0:03

Welcome to Washington Today on C-SPAN Radio for Thursday, March

0:06

28, 2024. Immigration

0:08

and Customs Enforcement announces the arrest of over

0:10

200 non-U.S. citizens for drug-related

0:13

crimes. Census Bureau revises

0:15

for the first time in decades how

0:18

it categorizes people by race and ethnicity.

0:20

We'll talk about it with NPR

0:22

correspondent Hansi Lo Wang. Former

0:25

President Donald Trump, a Republican presidential candidate,

0:27

attends the wake of a murdered New

0:29

York City police officer calling for more

0:32

law and order. Salvage

0:34

operations begin in Baltimore at the bridge that

0:36

collapsed after being hit by a container ship.

0:39

U.S. State Department is disappointed, it

0:41

says, in Russia's veto of a

0:44

United Nations Security Council resolution to

0:46

extend North Korean sanctions monitoring. We

0:49

remember the late Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who was

0:51

died at the age of 82,

0:54

and the new owner of the Baltimore

0:56

Orioles billionaire David Rubenstein speaks to the

0:58

fans on this opening day of the

1:00

Major League Baseball season, saying he hopes

1:02

to unite the city and win

1:05

a World Series again. Headline

1:08

at ABC News, ICE arrests

1:10

216 unauthorized migrants in nationwide

1:12

drug crackdown. The subhead,

1:15

the non-citizens from 28 countries

1:17

were apprehended for various crimes, including

1:19

drug possession and drug trafficking, U.S.

1:22

Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced. The

1:25

ICE Acting Deputy Director PJ

1:27

Leichner held a news conference

1:30

today at ICE headquarters in Washington.

1:32

Today I'm very pleased to announce

1:34

the results of a 12-day ERO

1:36

operation targeting non-citizens who have been

1:38

convicted of either drug trafficking offenses

1:40

or multiple drug possession offenses involving

1:44

methamphetamine, fentanyl, cocaine,

1:46

heroin, or synthetic drugs.

1:50

Many of the people arrested during this operation

1:52

have final orders of removal, which

1:55

means that once they're in ERO custody, we

1:57

can remove them to their home countries. This

2:00

significant nationwide operation ran from March

2:02

11 through March 22 covering 25 areas

2:06

of operation across the U.S. from Boston

2:08

to Seattle, including our nation's capital right

2:11

here. This operation

2:13

enabled us to do what ERO was created

2:15

to do, and that is

2:17

focus on smart, effective immigration enforcement

2:19

to protect our homeland by arresting

2:21

and removing people who undermine

2:23

public safety and violate the integrity

2:26

of our immigration laws. The

2:28

ICE National Criminal Analysis and Targeting

2:30

Center identified 419 non-citizens who were subject

2:34

to law enforcement action during this

2:36

operation. Some of the

2:39

people we arrested include a

2:41

44-year-old citizen of Mexico who was

2:43

arrested in New Jersey and was

2:45

convicted of money laundering, narcotics conspiracy,

2:48

felony distribution and possession with

2:50

intent to distribute heroin

2:52

and possession or use of a

2:54

firearm in relation to

2:57

drug trafficking. We also

2:59

arrested a 34-year-old citizen of El

3:01

Salvador in Cincinnati who was

3:03

convicted of felony conspiracy to possess with the

3:05

intent to distribute fentanyl. And

3:09

in Orlando, ERO officers arrested

3:11

a 32-year-old citizen of India

3:13

who was convicted of trafficking

3:15

oxycodone and felony possession of

3:17

a controlled substance with intent

3:19

to sell or deliver. Again,

3:22

this operation resulted in a total of 216

3:25

arrests, pretty significant,

3:28

all connected to the terrible drug epidemic

3:30

that's sweeping our country. ICE

3:33

Acting Deputy Director PJ Leichner at

3:35

a news conference in Washington. Story

3:38

from CBS, House Republicans are set

3:40

to present the articles of impeachment against

3:42

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro

3:44

Mayorkas to the Senate after

3:47

Congress returns from recess next month. Kickstarting

3:49

a clash over an impeachment trial in

3:52

the upper chamber, the Democrats are expected

3:54

to work to quickly squash. Speaker

3:56

Mike Johnson And the House impeachment managers

3:58

wrote in a letter. to Senate Majority

4:01

Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday that they

4:03

intend to present the Senate with the

4:05

impeachment articles on Wednesday, April tenth, after

4:07

both chambers returned from a two week

4:09

break. Johnson. Said in a

4:11

statement. if he cares about the

4:13

constitution and ending the devastation caused

4:15

by Biden Sport a catastrophe Center

4:17

Schumer will quickly schedule a full

4:19

public trial and here of the

4:21

arguments put forth. By. Our impeachment

4:24

managers that reporting from Cbs

4:26

News. The Office

4:28

of Management and Budget Today has

4:30

issued updated standards for the Census

4:32

Bureau's maintaining collecting and presenting race

4:34

and ethnicity data as he will

4:36

long. Npr car spun covers the

4:39

census. Join just now to talk

4:41

about it. Thanks for being with

4:43

us What our of changes to

4:45

the two big changes. The first

4:47

one is a new checkbox for

4:49

Middle Eastern or North African age

4:52

related to change The Federal government's

4:54

definition of the white racial category

4:56

will. No longer include groups

4:58

like Egyptian, Iranian, and Israeli, Kurdish,

5:00

Lebanese of Funny and Serious as

5:02

because there's been research suggesting that

5:04

many People's a Day with roots

5:06

in the Middle East or North

5:08

Africa do not see themselves as

5:10

white. And the other major change

5:13

gets at the confusion that a lot

5:15

of Latinos experience when they try to

5:17

answer the census. Yeah, there's a growing

5:19

number Latinos. You consider both their ethnicity

5:21

and their race to be like you

5:23

know, rain out for reforms are required

5:25

to ask about a person's that the

5:27

identity separate from their racial identity as

5:30

you can sell them it considers like

5:32

you know to be and ethnicity that

5:34

can be of any race. And what

5:36

the changes is that there's going to

5:38

be a combined question that asked what

5:40

is your race and. Or ethnicity

5:42

and instructions to select all

5:44

the check is that apply.

