♪ ♪ #host: good morning, everyone, welcome to the "washington journal." e house yesterday passed a bill 352-65 with one present vote that could been tiktok in the united states. we want to get your reaction to that debate and vote and tell lawmakers what you think about this.

we've divided the lines this morning this way -- if you support the idea of a ban, dial in, if you oppose it, (202) 748-8001 if you can also text us -- for tiktok users your line this morning is (202) 748-8003. you can also text at that same number all of you include your first name, city and state or go to facebook.com/c-span. welcom tonversation. the house vote yesterday is whether or not to force tiktok to sell the company, divest from china, or face a bend in the united states. about banning the app was posed to americans in a survey done by the public

affairs research poll ap centers public affairs research poll and i found that 31% said they support a ban on tiktok well 35% oppose and 31% said neither. this legislation would not ban it unless china refuses to divest its app. a little bit from the debate yesterday, listen to mike gallagher, republican of wisconsin, one of the lead advocates for regulating tiktok. this is what he had to say on the floor. [video clip] >> tiktok is a threat to national security because is owned by bytedance which does the biddinof the chinese communist party. we know this because bytedance leadership says so and because chinese law requires it. this bill therefore forces tiktok to break up with the chinese come is party. get does not apply to american companies.

it only applies to companies subject to the control of foreign adversaries defined by congress.it says nothing about election interference, it cannot be turned against any american social media plan. it does not impact websites in general. the only impact such as tiktok.com, it can never be used to penalize individuals. the text expressed -- explicitly prohibits that and it cannot cannot be used to censor speech, takes no position at all on the content of speech, only foreign adversary control. foreign adversary control of what is becoming the dominant news ur national security i hurt my collies to support this critical bipartisan legislation. host: mike gallagher who is the chair of the select committee on u.s. china competition on the floor, advocating for support of

the bill yesterday. it passed in an overwhelmingly bipartisan way. the popular short video app has faced scrutiny over the way its algorithm works to select content from users. this is the wall street journal reporting this morning. on the others have this debate was tom massey of kentucky, one of those that oppose the legislation. here's what he had to say on the floor. [video clip] >> some of us are concerned that there are first amendment implications here. americans have the right to view information. we don't need to be protected by the government from information. some of us just don't want the

president picking which apps we can put on our phones or which website we can visit. we don't think that's appropriate. we also think it's dangerous to give the president that kind of power, to give him the power to decide what americans can see on their phones and their computers, to give him that discretion, we also think is dangerous. people say this tiktok ban will only apply to tiktok or maybe another company that pops up just like tiktok, but the bill is written so broadly that the president could abuse that discretion and include other companies that aren't just social media companies. some people would believe are controlled by foreign adversaries. we are giving the president that discretion to decide. host: congressman thomas massie with an argument against the legislation that passed on the floor yesterday. it wasn't overwhelming vote, 352 lawmakers in the house voted for

this legislation while 65 opposed it. the washington headline this morning -- we are asking you this morning to join the debate in washington do you think the house should -- that the senate should pass this bill and the senate says the president can sign it into law? andy in austin, texas, you support this idea? tell us why. caller: i support it. i just don't trust anything the chinese government that has control of an app like this or any other kind of control to come into our country. i don't trust anything they do. i support the banf tiktok. i did not know until listening to the prior talker on points

that gave the president wide control for future bills on different situations. i think we need to keep it in context. if it's a foreign run business prove that there is nefarious happenings that can be damage of a or will be damage of aa dish damageble to the citizens in the country, i most ban on a company like tiktok -- that was all happening before we even got into the formal debate in the formal vote on this. before tiktok became available. yes, that's kind of where i stand on it and i've been trying to keep up with it. ink it's a bad practice to allow the chinese government

involved in any of our happenings over here. host: al also supports the legislation. good morning. caller: yes i will tell you a little bit more about tiktok. host: in what way? caller: i don't use it. tiktok, videos youtube, my connection to tiktok is youtube. the problem i see this is a problem across the entire internet. this is a problem wittiktok facebook, with twitter, it's a massive destructive divisive disinformation. you can categorize it like what i would call a massive covid-19 misinformation. there is massive vaccines in

general misinformation. then there is qanon misinformation. what i've heard about tiktok is they are promoting, i would call them stupid conspiracy theories. they promote atlantis and lost civilization conspiracy theories giants roamed the earth conspiracies. the problem is, what do you do with dangerous and really bad misinformation? i'm worried about the russia misinformation. russia played with us all over facebook and all over twitter and they are still doing their thing. host: do you support the government regulating more intensely these apps you are

talking about, not just tiktok? caller: i have mixed feelings about it in the sense that i want to protect freedom of speech. on the other hand, if you look at it kind of like tv and radio where you do you know what i'm saying, some content moderation and you can put warnings. like what twitter does now for example is if the fcc would regulate these or have an entity , social media fcc like entity and says you have to, you have to put up warning signs you have to put up misinformation labels like on cigarettes. we've got labels on cigarettes and they cause cancer. if you put labels on things and regulate it, i think it has to be done. there is so much better misinformation, dangerous information out there that to me, it's a problem across all

the social media platforms. host: let's get your reaction from other callers. mike in michigan, you oppose the legislation that passed yesterday in the house? caller: good morning. yes, i oppose, i believe our government is so crooked that i don't trust it anymore. host: do you trust the chinese to control app and data users? caller: we have chinese, through the border, knowing's doing st: ok, mark ohio, you are a tiktok users a what do you do there? caller: i just use it to getinformation. unfortunately, i think everybody thinks we are americans and we are stupid so the government needs to control what we see. how about let all the information out there let us decide as americans.

if we are going to give the power to one person to decide what we can see or not we are leaning toward a dictatorship and that's not the country i want to work for. i'm absolutely against it area i don't think the government can be in charge of or allowed to see or decide for us. it's actually horrible. host: the legislation says that it would force a sale of chinese ownership of tiktok or face a ban. what about the first part of that? forcing the sale and u.s. companies would bite it, perhaps like a microsoft. caller: ok, i guess it goes back to the same thing. who are we as americans to force a foreign company to sell and second off, how do we trust anyone one to do it they are doing. facebook is doing stuff already and collecting our data. if this bill goes into effect,

it should affect every social media platforms and they should all be held to the same accountability, but if you are not going to do that to all of them, don't do it. host: the wall street editorial board -- from this editorial --

do you agree with the wall street journal? pull the vote in the senate and let the senators go on the record like they did in the house yesterday? we will go to mary in minneapolis, another tiktok user. good morning, how do you use the app? caller: how do? i use the app to look at memes and release the good dopamine. this whole thing is a big thing it's really weird. this is what we get a bipartisan effort on. people are looking at climate change and no bipartisan there. people are when it comes to banning an app because we can't control it that's the one we are going to

do? it's also quite racist. we are doing it because every person's nationality. thank you for c-span. i love you. respond to the national security part of this. this is from usa today -- caller: they are doing that now already. it's helping young people learn about things. we are trying to sell it to us and they want to make more money. that's the reason, they don't want it in china, they want to control and make money for our economy because it's not necessarily helping our economy. if we believe corporations are people, they have the right to do what they will do. you have a good day and i love

c-span, thank you. host: thank you for calling in. here is the ceo of tiktok and what he toldatat a hearing in january about the steps the company has taken to protect user data in the united states. [video clip] >> tiktok is owned by bytedance and we have three americans on the board. you are right in pointing out that over the last three years we have spent billions of dollars on project texas which is a plan that's unprecedented in her industry to firewall and protect u.s. data. >> i'm asking about all the data you collected prior to that. >> yes, we have started a data mitigation plan. we have finished the first phase of data transition to our data outside the oracle infrastructure. we will begin phase two will -- where we will delete but we will hire a third party to verify that work and go into employees

working laptops to work as well. >> was all the data collected by tiktok prior to project texas shared with the chinese government pursuant to the national intelligence laws in the country? >> asked for any data by the chinese government and would never provided it. host: from a hearing with the tiktok ceo back in january.if you want to learn more, go to our website c-span.org. this morning, we are getting your thoughts on the house passage of a bill that could band tiktok in the united states if the company does not divest from its chinese ownership. paul in iowa, good morning to you, what do you say? caller: thanks for taking my call. originally, i was for the van as a dumb listening to different perspectives this actually

isn't a whole a different than the u.s. government was doing to facebook over the election by restricting who could be on it or what was being said or saying something was misinformation. now they want the u.s. to control that, too. a couple of previous callers were saying the same thing. i think the other social media apps are collecting data on everybody for years now anyway. host: it's different when it's the chinese government. caller: well, maybe. that's why i'm not sure. i need a little bit more information. host: we will show you a little bit more from the debate in this hour this morning on the "washington journal." you can also go to our website c-span.org. for yesterday's debate on the house floor, if you watch that video, you push play on our website, yellow stars will

appear that will give you the points of interest from the debate. you can quickly go through it and hear the different perspectives, some of which you heard this morning and you will continue to hear on the "washington journal." silver spring, maryland, what do you say? caller: good morning, how are you? host: doing well. caller: i'm opposing the bill as it's drafted and going to the senate. we are talking about a government entity to control this. the government can do the same with our country and a lot of other things. the bill should pass the senate. banning acompany to sell this, it could bring back -- a backlash in the

united states. host: oregon, you support the legislation, good morning. caller: good morning. yeah, i definitely support the ban of anything from the ccp. i spent a few years in vietnam in the mid 60's and i don't have any use for those people. host: cindy in pennsylvania also supporting this legislation that passed inhe house. caller: hello. i support the ban because of the slow move to what we are seeing. it's dictated by blackmail. this diminishes our economy. this whole process [indiscernible]

and we need to look at the portfolios of chuck schumer and many others like nancy pelosi and see use investing in companies and billions of dollars. until we find out what's really going on. host: thank you. biden has banned the use of tiktok on government phones. that is in place now and the president has said if this legislation passes the senate and comes to his desk, he will sign it. anna president trump tried to ban tiktok when he was president but it was blocked by courts for failing to adequately consider an obvious and reasonable alternative is what the judge wrote at the time. president trump now is now opposed to this legislation yesterday, this week saying recently that he does not want this legislation to pass because he's afraid a facebook or mark

zuckerbergpabigger if there is no tiktok. here is former president back in 2020 when he issued an executive order in support of potential tiktok saying the tiktok threatened the national security foreign policy and economy of the united states. that's what he said in 2020. however, this week, here is the president from this week explaining how he opposes a potential tiktok ban. [video clip] >> i had it done and then congress said well, they ultimately usually fail. they are extremely political and they are extremely subject to people called lobbyists who happen to be very talented and very good and very rich. i could have band tiktok. i could've gotten it done.

