c-span as a public service alo with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> coming up on c-span's washington journal this morning, we will take your comments on social media and your calls. and then a look at the role of black voters in campaign 2024 with star parker. in steven brill talks about his new book detailing online misinformation and social media and their impact on u.s. politics and democracy. washington journal starts now. ♪ host: good morning. thanks for joining us on the washington journal. 365 days a year, for three hours

every morning, we have a couple of discussions and most importantly, we hear your viewpoints on the issues of the day. every four years, we hear from politicians. especially those seeking the white house, that this election is the most important, ever. here's the former occupants -- current and former occupants of the oval office. >> i believe this election will be the most important one we have had since 1864. democracy is on the ballot. freedom is on the ballot. like the freedom of jews, freedom to love who you want. the freedom to go to work, go to school, go to your house and worship without fear of being gunned down by a weapon of war. my question to you is simple.

are you ready? are you ready to defend democracy? are you ready to protect our freedoms? >> yes. pres. biden:win this election? let's get this done. >> this is going to be, again, the most importt election in the history of our country. i used to say it in 2016, but that was peanuts compared to this one. the border was fantastic back then compared to what we had now. i solved it so much so that i couldn't use it in the 2020 speeches. i kept sayin cannot talk about the border, please? they saidu've solved the problem. nobody wants to hear about it. i said that's not appropriate but they were right and yet we won by millions of votes, more than in 2016, without talking about the border. there has never been a border in

theory of the world that was like this. this is a horror show. in conclusion, together, we are taking on some of the most menacing forces and vicious opponents our people have ever seen. but no matter how hateful and corrupt the communists and criminals we are fighting against may be, you must never forget this nation does not belong to them, this nation belongs to you. [applause] host: what do you think? is 20/20 for the most important election in our history? the numbers -- is 2024 the most important election in our history? the numbers are on the screen. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8002 for independents. if you want to share your thoughts via text, you can do that too.

(202) 748-8003. from the new republic, faced with what might be the most consequential election of our lifetime, the electorate and largely -- is largely responding with a collective yon or worse, a grimace. according to an abc news poll released in april, interest in the presidential race hit a 20 year low. only 64% of voters indicated a high degree of interest in the contest, down from 77 percent in july of 2020. the numbers for young voters age 18-34 are particularly bleak. only 34% of them have a high interest in the election. they just are low interest a republican pollster told abc. they are off the charts low.

we looked at more politicians talking about the most important election, ever. >> this is the most important election in the history of our country. >> this election is the most important in the modern history of this country. >> the election in 2020, without hyperbole, is going to be the most important election this country has undergone in over 100 years. not a joke. >> this november's elections are more important than any i can remember in my lifetime, and that includes when i was on the ballot. >> t are just eight days left in what is the most important election of our lifetime. >> this will be, maybe, the most important election our countr >> there's never been a more important tomorrow in the modern electoral history of the united states and that's not hyperbole. >> we know what's on the line and what -- in what is truly the

most important election of our lifetime. has anybody ever said that to you before? >> this election is the most important election in our lifetime. no matter what generation you come from. >> i truly believe this is the most important election of our lifetime. >> this is, i think, going to be the most important■ election tht we have ever had. >> really, one of the most important elections in american history. >> every campaign, they tell you the same thing. this is the most important election in a generation or our lifetime. this one truly is. >> 2008 is the most important election in our lifetime. >> this is certainly the most important election in my lifetime. >> this is the most important election you have ever voted in in your entire life. >> this is the most important election of our lifetime. >> the election of 2004 is one

of the most important, not just in our lives, but in our history. >> in 2000, as we go into what i think is the most important election in a generation and what will be, i'm convinced, one of the most important elections we are likely to see in the next 50 years. host: is 2020 for the most important election in our history or in our lifetime? -- 2024 the most important election in our history or in our lifetime? jim, what do you think? caller: it is. why are republicans voting for a convictev'■%d rapist, fraud andl felon with no shame? what's wrong with the republican party? that's terrible. host: danny is in louisville, kentucky. republican. danny, is this the most important election in history? caller: yes. i will tell you, i don't know how anybody can't see -- this

has to be the most important because if things keep going the way they are going, we won't have a republic. like the other guy said, he's wondering what's wrong with republicans. i'm wondering what's wrong with democrats. i used to be a democrat and i switched over. i am blind and i can see so much going on. i'm so glad i can't really physically see what's going on. i'll go to church at morning and will be playing for all of the -- praying fors. host: have you thought that in the past, that past elections the most important? caller: more so now than ever before. host: thank you for calling in. appreciate it. dennis in hudson, indiana, another republican. what do you think? caller: yes, it's the most important election in our history because another four years under joe biden and we will not have a republic.

he's trying to get us into a war with russia. he's holding back one of our staunchest allies in israel from finishing a job that is imperative for them to finish. he's destroying our economy. he's letting millions of illegals into this country, which are taking the jobs of americans that are talking about this jobs report friday. but they aren't telling you is there are less]á americans workg in this country today than there are -- then there were when joe biden took office. all of the jobs are being transferred to the illegals and the man is a pedophile and he needs to be removed from office immediate lee. host: don't we face issues every four years are continually in this country? caller: yes we do but this man is trying to take away our second amendment rights. he and his administration are trying to take away our first amendment rights by what people can say on social media. this man is a danger to this

nation. he is senile and he is a mor on. host: that is dennis. this is gregory in sherman oaks, california. good morning to you. caller: good morning to you. this is the most important election, at least in six elections. republicans talk about how we will lose our republic or our second amendment rights or jobs or some other stuff. what we will lose is our planet. if we don't get behind doing something serious about climate destruction and global heating, all of the oth issues will be dying out on a planet that is dying out. in this generation, as part of this generation now running the show, we have the choice on whether or not we are going to save the planet from the worst

possible effects of climate change and climate destruction and whether we are going to save it by finally coming back -- cutting back on such things as fossil fuel subsidies and turning that moneyficiency and . climate mitigation and resilience and other environmental and climate remediation's. i would say the other election, like this one, was the most important election -- that was the most important election was 2008 we could have started with a president that was planet by tackling climate change in al gore. instead, we wasted the first decade of this new century and new millennium on a president who gave us climate betrayal, two stupid wars and a financial

meltdown among any other things. host: that is gregory in sherman oaks, california. thank you. the washington times, culture wars defined by the trump rematch and voters are sharply split on gender, religion and crime. most biden and trump voters disagree sharply on the wars, race, religion and crime issues. the one thing both groups agree on is guaranteed access to birth control. among registered voters, 93% of biden supportersers agree that the wide availability of birth control pills, condoms and other contraceptives is good for society. some of the other findings, 63 percent of trump voters support a national deportation of all illegal immigrants. that is compared to 11% of ben only 27% of registered voters

supporting president trump agreed that the legacy of slavery affects the position of black people in america today. either a great deal or a fair amount. among president biden supporters, 70 9% said slavery's legacy still affects the position of black people. more than six in 10 voters say the criminal justice system is generally not tough enough on criminals, including 81% of trump supporters and 40% of biden voters. we will go through this a little bit more. in colorado on, what do you thit 2024's election? caller: i appreciate the lead and you gave about all of the examples of people saying it was the most important election because it was screaming around in my mind how many■j times it's been said. i think if trump is elected, it

is the most consequential election. if biden is elected, it will be more like what we have had in the past and that is our choice. if you don't believe in the past that we have, if you believe what trump is telling you the past is and what the present is, then you are going to have a different reality. with biden, i think you will see more of what we have done in the past. i think the merit deserved for biden is his administration and the cabinet level competency across the board. i would not have known that if not for c-span. you see the competency of his cabinet officers and i am very impressed by that and encouraged by that. ics makingimprovements. obviously, i am a biden supporter and i oppose trump but

that is what i see as a consequence. host: thank you for calling in. we appreciate it. here are some more politicians. >> 1996, in my opinion, is going to be the most important election of our lifetime. >> this election, this is the watershed, this is a big one. and whether or not that is always true, i believe that the last election of the 20th century clearly belongs in that category. >> this is one of the most important elections in our lifetime. it may be the most important election of our lifetime. >> the next election may be the most imptant one in 100 years. >> in what is almost certain to be one of the most consequential elections of our lifetimes but in period. >> this is one of the most important elections in the

history of the united states of america. >> this is the single most important election in our lifetime. >> this is the most important election in history. >> what this election is about and why this is the most important election of our lifetime. >> before one of the most important elections in the nearly 200 years of our country. >> this is the most important election in this nation in 50 years. >> the most important choice will be made by american people at the polls less than three months from tonight. >> asking american people to make one of the most important decisions in their lifetime because i think this election is one of the most vital in the history of america. >> this time, vote like your whole world depends on it. >> i think in many ways this election is more important than any since 1932. >> senator kennedy has indicated

it is the most important election in our history. >> never has it been more necessary for the democrats to win election as it is now. >> you are faced with a great decision on tuesday. the most important decision, in my opinion, that has faced the country since the civil war. host: calling 2020 for the most important election - 20 20 for the most important election in history -- 2024 the most important election in history is not new. caller: definitely not. just like the biden indictment. host: christopher in detroit, democrat, 2024 election, what do you think? caller: based on the past and what trump has done, what if he decides not to relinquish power

or have another january 6? in that case, it is very important. as a legally blind man, i will be praying for everyone. my gift was or is prophecy. i texted my sister and i have told my ex-wife as well as my daughter that trump would not win the last election because there was an issue. and sure enough, god told me correctly in a visual that trump was not going to win. i have yet to have a vision about the future of this particular vote. i'm looking forward to whenever god does tell me. host: christopher in detroit, thanks for calling in. stephen is in york, pennsylvania

on the independent line. what do you think when you hear a politician say this is the most important election ever? caller: i think it is. the democratic-socialist party, that's what they are, they are going to get rid of a couple of things. the filibuster. so things can get through real quickly. and they want to get rid of the electoral college. if that happens, this is what will happen. an extension of the population will be able to control who gets in and gets out and the other people will not have a chance. that's why you have anctoral college so that each state has representation. remember when biden got in, one of the first things he did was have the things trump had in place taken out. he's trying to put them back in because he is in trouble.

i look at him as an older man, he should not be in office anyway. republican or democrat, if they have a mental problem, t-. it's dangerous when you have someone in their like that and he could make a mistake. i am concerned about that. but, i see also something else. the abortion issue, the transgender issue, we don't even know who we are anymore. male or female. i think it is a moral situation and i think this nation as a whole, and i'm 77 years old, it was never perfect because we are not perfect ourselves, individually or as a corporation of big people. but we want to do things that are right in our own eyes and most people don't really believe in god at all or judgment. i know my country, my parents, my dad was in world war ii and

my uncle was in world war ii and korea. in the next 10 years, i feel like we will be a socialist or communist type of government. host: stephen, we will leave it there, from york pennsylvania -- york, pennsylvania. 71% say religion should be separate from government policies. that included 86 percent of biden supporters and 56% of trump voters. gun control, a survey found trump and biden suprters on the opposite side of three questions. biden voters said it is more important to control gun ownership. 85% of trump voters said it is a bigger priority to protect the rights of americans to own guns. -- does more --

