♪ host: good morning. sunday, july 7, 2024. three hours of "washington journal" ahead. we will talk about campaign 2024 enter calls by some democrats to replace president biden on the ballot. we begin with a question on the state of the american dream,

asking you about the american idea that anyone can achieve success in this country through hard work. we want to know if you think the american dream is still achievable today. if you think it is, (202) 748-8000 is the number to call. if you think the american dream is no longer possible, (202) 748-8001. if you are not sure, (202) 748-8002 if you are not sure., you can also send us a text. (202) 748-8003 is that number. send us your name and where you are from. catch up with us on social media x, @cspanwj, and on facebook. it is a question we occasionally returned to on "washington journal," in the wake of -- and we are doing so in the wake of a new pew research poll. they write in the report the

american dream is the century-old phrase used to describe the idea anyone can achieve success in this country through hard work and determination. today, about half of americans, 53 percent, say that dream is still possible. another 41% say the american dream was once possible for people to achieve but not anymore, and 6% say it was never possible. again, that according to a survey of close to 9000 americans recently conducted that poll this week. a lot of writing about this concept. john is one of those who took up this topic in newsweek for the fourth of july holiday. he is the intercollegiate studies president, the president of the interiatetudies institute. he wrote in newsweek that the american dredead nearly 80% of americans under the age of 30 't lieve it holds true a, ana

majority over the age of 65 agree with them. ile attempting, he writes, to talk theiscontent up to a lack of patm amg young people, the reality is americans are feeling hopeless and cynical and door gd reason. the door which opportunity has slam shut in faces through no fault of their own. with few exceptions, your birthdate now determineser you are part of a permanent class of debt, who spend their lives scrambling to keep up, or financially independent owners have the leisure to cultivate passions and become influential members of local societies. john writing in newsweek on july 4. we will take you through some of the other writing about it, including some of the history of the american dream. the birth center writing about that history and the history of the american dream. they write it was back in 1931 that james adams, a historian and writer, set up the sense of

the crisis of the great depression. he declared his version of the american dream in that were sent a report on the history of the american dream, they write that mr. adams said the american dream is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely but a dream of social order in which each man and woman shall be able to obtain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable and be recognized by others for what they are regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of their birth or their position. that is from the birth center, a report from about two years ago on the american dream. we are talking about it this morning on "washington journal," asking if it is still possible. (202) 748-8000 if you say it is. (202) 748-8001 if you say it is not achievable. and (202) 748-8002 if you are not sure. opening this morning with james in florida. good morning. you are a first. caller: good morning.

you hear me fine? host: yes. what are your thoughts on the state of the american dream? caller: the american dream is still there. it is possible. it just takes hard work. one step at a time and you will achieve your goals. that is the american dream. i have achieved it. i am 70 years old, and i have not complained. the hard work i have done in the past. we got a lot more work to do in this country. and i can say that is all i am going to say. host: is it harder to achieve today you think for a kid starting out to do what you did? caller: what i did for a living, a program in high school, being an auto mechanic at the dealership. i achieved that.

when i graduated high school, i was a technician. did it for quite a few years, and i am one of the top mechanics in the state. anything is possible. it is more difficult today because of the technology today. but also, the technology is an advantage too. we can do so much more with technology today, like going on the internet and google this, google that. you get your information right away. the dream is there. you just have to work for it. host: thanks for the call from florida. two michigan, lee, good morning. what do you think? caller: yes, i think it is possible still, but it is a lot harder now because of the democratic party. in michigan, there is a lot of manufacturing jobs.

and all of the mexicans, people from honduras, all of these since the border has been opened up, we can all really tell. they are hiring people that don't speak english. they are taking our jobs. i think it is a farce. it is one of those talking points that the democrats say we need. no, we don't. that is a talking point. we have plenty of americans here who need jobs and they are not getting a look. they are waiting in line while all of the mexicans and everybody are moving here. it is possible but it is harder. we bring in 15 million people that we have no place for. it is a lot harder. all of you trump haters that are going to call in today, don't waste your breath. if you don't get why millions and millions of people love that man, just save your breath. you don't get it. host: that is lee in michigan.

this is tim in philadelphia. good morning. is the american dream still possible? caller: hey, good morning. thanks for taking my call. i called in this morning because i believe the american dream is not possible for most people these days. the kind of self-sufficiency and dream of property ownership that young people might have seen their parents enjoy is very much increasingly out of reach. i think the truth is some of these people don't want to hear that for themselves. we created another crisis in american cities by allowing private equity and hedge funds to tackle the residential real estate market. between that and inflation, which largely is a reflection of our government's unwillingness to regulate anti-secular private industry at this point, making it really hard for people to

have a good life. i would like to add this. i am hearing a lot of xenophobic kinds of comments from some of these supporters about the former president calling in here, not really following the prompt. if you look at any of these neighborhoods in american cities -- i am from philadelphia. look at the immigrants and the way these people take care of each other. they got each other. that is the american dream. you cannot stamp out the human spirit, no matter how hard you try. host: let me bounce this off of you. this is karl rove writing this past week in the wall street journal. stick on the line if you are still there, 10. karl rove writing that ird world dystopian hellhole. that is a slur, he wr people werly cpassionate and generous. we built the world' most innovative prosperonom chd property in the rule

law. in the last one, we resd civilization at enormous cost. we did not seek reparations, only eno land to bury dead. go anywhere, and people unnd t american dream. it thepportunity to work hard and live big mp parof a great engram story. sure we have challenges with people around the want to invest in and and live here more than any olace on the planet. we are a light of freedom and hope. if we forget that, we surrender an important part of what it means to be an american. back on july 3, the day before america's birthday, karl rove writing in the wall street journal. asking you about the concept of the american dream, want to know if you think it is still possible and achievable in today's day and age in 2024. the concept of the american dream around 200 years

old now. since the great depression, a concept we returned to occasionally on "washington journal." this is george in montana. good morning. caller: good morning. i called the not sure line, but after thinking about it, i am sure. this is a great country. they have great jobs. they are buying their homes. i don't see where they are struggling anymore than i did in the early 1980's. so, yeah, i think it all depends on your definition of the american dream. if it is to be a multimillionaire, it is getting harder. but to make a good living, raise a family, and have a good life, i think there is no place else in the world where you can do

that easier than here. host: what is a good living these days? you say you don't need to be a millionaire or it is hard to be a millionaire. what is a good living? caller: a good living is having a job. you raise your kids and enjoy your life. you have your hobbies and all of that. there is a good living to me. and then money to retire, you know? yeah. like i said, i think the american dream is -- i don't know how you would say that. a hard question because it means different things to different people. people expect so much today. host: let me ask you. one of these online wikipedia type of places took up this

concept of the american dream and tried to put a number on what the cost of the american dream would be. ey estimated the total to be somewhere around $3 million in lifetime costs of milestones like marriage and children and homes and cars and educaon the estimated cost of raising kids would probably benother half million dollars or $600,000 or so. they put the lifetim cost of a me and mortgage down payment with a 30 year fixed rate around $797,000. try to put these numbers in perspective. do you think $4 million in a person's lifetime is enough to achieve the american dream? is it something you think we can put a dollar sign on? caller: wow. i will say no.