i said i will leave it up to you. i didn' it too hard because i said let them do their own research and development and they decided not to do it i was at the point where i could've gotten it done if i wanted to. i said you guys decide and you make that decision because it's a tough decision to make. frankly, there are a lot of people on tiktok that love it. there are a lot of young kids on tiktok who will go crazy without it. there are a lot users there is a lot of good and bad with tiktok. the thing i don't like is without tiktok, you can make facebook bigger. i consider facebook to be an enemy of the people along with a lot of the media. but facebook didlockboxes and the $500 million zuckerbox lockboxes, they put people in jail when they spend more than

$5,600 in a campaign, they go to jail. they put someone in jail over a couple hundred bucks and he's spends $500 million that needed to go to jail. >> do you believe tiktok is a national security threat or not? i believe the emergency powers order you put in place at the time suggested it was. is that not true? >> i do believe that. we have to very much go into privacy and make sure we are protecting the american people's privan i agree but we also have that problem with facebook and lots of other companies host: that was the former president on cnbc recently explaining his thoughts on the idea of regulating, banning tiktok. that's the conversation this morning with all of you after the house passed 352-65 in legislation that either would force the sale of tiktok from

china or ban it in this country. there are the lines on your screen. if you support the legislation or if you oppose or if you are not sure, you can call in. you can join us in a text at (202) 748-8003 just include your first name, city and state and go to facebook.com/ c-span or post onx. fun our facebook page, here are some comments. there is also this comment --

the legislation goes to the senate where its fate is uncertain. usa today lawmakers are instead proposing different legislation. senator marks the restrict act.

there is computing legislation in the senate. do you like the idea of the senate bill instead of what the house passed yesterday? you can join the conversation to give us your thoughts on that as well. fort covington, new york, hi there. caller: good morning. i appreciate c-span very much. i've been on the not sure lines because i'm not much of a user of social media. one of the things that i guess maybe bothered me about many of the callers is they say put all of this information out there in front of the average american because we are not stupid, we are not ignorant. i do agree with that but he left out the word gullible. i think people who spend much of the day on social media are extremely gullible. how else do you explain asignificant

amount of people in the united states believing that the election in 2020 was stolen? lain the fact that what turned out to be the anti-covid vaccine is now anti-vaccine of all sorts. in new york, we have a couple of areas with outbreaks of measles because people read on these media sites that vaccines are harmful. i have a couple of friends who really are not stupid. they are gullible. they believed that part of the covid vaccine had little microps honeinjected along with this. the people who are saying americans are not stupid, they are right but they are extremely gullible. thank you. host: gregory in connecticut opposing the legislation. hi, gregory. caller: good morning.

from my perspective it's an attempt at censorship generally speaking. i think an awful lot of information that doesn't appear in the new york times or the washington post, doesn't appear in the hartford career because the gatekeepers decide this information should not be made available. never palestine and the disaster over there, but i think in palestine, ohio, a lot of that information would not have come up if it was not for social media. d alternative news sources. as an american, i am obligated to seek multiple sources for myinformation and not necessarily believe everything that is put in front of me and be cynical to determine my opinion on certain

things. ultimately, like the previous caller said, sometimes you don't know because you don't know. it takes some time to learn about the facts. the thing is, i think the washington post, the new york times are failing dismally about both ukraine and palestine. and what's going on in these places. host: ahead of yesterday's vote in the house, a committee last week in the house passed this legislation 50-0 and then it quickly came to the floor. tiktok for its part wants to do a major lobbying effort on its platform to mobilize the 180 milliohun users. phones were ringing off the hook on capitol hill, telling lawmakers not to support this legislation. it did go through yesterday, 352-65.

however, now goes to the senate where the majority leader chuck schumer says he will look at it, uncertain when it would come to the floor. david singer of t he talks about the algorithms that are owned by this chinese company.

there is that wrinkle in all of this. david singer from the washington post and his analysis, excuse me, the new york times if you want to read more from him. rick in pennsylvania, not supporting the legislation, hi rick. caller: i have mixed feelings

about this. first of a understand what information they can get from me that would do any harm. second, i think maybe it's not china that's the problem that the government doesn't like the competition they are getting from china. thank you. host: jeff in ohio, you support the bill, good morning. caller: yes, i'm in support of the bill 100% because i think that even the name tiktok dictates that china is in one way or another trying to gain a foothold with information sent to the united states. i work for the department of defense and i worked for the department of the air force on information within those bodies. i don't like the idea of china being able to influence people

unnecessarily so. i am completely for the bill and i'd like to see it go through and pass and get rid of tiktok entirely. host: we will take your phone calls this morning throughout the first hour and "washington journal a half of the "washington journal." at the top of the hour, we will be joined by a guest to continue our discussion on tiktok and what should be done about it in the united states. if you are watching and you want to share your opinion this morning, this is how you join the conversation -- if you support with the house passed, (202) 748-8000, if you oppose, (202) 748-8001, not sure, call us as well at (202) 748-8002 and tiktok users, (202) 748-8003. more posts on our social media website --

you can join us on facebook, on x and text us as well. richard and melvin, massachusetts. good morning to you. caller: good morning. this country is the most crookedest government in the

world, the united states. we are spying on every country and when they come back and do it to us, they are bad people. the whole is the american people or 70% of them are illiterate when it comes to common sense. in the obama administration, they were spying on cell phones. that was the president of germany and that cost the taxpayers $1 million but they don't tell you that. have a good day. host: michelle in illinois, tiktok user, welcome to the conversation. how do you use the app? caller: i am a tiktok shop owner. i sell products on tiktok so i'm very concerned if they are going to ban it and thenht be out of business. host: can you share with us your

business and how much you make? caller: i don't want to say the money part. host: caller: caller: ok. i am disabled and i sell disabled products for low vision individuals. i make a little money here and there. it supplements my disability. host: michelle there in illinois, tiktok user with her side of the argument today. join the debate this morning on the "washington journal". 352-65 was the vote for thit passed this bill that caban tiktok. it's either forcing a sale or banning tiktok in this country. a little bit more from the debate, the top democrat on the

u.s.-china competition select committee and a bill cosponsor on the house floor yesterday on why this legislation is needed. [video clip] >> unfortunately, when tiktok has appeared befor's before the house energy and commerce committee or otherwise, it has not been candid, my friends. it is not been candid. tiktok said its data is not accessible to china bytedance employees, false. china-based employees routinely access the data even unbeknownst to employees of tiktok usa. in addition, tiktok said its data will not be weaponized and has not been weaponized against american citizens. again, false. published reports of shown that tiktok data geolocation data, has been used to surveilled american journalists who reported on problems with chinese-based employees having access to american user data.

finally, last week, under the leadership of the chairwoman and the ranking member, they brought up for consideration our bill before the house energy and commerce committee. on the morning of that vote, tiktok delivered a push notification and the pop up to thousands of users across the country. they used geolocation data targeting minor children to then force them to call congressional offices in order to can 10 you using the app just to conin doing so, these children called and they asked what is congress and was a congressman? this influence campaign illustrates the need for this bill. host: from the debate in the house yesterday before they pass this legislation tha states -- that could band tiktok in the united states. you oppose? caller: yes, thank you so much for taking my call.

i see two big issues here. one is tiktok itself=6 and the debate raging around that issue and the other issue is giving our government the ability to ban social media platforms taking the power away from us to decide what type of content we the citizens will take a look at. i'd like to talk about that second issue a little bit. if you read this bill, it says the government can ban any foreign owned or foreign controlled social media platform or website. as far as foreign owned, how do you define that? it's 20%, a mere 20% of foreign ownership. a lot of these companies are publicly traded. we don't really know because markets are international. how much of the s&p 500's foreign owned? i don't know.

the more geordie is owned by blackrock and vanguard now. how much foreign ownership is there in those companies? we don't really know that. that's a pretty broad definition. even worse, is the foreign control. we've been having a raging debate in this country, some people think donald is foreign controlled by russia. i disagree with that personally. it's debatable, a lot of people think he is. this bill, if you read it, he gives the power to the government to decide what entity is foreign controlled and how exactly it is foreign controlled. host: understood, the white house is urging swift action on this legislation after the house passed it yesterday in the senate and the president said he will sign it into law. bill says he's not sure in michigan. caller: i never use it. one thing i am sure of, our

government has been trying to take away our free speech, our free talk for quite a while now. if we want to talk about foreign owned, i believe our president his family has collected over 20% of their wealth off of the chinese and the. we've got a vietnam going and were fighting against russia, proxy war. these democrats have been doing this for a long time. money is in the war. thank you. host: david in dallas, texas supporting the legislation. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i just got to say that one guy talking about the s&p 500, he's obviously a trump supporter and that's probably who's controlling his thoughts. i look at the fact that the way the democrats and republicans have been so opposed to one

another and then to come together on this bill, there has to be something intelligence knows that we don't know. the it, it's an app, for christ's sake. if you have so may absent you want to play around, i think it's the chinese have any information about americans or what they do. case in point is the fact that they sent that pop up yesterday and had kids calling congress. i think it's dangerous for the chinese to have any type of algorithm about americans, where we shop, what we do. it's really none of their business and once again, there are all types of apps on the internet and i think anything foreign controlled needs to be monitored very closely. in this day and age, once again there is no room for error. any edge they can get on is from

an intelligence perspective and a technological perspective, i think needs to be closely monitored. host: let's listen to the other side of the argument on the house floor yesterday. this is robert garcia of california. [video clip] >> i have enormous respect for the efforts of my calling to focus on security and data protection and i share many of their concerns. i disagree with this approach and bill that could impact 170 million americans who use tiktok. one third of all u.s. adults use the app and millions of entrepreneurs and small buowners use the platform to support their families. just like every other social media platform, they have misinformation and privacy concerns. it's important we don't treat tiktok differently than other platforms. if we're going to address this issue, wtogot approach to other media platforms. we cannot just single out one. i joined many of my colleagues in the aclu in voicing concern over the freedom of expression. i'm a strong supporter of

ensuring that tiktok remains in the open marketplace and there is no guarantethat there won't be an interruption of service thata could lead ton end to this at. i don't think we appreciative impacts will have and them for that, i am a strongno. thank you and i yield back. host: one of those 65 lawmakers yesterday that voted no on this legislation that could band tiktok in the united states. jack in new york, tiktok user hi, jack. caller: hi, i'm actually, i'm happy and externally excited that so many people voted the way they did. i was amazed there was even 65 members of the house that were able to be swayed by tiktok and their movement to try to stop this legislation from passing. the fact that the chinese communist party can have any data on us, that our country and

government is allowing them to collect data on as is an issue. host: you're on tiktok? caller: yes. host: if it is banned, where would you go? caller: i would find something else. i mostly use it to argue with people about politics and that sort of thing. host: ok. caller: i think our national security is more important than my personal opinion. host: what about this from tiktok -- t do you think that's enough by tiktok, the company? as i listen to the ceo of tiktok testified before congress honestly, he is bound by the chinese law which reap --

which says the chinese government can force someone to spy and they have to do it and light and protect the country. i don't remember this but the specifics of the law but they sickly, it requires -- it would require him to turn over the data and lie about it. just because he says i'm putting the data in texas and with a big firewall, i still think the chinese governms the data at the end of the day. host: let's go to nevada elizabeth, good morning in las vegas. caller: good morning. the guy from texas basically said it all but i didn't want to hang up. if it's good for the country and we don't have people spying on us, i don't have children but if i did, i wouldn't want them on there and being exposed.

