after his diagnosis and he and i knew how lucky we were. we knew how lucky and he was to have health insurance. we knew we were lucky to have flexibility with our jobs for him to focus on getting better and me to focus on caring for him, of loving him come of marrying him, and when he found out his cancer was terminal to walk him to his passing. i decided to run for office because i do not believe in delaware or here in the united states and the wealthiest nation on earth that time and ability to get care should be a matter of luck. watch new members of congress all this week starting at 9:30 p.m. on c-span. looking to conquer contact -- looking to conduct members of congress?

c-span is making it easy for you. this compact guide contains bio and contact information for every house and senate member of the 119th congress, contact information on congressional committees, federal agencies, and state governors. the congressional directory cost $32.95 plus shipping and handling and every purchase helps support c-span's nonprofit operations. just skim the code on the right and go to c-spanshop.org to preorder your copy today. >> today washington dc mayor muriel bowser will speak over the future of the nation's capital under the second trump administration. live coverag gets away at 11:00 a.m. easrn on c-span and also on c-span now or online at c-span.org.

ome to the program. tell us about the daily wire and your show. guest: the daily wire has existed for 10 years which makes me feel old. my show has been on for eight years. i got my show through a strange series of events. i published a book called reasons to vote for democrats: a comprehensive guide. as a published because it did not have any words. host: it was 266 empty pages. guest: it was just irritate my liberal friends and relatives. very few words. i self published it and i hit number one on the charts. i think i am the only person little media history who got a show for not writing a book. host: or writing a blank book. you spoke at cpac yesterday and you at first attended in 2011.

tell us about the difference between what you saw in 2011 and today? guest: cpac has changed many times. it is an institution that has been around for many decades. 2011 was the height of the obama years. everyone was more depressed. maybe people were drinking more in those days to get through those difficult years. now people are exhilarated. i think the feeling is different than it was in 2016. i think the reason for that is this time around president trump won the popular vote so there is a real sense of excitement there is a new voter coalition, huge swaths of voting democratics -- of voting demographics that have been secure for democrats for decades have come over in this election. there is a feeling of vibrancy. it is always fun to be at cpac but it is especially fun when your side wins. host: you spoke about there being a disconnect between what the popular vote once and what the establishment delivers.

talk about that disconnect. guest: a great example is on immigration. for my entire life we've been told we have two options, more illegal immigration or more legal immigration. if you look at public opinion polls, the vast majority of americans want to drastically reduce all immigration. not because we do not like immigrants or have anything against people from various countries. we just happen to have the largest foreign worker percentage of the population ever. it is hard to assimilate people and a lot of people believe we have to put the brakes on this, especially if illegal immigration is such a serious problem. this new coalition is formed in part because people feel neither major political party has really represented them in recent decades, which breeds opportunity. host: you believe immigrants are not assimilating in the united states? guest: i don't blame the immigrants. i think there's been a

multicultural push for some decades to not assimilate, to view america last as a melting pot and more as a salad bowl, as i was taught in school. this is reflected in public opinion polls. the harvard harris poll said most americans want the caps on legal immigration to be 500,000. when you chill into the numbers you realize we take in between 1 million and 1.2 million people per year. that is a lot of people. the movement of people into the country for the last 65 years's largest movement of people in recorded history. i like people from all over the world but it a certain point need to make sure you maintain social cohesion. host: do you believe that would impact the economy negatively. in other words we have a low unemployment rate right now. do you think having less legal immigration would make that worse and make it much harder to find people for those jobs? guest: even reducing illegal immigration will have an effect on the economy.