they are going with the big-city prices. you can buy a house in denver for $85,000. i am just saying no. i made nowhere near $4 million in my lifetime. i believe my boys will. they both make between $80,000 and $100,000 a year right now and they are 24 and 45 so i would have to do the math. host: what kind of work did you do and what kind of work do your boys do? caller: me, i worked on berries in the last 10 years i have been driving trucks. my boy is a commercial heating and air guy, and the other is in robotics engineering. yeah. so they both make -- i make as much as the heating and air one, but i do not make as much as the

one with the four year degree. host: thanks for telling us about it out in big sky country. to new york, this is john. good morning. john, is the american dream still achievable? caller: thanks for taking my call, john. i think it is. it is marginally possible. it is nothing like it was in the past. i will be 77 years old, and i can remember growing up that my parents were stretching a dollar to the max. i am living, i guess you can use the phrase come exponentially better than my parents ever dreamed of living. in essence, i achieved the american dream, but for a lot of people today, the younger people , i don't think that is really going to happen, ok? i think it may turn around. hopefully it will, but i don't

think it will happen. in my years, i have seen a tremendous concentration of wealth. i have seen these globalists abandon this country and take everything overseas, reducing the opportunity to, you know -- for people in this country to work, make money, and have a better life when i find -- what i find really disappointing is this concept of politicians going out and talking about a transfer of wealth and how everybody will share in the prosperity. a lot of people are advised to work hard. i don't want to get political but you see someone like aoc keeping amazon out of new york city with 25,000 jobs. i just have a feeling there is overregulation of government and it is really hurting people. host: would it surprise you, because you were talking about your parents's generation, your

generation, and kids today. so this is from the pew research report, the impetus for the question today, is the american dream still possible? among 18 to 29-year-olds, less than 18% say it is achievable, still possible to. the number goes up for 30 to 50-year-olds. when you get to 55 to 65-year-olds, 65%. people over 65, close to 70% say the american dream is still possible. i guess the question is, is that something you think is unique to today that the older generation thinks it is more possible than the younger generation starting out or do you think it is always like that, that a group of folks thinks it is harder looking forward than older folks looking back? caller: i will use myself as an example looking back. older folks have a sense of optimism where younger folks are kind of immersed in reality. real quick, john, they look at

college costs, the inflation, and even though this might be transitory like some people think it is, ok, this has long-term effects because it affects their ability to buy a house, buy a car, get a job, raise a family. you see a lot of these young kids moving back with their parents just to make ends meet. these are real-life issues that will not go away for some time. we can be optimistic. and i want people to be optimistic because i want to see the country rebound, but i think all in all we have to face the realities of what we are seeing in the short term. if i may, it is just -- it just gets frustrating because i am looking at my daughter. she has a very good job. her son-in-law as an engineer and they live a good life, but i have a real concern about my grandchildren, ok? at my age, 77, i am looking back

at the opportunities i had and i took advantage of them and things worked out for me like hopefully they have for other people of my generation, but i am really concerned because i have seen a social of people in the country. people are just scattered with their thoughts on equality and everything like this and there is no consensus on how to get out of this it seems. everybody is at one another's throats. i think you need leadership. i think you need economic sanity. and i think, quite frankly, you need to rebuild this economy. you need to be more nationalistic. you need to bring jobs back to this country. i am sorry. host: thanks for that. have a lot of folks waiting. let's go to willie in north carolina. go ahead. caller: good morning. i feel the dream is possible. hope is always something that springs eternal. but you define the american dream and from different perspectives.

as a 72-year-old african-american born in arkansas but raised elsewhere, i think today is far more difficult for everybody. your poll said that older people are more optimistic. i was always more optimistic. in fact, i was more optimistic as a 21-year-old then i am today at 73. several factors. the economy mainly as the previous poker -- as the previous speaker just said. the economy drains as. i think you have a shortage of birthrates. at the same time, we have an over influx of immigrants. those two things don't ever balance. i am from free choice. i am for women controlling their bodies, but i think the natural

shortage of birthrate can be shot right back to the abortion issue. you put them both together, then you have this need for outside people, so what we call the american dream, the tax dollars, the tax base in my mind is being bottled up -- muddled up. so the important things to americans get sidelined. you just spoke about how much it costs to send an american to college right now and how social security is in trouble forever children and most definitely our grandchildren. so i think the american dream is not possible under the current political situation, right or left. host: you talk about being an african-american and your feelings on this. that pew research center poll broke this down by race and asked this question a couple different ways. one way they asked about the american dream is asking americans today whether or not

they have actually achieved the american dream, asking some 9000 respondents or so when it comes to white folks who entered that poll, 39% said they achieved the american dream. just 15% of black respondents said they achieved the american dream. 19% of hispanic respondents. among asian respondents, it is 34%. does that number surprise you among the people that said they have achieved the american dream? caller: not at all. it speaks to the exact hypocrisy of america. when you look at the top two numbers, right? now, look at the second number. can you hear me? host: i am listening to you. so you are staring compare 39% of white respondents and 15% of black respondents. caller: right. that right there, look at the

hispanic number. look at the asian number. those are factors that say it depends on who you are and your definition of the american dream , whether you can say you have achieved it or not. host: willie in north carolina. this is steve in the garden state. good morning. caller: hello. hi. can you hear me? host: yes sir. what do you think about the american dream? achievable today? caller: i am not sure. i heard the other caller from michigan talk about illegal aliens, immigrants working jobs in michigan. i think that will have some pressure. went to the white industry, the nonskilled industry in warehousing, towards the or immigrants. if you take a macro look at the economy, in the future you will have these industries that the

capital will go to those industries and you have the high-tech industries so you have a divergence in the economy between the worst skills and imported workers and the domestic workers who are working high skill positions or professional positions. so i think there will be this divergence that nobody really talks about. it might not happen soon, but maybe 8, 9, 10, 12 years from now. that is really all i have to say, so that gives me doubt. ok, thank you. host: that is steve in new jersey. hal in georgetown, south carolina. good morning. caller: good morning, y'all. i think the american dream the way america is today is definitely attainable, but we have to be truthful to what is going on now. we are making millionaires every day and have been for 10 years. that is by way of wall street

and government intervention. i understand i don't want to see people thrown in the street. a lot of people lost their life savings in wall street with george walker bush in office. but what we have to look at is we americans are the only people that i know of that actually owed the u.s. dollar. we need to look at that and rework that. i have been doing some studying and found that modern monetary theory, which an economist brought up in england in the 1890's, that is a great system. in those nations, the government owns money. in the u.s., the legal citizens only u.s. dollar. we need to take control of that and go to the mmp, because then

we won't have to do treasuries and everything so we can wipe out debt technically. host: you think that would help people achieve the american dream easier? caller: when i tell you this next part, you will see. since we only u.s. dollar, instead of giving those dollars to the big banks and the global banks and wall street, we give each legal citizen at the age of 18 $500,000. then those parents's children won't have to worry about paying for college, paying for health care. this is your $500,000. you have life as a citizen and a responsibility to help maintain those u.s. dollars. it won't be a desperate fight. you won't have people getting married, children getting married and having sex just to get out of a bad family situation.

