lawyers. the aclu brought lawsuits on the deportations. many of which are illegal. they made it sound like they were only going to pick up violent criminals. i can see picking up violent criminals, although i think they probably are in jail for being

violent criminals, convicted of rain or murder, and these peoplp half the people they picked up had committed no crime at all. the little girl that they got there, but they were criminals the day they came into the united states because they came in illegally so by that they committed a crime. if that was the basis of committing a crime, why did we have to pass laken riley and use that poor girl's death which was awful which makes everybody's heart bleed, make her the name of a law that says you can continue to pick people up for misdemeanors like shoplifting. if their crime is just coming into the country, you didn't need laken riley to make it the basis for deportation. we are seeing a bunch of just throwing pictures out, platitudes and symbolic things without taking action. what have they done to reduce the price of eggs? zero.

what have they done to help the working man? have they talked about increasing the minimum wage? not at all. they're doing nothing about the economy except for billionaires of the all this is to save money with this doge thing to try to say they can raise money for the tax cut they're going to have to continue the trump tax cuts, his only success in his first term to give billionaires living the life of 564,000 rileys a pay raise. host: we have calls. this is bonnie in iowa, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i agree with you that albert einstein is brilliant. >> was brilliant. caller: i might disagree about whether or not elon musk is brilliant. but i wanted to ask you this. albert einstein, who was a brilliant scientist, believed that unborn babies deserve the right to life. are you as brilliant as einstein and do you agree with that premise that unborn babies deserve the right to life? guest: i am not as brilliant as einstein, of course you aren't

either. i don't believe albert einstein said that. he was jewish. in the jewish religion, there is nothing about abortion. in fact, there are some things in the old testament about a fee tus not being considered live until it's born because there were so many deaths during pregnancy and women and families suffered so much they didn't want the families to suffer add the -- and it wasn't considered a life so the mother wouldn't have so much heartache. that was a brilliant thing put in the bible in the old testament by those folks and it was a way of life that we had that concerned the living and made sure their life went on in a positive fashion. wherever you read that, you better google it. host: from maryland this is on our independent life. hello. caller: yes. i have a question. when we talk about the tariffs that trump is imposing, from my understanding tariffs are supposed to bring jobs to the

united states. i heard a clip from a few years back of elon musk saying robots will be taking over many jobs. do you think that these tariffs are going to bring warehouse jobs and other jobs to the united states for humans, or is it another way for elon musk to get even richer and have these jobs that's really going to hurt people in the united states and be operated by robots? guest: elon musk is for himself. he cut out more jobs at twitter than you can imagine. he is not for employing people. he is for making money and making money however he can. one of the things he did at twitter is cut out the folks whose job it was to look at tweets and find ones that were blatantly false and created problems for america concerning particularly vaccines but also political and took some of those tweets down. that wasn't satisfying to him.

he wants to put out all these conspiracy theories and vaccine nonsense. as far as jobs, no, must is not for jobs. musk for musk. tariffs are supposed to produce jobs but they raise the price of goods the american public pays for those tariffs. as prices go up, jobs will go down. he hasn't done anything about the price of eggs, the price of bacon, zero. musk doesn't care and trump doesn't care. they care about billionaires and getting their main objective what they're going to do with their big reconciliation bill, which they can do with a majority, not have democrats involved, is to give billionaires a large, large tax cut. they need to be paying more to help people. there are so many people in this world, this country that need health care. they've got no proposals about expanding health care to people. nothing realistic. the democrats brought you the ou

want to call it. it's provided health care to many, many millions of people. that's what we need to continue to do. don't believe musk if you are thinking about jobs. as far as these tariffs, the tariffs we have now, we have tariffs now that have not increased jobs and production duction in america. it has not worked. it's just -- he has gotten something about mckinley, the mountain in alaska that was denali. he has this in his mind. he loves the word tariffs. see he took his tariffs off immediately when mexico and canada said we will do this or do this. mexico already had 10,000 soldiers on the border. canada is going to spend billions of dollars for a problem that doesn't exist. the fentanyl comes in from the south, not the north. this guy is so messed up and so incompetent. we have a child president, a man child president, and it's

dangerous. "the wall street journal" says the tariff war was the dumbest idea ever in economics. "the wall street journal," and david brooks, a conservative "new york times" columnist, wrote about stupid. he said stupid is not knowing what comes next. taking gaza, the united states taking it, that means we have to wipe out hamas. hamas still has lots of soldiers and lots of weapons. you want our soldiers to go down in those tunnels and find hamas? i don't and nor do our soldiers. that's not what america first was supposed to be about. he brings up things with no thought about what's going to happen. take that land, the palestinians land and put casinos on it and bars and gambling halls and strippers and hookers, that's going to be wonderful? i got news for you. hamas isn't is going to take it. the palestinians aren't going to take it. donald trump is getting us into real trouble. host: let's hear from memphis, democrats line.

hi. caller: yeah. i have two questions and then i will hang up. guest: it's good to hear from the 901. caller: yeah. memphis is the only county to have two -- what can you all do about all these lies being told? trump come out and lies about who -- the lying got to stop. guest: the lying does have to stop. the fact social media spreads a lot of these lies and now all the social media billionaires have come to trump and said all right, we will give you a million dollars for this and that, sit in the first row. they're stopping their fact checking which on social media means when they put lies out somebody is there with a responsibility and zuckerberg

and these others have said we are not going to do it. these lies are out there. trump is the one that started it. it got worse and worse. people followed him and put out lies. this thing with trump and the condoms, it's ludicrous. he repeats it over and over that we are giving all these condoms to hamas. i don't think hamas is having a bunch of orgies. that's p. diddy. host: representative cohen -- guest: it may not be p. diddy. i don't know my rappers. host: got you. we have a new attorney general it seems receiving the senate vote, pam bondi, when she's sworn in as a member of the judiciary committee. what are we expecting as far as her tenureship? guest: it's hard for me to say. i have heard people say she's a good lawyer and that's fine and good. i just remember the first person that trump suggested for attorney general was matt gaetz and that was the most ludicrous idea ever. that was really nuts. here is a guy that the ethics