5:47

And why were the changes made? This

5:50

is part of overview The

5:52

White House's Office Manager and

5:54

Budget says to make sure

5:56

that a government statistics about

5:58

race, ethnicity. Like tell

6:01

people identify today. You know the

6:03

last time these city school standards

6:05

that lot of people probably haven't

6:08

heard of else. Glides are the

6:10

things that that policy that under

6:12

girds the Census Bureau of Statistics.

6:14

that of all the other federal

6:17

government statistics. These.

6:19

Standards. Hadn't been updated since Nineteen

6:22

Ninety Seven, which is now more than

6:24

a quarter century ago and certainly help

6:26

people and United States think about race,

6:28

ethnicity, Think about their identities has changed

6:31

as it has. Over

6:33

the centuries and so this is

6:35

part of that review that was

6:37

started during the Obama administration. It

6:39

was stalled during the Trump administration

6:41

and so others expectation that we

6:43

would have seen seventy changes by

6:45

the twenty twenty cents is didn't

6:47

happen in our the by him

6:49

as recent. As revived

6:51

then and now and downs than and

6:53

we set them on the path to

6:56

have some major changes happening on the

6:58

Twenty Thirty senses. And before we get

7:00

to their some other federal forms or

7:03

will likely see those changes happening before,

7:05

Twenty Thirty is today's announcement, the final

7:07

step. Or could Congress still waiting. For.

7:10

This is a decision that is

7:12

made by the White House's Office

7:14

Management and Budget which sets the

7:16

Sisters school standards and as far

7:18

as I know. There

7:21

is no. State of

7:23

Role of Congress. Of course. there

7:25

could certainly be some new laws,

7:28

new bills introduced, pass laws passed

7:30

that would force the Census Bureau

7:32

to do certain things start. Not

7:35

collect information on certain things is that

7:37

the city start collecting it's circulating it.

7:39

That is certainly have been about something

7:41

to watch out for, but I as

7:43

far as I can tell right now.

7:46

with the next steps are are

7:49

for the federal agencies including the

7:51

census bureau to review these new

7:53

policy changes and to guess there's

7:55

forms to get their databases in

7:58

line with all these changes.

8:00

They have until next September,

8:06

public action plan and

8:08

ultimately to have all their surveys

8:10

and data sets ready

8:13

to go in line with these new standards by

8:15

2029. Finally,

8:18

how is race and ethnicity data

8:20

used by the government? Well,

8:22

this is data that really is part

8:25

of this hidden infrastructure in a

8:27

lot of ways that these are

8:30

statistics that maybe a lot of

8:32

people don't think about, but they're

8:34

used to, for example, redraw maps

8:36

of voting districts around the country.

8:38

They're used to enforce civil rights

8:40

protections. They're also used

8:43

for policymaking and for research, you

8:45

know, to figure out when there

8:47

are disparities between different populations. This

8:49

is the data that helps researchers,

8:52

policymakers figure that out in terms

8:54

of health care outcomes, in

8:57

terms of educational outcomes. This

8:59

is the way to figure out whether

9:02

some groups need more support and

9:05

more resources are facing discrimination and

9:07

there needs to be some remedy

9:09

for it. Han-Zi Lo Wang,

9:12

National Public Radio correspondent who covers

9:14

the census, you can follow him

9:16

on X at Han-Zi Lo Wang.

9:19

Thank you very much. You're very welcome. From

9:22

NBC News 4 in New York, hundreds

9:24

of family, friends and colleagues are expected

9:26

to attend the first of a two-day

9:28

week Thursday for NYPD officer Jonathan Diller,

9:31

a decorated member of the department who

9:33

was shot and killed during a Queens

9:35

traffic stop earlier this week. Mayor

9:37

Eric Adams, along with former President Donald Trump,

9:39

were expected to be among those in attendance

9:41

at Massapequa Funeral Home on

9:44

Long Island. Later in the afternoon,

9:46

a funeral mass for the 31-year-old

9:48

Diller, a three-year NYPD

9:50

veteran and new father, will be

9:52

held Saturday at St. Rose of Lima

9:54

Catholic Church. That was from NBC News

9:56

4 earlier today in a social media

9:58

post on Tuesday. Tuesday Donald Trump

10:01

noted that police said

10:03

that Diller's alleged shooter, Guy Rivera,

10:06

had numerous prior arrests declaring that he

10:08

never should have been let back out

10:10

on the street. Today, Donald

10:12

Trump, a Republican presidential candidate, spoke

10:14

to reporters at that

10:17

wake. He was joined by the Nassau

10:19

County executive, Bruce

10:21

Blakeman. Well

10:23

thank you very much everybody. I want to thank Bruce

10:25

and all of the people that have worked

10:28

so hard to make this area beautiful and safe.