this is the way mass migration has been sold, not just in the united states but in europe, which is the economy will collapse if we do not take in people from around the world. this is why you are seeing more of a focus on family policy, on encouraging people to get married and have children. it is a thorny social problem without question and has to be done carefully and in an intentionally way. as jd vance said at the munich security conference, he said united states is not nearly an economic zone. our chief goal is not merely to take up the gdp. we are a nation and we need to balance that as well make sure we do not put the cart before the horse. host: if you would like to join our conversation you can do so. our lines are (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats, and (202) 748-8002 for independents. the washington post it sows has put out a poll and i wanted to share the results on the

question, do you approve or disapprove of the way donald trump is handling his job as president? right now his approval of u.s. adults overall is 45%. 53% disapprove. why do you think that is? guest: in a country as divided as ours those numbers are not that bad. in part it is because there's so much to do in the first month of this presidency. the situation was quite dire. this is how trump won the popular vote as a republican for the first time in 20 years. it will take a while to unify americans. when they see the results beyond the first month in office i think most americans will be pleased with what they see. people have been attacking elon musk and doge for consolidating the federal government. my advice to democrats is if you want to run on a federal bloat and bureaucracy, be my guest, i look forward to the midterms.

host: you approve of how doge is going about cutting the federal workforce? guest: without question. i think doge is doing a great job. some people have made the argument that doge is unprecedented and upending the american tradition. the president for doge goes back to the wilson administration. wilson himself created through executive action the bureau of efficiency, almost the same name. he was followed by fpr -- by fdr that create major reform. host: did they do the same things? guest: they did the same things but in fdr's case they are growing the government. reagan had the grace commission. the clearest analog come from the clinton administration. this was when al gore established the national partnership for reinventing government. the national partnership for reinventing government got rid

of something like a quarter million federal jobs, consolidated 800 federal agencies. it took a big slah to the government. it is the one nice thing i will say about al gore ever. you cannot say what elon musk is doing is unprecedented. there's a lot of president and most of it has been from democrats. host: you don't think the american people will see any impact to all of those positions being cut? we had a call in the last segment from somebody in the v.a. and she said there are nurses having their contracts revoked, doctors. she said the veterans will feel that impact. guest: i don't know anyone who defends the current state of the v.a. and i have a lot of friends who served in the military. there is a lot of reform that is required. the question is do we maintain the status quo? especially in the executive agencies and the bureaucracy. that was a question put on the

ballot box in november and a majority of voters said we do not. say what you will about president trump or elon musk. you cannot say trump hit the ball. he was campaigning with elon musk. this was a major campaign promise. if people are upset. i'm not upset with the government becoming more efficient, reducing the size and scope. the people are upset, the only people to blame are the voters. host: let me ask you about the war in ukraine. president trump has said president zelenskyy is a dictator and ukraine started the war. why do you think he is using that kind of language when clearly russia started the war? guest: russia invaded. it is a longer standing conflict that goes back to 2014 with the obama administration. i suspect he is referring to volodymyr zelenskyy as a dictator because he has suspended elections and instituted martial law. there is a funny argument for the people who want to continue

the war. they say this is a war for democracy and there is a great fear. newsweek had an article. there is a great fear that if ukraine holds elections the voters might kick out of zelenskyy. let us democracy. host: it is strange president trump has not called vladimir putin a dictator who has been in power for 25 years and holds sham elections and all of his critics end up poisoned. guest: president trump has been tougher on vladimir putin than any president in my lifetime. host: how so? guest: trump's administration only administration during which vladimir putin to not further invade another country. invaded georgia under bush, he invaded crimea under obama, he went into ukraine further. in other trump he got stopped. then under joe biden he launched this massive invasion. i think president trump's most precise comment on ukraine is the war would not have started on his watch.

people say that trump boasts or he exaggerates. in that example we have clear historical evidence. host: and you believe that ultimately president trump will be able to negotiate a fair and lasting peace between russia and ukraine? guest: certainly. i am quite confident in his abilities. what i'm even more confident of his joe biden cannot do that. what i more confident of is barack obama cannot do that. i am willing to give president trump a chance. the question for the people who do not want president trump to try to broker a peace is what is your idea for the end of the war? as of right now it seems to be the american grand strategy stated explicitly by many people within and without the government is what ukraine remain a meatgrinder so we can reduce the capacity of the russian military which is a euphemism to kill more russians and to sacrifice an entire generation of ukrainians to do it.