report said had been paying for 17-year-old girls to come to sex parties he had in florida and in the bahamas, that he had issues about his use of his political fund, his government fund to pay this and that and what he had done and the lies he put out about these parties and the drugs that he used, etc., etc. he was as bad as george santos. he was going to make him attorney general of the united states. i don't know where pam bondi is. i do know she took when she was attorney general about a $25 million contribution, i think that's what it was, was it -- it might have been $25,000. it was a lot of money. she took this money from trump. as soon as she took it, she refused to go along with the other attorney generals to use trump university for fraud which ended up being a multimillion-dollar agreement that he signed to admit he was fraudulent. then he was banned from ever

being on a board or involved in a 501-c-3 charity for years. bondi when she took that contribution from his p.a.c. which was illegal -- wasn't from his p.a.c., it was from his charitable foundation. it was illegal for him to put it in a gift to a politician which he did. she took that and enjoined the lawsuit. i hope she'll stand up to donald trump and be an independent united states attorney general. but i don't expect it. i expect her to be -- to weaponize the justice department and the f.b.i. and that's a very serious problem. host: kingsport, tennessee, andrea, republican line. caller: hello. the reason i am calling is because i want to stand up for el on. people are saying he is not so smart. he was a bullied child. all he did was watch movies. he put together the tesla. he put batteries to make things work around the world.

he is the one that goes into countries and helps them by putting all these things up in the air so that we can have everybody be in touch. donald trump and elon musk were friends many years ago they worked together. donald knew who he was hiring when he brought on musk. he is a fast reader. all these things the democrats have -- they've put out billions of dollars they're giving to other countries for no reason. the only reason we are working with -- he wants to do gaza is because they have nothing. there is no way they can rebuild that country. he is not taking it from america. he is taking it from other rich countries. i believe if we let trump alone for a while and let him do what he wants to and let him start making america great again and then go attack him after he starts doing it. the things at the border, he got

them to stop people coming across the border. he got -- he gets things in action. he makes things work. host: ok. that's andrea in tennessee. guest: good to hear from a vol. i think kingsport is pretty and nice. i don't know about musk necessarily being that brilliant. my understanding is he bought tesla from the people who originally came up with it just like he bought twitter from the people who came up with it. he was smart to buy it but he ruined twitter. i don't know what he did at tesla, but i know a lot of people quit and left. some of them started another electric car company. he didn't come up with the idea of it. he got bullied, yeah, he did. he was in south africa. his family was there when they had apartheid. also it's not verified but i have talked to my staff and some people have said that usaid was

part of the support that came in so south africa when -- right after they broke the shackles of apartheid and the african-american majority, nelson mandela came to power, and he didn't like that. that's why i guess he supports these neo-nazi parties in germany, most far-right parties. he tells them on the anniversary of the freeing of auschwitz where the survivors gathered for that program, that the germans need to remember their graift history and to get past the past. that's not what the victims of the holocaust said and what righteous gentiles say. they say never forget so it won't happen again. he, though, knows he and his family were down there in south africa in the apartheid world that put mandela in jail for 30 years and he has forgotten because it makes his heart feel better not to be cognizant of and honest about what he and his

compatriots did when they ruled south africa. host: representative cohen, you serve on subcommittee for transportation and infrastructure on aviation. what more information do we know about the crash that took place into national airport? guest: first, we have not had a classified briefing. we will have some soon, i think of the that was a terrible tragedy. i grieve for all of the victims both in 0 on the airplane and helicopter. i don't believe that they should have been flying that helicopter at that time when there were still planes coming into d.c.a. airport and said that was a special route they planned to use and have used. if it was an attack on america, a nuclear attack, to get pentagon officials and other leaders in our country out of our country to some underground special, safe area, and it ran down the potomac. they could run down the potomac at 1:00 in the morning. why they had to do their drills

when there were still planes coming in to land was foolish. that's the fault of the head of the against department. the secretary of defense who just got in, who has no business being an employee at a small business, is in charge of the defense department. whoever the defense department decided that helicopter ought to be flying that route at 9:00 at night, that person needs to be fired. it was the decision to put them out there that caused the crash. that's no question about that. host: how do you draw the straight line between that decision and secretary hegseth himself? guest: secretary hegseth has no business being the defense department like robert kennedy has no business being in charge of health. robert kennedy is an eant vaxer. he said the polio vaccine needs to be retested. i had polio. i will tell robert kennedy who has been somebody i have known a long time, i think he went off the deep end. i don't know what the worm did to the brain, but we need the

polio vaccine. we need all the vaccines. the worst thing that you could do with a vaccine is tell your children not to take it. he told the people at samoa for their people not to take the mumps vaccine or meeseles and they had 81 deaths and lots of illnesses. but trump has appointed an awful cabinet. it's not certainly -- he talks about d.e.i., d.e.i. has not killed anybody. that's number one. number two, he talks about d.e.i., he talked about his cabinet. his cabinet is about as least d.e.i. as you can be except he took some of the least welcome democrats like tulsi gabbard and robert kennedy jr. and put them in his cabinet. he took this guy out of fox news and put him at the defense department. he has had other people that are substandard and it's basically almost an all white cabinet. he has one or two black guys, i think that's it. he could find some better people, but what happened in that crash, the defense

department should not have had those drills when there were still passenger airplanes coming in and that's the first place to look. don't look to the pilots. don't look to the air traffic controller. look to the defense department. they killed those people. host: arkansas, independent line. caller: yeah, i just have -- first of all, i am 72 years old, vietnam veteran, awarded bronze star. guest: you are a young man. caller: i am still a young man. i just have one question and then a comment. i will take my answer off the air. i just want to know where the common sense has gone in this country, and my comment is mr. trump loves to give nicknames to people, so i would like to give him a nickname today and call him mr. bonehead. thank you very much for your time. guest: thank you for your service in vietnam. thank you for calling in.