10:30

And this is what happened

10:33

is such a sad, sad

10:35

event, such a horrible thing. And

10:38

it's happening all too often. And we're just

10:40

not going to let it happen. We just

10:42

can't 21 times arrest it, this thug. And

10:47

the person in the car with him was arrested

10:49

many times. And they

10:51

don't learn because they don't respect. They're

10:54

not given the respect. The police are the

10:56

greatest people we have. There's nothing and there's

10:58

nobody like them. And this should never happen.

11:00

I just visited with

11:03

a very beautiful wife that now doesn't have

11:05

her husband. Stephanie

11:07

was just incredible. Their

11:10

child, brand new, beautiful baby,

11:13

sitting there innocent as can be. And

11:16

doesn't know how his life has

11:19

been changed. But

11:21

the Diller family will, you'll

11:23

never be the same. You can never be the same. And

11:26

we have to stop it. We have to stop it. We have to

11:28

get back to law and order. We have to do a lot

11:31

of things differently because this is not working.

11:33

This is happening too often. It's

11:36

an honor to be here. And again, I want to just

11:38

thank all of you folks for

11:40

allowing this. And Bruce, thank you. Bruce has been a

11:43

friend of mine for a long time. He's done an

11:45

incredible job out here. But

11:47

this is such a sad occasion.

11:50

The only thing we can say is maybe something is

11:52

going to be learned. We've got to toughen it up.

11:54

We've got to strengthen it up. This should never be

11:56

allowed. Things like this shouldn't take place

11:58

and to take place so often. And so, thank

12:01

you all for being here. It's an honor, and it's

12:03

an honor for me to be here. This is a

12:05

great family, the Diller family. I met the

12:07

friends, and I met every one

12:09

of them inside. And these are just

12:11

incredible people that are just devastated. They're

12:14

devastated. They've got a tough road. It's

12:17

going to be a very tough road. So,

12:19

thank you very much, everybody. Appreciate it. I

12:28

just want to say thank you

12:30

to President Trump for

12:32

coming here to be with

12:34

the Diller family. It was very comforting for them.

12:37

It was very warm inside, and

12:39

people were very, very

12:44

blessed to have someone like

12:47

President Trump who cared so much, spent a

12:49

lot of time with the family, and was,

12:51

again, a tremendous comfort to

12:53

the family and probably the most difficult

12:55

time this family's ever had. May God

12:57

bless Stephanie. Ryan, we are going

13:00

to help raise because he's only one

13:02

years old, and he's going to grow up without a dad, but

13:04

he's going to have thousands

13:06

of dads that are going to look after

13:08

him, and to Fran, his mother, and to

13:11

Jennifer, and Jason, his brother and

13:13

sister, and the whole family, Aunt

13:15

Carol, Uncle Jimmy, our

13:17

hearts go out to them. May God

13:19

bless them, and may God bless America. Thank you.

13:39

Former President Donald Trump, a Republican presidential

13:42

candidate this year, along with Bruce Blakeman,

13:44

Nassau County executive in Massapequa, New York,

13:46

White House putting out a statement that

13:48

President Biden spoke to Mayor Adams and

13:50

gave his condolences about the tragic killing

13:52

of Officer Jonathan Diller. The President offered

13:54

Mayor Adams, the city of New York,

13:56

and the New York Police Department his

13:59

support. in the wake of the tragedy.

14:01

President Biden flew to New York today

14:03

and on the way up on Air

14:05

Force One, the White House Press Secretary,

14:07

Corinne Jean-Pierre, answered a reporter's question about

14:09

this. President Biden will be

14:11

in New York City for most of the day. During fundraising, President

14:15

Donald Trump is going to the wake of

14:17

the U.N.R.G. officer. I wondered if,

14:20

like you mentioned that the President spoke to

14:22

Mayor Adams, I wonder if he spoke to

14:24

the family of the officer and also, you

14:26

know, Trump is blaming a

14:28

lot of crime on Biden. I just wondered if you could

14:30

speak a little bit about that. So,

14:33

I don't have any private communications to share

14:35

at this time. Our hearts go

14:37

out, obviously, to the officers' family

14:40

and the broader NYPD family who

14:43

have tragically lost one

14:45

of their own. The President agrees for

14:47

them and honors their sacrifice. Look, the

14:49

President has stood with law enforcement his

14:51

entire career and continues to stand with

14:53

them as they put their lives on

14:56

the line for their communities. Under his

14:58

leadership, we will continue to support police

15:00

officers and ensure that they have resources

15:02

they need to continue to

15:04

do the work, the all-important work that they have to

15:06

do on behalf of the

15:08

community. Look, violent crime, and I'm

15:10

just going to be really clear about here.