when they get 18 if it is bad they can leave their home or maybe they want to stay at home and help their parents, but i think it would be a big boom. again, it sounds unbelievable, but when you look at all the money that has been generated and given to other than u.s. citizens, u.s. dollars, the world currency of which there are seven and we are the most popular. it is not an obligation. it is something people want. it is a product like any other product. host: cj in south lake tahoe in colorado, good morning. caller: good morning. it is south lake tahoe, california. host: of course, sorry about that. caller: that is ok. i don't think it is possible anymore. i think that the supreme court is taking away all of our freedoms, any kind of benefits

that we had in the last 50 and 60 years, and it is just going to get worse with that supreme court. now, i think that biden should take advantage of what the supreme court intends to give to trump, should he win this election. host: you are talking about the immunity case? caller: exactly. and what biden, if i could talk to him and talk him into it, i would suggest he use his official powers and fire the supreme court. every one of them except the three women, jackson and sotomayor and keegan. because they seem to have a more level mind, thinking more of the

citizens of america and not just one man. they are helping trump way too much, and so is the gop. i just cannot understand where their heads are. host: on the immunity case, the new york times today did a wrap up of this term of the supreme court looking at the court decisions and where the public stands on the issues in those decisions. on the immunity case specifically, they quote on whether americans think former presidents are immune or not immune from criminal prosecution, persecution for their actions. the supreme court deciding they are generally immune unless it is a private action. 74% of u.s. citizens saying they believe over presidents are not immune from criminal prosecution for actions they have taken. just 24% agreeing that

presidents are immune from criminal prosecution. again, you can see all the polling on all issues the supreme court took a look at this term in today's new york times. coming up on 7:30 on the east coast in this first hour of the "washington journal," asking you about the concept of the american dream. is it still possible, still achievable? lines for if you say yes, no, or if you are not sure. this is robert and waldorf, maryland, on the line for those that say they are not sure. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, robert. caller: you know, you have to be honest with the listeners. when biden took office, mortgage rates were 3%. they are now 7%. when biden took office, a gallon of gas less $2.36. they are now four dollars plus a gallon.

when you that kind of strain on a person's wallet, there are average americans out here trying to make a living every day, working 40 hours a week. just that alone is enough to cause a problem with the american dream. you are not going to be able to afford a house paying a $700,000 loan. the politicians and corporations have sold out the american worker. they are importing millions through biden into this country to undermine the american worker on a daily basis. this is not fiction. this is not made up. it is right there staring you in the face. and joe biden and the democratic party are the ones who have done this. it has gotten worse over the past four years since biden got into office. all the cost of living, anything, tires, you name it, groceries has gone up 20% to 25%.

nobody listening to this right now can't deny that. you cannot do it. let's just talk about a pickup truck. a pickup truck worth $40,000 is now $100,000, so the american dream is a house and two vehicles. just obtain those to me almost have to take out a mortgage to get a pickup truck, so now if that is what you people like, that is what you voted for. you voted for joe biden and that is what you have now. host: that is robert in maryland. this is mandy in daytona beach, florida. good morning, you are next. caller: yes, thanks for that time. i think it goes back to the way you think. if you think you can, you can. if you think you can't, you can't. why would i waste my time thinking about what i cannot do? in other words, what i should do is think about what i can do and take whatever i have and make the best of it to give you an

example, i was a manager of a department store. and a big corporation bought the chain. they came in. i had 50 managers of different departments and they said you can only keep 25. so i said, how about if somebody has 30 years? they said rank them from one to 50. pilot 26 through 50 go. even if they had 30 years. listen we will give them a week's pay for every year they had. i realized if you think i am saving you guys, you are crazy. that is what is facing america with all of this robotics and stuff. so it is a personal responsibility. when are we going to take a personal response ability to say i am the one that has to take care of me? how can i do it? what do i have? you can say i cannot do it because i don't have enough money. it will take a little bit of time but this is really important. there was a guy in california who got a big job making $100,000 a year back in the

1970's. he was there six months and got fired. he had $400 in the bank and went down to the hardware store and spent $40 buying a bucket and a mop and went door-to-door washing windows. in two years, his business had grown $200,000. americans are thinking about what they cannot do. what they got to do is say i am responsible for me. i cannot blame anybody. do i like joe biden? no, i am a conservative. i have my own businesses. i went into business for myself. to be honest with you, i am pretty well off because i decided i had to take care of myself. i could not count on anybody else, so thank you for your time. i appreciate it. host: that is mandy in florida. this is john in minneapolis. good morning. caller: hello, good morning, john. i am just calling about the american dream. you know, i used to think it was

there, but the more i look at it, it is just a huge discrepancy. i am a military vet, and i could pull together $50,000 to purchase my house now. the only reason i have a house is because i got a v.a. loan from the government. i think the american dream would be more possible if they make that available to everyone without the extra fees on the mortgage. and then another issue is just everything is so dang expensive. you know, sorry, i derailed myself. you should look at the homeownership rates in our country versus other countries like china, where it is 96%, and in the united states i believe it is about 66%. and then even just to minnesota,

minnesota is a very interesting state because everyone will tell you we are very progressive and good on race, but the homeownership rate for white people, white households in minnesota is 77.5%. just 30.5% for black households -- compared to just 30.5% for black households and this goes to back to issues that are systemic in this country. until we address those, the american dream will not be possible for anyone really. and now on to home purchases. the original purchase price of my home was somewhere around $40,000. and then it sold in the early 2010s for $140,000 or 160 thousand dollars, and then i bought it a few years after that person for $240,000.

and now i am being told it is worth $330,000. and interest rates are now up to, what, 7%, 8%? who can afford that? like with kids, i can only afford these things because i chose not to have kids. my wife and i saw how unsustainable it was so i got a vasectomy back in the military due to the unaffordability of the u.s. host: that is john in minnesota. this is chris in philadelphia, in the keystone state. good morning. caller: morning. thanks for taking my call. america today, huh? i called because it is interesting hearing the viewers and i think it is a great prompt. one thing i want to say,

extremely fortunate to hear people who should know better continue to dilute themselves with the sort of self-help like toxic therapy line. if you believe it, you can do it. i also am extremely frustrated to hear people talk about stuff like inflation and obvious price-fixing when it comes to the cost of things everybody needs to survive. i point the finger at the president of whoever it is. that is not how that works. you got businesses. our government has been on mission under mostly conservative control for 40 years to remove the brakes and take away every checks and balance system and remove everything from every regulatory committee possible. our government in my elder's

lifetimes had the ability and good faith effort to rein in the excesses of private industry and wall street come etc. people used to pride themselves on doing that kind of job when they got to congress. that is not how this works anymore. that is not the mission. host: what would you say to those folks who say overregulation is keeping people from achieving the american dream, that too much regulation, too much red tape, too much of the government getting involved keeps people from achieving the american dream? caller: ok, i would challenge those people to give me one concrete example of the federal government actually stopping any kind of toxic influence in private business from doing whatever they want other than slapping them on the rest, having them to pay a fine. that does not exist in our current system. look at chevron. they took the brakes off of the whole thing. they got everything they want.

there were supposed to be this giant wealth transfer between boomers and people younger than them. i am 38 years old. i decided in 2008 as a 22-year-old man, i realized i would never get to own a home, probably never get to get married, that i would never be somebody's father because of a load that i took out. student loans that i took out when i was 18 years old. it is usual to think this is just up to the actions of an individual person. our government has failed us time and time again. they choose to allow private industry to do whatever they want. it is bigger than what any individual can do. host: that is chris in pennsylvania. also looking for your comments via social media, via our text message service. here is a few of those as we have been having the conversation. in massachusetts, this is charlie saying there is possible if youreilling to

work hard and not blow money on things you don't need. jo imaryland, yes if you take school seriously, get a degree or go to a trade school, save up for your future. no paycheck-to-paycheck nonsense. no debt and no government is atohn says. carl and west virginia, as long aseople can depend on the government for the necessities of life, we will not achieve the american dream. this is a review on twitter saying the bloated federal government is killing the american dream. about 20 minutes left in this first segment of the "washington journal" asking you about the american dream, simply asking you as we do over the years, is it still possible, still achievable? jerry in the wolverine state and schwartz creek good morning. caller: good morning. yeah, i believe you can achieve anything you want to invite you just have to be able to work for it and everything.