it's a dangerous world. it's not about taking our freedoms away. we have a lot of apps to go on. i got on facebook after 11 years, two years ago and you don't know what freedom that was. host: when you got off facebook, did you think you had an addiction or did you feel you were checking it and using it too much when she decided to not look at it anymore? caller: yes. at a later date. it destroyed a lot of friendships during the trump thing and he destroyed a lot of people's friendships in this country. you know, i lost you. host: elizabeth there in nevada. mattie in norfolk, virginia. caller: how are you? host: what dote? caller: i'm not for sure because

i do not do a lot of it but i do some. it gives me a lot of true information when i listen to it. it gives me a lot of true information although there is other information that is false. my concern is the democratic citizens have to come together for this but i'm afraid why can't they come together for everything else the united states of america? host: more from the new york times reporting on this legislation --

chris in california, let's hear from you this morning. caller: hello. i came into the call kind of unprepared. i think i support the bill to ban tiktok hearing the story ofjenny, but the man who owned a media conglom kong and went through that trial as a billionaire. it sounded like a complete sham sort of trial. china is not particularly friendly country, the communist party is not friendly toward journalism. president biden stated in the state of the union speech that he wants competition with china, he doesn't want conflict. i think that how journalists are

treated through tiktok even though it's communist party property presumably, it doesn't really satisfy competition with the united states. it satisfies something along the line of conflict in addition to the commonest party of china regulating monetary supplied by demanding the belt road initiative yen be used rather than the american dollar. there are so many avenues of conflict the communist party is using in addition to like foreign registered nationals of the chinese g states, the story of police stations being set up so that the communist party of china can police nationals from china in our own country within our own borders and so on. be quite a

different aspect agreements and so on. yes, i support the effort to protect not just u.s. citizens and journalists and free-speech and international law, but also foreign registered nationals in the united states or territories. host: john in new jersey, what do you do on tiktok? caller: i just go on it to educate myself and see what people are talking about. i think it's funny like the last caller brought up journalists. last i checked, we have saudi lobbyists and u.s. senator last year doing a dual role of saudi super pac. we've got a pack in every single party in ti know we didn't really do a good job of bringing along people that know how to use the

if a company wants to monitor what you are doing, they don't need an app to do it. we literally send all of our electronics to be manufactured in china. american companies did that. they elected to do that, to take country who is still in a developing economy to do that for us. we never brought any of that manufacturing back over to the u.s.. we haven't actually done a whole lot to bring any kind of manufacturing. all it's done is to capitalism on our terms better than us. if you want to talk about journalism, wasn't there a boeing whistleblower that curiously wound up dead in a hotel after testifying against' practices? if we want to talk about this nefarious stuff, we have plenty of nefarious stuff going on right now. for anybody thatup tiktok is owned by the chinese, the owner has

repeatedly said and stated he is singaporean. he is not chinese. host: that's the ceo you are referring to in his testimony before congress has made that clear. if you missed his testimony in january, go to our website c-span.org. you can find it there. in new jersey, supporting the legislation that passed in the house yesterday, good morning. caller: good morning. i've been listening a little bit . i support it. like president trump said long ago, he wanted to ban tiktok and he knew it was a problem for our country and our kids. host: but now he says it shouldn't be banned. caller: i remember in the beginning he said it. now i'm worried about it seems to me this is all political and the weight biden did nothing for three or four years as president now he's worried about getting involved with tiktok. now he's doing this to help himself get votes for this

election. that's what i believe. host:t would help with young voters. young voters are. opposed to this legislation caller: yeah, i know but the simpleminded are more important than the kids. i so you read the article about what's biden is involved in and now he's concerned with china. he did nothing as four years as president now he's concerned with china and their country. thank you. host: net in rochester, minnesota, not sure? caller: actually, there was no choice of what i really wanted. i wanted to say i don't really care. i don't use it, i don't use facebook, i don't use instagram i know they exist. host: so why cacaller: because it seems like people are so concerned over something that doesn't impact our daily lives. there is more important things going on in life. if you want to talk to somebody, go next-door and talk to your

neighbor, call your brother or your sister or your mom or your dad, thank you. host: billy in utah, hi there. caller: hi. host: good morning. caller: good morning. i'm totally for it. i'm glad that centers on both sides agreed to ban it. host: this was the house, not the senate and it's not a ban unless they refuse to sell. ok. let's see what happens aft let's go on. host: tennessee, hi, eric. caller: good morning. this is what i'd like to say -- in china c-span would not be legal. there is no freedom of speech, there is no freedom to government, no freedom to seek redress of grievances from the government. there is no freedom of

association. there is one political party so there is no freedom of religion, no right to bear arms, there is no right to property ownership. even though there isthe land. americans can't own land in china. china stands or fails to stand forny of the basic human freedoms we enjoy and that are guaranteed by our bill of rights. tiktok is a very dangerous thing. tiktok doesn't exist in china in the same form. it could be used quite easily for nefarious would hope our listeners would really consider what china is about when it doesn't allow us to have a c-span because you cannot discuss government policy. host: let me hear from michelle

in alexandria, virginia. caller: thank you for the call. i am for limiting social media at the moment. my problem and conflict comes from why are we so quick to act on this topic? there are so many other topics that are happening to our country whether it's violence, crime. this entire system is a disaster and they will act on this but not on any other topic? it doesn't make sense. host: we will leave it there but we are going to continue the conversation after a short break and then we will be joined byformer trump commerce department official -- who will be with us this morning to give her perspective and her insight on how to regulate and whether or not we should ban tick-tock in

the united states. later, ken block discusses his new book about the trump campaign investigating voter fraud claims and what he could not find. we will be back. ♪ announcer: celebrating the 20th anniversary of her annual studentcam documentary competition. c-span asks middle and high school students across the country to look forward while considering the past.

eachn to look 20 years into the drawer 20 years into the past. in response, we received inspiring and thought-provoking documentaries from more than 3002 hundred students across 42 states conducting in-depth research and interviews with experts. students titled critical topics such as technology and social media. >> eliminated entire field work. >> challenges in climate. >> our tapestry no longer sustains business and diversity. >> discussions that criminal justice, race, bias, and the american criminal justice system. we are excited to share the top winners. in the middle school division, isaac graham newton middle school in mountain view, ca documentary, ai reshaping americus tomorrow delves into the evolving world of artificial intelligence. the high school eastern

division's first prize is awarded to montgomery blair high school in silver spring, climate change and reimagining the future of america's suburbs. troy athens high school in detroit, michigan claimed the first prize in their high school central division with their production "unseen heroes: the caregivers of america."in the haskell western division, palo alto senior high school in california earned first prize for threads of change which takes a critical look at the fashion industry and our top award of $5,000 for a grand prize goes to nate coleman at western haskell in connecticut for the compelling documentary navigating past and future conflict with iran, dealing with a sensitive subject and features interviews with a former iranian hostage. >> instead of saying you are

free to leave i was blindfolded, handcuffed, thrown in the back of the car and taken straight to prison. >> it brings me great joy out of 3200 students who participated in this competition this year, you guys of the grand prize winners for studentcam 2024. >> thank you so much. this is a huge honor. we are so grateful for this opportunity and we really thank you a lot. >> we extend our gratitude to the educators, parents and participants who have supported each of these young filmmakers on their creative journeys. the top winning documentaries and be broadcast on c-span starting april 1, and you can catch each of the award-winning studentcam films online anytime. join us minds as they share their opinions on the

issues that are important to them and impact our world. washington journal continues. host: at our table this morning is the former trump administration former u.s. assistant secretary of commerce here to talk about this debate in washington over what to do about tiktok. the house approved this legislation 352-65, overwhelming bipartisan support. is this significant? guest: given the scope of tiktok users and how debated this issue has been over the last several years, it is really heartwarming and really encouraging to see the government come together on a bipartisan basis about the threats posed to u.s. national securities, absolutely. host: you said heartwarming why? guest: in today's era we tend to over-politicize issues and it

is really nice when in instances where people can put partisanship aside and really come together to address national security threats. your second question isat, absolutely. director wray, director haynes the director of intelligence has been incredibly vocal about the threat that tiktok poses. when you look at how much they have been issuing a warning, it is really unprecedented. we don't see anything like that normally. we really need to heed those warnings and understand that apps posted by foreign adversary nations need to pose a threat. host: dig into the threat because it is interesting our viewers were saying they were surprised that lawmakers would move quickly in that it passed the committee last week, and that you saw this overwhelming bipartisan support.

352. and they can't support other legislation but they can come together behind this. what is going on, what is behind this? host:nefarious behind it. what director wray has been doing quite effectively is he has kept his foot on the gas pedal. the threat of tiktok is emblematic of the apps hosted by foreign adversary nations. he has kept his foot on the pedal to the extent that congress can no longer ignore. it is literally impossible for the american public to be educated on every single issue. that is why they have elected representatives to make those difficult decisions for them. the u.s. government, the executive branc haynes have emphasized the issue so much that it is impossible to ignore. host: what are

guest: it's incredible the capability that technology unleashes. if you use an app hosted by a foreign adversary. the media, the fbi director has talked about surveillance capabilities. we know about the app can drop code into your phone. if your microphone looks likeff, he could actually be on. listen to everything you're doing, monitor all of your keystrokes. then there is the risk of pushing out algorithms that push out content that is destructive. destructive to children. europe has actually had cases where they fined tiktok for pushing out content the children that was inappropriate. but even more so, in addition to all that, because i think the average user is going to say i am consenting to all this. i am consenting to tiktok to have this. they might be listening but i'm not really saying

anything important. how do these apps connect software to metallic indications infrastructure? communicating with the telecommunications infrastructure, so malicious code is also able to be transferred into the tele-indications infrastructure. so you've got individual risk to individual people, risks to the population, collecting massive amounts of data on populations in the united states. demographics regions, etc. and also risk to the tele-communications infrastructure which we depend on. host: is this effectively a ban? because we read from david singer's news analysis in the new york times that the chinese government has control over the algorithm. our says it is like a u.s. company buying a ferrari without the engine, you wouldn't get the algorithm. guest: that is the point.

bytedance has repeatedly said. remember bytedance is the parent company. of the national security risk. bytedance has said over and over again publicly that it will not buy back tiktok. the legislators know that. they know that bytedance isn't going to have that space. that legislation has built in suspenders that says you are supposed to buy it back because your ownership of tiktok is a risk and if you do not divest, we can prohibit the provider web hosting services from providing your app and we are also requiring that users prior to the prohibition users need to obtain their information from you, you're supposed to get that back to the users what you've been collecting on them.