15:13

I'm going to be careful about saying anything

15:15

about 2024, but violent crime surged under the

15:17

previous administration, which repeatedly attempted

15:20

to cut the COPS program. All

15:22

of their budgets targeted that means

15:25

that key funding for police and congressional

15:27

Republicans just proposed doing it again. So,

15:30

this is the President. The Biden-Harris

15:32

administration have done the polar opposite,

15:34

taking decisive action from the very

15:36

beginning to fund the police and

15:38

achieving a historic reduction in crime

15:40

under his leadership. And so, we're going

15:42

to continue to do that. One

15:45

more thing I want to say that

15:47

the funding because the President's budget also

15:49

proposes to fund the police and with

15:51

billions so the federal, state, and local

15:53

government can have more, can hire more

15:55

than 100,000 more officers. And I

15:57

think that's important to note as well. The

16:00

White House Press Secretary Corinne Jean-Pierre holding a

16:02

news conference on Air Force One and President

16:04

Joe Biden spending the day in New York

16:06

City, including that campaign fundraiser

16:09

with former President Barack Obama and former President

16:12

Bill Clinton. The Biden campaign estimates it will

16:14

raise $25 million. Former

16:18

Democratic presidential nominee and former Secretary

16:20

of State and former senator, former

16:22

First Lady Hillary Clinton hosted

16:24

a forum today about artificial intelligence

16:26

and elections in the U.S. and

16:28

around the world. It was at

16:30

Columbia University's Institute of Global Politics in New

16:33

York City. Hillary Clinton is

16:35

a professor of international and public affairs

16:37

at Columbia. A preview reads,

16:40

with billions heading to the polls this

16:42

year, the stakes for global democracies are

16:44

substantial. Generative AI advances

16:46

and broad accessibility are already shaping

16:48

sectors with exponential growth expected to

16:51

continue. How will these tools change

16:53

the information ecosystem, and how will

16:55

governments, campaigns, and the public respond

16:58

to new challenges? One

17:00

of the speakers today, former Homeland

17:02

Security Secretary in the George

17:04

W. Bush administration, Michael Chernoff. But

17:07

I would actually argue that this year we're

17:09

facing something that, in my view, is even

17:11

more dangerous. And that

17:14

is, it will be an effort to

17:16

discredit the entire system of elections and

17:18

democracy. We had

17:20

a defeated candidate, who I won't

17:23

mention their name, who was talked about

17:25

a rigged election. Now

17:27

imagine that for the people who are an

17:29

audience for that, they will start

17:31

to see videos or audios that

17:34

look like they're persuasively examples of

17:36

rigged elections. Now it's like

17:39

pouring gas or lean on a fire, and

17:41

we could have another January 6. And

17:44

I understand that the reason our adversaries

17:46

like this is because more

17:48

than anything else they want to undermine

17:51

our unity of effort and our democracy.

17:54

And in a world in which we

17:56

can't trust anything and we

17:58

can't believe in truth. We

18:00

can't have a democracy. And

18:02

that's, I think, going to lead to a third

18:05

consequence, which will be very dangerous. We're

18:08

talking about how do you distinguish and teach

18:10

people to distinguish deep

18:12

fakes from real things. And

18:15

the idea would be we don't want to have

18:17

them misled by the deep fakes. But I worry

18:19

about the reverse. In a world

18:21

in which people have been told about deep

18:23

fakes, do they say everything's a deep fake?

18:26

Therefore, even real evidence of

18:28

bad behavior has to be dismissed. And

18:31

then that really gives a license

18:33

to autocrats and corrupt government leaders

18:36

to do whatever they want. So

18:38

how do we help counteract that?

18:41

Well, I mean, there are some technological

18:43

tools. For example, there is now an

18:45

effort to do watermarking of

18:47

video and audio, where genuine video

18:49

or audio, when it's created, has

18:52

an encrypted mark such that

18:54

anybody who looks at it can validate

18:57

that it is real and

18:59

it's not fake. More

19:01

than that, we've got to teach people

19:03

about critical thinking and evaluation so

19:05

they can cross-check. When you get a story

19:09

that appears to stand alone, look to see

19:12

what are the other stories. Is anybody else

19:14

picking it up? And we need

19:16

to actually establish trusted voices

19:19

that are deliberately very careful

19:21

and very scientific about the

19:23

way they validate and test

19:25

things. And finally, I think we've

19:27

got to teach, even in the schools, and

19:30

this is going to start with kids, critical

19:33

thinking and values, what

19:35

it is that we care about

19:37

and why truth matters, why

19:40

honor matters, why ethics matters, and

19:43

then to have them bring that into the

19:45

way they read and look at things that

19:47

occur online. Michael Chertoff

19:49

was Homeland Security Secretary 2005 through 9, taking

19:51

part in today's forum at

19:57

Columbia University's Institute of

19:59

Technology. for global politics about AI

20:02

and elections. Another speaker there was

20:04

the Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn

20:06

Benson. We covered it on C-SPAN

20:08

and you can find the video

20:10

at c-span.org. On

20:13

Wall Street today the Dow up 47, NASDAQ down

20:15

20, S&P up 5. Some

20:18

Associated Press articles. The

20:20

number of Americans signing up for unemployment

20:22

benefits fell slightly last week. Another sign

20:25

that the labor market remains strong and

20:27

most workers enjoy extraordinary job security. jobless

20:29

claims dipped by 2000 to 210,000 the

20:31

labor department reported Thursday.

20:35

The four-week average of claims which smooths out week-to-week

20:37

ups and downs fell by 750 to 211,000. And

20:40

crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman Fried was sentenced

20:46

Thursday to 25 years in

20:48

prison for a massive fraud on

20:50

hundreds of thousands of customers that

20:52

unraveled with the collapse of FTX,

20:55

one of the world's most popular platforms

20:57

for exchanging digital currency. An update now

21:00

on the bridge collapse in Baltimore this

21:02

from Washington Post. Maryland will have access

21:04

to federal money in a matter of

21:06

days to pay for the start of

21:09

the Francis Scott Key Bridge recovery and

21:11

rebuilding mission. But longer-term funding from

21:13

Congress could take months to arrive Senator Chris

21:15

Van Hollen Democrat from Maryland told the Washington

21:17

Post on Thursday. So on

21:19

Thursday the state requested the initial payment

21:22

of 60 million dollars for early recovery

21:24

and cleanup. Tom Perez

21:26

is a senior advisor and assistant

21:28

president Biden. He's director of the

21:30

White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.

