Mimi Geerges

Host C-SPAN’s @cspanwj Washington Journal LIVE 7-10am EST. Media Consultant. Professional moderator. #Coptic #Orthodox.

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

The "Dignity Act", introduced by Reps. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) and Veronica Escobar (D-TX), proposes a pathway to legal status for certain immigrants in the U.S. illegally while still enforcing border control.

.@Heritage Foundation's @lora_ries explains why she opposes the bill:

"Amnesty is not good policy, because it simply tells future illegal aliens to come to the U.S., wait, and you too will eventually get your amnesty or green card. This has not worked in the past – it undermines the rule of law.

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

After the DOJ announced it is scraping its proposed $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund, @CREWcrew's @donaldonethics discusses his organization's ongoing investigation to ensure the fund is blocked:

"We are continuing with our litigation to make sure that the Department of Justice follows all of the steps necessary to not just shut down this slush fund, but to ensure that no illegal slush fund is created."

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

.@MimiGeerges: "How much is fraud costing the social security trust fund?"

@MarcGoldwein: "Within social security, particularly in a retirement program, the fraud rate is extremely low. ... We're talking about an error rate in the retirement program of less than 1% - maybe close to 0.5%."

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

.@RepLuna explains her support for Bill Pulte for DNI Director, saying that he's "obviously America First in perspective."

"There is still very much so - I would say - internally a battle between different intelligence agencies... Half the battle in these intelligence positions is the fact that you want someone that will not obstruct the declassification order but assist in locating documents, and that is something that Bill will do."

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

.@RepGLatimer (D-NY) on Secretary Rubio's testimony in front of the House of Foreign Affairs Committee earlier this week.

"He didn't say anything substantive that you could sink your teeth into… What you have now is a situation that’s worse than what it was in February when the administration decided to bomb Iran. At that point in time, the Straits of Hormuz were open, and they made a calculation. It was a miscalculation that they could bring the Iranian government to its knees."

[Axios Comms @AxiosComms]

Marc Caputo joined @MimiGeerges to discuss his reporting on the heated call between Trump and Netanyahu following Israel’s attacks in Lebanon, and took questions from viewers.

📺: @cspanwj | @MarcACaputo | @axios

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

After the Trump administration dropped its proposed $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund following GOP opposition, @Axios' @MarcACaputo weighed in on why he believes it failed:

"It was just too much. There's an old saying in politics – that when you're explaining, you're losing – and this was very difficult to explain."

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

.@leaderswedeserv President David Hogg (@davidhogg111) said Senate Minority Chuck Schumer "has got to go" in the wake of last year's 43-day long government shutdown over ACA subsidies:

"I think if you don't have control of your caucus, or they're going behind your back, or you're directly telling them to go against the very things you're saying 'I'm gonna stand up and fight for,' we can't have that type of leadership."

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

"Critics are falsely saying that the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act." Senior Legal Fellow with @AmericanFreedom Hans von Spakovsky (@HvonSpakovsky) discusses the recent Supreme Court ruling on redistricting in Louisiana:

"I actually think what they did is stop abusive misuse of the Voting Rights Act, which has been occurring now for a number of years in the redistricting area where plaintiffs have been dressing up complaints about partisan gerrymandering as supposedly racial gerrymandering so they can get federal courts to intervene."

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

After Tuesday night's primary elections established clear successors for many longtime Republican lawmakers, @njhotline editor Kirk Bado says some lame duck members of Congress may join the "YOLO caucus" and openly resist the Trump administration.

@kirk_bado: "I think you're gonna see Trump's legislative agenda on the hill start really stalling out and facing some tough, tough headwinds."

@MimiGeerges: "Because revenge goes both ways."

Bado: "It does. And that's why it's a dish best served cold."

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

.@InsideElections deputy editor @JacobRubashkin previews Tuesday's primary election in Kentucky, where eight-term incumbent Rep. Thomas Masie (R-KY) faces off against the Trump-endorsed Ed Gallrein in the "most expensive House primary campaign in American history."

"We're talking about money that presidential campaigns used to spend just a couple decades ago, all coming in to this one very Republican district in Northern Kentucky because Thomas Massie angered the President one too many times. …Massie is not running as a Trump critic, he's not running as a pain in the neck for D.C. Republicans. He's running as a Trump ally… He's taking pains to stress just how aligned he is with the President.

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

Former Acting FTC Chief Technologist & head of AI policy for the Abundance Institute Neil Chilson discusses misconceptions of data centers as public opposition to the AI boom rises:

"Even if the projections are correct that data centers grow a lot by 2030, by 2030 it's estimated they would use about as much water as 8% of the water golf courses do in the U.S. The water issue is just not accurate, and I think people need to dig in to that a lot more."

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

Public Citizen Energy Program director @TysonSlocum says public opposition to data centers in communities is a "rational response."

"These data centers -especially those that are focused on producing generative artificial intelligence- use many magnitudes more of energy than traditional data centers that store our kids' pictures in the cloud or stream our Netflix. …As many Americans know, almost of the entire western United States is going through a severe water crisis. So, we can't be adding new golf courses or data centers until we ensure we have enough drinking water for humans living in these areas of the country."

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

.@MimiGeerges: The Washington Post has this headline: Xi warns Trump that mishandling Taiwan could spark 'conflicts'. Does 'conflicts' mean war?

@HudsonInstitute's China Center director Miles Yu responds:

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.@MimiGeerges: "If Democrats were to take control of the House in November, what could you do about prices?"

@RepSuhas: "There's so much we can do; Democrats have the vision to do that and were taking it seriously. The president thinks affordability is a joke and he's not taking it seriously; he's not taking the plight of the American people seriously, and he needs to."

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

Bipartisan Policy Center's @andrew_lautz discusses a proposed pause on the federal gas tax and potential short & long-term impacts for consumers and tax revenue

Watch here: https://t.co/hpngDOx5UE

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

.@MimiGeerges: "Open primaries — explain why you're in favor of that."

@RepGarretGraves: "At the end of the day, you have to represent all of the constituents — not just the Democrats or the Republicans. … An open primary system is more consistent with why we had the Boston Tea Party. I think it's more consistent with the values and fundamentals of a democracy.

… An open primary system would result in restoring more functionality in Congress, better representation, and I think we have examples that prove it."

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

Psychologist and former Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) cites a national poll showing that “51%” of respondents have a family member or friend with “serious mental illness.”

Dr. Murphy also points to major gaps in access to care:

“We found 1/3 of the people couldn’t get the care they needed. … Generally, once a person starts showing symptoms, it’s one to two years before they get appropriate care.”

[Washington Journal @cspanwj]

Former Democratic Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux breaks down a report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis that says the national debt has surpassed the size of the economy.

@CarolynConcord: "I often try to put it in terms of a family budget of some sort. It's roughly a family making $70,000 a year, but having a credit card balance of $500,000. … But, we're the U.S. economy. We're very strong, we're powerful, so it doesn’t bankrupt us in that kind of way. But what it starts to do is it puts pressure on interest rates, it starts to put pressure on inflation, and it creates a really serious long term drag on our economic health and growth.