i think your nickname is a good one. he deserves it. he has talked about putting an iron dome, kind of using the terminology and the defense mechanisms of israel to protect and that works there. it's a small country and a small amount of missiles have come in from iran, etc. he talked about putting an iron dome armed the united states. when he first talked about it, i thought he was talking about protecting us from russia and china, to protect from missiles coming over the north pole. lately with the way he is acting with his tariffs putting it against our friends in canada and mexico, his iron dome might be to protect us against canada and mexico. bonehead is giving him a bit. host: democrats line, jay, hello. caller: good morning. good morning to representative cohen. my question is, with elon musk and the doge committee how does

he have the authority to fire any federal workers? he doesn't appear to be a federal worker himself. he doesn't have the security clearance. neither do the people that work, the teenagers that work for him. i am not quite sure how that's even possible or if we can get an injunction to stop that committee or what are your thoughts on that? guest: i think there is some effort to get private legal action to stop them from taking action. but the fact is trump is who authorized it. he is kind of like putin. i heard somebody recently compare his actions to putin in terms of being an autocrat and that's what he is. he really likes people with power. that's what he wants to become. but no, he empowered musk. he calls him a special government employee, like putin calls his soldiers a special military operation. so this is special. donald trump is special. his mother probably thought he was special.

that's why they sent him to military school. host: representative steve cohen of tennessee, member of the transportation subcommittee, also a member of the judiciary committee. representative cohen, thanks for your time. guest: thank you, c-span. host: about a half-hour from now we will take a look at the tariff policy employed by the trump administration. victoria guida will talk about the specific tariffs and the goals of the administration and using those, but before that, we will go to another round of open forum if you want to participate, 202-748-8000, 202-748-8001, and independents 202-748-8002. we will take those calls when we return. ♪ >> book tv. every sunday on c-span 2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. here is a look at what's coming up this weekend. at 6:15 p.m. eastern, angela

merkel who served as german chancellor discusses her memoir freedom with former president barack obama. at 8:00 p.m. eastern, a former georgetown professor argues theris a decline of intellectual diversity and civil discourse at elite law schools creating a climate of intolerance. he is the author of the book "lawless." at 10:00 p.m. eastern, omo moses, son of robert moses, author of the book "the white peril" talks about being black in america through the voices of three generations of the moses family. he is interviewed by the president of university. watch book tv every sunday on c-span 2. find the schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime. >> 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 events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. these markers appear on the right side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. this tool makes it easy to 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. 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 catch washington today. listen to c-span anytime. tell your smart speaker play c-span radio. c-span created by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: again the phone lines are

available. we will start with lesley in maryland, really line. caller: good morning, pedro. how are you? host: fine thank you. caller: this is my first time calling. i could not resist after hearing representative cohen make a rear end out of himself. i have never heard anybody so disparaging of other people who are trying to make this country go. we need to work together. calling mr. trump, president trump all kinds of names, i never heard out of representative cohen's mouth anything, not one word of what the democrats want to do to help the american people. all they can do is name call and all that. so i am embarrassed. i almost turned the show off but i said no, i have to call because i have never heard such disparaging talk on either side. i've never heard a republican come on your show and talk like

that about democrats. that's all i have. thank you for stopping him on this last comment. he kept rambling on. i appreciate you stopping him. thanks for your show. we really enjoy it. host: melanie up next in dallas, democrats line. hi. caller: good morning. this is melanie. the lady who just called before, i am a democrat, but i was appalled with that guy that you just had on there. i don't -- i didn't support trump. i don't like what musk is doing. i think there is a bert way that we can communicate it and i think that's what the democrats need, people that can communicate with their -- what they're trying to say. he was all in his feelings. i was offended when he said they have that little girl, i am assuming he was talking about the press secretary. she's a young woman. he reminds me of what i as an african-american woman despise about the majority.

thank you, pedro. host: independent line, good morning. caller: good morning. first of all, i called about a month ago on the 6th right before the vote count, and i got to talk from 4 -- in the morning and i was cut off. we tried to stop what happened on the 6th. to no avoil. -- avail. you are supposed to be open here. for somehow we got cut off and didn't get through. yesterday senator murphy from connecticut, democrat, was on for seven minutes. he said we have a constitutional crisis. folks listened to that. he said the democrats have to

reach out to republicans and other folks and do this together. also, the special prosecutor smith who quit a week ago or so, just because justice said they couldn't go after it because they thought they couldn't go after the president. i don't know why we don't have the -- democrats don't have the numbers in the house or the senate. but the state of california is having hearings on this. they need money for the fires, climate related. trump pulled us out. existential threat. you talk about truth and science. this is extremely important stuff. so i think we need to talk about it. he said call your congressman. i called our congressman on the justice committee on the house. this fellow was on justice committee. i wanted to ask him what they're doing about it and also it had to do with keeping trump off the ballot, the 14th amendment section 3.

he mentioned the national constitution, impartial, bipartisan, etc., but we saw trump talking like a mob boss trying to get 11,000 votes out of georgia, and they had 10,000 demonstration on monday and -- host: ok. thank you for calling. especially in the early morning hours from california. republican line, indianapolis. steve, hello. caller: hello. i just wanted to say, i think trump and the rest of them are doing a fantastic job. i think that elon musk, they put him in there for a reason. the reason why he is a super rich guy is because he cut the quantity of people that work for him, and he cut it to the bone. he knows what he wants.