it starts right at the household, the home. parents just don't make their kids work anymore and everything. they think they can just send them to school and get an education and they will survive. and prosper -- survive and prosper, but it is not that way. i worked 58 years. i've got my american dream. i got a little place i rent, but i watch tv and i.e. good and everything like that. i come from alabama, and in the 1950's, you did not need help or anything. host: are we talking chores around the house or you talk about get the afterschool job and do that while going to high school? caller: you listen to people. and people don't listen anymore. you listen to people and you

learn. you survive and as you learn, you move up the ladder. you will know people more. you can get a good job and prosper from that. i worked drywall for 58 years. i am not well-off or anything, but i am surviving. it is according to what your goals are in life, you know? i grew up real poor, and i have achieved a lot. i am not rich. i am uneducated. and everything, but i run a drywall company and made my money and got through life and am happy i did. host: thanks for the call in michigan. over to the badger state, this

is mike. good morning. caller:caller: good morning america. and good morning c-span. i am 72 years old out here in wisconsin. lived in toronto and other places, and i am here to tell you what is next for the american people over the next generation. it is feudalism. every single thing i have seen beginning and around 1980 has been an institutionalized transfer of wealth from the people to corporations. citizens united, tax rates, etc., etc. everything you point to is a reduction in the family, and the individual, etc. you even see it in education in terms of the way it is paid for, loans which revert back to corporations and banks. sure they are government loans but the banks are behind it.

until we have come and we need desperately, so desperately, fdr level reform in this country, we are absolutely without question headed for feudalism. add to that ai, which the working middle-class white collar jobs have been relatively immune to in the industry and the exportation of all the jobs, industrial jobs, they will not be in this next generation. it will not take a generation. it will probably take 10 to 15 years and they will not be any white-collar jobs. and then what we will have is we will have to have a national minimum guaranteed income for families and individuals. that is the ultimate form of feudalism. and the government will with

corporations that control virtually everything rule the country. what we have seen in the last few months is sort of a solidification of that. if you want a preview of it, you don't need to read the whole thing because it is over 600 pages, but if you study 2025, the project 2025 that the heritage foundation has put forward, that is the future. if you think about individuals and families within that context, we are all losers. host: mike in wisconsin. about 15 minutes left in this segment of "washington journal," asking you about the american dream. lots of writing on the fourth of july weekend about the concept of america and the american dream. here is another one from carlos in today's new york times. he is the author of the book, the washington book about

politicians writing their memoirs and other washington books. he reads a lot of them and wrote a book about it. we covered it on c-span's book tv, but this is his column today. the headline asking, is america no longer exceptional? i will just be the first couple paragraphs of it. if america were a painting, it would almost certainly be a self-portrait. ours is a nation obsessed with depicting and interpreting itself usually with the boldest of brushstrokes. we claim an american way, creed, idea, experiment, and dream, even an american century. our political battles not only center on who is right or wrong but also whose positions best reflect the nation's professed values. that is not who we are. it is our harshest of burns. he writes the self-portrait has a one-word caption, exceptional. we tell ourselves we are the world's last and best hope to be unique among nations, chosen by

god, exempt from history on a mission benefiting a shining city upon a hill as ronald reagan once put it in the committee night. it's not a back woman. -- it is not a backpedaling moment. satisfaction with the way our democracy is working, it is the week it has been in the four decades the gallup has tracked it. it feels more existential than exceptional as than the one before it and the one before that. no wonder american's alternate between inhaling our ideas and deploring how we feel to live up to them or denouncing those ideals for not delivering the exceptional nature. his column goes on from there. a lengthy column if you want to be more. this is john in houston. good morning. what do you think? caller: good morning.

i said i am out for sure because once upon a time, i could have went anywhere in this country and felt comfortable. they made the laws such that i am afraid. everybody has semi-automatics in is killing everybody so how can you consider yourself a free man when you cannot go where you want to go? on the immigration front, we used to call each other americans. now you are only american if you are in the republican party or democratic party. we associate ourselves now the parties we are. we should consider ourselves by the country we are from. the people coming in from other countries, the people from mexico hate each other. that is why they come here. then you can work with each other. here they have opportunities. they are happy as ever. they have never been so happy.

china, they have never been so happy. this people in china, they work together. they hate each other like we do here because we call each other southerners. until we swing this country around and become americans, we will never have the success we thought we had once upon a time. i am 70 years old. as a black man, i always thought i had great opportunities, you know what i'm saying? now i am almost afraid to go out of my house. but he has semi-automatics and nobody cares about each other and the politics don't care about nobody. the others is looking out for each other. host: john in texas. to the yellow him or state, this is mike in montgomery. good morning. caller: good morning. i disagree with john burtka 100%. as a baby boomer, we want to live and work forever. i am a glass half-full guy.

back in college, i took philosophy as an elective. my favorite philosopher is john calvin. his philosophy states that via the protestant work ethic, hard work breeds success. i think two collers previously were spot -- callers previously were spot on. this is a great country. let's not recite the american dream, people. this is a great country. we all can work together and achieve our goals and our dreams. thanks for listening to me, and have a great day. host: that is mike in montgomery, alabama. this is derek in naples, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. i think that i believe that the american dream is very much possible.

you know, we know in advance, what sort of degree do i need to get in order to do a certain job? so you know what the path is to get where you want to be more or less. if you have an mba from a top 10 or a top 20 university, in all likelihood that is going to pay off. i think the problem in our society nowadays is a lot of people think they have a right to a $500,000 house soon as they graduate from college, and they have a right to a $100,000 car. those are not rights. they have a right to have a family. those are all privileges. that we have to work for to earn,. i went to graduate school in public health and paid for that entire degree in student loans. i am a nurse, so fortunately for

me i look at it as i have done better than my parents. i can work seven days a week, 12 hours every day, probably pull into hundred thousand dollars a year if i wanted to. i have the flexibility to work as little or as much as i would like. you know, i know there are other initial degrees i can earn that could give me additional learning opportunities, additional job opportunities doing different things, traveling. i think the american dream is very much alive and well, and i just want to comment on a prior caller, the gentleman who railed against joe biden and stated that inflation and every other problem the united states is facing currently is joe biden's fault. i just want to know, is joe biden also responsible for

higher interest rates, inflation , higher cost for groceries and homes and cars, and let's say all of western europe -- in let's say all of western europe and the rest of the world experiencing the same? he is not. if he is, wow, he is one heck of a man and maybe we should have him for a second term if he is that powerful. host: derek in florida on college degrees and degrees you would need to feel like you have achieved the american dream. in that question that the pew research center asked about whether you have achieved it or are on the way to achieving the american dream, 40% of college graduates said they have achieved the american dream. 37% say they are on their way to achieving it. 21% of college graduates saying, no, the american dream is out of reach for them. when it comes to those who have some college or less education,

just 27% saying they have achieved the american dream. 36% saying they are on their way to achieving it. 35% saying no, it is out of reach for them. that is the breakout from the pew research center. a few minutes left. want to get to a few more of your calls on the american dream. this is nate out of las vegas. good morning. caller: good morning, america. the american dream is on life-support support. it seems like all of our callers are the same age. i am 70 years old also. yes, everything is joe biden's fault. but getting back when america has lost is it's free will -- what america has lost is its free will. until we get that back, the american dream will always be in peril. just speaking for myself, we live in a country where i decided 40 years ago i am going

to move to las vegas to pursue my dreams, and, you know, things have been a roller coaster, but things are working out. yes, i believe in the american dream -- i believe the american dream can still be achieved but you have to work hard. host: is vegas still a good place to achieve the american dream? caller: absolutely. if you are here to live this lifestyle, yes, it is. it is a lifestyle a lot a people here choose to live, and it seems like most of the people that are here in this city, they all have the same sort of goal. they all have the same sort of what they want to pursue every day. they love to gamble. i love to gamble. i love to be here in the city of beautiful women and just from all over the world, but that is vegas. i am just saying we have to get our free will back. the government has snatched our