21:32

He was interviewed today on MSNBC

21:34

about the recovery efforts and also

21:37

the six Latino immigrant construction

21:39

workers who were killed in

21:41

the disaster. Yeah the most

21:44

fundamental right any worker has

21:46

when they go to work is to come home

21:48

safe and sound and and

21:50

they didn't and

21:53

I didn't sleep well last night

21:55

and and and my issues pale

21:57

in comparison to what they

22:00

are going through. One person kept

22:02

saying, one spouse kept saying, you

22:04

know, so it's all meant a

22:07

querpo, a querpo, a querpo. You

22:09

know, I just want his body and I

22:12

understand that and so

22:14

does the president. The president

22:17

instructed us from the moment we

22:19

learned about this roughly 48 hours

22:21

ago to move

22:23

heaven and earth to help everyone and

22:25

our first job here is the search

22:28

and recovery and as you're reporting

22:30

correctly noted, yesterday was a

22:32

horrible weather day and today

22:34

isn't much better and

22:36

notwithstanding that those first responders were

22:38

there, they were able to remove

22:41

and identify two of the bodies but

22:43

you know we still wait for

22:46

the remaining four. We

22:48

are moving heaven and earth. There's

22:50

a heavy lift

22:53

crane vessel that will be there later today

22:56

to help with the debris but

22:58

we're also incredibly sensitive to

23:00

the notion that this

23:03

is also the resting

23:05

place for four fathers, for four

23:07

brothers, for four sons

23:11

and so the humanity of the moment is still

23:13

something very much on Governor Moore's

23:15

mind and he's been doing a great job

23:18

and President Biden and all our local partners

23:20

in Baltimore County and Baltimore City. Tom

23:23

Perez, a senior White House advisor, interviewed

23:25

today on MSNBC. President Biden

23:27

has said that he expects the federal

23:30

government will pay to rebuild the bridge

23:32

in Baltimore. Today, Congressman Dan Musa, Republican

23:34

of Pennsylvania, said in a Fox News

23:37

Channel interview that he does not support

23:39

that. It was kind

23:41

of outrageous immediately for Biden

23:43

to express in this

23:45

tragedy the idea that he's going to use

23:48

federal funds to pay for the in entirety.

23:50

I mean you know he doesn't refer to

23:52

it as the American taxpayer dollars on anything.

23:54

You know the first reaction, in fact the

23:57

only reaction, just tends to be to spend.

24:00

Look, this was a

24:02

tragedy. We all saw it. People

24:04

lost their lives. And it is a very

24:06

important port. As you just mentioned a little

24:08

while ago, a lot of Pennsylvania's coal is

24:10

shipped out of there, 25%

24:13

automobiles, natural gas. So it needs

24:16

to be corrected. But this is

24:18

Singapore flagship number one. So

24:20

what responsibility are they going to

24:22

have? At least Janet Yellen is thinking a

24:25

little bit out of the box rather than

24:27

just spend the taxpayers' money and

24:29

see what insurance funding there would be.

24:31

And we got to get on that. We just

24:33

can't take the easy route all the time and

24:36

just try to spend the taxpayers' money. And something

24:38

else I'll add on that TNI bill last year,

24:40

there was $400 billion in excess. I

24:43

mean, that's why I didn't vote for it. 900

24:46

billion was one thing. 1.25 was another. 350

24:49

billion extra. And Maryland, by the way,

24:51

got almost $5 billion in addition to

24:54

its standard TNI funding.

24:56

So they've got the money. Congressman

24:59

Dan Muser, Republican from Pennsylvania today

25:01

on Fox News Channel. Washington

25:04

today continues in a moment. Hi there.

