Politics: 2025Talks - January 8, 2025
Politics and views in the United States.
Vice President Harris delivers a eulogy for Jimmy Carter. President-elect Trump says he might use military action to take the Panama Canal and Greenland, and the White House announces two new national monuments in California.
TRANSCRIPT
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Welcome to 2025 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.
Jimmy Carter established a new model for what it means to be a former president and leaves an extraordinary post-presidential legacy.
Vice President Kamala Harris honoring Jimmy Carter as the former president lies in state at the Capitol.
Harris says Carter will be remembered for what he did in the White House and after, including work with Habitat for Humanity and advancing peace and democracy worldwide through the Carter Center.
President-elect Donald Trump is criticizing Carter for giving away the Panama Canal and says it might have cost him his re-election.
Trump says he isn't ruling out military action to take the canal in Greenland, which he says the US needs for its economic security.
The Panama Canal is vital to our country.
It's being operated by China.
China!
And we gave the Panama Canal to Panama.
We didn't give it to China.
Trump also says he wants to redraw the maps in another way, changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Trump loyalist Republican Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene says she'll sponsor the bill.
It's absolutely the right thing to do.
We change post office names all the time up here.
The Gulf is a hotspot for offshore oil drilling, which Trump is promising to expand.
The president-elect has also long criticized Mexico on trade and immigration.
The House has passed the GOP-led Lake and Riley Act requiring detention of undocumented migrants charged with crimes like theft.
The bill's named for a 22-year-old nursing student murdered last year by an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant, but it faces an uncertain future in the Senate.
Washington Progressive Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal calls it extreme.
Imagine your child is with a group of kids grabbing an after-school snack at a 7-Eleven, and one of them chooses to just snitch a little candy bar off the shelf.
If your child is a DACA recipient, they are now subject to mandatory detention under this bill.
Trump has announced that a business associate of his from the United Arab Emirates will invest $20 billion in new U.S. data centers.
He says one of the first sites will be in Ohio, and John Hyland with the city of Canton says it could be transformative.
We are open and available, and we'll be willing to talk to anyone about that possibility within the city of Canton if we can make it work.
Medical debt will no longer impact consumers' credit ratings under a new rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Medical debt often stops people from getting loans, and according to a YouGov poll, two-thirds of Americans say it should be forgiven.
And finally, the White House announced two new national monuments in California, one east of Palm Springs and the other near Shasta Lake.
Congressman Raul Ruiz says the lands will now be protected from mining, drilling, and development.
This is one of these unique examples where you have both the conservation and tribal leaders, as well as the renewable energy and utility companies, all endorsing this enormous monument.
I'm Alex Gonzalez for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.
Find our trust indicators at publicnewsservice.org.