free will. it really came to a head with covid. a lot of people just want to accept it and accept what the government tells them, and we let our schools go down. we have allowed the media to influence our life too much. just report the news. but yes, it is possible. but i hope the next generation and the generations of kids, i hope they wake up and start to believe this is america. we are the greatest country on the face of the earth, and we are the greatest country because we are compassionate people. host: in las vegas. this is diana waiting in livingston, new jersey. diana, just a minute or two left. go ahead. caller: good morning. i just want to say the biggest threat is the misinformation across the country. just like the previous caller before me that joe biden did this and that. if you look at any metric about the rich got richer, start rocket is out of sight, home

prices are higher. i look around and see my friends retired at 58, 63. they are not working hard. they are on the government dollar, and those are who complained about the debt but they don't realize what happened in this country, that the rich and corporations have overtaken our government and made all the regulations so when they get regulations, they freak out like now, right? they just reduced -- repealed the chevron, which allows them to dictate what is clean water, what is clean air. if it is up to the republican party, they would let these corporations and financial banks go crazy. they always come out with these innovative products that turned out to be a scam just like the mortgage-backed securities was a scam, and now keeping the economy and zero interest rates. people are complaining. i bought my house in 1998.

the interest rate was 7%. that was the norm back then. because we have this quantitative easing which inflates access, that is how they reduced economy. truck was begging when the economy was booming for lower interest rates. host: diana. wayne, the last caller in this segment of "washington journal" from harrisburg, pennsylvania. caller: hello, my name is wade. when i graduated in 1975, right, i would read on a fourth grade level in 12th grade. i did not know what a hammer or screwdriver was. but now i made it to be a carpenter for 30 years. it is possible. you just have to grind for it. i don't want to hear -- i don't care what president it was. democrat or republican. i still made it. i took care of six kids.

i fed the homeless. i did it all, so there is no excuse why anybody is having any reason why they cannot make it. the president doesn't have nothing to do with it. it is yourself. host: that is wayne in pennsylvania. the last caller in this segment of "washington journal." stick around. plenty more to talk about this morning. we will discuss -- two guests coming up to discuss. first will be james antle. stick around for those conversations. we will be right back. ♪

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c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington live and on-demand. keep up with the biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearings from the u.s. congress. white house events, the courts, campaigns and more from the local politics all at your fingertips. you can also stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal or find scheduling information for c-span's tv networks and c-span radio, plus a variety of compelling podcasts. scan the qr code to download for free today, or visit our website. c-span now, your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. washington journal continues. host: welcome jim antle back to the desk, the washington examiner magazine executive

editor. you want the joe biden-george stephanopoulos interview. what do you think? guest: i think it is a good preview of what might happen if democrats went to the oval office and asked president biden to step aside this year. idle is envisioned that if it did come to that, we see people like chuck schumer, former president obama, maybe some people from biden's inner circle , bailey go to the president and say something to the effect of your legacy right now is that you got donald trump out of the white house. would you like your legacy to become that you let him back in? the impression i got from the interviews, he's not very likely to take that advice and it may require the almighty himself to come with them if they want to make that case. i thought the president seemed pretty doggy in. it is then going --dug in.

it's then going to be a question of how serious are the democrats are like a nominee about pursuing that in the face of a president who to me, doesn't look like he's going anywhere. host: that post-debate reset, looking back on it, what went right or wrong for joe biden? guest: mostly everything went wrong. they wanted the early debate. i think they were hoping that the debate would sort of reset the campaign. they've been trailing in the polling averages. they been trailing in the balla graham states. i think that have the ability to not debate former president donald trump at all if they didn't want to. but i think they thought that they needed to do something to change the dynamics of the race. based on what has happened up to this point it is primarily affecting the race in a negative way. there was no serious thought about replacing him at the nominee prior to the debate. the concerns about bidens age

and acuity were largely partisan concerns. now they are bipartisan. there were no democrats that were openly or even covertly questioning the president's fitness to serve, much less stand for reelection prior to the debate. so that is the major shift to the negative providing. host: in that post-debate collapses the headline. you open it with be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. for joe biden, what were you referring to? guest: that they could get trump on the debate stage, draw a very favorable contrast with trump. they got all the terms and ground rules that i think they would've liked debate. there were no interruptions, moderators, no conservative moderators, no live audience in the debate hall. all things that shrum has used

to his advantage in previous debates. but i think the ground rules and that helping trump to some degree by forcing certain parameters on him. when debated in 2020, 1 of the reasons why trump was perceived as having lost particularly the first debate between the two of them is because he came out so hot, he was so aggressive, interrupting all the time. he just seemed unhinged. and that was the risk for trump going into the debate, is that he would single tempered and unhinged, whereas the risk for biden was seeming infirm and feeble. and that came to pass for biden much more than the host: negative for host: trump. do you think donald trump republicans are wishing for joe biden to get out of this race and if so, should they be careful about what they wish for? guest: yes, they should be very careful because know, i don't think they want biden out of the race. i do think there are many republicans who have always been skeptical that biden would

actually end up being the nominee. trump himself has been telling people that he question whether biden would actually make it the general election. i do think there has been some preparation. certainly most anti-trump republicans were of the few that republicans would end up dominating trump and ending up having a younger, more energetic nominee that they had to run against read but by and large, when you are ahead, you really don't want anything in the race to change. if the campaign is behind it was really hoping for things to change. so i think republicans would prefer to run against biden with a very clear set of issues they are campaigning on. h&m infirmity are among them. host: jim antle artest. over the years i appreciate coming by. if you want to join in the conversation, (202) 748-8000 democrats to call in.

republicans, (202) 748-8001. independent, (202) 748-8002. he's with us for about the next 40 minutes or so here on washington journal. look ahead to this week what might be a tipping point for joe biden this week when it comes to the nomination, but also it joe biden needs to do this week. a stage with the nato summit coming up. what he could do to try to continue this sort of post-debate tour and cleanup. guest: one of the problems was in addition to the debate not going particularly well, biden and co. were very slow to engage in that kind of cleanup. they really took close to a week to really get help from a lot of major democratic stakeholders. they had a fairly will receive a rally in north carolina the day after but his schedule went pretty light after that and it wasn't until the end of the week that we began to see him on a

regular basis again. i think the president needs to be out front and center. i think he needs to show a certain amount of vigor and engagement. he needs to remind people that he is in charge and to show his leadership skills, and a nato summit gives him a chance to reengage on some of the substantive issues of the campaign. some of these things the democrats think advantage spent in the election and i think they really have to hit that hard. but a problem for biden is going to be all of these democratic members of congress coming back to the capitol hill, and that means they are all going to have a lot of access to national reporters who were going to ask them what to see with joe biden. do they want him to drop out or stay in? while i don't think it necessarily forces biden to do anything, the more of them want to see them go, the worse it is for him. host: pictures like this show up

in the sunday washington post. these were protesters outside the madison, wisconsin rally on friday. the sign below but i thought was more interesting, i love you joe, but val out. guest: you're going to hear a lot of that sentiment from democrats. a lot of democrats are holding fire for the moment because they are hoping that the president leaves voluntarily because if he doesn't leak voluntarily, number one, even people who are critical of him right now do have a lot of respect for headways accomplished over the course of his career, but it's also true that if he doesn't leave on his own, it gets kind of messy. it becomes a real game of chicken of does biden blink or to the democrats who want to push them out blink? host: the line for democrats, michigan, valerie. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: what is your question or comment?

caller: i'm wondering why is the media constantly talking about a 90 minute debate and i watched the debate in the parties office. joe biden didn't lose that debate. he may have fumbled and misspoke and got caught off guard, but how can you lose a debate against someone who is stealing nothing but untruths, lies, making stuff up? the democratic party is doing the work of the republicans read we don't know if they are haddock -- democratic people republican. -- people. the people are behind joe biden and that is what counts and i believe he's going to win. who wants to be stuck with project 2025?