25:07

I'm Jonathan from C-SPAN along with

25:09

my colleague Ben. Since

25:11

C-SPAN's founding 45 years ago, the

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26:04

today. Thank you. Welcome

26:11

back to Washington Today, available as a podcast

26:13

wherever you find your podcasts and on the

26:15

C-SPAN Now mobile app. Russia

26:18

vetoed a UN resolution Thursday

26:20

in a move that effectively

26:22

abolishes the monitoring by United

26:24

Nations experts of UN sanctions

26:26

against North Korea aimed

26:29

at reining in its nuclear program, writes

26:31

the Washington Post, though the sanctions themselves

26:33

remain in place. Russia's vote

26:35

sparked Western accusations that Moscow was

26:37

acting to shield its weapons purchases

26:39

from North Korea for use in

26:41

its war against Ukraine, which would

26:43

violate UN sanctions. The vote

26:45

in the 15-member council was 13 in

26:48

favor, Russia against, and China abstaining. The

26:50

Security Council resolution would have extended the mandate

26:53

of the panel of experts for a year,

26:55

but Russia's veto will halt its operation when

26:57

its current mandate expires at the

26:59

end of April, reporting by the Washington

27:01

Post. The State Department

27:04

spokesperson Matthew Miller began his news

27:06

conference in Washington on this. The

27:09

United States is deeply disappointed by

27:11

Russia's veto of the United Nations

27:13

Security Council's 1718 Committee

27:15

Panel of Experts mandate renewal. We

27:18

are also disappointed that the People's Republic of

27:20

China decided to abstain after 14 years

27:23

of supporting this important mandate. For

27:26

the past 15 years, the 1718 Committee Panel

27:29

of Experts has been the gold

27:31

standard for providing fact-based, independent

27:33

analysis and recommendations on the

27:35

implementation of UN sanctions on

27:37

the DPRK. Throughout those

27:39

15 years, the Panel of

27:42

Experts enjoyed the Security Council's unanimous

27:44

support, and up until

27:46

this year, has been renewed by

27:48

consensus. Russia's actions

27:50

today have cynically undermined international

27:52

peace and security, all

27:55

to advance the corrupt bargain that

27:57

Moscow has struck with the DPRK. Moscow

28:00

appears to be intent on facilitating

28:02

the DPRK's illegal pursuit of weapons

28:05

of mass destruction, and

28:07

its veto today was a self-interested effort

28:09

to bury the panel's reporting on its

28:11

own collusion with the DPRK to

28:13

secure weapons that it can use to further

28:15

its aggression against Ukraine. Russia

28:18

alone will own the outcome of

28:20

this veto. A

28:22

DPRK more emboldened to reckless

28:24

behavior and destabilizing provocations, as

28:27

well as reduced prospects for an enduring

28:29

peace on the Korean Peninsula. Despite

28:32

today's veto and abstention, all

28:35

Security Council resolutions and UN

28:37

measures addressing the DPRK's unlawful

28:39

WMD and ballistic missile programs

28:41

remain in effect. We

28:43

will continue to work to counter the

28:45

DPRK's unlawful actions, work with

28:47

like-minded states through all available means to limit

28:50

the threat posed by the DPRK, and

28:52

respond to efforts by its enablers

28:54

to shield the DPRK from responsibility.

28:57

And with that, John? Sure,

29:00

let me follow up on that to begin with. In

29:03

Russia alone will own the outcome of this

29:05

veto. Could you explain a little bit about

29:07

the TV about that? Obviously you're saying that

29:09

Russia has a self-interest in this, but do

29:11

you think there are any repercussions? Is

29:13

there anything that the US or all of

29:15

the other countries could do to enforce an action? So

29:18

the sanctions will continue to be in effect,

29:20

as I said, but unfortunately

29:23

this important panel

29:25

has not seen its mandate renewed.

29:27

And we will continue

29:29

to work to secure

29:33

information about the DPRK's

29:35

pursuit of illegal

29:37

weapons, and we will continue to work to make

29:39

that information public and make it available to other

29:41

members of the Security Council. But I think what

29:43

we've seen by, as a result of Russia's, or

29:46

what we will see as a result of Russia's,

29:48

actions today as a DPRK that's emboldened,

29:51

it continues to be largely isolated

29:53

in the world, but we are in a different

29:55

place than when you had Russia and China voting

29:58

to... uphold accountability for

30:00

the DPRK. And now you've seen a Russia that

30:02

has cut this bargain with

30:05

the DPRK because it's in desperate need

30:07

of weapons to pursue its

30:10

aggression against Ukraine. And then you saw today one

30:12

of the ways that Russia is

30:14

delivering on its end of the bargain with DPRK, which is

30:16

try to undercut what had

30:18

been up until now unanimous United

30:21

Nations Security Council actions. State

30:24

Department spokesperson Matthew Miller at his news

30:26

conference at the State Department in Washington,

30:28

again from the Washington Post article, Russia's

30:31

U.N. Ambassador Vasily Nabetsia told the U.N.

30:33

Security Council before the vote that Western

30:35

nations are trying to strangle North Korea

30:37

and that the sanctions are losing their

30:40

relevance and detach from reality in preventing

30:42

the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the

30:44

country. He accused the panel of experts

30:46

of increasingly being reduced to playing into

30:48

the hands of Western approaches, reprinting

30:51

biased information and analyzing

30:53

newspaper headlines in poor quality photos.

30:56

Therefore, he said it's essentially conceding

30:58

its inability to come up with

31:01

sober assessments of the status of the

31:03

sanctions regime. That was from the

31:05

Washington Post. Story in

31:07

Al Arabiya, the top U.S. military general,

31:09

said Thursday that Washington had not provided

31:11

Israel with all the weapons that it

31:13

had requested because the U.S. was not

31:16

willing to at this point. Israeli Defense

31:18

Minister Yov Kallant was in Washington earlier

31:20

this week where he reportedly presented a

31:22

wish list of weapons capabilities that his

31:24

country wanted from the U.S. as it

31:27

continues a months-long campaign of trying to

31:29

eliminate Hamas. The chair of the

31:31

Joint Chiefs of Staff, General C.Q. Brown, told reporters

31:33

that eliminating Hamas would be a challenge for Israel.

31:36

As for the weapons, one reason Israel was

31:38

not provided with everything it wanted was

31:41

that we either don't have the

31:43

capacity to provide. The other

31:45

reason was that the U.S. was not

31:47

willing to provide some of those capabilities

31:49

not right now. That was reporting from

31:51

Al Arabiya. The Pentagon Press Secretary Pat

31:54

Ryder asked about this at his

31:56

news conference. Hi,

32:00

thanks Pat. Today General

32:03

Brown said that some

32:06

of the weapons

32:09

that Israel has asked for and wants

32:11

have not been provided by the United

32:13

States, that they've asked for things

32:15

that either the official capacity to be

32:17

ever doesn't want to give. Can you

32:20

add a little any more to that? Like what

32:22

types of weapons has

32:24

the United States not provided

32:27

to Israel that it wanted

32:29

and is it largely

32:31

due to risk

32:34

and what's available or are

32:36

there other things such as

32:38

conditioning that on progress

32:42

in humanitarian efforts that

32:44

sort of keyed into that?

