god bless you all. reporter: mr. vice president, how does the tour make you feel about the ongoing conflicts in ukraine, israel, and gaza? >> ok, guys. let's go. v.p. vance: let's -- thank you all. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] >> today president trump welcomes indian prime minister modi to the white house for bilateral talks and the two leaders will hold a joint press conference and we'll bring it to you live on c-span when it happens and you can watch on the free c-span video app or online at c-span.org. earlier today the senate judiciary committed along lines to send kash patel to the full senate no consideration. yocan watch the full meeting at 9:00 eastern on c-span, our

free mobile app or online at c-span.org. >> democracy, it's not just an idea but a process, a process shaped by leaders and elected to the highest offices and guarded with a few for guarding its principles. it's where debates unfold and the nation's course is charted. democracy in full time. this is your government at work. this is c-span, giving you your democracy unfiltered p. host: welcome back. we're joined by representative glenn ivey, a democrat from maryland and on the appropriations committee. congressman, welcome to the program. guest: thanks for having me. host: your district borders washington, d.c., home to 50,000 federal employees, another 20,000 to 30,000 federal contractors.

i want to start there. to 30,00l contractors. i want to start there. you recently held a town hall meeting with federal workers. can you tell us about how any people attended and what you all talked about? guest: it was about 20,000. many people who are interested in the government employment issue. because that was the focus of that town hall. there is a lot of confusion about what the trump administration is doing with these executive orders. there have also been a number of court rulings that have put in injunctions in place that have delayed some of what is going on with what the trump administration is trying to do. they are trying to figure out what their rights are and how things might play out for them personally. the larger issue is the impact of if you scale down the government and fire a lot of employees, what services won't be delivered to the american people and how that is going to

have an impact on them. host: what are you telling your constituents? the ones that are either afraid of losing their job or have already lost their jobs? guest: the ones that were afraid of losing their jobs, there are some in different places. if you are on the probationary period there are very limited rights you have. but if you are not, government employees have a series of rights in place to protect them from unfair termination. and rightly so. they got these jobs based on merit and competition, so we want to make sure they got protections so they are not forced out for political reasons. there are also collective bargaining agreements unions have reached with the government that provide an extra set of rights as well. we talked through those issues with them and how we think things might play out. we offer up information to them as things become available. this is rapidly evolving, so a

lot of them have questions about how things might be changing. another issue was whether they should take the "buyout" that was proposed by the trump administration. our recommendation was, no, for a couple of reasons. one was, we did not think the money had been appropriated to do what was proposed. a sickly the offer was, if you reside today we will pay you for the next six months or so. even though you are not working. there is no money appropriated for that as far as we know. also we were concerned about enforceability. if you accept the agreement the terms that were floated in the contract that the trump administration sent did not have any kind of enforcement clause. if you accept it but they renege on the deal what do you do? it is not clear based on what was sent. but lastly, the government is supposed to be providing services to the american people, not paying people to not show up for jobs. as i have been telling people,

the sopranos have no-show jobs, the federal government shouldn't. host: are all federal employees when they are initially hired in a probationary period? and how long is that? guest: it is one year, and not all federal employees, but most. there are many that are hired, like for example, and i was a federal prosecutor i did not get civil service protections for that position, so i was essentially an at will employee for my term there. most people have probationary periods and then if they get into the civil service structure after a year they do have a degree of protections. host: those that are in favor of what doge is doing is saying, what is wrong with going through the federal government and seeing where the places are that we can save money, if there is fraud going on, if waste is going on that should be a good thing. guest: i agree that going after waste, fraud, and abuse should

be done, but they are not doing it the right way. just a couple of points to make on that front. every major department in the federal government has an office of inspector general. the first thing the trump administration did was follow all of the ig's across the board. windows came in the ig's were already gone. instead of consulting with the people doing these investigations -- and some of these investigations might have been, you know, midway down, they be not even completed -- they fired them and move them out and decided to start from scratch. they brought in a group of people that did not have any kind of investigation experience. the other part of it is none of them seem to have gone through any kind of vetting process. they don't seem to have security clearances and are being given access to highly personal information. medical data that we don't want

to necessarily have made available for any circumstances whatsoever. you want to make sure the people that see it have the clearances and protections to handle it in the right way. the biggest issue with the musk effort is he has obvious conflicts of interest. he owns businesses that are doing work with the government and have major contracts and there are open investigations with respect to two of his companies i'm aware of, and he had access to some of that information, which he should not. there is a lot of concerns about what musk is doing, but there is a right way to do it. a lot of this could have been done, instead of firing employees or trying to force them out, do the investigation first. if you identify waste, fraud, and use, fire people or send them to be prosecuted by the department of justice. they put the cart before the horse.