86% of trump voters said it does more to increase safety by allowing law-abiding citizens to protect themselves. 83% of biden backers said more guns in the u.s. will be bad compared to 21 percent of trump voters who agreed with that sentiment. mary in north carolina, republican line. good morning to you. caller: good morning. obviously, i am a trump supporter. i have been since he went into office the first time. i feel like if this country real x biden, we will have a country anymore because he is a blubbering idiot and so are the democrats that are with him. host: what makes this the most important election in our history or in our lifetime, etc.? caller: because, if we keep biden in office, we won't have a country anymore. we can't even get childcare or

help take care of our children because of all of the illegals that are here. he has had so many illegal people in this country. the man is a blubbering idiot. host: that's mary in north carolina. we have been showing video of politicians in the past and the current politicians■:, presidens biden and trump, talking about 2020 for being the most important election, ever. that is our question this morning. if you think that is the case or not the case, 202 is the area code. 748-8000 democrats. 748-8001 for republicans. 748-8002 for independents. you can also text at (202) 748-8003.

please include your first name and city if you send a text message. you can continue this conversation on our social media sites, which we will scroll through as well. here is more politicians, talking about past elections being the most important. >> you see, this election, we are not just picking■b the next president for four more years. we are picking the direction and the course of our country for a generation. this is that kind of an election. it doesn't matter what generation you come from, this is the most important election in your generation. and while mitt romney is offering specific solutions, plans to get 23 million people struggling to find work to find a job, president obama is struggling to keep his job by

trying to distract voters and we are not going to fall for it, are we? host: that was in 2012, the most important election in our history according to paul ryan. dennis, what do you think about 2024? caller: they are both too old but i am for biden. you had a trump caller call in and say biden was a pedophile. is 24 years older than his present wife and he has had many wives. if he so great, how come he can't satisfy them? host: all right, dennis in toledo, we appreciate you calling in. that's try sophia in manhattan.

independent line, sophia, you are on the "washington caller: good morning. i will havl!e a beautiful sunda. yesterday was horrible, by the way. john and greta, they have been doing and excellent job. my darling, the 2024, mr. trump, he's not going to win but i don't want him to go to jail. he already got arrted and they took the picture. the only thing i am waiting on is judgment. that's it. have a wonderful week. the new ones, they need to be

told, when they are cursing, cut them off. c-span is my house, my home. i love you, pete. thank you for being there. host: that is sophia. paul on the republican line, good morning. do you think 2024 is the most important election in our history? caller: this is the most important election because of five important things. the price of gas, price of rent, price to buy a home, look at the public schools in texas under the democratic party. 10 million people just cross the border under the biden administration.

find -- it is all by design. in this country every day. and every four years, we have this same conversation about the most important eio what is it about this election, in your view, that makes it the caller: i outlined five reasons. the most importants the country has changed because obal fundamentally transform this nation. host: that is paul in floater. this is judy in south carolina, democrat. judy, what do you think? caller: we do not need a republican in office. host: what makes 2020 for or not election -- 2024 the most or not the most important election?

caller: the way things are, we need a democrat in there. host: that is judy in south carolina. this is william in richmond, virginia. independent. hi, william. caller: hi, how are you doing? i don't know if i would say this is the most important but i will try to speak in facts. it's the onlylifetime that i ha. it also shows that it is alarming that there are so many people, maybe our education system has failed because there are so many do not understand history and do not understand how this government is supposed to work and they would go for somebody who wants to be a dictator.

it just shows that -- i don't know if they are not educated but they are not -- they don't understand this country and how it is supposed to work. host: thank you, william in richmond, virginia. orma president trump was in california at a fundraiser. here's the greeting he got in newport beach. on balboa island in newport beach. and you can also see in his motorcade, the highway and that is in california, yesterday. john is up next, salem, oregon, republican. you are on the "washington journal." caller: thank you for taking my call. i think this is the most important election, because of

the country is at a turning point. we can either go fascist or we go democracy. and i hear people say, well, we are a democracy. we are not. we are a constitutional republic. everything comes down to the constitution, the bill of rights, and it is the most beautiful thing in the world. these ard the government cannot take these rights away. so i think trump is standing up for those rights. i think biden is walking all over them, and he is not going to snd rights. host: that is john in salem, oregon. let's go to the way back machine again and see more politicians. [video clip] possibility of those glorious days ahead. we are an optimistic country, a

country of hope, and we need to member that, even as we face grea that, every year -- every four years, anyway -- people are running for president come to you and tell you this is the most important election. but i think this one is different. i think make your own judgment. i think this is the most important election of our lifetime. it is for many reasons. today, we confront challenges that are as great, as varied, as complex as any time in american history. and i think even a dispassionate judgment of new stories on your front pages forces the conclusion tt i just came t host:■i kerry in 2004, talking about the most important electn ever. juliet, rockport, massachusetts, independent. what do you think? good morning and thank

you so much for c-span. here's is my take on the situation. i do perceive it to be one of the most important elections in the history of the country. look no further than the european union today. they are voting. by and large, italy, france, poland, other countries, they are voting right to far right candidates. marine le pen is doing well with her nationalist party. and the two most prominent issues, the economy, the environment, meaning the overarching environmentalism that has taken this country by storm, and other countries, is ruining people's economic prospects. we are in a malaise in this country, the carter malaise -- you remember that quote from way back? carter is one of only two presidents in the united states who only served two terms, aside from donald j. trump.

however, i do perceive that we are at a tipping point. we have two hot wars going on with on the verge of another. look at what is going on in africa, of niger. the united states of america was once the most preeminent economically and militarily prominent countries in the world. look at the 80th anniversary of d-day. i was watching the footage on c-span, and i was so taken by the bravery of these soldiers who stormed normandy, 18 and 19-year-olds who gave up their life. many of them were killed before they even made it to the berms to -- host:s said, tie it into 2024 elections. caller: ok. thank you for interjecting. it is a very tumultuous political -- i think it is one of the most tumultuous campaigns, because you have donald j. trump, who is reviled

by the left. and, conversely, we americans on the right -- i am a center-right voter, always have been. i only voted for one democrat in my life, who was bill clinton pay the rest were all republicans. my first president was ronald reagan -- host: again. you have four seconds to tie it into 2024. caller: ok. i think it is the most important because we are going to lose our country -- host: tha y ma'am. we got your point. nikki in the bronx -- nicky in the bronx. caller: hi. this election i think will be the most important in terms of moving towards the right in terms of exchange or moving in

the direction where people can prosper more. the thing is, it seems like the way things are going is companies are taking over the political system with money. i think we need to lean towards having more unions and maybe about having a third party. and i think people can start thinking for themselves. i think this is the most important election -- host: nicky, the former president, president trump, held a rally up in your neighborhood. what did you think about that? caller: i think it was pretty important, because it seems like a lot of people are leaning towards trump.

i think it is because people are just tired of the inflation. i think people think he is going to make some type of miracle happen over here, and they are just going based off of lies and stuff. and people, it seems like, they can't themselves. there's no more critical thinking. host: what do you do for a living? caller: i am actually a union man, local 79. host: what kind of work? caller: construction. host: are you working now? caller: a actually going to be switching unions, so i am taking a break. host: thanks for calling in. we appreciate youre w -- your watching. kevin, illinois. 2024, the most important

election in our history? caller: absolutely. good morning, and thank you for your program and for the people's opinions. it is nice when people can actually give their opinion. it is thmost important. one of the reasons is financially. the food, the gas, all the nonsense -- i am all about god, and i am all about trump. the election is important, because if you look at these people, when they get sworn in, you actually have people who have not been sworn in with the bible. they are using the koran. they are wanting our country to be their country. now you say, what is our country? i went to a circus last week, and when i went, it was a foreign circus. i have nothing against foreigners, but they had no

clowns. the world has changed, and it has changed because of biden's policies. now the immigrants -- now why is this important? the job market is filling up like crazy. it is because of 10 million illegal people needing food, needing a place to work. they are taking regular citizens' jobs. this thing is more important, they say. trump is a felony. yeah, he's a felon because it was rigged. felon. rigfo the most important thing is they are using the law against him. now there is a thing come out on facebook that showed one of fad they got him guilty. this was before the trial was even over. the man -- host: that was kevin in illinois, talking about why he thinks 2024 is the most important in our history. we showed video of president trump in california. a little bit earlier.

today, live in las vegas, 3:00 m. eastern time, he will be holding a rally. that will beivon c-span. in the new york times this morning, there is an op-ed, wr itten by john greenspan, a curator of political history at this mr. romney and national museum of american history. the titl is long before the will, there were the wide-awake. today, our starkestal debates often turn on similar questions of public speech and public violence across diverse conflicts from college campuses to the capitol steps. we keep asking where the line is between heated words and deeds. more often, it is a conundrum of our political culture. in a democracy, how far is too far?

it is a question that has fueled america's bloodiest war. the civil war was fought over slavery. anyone who says it was not is just wrong. but how did american slavery, which began in 1619, cause a conflict which again in 1861? where exactly was that dynamic moment when an argument became a fight? george campbell's "wide awakes" help make sense of it all. that have forgotten provides a missing link between the election and the war. in the presidential election of 1860, hundreds of thousands of diverse americans joined companies of wide-awakes, marching in militaristic uniforms, escorting republican speakers, fighting in defense of antislavery speech. their grassroots rising■u help elect a ram lincoln as president also began the spiral into war.

slavery, frederick douglass warned ashley conflict loomed, cannot tolerate free speech. in the decades before the civil war, many americans kept quiet on the subject. over the years, that took mounting coercion. states banned public criticism, mobbings persecuted abolitionists. in congress, antislavery leaders beaten. in northern cities, abolitionist spch was possible, but so was racist terrorism. lincoln crumbled that most in the north crucify their feelings on the subject, but they would not do so forever. an interesting artic o-awakes 'u might be interested in seeing. it was in the new york times this morning. carrie in milwaukee, independent line. what do you think? is 2024 the most important

election in our history? caller: yes, i dothe thing thate most about donald trump is, in an interview with nbc, he defended his supporters' chants. i think it is one of the most vile things any president or human being could do, and it shows he can put any value -- himself above any value, including democratic values. the main reason why i think it is such an important election is that donald trump is a threat to our basic values and to our democracy. host: terry, you have quite a gathering coming up there in milwaukee in about a month or so. are you ready for that? caller: well, it is going to be a busy time. the city is going to be very, very busy for sure host: are you going to be active in it and anyway, protesting, helping, etc.? caller: there are protests

expected in milwaukee, and i do plan to participate in them, yes. host: thank you for calling in. we appreciate it. more politicians talking about the most important election ever in history. [video clip] >> i really believe that 1988 will be the single most important election in our lifetime. i know every man or woman always says his election as the most important election, but this is the most important, because, in 1988, we will decide what it is our party is all about, whether we will eject or ratify what began in detroit with ronald reagan in 1980, and how we will move this country forward and take this because before that can be broadened and deepened and expanded and, frankly, exported. we need to export democrat capitalism to the rest of the world. i just want you to know that i am convinced that, however we nominate, he or she will win because, as i said earlier, i do not think there is a candidate

running in the republican party seven dwarves of the democratic party in 1988. someone said to me the other day, don't you think that is a little unfair, to call them dwarves? ladies and gentlemen, i do not mean their size. i mean their outlook. their view of america. they think small. they think about little tiny american. they have a little tiny defense, little, tiny economy, little, tiny people in a vast world of threats and crises. this is a big country. we have big response abilities. we have a great president. despite what you have heard today, this officer is not ronald reagan's deficit, this deficit is a liberal congress deficit. host: the issues change over the years, but the sentiment is the same fear that was jack kemp in 1988, saying that was the most important election in our history. michelle is in louisiana,

democrat line. what do you think about 2024 being the most important election ever? caller: i feel like this sounds like marjorie taylor greene and quite a few others. i feel like they have other, better things to talk about than actually doing their jobs. you know. speaking just like this. it's weird that a lot of people would donate to someone that is supposedly a billionaire, and they are to donate their little money to this guy. i do not think it is right that he is a convict that is able to run for president. and he has other cases pending, you know. bit busy to be running the country. i do not even see how that is even possible, but -- host: and why does all that this the most important election in our history, do you think? caller: because i think he is

just too busy. it is important because biden's doing infrastructure, doing so many good things. s too important for this guy to be messing it up with all his nonsense. host: thank you for calling in. we appreciate it. gary in reno, republican gary. caller: hi, how are you doing? host: how are you? caller: good. host: we are listening. go ahead. caller: i do believe it is very important, this election. i go way back to when carter was in. i was deputy sheriff and a federal agent, ano do our regulr patrol because of carter.