host: what is the likelihood that this company would give that user data back? guest: nothing. would do it in a very insignificant way. of course, they don't want problematic, they don't want problematic conference on anything. services, prohibit them from offering any upgrades or any provision of the app. >> getting three was involved in the conversation. leonard, democratic caller. >> hello, good morning. i just want to say to the lady that is talking, i just want to let you kno senate, white house you don't have any credibility left. we don't believe nothing you say. now that we've been attacked by american companies foreign companies, everybody stealing our data. tiktok to control what we think and what we know, we have

exactly what you guys are doing. so if you want to go ahead and ban tiktok, you are going to greet situations where the democrats are not going to get reelected at all because everyone will turn on them. we don't believe in you guys. all you guys do is lie and more lies and more lies. host: let's take that point, distrust. guest: our government, american people this is no good. it is an argument we heard in the first hour. i think it is a fair comment to say we distrust the government. things have been politicized far too much, and i agree with that. that's why i think it is remarkable here again that the country has come together on a bipartisan basis. i get that the color doesn't distrust the government and at the end of the day we are not going to have the trust. the u.s. government is not going to have the trust of every single american citizen, and that's ok.

the u.s. government needs to make important decisions that not everybody is going to agree with, but that is ok. over to represent this country and they are going to do everything humanly possible to address the national security risk. the caller is right. the threats to u.s. national security are far more important that we have to start somewhere. aunt tiktok is the one area with the acquisition of musically, we actually have the legal authority to intervene and that is why tiktok has become the issue that people are focused on because it is one of those areas where the u.s. government has obvious jurisdiction to go and regulate. host: but the courts said what when the trump administration, which you are part of, tried to ban this? guest: the department of justice didn't defend the ban.

there's really important grounds to defend the ban. this is not overreach, this is not restriction free speech, and that is important to unpack for a second. free speech is the content of the videos. that content is free to migrate anywhere it wants to go. what the u.s. government is essentially regulating as a digital platform hosted by a foreign adversary. let's get rid of that. but as video content, that is free to go anywhere. and the final thing i want to mention goes to the caller's ntrol what we think and what we see. i would much rather the u.s. government control -- that is fundamentally not true, but even assuming some people believe that, i would much rather the u.s. government control what i see and what i think than a country, the chinese government ruled by the chinese communist party who had people in internment camps and control its own significant -- citizens so

significantly that they can't do anything that defies the communist party agenda. social credit scores would go down. i would much rather the u.s. government control what i see rather than anybody else. host: nazak nikakhtar is our guest this morning. she served during the trump administration from 2018 for 2021. she's here this morning to give us her insight on this idea of regulating tiktok or ethics legislation that passed in the house would do, possibly bdemocrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. remember, you can also text us your thoughts.

mike in aurora colorado, you are next. caller: good morning. i'm calling in because leonard was right. you both know lobbying is just another word for bribery so i'm pretty sure what happened was younger people learned about the genocide happening in palestine and the 100 years war that has been happening on palestine and the state of israel so they went and bribed all the politicians to ban tiktok so they can learn about this information. host: let's talk about the history of trying to regulate this app, because it goes back to when? guest: it was before the israel war. it preceded that. i know there is temptation for people to bring in their concern

into this broader national security debate, but i really encourage everybody the nation is under significant risk by foreign primarily china in terms of its infiltration into our tele-communications network. the list goes on. so let's stay focused on the national security threats that right have to do with china have to do with apps, and the u.s. government is trying its very best to regulate. it knows it is going to make a love people upset, but think about this. the politicians are being lobbied much more to advocate for tiktok rather than ban it. there is no lobbying dollars and banning it. and the fact that the politicians have overwhelmingly stepped up and said this is the right thing to do underscore the fact that there isn't lobbying involved, it is actually people stepping in, stepping away from lobbying dollars and saying i'm

going to ban this because it is a u.s. national security interest and informs a blueprint of further actions to come to better protect american interests. host: is that the interest of meta that this happens? the former president is now saying he's not so sure against this legislation because he's worried a company like meta would take over and get even bigger. guest: i don't even want to get into that aspect of the comp -- conversation because bytedance is not going to divest. this is software, it is all integrated. bytedance is not going to give that up and certainly not for any amount that any u.s. company is going to pay. so i really want to just move away from that conversation because it is just moot, it is irrelevant and really focus on the national security risk. the fact that i dance also will not divest is a really important

signal that what is so critical about the u.s. user data that bytedance that is controlled by the chinese communist party will not let go of this. host: since 2019 tiktok has been under review by government panels. the committee on foreign investment in the united states. you worked with them. tell us about this panel, and what are they reviewing? >> this panel has in some form or way been in effect since 1988. it is interagency body shared by the department of treasury, the department of defense, the white house, the department of energy department of state. and the committee reviews certain foreign entities in the united states for national security risks. and if the u.s. government decides there is a risk to national security, it has the legal authority to ban divestiture

if it has already happened, or mitigate if there is a national security risk. u.s. government would use those laws or reach a mitigation agreement with the parties to mitigate the national security risk. if the u.s. government decides there is no risk at all most of these transactions, the vast majority are confidential. this interagency government body is not prone to lobbying at all because nobody knows the transactions to come in and lobby. tiktok somehow made it in the public space, there are legal processes involved to insulate them from the lobbying activity so the committee can actually look at the facts on the basis of what exists in reality. host: have they ever fork the sale of a different chinese company?

guest: absolutely. there's been that seven prohibitions. the vast majority of them have happened in the last 12 years and those have all been chinese companies. we are a country that welcomes investment, that welcomes participation by our friends and allies, but the u.s. government has spoken and spoken consistently not enough to regulate chinese investments in the united states that really do significantly pose national early risk. there is a lot of information out there publicly available about how much u.s. assets the chinese companies governed by the chinese communist party. they own quite a bit of assets in the united states and that is really becoming a big risk. host: baltimore, republican.

caller: yes, good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have a question for your guest and then a follow-up comment. my question is google, facebook, youtube, where do they store international user data? guest: so i actually frankly don't know where companies store their data. i will tell you that american companies are subject to the extent that they are in jurisdiction, subject to american law and they are obligated to privacy laws through the fact that the government doesn't interfere with activities very much. they generally take a very good effort to protect the data we saw the debate with apple

u.s. government, but u.s. companies generally, as a general matter to a very good job. european companies, japanese companies to a very good job. i will tell you this national security professional protecting user data. china is a completely different story. the chinese government has a series of national security laws and anti-foreign sanctions laws they give the chinese government unfettered access the chinese company data and frankly, any company chinese or not that operates in china but also demands that those companies violate foreign laws, violate u.s. privacy laws. china makes it an namic. that, combined with -- and they really want to draw distinctions between china and the united states and other democratic nations -- china has one million to 3 million people in internment camps andg

every activity of its citizens daily lives through a social credit score which essentially requires that if you do not behave in the way that advances the communist party, your credit score goes down, you can't get a car, you can't send children to school, you can't travel. that kind of control over a population is terrifying and that is not how we operate host: connecticut, democratic caller. caller: three separate questions here. one is from the way i read the law, we don't ban foreign ownership, it is adversarial nations owning tiktok. that is one. the way i read it, france could be the country even though china is probably not going to sell it. that is one question.

the other question, i think the just came across nai law -- an ai law protecting its users. is ai connected in any this action that congress took yesterday? and is this the same district that banned theof the united states shipyards? that might have been in the bush administration. is this the same committee that has taken actions like that in the past? thank you so much for your time. guest: i commend the call dictated on the facts of late. you are absolutely right, the law deals with foreign adversary nations. foreign adversary nations being china, the people's republic of china, the russian federation, iran, north korea, cuba.

a small subset of countries. you are right, it is not any of those with any foreign ownership. this is an adversary problem. i do want to address the shipyard. you're absolutely right about that. in terms of the ai. it depends how you define ai. based on its algorithm, you could argue that yes, it does use a little bit of ai to kind of give you more content that you want or a different type of content. but fundamentally, the ai regulation is scoped a little bit differently. i worry that it may not be comprehensive enough, at least

to address the threat posed by appsosted by foreign adversary nations. host: you are listening and watching this morning to nazak nikakhtar former trump administration u.s. assistant secretary of commerce and also now a partner at wiley rein llp national security practice chair as well. in florida, democratic caller. caller: yes. one of the things that i recognize is that we do have an administration of professionals and the people that are learning from individuals who are actually involved in a lot of the processes to protect the american people as a whol everybody. they are involved. one problem is that we have the house and the senate who are supposed to receive information from this administration and for some they fight as

though this administration is against the people. so we've got stuff going on where individuals are not beholden to really sound judgment. they are just making any type of assessments and all kinds of not knowing they have just enough information to think they are right, but not enough to know they are wrong. really, they should at least come with some type of sound information. instead of just pretending. guest: maybe that is worth commenting on with the house and the senate who have been ly by the director of national intelligence, they have the information they need, congress can ask the executive branch. i think really on this issue there has been adequate briefing such that that is where you see

the alignment between congress and the executive branch. president biden has said he will sign the legislation. the biden administration and congress have done a really good jobhost: chuck schumer has not said this will come to the floor, he look at it, so it stayed is uncertain in the upper chamber. if it does not get a floor vote or it does but it does not pass, what are some other legal actions that can be taken? guest: i'm still hoping for the best, still hoping senator schumer will really consider the national security risk, the strong bipartisan consensus from that this is an issue. this is an issue that is important enough to take on. that at the end of the day if it doesn't go to the senate for a vote, there is an

authority the commerce department has. many will recall what we did with respect to huawei. we put it on the entity list which basically prohibits exports of goods, software technology without a license from the u.s. government, and that really got the china threat conversation in the telecom space into the ecosystem and then got our allies to move away from huawei. the same thing can be done with respect to bytedance. if the u.s. government, and this is solely within the executive branch's legal authority, if decide right and on the entity list, and i should really say the legal standard of getting on it is so low that it =is rarely if ever adjudicated if they put bytedance on the entity list, users cannot update

the app because the update requires an export of the software which then allows the app to be updated. and that allows the app to be manipulated over time. and what a great way to also use that opportunity to tell the school listen, you can't update your app anymore and let me explain why. there are national security risks. there's also the amount of communication that the u.s. has been doing to the american public. does the biden: ministration have a separate legal authority to get this done? absolutely. with see if they are actually going to pull that lever. host: pennsylvania, independent. caller:d thank you for c-span. to findhere we are at today, you've got to go back to the past. if you remember the bipartisan bill that sent over to china with the republican house and senate the