32:47

Yeah, thanks very much, Leah. As

32:49

you know, we have a very

32:51

long standing security relationship with Israel

32:54

and certainly after October 7th we

32:58

worked very hard to rush security

33:00

assistance to Israel in support of

33:02

their efforts to defend themselves against

33:05

attacks from Hamas and future

33:08

terrorist attacks. And when

33:10

it comes to the provision

33:12

of security assistance to include

33:15

weapons and weapons systems, obviously

33:18

I don't want to get ahead

33:20

of those conversations. Those are always

33:22

ongoing conversations but through

33:24

programs like foreign military finance, foreign

33:26

military sales, again it's

33:29

part of our efforts, long standing efforts

33:32

to ensure Israel's qualitative

33:34

military edge. But

33:36

to get to your specific question, I

33:39

just don't have any information to provide beyond

33:41

that. Thank you. Pentagon

33:43

press secretary Pat Ryder and Air Force

33:46

major general at the Pentagon

33:48

news conference. On that

33:50

war between Israel and Hamas, the story

33:52

from Reuters judges at the International Court

33:54

of Justice on Thursday unanimously ordered Israel

33:56

to take all the necessary and effective

33:58

action to ensure base food supplies

34:00

arrive without delay to the Palestinian

34:03

population in Gaza. The ICJ

34:05

said the Palestinians in Gaza face worsening

34:07

conditions of life and famine

34:09

and starvation are spreading. That

34:12

story from Reuters. This is Washington

34:14

Today. President Joe Biden served

34:16

with former Senator Joe Lieberman in the Senate for

34:18

20 years. Joe Lieberman's

34:20

family announced that Lieberman had

34:22

died Wednesday night, saying he had died from

34:25

complications from a fall when he was 82

34:27

years old. President Biden putting

34:29

out a statement today that says in part, Joe

34:31

believed in a shared purpose of serving something

34:33

bigger than ourselves. He lived the values of

34:35

his faith as he worked to repair the

34:37

wounds of the world. And he

34:39

did so with his beloved family by his

34:42

side, his dear Adasa and his wonderful children

34:44

and grandchildren. Jewish Liturgy

34:46

said, of those who

34:48

serve the needs of the community faithfully,

34:50

may God grant them their reward. Our

34:52

hearts today are with the Lieberman family and

34:55

with those who love Joe across Connecticut and

34:57

across our nation, which he served faithfully for

34:59

so long. Part of the statement from President

35:01

Biden, Joe Lieberman was in the Senate 1989

35:04

through 2013

35:06

versus a Democrat, then an independent. He

35:08

was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in the year 2000.

35:12

2008 he endorsed Republican presidential nominee, John McCain.

35:16

The president spoke to a reporter at

35:18

Joint Base Andrews as he was boarding

35:20

Air Force 1 very

35:22

briefly, just saying he was a good man. And

35:24

then on board, the White House Press Secretary, Corinne

35:26

Jean-Pierre, had more. The president also

35:28

spoke to Adasa Lieberman

35:32

to express his condolences to her and

35:34

her family's loss. The president and Senator

35:36

Lieberman served together in the U.S. Senate

35:38

for 20 years. Senator

35:40

Lieberman was principled, steadfast and unafraid to

35:43

stand up for what he thought was

35:45

right. The White House Press

35:47

Secretary, Corinne Jean-Pierre, on Air Force 1. In

35:50

recent years, Joe Lieberman co-chaired the

35:53

group No Labels, which

35:55

is currently looking for a candidate to run

35:57

on a third-party ticket against President Biden and

35:59

for President President Trump in this

36:01

year's presidential election. Senator

36:04

Richard Blumenthal, Democrat from Connecticut, spoke

36:06

to reporters last night when the

36:08

news came out. Joe

36:10

Lieberman was my friend for more

36:12

than 50 years. On

36:15

the world and national stages, he

36:18

helped to define and frame

36:22

an era in our history. Most

36:26

practically about Joe Lieberman is that he was

36:28

a fighter. He stood up for everyday

36:31

Americans and people of Connecticut,

36:33

leaving a legacy of

36:36

working and fighting

36:38

for environmental values, civil

36:40

rights and liberty to

36:43

consumers and other great

36:45

causes of our time. And

36:48

he was a person of deep love for

36:50

his family and faith. And

36:53

really what I

36:56

most remember about Joe Lieberman is not only that

36:58

he was a role model and a leader, he

37:01

sought to bridge gaps and bring people together, but

37:04

he was supremely a kind man who

37:08

could disagree without

37:12

being disagreeable, as the saying goes,

37:15

always listening and

37:17

trying to bridge gaps and bring people together. Senator

37:21

Richard Blumenthal, Democrat from Connecticut,

37:23

reflecting last night on

37:25

the news that former Senator Joe Lieberman

37:27

has died. In December

37:29

2021, Joe Lieberman was on C-SPAN's

37:31

Washington General Morning program talking about

37:34

his book, The Centrist Solution, How

37:36

We Made Government Work and Can Make

37:38

It Work Again. Centrism

37:40

is not the same as moderation.

37:44

Centrism means whether you're left or right

37:46

or center or Democrat, Republican or independent,

37:48

you're willing to come to the

37:50

center to

37:53

talk about a problem with

37:56

people who have different points of

37:58

view, different parties in you. And

38:01

you're willing to negotiate and

38:03

compromise in

38:05

the national interest to get something done for

38:08

your country and your constituents. And

38:10

in this book, I describe a number

38:13

of cases where I was privileged to be in

38:15

the middle of that kind of process on balancing

38:19

the budget, environmental protection, national

38:21

security, homeland security, after

38:23

9-11 and human rights. It can be

38:25

done, but it hasn't been done lately.