him giving the panama canal away. so i followed politics pretty close. i thought clinton was a scam, and his wife, also. host: ok, you have made two points, but why does that make 2020 for the most important election in your view? caller: well, all my friends and everybody i talked to believe that biden is an absolute joke and an embarrassment to the united states. we got to get rid of him. his policies just downgraded america so much, including afghanistan and the borderi thir leader -- host: that is gary in reno. this is ken in plattsburgh, new york. caller: good morning. i take this election very personal.

i was a proud veteran. i am shocked the direction this country has gone andé& how it hs been destroyed in three and half years. we are being governed by a woek administration that was not elected. biden was so compromised. to save himself from being exposed, he has given this country away. why there is any support, i cannot understand. hasn't this country had enough? there is no vision, the way we are going now, without change. absolutely no vision, no success for this country. i am shocked beyond belief that country will allow itself to be destroyed in the manner in which it has been destroyed. immigration just galls me to death, galls me to death. i cannot take the economic policies anymore as a retiree. we do fine but without a lot more than we used to have. s to sacrifice. that is not the way this world

should be. you do not have to sacrifice in the united states. in the united states, we go forward. we use our talents. we vote. we change policy p that is what we need to do now. h. host: john is calling -- dawn is calling in from texas on our democrat line. caller: yes. i am a native texan. we have a lot of the northerners in, running our state now. abbott, is from it is not being run by democrats. all this stuff going on back in texas. but the reason i would not think about voting for trump -- he would take our like putin has in russia. it would be a dictatorship. that is all he is interested in.

republicans have always been for money and the democrats for the working man. and the ones that are calling in republican, they do not listen to anything but fox news, which is a trump station. fox was outlawed in europe and■h britain because of their lives -- their lies. they took them off,# won't let them broadcast there, so murdoch comes here and puts on fox news, and it is just a trump station. host: in the new york times this morning is this two page op-ed. it is written by alina chan, a molecular biologist. i will just read the opening paragraphpening title.

why covid probably started is e. on monday, dr. anthony fauci testified before the house subcommittee>e investigating the covid-19 pandemic. he was questioned about several topics related to the government's handling of covid-19, including how the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases, which he directed until retiring in 2022, supported risky virus work at a chinese institute whose research may have caused the pandemic. for more than four years, reflexive partisan politics have derailed the search for the truth about a catastrophe that has touched us all. it has been estimated that at least 25 million people around the world have died because of covid-19, with over one million of those deaths in the u.s. although how the pandemic started has been hotly debated, a growing volume of evidence, gleaned from public records released under the freedom of

information act, digital sleuthing through online databases, scientific papers analyzing the virus and its spread, and leaks within the u.s. goverent suggest that the pandemic most lightly occurred because a virus escaped from a research lab in wuhan, china. if so, it would be the most costly accident in the history of science. then, for the next two pages, she goes through and talks about why she thinks that is the case. that is in the new york times this morning, in case you are interested. chris, charleston, south carolina, republican line. you are on the "washington journal." caller: good morning. thank you for having me. is it important or not -- i do think it is an important election, but is it the most? you have to compare to what were the most important elections, like the first one for washington, following the civil war for reconstruction, the

great depression. the things that have long-term effects for the country and the direction we are going to go. are we there? the world is certainly in a mess and needs a strong leader. and i think that is what we should be looking for, is who can handle what is going on in the world. we have got a lot of problems in our country as far as immigration, our national debt, and other things that are very concerning that we do need a strong leader. that is what i think makes it an important election. but the most important? no. i've heard other callers bring up a point about us being a democracy -- we are really a republic, if we read the constitution. that is the way we should run the country.

those are my thoughts on it. host: thanks for calling in. we appreciate it. anwar, washington, d.c., independent line. caller: hi. i will give you a quick three reasons why this is the most important election. one is find me 11,500 votes. everybody knows that is what he said. that is on tape, trying to steal an election. number two, americans have a very short emory. we lost over one million citizens in this country while that person was in the oval office. he told you to drink clorox and shine a light down your throat. and to have the audacity to bring up fauci to the congress to try and somehow blame him for the fact that they would not do

what they were supposed to do and the president would not do what he was supposed to do, to take care of the american people. he was president and was found lacking. number three, which someone ready also said, is january 6. we had the confederate flag carried through the capitol. we had people there losing their mind, and here are the republicans saying they are just there for a tour. they spread excrement on the walls. what is going on with you people? what is going on with you white people? and what is going on with you democrats? that is why this is the most important election. and i will not even get into the supreme court and how they are accepting money in millions of dollars and rendering decisions that do not help the people, that do not help our environment. they have made the epa null and void. they have done away with the voting rights and done away with affirmative action in college. host: anwar, are you politically

active here in washington, d.c.? do you work a political job? caller: no. i am a retired federal worker from the i.t. department at n.i .h. host: thank you, sir. we appreciate you calling in and sharing your point of view. judy, tennessee, democrat. yes. i think this is the most important election, because, if donald trump gets in, he will never leave office. we will not have another election. because he did not want to leave, he caused january 6. and he does nothing except promote hate for everybody. this country is not about that. and that's all i have to say. people just have to wake up, or we are going to be ruled by

another putin. that's trump's hero. host: thank you, ma'am, for calling in. let's hear from janet, republican line. lection in our history? caller: yes, sir. i have several points, and i will try to be as quick as i can. i am from a military family, 75-year-old army brat. my mother was a politician. so i've been active since the time i was a teenager. i think that every american needs to assume responsibility for where our country is. we were not paying attention. we did not monitor each of our representatives with calls, with meetings that were around the ar!ea. people did not show up. it was just not important.

the other thing, we need to bring the country back to what it was and go forward. we need a strong leader to do that. having met the man that everybody is disparaging this morning, don't know until you talk to him. it is easy to go by rumor. that is how we got into this mess. we listened instead of did our own due diligence. you need to go to trump's meeting as well, and he will talk with you. the january 6 situation. i had grandchildren there. i could have gone. they showed me as things were happening. i will not go into that now, because that is not the topic, but we need to get control of where the money goes. i worked some in -- host: we will leave it there.

we appreciate everybody calling in. you can continue this conversation on whether or not 2024 is the most important election in our history on our social media sites, including you can go to facebook or x. we appreciate you being part of■ it. coming up, we ll continue our public policy discussion with star parker, founder of the center for urban renewal and education. there is a new book out that she is the editor of, "the state of black progress." ♪ >> tonight on "q&a,"■o■ó actor george takei recounts the time

when he and his family were removed from their home and sent to camp following pearl harbor. >> my father came answering the door, and one of the soldiers pointed there at at our father. henry and i were petrified. the othesoldiers said, get your family out of this house. we followed them out, stood on the driveway, waiting for our mother to come out. and when she finally came out, escorted by the soldier that poind the bayonet at our father, when she came out, she our baby sister in one arm, a huge duffel bag in the other, and tears were streaming down her cheeks. that memory is seared into my brain. >> actor and author george takei, tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." you can listen to "q&a," and all

of our podcasts, on our free c-span app. >> this week, the house and senate are in session. the house intends to bring a contempt of congress intervention -- the house will also take up the 25 defense programs and policy bill. the senate will vote on whether to begin work on preventing access to in vitro fertilization. -- on the oversight of boeing's aircraft manufacturing process it also thursday, microsoft's vice chair testifies before the homeland security committee on cybersecurity. watch this week live on the c-span networks, or on c-span

now, our free mobile video app. also had to c-span.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on-demand anytime. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> the house will be in order. >> this year, c-span celebrates 45 years of covering congress like no other. since 1979, we have been your primary source for capitol hill, providing balanced, unfiltered coverage of government, taking you to where the policy is debated and decided, all with the support of america's cable companies. c-span, 45 years and counting, powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us now on the "washington journal" is star parker. she is the founder of a group called the center for urban renewal and education and the editor and introducer of this new book, "the state of black

progress: confronting government and judicial obstacles." when it comes to the state of black progress, what did you find? guest: what we found -- and it is a tome, not a book, because it is a compilation. we have 12 different authors pointing at society -- traditionally, you hear from the left that nothing works for black america or black americans are what we found is the opposite is true. each generation we move away from the civil rights movement, the desire for freedom and opportunity grows, and we are starting to see that refer to it in the elections. younger voters are starting to say, we understand and can identify with the struggles of the civil rights movement, it is not our reality. our reality is, under president biden, we have no money in our pockets anymore. host: we have seen polls over the last several months where blacks dropped.