they started firing people right away and not doing investigations. host: how are congressional democrats responding to this? guest: we are opposing what musk is doing from that standpoint. we have seen protests and demonstrations at some of the departments. the department of labor was one hours at. maybe a week and a half ago. in some instances we have had members of congress go to these buildings, but they were denied access to even getting in the building, which is astonishing to me. even the public, everybody should be able to get into the building. senators and congressmen should be able to get in and make legitimate inquiries as to, what are you doing and looking at? host: who stopped them from going in the building? guest: security at the building that i think was told to do that by the trump administration. we had never had that happen before. host: we have congressmen glenn ivey with us until the house gavels in in in about 20 minutes.

if you would like to call in you can do so now. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. and independents, (202) 748-8002 . the white house press secretary addressed charges that the trump 's actions were causing a constitutional crisis. i want to play a bit of that and then have you respond to it. >> before i take questions i would like to address an extremely dishonest narrative we have seen. many outlets in this room have been fear mongering the american people into believing there is a constitutional crisis taking place here at the white house. i have been hearing those words lately. the real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch, the district court judges and liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block president

trump's basic executive authority. we believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law and they have issued at least 12 injunctions against this administration in the past 14 days, often without citing any evidence or grounds for their lawsuits. this was part of a larger concerted effort by democratic activists and nothing more than the continuation of the weaponization of justice against president trump. /to these judges. 77 million americans voted to elect this president. each injunction is -- as the president stated yesterday, we will comply with the law and courts, but we will also continue to seek every legal remedy ultimately overturn these radical injunctions and ensure president trump's policies can be enacted. host: congressman ivey, your

reaction to that? guest: it is interesting. the first injunction on birthright citizenship was put in place by a ronald reagan appointee. her suggestion that these are all liberal judges, i think, is factually incorrect. beyond that i think if the trump administration wants to criticize judicial decisions that is one thing. i think where we get more concern is where you have people like vice president jd vance say things like, we might have to remove some of these federal judges, and i think elon musk actually went even further yesterday and talked about impeaching these judges. that is problematic because that is an -- that is an intimidation . judges were not doing anything wrong, even one that was reversed yesterday with respect to an injunction, i'm not saying because he reversed his position should be impeached. remember, impeachment is for

high crimes and misdemeanors. when they start talking about impeachment that is another level because it goes to the heart of judicial independence and undermining that, the way that i think that is not based on preserving separation of powers and checks and balances the framers put in place. host: she mentioned the media were fear mongering that there is a constitutional crisis. do you believe there is a constitutional crisis in this country? guest: i can't say we are there yet, but it feels like based on some of the things the trump administration was saying, certainly about judges, is heading in that direction, laying the foundation for it. i don't know that we are there yet. the other piece too was congress, republicans controlled the senate and house. house and senate republicans were not doing anything to impose any checks and balances on the white house. that is their call, but the bigger concern is the

impoundment conversation coming out of the trump administration. impoundment means we are going to ignore the constitutional power of the purse that was given to congress and say, look, we don't care if you appropriated money for a particular purpose, the president is going to decide to hold the money and use it for what he wants to use it for. then if you do both of those you totally undermine the separation of powers and the three branches of government. if you get to that point that could be a constitutional crisis. host: we have got callers waiting to talk to you. first is parry in montgomery, alabama. democrat. caller: good morning. good morning, representative ivey. democrats come on these shows and they don't understand about the talking points the republicans have to give to these people, why these people vote for them. so it is going to take something to hurt them to realize you are voting the wrong way. but when it comes to the democrats you have to understand

also that they push everything they say and they are not going to listen to anything else, but c-span, msnbc, and all of those other places are not going to push your points for you if you do not come up with some kind of means you are going to let these people know about these policies that are going to hurt them. so, these policies that are going to hurt them is going to hit them hard and they are going to turn back around and say they are thinking it should be a democrat that rescued them. it's going to be too late by the time you get through four, and five, and 10 years. some of these things are going to hurt people for years. host: go ahead, congressman. guest: i think there is good points there. the communications issue for democrats is significant. i think it is one of the main reasons we lost the white house in 2024. he didn't do a good job of explaining to the public the positive things the biden administration had done, certainly from an economic standpoint. trump was very effective in