this does not seem amoral view of the war and is does not seem sustainable. we are talking about a conflict that could easily expand and could lead to potentially a global conflict when we are dealing with a major nuclear power. president trump has a realistic vision of foreign policy. he is much more interested in peace than many people in washington and i think a lot of americans voted for him because of that. host: let's talk to callers. we will start with al in tennessee. independent bank. you're on with michael knowles. caller: i would like the guest to address the bifurcation of the republican party. you have the trump crew versus the gop establishment. you see that even in the call in categories. about 40% of people are independent, about 30% democrats and 30% republicans. of republicans i would say half of those are maga so only 15% of

your collins are maga publicans. the moderator brought up vladimir putin being a dictator. i will remind everyone that people in washington, d.c. vote for democrats about 94%. there is only matched by african dictators. and where we have "the new york times, washington post as fact-check and the topic generation. the new york times took $29 million from hhs and use that to forward government narratives and cancel people. the washington post took money from usaid. politico took usaid money. when you spread all of those newspapers out understand that is not news. that is regime propaganda. we all know it. now we have quantified the dollar value. have some introspection at c-span. i think your programs would be a

lot better. thank you. host: your thoughts? guest: i think most of his comments are directed at the media and c-span but as much as this involves me i think he makes a good point about the republican party. there has been a split between the older bush from the wing of the party in this new trump wing. the way this is often presented in the establishment media as this is a hostile takeover of republican party or somehow the true republicans have been rejected. is a great threat to the party. i cannot help but notice trump has grown the party. we look at 2024, the first popular vote win. when you look at trump getting one in five black male voters, 46% of hispanics, something like 40% of women over 45. the most shocking number to meet was 40% of women under the age of 30. we were told this was the voting group most inclined to vote for kamala. they voted for donald trump.

i totally understand trump has changed the republican party but if i am looking at those numbers and i am a gop strategist it is clear he has change the party for the better. host: you did mention newsweek and the caller mentioned the new york times, here is a backcheck that says the u.s. government did not give the new york times tens of millions of dollars. just to clarify that. let's talk to pat in west virginia, a democrat. caller: good morning. i want to put a little comical error on it. the republicans every election cycle come up with some kind of make america great again some kind of moniker they use. i'm reminded of the andy griffin that show where he takes a u-turn and gives a ticket to gomer for making a u-turn.

he says "a citizens arrest." if you listen to it it sounds quite a bit like a citizens arrest. waste fraud and abuse. it is all nonsense. thank you for your time. guest: i think there's a lot of waste and fraud and abuse in the federal government. i think most democrats in this town, especially those familiar with the government would acknowledge there are some inefficiencies that could be corrected and that is what is being corrected now. host: here is stephen in kansas. republican. caller: enjoy the

in his last year in office to repeal the amendment that term limits the president but i do not think that will happen anytime soon. it seems like a rube good pork political -- it seems like a rube goldberg political machine for trump to become speaker of the house and the other guys to leave and he becomes the president. reminds me of guys in 2018 who said here's a weird trick for bernie to get the democratic nomination. more importantly for trump's legacy, trump has legitimately change the republican party. i think he has done this for the better and in many ways he has restored some of the best aspects of the republican party. the-- the question for his legay is what happens after he leaves office and there are a number of contenders who could pick up that mantle, but you will see his legacy i think not merely through him installing himself

as caesar and remaining president until he is 500, but you will see it in his successors. host: i wanted to ask you about things that callers in the last segment said, that they are worried that trump will announce some sort of a national emergency, state of emergency, and suspend elections. that there will not even be elections after this. i take it that you disagree with that, number one, and number to believe that the republican party would stand up to that and refused to go along with it? guest: the hypothetical is ridiculous. what trump did most conspicuously in his first month in power is reduced his own power, because he is streamlining the federal government, reducing its size and scope, trying to get all of the inefficiency out. very few future dictators would remove their own power as their first act in office. host: you believe that the

president now will have less power as a result of trump's actions? 8 like -- guest: by cutting his budgets i think that is exactly what will happen in that is his stated goal. now, getting back to this question of the peaceful transfer of power, i'm old enough to remember bush v gore, 2000, when democrats didn't accept those results. hillary clinton referring to the trump election is illegitimate. i think stacey abrams is so pretending to be the governor of georgia. if anyone questions the results of an election, i would have a greater fear that that would come from democrats. host: david, independent line, new jersey. caller: good morning, thank you. i think an area where republicans and democrats could come together to really stop abuse would be in the community action programs that stand in the middle of the money stream

between the federal government and head start. head start is a highly emotional issue, because it is iconic from lyndon johnson. it is in project 2025 because it is such a red flag. but the bipartisan piece is that these community action programs around the united states collect -- i don't know, a range of $1 billion per year and they are not monitored by either republicans or democrats for how they use the money. here in flemington, the minute flemington dropped below the federal poverty line, the community action program headquartered in philipsburg, new jersey rushed in and filled it with programs like head start. i'm not debating the lives of children, ok?