he knows how to get it. i think trump is doing a fantastic job. the only thing i got to say is ymca. host: that's steve in indianapolis giving us a call. you can continue on calling on our open forum. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. independents, 202-748-8003. we will get back to those call in just a moment. joining us now to give us the latest from the white house is linda feldman, with the "christian science monitor," joining us via zoom. good morning. guest: good morning. host: we heard the president float this idea for gaza. what has been the follow-up? guest: the follow-up is people are just beside themselves that he said that. i was in the east room last night when he had that appearance with benjamin netanyahu. the room was packed. i was behind the cameras.

but i could hear people gasping, and you didn't know whether to laugh or cry. is he serious? he wants to turn gaza into the riviera? he was suggesting a u.s. takeover of gaza, which seems to be in the same vein of his desire to gain control of greenland and the panama canal and his joaging -- jokerring, not joking comments about making canada the 51st state. this is a serious kind of incursion into middle east policy that could have serious repercussions. host: what has the white house -- to what degree has the white house said are next steps in this idea? guest: so we haven't heard of any next steps. there are negotiations going on right now in qatar over the next step of the peace process with gaza. we are in the middle of a

six-week cease-fire. they're trying to negotiate a permanent settlement to that issue. so i honestly don't know where trump's comments last night about taking over gaza, where that fits in. i can't imagine that it helps. host: there was reporting, maybe you can follow up for what you know as far as those being premeditated before the comments came or if it came off the top of his head. guest: it's hard to know with donald trump. he does have a habit of acting in the moment. he reads the room. he goes on his gut. sometimes it seems that he thinks -- he puts on his old hat as a real estate developer. he sees what he sees, the potential for a beautiful piece of property, and he thinks oh, we can develop this. and i am just -- this is speculating. all we can do is imagine what is going on in his mind. the idea of moving two million palestinians out of gaza, egypt

doesn't want to take in palestinians. jordan has said no. the whole region is -- they're either in an uproar or scratching their heads. host: when it comes to the actions of elon musk, what are those within the white house saying about the actions that he has taken? guest: so they're saying to hold tight that this is a process, that elon musk is doing what donald trump wants him to do, although donald trump has suggested that maybe he has gone a bit far. around washington, every federal worker, every federal agency is if not in an uproar, they're very vigilant standing by, watching their inboxes, you know, trying to buck each other up. it's very hard for morale. it's hard for people to do their jobs while in the middle of all this turmoil. host: can you elaborate on the part where you said the president thinks that mr. musk may have dwon too -- gone too far? guest: he makes this suggestion. he doesn't elaborate. i don't want to imagine what he is thinking, but with elon musk,

it's hard to tell him what to do. once you give him power, he goes with it. he is like donald trump in that way. whether donald trump will actually reign him in or whether his lawyers will, we don't know. we know donald trump has surrounded himself with people who respect going to say no and if something is maybe unconstitutional, let's let that play out in court. but that of course takes file -- takes timeful in the meantime, he has allowed the doge team to access classified information, people's private, personal information, and they say it's read only tremendous treasury -- at the treasury department but even that is concerning. the doge team is a bunch of young people, people who have worked for elon musk.

there is an obligation for we the people to know what is happening and are we safe. host: that goes to the action of account the and what is the process of account the of mr. musk's actions to the president of the united states? guest: we are in uncharted territory before. we have never seen anything like this. the accountability ultimately rests in the processes of the constitution. if congress were to decide he has gone too far and they wanted to impeach him, they could do that, but nobody could imagine that happening, impeaching donald trump again. so we are in -- we are outside the bounds of -- all bounds of norms and -- normal procedures here. it's, you know, it has an improv feel to it, that people are making things up as they go along. whiep is on the agenda for the white house today? guest: he has two meeting. he is meetings with the governor

of texas. he is meeting with governor newsom of california. i am imagining texas will talk about the issue on the border, immigration. california, obviously recovery from the fires. he is also signing an executive order in the east room that would ban trans women from competing in women's sports. so this is part of his anti-transgender action he has been taking. host: the last part of that, could you elaborate on what this executive order would do and who is directly impacted by that? guest: it's an order to the department of justice and other federal agencies to not allow trans girls and women to take part in sports. i would imagine it goes -- any powers they would have that could go down to the local level, any funding that would go

to entities that involve girls and women's sports, for example, that they could try to go in and stop a trans person from competing. host: this is linda feldman joining us with the christian science bhon tore -- monitor. she's their washington bureau chief. you can see her work at csmonitor.com. thanks for your time. we will go back to your calls on open forum. thanks to those of you waiting. this is mary in massachusetts, democrats line. hi. caller: i just want to talk about the man from california, who thinks trump is so terrific. i understand that trump had the right and privilege of opening up a reservoir full of water and letting it run down in california thinking it was going to reach los angeles, and he

thinks need water, and my understanding that water was for the farmers in california when the growing season comes. i don't understand why he had the right to go there and get the college of engineers to do that and what is that man who lives in california talking about when he says trump is doing a terrific job? this goes along the lines of making gaza a riviera and all of that. trump is on a cloud, and people are not listening. that's the problem. they don't listen. host: bob is next in wisconsin. independent line. caller: good morning. i just want to encourage the listeners to have a little creativity of thought. at one point beirut used to be the paris of the med before it was destroyed by decades of war.

in regards to gaza, trump is not talking about bringing a battalion of marines in there. he is talking about after the population is decreased to bring teams in the area to make it safe. they want somebody to bring -- who is going to spend money to rebuild gaza if it's just going to be destroyed again in 10 years from war? they want vested partners that value the place. trump looks at the middle east and he looks at the opulence of kuwait and doha and bahrain and says why can't that be something that is going to take place in gaza? do we want the u.n. to come in there and do what they did in haiti and cause a cholera outbreak? i mean come on. we need to come up with solutions. i want to hear what is an alternative solution to what is going to happen.

