Crank Phone Call
President Donald Trump is a long time fan and first time caller.
On Monday evening, there was a very special guest on the premiere episode of the primetime edition of CSPAN’s Washington Journal. The show is a D.C. institution where the hosts field phone calls from viewers all across the country. This week, Trump joined the fray.
“It looks like we’ve got a call from the White House,” said host Mimi Geerges before picking up the line. “Mr. President?”
The spectacle of the leader of the supposed free world calling in to cable news like some kind of cantankerous Karen was apparently absurd enough that someone who could be heard on the broadcast seemingly burst out laughing as the call began. However, Trump revealed this wasn’t his first rodeo.
“I’ve watched you numerous times,” Trump told Geerges.
On one level, the whole situation was deeply absurd. Here was the President of the United States spending his time watching and calling into a show that has developed a somewhat infamous reputation for sober, thoughtful hosts struggling to maintain composure while being bombarded by periodic shouts of “BA BA BOOEY!” and conspiracy fueled rants from callers.
At the same time, it all made perfect sense. Trump is a known cable news addict. And he has built his whole political career and two presidential terms off of ranting at, and on, the television. Anyone who has watched his signature hourlong rallies, or remembers the early birther schtick, knows that complaining about the news, musing about pop culture, and unspooling fringe crackpottery are his core ethos.
Those who rage at AM sports broadcasts, post unhinged comments about minorities on YouTube, or write angry letters to their local paper are Trump’s people. He is the radio caller in chief.
Geerges asked Trump about his affinity for CSPAN. Trump confirmed that he’s not tuned in for the live congressional proceedings or intellectual panels and book talks. He wants to be among the callers.
“Mr. President, we heard that you like to watch CSPAN,” Geerges said. “What do you like to watch?”
Trump explained that he feels the callers give him a sense of the national pulse.
“Well,” he said. “I like to watch the call-ins because it gives me a little bit of an indication of where we are.”
CSPAN prides itself on objectivity. When they are not getting pranked, the network endeavors to evenly divide callers by political affiliation. While Trump conceded that Democrats on the call lines were not fans of his work, he evidently finds the phones more forgiving than his poll numbers.
“I do OK,” Trump said of the shows, adding, “We have some great Republicans calling in.”
Frankly, it would have been fascinating if Geerges spent the whole call asking Trump about his television habits and for thoughts on his fellow callers. Sadly, she pivoted to policy. This prompted what was essentially a highlight reel of some of Trump’s most outlandish and easily debunked claims.
Geerges asked if, given the midterm election results and widespread public dissatisfaction with ICE, Trump might “halt” his mass deportation program. Specifically, she wondered whether the president might go a bit easier on “the honest people who, you know, are just kind of trying to make a life and paying their taxes.”
Trump responded by insisting that his immigration enforcement efforts are focused on “murderers” and “drug dealers.” He also made the wild claim that many undocumented immigrants have been released from “mental institutions” in their home countries. As usual, he described the people his administration has been deporting and detaining en masse as “the worst of the worst.” Of course, much of the reason for the public anger at his policies on this front is the fact none of that is remotely true. Data has consistently shown the majority of people detained by ICE have no criminal convictions.
Geerges then turned to the vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Trump’s self-styled “secretary of war” narrowly survived that push to oust him this week after a member of the president’s own party, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), filed articles based on the war in Iran, which has no congressional approval, and the administration’s campaign of extrajudicial boat killings, among other things. Democrats have indicated they plan to revive efforts to impeach Hegseth when the new Congress is seated in January.
Trump responded to questions about Hegseth with a fascinating admission. Since the war in Iran began earlier this year, the administration has repeatedly insisted it’s not a war. The linguistic gymnastics help evade the requirements for congressional approval of a conflict that is opposed by most of the public. On CSPAN, Trump basically dropped the ruse as he defended his Cabinet secretary.
“Pete has won two wars,” Trump said. “He’s been the head person in two wars.”
Trump went on to explain that one of the “wars” he was talking about was the rapidfire operation in Venezuela that saw the U.S. capture that country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and install a government that has been eager to let us tap their oil reserves. Trump called Venezuela a gold mine before revealing that Iran was the second war he referred to.
“We won Venezuela and we won Iran,” Trump said.
Despite that confident declaration, the Iran War and an accompanying drastic spike in gas prices are ongoing. Trump immediately admitted as much when Geerges asked how much longer he expected the conflict to continue.
“Well, it depends, we could knock it out fast or we could knock it out over a short … not a long period of time,” Trump said.
Like the truly weirdest and best CSPAN calls, the next few minutes were a rambling and incoherent mess. Trump made various proclamations. He called the deal President Barack Obama made to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons program in 2015 a “disaster.” Trump also insisted other countries were asking him to slow walk the war rather than go for a bigger “hit.” He also suggested things were going great in another corner of the Mideast that has been consumed by war.
“I saved Israel,” Trump said.
Perhaps due to a commercial break or maybe to preserve her own sanity, Geerges ultimately cut in and began to bid farewell.
“Mr. President Trump, we so appreciate you calling to congratulate us. You can call us any time. You have an open invitation to come on the program and be our guest,” she said, adding, “OK sir.”
Trump wished Geerges well and expressed happiness at being one of the first callers on the new program.
“Good luck with everything. It’s my honor to be one of your early calls,” Trump said with a chuckle. “Take care of yourself. Goodbye.”
Geerges then moved on to another eager audience member. The President of the United States was succeeded by a semi-anonymous woman in the Pacific Northwest.
“And we will go back to your calls,” Geerges said after hanging up with Trump. “Now, we’ll go to Margo calling us from Portland, Oregon.”