that's cool. i'm not debating how long you should be here and who should get it. but what this community action program did in philipsburg and around the country, they treat those federal dollars as their own. they pay their executives whatever they blame well please. i know that as a matter of fact, they pay poverty wages to the employees, but they are employees of private community action programs. they pay them such a low wage, but just above the poverty line themselves, for they cannot get medicaid and food stamps. they are outrageous in terms of benefits. they work them like dogs. guest: let's -- host: let's get a response. guest: there's a lot of graft in these programs. zooming out, nobody in the country objects to educating children. when you zoom out, no one objects to the efficient and

just use of the government and some kind of staff or executive office to carry that out. the devil is in the details. of course that is the case. a lot of what you have seen from those cuts in usaid have highlighted from people how absurd the uses of their taxpayer dollars are. one example from last week was rory stewart, the former u politician who is now a professor at yale, he recently picked a fight with jd vance, complaining that his wife's nongovernment organization had a contract with usaid and they were going to stiff the ngo, stewart's wife, for $1 million left on the contract and he was upset about this. he was asked -- what does the organization do? turns out one of their initiatives is to teach afghan citizens about the modern art of a man who called a urinal a great work of art. i thought i'm all for interesting art but it seems to me that there would be better

uses for that money. host: $1 million for the lesson? just one lesson? 8 -- guest: they cut that contract, though i don't know the precise costs of the one lecture on the urinal. host: stephen, indiana, democratic line. caller: good morning. i have one simple comment to straighten the stuff up. trump won the presidency both times because of his opponents. a woman for president. i'm 63. my grandson might see that. a woman for president is not going to happen. it's not how great trump is. that's the facts. guest: i don't know, we have had

women in pretty prominent positions of power. never president, but the democrats keep putting up bad candidates. hillary clinton is one of the most detested figures in american public life and kamala harris was a extremely weak candidate. she was at a disadvantage in part because she never had a real primary. the one time that she ran in the primary, she was out almost immediately, the first candidate out. nobody really wanted her. you know, conservatives like women in politics. maggie thatcher across the atlantic is the clearest example. we have lots of great governors and plenty of strong and powerful women in the administration. the two candidates the democrats put up, let's just say, as trump says, the democrats are not sending their best. host: who do you think will be the first republican woman president of the united states? guest: judging by the past election cycle, nikki haley probably wants to do that.

christine owens at dhs might be eyeing that job. sarah sanders, who was so prominent in the first trump administration it is now governor of arkansas has a real shot at it. it would probably drive friends on the left crazy if the first woman president were a republican, but there are good candidates if they want the job. host: all right. this is gary, newport, kentucky, good morning. caller: good morning. some change, that says it all. [indiscernible] trump is getting things done. to sum it up, it's a ping-pong match with democrats and republicans that play with immigration. they wanted that to stop. as far as ukraine, colin powell said one time i had to shake hands with some pretty bad people. i think that's what trump is doing, shaking hands and trying

to get things done over there. host: cash patel was confirmed yesterday. what kind of changes do you think we will see at the fbi? guest: as a catholic, we need to stop the abuse. i shouldn't have been surprised but i was quite scandalized that during the obama or the biden administration, the fbi was spying on catholic parishes. then the fbi came out and lied about it and said it was only one field office and we later found out that it was multiple field offices viewing catholics as extremists, traditionalist ideologues, it's completely unacceptable to spy on christians simply for practicing their faith, the traditional faith of this very country, matter of fact. you also need to stop the abuse with the fbi and doj targeting parents who have legitimate questions about how their children are being educated.

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