you are going to are -- have disease, continued war. there needs to be some rehe ising. -- resetting. i remember a president 40 years ago that decided this wall that goes across this country should be torn down. we need to think outside the box and change the narrative. host: bob in wisconsin. from maryland, this is tom, republican line. caller: yes, sir. good morning. guest: good morning. caller: good morning. i was listening to your guest this morning, question pete hegseth's qualifications. i wonder what his qualifications are. everybody questions everybody else's qualifications, but take a.o.c. for instance. what were her qualifications? she's a member of congress. that's kind of unbelievable. as far as elon musk goes, that's what trump was hired to do, get people like elon musk to drill into all these slush funds that

the government had that's causing the country to be so in debt. he is independent, very intelligent. he knows how to get things done. he is drilling in deep. he is finding where all this waste, fraud and abuse is. everybody should support that. host: from pat in the bronx, democrats line. caller: hey, good morning. i am listening to this and you know what i realize, people still have not learned their lessons. we knew about this during the campaigns when the dls spoke -- democrats spoke about project 2025. everyone was concerned about kamala laughing and how biden was. so you know what i think the democrats should do, try sitting back or have a news conference and say we told you so. but they still haven't gotten

enough yet. americans apparently have not suffered enough yet because he is just getting started. he is just getting started. stick around. host: ok. that's pat in new york. let's hear from debbie in ohio. independent line. caller: good morning. i've got a couple of issues that are running around in my head concerning some of the policies. i don't know who is giving trump advice or where his advisors are coming from because evidently who is advising him isn't really clear on the issues that are going on because of some of the things that he is coming up with. i also know that he pardoned kirshner's father and made him ambassador in jerusalem. they have dealings with the israeli government over there, add too me this sound like a real estate deal.

also i have an issue with him saying that he is going to take our criminals to el salvador and possibly other countries. that sounds like he is planning on something that russia would do as far as hiding some of his political opponents. these are kind of my own conspiracy thoughts, but if you look at the tendencies we are going through massive chaos that is going to waken -- weaken our stability around the world with these other countries. host: ok. guest: thank you. host: debbie in ohio giving us her thoughts. giving thoughts on the future of usaid, senate majority leader john thune making comments yesterday on capitol hill. >> do you believe the white house has the authority to unilaterally close a federal

agency such as usaid without congressional approval? >> my understanding i don't think they're closing an agency, but i do think they have the right to review funding and how those decisions are made and what priorities are being funded. i think that's probably true of any administration when they come in. there are lots of programs authorized and funded through that agency, some of which are operating in the way in which they were intended, some aren't. that's the determination the administration is in the process of making and trying to determine again how they -- the various programs are authorized how the dollars are being spent, whether they're being spent wisely in consistent with the purpose for which they are intended. as you perhaps saw yesterday when secretary rubio responded to some questions around this subject indicated that for a very long time congress has been trying to get answers about usaid, those programs, how they're funded, what they're being used for, and have not

been able to get that information. it's in need of reform and greater accountability. i think that's what the administration is trying to achieve. host: the focus of mr. musk reportedly turning to the education department. this is from "the new york times" this morning saying that workers on mr. musk's team are conducting a review, they are reporting that in an all hands call with the employees in the department's office of civil rights tuesday, the office' acting assistant secretary signaled that the moves are part of a broader effort by mr. musk to reshape the federal government. "you probably know that the doge team is like the other federal departments here working on the president's promise to the american people to reform the federal bureaucracy so we are going to increase efficiencies in o.c.r. and ed generally," mr. according to a recording of the meeting referring to the department of government efficiency, musk's team's presence is the latest sign of the billionaire's expanding government influence which

already stretches into more than half a dozen agencies, his allies have gaped access to closely held data systems and helped rapidly dismantle the agency for development next week. in maryland, republican line. caller: pedro, good morning. i just want to -- i am listening to everyone speak about how trump is just doing a bad job and everything. i just heard the guy that came in, the democratic guy that came in, and i just want to speak about immigration. being an immigrant myself, you know, i feel like it's highly unfair for people like us that paid our time and paid for everything and waited our time to do things the right way and most times i feel like trump is

like not giving enough time. i feel like people should allow him -- he has just been in the office barely a month. they should allow him to at least give him some time to get -- i feel like he meant well for this country. that's all i want to say. i feel like everyone is on him. i feel like they have a good plan in line to get this country it a better place. he just got in. barely a month. give him a break to do his job. that's all i want to say. thank you. god bless. host: janice from pennsylvania, democrats line. good morning. janice in pennsylvania, hello? caller: good morning. i don't even know if you have enough time for everything i have to say. i am going to refer to the last gentleman. he is saying they should give him a enough time. what he has done within the last two weeks is absolutely unacceptable and outrageous to allow a foreigner, to me a

terrorist, to go into our government and go through our records and get documents that congress can't even have access to is absolutely unacceptable. there is no way elon musk -- he has access to starlink and everything else. how do you know what he will go in there to do? number one. number two, they've got something on the web called dark maga, which refers to elon musk. it refers to everything -- they got a plan. everything they're going to do to destroy the united states like they destroyed gaza. there's too much going on and they keep getting us to focus on other issues. people need to wake up. they need to look at the website, go to google, go to youtube. there is something called dark maga. you can see everything they're planning on doing including i.t.