87% in 2020. the latest poll, 64%. guest: right. i think much of this is what i just said. when you start taking about what has broken down in our country the last four years, the border, the inflation economy is really touching people in their pocketbooks. while we may see on a plummet numbers coming down, people do not have more. they are living more off of their credit cards. this is across the spectrum. when you talk about the specifics of the black community, many are not buying into this grievous group realities of many other cultures. you start to get the cohesiveness that has broken down and our society. it is fascinating, just in washington, d.c. yesterday, people were trying to get through all that traffic, because there were not only a gay parade, it was at the same time as a pro-palestinian protest. these groups were fascinating. it i just interesting to hear

how many grievance groups there are now in our society. the group indivisible has 89 different grievance groups and that one place. and that does not include blm, does not include antifa. african-american young people are saying, wait, why do i have to be in a grievance group? maybe there is something in the messaging of freedom, in the opportunities we have in america. host: from the introduction to the tome, it has been the normalization of victimhood rhetoric. guest: yeah. a lot of folks look at the civil rights era and say we cannot forget that history. they are rightwe cannot forget that history. but much changed in the 1960's. we saw a voting rights act, we sought a civil rights act, a fair housing act. the challenge for blacks and the rest of the countries we also saw growth of government. we saw lbj think the answers to what happened during the journey

of african-americans in this country, from slavery through jim crow, he thought the answer was big government, and it wasn't. it has backfiredtremendously, ue approaches. while, yes, government was there during a time that dr. king appealed the government, saying remove these barriers so we cans over our economics and education, we went another direction as a society, and it has built real problems for a lot of people, including those most distressed and living in our weakest communities. host: new unemployment figures came out in may. nationally, 4%. hispanic, 5%. black, 6.1%. those are relatively good numbers, aren't they? guest: they are decent numbers. i think people know we will never get to where everybody is all employed, because we have free agency, and we will not be

forced into places and spaces we do not want. where the biden administration is running into real conflict is most of their overregulation is hurting business, so business is transitioning out of one-on-one employment into a whole lot of technology that people are not prepared for. so many in our society are saying, we'd a minute, not only were we more comfortable financially and with a cohesiveness under donald trump, we were not at work, we were not thinking, but we also did not have this challenge that we are having today, where people are living off their credit cards or paycheck-to-paycheck. host: "i've done more for black people than anybody since two lincoln." president trump said that ma times. what is your take on that? [laughter] guest: we know the former president exaggerates quite a bit, so i will not go through tit-for-tat who did what for black people. i will say, when he reduced taxes under the tax bill, everybody's lives fared better.

african-americans felt a point of freedom and opportunity unprecedented. because, in that tax bill, senator tim scott slipped in the opportunities own initiative, we started seeing even the weakest communities fare better. so he can boast about some of the compliments because black life was doing very well under his leadership. host: put the numbers up on the screen. throughout the election season, we talked with various people and groups, etc. about their feelings about the election. last week, we had on the head of the naacp. this week, we have star parker, who has a more conservative approach when it comes to black voters. 202 is the area code. you can see the numbers on the screen. we set aside our fourth line for black voters this morning, so you can go ahead and dial in and in just a few minutes.

guest: that's interesting. host: what's that? guest: blacks have their own line. how will you know? host: we just want to make sure that hear them. people can call in on any line. did you come into conservative politics and how? guest: well, the how is very interesting, because i was one that believed a lot of the lies of the left, that my problems were that i was poor because others were wealthy. leaving those lies very young in life, i got caught up in criminal activity and sexual activity and abortion activity. then god saved me. somebody introduced me to the lord jesus christ, and i changed. i changed all of my decisions. i changed how i made those decisions. i started reading a proverb a

day to keep the devil away, which is some thing i continue to do today. i went to college, got a degree. i began to shape my worldviews -- a long answer to your short question -- because of those experiences, not just coming ting a business. i started -- studied international business and marketing. i started conflict in myself the ideas i believed all my life about capitalism, about christianity, about the constitution itself. so my worldview started shaping -- much more libertarian at most -- first. but after the 1992 los angeles riots destroyed my business, and many of the realities of bunesses there, i began to speak out more aggressively, i guess you could say, and realized that, more consistent with my worldview, after studying the scriptures, was the conservative worldview when it comes politically. that is where i am today to that is where i've been for quite

some time. i find that the freedom you're allowed in a conservative environment, where you have a rule of law that we all understand and we have a common culture we all appreciate, it allows f flourish, that we can develop our own purpose and agency, so i am very comfortable politically in the conservative party. host: in what is your organization? caller: c.u.r.e. is the center we just pulled millions what not to do. who is telling them what to do? we had brought an idea that government was the answer, and it was not. it disrupt b family life in particular. we wanted to start organizing ideas in a policy is it to, c.u.r.e., so we could address market-based solutions to fight poverty. we want all of the government initiatives removed.

all of those barriers removed so people can live free. host: before we go to calls, we want to show one more piece of video. this is from yesterday. some news this past week talking about black families in the jim crow era. here's the exchange. [video clip] >> and you name a race-based law that you cannot take race out of the fact -- jim crow was a law against black people. you are not just talking the era of black eisenhower and harry truman. you named jim crow. there's only one way you can deal with jim crow, that is by race. look -- you and i have mutual friends. people say you are a straight shooter. we may disagree on politics. i am giving you the benefit of the doubt. but look, you were born in brooklyn, you went down to the south, went to florida state, have an interracial marriage,

you are congressman of a district is not a black district. how can you even live with yourself acting like jim crow was a better era for blacks? >> that is real cute. i did not say that. right now, you are lying about what i said. >> i did say jim crow -- i did referencing three times. that is not to say it was better. i never said that. those words never came out of my mouth. when will you get that through your skull? i never said that -- >> you said it was better for us under jim crow -- [indiscernible] >> everybody is lying. look at my words. host: star parker, what is your reaction to what congressman donald had to say and that inguest: well, if he had gottena wordn al sharpton went on and o. the narrative we have heard all

of our lives. here we have byron donalds man e beauty of america, like most young african-americans. it is underappreciated how many black americans this country has -- we are talking more black americans making over $75,000 a year than und $25,000 aear. a whole lot of things happened under the jim crow era. first of all, jim crow wasot the law of the land throughout the land. we should be honest. we have this holiday, juneteenth, where people think it was the end of sleigh very -- slavery. it was not the end of slavery. it was the end of slavery in the seceded states. if we are going to be honest about black life, be honest and put all the cards on the table and talk about places where we made steaks. it is the reality that the family life in black america was

very different in jim crow era than it is today. not specific to jim crow. it was a horrible time in black history. my dad grew up in jim crow law. but our families were in tact. four african-americans, especially those on the left, to not even allow us to have those discussions is disingenuous. host: guy is calling in from maryland. please go ahead with your question or comment for star parker. caller: good morning. it of what i want to say under two minutes. it is always the narrative, isn't it? ms. parker is running two narratives. the first is a certain truth, has an absolute truth to it, african-americans are better off now than we were in the history of the united states. then there is the narrative that what conit the right these

days has an answer for black america or the rest of america, and it is absolute nonsense. i'm sure ms. parker heard some of the first segment. i see suffering from what many of the people in the first segment were suffering from. either -- or they don't know history. donald trump -- host: are you there? caller: i'm.ó still here. donald trump was raised by his father and grandfather, two white supremacists. how does ms. parker feel about -- host: we will have two leave it there and we will move on. any reaction to what he had to say? guest: i think what he is

pointing out is the two realities in black life -- there is a part of us that wants to mature and grow up, but there is also a part of us that will not allow that to happen. i heard it from al sharpton. when you go about donald trump, which is what made people want to talk about, because he is the alternative with the joe biden-kamala harris administration, policies is what people a vote. our comfort is not what people vote. we vote our concern. people are very concerned about the economy, about the border, about inflation. whether you're black, white, or other, you are concerned about certain elements of policies. under the donald trump administration, policies were different, and people's lives were better, regardless of your ethnicity. so i understand a little bit of what he is saying. but he has to also allow for people, especially african-american people, to be individuals in their voting votg

to vote this election based on my pro-life position. it's donald trump or unfettered abortion, and i am just not going to accept that. 20 million black babies dead since roe v. wade is too many for me. therefore, people will make different policy decisions, and that means presidential elections. host: earlier senator tim scott. what if donald trump? ? picks tim scott does that make a difference to you? guest: i think it will make a difference to me -- when you say make a difference to me, you are asking me, because i am black, would it matter, would i be enthusiastic about an african american vice president? of course i would this is an exciting time. let me ask lane the difference between the enterprise zone that jack kemp, who showed earlier, and the opportunity initiative. when you thing about the enterprise initiative of the

1980's, we were talking about government intervention programs. how do we fix what broke down because of slavery in jim crow? when you look at the opportunity initiative, it is built in money movement to this is about capital gain tax and getting released from that tax. donald trump's philosophy was we need to get money back from china. how do you do that in an environment where a whole lotf money goes there for cheap re-think, when you have any cities right here, if you can channel capital to those broken zip codes, all 8700 of them, you will see growth. what senator tim scott did -- and senator cory booker, i will not leave him out even though he moved away from it a bit -- he got that in the tax bill. in that focus where energy and moneys from business corporations going into our hardest zip codes was a fascinating idea, and it worked

can and it will work again under this next administration if trump wins. to your question of tim scott, it is not just his ethnicity, while it will make someone like me very pleased, it is also his ideas on how to fix the weakest links. that is our work at c.u.r.e. we want to strengthen the weakest link. that is why the tome, "the state of black progress." we are looking at health policies. they are not irking everybody. education policies, they are not working for everybody. housing policies are not working for everyone. an economic policies. what we see calmest denominator for our weakest neighborhoods is why they are not working is they are government. we want to get government out of the way. host: in "the state of black progress," who are some of the people that we can read? guest: we have some incredible mines. we have dr. allen, who wrote the curriculum for florida when th were making the changes to their black history curricula.

we have judge janice rogers brown, talking about some of the things that happened in the courts and when government moved away from its real role in our court systems. we have steve moore on what it is import force to have personal accounts for those who have left . ian rowe on education policy. i am very excited about this particular tome. this idea of compiling ideas on the state of black progress -- we had to rename it "the state of black progress," because the urban league puts out "the state of black america" every year. they sent us a cease-and-desist from using the name, so we changed it to "the state of blk it is about time there are alternative id from the hard le, the progressive left, that

amic victims, and the answer is the same, big government. war on poverty alone. we still have very weak zip codes. the last demonstration and tim scott is trying to fix what is broken down in those zip codes, which is big government to remove those barriers so people can live free. host: next call for star parker comes from abraham in maryland. go ahead. caller: good morning, ms. parke r. there is a saying -- the more i listen to you, the more i ask myself, everything you complain about is under the campaign of donald trump. lame immigrants. blame the government. the border is the problem. no accountability. you keep saying donald, four years were so good. you forget the years of barack

obama? to bring black america up to donald trump? there are too many dead people that they do not have anywhere to put them up your that was the economy. the gas was $1, because there was no one outside buying gas. they had nowhere to go. that was the economy. is that where you want to go back to? host: star parker. guest: i think what people are looking for is growth. anything about the obama years, we dwe did see growth, growth of abortion. we did see growth, growth standing in the way for people a quality education because of this constant the public schools as opposed to let parents decide where they want to send their c■m■ldren to school.

we are talking philosophy and policies, not individual people and personalities. when i hear people say you should not support donald trump, what i hear them say is i should budeas that do not work for the weakest in our society, and i am just not going to do that. host: you ran for office. what was that experience like, and what rc put -- of the vote you get in the l.a. area? guest: i got a larger percentage than i thought i was. the challenge for me, it was 2010, when we thought we had the red wave, the tea party wave. i was talked into going back to the los angeles area to run for office. so i ran in a district i did not live in. lesson number one, politics is still very local. lesson number two is to be able to identify what it is you believe and why, then try to committee k that with the voters. i was able to make a difference, even though the neighborhood wao turn around 50 years of indoctrination from the left. host: what is the experience like, running for office? guest: you spend most of your

time raising money and others making decisions for you. you learn the rules of politics, which is the 17 second rule. if youarn what to say, spend 15 seconds repeating the question and then whatever you can get away with. and then if you are not -- host: on "meet the press," it did not happen. it is not the environment for me. i would rather what we do with -- caller: i just want to thank you. only c-span would give me an opportunity to talk to star parker. i was■ thinking, when you're giving out names, there were two or three you missed.

bob woodson, tony evans. those are good -- i've gotten away from listening to fox news and cnn. i go towards my christian people to give me a christian perspective on world news. my biggest concern is they are changing the meaning of our words. abortion is called health care. reproductive rights are not about reproduction but killing babies. pro-life is now called antiabortion. you very seldom hear it called pro-life anymore. they are mutilating our children and calling it gender affirming. we have got to pay attention. we have got to take the ownership of our words back. i am totally like you. i am pro-life. thank you so much for everything u do. guest: you are welcome.