we don't want a king in america. we want freedom and the economy is doing really well. if trump started running two years into joe's presidency. post: we take your point, valerie. your point about where these calls are coming from, i just thought it was interesting to take opinions. no fan of donald trump, that headline on his piece, it is not fair, mr. president, but it is reality. joe biden's determination is admirable and terribly unfair that the entire media narrative is now about his fitness for office rather than trump's fitness for office, but he says the media narrative and the polling index is the new reality that now must be disproven, not denied or wished away by biden and his team. guest: right. and i think the premise that most of the people who want biden to get out of the race is that it is essential to

the donald trump. -- beat donald trump. the fear, the urgency they feel about the beating trump is fueling a lot of this. but there is a risk that this is something that potentially rebound to biden's benefit, there could be some kind of backlash to the degree of pylon that we are seeing. you have three minutes before the debate, none of these people were saying biden should get out of the race. the media has turned dramatically against biden. it is not a position democrats are used to being in. a lot of democratic elected officials, particularly those on the ballot this year have turned on biden. so it's possible that some rank-and-file democratic voters my rally kind him in response to this. but at the same time, i do think when you look at the polls after the debate, a lot of democratic

voters were not very happy with that performance, either. i think biden is under a certain degree of pressure to show that he could really compete in this race. host: having the media turned fully against you is more devastating for a democratic president because democrats generally see themselves as the party that trust the mainstream process any academic expertise and the respectable opinions out there, whereas republicans generally assume that the media is biased toward them. >> i think that's absolutely true. i do think there is an opening provided to do what is typically done by republicans, and that is run against the media. the fact of the matter is biden is the only major candidate who ran in the primaries so he didn't have to face some token opposition. he won the overwhelming majority of the votes.

90% plus of the pledged delegates to the democratic national convention. he could argue that the media is trying to overturn the will of the people and that would fit in with his defense of democracy narrative that he has tried to make central to his campaign. host: read expert, republican line. caller: readings, good morning. listen, i have a whole different take on all of this stuff. i think that biden the set up. if i had been around biden for all these years, i would know there is no way on earth that he was going to go in and say i have any time for positive. i think that they set him up, i think that they knew he was going to do what he was going to be. i'm not trying to insult the president. i'm just stating an interesting fact. host: you say set him up this

narrative now to whether -- caller: listen, i'm around people who have alzheimer's and you have dementia. it's almost a given that he was going to do what he was going to do. positively. and this thing that they came out with on tv, with him talking about that he was tired, you don't say that kind of stuff in your president of the united states. good god. the whole thing that has come down to me in my mind, we are all being hoodwinked. host: got your point. guest: i do hear that a lot, a lot of people say certainly trump, the recently agreed to debate terms that a lot of people thought were not favorable to been is that he thought that getting biden on the debate states at all would work to his advantage and they were somewhat skeptical they were ever going to see him on

the debate stage. but i think it's important to remember this was the biden campaign debate proposal. the people who are involved in the decision-making here will likely come in many cases, cease to be employed if biden is not placed on the ticket. even if they stay on for the duration of the campaign, they are not likely to hold the same senior positions in another democratic white house and certainly not any position of any kind if the republicans win. i understand why people would say this is a set up but i think if you look at who was actually involved, the motive these people have don't really line up with that. host: the interview from friday, this is president biden. >> i've never seen a president with 36% approval get reelected. biden: that is not our fault.

>> entity stay in and trump is elected and everything you are about comes to pass, how do you feel in january? biden: i would feel as long as i gave it my all, and i did the best job i knew i could do, that is the best i can ask. host: joe biden out of the after that at his legacy. guest: and that answer is the one that upset a lot of democrats as anti-trump republicans. this seeming desire for dissipation trophy in what they've all set out to be the fate of whether democracy survives or not it really didn't seem to meet the moment. but i think even before the debate there was a lot of concern as to whether biden's campaign really understood what the race is about, whether they were making too much about trump and democracy, whether they were understating the degree to which

this is a referendum biden's own presidency and whether they were taking seriously enough that polls were showing that if it wasn't a referendum on biden's presidency, biden wasn't necessarily going to win. all of those concerns i think were heightened by both the debate and stephanopoulos. host: maryland, independent, good morning. caller: bottom-line, the democrats need to stand behind biden. this ridiculous talk to george stephanopoulos interview, i mean, what a ridiculous question , for him to suggest that a poll that low, polls change, everybody knows that. but here's the other piece. if democrats lose the incumbency card and all these politicians -- i don't understand why they don't know that. you can't throw somebody else in there and get the name recognition needed. by november.

losing that element of the incumbency card is a huge misnomer for this election. it just can't happen. host: who else? guest: there are a lot of practical problems actually with switching out biden at this point. the clearest and easiest solution would be vice president harris. she would have highest name id, a certain degree of institutional legitimacy as she is the elected vice president as opposed to somebody who wasn't on any primary ballots to receive zero votes, and probably most importantly, they can most easily transfer the campaign were chest to her. she can keep the money. other candidates really can't. the money could potentially be transferred to other democratic entities and be used to their benefit, but if you are gavin newsom, governor of california, if you are gretchen whitmer,

governor of michigan, you won't necessarily be in full control of all of the money that biden has raised. and i think it would be a real problem to run against trump with any kind of spending or financial disadvantage we generally have the advantage of them. there are some worried about harris being a replacement even though that would be the easiest route to go. because of her own unfavorable ratings, because of concerns about whether she could actually win the general election herself, and there are a lot of people who want to replace the ticket as a whole, so they would like to see potentially a swing state ticket. they like to have governors of michigan and pennsylvania potentially on this ticket. but once you are saying that you are trying to replace both

sitting members of your party's ticket who are not challengers, these are incumbents. this is a sitting president and the vice president of the u.s., that a very difficult and potentially messy process. host: the first one, reflecting the parties bleak outlook and then a focus on the vice president harris emerges from the sidelines as democrats rethink this ticket. guest: and obviously even if biden stays in, the content about his agent raises her importance. he's asking to serve until his is 86 years old. people are concerned about him right now. what is it going to look like 10 months from now, two years from now, three years from now? the other for serving even a part at some point really go up with the scrutiny increasing.

host: terry is in chicago, democrat. go ahead. caller: yes, larry. interesting discussion. i can tell you right now i don't understand whether democrats are doing this circling fire squad. it would be one thing if he was having some mental problems. i watched that debate. he doesn't have any mental problems. there's nothing he said. the media keeps saying to instances where he started. he has a speech impediment, and he had been able in the last couple of decades, i think he's losing that ability. whatever he's been doing to correct that speech impediment he's lost the ability to do that, so now he's stuttering. that's making it seem like he has something mental but there is nothing that he says, there

is no answer that he forgot. the republicans had mcconnell, this is ridiculous. and i believe the democrats are shooting themselves in the foot. the strategy for the democrats is vote blue no matter who. that is falling apart. i thought of democrats would win the house. the democratic public, i'm not going to vote for my democratic congressman who is calling for biden to step aside. i think we could have a situation like we have the clinton with the president gets reelected and then the democrats lose and then blame biden because they did it to themselves. host: is your congressman mike quigley? caller: yes. he's in a precarious situation anyway. he shouldn't win, but i think the democrats are shooting themselves in the foot. everything is going transue, and it shouldn't. host: i will take the point,

