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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We heard from Cory Booker. Now, we'll open up the phones and hear from you as the Trump second-term resistance movement spreads. I was thinking you might say it's now a strange bedfellows resistance of a spreading range from the socialists to the capitalists. What do I mean? Of course, the Democratic Socialist Movement always opposed Trump with tax cuts for the rich while cutting services for everyone else. His IED, as I called it in our newsletter last week, the opposite of DEI, Trump's inequality, exclusion, and discrimination policies, IED policies, as certainly the socialist left would characterize it.

Last week, we saw deterioration of the Republican vote in the elections in Wisconsin, in Florida. Senator Booker referred to those. You could say Wall Street is now helping lead the resistance. Is that too far-fetched? They're removing trillions of dollars from the economy to protest Trump's tariffs policies, if you look at it that way. It's a strange bedfellows resistance coalition, if you want to look at it that way, from the socialists to the capitalists at the moment. By the way, the Dow is down another thousand points so far this morning.

On Saturday, there were protests around the country and some internationally as well, in the biggest day of demonstrations yet, with the theme of, "Hands Off." Call in. People are already calling in. Our lines are already full. You can keep texting. Hands Off what? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Elaine Godfrey, Staff Writer for The Atlantic, was out on the Washington Mall on Saturday, and her latest article was called The Cardboard Carrying Opposition Arrives. Let me say that without stumbling, The Cardboard Carrying Opposition Arrives. Elaine arrives. Welcome to WNYC.

Elaine Godfrey: [chuckles] Thank you so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: As calls are coming in, where were you on Saturday, and with your reporter's eye, what did you see?

Elaine Godfrey: I was at the national mall here in DC, where I'm based, where I live, on Saturday, just not really knowing what to expect, honestly. Organizers of the Hands Off protest had told me, "This will be the biggest protest of the second Trump administration." I wasn't sure. There haven't been very many. I thought, "Okay. How big is that going to be?" It turned out to be really big. At least at the National Mall, there were, I think, supposed to be 10,000 to 20,000 people who came. It ended up being closer to 75,000, 100,000 according to estimates that I've seen. It was pretty impressive.

I will say it was comparing and contrasting between it and the Women's March of 2017. It was a little different than that. It wasn't a march. It was a gathering. There were speakers instead of a big moving crowd. It was different. The energy was a little different, but it definitely felt closer to that than any other protest or demonstration I've seen so far in the Trump administration.

Brian Lehrer: On the numbers of people that you saw, I'm going to read a little bit from Politico on some of the numbers in various places. It says, "CNN pegged the number of attendees in the millions overall, including 1,000 in Anchorage per ADN," which I guess is an Anchorage news service, "1,000 in Anchorage. 3,000 in Charlotte per The Observer there, The Charlotte Observer newspaper. 5,000 in Raleigh, per CBS 17 there. 6,000 in Florida's Palm Beach County, per The Palm Beach Coast. 7,000 in Des Moines, according to The Des Moines Register, at least 7,000 in Seattle, per The Seattle Times, 10,000 in Denver, per The Colorado Sun, 20,000 in Atlanta, per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 25,000 at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, per the Star Tribune, 25,000 in Boston, per GBH, 30,000 in Chicago, per WBEZ."

In New York, it says, "The protest stretched along Manhattan's Fifth Avenue for nearly 20 blocks, per The New York Times." In Washington, where you were, it says, "Organizers estimated the crowd exceeding 100,000, roughly five times larger than they predicted, per The Washington Post." Big by a lot of standards, right?

Elaine Godfrey: Yes. I put out a call on my Facebook. It's a personal Facebook page, but I just wanted to see what people were seeing around their communities. I'm from small town Iowa. People from my hometown who wanted to go to a protest had five different options in Southeast Iowa, which was pretty crazy. These weren't enormous, but they were a couple hundred people in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, in Burlington, Iowa, in Fairfield. It was just very widespread, very grassroots. That was the goal.

One of the organizers, Ezra Levin, with Indivisible, which is a progressive grassroots organization, they told me, "We hope this spirals out of control." It did. I think that all evidence points to yes.

Brian Lehrer: Right. With the caveat that you can't take organizers' estimates at their word, they usually overestimate, almost all of the ones that I read from that Politico article were per news organizations in the local areas. Here's one local one that just came in in a text from somebody on Long Island who is an organizer, according to her, but it's making the point that in New York, it wasn't just on Fifth Avenue. It was around the region.