b;i've been to enterprise down n alabama and many of our other unique immunities that are starting to flourish as a result of good policy, plans. to the question of christian worldviews, a lot of people feel like it is getting very lost in our society and under attack, and it is. it is no use pretending it is not. when you conflicting worldviews, if there is anything president bide that -- has said that is coherent, he told us this election is about the soul of america. it is very solid it demonstrated in our town yesterday. i saw it very vividly, because not only after the so-called parade and the protest, we saw a lot of violence. i come out today and there is graffiti all over the building i state in here, because people are trying to express themselves, if you will. in a free society that has a rule of law, we express ourselves in the voting booth. we do not stress ourselves on other people's property.

yes, we are in a dilemma as a society, and this election is do we want to be free, which means you have rules that govern you, you have a cohesiveness and society, or do we really want what we are seeing in the streets today? what i saw just yesterday, not just with the programs are protesters and the lgbt parade, but then i came to another community, right here, during that same time, where they had the valet company expressing themselves. every ethnicity was there, everyone was in unity to that is the real heart and soul of america, to say we can put down these grievances sometimes. we certainly should not have them involved in the way we have our political discourse. host: from "the state of black progress: confronting government and judicial obstacles," in the 1960's, black america was promised a quality but was frequently exploited. racial discrimination played a

role that, in the preceding decades, the normalization of victimhood rhetoric has proved even more disastrous. star parker, here is an ad put out by the biting campaign. [video clip] >> i am joe biden, and i approve this message. >> of course i hate these people. >> donald trump disrespecting black folk is nothing new pa few was sued for refusing to rent his apartment out to black people. it is wide trump warned of a bldb his next election. and, if that was to be a dictator who hates his enemies. guest: i think that it's going to get worse over the next five months. one, the democrats see young black voters leaving them and their rhetoric. the a are going to become much

more visceral and we will have violence in the summer because people are changing. not only are they changing the way that they see america affecting policies in their own lives, but they are changing how they look at race and race matters. someone tried to say earlier that there is not a problem. everyone is concerned about what is happening at the border donal views, wherever they got that particular tape have nothing to do with the policies that he had in place that control that border and the chaos we are seeing today. when you have gypsies in town and the type of uncertainty around them, nothing is working in our cities anymore. people are afraid. and when they are afraid they are not going to restaurants or stores. the only ones that are hiring our security. it's a difficult time. one of the advantas that the republicans out that the demoats don't have when it

comes to ads like this is that truth is on the side of the republicans. we are a very diverse society, we are a very diverse party and we are starting to see that and so are others. the internet is getting the truth out unprecedented with these ads at the left will be running and i'm not surprised at this one and i think they're going to have a whole lot more in store to try to put fear into people as they get ready to go to the voting booths. but we have to remember the voting booth -- voting booth is private and you have to vote your values and your concerns, not this fear that they are going to interject from the left. host: do you think that donald trump is a racist? guest: i don't think that donald trump is a racist and frankly i don't care because he is not, personal friendship. i even have people in my personal friendships that i question some of the times some of the things that i say. but yes i was apprenticed to the california civil rights committee.

there were openingsn 2020 he made sure that many of his spots all across the country, i found it intriguing to joicommittee wn incredible eye-opener how entrenched progressivism is in all of our institutions. but they lie about even the emphasis on civi rights and what the ideas are for the right when it comes to civil rights concerns. but they try to do, many of them on the left, they try to be dismissive of anyone that has an alternative outlook on some of the same topics that they may want to reduce down to just race. but everybody has problems. some are more unique and challenging than others, but the principles towards truth are the kúsame in each of us as individuals grasp at those principles to implement in our own lives.

so i don't mind that it was dull truffle pointed me to this committee because it is an important committee for our country. host: and the black conservative federation in south carolina. >> flat conservatives understand better than most some of the greatest evils in our nation history have come from corrupt systems that try to target and subjugate others to deny than their free demand to deny them their rights. i think that's why black people are so much on my side now because they see what is happening to me happens to them. does that make sense? i've heard that. when i did the mugshot in atlanta, that mugshot is number one. elvis presley's number two and frank sinatra. they had frank sinatra for fighting and they had elvis for something at a gas station, i don't know. so elvis is number two, but he was always number one. we've all seen the mugshot.

they know who embraced it more than anybody else. the black population. you see black people walking around with my mugshot. they do shirts and they sell them for $19 apiece. millions of these things have been sold, so i don't know if i'm proud of it or not proud of it. but anytime you can beat elvis, that's ok, right? host: star parker? guest: we did teach our grandchildren not to say everything they are thinking but i think it would be a roller coaster ride if donald trump returned to washington in power. that being said, we will get this opportunity to talk about things that need to be said. because they agree with him or not, i know otherwise that many of them -- at the end of the day, we are talking about someone who has a gut reality.

the productive narcissist talked about these types of personalities. donald trump didn't make that book, but hs who is a productive narcissist, and i think that many in our society appreciate that. they know what they want, they are going to try to get it. and now politically, the reason he is so popular with so many different groups is because he's honest and brutally honest to say something is broken down and i'm going to find out what it is and i'm going to try to fix it. people want that. half of the country was doing the right thing. they would get up and go to church sunday morning, go to work on monday, tell the kids to behave, and then they look at the reality over time of what has happened to our country because of the progressive left. and they said what has happened to my country? i want my country back. and now they are angry and they want it fixed.

including the problems of black america. don't worry about any of the circumstances or problems in your life, we will take care of you by taking from somebody else. that philosophy doesn't work. a lot of african-americans are finding that they don't like paying these excessive taxes that don't work. frankly, freedom is pretty popular. so it's going to beting. at the end of the day in a decision what kind of country we want. we want a free country where wsf our forced touching, things that force us to debate one against another including areas like social security, or do we get to the place where we can respect each other's views but not be dependent on that person f

reality or our prosperity? host: you've been coming on c-span for 20, 25 years or so. who is one of your political heroes? guest: i heard he just retired and i like him because i like c-span. and i'm hoping i can keep it coming. i have a lot of heroes. i read a proverb a day and i find that with that type of wisdom, you can go wrong. there are many that are here in washington, and on my show i try to showcase not just the organizations that are here doing the fine work, that everything is broken down. i actually appreciate lobbyists. all the special interest groups,

you've got to have lobbyists because you will go out of business if you don't try to protect your interests against these groups. but i wouldn't even want to start a name. one of your callers started naming my heroes and the private sector. these are not my personnel. i have quite a long list of people who really appreciate. he's a good man doing incredible work. i think that's important as well. host: nancy, democrat, thanks for holding. guest: -- caller: i am a person from the progressive left and they want to challenge your conservative views. in my strong opinion, there is

one thing wrong with america these days, and it is that people are four jobs, 40 hours a week and they are not being paid enough money to afford childcare, to afford college education, and to afford so many other things that they need. i see absolutely nothing coming movement to solve this problem. however, i do hear joetalk abous problem, and there is a workable solution that does not involve government, and that workable solution that does not involve government's unions. and i want to know your position on are you pro union or

antiunion? host: guest: i think that if someone wants to join a union, they should have that choice but if someone doesn't want to join a union, they should have that choice. i think that if a business wants to unionize and have union employees, they should have that choice and ihi a business does not want unions, they should have that choice. saying nothing work for the red team, that is not even true. first of all, you have a whole lot of red states that are not only working well, but thriving. we have governors implementing conservative ideas at every single level of government and intervention, if you will, with the people of their state and they are doing very well. virginia alone is turning red because of the leadership of the governor in virginia. the state list as long as well. people who areowstates that arer states better. making their states stronger. so i would disagree with the

caller when it comes to the role of federal government trying to fix the problem that she articulated and the states that are working the best our right to work states. union is in trouble as an entity because what they did is they overpriced and now they can under deliver. our country has collapsed when it comes to people. the 69 million missing through abortion has upside down that pyramid. you now have fewer people whereas they have over promised all these retirees, so they're tryingo blic policy. give up that plan because you've hurt black people, you've heard poor people. unions are low-wage people. unions are like a country club and therefore there are certain

people that cannot get into that club and they are excluded accordingly. they also inflate wages and that is the reason people have been displaced and don't have that entry-level work anymore because there is a computer that can do it better. ■1a machine that now we have to check ourselves out at grocery stores and all the other places that we used to have people like those jobs. ■there is a difference in philosophy when it comes to how we see the world, how we view the world and how we think government were union should be involved. host: mike from phoenix. caller: i'd like to ask three questions of miss parker. the first question is i'd like to know what macro improvements in this country has been made by working-class, by women that did

not involve government action. to ask her is we are still willing under the trump tax cut, we are still living under that. why isn't the condition for the working class and the poor much better since we are still living under those tax cuts? and the last thing i'd like her to do is please define for me what she means by liberals and woke. host: mike, give us a sense of your politics, please. caller: i don't agree with her politics, however i think that there should be people on both sides who are looking to improve the status of lax and all people in this country on both sides of the politics. guest: i will go third first

because i didn't mention liberal or woke so i have nothing to say about that one. the tax cuts, when you release business to flourish, people flourish. when you over regulate business, people don't get hired. on the macro improvements, this is a discussion that we need to have. about where we got off track. one of the areas were a scholar at aai has contributed, he's looking at education and what happen when government took over and started this discussion with the country that rather than do what dr. king said which was desegregation, we were going to start forcing immigration. and if we got onto this track of forced immigration and all these other race-basedives, we

started seeing life in black america not flourish as well. when you think about the business interest, the educational. and after that decision, how many black schools went out of business because of this idea of forced immigration? there were many areas other than just education. we look at the barriers that would put in place when it comes to how we spend our money in particular on our retirement force people, especially low income people into a one-size-fits-all social security where you are not even going to get a decent return but you are taking money from their check and their bosses check and putting it in a system that you don't own hurts progress. because now you can't transfer wealth. so for the african-american community, there's a little bit extra. there's a little bit more of

disposable income. so what we want is an opportunity to plant that money where it should go, which is into our future in the future of our children. so there are a lot of places that we should look at and reconsider if we've gone the right way. not only because o've got a one-size-fits-all pot and everything will be due, housing policy, education policy, or economic policy, but also what is done in the cohesiveness of our society. when the government gets to pick winners and losers, the government gets to say was on first, in association with peopleociation with, we are hurting ourselves as a cohesive society. you want to remove barriers so people can live free. this is where the debates are now. this is why glenn youngkin is the governor of virginia and why

there have been very progressive debates right now about how they are going to learn. this is what happens in florida. you have curriculums in this one-size-fits-all that conflict with other interests. so the best way to move forward in my opinion is not more government, but remove government so that we can all identify with hearing a play, going to a restaurant, having cohesiveness. but when i or my kid on my grandkids are forced into an environment that i don't agree with, we are going to have conflict that spills into our political. host: you write your autobiography? >> i did, years ago. they were dismissive even about my title. it is my story. i'm a military brat. we were called brats. but that's another reason i am not a progressive.