chinese were not our enemies at that time, i guess. we built china up to what it is today, and now there is a frankenstein that we created. it is all about the money. they don't need us now because they got all about technology. all of a sudden, there is a problem. the problem is we are the monster maker of frankenstein and now we don't like it. guest: excellent point. i think in the 1990's, early 2000's, there's two schools of thought in the u.s. government about what china was ultimately going to become. the chinese formed a communist country into a market economy two legitimate debates on it. i had my own views, but even at

the same time, one can't fault the u.s. are being naive, one can't fault the u.s. for being hopeful. we were absolutely naive and blindly hopeful. the financial crisis happened. shortly thereafter, china look at the u.s. model and said i do not want my economy to be a market economy becauseial crisis, the global disaster. i'm going to double down on my government controls with every single level of the government. and it is because the government shifted and really doubled down on that direction which is completely opposite of what the u.s. government had anticipated. that is when president xi and china came into power about 2012 and really decided we areoing to do everything possible to get the technology from the rest of the world to be the global manufacturing superpower, to become the global technology

power. and at that time, we still didn't recognize what china was up to. and until 2015iwhen the obama administration was in the white house, i think it was a bad point the administration decided i don't think china is going to be a friend, let's quickly reverse course. that is why we have the narrative we have now. host: what have other coues tiktok? guest: excellent question. europe is actually launched a formal investigation into tiktok's mishandling of children's data which is keeping children's data, keeping children's data who are under 13 who shouldn't be on the app and then also how long they are keeping the data. in ireland,, they've actually tiktok based on the

findings that tiktok has misused children's data. but i also want to say you can say that we have got to do better at controls. the other thing i want to stress is just because we haven'tnefarious ring, that is completely out of line. but other things that people are saying, we haven't found evidence of any other bad actors on tiktok, i would argue that china is lying in wait. china has a lot of leverage in control of the u.s. economy. make no mistake it has threatened to exercise it. if you have somebody, for example, lingering around your house in a very suspicious way that should give you reason to be concerned, much like the fact that tiktok hasn't done anything yet. but it is centralizing it in china, analyzing it, looking for

malicious ways to leverage that data. that should give us all reason to worry. host: west virginia, republican. caller: how are you all ladies doing this morning? all right now. i would definitely have to agree that has been intrusive and is also pushing out content that is definitely destroying our youth. we already see it every day. we also see people committing crimes, posting it to tiktok thinking it is funny. and then on top of that, china is behind this. this is 100% commies and we do not 100% need this in their country at all. that is all i have to say, thank you. guest: that is a really key point to emphasize. we do not need apps hosted by countries that we've already

deemed to be foreign adversaries to control content and build content to sow discord in our society. they have long held in their doctrine that someone discord into the enemies countries is a key strategic lever, and we've got to make sure that we have the courage to step up and defend ourselves from that. host: here's one of our viewers in the text. if tiktok is removed from the app store, can it be side-loaded? guest: i'm not sure what side-loaded is. host: i'm not, either. guest: but i will answer that question in a simple way. any availability of tiktok controlled by bytedance that allows the chinese government to control the algorithm, the software, what people see, what people do, that is going to be off limits to the u.s. government. host: i want to have you respond

the tiktok ceo who has been on capitol hill testifying before lawmakers and according to news reports, he was even up there yesterday while this debate was happening the house. here is what he had to say back in january. >> tiktok is owned by bytedance which is majority owned by global investors and we have three americans on the board. you are right in pointing out that over the last three years we have spentil of dollars which is unprecedented in our industry to firewall protected u.s. data from staff. >> i'm asking about all of the data that you collected prior to that event. >> yes, senator. we started a plan i talked about a year ago we finished the first phase of data deletion so our data centers are tied off. we wil d centers we will hire a third party to verify that work and then we will go into, for example, employees working laptops to delete that as well.

>> was all of the data collected by tiktok prior to project texas shared with the chinese government pursuant to the national intelligent laws about country? >> senator, we have not been asked for anya chinese government and we have never provided. host: your reaction to what he told lawmakers there? guest: that's adorable but i am not persuaded by. the global investors aspect of it, that doesn't mean that bytedance cannot secretly go and control software and control apps. and while i commend oracle and i commend the notion of project texas, what oracle doesn't know, what the third-party independent auditors do not know will actually preve from securing the data that needs to be secured. bytedance is not going to be forthcoming. i'm not convinced that it is the robust mechanism, and global investors are not going to be.

bytedance is not going to level in a forthcoming manner anyway. host: bob in washington state independent. caller: i just wanted to make a comment. i am older and i've got a degree in computer science. people don't seem to understand you pick up your phone and use it, that that information, many people have access to it. and they sell it back and forth. and i guess my question to you is -- or, what i would like you to educate people on is i was upset when they put caller

id on the phone and this is much farther than caller id. guest: for sure, underscoring privacy. the u.s. government when they government contractors from having tiktok on any devices that they used, we were looking at sort of best practices for government contracting companies. and the advice was even if you have tictac on your phone and you go near a computer that is on, there is potential for your phone that has the app to with that computer and transfer spyware and malicious same way that i just inscribed about having malicious apps on your phone and communicating with telecommunication infrastructure, which is also why states have gone berserk about tiktok. it is not just tiktok, it is emblematic of this broader debate. but absolutely the interconnectedness of things

beyond what we actually rationally, the average person thinks, the capability of your phone to now disrupt tele-communications infrastructure, to disrupt other devices, it is pretty significant. i think the caller is absolutely right. and on that note, i commend senators and congressmen crenshaw gallagher and mccall for consistently hounding the drumbeat on national security efforts because if it wasn't a concerted effort this could have died down and we really need to keep the conversation in the mainstream and give them the cover they need to move forward to protect americans. host: instead of this legislation that passed the house yesterday, some senators are looking at the restrict act by senator markey warner which has bipartisan support and would allow the commerce department to

further regulate foreign social media apps. what do you make of this legislation? is it enough? guest: that legislation is certainly broader than what we have here. the scope is such that it would absolutely take a sizable chunk out of at least the national security threat posed by things in the telecommunications space. i also understand the debate on the others which to this legislation as it stands now is the executive ranch, to designate what is problematic. host: mark warner's legislation does that? guest: it may give the executive branch too much discretion. i understand that, but at the end of the day, we have to have some trust in our government to exercise discretion. the committee we were just determine what is a national security risk. so i personally don't have a problem. if we feel confident we've

elected the right people in office i don't have any problem with giving discretion the people who we feel are responsible and are going to take responsible action. but that is the debate. it will take a bite out of the problem, but some say that it is may be too broad and could be abused. host: georgia, democratic caller. caller: yes. i don't want to be rude or anything but this woman here is from the trump administration and her former boss spewed out more misinformation, russian propaganda and sometimes chinese propaganda than anyone. fox news, facebook, twitter have brainwashed my family and the majority of my friends. i'm not an apologist for china but she keeps talking about how

they have all these people in interment hands. we have way more people in prison. congress can't come together to get weaponry to ukraine? they can't go together? this is what they come together on, two tiktok? i just think we should have our own house and restart the talking about tiktok. guest: that's fair. let me underscore i am not president trump, i don't look like president trump hopefully and i certainly don't -- but i am an american i served because i was an american. i was born at a time when the country i wasn nt revolution. i've seen what these things do, so i spent my career in national six. so i'm speaking as an american and relate acts. and what i have tried to relate

today are simply facts. internment camp is a false coismparinternment camps are horrific. you have torture rape of a religious group that could be expanded beyond that religious group based on what the chinese communist party typically and the way that they punish people for doing things that don't align with the communist party agenda including -- and to your point about all of these other things happening in the world and why are we focusing on tiktok absolutely i ree with you, we need to do more. but we should be fighting the national security front on a multitude of levels. if we are in a state where congress is focusing on one issue at a time, so be it, but let's move forward. that because we have other problems we are not going to address one problem. host: thank you very much for

the conversation this morning, we appreciated. when we come back, data specialist can block discusses his new book about his hiring by the trump campaign to investigate election 2020 voter fraud claims and what he did not find. wk. ♪ >> james tribe's latest book is titled "true believer: hubert humphrey's quest for a more just

america." in the introduction he writes "i returned to humphrey in order to explain what liberalism was d its ascendant moment, why it mattered so much to so many people and why abruptly lost its appeal to the majority of americans, and perhaps how would might rejuvenate itself. hubert humphrey served as mayor of minneapolis, united states senator, vice president of the united states under lyndon johnson. and a candidate for president in several years including 1968. >> author james traub. book notes plus is available on the c-span now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> book tv every sunday on c-span two features leading authors discussing their latest non-action books.

we are featuring book on education beginning with journalist, author of school moms, which looks at the rise of parent activism and efforts to gain control of public schools at the local level. and at six eclectic and eastern michael mcshane presents a plan for a conservative alternative to the u.s. education system with the book "getting education right." then, how and multilevel marketing business makes a profit she's interviewed by business insider senior correspondent emily stored. watch every sunday on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online. if you ever miss any of c-span's coverage, you can find and anytime online at c-span.org. videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers

that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. these point of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of this ring when you hit play on selected videos this makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. scroll through and spend a few minutes on point of interest. host: we want to welcome to our table this morning can block the author of this book, "disproven: my unbiased search for voter fraud for the trump campaign." his name may sound familiar. he's the president of simpatico software systems. mr. bloch, why did the former president campaign hire you and what did they hire you to do? guest: the original request was for me to look evidence of voter fraud in the swing states in the 2020 election. i was looking for evidence of

deceased voters and for voters who voted twice, once in a swing state and once in another state. very quickly in a matter of a day or two after my contract was signed, the campaign attorneys were doing tir due diligence asked me to begin evaluating names of voter fraud ever coming into the campaign from everywhere, from all over the country, from amateurs looking at data to lawyers whose names we don't recognize making claims of fraud. in the campaign asked me to evaluate them and tell them if they were correct or not and in everrc you right in the book the contract was signed on november 5, 2020. i had no idea then have finding so little would lead to so much. you sign a contract with the trump campaign on that day november 5, 2020. how long did you work for them? guest: about 35 days,

the craziest days i've had. host: 35 days. in 35 days, did you have access to all the data that you needed access to or not there is fraud? guest: it's a very nuanced answer that i'm going to give you. the answer is i had access to all of the data that was available at that time. so i had full access to the data that the rnc had available. what is very interesting about voter data is that no state makes available to anybody who voted in person inside that 30, 35 day window. you get all the information that you can process, but for some reason, the interest -- in person both are not there. that is a large chunk of the votes that wasn't available however all of that information is made available usually by january or february after the election, and just because the data wasn't available to me at that time, because nobody has

gone through it since and determined now, there was actually a bunch of fraud, that is not an impactful meaningful problem that i had and i was working in november of 2020. host: well then explain how you could go back to the trump campaign and say there is no voter fraud in those 35 days. guest: so i didn't say there was no voter fraud. i told him there wasn't enough voter fraud to matter, and that is an important distinction. we did find some dead voters. but the numbers were far less than the thousands, many thousands that were necessary in the swing states. and i was very transparent as we discussed the challenges with having access to some data and not having access to other data. i can pretty confidently say that trump attorneys that i reported to specifically alex cannon who was my main contact had a lot of confidence in the work that i wasfact that i was being

as thorough as i was and i was probably numbing his brain with how much information i was educating him about voter data practices that i was going through. i know he trusted my result and he communicated very thoroughly to mark meadows at the end of the day that the campaign looked extraordinarily hard at not only looking for fraud but evaluating everyone out the claims of fraud and we found nothing that election results that would survive legal scrutiny in court. host: you then write this book. did you go back after 35 days and do a more thorough look at the data after moore became available? guest: i didn't personally go back and take a look at it. all the data is available at this point now. for all of the people who had such a strong interest, there were many eyes that looked at the state after-the-fact and nobody has gone through the data

and make any determination that contradicts what i have done within 30 days. another important thing to remember here, you can't file a claim in court based on data that doesn't exist. you can only work with what is out there right now. having gone through all of those, my job was to find it. if there were massive voter fraud, i would be the guy to do it. it is a pretty extraordinary thing to have a finding like that.it would ruin my personal and professional reputation if i delivered results i would be humiliated within court. so i put a sentence in the contract that said i'm going to live are findings that will stand up in court. and unfortunately there was just nothing that rose to that. host: how did he find you? guest: i don't know.