This is Victoria in Sea Cliff, who says she protested in Mineola, which, for those who don't know Nassau County, is the seat of Nassau County government and a big Long Island Rail Road transfer stop. "Hands Off Rule of Law" is what that listener says. She says, "We estimated about 2,000 people protested in Mineola, but we hardly got coverage." Hello, Long Island. We always see you. 2,000 in Mineola, if that's an accurate number, pretty good. Let's take our first phone call. Here's Gwen in East Harlem. Gwen, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Gwen: Hello, everybody. Hi, Brian. I was there on this rainy Saturday in Manhattan, and it was a great march. I got into it, though, pretty early because a bunch of Trumpsters were in the front. It's very personal for everybody. My father is 102, and he served in World War II. He jumped out of a burning airplane twice. My mother is alive and she's 97. These two are very vulnerable. Their Social Security is on the line. Their Medicare is on their line. The Medicaid that they may need, just months from now, they may need to go on Medicaid, is on the line. I really resent people standing at the front.

I have more people that are Republican that come over to my parents and say to my father, "Thank you for your service." Yet, they would throw him under the bus at 102 years old and not look back. It was really personal for me. My sister's also on Social Security. She's 78 years old. This has got me really worked up like so many others. The other thing that I wanted to mention that I was sorry to see that my husband was-- My husband died, but he was Black, and we always went to protest together. I just didn't see very many African Americans.

That was disappointing because we need everyone to come out. I understood, when I went on Facebook, some of the reasons people didn't come out. They felt afraid. They felt like their presence being there would actually incite violence towards them. That's very concerning. I have to say, overall, I've been to many, many rallies and this was really well done. We didn't have a speaker, but we had a great showing of young people, middle-aged people, and older people. That's success in my book, but, of course, we have to multiply it by millions of people to continue to come out.

Brian Lehrer: Gwen, thank you very much for your call. I'm going to go right to another caller. Michelle in Brownsville, you're on WNYC. Hi, Michelle.

Michelle: Hi, Brian. How are you? I'm so excited to speak with you about this, also very saddened. I'm so happy that the previous caller brought up the absence of Black faces in the crowd. I think it's partially about the violence. Obviously, 2020, when we show up to protests, I think the state response tends to be very different than when other people show up to protest. I also think it's deeper than that. I think that when we all voted in November, I think Black people were screaming at the top of their lungs that I feel like we understand how to experience the other side of America, the darker experience of this country, because we are constantly being asked to fight and articulate our rights as full citizens.

I think that the way we experienced the vote in November was really different than the average American. We understood when Trump said these things what he meant. I think the point the caller made about her father, the same people that will come to her father at 102 and say, "Thank you for your service," which is very surface, which feels very lovely and sentimental, are also the same people that literally would throw him under the bus and take away Social Security. I think the sentimentality of the American spirit, where we're very sentimental about some things about the country, but we don't really understand that there are people that are going to experience the state in a really violent way.

I think the only miscalculation Trump made was that now larger swaths of the populace are going to be experiencing the violence of the state in their pocketbooks, and they're not going to take it. Black people have suffered in this country. They understand suffering in a way that white people, frankly, don't. What is happening now, I think, is less Black people saying, it's almost like, "You know what? We tried our best in November. We tried to convince you that this was a bad idea, and you failed to listen. We now need you to go and fight for this country and for this republic because we've been trying to fight for you, but you've refused to hear us, so you know what? Hands off, you guys get--"

It's less about the violence. I think that's part of it. I think it's really saying to white folks, "You know what? You go fight for this thing because we have been telling you that it's important. We've been telling you that your democracy is special, but you don't actually get it." I think her comment about her father is actually exactly the reasons why you don't see Black people there, because you know what? The sentiment of it is beautiful, but fundamentally, people don't care about your father's actual life. I know that's a hard thing to say, but that's really what I think it's about. 92% of Black women voted for Kamala, not because we liked her. I was not a fan at all, but I said, "You know what? It's like taking medicine." There are two choices that I don't like, and there's one that is not an option for this democracy to continue.

The cost of the decision in November, the world is looking at this country and saying, "Oh, no, these people cannot be trusted with this much power. I'm sorry." I think we're going to be really raked by the consequences.