there's just no fun in progressive. which grievance group are you going to be in today? i should have brought a big camera but then someone probably would have chased me out of there. the gay groups in the palestine groups with their flags together , there is its economy here that i am just not sure i understand. the challenge is now, the grievance group has become an enemy and they think that the enemies are donald trump and anyone that supports anything a big challenge for all of us trying to live peaceful lives in our society. host: walter, republican lie, thanks for holding. you're on with star parker whose most recent book is "the state of black progress." caller: thank you for having me. i'd like to comment on our previous topic.

every election is important. every election is important. thank you very much for speaking the truth and giving the key on how to succeed in life. thank you very much. guest: thank you. during the summer of love and the peaceful protest of 2020 when people really expressing the grievances reacting to the murder of george floyd, my organization ransomed billboards because we felt that that one narrative that america would never work for you and this is your destiny was not fair to young african-americans. we have more afghan american young men in college than we do in jail. this is a lie of the left that they keep perpetuating that the country doesn't work for any young black male. so we ran billboards and a few communities. tired of poverty? we had a beautiful black woman,

a beautiful black male and adjusted tired of poverty? finish school, take any job, get married, save and invest, get back to your community. and then it had a website on it. blm demanded■l those boards be taken down. we ran them in neighborhoods where nothing is working. the schools, the communities, the crime, the families are broken down. we have some in our country that you don't see often. we see it every now and then because it is like, where did this come from? how did they concentrate poverty to the degree that it looks so third world in our own country? one of the reasons is because government did that. the concentrated poverty so we thought this just run these billboards because they are really that concerned that this may be their destiny because of the circumstances they were born

into, that they have no other option's but to end up dead or in the street, maybe we should tell them if they save and invest, married people do fare a lot better than single people in our society. they will cease in peace and prosperity. so the worldview, part of this whole philosophy of the hard left that nothing in america works for anybody of color needed to be challenged and rather than take the challenge, theyemanded the company take the billboards down. that is the world we are in in terms of culture and is expressed in the voting booth and i think this election is going to be expressed in the voting booth and i've heard people say that the red team is probably going to win very handily. host: what was clear channel's

response to your billboards? guest: i think they stayed neutral butike blm in their so-called peaceful protest say take them down or we will burn them down, they would rather deal with me. they wrote their contracts to demand that they put them back up. they had to make some choices like many people. people were asking why did they give up $1 billion? the shakedown industry of al sharpton and the rest of them has been going on for quite a long time. it is the perception of the racism industry and it is a major industry. that one group, the funding arm of all this hard core left, $1 billion a year they are raising to give away so that at the push of a button they could show up in protest for everything from whether they want to support hamas to whether they are going to take people for abortion

clinics? we are in a cultural war. this just hope that what happens is that we can keep calm enough to battle and that voting booth. host: angela, independent line, go ahead with your question or comment. caller: thank you for taking my call. i've heard a lot you but i've never met you and here's my question to you. in south central l.a., the black community has gone. my mother is the only black left on her block. they tried to force her out, which used to be a 90% black community is now 90% mexican-american. and my husband is mexican-american. i want you to explain to men the last 20 years that everybody

missed, because the black is no longer the predominant. i was on welfare a gated community. so i want somebody to explain to me how everybody missed this. guest:know that it was a miss. and housing policy there are two things that go on. when you look at some of our communities, is the government to control all housing policy so they try to force their but the other side of the coin is people have freedom of flexibility move. my granddaughter is in the sixth grade. there are many people that move for a variety of different reasons. people who live in california, it doesn't work for them anymore. the crime rates alone are driving people away from where they may have grown up.

sometimes it's just for a better community. i lived in l.a. for years. i found out that i am a beach girl. i just really love tin the watei couldn't afford the water in los angeles because cities are much more expensive in the suburbs, which is another fallacy the left keeps perpetuating the people can't afford to live in cities, but they make it sound like the suburbs are not only racist but they are also more expensive. the displacement goes on in our community are because people grow often and then some choose to stay. ■owe should be very concerned about housing policy. in fact, t "the poor side at is when wey we need it,"

change housing policies because a bunch of liberal progressive thought that it's not fair that people live in poor communities so we had better tear down the poor communities and build all these high-rises that didn't work. so now it is time for us to say what kind of housing policies make it comfortable for people to live free and have better choices for where they want to live? one of the challenges we are looking at, people moving to new communities is in property tax. if property taxes are not controlled across this country based on what county you live in, you will run into major new challenges when it comes to housing supplies. because the property tax in a particular that is now

revitalizing, to this taxes go up, people can no longer stay there. i don't think that is the issue. california under proposition 13 locked into its property tax. it is a state flat property tax. your original value is what you are taxed on so it goes up millions of dollars, it doesn't matter. this is something that other states should consider and start considering very rapidly as their states are changing because of the influx of others that are leaving. we got a couple of guys were on that particular initiative. host: let's see if we can fit in one or two more calls. georgia, republican. helps if i push the button.

caller: good morning. i'm glad to have you this morning and you are doing a very good job at being a voice for the young people. al sharpton is getting up in and we need to not be so hard and look upon him on everything he says because i do believe that trump is for all people and i certainly have to vote for him because i am pro-life and i have always voted pro-life, and i just want you all to continue to be a voice for the younger people because they are going to need this kind of talk. byron and tim scott are doing a very good job.

as sharpton is getting older and other another generation, byron may not agree with everything. i want to get your opinion. guest: i think i am older than al sharpton. people think i am younger than i am. i do agree with the caller that we have to allow the transition in black america to mature. we have to allow the younger generation the further they get from the civil rights movement, the more opportunity they have two go into the future of america and be very flourishing in america. i think one of the reasons donald trump is so attractive to young black men is because they are entrepreneurial. notice the types following him. most are in the entertainment industry. they have a lot of money in their pocket and want to keep it

that way. people talking about the advantages of taxation, people of all ethnicities do not agree because the more money they have, the more they what to keep it in their pocket, in particular when it is spent on things they do not agree with. i agree that we have to allow room for younger african americans with a different point of view to have their expression and they will decide in the voting booth. but they have people like al sharpton constantly go after one ttle word someone may have said like byron said, you talk about that whole era as if it was positive. every african american knows what it means to live black in this country. we all have the burden of race. but we have to decide what we will do with the burden of race. will we put everyonen notice that we have a disadvantage or just live free and express ourselves in

whatever lot we have in our lives? host: least, star parker has been a guest on c-span over the years. you can go to c-span.org and search "star parker." you can see a lot of her past appearances, some of her books as well that we have interviewed her on. am glad you remind me. i could not remember when we first met. guest: i think it was "uncle sam's plantation," my bestseller. it was the first one because you were also thinking about the title, "where did you come up with that title?" host: "the state of black progress" is the latest book. star parker. i really messed that up.

it was nice to see you again. come back. guest: thank you, i will. host: next "the death of truth" with steven brill. is the editor-in-chief of "newuard" and this is his latest book. >> ♪ >> tonight on "q&a," the actor and author recounts the day he and his family were removed from their home and sent to an internment camp following the japanese attack on pearl harbor in 1941. >> my father answered the door and one of the soldiers pointed his bayonet at our fathehenry a. the other soldier said, "get your family out of this house." we followed them out, stood on the driveway, waiting for our

mother to come out. when she finally came out, escorted by the soldier that pointed his bayonet at us, when she came out, she had our baby sister in one arm, a huge duffle in the other, and tears were streaming down her cheeks. that memory is seared into my brain. >> actor and author george takei tonight on "q&a." you can listen on our free c-span now app. >> ♪ >> weekends bring you booktv featuring leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. the daily mail senior political reporter discusses kamala harris' path.

then, the health looks at what impact the 2020 two supreme court decision to overturn roe v.ade is having on patnts seeking abortion. she is interviewed by chief washington -- the chief washington correspondent. watch booktv every weekend and find a full schedule in your program guide or watch online anytime. >> [applause] >> get ready to cheer on your favorite team in this year's annual congressional baseball team where republicans face-off against democrats. pay by play coverage from washington nationals park on wednesday at 7:00 eastern on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org.

>> here is a ball hit deep into left field and bouncing up into the bullpen! >> "washington journ" continues. host: on your screen is steven brill. he is the co-ceo of a group called "newsguard." he is the author of this new book, "the death of the truth: how social media and the internet gave snake oil salesman and demagogues the weapons they needed to destroy trust and polarize the world, and what we can do about it." you write in this book that facts have lost their power and different versions of truth exist. please explain. guest: well, i think what we have seen with the onslaught of social media becoming the chief source of information for so many people, including so many young people, that everybody has

an opinion. as a result of that, there is no consensus around basic facts. was barack obama born in the united states? will the covid vaccine kill you? who got the most votes in the presidential election? just a whole range of things. is volodymyr z■elenskyy a nazi? did the united states give him $100 million to buy king charles' estate? these are all things that large percentages of people believe in this country. what i have tried to do in this book is explain how we got there, the forces that put us there, and also what we can do about it. host: does this all tieback to social in your view? guest: it ties back to two things. first of all, social media enabled everybody to publish to

everybody else. the good news about the internet is that anybody can reach billions of people in the world. there are no filters, no barriers. the bad news about the internet is that anybody can reach billions of people in the world. anybody can be a publisher. someone who has a crazy opinion about the covid vaccine can reach as many people as dr. fauci can. i think what we need to face in this world is there are experts. there is someone who is an expert who put me onto the showa satellite feed. you could not just walk off the street and do that. there are experts. there are experts in health care, in law, in all kinds of fields.

there are referees who count ballots, and they count those not with an agenda, but they are honest referees. i think we have lost that basic trust. host: in other words, we have lost some gatekeepers. guest: right. gatekeepers sounds negative, and in many respects, it is negative. but in many respects, it is positive. i think we want someone to be a gatekeeper when people decide they would like to practice medicine, for example. if i go to a doctor, i would like for some gatekeeper to have decided this dr. pastor medical boards and went to a medical school and knows what she is talking about and does not just have an opinion about the best cure for cancer. and yet, if you go online, and this is what the book is about, the most popular websites and

associated social media platforms dealing with cancer, for example, will tell you april cockpits will cure cancer and that your oncologist is just trying to rip you off. host: how do you determine credibility and trustworthiness, especially when it comes to social media sites? guest: well, historically, going way back and u present, we have come to rely on people we trust who we think now8 more than we do about certain things -- know more than we do about certain things. that is something that has been lost. the idea everyone can have an opinion about who won the election as opposed to people counting the ballots, i think that is a dangerous idea. the idea you and i can have the same opinion and exposure in

talking about a complicated health care issue that a doctor can, i think that is a dangerous thing. i know lots of people do not agree with that because they have been so seduced by the demagogues in the world to have basically told them that you cannot trust anything or anyone. there is a poll i report about in "the death of the truth." the poll was taken by "the economist" last year. "the economido you think the woy a good place with good people trying to help you live a good life? i am paraphrasing, but that was the first question. alternatively, do you think the world is full of evil people threatening you and trying to fool you and take away your way of? those two answers.