in those 35 days there was no time to talk about that sort of thing. they were action-packed from the morning to sometimes late night. host: what is a data specialist? guest: i own a software engineering company that specializes in large applications. i participated in an architect of the first online debit card system for food stamps for the state of texas. we do a lot of work in the gaming industry. lots of transactions and lots of data, that is where i do a lot of my work. investigating fraud is something i've always enjoyed doing and i think it is important to do. we look at foodstamp fraud and medicare fraud. host: who did you talk to from the trump campaign and who did you not talk to? guest: the simple answer to that is almost all of my communications were with alex cannon. as we set up the framework for how i was going to do this work, he told me that he was going to

keep my identity and my company's identity closely held. he didto know who is doing the work because he wanted us to be unbiased, and he wanted us to be shielded from political pressure. he wanted us to be shielded from people insisting on a certain set of results because that is not what works for a successful court case. from anyone in the campaign, it was him. host:hoswho did you talk to? guest: at the time, i had no idea. transcripts i learned that obviously he was talking to other upper-level campaign attorneys and most notably, the fact that he deliver the news to mark meadows that the campaign was unable to find any fraud that mattered they could have changed the election result. host: that information went to the former president, correct? guest: after everything in these reports that mark meadows told

investigators that he took that information into the oval office. host: who did you not talk to? guest: really just about everybody else. alex cannon, before i would go to my wife in the morning i was talking to alex cannon and pretty much the last conversation i had during the day. host: what about rudy giuliani and other lawyers? guest: i saw claims that i can confidently say came through sidney powell. she was hoping to push a mathematical theory to prove voter fraud, and that was wrong. i saw a claim that life and able to piece together and pretty sure came from john eastman with 16,002 pickett votes in nevada. this is a pattern. all the numbers were hyperinflated because the people who did the analysis didn't understand what they were looking at and they didn't understand how to make

>> your book "disproven." it is your turn to ask questions and have ken block respond. he is our guthest before we get to calls, which states did you focus on in this book? guest: georgia, arizona, nevada,wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. host: in point pleasant beach good morning to you. caller: i have seen you on tv.

there is nothing you can say about the seven states you are talking about, they changed their laws unconstitutionally. you cannot tell me that is not right. rudy giuliani had affidavits from poll workers and the judges didn't take them up, they said they lacked standing. you keep cutting the same foods to get the same number. they were questioning the validity of the votes. that is what happened. host: please hang on the line and listen to the response. guest: this is an important point. my work was all tasked specifically to creating finding the fraud that would survive legal scrutiny. when you bring it to court and the defense attorneys are going to come at you with everything they have two show you messed

up, that you were wrong, it is a very high bar. a light of what you're talking about is not data evidence especially the rudy giuliani thing. it is hearsay evidence and hearsayver evidence you can bring to court successfully especially when you want to overturn an election result. as far as the cost is not treating the laws, there have been court cases where that was not determined to be a problem. i get it and understand it is upsetting and many people wanted the results to be different. my role was very narrow and very specific to deliver to the campaign evidence that could work that could overturn the election and it wasn't there. host: gordon in wyoming. go ahead. caller: good morning. "washington journal" has to be

required viewing for all three branches of government. when they take their oath, they have swear to watch washington journal every morning. i am 78 years old. trump and biden are geezers they need to step aside. i would like to see vice president harris go against liz cheney. younger people please. something off of the subject building a peer in gaza -- host: can you stick to the topic here? do you have a question or comment about ken block's book? caller: i am sure trump lost the election for goodness's sake. that is all i have got. host: we will move on to randy

in west virginia. hi randy. caller:re you doing? can you ask how many dem [indiscernible] host: we will take that. guest: i am going to expand a little bit because we, -- we found a couple hundred fraudulent votes. we found some diseased votes, a couple hundred get votes. if i expand it a little bit and include information from 2016 where he identified a crush -- across 24 states how much data we looked at, we found 8000 co votes with the most number in florida. not enough to change any result here. when you look at the registrations and fault and it is 50-50.

it is not all democrats, not all republicans. people are voting twice, it is usually a crime of privilege. someone who owns two homes figures there is not a lot of in them exercising their franchise twice even though it is highly illegal. it is only recently with the advent of computers which have only involved -- only been involved since 2008 it is serious way we have been able identify this activity and hopefully eliminate it. host: explain highly illegal. if you get caught and convicted -- guest: is a felony with up to five years in jail and is $75,000 -- a $75,000 fine. caller: my concern is not who won and who lost but undermining the integrity of the election by introducing mail-in ballot without validation. i spent my career as a scientist

in process validation mostly with over-the-counter drugs. we should have separated the mass mail ballots. it was clearly outside of the state's constitutional guidelines and that is serious. the amicus brief that was rude and was not taken up by the supreme court -- that was written was not taken up by the supreme court. in alameda county, there were 113,000 ballots that were not accurate to the addresses. inds of other things. what should have -- we should have taken the mass mail ballots and said the system won't be robust and therefore we are going to count them separately. you have to have a copy of your id attached. we will separately id, attached to the envelope and then we can do any audit. this last election was not a

robust validation for an election. host: hang on the line and listen to the results. guest: i think you are right when it comes to rehabilitation we currently have in place for mail ballots in many places in the country. we talked about election one of the changes we have is every state does it differently and many times many counties within the same state do the same thing with the differently. that -- inconsistency and integrity are two different things. i have a lot of things in my book that do in other a lot of congressmen and commerce women that watch this show and i'm begging you to consider a nonpartisan effort to evaluate how we operate our elections and make some necessary changes.

i don't demonize mail ballots but using signatures to validate if you are who you say you are when you cast a vote by mail, that is a realit is century old technology. you can do better than what we are doing right now and i have i agree with you, we need to do better than we are doing right now. host: you look at pennsylvania and theat did you find? -- dead voters, what did you find? guest: i predicted a couple of dead folks and it pennsylvania before they occurred. what is interesting about this is a was involved in looking at all of the registered voters in pennsylvania to see who is deceased. i found a couple who had diedhen they had brand-new restrictions. i said you watch this will be fraud. that warning made its way to a making its way to pennsylvania's court and sure

enough on election day, some of those deceased voters cast the votes counted but after the fact, the person who created -- and there wereeople for each foot involved -- they arrested those people who made those fraudulent votes and they prosecuted and got convictions for those apartment votes. what is interesting and indicates of pennsylvania, the cases were both republicans who cast votes on behalf of film members. host: do we know who they voted for? guest:the person who committed the fraud admitted they were republicans and their cast the fraudulent votes for president trump. what is important about this whole concept of contesting an election based on identi votes is what i hope most of your viewers understand is when you cast a vote, who you vote for is not disclosed.

they cannot tie ballot back to you once you cast your vote. let's imagine i found 15,000 fraudulent votes in georgia. had i found those votes, and confident no court of those and made a determination that the election should have been overturned. what nobody could claim his document would be that those apartment votes worked against president trump's interests. those can't be harmed the campaign because you don't know who they were cast for. that is an important point. for all these issues that people around fraud, without being able to show harm in those foods -- those votes, you are not going to get an election overturned. host: speaking of pennsylvania aim by some trump

lawyers that there were dead voters there, you found what? guest: i cannot tell you exactly, we foundi don't think a lot of them were prosecuted. there were only a handful i'm aware of, two or three, that resulted in convictions. the trump campaign for the fraud i did find as best as i know, they did not expose those results to enforcement. host: dan, sioux falls, south dakota. your turn. caller: my question is trump lost the popular vote by like 8 million and the electoral college by like 50 literal votes. we have to go to gore versus george w. bush where we had the hanging chads.

you try to uncover the fraud and that it didn't come out where it would affect the election. you also have to go back in that timeframe, that was during covid. there were a lot more mail in ballots at that time. i think is election coming up in 2024 will be a lot less mail in ballots and more in person i had a guy from mississippi come where i work and is out the are you going to make sure these elections are valid? i said where i vote in my little elementary school, you have to have your id, they checked it and double check it with the role -- check it and double check it with the role. my question is, why won' trump and the republicans accept the fact that they lost? al gore had to do it when george w. bush won even though he got screwed in that election. host: let's take your question.

caller: why don't think -- why don't you think trump will accept this? guest: it is a good question. i don't have any answer whatsoever. there is probably a political answer to it. my role is focused in on the data so i want to dive into the political peace. i have run for governor twice in rhode island i lost a statewide primary by 3000 votes and it hurt to concede that, i did not want to concede that. it was an ugly race, it was personal, but i did. that is what democracy looks like. i hope as we move forward out of 2020 that we can get our elections back to a more civil and responsible way of conducting ourselves and dealing with the impact of losing. host: argue a democrat or republican? guest: i am a registered republican. host: did you run as a

republican? guest: i started a centrist party in rhode island in 2009 and after needing to challenge the state ballot access laws, letting the party, we needed somebody to run for governor who got at least 5% of the votes and i got 6.5%. i realized i was pretty good at campaigning and i had a lot of ideas i wanted to implement. i also realized in 2010 and 2014 that working the fourth part -- the third party was not going to work. it was too hard to get traction. people cannot put their heads around what he means to be anything but democrat or republican. i like to see change. rhode island is a heavily democratic state. you cannot affect change from inside the democratic machinery, you have to do it from outside

of the i am a republican. host: you did look at the counties and how the former president won small counties across thetell us what the data showed you. guest: this is crucially important for people to understand because this gets right to the point of helping to inform everybody why trump lost. when you look at the swing states this is a pattern that existed across the country whether a red state or blue state, a red county way blue county, and what i mean by red or is trump won them in 2016 and 2020. that is read in my opinion. if a democrat won in 2020, that is blue. when you divide things up that way, what you end up with is across the board trump in 2020 relative to 2016 did less well across the board even in the

reddest of red states. he did about 2.5 percent less well in 2020 that he did in 2016. the narrative of voter fraud how could it be in the reddest county in the reddest state that you see this particular thing happened? that is not voter fraud. i am going to tell you what it is. trump has made no secret he has no love for centrist publicans. he told them to get lost and they did. that is worth that to .5% is. -- that 2.5% is. trump's -- authored campaign, they interviewed 3000 people, he documented this exact same problem. he is losing republican support. those republicans he is losing were the ones in the middle.