members of congress who have called for biden to step aside or those who have expressed concerns. those saying dropout. it is quickly at this point, seth moulton of massachusetts. the first to come out last week in texas and then yesterday, angie craig of minnesota. another 12 expressing some concerns. guest: yeah. it is going to come to a point where some people who are sort of urging him to drop out are saying it is openly his choice. if they really want that to happen they may have to go a step further. they are going to probably have to see some of these anonymously sourced stories about various deficits biden has. people may have to start to go on the record. you're going to have to see campaign donors begin to

withhold serious money until you leave the ticket. but all of those things could put out collateral damage for other democrats and could also weaken the campaign. the whole reason democrats ultimately decided to avoid the competitive primary process is they thought it would not result in a different economy but it would weaken biden for the general election. all those things are still in play here right now. democrats head of the convention had a decision to make. host: the story, the headline in the papers yesterday, not another dime for democrats until joe biden drops out of the race. i believe that is the granddaughter, abigail disney, hollywood heiress. guest: and those of the sorts of things you're going to start to see. those are the types of things

that would potentially move the needle. people who have: biden to drop out already, most of them are not important enough. if senator mark warner does what it is reported that he is attempting to do, that would be the first really big name to come out in favor of this. but most of these people are relative backbenchers. it is not really necessarily going to force biden to do anything, although it is a bad look. eventually, people are going to have to start withholding money, calling for him to drop out in terms of not necessarily a good choice. the real thing with the democrats and they are probably already have these conversations is what do the delegates think? biden has about 3900, or 4000 or so pledged delegates to the convention who are people who would get to vote on the first ballot. i think for any replacement

before him to pan out, he would need at least 2000 of those to be willing to abandon him and probably a greater consensus than that to make it worth the risk of having a messy, contested convention. i think if you could go to biden and say you don't have the delegates to win you can potentially get into dropout, but that is a very serious thing. >> this is steve, independent. morning. caller: i'm curious as to why we haven't heard anything about the recent jeffrey epstein relations that really painted the convicted felon trump in a very bad light that in my opinion, this is a lot larger than the access hollywood tapes and i really think some attention should be paid to that. thank you. host: mr. antle? guest: i'm aware of the rumors but i don't know enough to comment on it.

trump, epstein, these are names that have been mentioned in concert for a long time. host: this donald trump want to involve himself in the joe biden stay or go conversation or is this something that if you are between biden in donald trump, just let it play out among democrats? guest: just let play out. for the most part, that's what he's done which has been one of the most surprising aspects of this whole controversy is that trump has managed to largely stay out of it. the one person he seemed to really express his opinions on, there has been a lead video of him talking about this with some glee but he for the most part has not commented on it. i think there is one truth social post where he mentioned it a bit. as they say, trump has been of the view that biden should potentially not be on the ticket for a while, so i think there is some preparation for it, but

there's really nothing that trump could say that would be beneficial to him. the reality is they are going to have no choice, the republican convention is coming up so they are going to want to dominate the headlines. when your opponent is having a difficult time there is really no reason for you to get involved and take them the headlines. host: this is ed, republican. caller: thanks for taking my call. whatsapp, jimmy? i just want to say i'm republican, but i heard the response of the last caller talking about trump lawsuits, it is a sworn affidavit. it is not a rumor. i'm a little curious why we should be having a discussion about how many delegates are

going to drop joe biden because he's old and he's sleepy vs. zero people discussing how my party has been turned into a money waterslide for him being some sort of violent rapist? what are your voters think about that? host: jim antle on donald trump and the view of donald trump within the republican party. fif that trump has serious character defects and worth in serious character defects, is a criminal, is a big part of what democrats are freaking out about the possibility of losing to him. some of these views of trump are sort of embedded into the biden panic. i understand why some like my fan there are unhappy that biden is the primary focus.

but one of the reasons the democrats are so concerned is that they do think it is unacceptable the possibility that trump gets back in the white house. they don't view it as being like losing to mitt romney, for example. but within the republican party, yeah. trump has a pretty firm grasp of the republican base. i think he has a strong emotional connection with a lot of those voters. there are many people in the governing class the republican party who never warmed to trump and there are pockets of resistance within the party, which is why you saw nikki haley continuing to get nontrivial numbers of primary votes long after she dropped out of the race and the remaining primaries. but nothing really strong enough. trump is the nominee for the third consecutive election cycle and now his sentencing in the new york hush money case is not

going to be until after the republican national convention. so there's virtually no chance that trump is not going to be the nominee. but trump is in some ways, biden could take a page out of his playbook if he wants to remain the nominee. there with the access hollywood take controversy and there have been other such controversies late in the 2016 cycle, much later than we are in the campaign right now. there were a lot of republicans wanted to dump trump as the nominee and he basically just held firm, said no and stayed in. ralph northam did something similar when he faced a controversy that seemed likely at the time to make and no longer be the governor. he stayed in and finished his term. there are some that if you want to survive the wrath of the cable news cycle that now exists, that you could potentially do it as long as you

have enough backing. host: the cable news cycle, a week before the republican national convention, we probably would expect to be talking about who the republican vice presidential nominee would be. as all of this, do you think, impacted when donald trump would or should announce his pick? guest: i think it's going to happen pretty early in the convention or maybe right before the convention. if the debate had gone differently for trump, it might have been earlier to change the headlines. i don't think they felt any need to change the headlines the past week or so. and my understanding is that they settled on a person but i don't know if biden's problems with the potential of the democratic nominee affect the calculus of who that running they should be. host: who do you think it could be or should be?

guest: i think right now the three likeliest people are senator tim scott of south carolina, senator j.d. vance of ohio, and governor doug burgum of north dakota. each of them are very different people. vance is very much within the ideological wing of the republican party that is most supportive of trump, with cement, has a younger man, a move to a more populist flavor of conservatism within the gop. senator tim scott obviously is very different in tone than trump, a much more optimistic figure, african-american republican in the campaign that is looking to pilaf particularly black men from the democratic ticket. and bergen is a pretty conventional business republican. sort of looks the part from the

casting perspective which is always been important to trump, and he would also fit a little bit into the choice trump made with mike pence where it was said that he was a bit more of a contrast for trump rather than the enforcing trump, although he does not bring with him necessarily a sense of the republican party in the way that pence was important to evangelicals, for trump didn't have those relationships at that time. host: reynoldsburg, ohio, donna. independent, good morning. caller: yet. well, i tell you what this man has sent, i agree with everything. there is no way -- i'm in good health and very active, i have not been an activist but i'm very interested in government. i get most of my information from c-span. three months ago when i saw so much trouble in the elections i

started listening to evening news on one of the regular networks. i tell you, there is no way i let a man who is a narcissist, a criminal. i cannot understand the republican party that the people in the party in congress, the senate, but especially congress -- i know that when he was in they didn't agree with a lot of his mouth, he likes to say things that are buried in the chair, call people names even in his own party, but they just kept quiet. there is no other reason that they were afraid they would lose their election. and then i talked to my brother who lives in another state, but we talked about once a month and we are both simple people. i have devoted more for democrats, i think they are able to better on i don't need the safety net we get these bad

nominees because most people don't vote in primaries and then you get the far left and the far right. and most of the people in this country get along. host: let me take that point. guest: the primary process is obviously not producing nominees all the time that the general electorate wants, but there really isn't anything other than their own events other than them voting in primaries. the fact was that the democrats did not have a competitive primary process and are now after the debate trying to relitigate whether there should have been some kind of competition provide an and maybe now in a less democratic forum