38:28

And the American people have really

38:30

suffered as a result. Why do

38:33

so many members of Congress consider

38:35

compromise a bad word? Is there

38:37

something wrong about how this political

38:39

system is set up that makes

38:42

members of Congress less willing to compromise?

38:46

Well, you know, in

38:48

a democracy where people have different

38:50

points of view, like ours, that

38:54

there's no central authority, no dictator

38:56

to say this is the way

38:58

it's going to be. You

39:01

only get things done if you sit down and

39:04

compromise. And compromise, I

39:06

always say to people, doesn't mean you have to

39:08

compromise your ethics or your

39:12

morality. If

39:14

something that's being proposed you

39:16

think is just unethical or immoral, don't

39:18

support it. Most of

39:20

the time in the legislative setting, and I can

39:22

tell you that because I was in the Senate

39:24

for 24 years, the compromises

39:26

asked are not moral

39:29

or ethical. They're the question of, do

39:31

you want 100% of what

39:34

you want on a given

39:36

bill? Are you only going to settle for 100%

39:38

or are you willing to get nothing? Are you

39:40

willing to compromise,

39:42

which is to say accept

39:45

less? And

39:47

in the great moments of our history, going

39:50

back to the Constitutional Convention where they compromised

39:52

to get this new country of

39:54

ours going, it's

39:56

always been that way. In

40:00

recent times, there have been

40:02

a lot of pressures going the other

40:04

way, pressures from political parties, from

40:08

contributors, from increasingly

40:12

partisan media that

40:14

have made members of both parties,

40:18

liberals and conservatives, less

40:20

willing to compromise and

40:22

therefore the American people have suffered

40:25

because their problems have

40:27

not been responded to or solved

40:29

and opportunities for our country have

40:32

not been seized and that's

40:34

what we've got to change for the good

40:36

of America. Former Senator

40:38

Joe Lieberman on C-SPAN's Washington Journal morning

40:40

program in December 2021, he has died

40:42

at the age of 82. An article

40:44

from Connecticut Insider reads, the

40:49

political leaders from around Connecticut and the nation are

40:51

preparing to gather Friday at a

40:53

historic Stanford synagogue for the funeral of

40:56

late Senator Joe Lieberman. Funeral for Lieberman

40:58

will be held at 10 a.m. Eastern

41:00

Friday at the congregation Iberdeth Shalom in

41:02

Stanford, the city where the senator grew

41:05

up in a working class Jewish family.

41:07

Those leaders include former Vice President Al Gore,

41:09

U.S. Senators Chris Murphy and

41:12

Richard Blumenthal, members of

41:14

the state's congressional delegation including Rosa

41:16

Deloro and Jim Himes and the

41:18

Stanford mayor Caroline Simmons and also

41:20

from this article Connecticut Insider Governor

41:22

Ned Lamont, a one-time rival who

41:24

challenged Lieberman's position on the Iraq

41:26

War during the 2006 U.S.

41:30

Senate race will be there as well. And

41:33

finally on Washington today, this is opening day of

41:35

the 2024 Major League

41:37

Baseball season and in Baltimore the new

41:39

owner David Rubenstein kicked off at a

41:41

news conference with Governor Wes Moore and

41:43

oral legend and Hall of Famer Cowherpkin

41:45

Jr. David Rubenstein is

41:47

co-founder of the investment firm The Carlisle

41:49

Group and a philanthropist and he's been

41:52

on C-SPAN about a hundred times over

41:54

the years. He's co-chair of the National

41:56

Book Festival and president of the Economic

41:58

Club of Washington. interviewing public figures.

42:00

Today at the news conference, he said he

42:03

hoped to bring the community together through

42:05

baseball and win. When

42:07

the team first came here in nineteen fifty

42:09

four the purchase price was two

42:12

point two million dollars. My

42:14

partners and I are paying a little bit more than that.

42:18

Inflation being what it is. But

42:20

we're proud of every penny we're paying because it's

42:22

worth every penny we're paying. Because

42:25

we really have a unique franchise

42:27

with an incredible group

42:29

of young players with the

42:31

best general manager in baseball, the best

42:33

manager in baseball, and I hope the

42:35

best fans in baseball and also the

42:38

best government officials supporting a team in

42:40

baseball. So what I hope to do

42:42

is to make sure this is not the high water

42:44

mark. Today is an easy

42:46

day to say everything is great and hopefully we'll

42:48

win opening day. But I don't want this to

42:50

be the high water mark. I want the high

42:52

water mark to be in the fall when we

42:54

go to the World Series and we show that

42:56

we are a city that

42:59

supports a great team and we are

43:01

a city that is represented by a

43:03

great team and we unify the city

43:05

in ways that only the Orioles can

43:07

really do. We have other teams

43:09

and other great institutions in this city and

43:11

I've been involved with some of them like

43:13

Johns Hopkins. But nothing, nothing unifies a city

43:15

and unifies this city as the Baltimore Orioles

43:17

and as the success of the Baltimore Orioles.

43:19

So I hope that we can bring that

43:22

about and I look forward to working with

43:24

everybody in Baltimore who would like to help

43:26

the Orioles become as great as they once

43:28

were and as great as we know they

43:30

can be. David Rubenstein today

43:32

in Baltimore is the leader of the

43:34

new ownership group of the Orioles the

43:36

price paid 1.725 billion dollars. Thanks

43:41

for listening to Washington Today. Subscribe to

43:43

C-SPAN's free evening newsletter Word for Word

43:46

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43:48

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43:50

Sign up at c-span.org/connect. Have

43:52

a good night. you