the other piece of this in the middle, in the forward to my book secretary raffensperger bid to fight almost 30,000 republican primary voters in 2020 who voted in the primary but did not vote in the general election. that is two to three times trump's margin of loss. another 30,000 votes in georgia were cast in 2020 by voters who voted for a to get republicans congressional races and other races, but they left the presidential pick blank or they voted for biden. this is loss of moderate republican support. it remains a problem today. i think messaging is not opening up the ability for

moderate republicans to come back into the fold. i wonder if he can change his messaging because without that support, i don't think maga is enough toional election. host: are you saying the president's pollster knew the outcome before the election was called? guest: i think he could read the tea leaves which is different from knowing with certainty the election result is working against trump. what is important with the exit poll is headed by the loss of supp it is such a dramatic consistent loss of support nationwide which i don't think his pollster could determine at that point in time. i was able to determine looking -- determine in 2023. i think the reason polls miss this, with others in 2016,

pulling talks to likely voters but in 2016 trump won that in 2020, what trump's pollster identified is one in six of the voters of the 30,000 he spoke with were first-time voters and coming to the polls to vote against president trump. host: in des moines democratic:. caller. caller: thank you for calling out the crook. the creek is still here, but the worst part is gossip is king. host: we are listening to you you have to listen to us through your phone. commute your television -- mute your television. caller: yes ma'am. we will take your question or comment -- host: we will take your question

or comment. caller: my comment is god bless you. host: why are you writing this book? how are you able to write this book? guest: as i was negotiating my contract, i asked i assume you need me to sign an nda. everybody was under fire at that point in time. we were two or three days post election. alex's life was crazy, the campaign apparatus was spinning up an effort to try to figure out if they can make a legal case about voter fraud. what many people don't understand and what i find incredible about all this talk about voter fraud is if you don't find it successfully contested, there is no the bill magness and after the votes are certified to be successful with

a lawsuit challenging the legality of the election. you cannot overturn it once the birds are certified. that is why those 30 days are so crucial and so much effort was put in. all these losses filed after his vacation were destined to lose. host: if the person data wasn't available, how do you know people did folk twice in person and by mail? guest: to finish my thought, i offered alex to sign the nda and he said don't bother. that is how i am speaking to you about it. i addressed your question earlier. the person data was not available inside the 30 day window. what is important here is the work i did was try to find successful arguments in that moment to take to court to

matter and impact the election result. because the person data was not available at that time, you cannot go to court with data that is not available. fraud about a dated you do not have access to. in this circumstance, the burden of proof is on the person making the claim of voter fraud, not on the people whose job it is to disprove voter fraud. host: can trump's claim of massive mail ballot fraud be disproved?guest: it cannot. this is where congress needs to step in and bring regulation into how we handle mail i cannot sit here and tell you accurately that i could describe how bell ballots work everywhere because it is dramatically different everywhere. not only is it different in terms of process data that is

correct regarding mail ballots and how they are used is all over the map. hand and your head around what is working well. there is much variability and information that is collected. because of the inability to collect meaningful data about how bell ballots were used. to process every mail about cast in the 2020 election requires looking at more than 500 different files of mail ballots from across the country. most states don't run their elections on his databases. states like new york and other large estates run their elections based on the counties and what a lot of your viewers may not understand is there are more than 5000 different election jurisdictions that have

their own ability to run their elections as they deem fit using systems that they implement. there is not a lot of central control in many states about how counties do things and you end up with some crazy problems because of this lack of continuity. to answer the question, could i prove mail ballots were not a problem, nobody can. nobody can prove they were. that is the burden of proof problem. to go to court with a bunch of questions, and legitimate questions about how mail ballots work is not a successful argument in the court of law. host: in fort lauderdale, florida, democratic caller. caller: i would like to thank you for taking my call. host: we are listing. go ahead. caller: i have a question for ken block.

and i have something i would like to tell him. host: go for it. caller: i respect you for having the guts, even though it did hurt you you had the guts to say it was a very election -- a fair election. ation for ken block and i would like to know where i can buy ken block's book. guest: anywhere you can buy a book, is online at amazon, barnes & noble, simon & schuster's website, anywhere you can buy books. host: would be paid by the trump campaign for the work you did? guest: i was. i was highly compensated for the work i did inside those 30 days just north of $750,000. a lot of that was of temporary in my company's bank account because we had to pay outside vendors to do sensitive data

work necessary to confirm individual identities. when you're working with voter data to figure out if someone is dead, deceased, passed away. there are a lot of ways to say what i just said. but to determinen deceased, you need more than a mentor birthday -- or than a name and birthday. this is a problem across all of the analyses i had done and brought to me by others. people were looking at names and did a bird, nizar john smith born in 1972 in different states they assumed it was the same person but 90% of the times it is not the same person. many of us share the exact same name and it is not impossible to have the same birthdate. is very likely with two different people with different information. i have to go use vendors who

have access to highly sensitive data like social security numbers to individuals so we can know with certainty whether they are deceased or not know if we matched this for different people, if they are the same or different people. a big chunk of that money went out the door to pay for those vendors. i would have loved to pay for my kids' college education with that, but that is not the way it works. host: did noncitizens vote in arizona? guest: that is a question that came to me as well and the interesting claim there is i delivered to me, names and addresses and dates of birth. the question was are these illegals were not? that is an impossible question to answer for anybody because there is no database anywhere where you can look this up and be able to say citizen or

noncitizen. there is on the one database i am familiar with that even might have an ability to answer that question and that is at the department of homeland security. by federal law that cannot be used for this purpose. we took a shot at it. i gave every caveat and more to alex before we did this. we can do our best but if we don't find social security numbers for these people, that does not mean they are noncitizens because young people don't show up in these databases. when we ran the list, most of the individuals could not find social security numbers for were young. you cannot prove it, you cannot disprove it. the trend, which is important is for those individuals we could not find social security numbers for, they were under the age of 30. they are very likely legitimate citizens. please don't show up in the credit bureaus. host: here's another viewer

texting is, ron in rockford illinois. drop boxes and mail in ballots how secure? we should do what france does. tell us how secure drop boxes are. guest: the real problem with drop boxes is not the security of ballots whence they are in there, it is about who is putting them in and how many. the adjutant comes down to a question instead about ballot harvesting. i want to talk about ballot harvesting. i had first-hand expense with it because in rhode island ballot harvesting is legal and is understood if you do not engage operatives who work in ballot harvesting, it is difficult to win your election. i hired a guy who calls himself the mail ballotwhat happens is they go out, they were two nursing homes and other places and theylp individuals

cast their ballots and deliver those to election workers there it a dropbox or another thing. i think ballot harvesting is a terrible practice. why are we electing someone on the basis of which campaign can most effectively collect and deliver ballots? that is not a great indicator of the capabilities of a candidate. i believe you should win based on the merits and not some collection scheme. i believe our democracy suffers because of mail ballot harvesting and i would love to see congress deliver a law that outlaws ballot harvesting. this is think we need to have because it is a terrible way to elect anybody, whether it is a mayor where the president. -- or the president. host: we will go to robbie. republican. caller: first time caller. i was going to hit the thing

about georgia, they did not do signature verification. i am a huge trump supporter. i was shocked. there is video of -- video showing fraud. my next thing a wanted to ask you, 330 million people in the u.s. can you give me a number of how many 18 and older could have voted and did vote to get to 81 million for biden and 75 million for trump? that is high numbers. how do you that? my main one is about georgia think. i watched all the video and head -- all the video going on. the ballot harvesting and the drop boxes. all the people testified.

host: did you listen to ken block's answer about who voted in georgia and who did not, the numbers? caller: i got bits and pieces of that. host: let's have them repeat that -- have him repeat that. guest: there a simple answer to the georgia results and why president trump lost. esident trump's message not only excluded moderate republicans, exploited moderate republicans. president trump told moderate republicans to get out and they did. you don't need a lot of loss of support in georgia, you needed 12,000 more votes that were gotten. counties in georgia lost more than 100,000 votes because of his underperformance in 2020 relative to 2016. 100,000 votes in the reddest

counties in the state. that is what he lost. all of the other focus on trying to conjure up other reasons that loss ignores the most obvious explanation out there. in my line of work, you keep it simple and when there is such an obvious answer it is almost always the right one. host:'s comment about the overall numbers -- his comment about the overall numbers. guest: there are roughly 330 million people. as you get older, you see people die. i am going to estimate here. if you call anybody young who is under the age of 20 and anybody over the age of 20 old, you find out about one quarter of the country would qualify as young. 330 million people, you are talking about maybe 70 million

to 80 million people under 20. everybody else is over the age of 20. you are talking about more than 200 million adults in the country -- much more than 200 million adults in the country. is it possible that 150 million votes were cast? based on demographics, absolutely. it is legitimate and nowhere near the number of adults who would be age qualified to cast their votes. host: ed in columbia station ohio. republican. caller: the two biggest crocs of butter fraud -- voter fraud that approvals were illegal. massive voter fraud, voter harvesting, the biggest problem in this country, they don't verify -- zuckerberg coumadin t

over $100 million before the last presidential election just in those states that were the key states? he stepped -- he overloaded them. they are supposed to be so many miles apart. that was illegal. host: can we talk about that? guest: i don't know the specifics of what those dollars were spent on. what i do know is in our election, the ability for outsiders to purpose money into elections is pretty much a wide-open thing at this point. i would prefer to see less as money in politics than what we have right now in general 'hbecausfactor in determining who

wins an election. you cannot walk into a tv studio anymore and know you're are talking to majority of voters. your message has to be scattered across different forms of media. it is going to be expensive. those who have the money are going to have any advantage. i would love to see outside influence dollars reduced so candidates can be more on an even playing field. again, if you want to determine on the merit of a candidate, it should not be who has more money. host: you encourage people to follow the money when it comes to these losses as well, lawsuits -- these losses as well well -- these lawsuits as well. talk about sidney powell and the nonprofit they have set up to collect money. guest: there is a voter fraud industry that has arisen even

before the 2020 election, certainly since sidney powell, the poster child for this. she is a lawyer and the author of terrible losses that she even admitted nobody should have taken seriously but she felt them which is a real problem for a lawyer to put a lawsuit out into the court system. she has paid a professpress for having done that. monetarily she has made a lot of money. she has raised north of $16 because of the work she has done in bringing forward these losses on behalf of president trump that based on her own admission have no real validity to them. there are others. one of my periods is a data guy named matt who is bad analytics trip in georgia.