host: ok. janice. let's hear from judith in missouri. independent line. caller: good morning, pedro. i am a 75-year-old woman and i voted in all parties, but i love to play with words and letters. so i have changed trump's lover man into lone skum. thank you. host: bethany next in north carolina, republican line. caller: good morning, pedro. i actually have three comments, so my first comment is that the previous guest that you had on, steve cohen, i would like to say that i was really disappointed that y'all allowed him to stay on there for so long and, you know, the way he was attacking all the c-span callers who didn't line up with his beliefs and everything and then him like

attacking donald trump's dead mother. that was totally uncalled for. second of all, i would like to say that donald trump has only been in office for like two weeks. people need to calm down. you know, the biden administration spent so much money, but donald trump doesn't even have any money for his peace -- presidency. he is trying to figure out how to source money and how to put his plans into action. third of all, you know, i am a christian and the bible is very clear on man and woman and homosexuality and this is a christian nation. our money says "in god we trust." we take the pledge of allegiance, one nation under god. and when we get married, reading from the bible. to all the people who -- host: let me end you there because you are breaking up on

your signal. this is from john, texas, last call, dls line. caller: i would just like to suggest -- i am a democrat, lifelong proud democrat. i wish when they started talking about usaid somebody would just start the list out the things that they do. i am sure they do a lot of positive things. i just wish we would hear that more. that's it. host: john in texas finishing off this round of open forum. one more segment to go before the house comes in at 10 cloak joining us for that discussion, politico's economic correspondent victoria guida who joins us next after these messages. >> american history tv saturday

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democracy unfiltered. announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: this is victoria guida of politico joining us to talk about the president's use of tariffs. good morning. guest: good morning. host: what does it say about what he wants to do about tariffs? guest: he has a lot of different goals and that makes parsing his moves difficult. it's hard to predict what he's going to do. the most recent round of tariff threats and in the case of china, a 10% new tariff on china, it was related on border security so he's talked about the flow of undocumented immigrants over the border, the flow of drugs, particularly fentanyl, and he's particularly faulted canada and mexico, our borders, but also china because some of the fentanyl shipments come from china. this is separate from some of his other tariff threats that are still coming and so there's

a lot of different things he might be doing with tariffs. host: the threats still coming, is that canada and mexico? or other? guest: the canada and mexico tariffs are on the table but on pause for a month for now. he reached agreements with each of those governments, the mexican government, for example, is putting more troops at the border and canada, too, is ramping up border security efforts. so it's a little bit unclear what might happen at the end of that month, whether there might be a reduction or removal of the tariffs entirely or whether they might go into force. in terms of future tariffs, he's threatened tariffs on particular sectors -- steel, aluminum, microchips, pharmaceuticals, copper. but then he's also talked about putting tariffs on various countries like -- economies like the european union and he's talked about a universal tariff, the potential to put tariffs on

everybody. host: what's the intended goal of having such a broad tariff policy? guest: there's a couple of different goals. one of them is president trump fundamentally talks about trade as it being unfair where the u.s. has in many cases no tariffs or lower tariffs than many trading partners because the united states is a net importer of the world's goods but also republicans are looking at cutting taxes, they're looking at extending the tax cuts expiring and potentially expanding them and the administration is pretty serious about wanting revenue to offset some of that lost revenue so that's one of the reasons why you could see -- people aren't sure whether the universal tariff is just a threat or whether he'll actually do it but one of the reasons why you could actually see it is because the administration is serious about wanting new revenue. host: you had an event at politico yesterday and one of those people were peter navarro.

set up a little bit about what he brings to the table talking about the tariff policy? guest: he's been with president trump since the 2016 campaign, one of the few people that was in the white house the first time and now the second time and he's really pro tariff, really pro -- he particularly is a china hawk and he's somebody who wants to see the u.s. take a particularly hard-line approach on protecting our domestic industries and there are different sort of factions in trump's coalition. some might want to see tariffs used more strategically, like a negotiating chip on border security but really anything. and not necessarily have quite as many tariffs actually deployed but peter navarro is somebody who is really -- plays into that part of president trump's instincts where he's the tariff man as he says. host: our guest with us until

the house comes in at 10:00, if you want to ask about the tariff approach of the president, 202-748-8001, 202-748-8000, and independents, 202-748-8002. you can text thoughts at 202-748-8003. here's a bit from trade adviser peter navarro from the event yesterday. >> what's happening is the president fighting a drug war. this is not a trade war. media came out talking trade war, this, that and the other thing. this particular action is a drug war and what we've seen is a lot of pearl clutching when this was announced but we've also seen immediate results from mexico and canada. now, the mexicans have been very cooperative and secretary of state marco rubio -- love the

guy. just -- he's been -- i want to talk about the broader trade team in a minute if you wouldn't mind. but he has done a very good job along with stephen miller and personnel at d.h.s. going through a check list of things that we need from mexico so we're making progress on that front, hence the 30-day extension. prime minister trudeau, his initial reaction was a similar reaction we got back during the first term, it's like, ok, we're going to tariff you if you tariff us and we'll go up that ladder and i think he looked at the problem, he looked at what mexico is willing to do and i think he came to understand that this is a drug war, not a trade war, that what the president is concerned about is american -- so we got the news yesterday on a call. it was on a call, president,

part of the deal, we're getting a fentanyl czar and billions of dollars spent on this, granting drug cartels as terrorist organizations and there's a number of other steps. that's how this works. host: he said this is a drug war, not a trade war. can you elaborate? guest: this gets back to what i was talking about initially which is he has tariff threats for all sorts of different reasons. with canada and mexico, we've had a free trade agreement with them for decades. we had nafta signed in 1994, we had a free trade agreement with canada before that. then president trump in his first term renegotiated nafta and there's a new deal called the usmca, to be reviewed next year. one of the question marks is why was president trump doing this if he negotiated a deal with them for largely no tariffs.