the country split about half-and-half on those two answers. something like 82-18 of people who supported president trump in the last election answered with the negative answer. that does not make them bad people. what it means to a large respect is that the system has stopped working for them. something has made them be more cynical. one of the other really interesting public opinion polls i came across, and we all keep coming across this, is this is the first generation of americans when asked if their children will be more prosperous than they are our answering in the negative. something has stopped working. host: steven brill, there has got to be somethinthat makes some people believe things that are not mainstream ideas,

correct? there has to be an impetus to that. guest: there is, but the impetus is enabled by social media. one of is that beginning in mid-2010's, more people got their health care information online than from a doctor if you go online and you look up something related to cancer, there is more engagement online with a site called cancer. news than for cancer.org which is the expert site of the american cancer society. ■

to not believe facts established by experts, no matter the field, no matter the debate. that is one of the problems. it is a problem, as i explain in the book, exacerbated by the fact that something called programmatic advertising has replaced the usual decision-making by advertisers so that all advertising is done by auction. the more eyeballs you get, the more ad revenue you get. therefore, there is a financial incentive to create bogus, inflammatory websites and associated social media posts because those get more eyeballs. host: there is a role, in a sense, for greed and misinformation. guest: there are two major

forces, the onslaught of social media and the onslaught of programmatic advertising which not too many people pay attention to. i will give you an example. you remember when nancy pelosi's husband was brutally attacked at their home. that night, a story ran in something called "the santa monica observer" that he was actually the victim of a gay prostitute, a totally made up hoax story. "newsguard" identified that as a site posing as a local news site running all sorts of crazy stories in order to get more eyeballs via the social media it made when it posted these stories. it had run a story, for example, that said hillary clinton died in 2015 and a body double had substituted for her in the

presidential debates. that is the "santa monica observer." when the hoax story ran about the attack on nancy pelosi's husband, elon musk retweeted it, don jr. retweeted it, the "santa monica observer" cut thousands of visitors to the website who clicked on the social media post to read what was on the website. that resulted in millions of dollars in advertising, and brand names we all respect. hurts rentacar appeared with their advertising under that story. hertz advertising did not appear on the website of the "san francisco chronicle" which actually pays reporters to write the real story of what happened to mr. pelosi

, so there is definitely a financial incentive. programmatic advertising, which i guarantee 95% of your viewers have never heard of, is the money machine behind that. host: we are talking to steven brill about his new book, "the death of the truth." we will put the numbers up on the screen in just a moment so you can dial in and participate in our conversation. i want to■s read. cycle is just -- snake oil is not just a tool of one side. they have secretly financed websites posing as independent new startups. organizers piously claimed to have created the sites to fill the news desert caused by the decline of legacy local news

papers. instead, they publish articles that support democratic candidates while attacking opponents. with generative ai, they have a new weapon that multiplies their reach to present alternative versions of the truth. it is another insidious step at undermining institutions. guest: exactly right. another one of the referees we should be able to trust in the world are people who publish local news, especially local news because that has traditionally been the source of the trust that we rely on. i'm glad you mentioned that. i am also glad that you mentioned this is not a partisan issue. the left is worse and certainly more self-righteous about it tha

n the right. for example, the political action groups that finance these pink sites on the left include people like the woman who also owns "the atlantic." htone would think someone responsible for reviving what i think is now the best magazine in the country would be a little more careful about the other apparently, she is not. as i talk to you this morning, we are actually reaching a milestone. as of this week in the united states of america, there are more pink slime sites posing as local news and undermining trust then there are websites in the united states run by legitimate local newspapers. think about that for a second. if you are looking at what you think is a local newspaper, the

odds are now better than 50/50 that you are looking at a fraud. host: i want to read 27 words to you and see if it has any impact on what we are talking about. section 230, treatment of publisher of speaker, no provider or user of an interactive computer serce as the publisher or speaker of y information provided by another information content provider, section 230. guest: right, you read section 230, which was a short amendment passed and inserted into a multi-hundred-page massive telecommunications reform bill in 1996. it was innocently conceived. at that time, you will recall, there were three dial-up

services that you could pay to join. compuserve, prodigy, and aol read there were legal scuffles because people would go into the very small not terribly populated chat)3 rooms that were started by these services. they would go on to a finance chat board and say something defamatory about somebody else, and they would get sued. so, one of the dial-up services said we are going to try to screen our content. we are going to be good guys. we are going to screen content and keep harmful content off. the other one said we do not screenwe are just like the phone company. you can comment on as much as you want about anything you want. the one that said we do not do anything, we do not screen content, was not held liable in a lawsuit because it said we don't even try where is the one

who said we screen content was held liable. long story short, congress thought that was sort of a perverse result. why should you penalize the good guys, the good samaritans, which is what this amendment was called "the good samaritan act," so let's say nobody is responsible for any content published in what became a social media platforms. there were not social media platforms then. the amount of content in these chat rooms is like one billionth of the content we see every platforms. at age 11, mark zuckerberg became a good samitan who had no liability when he founded facebook for moving fast and breaking which was the watchword for facebook when it was founded. what that means today is elon

musk owns a car company and if he does something that makes the car unsafe, if he were to decide that so many people want my car that i have to make them so quickly that i cannot mess around with seatbelts or airbags or worry about the software that will cause the car to drive off of a cliff, if you does that, regulators will come down hard on him -- if he does that, regulators will come down hard on him and works will come down hard on him let's look at the other consumer products he owns which is x. when it comes to check, he has no responsibility for the safety of the product. -- when it comes t x, he has no response ability for the safety of the product. if someone induces someone to

take a mix of chemicals that will kill them, he is not responsible for screening that. that is the unforeseen consequence of section 230. host: let's take some call for steven brill. "the death of truth" is the name of the book. jim is on the republican line. caller: good morning. i watch "washington journal" every morning. so far, this morning, i have gotten so upset about the fact that people call in and talk about lies, basic lies. the gentleman before said over one million people died while trump was president because he told people to use clorox bleach. i went back and looked in on reuters they showed he had 400,000 people die when he was president. the day he left office, 400,000.

right now, we have 1.2 million. the other 800,000 have died while biden has been president. biden took office with a vaccine that trump through operation warp speed got produced, not bleach. nobody pushes back, even from the "washington journal." these people call in and lie because they are seen the lies and misinformation on social media and hearing it on television. this morning, you showed anything --representative daniel sharpton. al sharpton should not be believed since the data want to broadly -- tawana brawley came on tv. al sharpton stood behind her and swore a policeman raped her.

it was lies. we have that on social media now. host: we are going to leave it there, thank you for view. mr. brill, what is your comment? guest: i do not think i disagree with anything he said. i have not had a chance to check the numbers. i will add one other number to the equation which is 225,000 people. that is how many extra people died because of all of myths about the covid vaccine. that is not a trump issue or a biden issue. there are all kinds of disinformation out there and it comes from both sides. it has real harm. the reason i mention the 225,000 is it is not simply a statistic of how many people died under the trump presidency versus the

bidenthat is the number of how y people died because of misinformation. to this day, whenever any celebrity dies, people go online and get millions of followers, millions of views, saying that celebrity, whether it was matthew perry or colin powell or hank aaron, you name it, that they died from a covid vaccine. there is no way that any social media platforms should be free just to publish that stuff and get the associated advertising revenue that comes with that. host: mr. brill, didn't used to call those social media theories prior to social media? guest: they are conspiracy like there is a conspiracy theory that these two poll workers in atlanta were passing computer chips full of votes around to steer the

election in favor of president biden. there are all kinds of conspiracy theories. this book is about how those theories have become so much more important, so much more pervasive, and so much more destructive and responsible for the chaos and polarization we have in our world today. there is so much chaos and polarization that i was thinking of someone who used to run the court tv cablehannel that i would make a suggestion to c-span that maybe instead of doing the republican line and democratic line there would be a way to split the lines between people who actually believe in reality and people who do not. host: mark in fort lauderdale,

florida, democrat, please go ahead with your question or comment for steven brill. caller: good morning. thank you for this very interesting discussion. that mention a second ago of how to delineate the lines into c-span, i would like to see all of the people self identify and self identify correctly because as mr. brill has pointed out, there is a lot of misinformation and i think a lot of it is people. the guy that called before, i love the way mr. brill answered him when he said it was not trump, it was biden that caused all of the deaths from covid. you came up with a statistic. that same caller complained about the way the hosts on

c-span allow democratic liars to continue. you could have someone call up on c-span every single day who says we have high gas prices because biden shut down the pipeline but you know it can be proved wrong and there are facts showing we are producing more oil and gas than ever. someone will call in and say crime is rampant, which is not true because we have the statistics to disprove it. media and, a lot of mr. brill's the fact that there are these alternative websites for news. how do you get your news? caller: i try to use a variety. i get all of the big tv channels. i cruise the internet. i do not seek anything out. i let thing to me because that is how i get a variety.

host: mr. brill, mark lets information come to him. is that a good idea? guest: umm, yeah, assuming he picks his sources and tries hard, as i do, to pick a variety of sources, not just go to one echo chamber or little corner of the internet versus another. let me add one thing. i suggested c-span set up, divide the phone lines between people who believe in reality and people who do not. now that i have said that, i realize that is totally wrong because the real problem is nobody will concede that they do not believe in reality. they have been sucked into believing a different reality. there is a guy that i profile in my book who was working in the

pest control business in ohio. he had gone to ohio state, never had a single brush with the law, grew up in a middle-class home, perfectly average, law-abiding he gets laid off at the beginning of the covid pandemik , has a lot of time at home, goes down the internet rabbit hole and by january 6, he is in the capital wearing a bulletproof vest and wielding a coach rack as a weapon to attack the police. he really believed trump had won the election pretty he had gone to sleep the night before and trump is ahead. he did not quite understand and certainly did not get the understanding from listening to the president that night that there were more boats to be counted. he woke up the next day believing in the conspiracy that the election had been stolen. a perfectly decent guy lead down

a path because he had been misinformed, and also because the system had stopped working for him. he had been unemployed for the first time in his life and things stopped working. that made him more vulnerable to piracy theories. host: steven brill, going back to the previous caller from florida who said he allows the news to come to him. he checks websites but he allows the news to come to him. wouldn't the algorithm feed him what he wanted or had looked at in the past rather than a larger product? guest: you are exactly right. thank you for intending that. there is a woman i profile. in 2013, she is a techie in silicon valley and has just had her first baby. she does not know that many people out there of that age of

babies so she goes online innocently just to get basic information about what should my vaccine regime look like for might newborn baby and she starts to find on facebook and twitter this vehement debate over something as benign as a measles vaccine for a baby. she cannot believe it, but she keeps reading it, as a result of looking at it repeatedly, the algorithm starts to feed her more conspiracy theories. she texts a couple of her friends that work at the what ip with your recommendation algorithm? i'm getting all this stuff. they basically tell her, that is how it works. she is now an advocate for reform of the social media platforms. she runs a group at stanford

university that does research in advocacy. she was really surprised in 2013. by 2018 and 2019, none of us were surprised because we had heard from whistleblowers, we had seen what happened in the 2016 elections. and yet, the social media platforms via martyr got changed what they do. they just go apologize to congress every six months and say we are really sorry. we are trying really hard. we promise to do better, but they have not done a thing. host: don in columbia, maryland, please go ahead with your question or comment for steven brill. caller: thank you. interesting topic. i think the two issues i recognize going on is access to professional services.

the one example i will say is medical doctors. the average ind do not have access to talk to their doctor. they do not. where did they go, they go online. if they truly want professional ñeaccess -- guest: you are exactly right. caller: six weeks, it will take several times. have so they rely on the internet. if we pull forward to the media companies, i think the media companies have lost innovation and creativity and keeping pace with what is providing a professional service. ■(right now, a lot of media companies rely o pundits and entertainment versus what is happening on the ground locally. i think you are correct. there is no access to local newspapers or local reporters.