they were everywhere. they were they made the mistake of looking at the euro of birth and name and saying that is the same person in two different places. in georgia, a legislature -- legislature challenged him and took of his claimed matches in georgia and he reached up and contact the people at those addresses, they were two different people who happened to share the same name and year of birth. matt brainard raised $500,000 to support his efforts and as i wrote my opinion piece january this year that had national scope, he came onto to my twitter feed and basically was making the pitch to raise money and my response was i know who you are. here is the video where your data was torn apart and then i never heard from him again. even today, there is still any

effort to monetize bad analytics in the hunt for voter fraud. i caution everybody to be careful because there are very few people doing the work seriously. host: you right in chapter 26, the master level single party voting. guest: one of my proudest moments in rhode island, 50 years reform advocates have tried to eliminate single party voting from the rhode island ballot, a mechanism where you just go in vote republican or democrat. on merits, that is a terrible way to do it, rhode island had no interest in changing that. i got involved,go involved, the newspaper got involved. we brought hundreds of people to the statehouse and over the course of eight years, brooke county legislative willingness to continue the -- broke down the legislature willingness to continue the fight and we got it

removed. it should not be that hard to get change. let's not make it so hard to bring reform to how we do elections. host: have you looked at the date of this primary season? anything thaicguest: i have not had a chance to look at any data, have been busy i have been busy -- i have been busy. host: four should be able to look at the data? guest: that because you can request data from many states. some give it for free. alabama charges $33,000. if you go to the massachusetts secretary of state they will tell you we cannot give you the data but you can go to every city and ask for it. this is another area where we need congressional oversight to put boundaries on transparency and the availability of data. host: you can get the book

"disproven" and look at the claims ken block investigated he was hired by the trump campaign to do so. i appreciate the conversation. when we come back, we will be in open forum. any political or public policy issue undermined, including the conversationha having you can stay on the line and big about that. there is a phone number, start diving in. -- start dialing in. ♪ >> if you ever miss any of his's coverage -- any of these print -- any of c-span's coverage, you can find it at his been.org. catering markers that got you to is for the highlights. these point of interest markers

appear on the righ this talent will make it easy to get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. scroll minutes on points of interest >> sunday on "q&a," rob henderson author of "trouble" talks about growing up in the u.s. foster child system -- the hurdles he overcame and what he learned about class division in america. >> i lived in seven. there is this question of why does the system work this way. if a child is in one place too long, this can create issues of attachment and loyalty. if a foster child is with a family six months or a year and they become comfortable and devoted to this family and then suddenly become numeral returns come off entirely -- oftentimes the child doesn't want to leave.

the system has resulted in frequent raising a child in different environments such as there is never any particular issues with loyalty or devotion or conflict between foster families and birth relatives. maybe it sounds nice in the abstract but often this introduces a lot of instability and difficulty. >> sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. you can listen to "q&a" and our podcasts on our free c-span now happy -- to spend now a -- c-span now app. >> we are asking voters across the country what issues most important to you in this election and wipe. >> my most important issue is immigration. >> economics and the justice system. >> homelessness is an issue that needs to be addressed.

>> we invite you to share your voice by going to our website .org/campaign2024 recorded 32nd video telling us your issue and why. be part of the conversation. >> c-spanshop.org is c-span's short -- c-span's online store. shop books come home core, and accessories. every purchase helps support our online -- our nonprofit operation. shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. >> "washington journal squid continues --"washington journal" continues. host: we are back and open forum.

richard, we go to you, democratic caller. caller: i am sorry i did not get in with mr. bloch but he is telling the truth -- mr. block but he's telling the truth. colorado uses absentee ballots to the fullest and it works perfect. the dominion putting machines used in georgia since they are not attached to a modem, they cannot be hacked from the outside. american people need to realize that these putting machines are accurate and precise. i work at a polling place and i see how the ballots are counted. people need to realize the lies and the frauds being perpetrated are absolutely disgraceful and wrong and against the rule of law in the united states. host: california, adriana.

independent caller. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i really believe americans are good people and ken block is a good person and i trust what he says, but every person has their own biases. one thing i noticed in many of the elections is i have friends who are honest people who tell me they received for dead people like palance -- like parents that passed away. i received disco ballots and i threw one of them away. i don't think elections can be perfect. i think it is possible for people to commit fraud collectively to try to do billion and election. host: did you hear his answer? he said it is not that there was not any fraud or peopleble vote,

but that it wasn't enough to prove in court that it caused the formerelection. caller: i did not hear that but i believe he said that and i believe he means well. there is much craziness going on in the world, people are so invested. we have career politicians that depend on their election for their livelihood. many years ago people ran for office to service. now many people who run for office need a job. that --. he has a big machine. he is a field attorney and he has a job. we are paying him over and over again. he was censured by congress. this censured him for lying --

they censured him for lying. these people are so desperate to win an election. host: morgantown, west virginia. richard. democratic caller. caller: this election season, and most concerned about former president trump running for office after he tried to steal an election and he said it openly. we know from his conduct, not his wt he is filled with self interest, including doing whatever works for him. he is somebody who will not safeguard our national security. he does not listen to the politicians where the environment of scientists. he only listens to himself. this man is the biggest threat

to our country. his failure to safeguard our secrets, his failure to understand checks and balances, his failure to understand and failure to understand how nato and the whole world works. the fact that hubris is putin -- that he embraces putin and others makes me think he would not have our interest at heart. what are people thinking who want him back in office? host: usa today, trump and biden in a close race. i'd first service since the twoffectively clinched their presidential nominations found a significant group of voters who were unhappy with their options and to being persuaded. ingredients for a turbulent campaign ahead. happening on capitol hill today the president's health and human services secretary javier becerra will be testifying on the president's budget proposal

for 2025 before the senate finance committee. you can watch our coverage at 10:00 a.m. here on c-span now our free mobile application, or on c-span.org. also today, we will be covering a hearing on wildfire threats happening at 10:00 a.m. eastern. the u.s. fire administrator will be testifying before the senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee. our coverage on that on c-span3 also on our free mobile app, and on c-span.org. there is this article in today's washington times, standards to unveil legislation to cut work week to 32 hours with no pay loss. the legislation would require overtime pay at time and a half for workdays longer than eight hours and double for workdays longer than 12 hours. it would protect workers pay and

benefits to make sure the pay does not -- that work does not affect pay. during the feeling -- during the hearing, monica shall hear from boston college sociology professor juliet sure who is the lead researcher at four day week global trials, and charlie lynch, the founder of kick starter who founded the national campaign for the four day work week. we will cover this hearing as well to find out you can watch it, go to our website c-span.org. mitch in new jersey. caller: what i would like to say in regards to voting, voting in federal elections be made mandatory subject to a civil penalty and that every board of elections is required to furnish the voting form to every voter.

i think people have chris to voters if it is done that way. host: vince in fort wayne indiana. independent. caller:s thing and it was an interesting concept. you might not be able to prove it so maybe it is that way. in other ways, i cannot prove there is voter fraud but there might be, which is unusual. the question i wanted to get to is, is that why the election was so c? most of the votes that could have been fraudulent actually went to trump. that is what he was only 12,000 away in georgia. could that be the case? is all the voter fraud in this election closer than you should have been for trump -- then it

should have been for trump? host: if there wasn't voter fraud then what would have happened in your opinion? caller: if you go by the facts said the amount of voter fraud in the last 10 years is something like 1000th of 1% voter fraud cases. s voter fraud but there might be. that does not make any sense. host: when he chased down these claims by the trump campaign in the 35 days he was hired by them , he went back and each instance and said there is not enough to prove this in court. there is not enough fraud to show that is why the president lost or that is what happened. caller: so it is speculation that there is voter fraud,

nothing more. hey cannot sit there and say we proved those cases so there is voter fraud. host: thence in indiana. -- vince in vienna. the wall street journal, many counts against trump top in georgia. a judge dismissed six counts against the former president and five co-defendants in atlanta. the broader case is still in tact. the six counts were related to allegations that the former president, another high-profile codefendanclgiuliani illegally tried to influence georgia elected officials to pilot their oath of r the presidential election and attends to unlawfully infer the outcome. the judge ruled prosecutors had not properly laid out their claims in the indictment come along trump to successfully challenge the wording of the charges.

that same judge today said he would make a decision on the fulton county d.a. fani willis and whether or not she can stay on in prosecution of that case. here is the washington post headline "trump's twitter case hangs on ruling misconduct claims." that could happen today. 20 in sugarland, texas. -- tony in sugarland, texas. on the report of the government put out after the 2020 election which found there were warm abilities in the dominion voting machines. in 2016, prior to the 2020 election, a court case was filed in the state of georgia where a nonprofit was trying to get rid of these dominion voting machines saying they are susceptible to fraud.

you had professor haldeman, if you go to the archives, he has been under show and testified there are vulnerabilities in these machines. in this case, an obama appointed judge who ruled in the past against the machines in georgia in 2019, in this case he demonstrated in front of her in less than five minutes how he could hack into these machines. i'm surprised c-span did not show the case because it is in the state of georgia where cameras are allowed inside. i would like to see professor haldeman again in the future on your show and discuss these dominion voting machines. host: tony there. jay in temple hills maryland. caller: i wish i caught your last gazed -- your last guest.

the question i would have for him is he mentioned when he went to see if illegal aliens voted he could not access the records because those records are in homeland security and by federal law he did not have access to it. currently, there are associations under chicago suing the mayor because they are trying to aliens register to vote in the election. if all of these millions of illegal aliens are allowed to vote as noncitizens, my question would have been how could he have found that which illegal aliens voted and in which jurisdiction? millions of these illegal aliens

allowed to vote, that could turn the election. host: you can get the book "disproven" to learn more of dale in louisiana, independent. -- guest: hello? host: dale, i'm going to leave it there. we will have you call back another day. on capitol hill, the health and human services secretary is in the room. he is about to testify before the senate committee about the president's budget request for 2025. live coverage on c-span.

>> we are waiting for the senate finance committee to get started. they will hear testimony on thepresident biden's 2025 budget request. copy of sarah will focus on expanding healthcare coverage, some of the president's priorities. we expect the hearing to start

shortly. just waiting for the chair to into the room and take his seat and the ranking member. i will also let you know that live on c-span, testimony is underway on the united states and how the federal government is getting prepared. that's being held before the senate homeland security committee. you can watch on c-span3 and online at c-span.org. javierxavier