Trump Was Fine With Letting This Gov’t Watchdog Languish Without a Leader — Until Republicans Lost Congress
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) — a nonpartisan watchdog, housed within the legislative branch, that examines how federal taxpayer dollars are spent — is one of the only federal agencies that has repeatedly called foul on the Trump administration’s lawlessness, specifically his attempt to dismantle separation of powers.
Since Trump took back the White House and Congress in January 2025, the GAO has issued several decisions finding impoundment violations by the Trump administration, repeatedly calling out Trump and his allies’ for their refusal to spend federal money appropriated by Congress for the purposes it was intended for.
Until now, with both chambers of Congress controlled by Republicans, the Trump White House and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) did not care much about the relatively unknown federal agency calling them out on breaking the law.
But following last week’s bluenami, Trump and his allies in Congress are looking for something — anything! — that can be done during the lame duck session to hold onto the levers of power they’ve lost, even if it’s just installing a Trump ally atop an agency whose guidance they’ve ignored and whose role they do not care about.
At the end of 2025, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro finished his 15 year term serving as the head of GAO and retired. After he retired, a bipartisan panel of congressional lawmakers were supposed to get together to come up with a list of replacement nominees and send them to Trump to pick one and officially nominate it for a Senate confirmation.
It’s been more than a year and despite repeated efforts by Dems to get to work on the issue, top Republicans on the panel never convened the panel or started the work to put together a list of nominees, according to Democrats. That is until … this week — conveniently, shortly after Democrats secured control of both chambers of Congress for the next two years.
Now Republicans are trying to use the lame duck session to speed up the process they have been sitting on for a year to try and confirm one of Trump’s allies to the relatively small but important position of heading the GAO.
Whoever gets appointed to be the next comptroller general will inherit the agency’s ongoing probes of the Trump administration’s illegal impoundments. A Trump loyalist in that position could and would likely mean no more watchdogging from the one federal agency that has been calling the administration out.
As one source solemnly noted to me, it is one of those consequences people talk about when they say Trump and the Trump administration’s actions will linger for years and years after he leaves office. Whoever gets appointed as the new GAO head will hold that position for the next 15 years.
Finding Stillness
Recently I was trying to decide my favorite composers. In no particular order I came up with Sergei Rachmaninoff, Philip Glass, Gustave Mahler, Erik Satie, Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy, and Bedrich Smetana. Then I was thinking, what do I like about them? What ties them together? Knowers of the ball might say, well Joe you seem to favor romanticism. Fair enough, but there’s something deeper. It has to do with stillness.
I played a computer game religiously growing up. It was called Titanic: Adventure out of Time. I don’t know who got this game for me, I don’t know where the game came from or when I started playing it. As far as my memory is concerned, it was always a part of my life. In this game, you play a former secret agent who is a passenger on the R.M.S. Titanic. It’s a point-and-click game in which you go around the ship talking to people and solving mysteries and puzzles. Depending on your choices there are many endings. You can prevent World War I and World War II. But if you fail, the Allies may lose a war. The game takes place over the course of one day, the day the Titanic sank, and much of it takes place at night.
If you have never been in the middle of the ocean or any body of water at night, the first thing you’d notice is the darkness. The next thing you’d notice is the quiet. Finally you’d settle into a kind of stillness. I spent probably collectively days, if not weeks, of my life playing this game and even though it was merely a virtual experience, the quality of the stillness left a lasting imprint on me and I think I’ve been searching for it ever since.
It’s an eerie game. The real Titanic had around 2,200 people on it. The digital version has about 55 despite being a nearly full-scale remake of the ship. It makes for a lot of lonely wandering through the lower decks. And while you wander around the ship, you hear the melancholy sounds of Chopin’s nocturnes and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Now I’m 38 years old and there’s a warm comfort in that melancholy that I find difficult to fully describe except to say that it makes me feel right, it makes things feel like they are in order. The pacing is reassuring. A note. Then another. The sound hangs in the air asking to be considered. It’s quite a friendly experience.
I listen to a guided meditation every Sunday where I pretend that I am a mountain and the seasons around me change. The idea is to cultivate a sense of equanimity. Everything changes all the time. Things go and come back. It’s a good reminder that good times come and go but so do the bad times. The meditation begins in the summer and moves through the seasons. I particularly enjoy when we reach winter and he says very still in the night.
I grew up in Cleveland and we get pretty bad winters. When everything is covered with snow, even in the ordinarily noisy cities and suburbs, everything becomes quiet and still. And again, I find in that stillness a kind of warmth and comfort. Even though I am physically cold, I feel I am embraced by the stillness.
The world is a busy place these days. Probably busier than ever. I suspect every generation says that though and I suspect for a very long time, maybe since the beginning of time, people have been searching for a stillness to envelope them and make them feel ok. The composers above do that for me and it makes me glad.
How Much of This Week’s News Do You Remember?
- Who did Donald Trump recommend to replace Jensen Huang as the CEO of Nvidia, writing on Truth social, “A Legend replaces a Legend!”
- On Veteran’s Day, Pete Hegseth and his entourage were reprimanded by a soldier for not “maintaining silence” at what sacred memorial?
- In what state did Republicans immediately sue after voters passed an anti-Citizens United measure?
Answer below.
Public Enemy Service
Parting Words
“I’m a piece of shit.” — Jensen Huang, according to a Bloomberg report that described him castigating himself in his final days as CEO of Nvidia. It’s a notable turn from his previous attitude toward the exposure of his sex-scandal with an alleged Chinese spy where he is said to have responded to reports of the relationship with: “whatever,” and “I don’t care.”
Sean Duffy’s Very Bad Day
Trivia answers: 1) Tim Cook 2) The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier 3) Montana