Brian Lehrer: Michelle, thank you very much for your call. We really appreciate it. We shouted out a Long Island protest when somebody wrote in about the one that took place in Mineola. Not in the New York area, just in Manhattan. We're going to see New Jersey here. Somebody texted, Karen in Weehawken, "We marched 300+ strong in Weehawken in West New York to say Hands Off Medicaid, Social Security, consumer rights, our judiciary, and education. It was cold and rainy, but people came out with signs and loud voices."

As we are taking your calls, if you participated in or just sympathized with Saturday's protests around the country with the theme of Hands Off, the biggest day of protest yet in the Trump administration. Obviously, there are other-- My guest is Elaine Godfrey, who wrote about the protests in DC in The Atlantic. She's an Atlantic staff writer. Elaine, obviously, there are a lot of people who voted for Trump. The majority of people voted for Trump or close to a majority more than voted for Kamala Harris in November. Do you have any sense, as the last caller was referring to, that anybody's being moved by these who might be potential swing voters for the midterms next year, or just rethinking anything?

Are the protests more making people who are protesting feel good? Or do you think maybe it's much too early to tell, but that they're accomplishing anything?

Elaine Godfrey: I think the protest's main aim, and this is what I got from basically everyone I interviewed when I asked, "What's the point of this?" No one said, "We're here to persuade anyone." Everyone said, "I don't think Trump, I don't think Elon Musk, I don't think most Republicans are listening. These protests are meant to show the rest of America that there are other people who are upset. There are people who are upset. They're real people. They're not paid actors. We're out here and we'd love for them to join us. We want to just keep coming out here and showing their size."

I think it's too early to tell but especially with the tariffs, with the markets crashing right now, I think that some swing voters are certainly rethinking their vote or thinking about what they're going to do in the midterms. I do think it's too early to tell, but these protests are designed to show, "Come join us. We're here." This is just the beginning of that, I would say.

Brian Lehrer: Some more that are coming in on texts about various other places. One says, "More than 300 people gathered on 'Conservative' Staten Island to protest." Another one, Joy from Ronkonkoma, "We had a wonderful turnout on Saturday in Patchogue on the island. There were over 2,500, and it was very wonderful and fun." Nancy in Dover in Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Nancy.

Nancy: Oh. Hi, Brian. Nice to speak to you. Hi, listeners and guests. I attended the protest in Morristown on Saturday, rainy day. There was a real feeling of connecting to the goodness of others. The kindness which I think has been lost. There are so many things. I saw so many signs, Medicare, Social Security, banning free speech, free elections, medical research, like you mentioned, Brian, consumer protection, education, the court system. I had a sign, I had the Planet Earth, a beautiful picture of the Planet Earth, because I think our planet's health has taken a backseat, or maybe off the bus completely, because of all the distractions of everything else.

I did want to shift our focus back to the Earth. The air we breathe, the water we drink, nurturing food, the materials that build our homes and clothing all come from this life-giving planet that has taken a backseat the past several months. I know your Tuesday program also features it and I'm so grateful.

Brian Lehrer: Nancy, thank you. Thank you very much for your call. Let's go next to Adam in Hudson County in Jersey. Adam, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Adam: Hi, Brian. I actually attended the Washington march, and I was mostly there to say Hands Off Gaza and Hands Off Palestine, especially with what's going on right now after the ceasefire and the continuing genocide in Gaza. I was also there because of Medicaid, because it's such an important part of how many of my family members survive. I just feel like without it, it would really hurt a lot of people. I'm also a son of a small business owner, and our economy is not doing good when it comes to inflation and many other things. I'm Palestinian. When you see your own people getting massacred on a daily basis, it's really hard to think about anything else. My main thing was the Palestine protest, which was a part of the larger protest movement, but it also had its own little section and events and speakers. That's what I have to say.

Brian Lehrer: Was it hard for you, Adam, and others in that particular corner of the movement, of the protest, to be passionate about opposing Trump since Biden also had policies that obviously you would have objected to, I imagine very strongly with respect to Israel and Gaza?