communicating his positions and he did it through not just the legacy media, but also a whole network of whether they are podcasts or other means, where he was reaching republicans and persuadables. as far as the other aspect of that, depending on how this plays out a lot of people could be hurt by some of the policies he is putting in place. especially from an economic standpoint. if he moves forward these tariffs that is basically a tax increase and increased cost for americans across the country. and i'm not sure why he would want to do that. the economy he got from biden is in pretty good shape. we are doing better than most of the western world on that front. but, you know, he is not doing the things he said he would do. he has done a big flurry of activity, but very little to address the economy in ways he talked about, and i hope he will get focused on that in the near

future. host: here is john, a republican in texas. caller: good morning. i have a couple of concerns. first, you just mentioned that your concern about the independence of the judiciary. we all know the democrats attacked the supreme court. chuck schumer stood on the senate steps and threatened the supreme court. he threatened to pack the supreme court. so, your hypocrisy is unbelievable. what really concerns the american people is that the democrats don't seem to care. this is not your money, ok? the fact that you can sit there and go, the process is, and lie about medicare. we are not going to take it away. government is corrupt to the bone. we need to fix it. if you don't want to do it, then quit. but it is not your money, it is ours, ok? which part of that do you not understand? host: ok, john. guest: i have voters who sent me here to congress and they feel a

bit differently about it than you do, as far as how the money should be spent. for example, title i dollars for education. i think we should be sending money to help low income districts in red and blue states hire more teachers. i think that is a good thing. meals on wheels is a good thing. cancer research i think is a good thing. and i think most americans support those things. you might not, but i think most americans do. but the democratic process is aimed at making a decision about where the money should go based on what the elected leaders determine. i'm on the appropriations committee. that should be the function of what we do and the president obviously has a say, but i think that is the way it should work. on the judiciary piece, you know , i never took a position about impeaching supreme court justices or federal judges. i have just never said that. i think it is ok to disagree with judges for the rulings they make and the decisions they reach, but to start talking about teaching them, just

because you don't agree in this instance with the injunctions they put in place? that is not the right way to go and it certainly is not the structure the framers put in place. this worked pretty well for the past 2.5 centuries. host: here is harry, an independent in afferent, florida. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. congressman ivey, i wanted to talk about the elon and doge. i think the bigger concern is not so much that they are not qualified or they don't have the background checks. the problem is that they are basically hackers, and camino, this is a data heist. elon owns a data center in texas , and a starlink network. if you are able to suck all of this proprietary data into the data center and train the data center -- you know, to train the

ai, you would have chatgpt meets jay groover, if you will. so type in the congressman's name and up comes everything, basically, all of your bank information, medical information, everything you have ever watched on netflix, everywhere page you have ever been to, on and on. that information could be weaponized and used for doxing purposes to oppress and manipulate the united states. unfortunately i think that is what is happening and there is nothing so far that has been stopping in. that is my concern. guest: i think that is a fair concern, and there are other aspects of that too that go to the conflicts of interest issue. taking all of this information and using it, for example, to benefit some of his companies. the issue potentially that was raised with respect to the consumer protection board, that was just shuttered, or they are trying to shut down, was that he

has an interest in moving forward if a business interest that could be regulated or limited by what the cfpb does, and they wanted to get it out of the way. i don't know if that is true or not, back to my original point of vetting these people. we need to make sure we know what interests he has got, what conflicts there might so we can separate that out. if there are too many then you cannot wall them off, and frankly that is what it feels like. he is a multibillionaire with a web of interest across-the-board. maybe he should not be in that position to do that. i think that might be too much power and access to information for him to have under these circumstances. host: he is steve in mentor, ohio. good morning, steve. caller: good morning. congressman, what do you think about the separation between the

democrats and the republicans and just moved to states where the democrats want to live, and then let the republicans, you know, do whatever they want to do? there is an old saying. you can lead a horse to the water, but you can't make him drink. so, if they want to go down that road, i think there is a peaceful separation, people that are democratic leaning, let them move to the states, people that want to, you know, not drink the water or drink the kool-aid, let them do whatever they want to do, period. thank you. guest: well, i appreciate the comment. there are a lot of people voting with their feet. one of the things of political segregation, i will call it, people are moving to places where like-minded people live

already. i think there is a lot of that underway. the challenge, though, is i think there are a lot of decisions that have to be made for the country as a whole, especially with respect to foreign policy and national security and the overall economy that i think we need to be thinking and working together. even though we don't necessarily think alike we need to think together and try and work to do the best things for the nation as a whole. and move it forward in a positive way. because if we do it the right way the rising tide will lift all boats. host: congressman, i know you have to run, so i want to be respectful of your time. representative glenn ivey of maryland is on the appropriations committee. >> today president trump welcomes the indian prime minister modi for bilateral talks. they'll hold a press conference and