i think if an individual goes out with a camera and films a video and post it online instantly, the average american is going to listen to that person rather than listening to a pundit sitting in a studio somewhere. i think media companies need to be more creative, including c-span. do on site location studies. go where people are living their lives every day. i think media companies have stopped doing that. host: we got the point. let's hear from steven brill. guest: i think you are exactly right. i think the first point you made about access to health care is something i touch on in the book . as some of your viewers may know, i wrote a whole bookh car. your point is exactly right.

you have a pain in your stomach or in your knee or a headache or something, and you tryctor. it might be six weeks, it might be eight weeks, it might be never, depending on what kind of insurance you have and can afford, but you can go online. if you have been told you might have some kind of disease but you cannot see the doctor, or when you see the doctor the doctor is owned by a medical practice who has told the doctor you can spend 11.5 minutes with ea patient so just talk really fast, do you do not understand what the doctor is saying. when you get your insurance bill, you have no idea what the explanation of benefits means. and yet online, on social media, there are people who are prepared to explain it to you really simply and clearly. the only problem is they are prepared to explain it to you

really simply, clearly, and wrong. instead, they will sell you a packet of fruit pins to carrier indigestion. you are right. the failure of the health care system has created a vulnerability. when we started "newsguard," we were stunned to finds; we had rated 15,000 or 16,000 news sites and the largest category of the 4000 or 5000 we rated unreliable, the largest category relate to health care. we were stunned by that. we thought it would be politics. it is much more healthcare act because of what you have pointed out about lack of access to the system, and it is complicated, and there is also a ton of money involved in cat a website that deals with all kinds of

phony cures for health care problems. host: nebraska, republican, please go ahead with your question or comment. caller: mr. brill, i am 67 years old, white guy. my roommate in college, a black guy, right there inarwe watch "" everyday in contact each other whatever the subject may be. we are absolutely convinced that because of the media, our country cannot rely on the media any longer. they are broke. not only are corrupt. if you look at what happened the last five years, the only people that went down to the border was fox. now everybody in the world is going to be putting all this crop out about the border and none of them went down there except fox. that is not the only thing.

look at all the corrupt things that happened that was with the russians and the 50 expert security guys. it was all bull. host: we got the point. steven brill, what about so-called gatekeeper media? i know you are a co-founder of "newsguard." guest: if you think about it, all media is gatekeeping media because the definition of media is it mediates between people in the new news issues, and people who want to consume the news so theregatekeeperism, whes fox, msnbc, or the decisions c-span makes about what guess it will have. there probably 100,000 books

being published this year. you will have one or two books a week. the question is whether you do it fairly and honestly. i think you can do it fairly and honestly and have a conservative agenda or a liberal agenda as long as you tell people what that agenda is. if you do not have a conservative or liberal agenda or democratic or republican agenda, and you say we do not have an agenda, then, like c-span, you have to keep that honest too. ■!c-span does. i am not sure i agree with every aspect of the critique of coverage on the border. let's remember fox also did all kinds of video reports about the caravans that wereg which never existed. that is just one example. host: from your book, "the death

of the truth," from 2003 to 2020 newspaper advertising and circulation revenue fell to $20 billion. as a result, about 2200 newspapers and their websites went out of business between 2005 and 2021. between 2008 and 2021, 40,000 newsroom jobs were lost at those newspapers and the survivors had to continue cutting back staff. the next call is judy from arizona, democrat, go ahead. caller: oh, yeah, hi. i guess my point is everybody keeps complaining about the algorithm, but i have never seen a single piece of that talks about let's regulate the algorithms that are aowed. guest: there have been multiple pieces of legislation introduced.

everyear since probably 2018, lots of legislation introduced. none of it even makes it out of the committees. that is because of something we know which is lobbying. in this case, the lobbyists can make arguments on the liberal side and on the conservative side. the conservatives argue the social media veer to the left fact all of the data i have ever seen says they seem to favor right wing voices more than left-wing voices. you can certainly make that argument wthere has been all kif legislation. the core legislation basically

says, if you go back to my explanation of section 230, the core of the legislation argument is the algorithms doat is intere process by which people post on social media. it is ordering what is presented to you on the basis of an algorithm. in this case, what has been discovered is the algorithm goes for the most inflammatory stuff to send to you because that will keep you there. a lot of the legislation proposed has said if you use an algorithm, you lose your section 230 immunity. but it never gets out of committee. we live in a world where congress cannot name a post office, let alone do something this logical. host: one of the arguments in washington and around the

country is whether tiktok should be banned. is that something you have an opinion on? guest: rather than ban was a law passed in the 1930's that said if anything was produced by hitler's germany or by the soviet union and sent into the united states, it had to have a label that said this comes from nazi j the soviet un. therefore, people were warned it might be propaganda. the internet has none of that. rt and sputnik, the two major russian propaganda sites online or on youtube, "newsguard" has identified another 500 that are not as blatant about branding themselves as being russian propaganda but they are. there is no warning given that

this is russian propaganda. you could definitely make the argument that it should be. by the same token, i think anything that comes from a media entity controlled by communist china, and it is controlled, let's not beat around the bush about this, it is controlled by the chinese government, it should be labeled as such. and then, pele might take it with more of a grain of salt. there is a certain irony that tiktok has proven to be just as destructive of our society, just as responsible for misinformation and disinformation and polarization as facebook and■i youtube and twitter, and yet we do nothing to lean on, regulate our own american citizens who run those

countries, and yet we are focused on the fact a chinese company is doing the same thing. i will just add that if you think about this from the perspective of europe, asia, or any western democracy, think about what they think about the fact that these dominant american companiespolluted thein ecosystem and have so disoriented their democracies and their elections, all of what i call america's most shameful export. host:call for steven brill, bill in the florida keys, independent line. caller: good morning. i am sure mr. brill is a lovely fellow. but i hate to say, these are nefarious ideas. there is no such thing as misinformation.

there is information. people are absolutely convinced the world was flat. the experts believed it was flat. in many cases in human history when the vast majority of people thought one way, it turned out to be completely wrong. he brought up dr. fauci and cobra. much of what was put out as certified information from the government turd out to be untrue, about masks, about social distancing, about the benefits of the vaccine in terms of transmission rather than protection of the individual. there was the declaration written by a lot of physicians who had concerns which was suppressed.

more information is good. ■to say that you will allow the experts to decide what is good is not a good idea. host: how do you find yourself discerning what you consider real iormation? caller: the more information i have or consult, looking at other people who believe things, i think it is very helpful for people who have cancer and go online and see alternatives of what is out there. there is a website where you can see every article in the medical literature. more information is good. but to call anything misinformation is not a good idea and it is not a good idea to allow people who are "experts" to be deciding what is misinformation that is my point. host: that is built in the florida keys.

steven brill, your respons guest: i agree with much of what you said. i will point out the declaration you are referring to which exalted the benefits of herd immunity, which everybody now laughs a was not really suppressed. it was out there. you know that, i know that, it was written about, it is just dead wrong. i do not believe any information should be suppressed. i just think, and this is why we founded "newsguard," i think people should have more information about the people feeding them information. we do not suppress anything. the word "misinformation," i take it you would probably agree that if someone wrote an essay today about the world being flat, you would say that is not quite as reliable and accurate as someone writing an essay

about the world being round. there are stages at which things become clearly inaccurate. at the beginning of covid, you are right. one of the things we all heard about is if you have an amazon package, leave it outside for two days because if you bring it in and touch it, you might get covid.there were health expertst said that. the good news is the same experts quickly said we were wrong about that. the information we had has now changed. so, i think misinformation and certainly disinformation has to someone who is putting out a story that that the two poll workers in georgia were

hustlers and drug dealers, they have no reason to know that. it is not that they are misinformed about whether keeping a package on your porch that come from amazon for two days is good or, that is deliberate. someone who says hank aaron died from a covid vaccine, and they have no idea how hank aaron died , and the medical examiner says he did not die from the covid vaccine, that is a different order of misinformation and disinformation than what you are talking about. ■6but having a full debate witho suppression of everything is what i am in favor of also. host: steven brill, that brings up this article in "the new york times." "why covid probably started in a lab" is the title and it is written by a molecular biologist

at the broad institute of mit and harvard. there was a lot of misinformation and disinformation about cid throughout this. now, this is appearing in "the new york times." does it give it more legitimacy? guest: i think it is totally legitimate. there were three alternatives about the origins of covid. one was it was started in the wuhan meat market, or whatever the market was. the second has to do with the lab in wuhan. the two alternatives are that it was deliberately created as a weapon of mass destruction in the lab. the second alternative is it was being researched in the lab and leaked out. at "newsguard," we have settled

on the idea there is still a debate over whether it leaked out of the lab or came from some other place like the market. we have followed most of the experts. we are not experts but we rely on most of the experts who generally agree it was not deliberately created by the chineseí' in the lab as a weapo. host: that goes to our point, bill's point, that was more information the covid pandemic,t of information about the lab was pooh-poohed or said it was not possible. guest: that is a debate. something.ay some people that is what happens with

■everything, especially somethig new and unknown and mysterious at the time. the caller said the declaration about herd immunity which was totally bogus, the notion that was suppressed, it was not suppressed. people looked at it andr) said that is just bogus, and that is even before we know what we know now which is if we know anything about covid now, there is no such thing as herd immunity because most of us have gotten it and can get it again. host: louk in georgia, republican line, please go ahead. caller: good morning. was biden russian misinformation? our president was elected because of alive. thank you. guest: i did not hear the question. host: it was about hunter

biden's laptop and when it was called russian disinformation by 50 members of the intelligence community. caller: let's be a little more precise. members of the intelligence community wrote an■e■; op-ed, ai probably would not have signed on to it, but they did not say it was russian disinformation, they said it had all the telltale signs of russian disinformation. the only position newsguardi ever took on thessuee websites y said the laptop was a hoax with a plant for the we criticized those websites and lowered their scores. having said that, the whole incident is one incident where i

really screwed up. not "newsguard," but i was on csnbc the morning it happened and i basically said what the intelligence experts said which is it sounds to me like it could be russian disinformation. i then added my opinion does not matter. what matters are the facts and "newsguard is not going to go with my opinion, which newsguard did not. i think there is a misconception that the intelligence experts did not declare this is misinformation. the other thing i will add is the more we talk about this, what was on the hunter biden laptop that if verified or not verified would have or should have affected anyone's decision about whether to vote for hunter biden's father? host: steven brill's new book is

"the death of the truth." you write this book has told the story of the four core forces that have combined to create the death of trust in the ensuing instability and chaos. first, there are the social media platforms. second, there is the development and dominance of programmatic technology that supports misinformation and disinformation. the other two core forces charls promotgus health care and funny products. then there are the abused and those distrustful and vulnerable enough to buy into what the bad actors are selling. that is the core of this book, "the death of the truth: how

social media gave snake on salesman and demagogues the weapons they needed." thanks for being on c-span. guest: you are welcome. it was a pleasure. host: thank you to evyone for joining us for the past three hours. this afternoon, live coverage of the donald trump rally in vegas. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed m toning , which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