Adam: I think that's a great question because we felt like Biden, he would have allowed Netanyahu to bully him all the way to where he's at now. I feel like Trump, he just dropped all-- He doesn't even pretend anymore to care. He gives them what they want. He's meeting Netanyahu soon in the White House, I believe, or in Israel. It's saddening when 15 ambulance and rescue workers get shot, murdered in cold blood, and just nothing. You barely even hear about it on the news, honestly. To be Palestinian in America is really hard in this moment of time.

The question you asked is very important because I feel no difference, honestly. I feel like it's the continuing policy for more than 60 years of just allowing Israel to run rampant, and Trump is just another part of that.

Brian Lehrer: Adam, thank you for your call. We appreciate it. Elaine Godfrey from The Atlantic, I know we're going to leave you in a few minutes. Listeners, we'll continue to take some of your calls as a lot of calls and texts are continuing to come in, including Judy on the Upper West Side, we'll get to you. Marty in Yonkers, we'll get to you. Some people calling in with some of the most interesting or creative, or for them, resonant signs that they saw at whatever rally they attended over the weekend. Can I ask you about that? As a reporter who covered the DC march, any most creative signs you saw or Hands Off what responses that dominated or stick with you today, a couple of days later, Elaine?

Elaine Godfrey: Yes. [chuckles] That's funny. The thing that stuck out was the creativity of the signs. I think it's just because there are so many things right now that people are mad about. There's really just a sign for everything. That was the most fascinating part, was reading everyone's signs. You had signs about Laura Loomer, the conspiracy theorist who advises Trump, apparently in the Oval Office. You had signs that were more serious about the disappearing of dissidents, dissident students, signs about tariffs, signs about Putin, abortion rights.

One that I thought was really funny. This is particularly relevant because I work for The Atlantic, and my boss is Jeffrey Goldberg, who broke the news about being added to that group chat, that Signal chat, I guess, last week or the week before, someone had a sign that said, "I did not have textual relations with that man, Jeffrey Goldberg." I took a picture of that one and sent it to him. Just a lot of good stuff that was super funny, creative.

A lot of people were really mad at Democratic leadership. One sign that stuck out to me and that people kept pointing at and clapping for was this woman's sign. It said, "Time to Chuck Schumer." It had a picture of a garbage can on it. That's how people are feeling right now. People are really angry at Chuck Schumer and other Democratic leaders.

Brian Lehrer: Where did the Cory Booker speech fit in then? He was the guest before you came on today. Were people talking about that? Is it making anybody in your reporter's experience feel any differently about the Democratic Party? How would you put the Cory Booker speech into the context of the protests you covered in Washington on Saturday?

Elaine Godfrey: Yes, actually, I saw a lot of Cory Booker signs. People had drawn him on signs or said, "Thank you, Senator Booker." He came up a lot in my interviews. I know he didn't do something super tangible to stand up to Trump but he literally stood for Trump. He reflected our anger. He showed us that there are Democrats willing to stand for 25 hours and be outraged, which just feels good. It feels like people's feelings about Trump are being acknowledged. Lots of people brought him up, and they brought up the Wisconsin Supreme Court election and how Elon Musk put 20 million in that race and it didn't help the Republican-endorsed candidate win there. People were taking those two things in particular as lights in the darkness right now.

Brian Lehrer: Elaine Godfrey, staff writer for The Atlantic, thank you very much for joining us this morning.

Elaine Godfrey: Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: We'll keep going for a few more minutes with so many calls and texts coming in. Judy on the Upper West Side, you're on WNYC. Hi, Judy. We will come back to Judy when I think she turns down her radio and gets off the 10-second delay. Marty in Yonkers, you're on WNYC. Hi, Marty.

Marty: Hi. My sign said, "A proud higher education diversicrat." I picked that term because the fact that I teach in higher education. I teach future healthcare providers. I have read part of Project 2025 to my classes about health care. If you look in that project, you will find where they talk about higher education. That's what they call me, because I do believe in diversified student population. I think it's really important. I do research. I do nutrition research. We need not only the money from the NIH, but we need different types of folks to study so that we understand the broader picture of what happens in healthcare. I'm a proud diversicrat.

Brian Lehrer: It's really interesting. It's an example of how people over time who've been labeled one thing or another by their opposition, however you want to frame it, or by people who are out to disparage them, embrace the label like queer in the LGBT community or for Trump supporters in 2016, deplorables, after Hillary Clinton used that word. You're taking that phrase that was used disparagingly in Project 2025 and saying, "Yes, I am a higher ed diversocrat." You wear it proudly, right?