so to suddenly put 25% tariffs on everything, 10% in the case of canadian energy, that would be a huge overhaul of the deal so the point that peter navarro is making, the same thing we're hearing across the trump administration, is basically this doesn't have to do with usmca, this is just about the border. the practical effect would render the tariff provisions moot if they were to take effect but the point is, this isn't about unfair trade practices at all, it's about they need action at the border. host: the president ran his campaign on helping people with the economy and improving the economy. there have been those that have said tariffs would run counter to that. how does the white house square those two things? guest: it's a little bit complicated to try to figure out exactly the extent to which he intended to put these tariffs on

or still intends to put these tariffs on. so, yeah -- can you repeat the question? host: how do they square trying to improve the economy when tariffs could be bad for the economy? guest: so inflation, prices have gone up so a question about tariffs is whether they'll raise prices. i'm not -- this is where i was going initially was, it's unclear the extent which he really intends to put really high tariffs on or use them as a negotiating chip because some of the high trifs tariffs, they're not necessarily going to pass directly to consumers. a 25% tariff won't necessarily be a 25% price increase but it probably will be a price increase and canada, mexico and china are three largest trading partners so it's a whole range of goods so that is something that i think is a really pressing question and the trump

administration just sort of glazes past some of those tradeoffs but those are things they'll have to deal with. host: economic correspondent victoria guida joining us. let's hear from corbyn from new jersey, republican line. caller: how are you doing today? i have a quick question about tariffs. i think the tariffs are a good bargaining chip to coerce other nations and organizations globally to be more cooperative in america's needs but i want t. i know the tariffs aren't going to be very good but do you think this administration will also go after something like the federal income tax to help with putting more money in america's pockets? guest: this is a top priority

for the republican trifecta, not just the white house but also republicans in congress, is the tax cuts that president trump got passed under his first term are expiring at the end of the year so the idea is they want to extend those and president trump also ran on potentially adding more. he ran on no tax on tips, no tax on social security, he talked about potentially lowering the corporate tax rate further. and so it's unclear to what extent they'll be able to do that. one big question is, we already have quite a large amount of federal debt and taxes are revenue. so there's two halves of the debt, there's the spending and then the revenue so if you reduce revenue, you'll increase the debt even more. so the limiting principle is how much he might be able to cut taxes is the extent to which they'll add to the debt. this is where the tariffs come back in. they want tariffs to fill part

of that hole. there's not enough money to offset income tax which is the vast majority of revenue that the federal government brings in but yes, that is part of the goal. host: from san diego, we'll hear from bob, democrats line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i remember when president trump was president and his economic -- he said that -- well, the prices of things when he was president were -- they went up. like wood went -- i was building a deck in my backyard and 4 by 6 by 8 pressure treated wood was $13 a piece and now it's $26 a piece and he's the one that negotiated the trade agreement with canada. he's the one that put the tariffs on china. and the economy was not what people are saying it was because

now -- i was just watching cnn as i watched you. i have cable and can switch the channel and peter navarro happened to be on with the person that was leading cnn's interview with him and he couldn't say prices would not go up. he was blaming it on fentanyl this time. last time they blamed the trade tariffs on the difference of the trade -- it was a trade deficit last time. they said there's a trade deficit with china, they're stealing from us. that's what trump said. now it's, oh, fentanyl is coming in and that's the reason we're putting tariffs on. so don't be fooled. the price of stuff goes up. host: thank you. guest: exactly. it can be hard to generalize about the effect of tariffs because it depends on the industry, right.

it depends in part on the extent to which we have domestic production of that thing. usually if there are fewer imports, that offers less competition to domestic production which should give people more flexibility to raise prices but they're not necessarily going to. for a lot of things, though, to produce things we need to import inputs into manufacturing those things. you were talking about things like lumber and wood, which are inputs into building all sorts of things -- steel, aluminum. so if you increase the price of those inputs, that could increase the price of even domestic manufacturing. the first time around, it seems like companies ate some of those costs but what's a little bit dangerous here is that we just had a bout of inflation so people now are much more used to a little bit of inflation than they were before. before the pandemic we had about

40 years where inflation was very low and we just had this bout of inflation. so the question is whether businesses will feel more flexibility to raise prices compared to where they were before and there's also a question as to whether -- they already had tariffs from china and other places so maybe they don't have nearly as much room to really put the costs anywhere else but on consumers so it's going to vary sector by sector. but yeah, in general, it's definitely not going to push prices down. host: you hinted at this but you recently wrote something about the limits of the tariff approach by the president. here's the piece, the trump tariff threats are about to hit a limit, that they have to fill the treasury. could you elaborate? guest: his early approach has been on border security but also you all may remember there was that spat with colombia that lasted a day when clomp refused

to allow two military planes carrying deported immigrants to land and in response trump threatens to put tariffs on colombia, colombia backed down. what i wrote is that president trump likes being unpredictable in this way and likes to be able to use tariffs as negotiating leverage or anything. the point i'm making in that piece is eventually he will have to actually have a more structured approach and whether that's the form of a universal tariff or there's more formal investigations you can do to put tariffs on particular products on particular countries because if you want revenue, that actually requires putting tariffs in place. host: the treasury secretary, we heard from peter navarro. are they part of the process of determining how tariffs will look in the future in the trump administration? guest: they're all advising the president. it's not shocking that president trump makes up his own mind but

he's also influenced by the people around him. they shape how he thinks about things. so yes, we have peter navarro, he mentioned in that clip you played, stephen miller who has been around since the first administration and has played a big role especially in the early push on border security. howard lutnick is his nominee to be commerce secretary, he's a key player on this. scott bessent, treasury secretary. besant comes from a hedge fund background and understands markets really well so he'll play an interesting role as the president tries to figure out how to crack policies without freaking out markets. besent is a key player there. host: we saw the markets after

the announcement of the tariffs against market -- canada and mexico, we saw them go down. guest: it definitely was a way of gauging market reaction and markets were unhappy and you could see when markets opened on monday, they opened way down and then once it was clear that at least with mexico and then eventually with canada, too, that things were paused, you saw an immediate market rebound. the question is whether this was always sort of how they wanted things to go, right. and actually, it's kind of interesting if you think about it because he did put a 10% additional tariff on china and people were so relieved that he didn't put the tariffs on canada and mexico, it was a muted market reaction so it's possible they were gaming things that way. i don't think that in this case the market reaction was the

primary factor but in the future, if it looks like he is putting tariffs in place, markets will not be happy about it and that could temper some of what president trump's doing. host: victoria guida with us from politico. let's hear from john in illinois, republican line. caller: hello. host: go ahead. caller: i want to talk about the price of eggs and how the democrats are complaining that trump can't get the price down. the guy's been in office a little over two weeks and the whole reason behind the egg shortage is because of the bird flu that the democrats decided to kill all the birds. they need to look at the records, what's really going on. they point the finger right away at everything this man has done and he's just got in office and look what he's done in two weeks. it's like warp speed. people need to take -- give him a little credit for the things he has done and look at all the

wasteful spending he found. i'm very proud of what he's doing. he's talking for us, the people who pay the taxes. a lot of bureaucrats are using the money for other things we don't want. so take it or leave it. elon musk is not the best guy out there but you know what, he's finding a lot of wasteful spending and i like what these guys are doing. let them do their job. let's watch and see what happens. there's a lot of corruption going on and we need to get it right. host: john in illinois. guest: on egg prices, you're absolutely right, the reason why those have been soaring recently is because of the avian flu, not only the flu itself has killed chickens but also for safety measures to prevent it from spreading further, a lot of chickens have been slaughtered so that prevents there from being nearly as many eggs. i'll take it further which is,

which is we heard a lot of rhetoric during the campaign from president trump, also from former vice president kamala harris talking about lowering prices and presidents just don't have that much ability to lower prices. there are areas where they have more levers, for example, in healthcare, because of the government's role in medicare and medicaid, they do have more of a role there. but in general, i think that politicians tend to overstate their ability to get prices down. we do also have an inflation fighting authority here in the united states, the federal reserve. they've been keeping interest rates somewhat higher as a means to keep a lid on inflation. unfortunately, that also keeps costs higher because everyone pays a higher interest rate on things they need to finance debt. so prices are probably not generally going down. there may be certain areas on any given day, some prices are

going up, some are going down but overall the overall price level is not going back down and i think that's one of the things the democrats have been jumping on, is president trump campaigned on lowering the price of everything and that's just not something the government can do easily without causing recession. host: i some would say that there's a 50% surcharge on eggs for services. guest: eggs, that's a painful price. when you think about -- eggs are everywhere. you eat it for breakfast, you use it to bake. so that's a politically salient price so it's interesting because so many of the government promises can be sort of more distance. there's multiple levels between the policy that gets made and what people actually see and promising to lower prices is a risky thing to promise because people will know.

you go to the grocery store, it's very clear. inflation is one of the main reason probably president biden was so unpopular because specifically because of inflation because people don't like paying more money. host: going to ben in atlanta, democrats line. hi. caller: we need to call him a felon. what he did, he just lied. he's a 34th time and convicted felon and people like you sit around and discuss this guy, like this is serious. this is nonsense going on. and miss, you sitting up there, just call it a lie. he was lying to get in office. i would tell people right here, you remember at the beginning of

covid, he was saying it was only 15 people. the people who know this 34th time convicted felon, who know the book, everything trump touches fails. people know that if he said it was 15, it was probably 150,000. host: got the point, ben. guest: sure. i'll just say as a general matter, i think a lot of people often want journalists to call things lies. unfortunately, that does tend to assume that you understand what's going on inside someone's head. so that's why people tend to say, this is an inaccurate statement. i think you could make the argument that president trump does have, you know, a basic understanding of economics and probably knows -- he said, actually, after the election, that it's very hard to get prices down after they come back up. so, you know, it does seem like

he probably knew that he wasn't going to be able to do that but as i mentioned, he wasn't the only politician running on lowering costs. i think politicians often enjoy -- enjoy is not the right word. i think a lot of times politicians know that that is what people care about so they feel like they need to speak to it even though realistically it's not as much in their control as they like to portray. host: sabrina in north carolina, independent line. caller: i'd like to start out and say that i support trump. i think what he's doing is very clever but this is my question. with the new tariffs going on and starting to collect money from other countries, is it in the works that the american people get a -- federal income tax returns. since revenue will come from tariffs instead of the american people, does that mean we might

actually get economic relief off of these tariffs? is that in the works? guest: that's a very complicated question. in terms -- first of all, the tariffs are paid by the u.s. importer. so it's not necessarily the case that that money is not being paid by americans. it's just potentially being paid for by a company, right. and in some cases, actually, particularly because of the way that this new 10% tariff on china is implemented, actually now they've spended what they call the de minimis threshold so if you buy something below a value of $800 from china, it will still face a tariff so you as a regular person buying something online from china could still face a tariff. in terms of income tax, as i

mentioned earlier, the -- it's part of the republican agenda to extend the tax cuts. there might be additional income tax relief on things like no tax on tips. i don't know that the actual income tax rate will go down for the various brackets. that's all to be negotiated. it's possible. when you talk about lowering the burden on americans, it really depends on how you're thinking about it. from a price perspective, probably not. from a tax perspective, potentially. although people forget a tariff is also a tax. it's just a tax on imports. so it all depends on how that sort of distributes through the economy. host: we have a minute left. you had a chance to talk to representative adrian smith yesterday, chair of the ways and means subcommittee. you can talk about the

discussion, it's online. but what's the general thinking of he and other republicans about the tariff approach? guest: this is an interesting aspect of president trump and being the leader of the republican party is there are still a lot of republicans who don't love tariffs. they -- especially someone like adrian smith who represents the district in nebraska which is agricultural, the agricultural industry is big there and the ag industry exports a lot of so a lot of times there's retaliation where they tariff american agricultural exports and farmers get hit. it was interesting talking to him because he's clearly trying to balance the fact that as he said, he doesn't love tariffs but also he knows that this is something that president trump is going to do, something he ran on. host: victoria guida, politico, thanks for your time. we will take you to the house of representatives. in order. e