Marty: Absolutely. One of the other things I wanted people just to go look at is the medical qualifications that they want to change in Project 2025, which just one sentence about that, your doctor may have a religious agenda. In five years, what does your doctor actually know? That's what frightens me. I did want to just send my favorite sign that I saw, which was, "Super callous, fragile, racist, sexist, fascist POTUS."

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] Marty, thank you very much for even trying to pronounce that word. Thank you very much for your call. By the way, Trump supporters, this call-in is for people who were at the protests on Saturday, which is a news story. We're doing this call in for them. Any Trump supporters being moved or being changed by any of this? Do you just think, "Oh, there are those lefties doing what lefties do. This doesn't affect me."? Or is Elon Musk coming out against the trade war, apparently is what's happening on Wall Street, which I characterized at the beginning of the segment as a strange bedfellows resistance coalition between people who really don't like what Trump is doing and all kinds of anti-DEI, anti-healthcare funding, all these other ways and how Wall Street is now part of the resistance when it comes to tariffs? Anybody moving away?

I heard on NPR this morning, Bill Ackman, the big Republican donor, now saying, "Hey, maybe let's not, President Trump, on the tariffs." How about you, regular Republican voters, Trump voters? Feel free to text us. We'll take calls in another segment another day. For now, feel free to text us and tell us, are you moving? Are you being moved by any of this? Are you overwhelmed by what Trump is trying to do, and thinking, "I really didn't vote for all this. I voted for a few specific things, like the price of eggs or whatever it is."?

Or do you stand with him and think, "There go the lefties doing what the lefties do."? Text us for the moment at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Another sign listener writes, "Best sign I saw 'Fight truth decay.'" I think Judy on the Upper West Side is ready to go with the sign she saw. Judy, you're on WNYC. Hello there.

Judy: Hi. I marched in Manhattan, and there was a woman who was walking her dachshund, and it said, "Hands off my weenie." That was written vertically. Then, next to W, it was women's bodies. Next to E, it was the environment. Next to the next E, it was education and so on, which I thought was adorable. There was another lady with a dog, and it said, "Bad DOGE," D-O-G-E, which was cute. Then, there was something a little frightening-- Not frightening, but the woman on the woman's sign, she wrote something about her fear of bringing her phone to the protests because she was afraid of being tracked. Interesting.

Brian Lehrer: Judy, that's a lot of interesting stuff. Thank you very-- It's funny about the DOGE sign. I've been meaning to check on a restaurant that I like to go to sometimes that has a salad called the Doge salad, which was a thing before all of this, a tuna-based salad that I actually like and have ordered a number of times. I haven't been there since the start of the Trump administration. I've been wondering if they needed to change the name of that salad on the menu because now it has a whole other meaning.

Judy: That's very interesting.

Brian Lehrer: Judy, thank you very much. Here's another one. I have seen lots. A text says, "For what it's worth, wanted to share this observation. My wife and I attended the march in Manhattan on Saturday. We are in our late 50s. We found that the majority of the marchers were older than us. We spoke to one woman who said she was 72 and felt young there." I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing or a sign of who's really affected. I don't know. Either it shows that there are people from the baby boom generation who are used to this, who remember Vietnam War protests, civil rights protests, whatever, or it means people are really afraid about their Social Security and Medicare in a way that is making older people turn out. Let's see. How about Alexis in Stamford, who I think has a sign. Alexis, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Alexis: Hi there. It's me, Alexis. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you, Alexis.

Alexis: Awesome. I was protesting on Saturday in Stamford, Connecticut, and we had between 2,000 and 3,000 people at our march, which some news organizations said was the largest one in our city's history. Our march was super energized, lots of diverse signs, so many messages. The signs that I carried were really focused on some of the issues within the judicial system right now and this administration's blatant disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law. One side of my sign said, "Due process is not optional," because I am horrified about all of these abductions off the street where people are not getting a chance to have the due process and say, "Hey, I'm not in a gang."

The other side of my sign said, "We love the Constitution. Respect it, Mr. President." One thing that was talked about leading up to the protests, when people were making signs and at the protest, so many people said that they kept having a great idea for a sign, but then something else crazy would happen in the administration and they'd say, "Oh, I'm mad about that. Oh, no, wait, now I'm mad about tariffs." It was hard to pick a message, but I think we chanted about a lot of different things.

The speaker at our rally in Connecticut was the State Attorney General for Connecticut, William Tong, and he was one of the first people to file a lawsuit against the incoming Trump administration back, I think, in January when birthright citizenship was first threatened. He's had bomb threats to his house here in Stamford since then, but he's continued to really stand up to this administration. We had a really interesting moment at the end of our protest.

Our protest finished in front of the WWE wrestling corporate headquarters, because we have it here in Stamford. Folks were chanting and yelling messages towards the WWE building for Linda McMahon about how upset they were about the cuts in the Education Department and cutting funding for the-

Brian Lehrer: For people who don't know, WWE Exec Linda McMahon, who's now Trump's Education secretary. Go ahead.

Alexis: Yes. People were yelling about how upset they are about cuts to underprivileged city schools and basically the full shutdown of the Department of Education. Right when that happened, a Cybertruck got caught at the red light right in the middle of both sides of the street that were lined with everyone finishing up the rally at the end of our protest.

Brian Lehrer: That Tesla thing, the Tesla Cybertruck?

Alexis: Yes, the Tesla Cybertruck. At first, people were really excited to boo because they had this big symbol here that galvanized so many of the angry feelings that people have about Elon Musk and all of the things he's been doing inside the Oval Office. The chance moved from doing a boo to telling this guy, "Hey, just because you bought that car doesn't mean you have to stay committed to supporting all the bad and illegal things that are going on right now. You can get out of that car. You can sell that car." By the end of it, everyone was just chanting, "Join us. Join us." It went from something that was a really negative moment to more of a really positive moment. It was a great way to end what was an awesome day of protest.

Brian Lehrer: Were you able to see how the driver reacted to all that?

Alexis: At first, he put the window down a little bit, and there was some dialogue. I think he got overwhelmed and put it back up. I don't know that we convinced him today, but maybe two, three months from now, when something else happens that does affect someone that he knows directly, he might be having some second thoughts.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, another sign that somebody saw that they just texted, "Let them eat Teslas." Alexis, thank you very much. I'll read a few more signs that are coming in on text, and then we're going to take one more caller, also acknowledging that people are continuing to chime in with protests that happened in the suburbs. A couple coming from people who are at the Hastings one. Hastings, we see you. Let's see. Text, " A sign that got me at the protest in New York City-" a listener writes, "-read 'Make America merciful again.'" It was held by a woman there with her church."

Another one, "At a rainy day gathering in Teaneck, "Hello, Teaneck, "Smokey the Bear saying, 'Only you can prevent forest fires. No, seriously, I've been laid off from the Forest Service, I guess.'" Let's see. We are getting some Trump voters responding to all this as we invited them to do so. One says, "I'm an Upper West Side first-time Trump voter. The marches don't affect me anymore. It's the constitutional crisis that cried wolf. I don't know what I think about the tariffs yet, but I like that he's taking action and sticking to a position he believes in that may cost him politically."

Another Trump voter texted, "I voted for Trump and I'm not surprised by these moves. We've embraced globalization for decades, and it's destroyed the futures of millions of Americans. Not sure how this will work out, but I know it will be painful in the short run." Let's see. We have one more sign, not in a text. We're going to take one last caller. Jerry in Paramus. Jerry, you're on WNYC. Hello

Jerry: Brian, I appreciate you taking my call. Thank you very much. I just want to mention that I'm a 100-year-old World War II vet-

Brian Lehrer: Get out.

Jerry: -fought in France, was in the German army of occupation. What concerns me the most, and what's so sad, and I'm so dismayed over it, is that I don't hear anything coming from the veterans organizations. There are 9 million vets being serviced by the VA, and their organization is being destroyed. Now, I use the VA occasionally. I'm visually impaired, and they're a fabulous organization to help me. Where are the other veterans? I'm just so disappointed and just so sad about it. I just want to express my feelings because I have lived through the Great Depression, through World War II, and I thought that I would be seeing such marvelous things happening now, and I'm not.

Brian Lehrer: Jerry, first of all, everybody should sound so good at 100 years old as you do, but we hear your cri de cœur and we'll follow up on that. We'll look specifically at another time at what's going on with veterans organizations. Thank you very much for calling.

Jerry: Okay. Bye-bye now.

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