they are going to introduce them. there are a lot of people who didn't want trump to be the nominee and a lot of people worried that in electing the trump as the nominee would play definition be a binary choice whereas republicans think that is a referendum on biden, the fact was never primaries, there were significant challenges. governor ron desantis' campaign didn't go particularly well that he is an important year in the republican party and there was a lot of demand for him to get in at the time. nikki haley, former governor of south carolina did reasonably well as a competitor. ultimately rank-and-file members chose trump given though both biden and trump were not really the choices for most people actually wanted. host: another thing a previous color brought up with the morality issue here who has the moral high ground. i thought this was interesting

from maureen today in her column. find contention that he alone could be trump was never true, and now he has lost some of the moral high ground because he had the evidence of his cognitive interior ration. trump is a master conman but biden is giving him a run for his money here. they work hard to conjure a mirage, but everything was fine inviting world and that mirage vanished with the debate. guest: that's really going to be the emerging scandal. it's one thing if biden is simply getting older and his staff, as your staff is supposed to do is work to present him been most favorable light they possibly can. that's politics. if there is a more serious issue and it was being actively concealed, that's going to become a bigger scandal and that is a scandal that could potentially affect even people who might replace him at the top

of the ticket if it were to come to that. but it has been interesting, if you go back to the 90's, the character issue was wielded by republicans against bill clinton. clinton's impeachment and the failure thereof was largely viewed by a lot of people as the end of the character issue as a force in american politics against trump democrats that sort of revived it. one of the more memorable lines that i think was served invited saver in the debate was when he looked at trump at fulton he had the morals of an alley cat. biden has explicitly raised the character issue as a reason to vote for him over donald trump, integrity is a reason to vote for him over donald trump. and yes, some people are using this issue of his health to muddy the waters on that. host: enter haven, florida. line for democrats.

guest: i blame this whole mess on the republicans because biden is the sitting president, and that kind of gives in the right to run for reelection, that is kind of how it works in america. it was up to the republicans to nominate the moveon candidate and i would have been more than happy as a registered democrat to vote for nikki haley. just move on from the both of them and they could move on from donald trump and now we are stuck with these two. guest: think nikki haley certainly did have greater crossover potential than trump, and certainly could have much more easily for the whole race into the referendum that would have favored republicans. i think there are two caveats. i think all things being equal,

nikki haley would certainly be pulling better than trump is right now, but number one, would trump have been a cooperative supporter of nikki haley, or would he have potentially sabotaged her? i think that is a pretty open question and if democrats are freaking out about biden being down three points in the national polling average, if he was down to haley, we have started having a conversation even before the debate? i think potentially so. host: marilyn, republican, thanks for waiting. caller: thank you. i was calling because they had this thought that my greatest fear is that kamala harris could run either as the candidate or something would happen to biden and she becomes president. so my suggestion is that they consider appointing less more --

wes moore as a presidential candidate and maybe biden stay on if he is elected and then eventually resign, appoint kamala harris to ambassador of the u.n. and i think that may be a solution. host: new york times taking after the possibility of a wes moore candidacy as well. six different columns in the new york times today on different options for democrats. wes moore and whether america to get to know wes moore quickly enough for them to be elected president. guest: he steadily some of the view as a long-term prospect the democrats. he's one of the think is that i think a lot of people are looking toward has maybe having a stronger, younger bench in the future. i think a lot of the governors including newsom and moore probably have more of an eye

toward 2028 than now. when he answered the bell is called? potentially so. he dead -- did just elected governor in 2022, so he would be pretty green from a perspective of the national ticket, although he does have a pretty healthy resume overall. i'd be a little surprised and i think it would be difficult to dislodge both biden and harris, and i don't know why harris would want to voluntarily stand out on her own, but a lot is going on and stranger things have happened. host: what are you going to be writing about this week? staying on joe biden? guest: staying on joe biden, seeing with democratic lawmakers have to say. clearly we are coming up on the republican national convention,

so some of the attendant has to shift toward trump. host: jim antle, easy enough to find. appreciate your time. later this morning on washington journal, we will talk more about campaign 2024, the columnist with msnbc. that is coming up in about 40 minutes. until then, it is open for them. your public policy political issues that you want to talk about, now with the time for you to leave the program. democrats, republicans, and independents on your screen. go ahead and start calling in now and we will get to those calls after the break. announcer: c-span campaign 2024 takes you live to milwaukee for coverage of the republican national convention. tune in live july 15 as delegates from across the country gather to select the

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45 years of covering congress like no other. since 1979 we've 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: coming up on 8:50 on the east coast. about 45 minutes this morning of washington journal for open forum where we let you lead the discussion. what public policy issues or political issues do you want to talk about? we can answer the morning's opening question about the american dream. it is your turn to lead us where we go. (202) 748-8000 for democrats to call in. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independent, (202) 748-8002. we will get right to your calls. this is andy.

-- annie. democrat. caller: good morning. i would like to add when will c-span talk about project 2025 anytime in the future? i think the public needs to hear more about project 25. host: and what is your concern with it? caller: my concern is that we as a public and the voters do not know enough about how they plan on running the country in the future. everyone is talking in the republican circle about the future. it c-span is not talking anything about project 2025.

host: we have actually talked about on this program on washington journal. i'm certain it is something that will talk about again. what is your biggest concern? caller: my concern is to overthrow the government. i just like to know more. from my understanding it's 900 pages of project 25, and that's a lot of pages. i haven't heard any news reporters talk about project 25. definitely haven't heard you all talk about project 25. and i've just like to know more about project 25. host: we will take a point. this is peter and roger. caller: good morning.

i'm concerned about joe biden's health. this term has been terrible for the average person. his poll numbers are so low not because of his health, because of his policies. inflation is telling everyone came the border and how he withdrew from afghanistan? it's been a disaster. people say joe biden should run on his record i think republicans would like it like that. host: you talk about the latest polls. the latest wrap in poland, here is the trump vs. biden polls in recent days. putting donald trump up by six points, wall street journal of i six. real clear politics currently have the ratio right now as donald trump is up more than 3%

over joe biden. we also have a breakdown pulling with valid grounds as well. we are going to be joined by -- of real clear politics tomorrow and we will talk more about polling then. this is terry in ohio. morning. caller: i have a few things i'd like to say. i wanted to address the first couple of collars and then the reason why i called in, the first caller on the democrat line, i think she was asking about project 2025 and she said she would like to know more about that we should know enough about the people who have presented project 2025. we know what their agenda is. we know their aura, we know they

want to use the american flag and america's principles and values and wearing on their sleeve, and yet their actions often the opposite to what they project. so i think we know enough to make a decision. host: a story from this weekend, donald trump is distancing himself from project 2025, that massive proposed overhaul as the associated press writes, the federal government drafted by longtime allies and officials in the trump administration. days after the head of the think tank responsible for that program suggested there was a second american revolution. "i know nothing about project 2025" trump posted, no idea what or who is behind it. i disagree with some of the

things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. anything they do i wish them luck but i have nothing to do with than, donald trump saying about that 922 page plan. surprising to you or not surprising? >> mr. trump also told the proud boys to stand back and stand back and standby and also advocated all the people who went on january 6 and ran up on the capital to be told that they were intended to be released and that they were hostages in some way. so he will say what needs to say. but he is dog whistling to whoever he needs to. for me, i have clarity as to what side he is on and it seems to be on the antidemocratic side of anti-democracy. i called on the independent line because i have not been as happy

with the democrats as they would have liked to at least have supported in the past, and the main reason i called in was to say this. this kind of bitter argument we are having right now about the president, focusing only on the debate in the debate performance of president biden, which was not good, we all know that. of the other thing that we all know is that former president trump is a convicted felon and it wasn't just on one case. he has had several cases against him. the battle against women is so apparent on the republican side, i don't even have to explain it, or i shouldn't have to. most people with common sense really know where stand stand where the republican party stands against women when it comes to abortion, when it comes

to abortion rights. let me rephrase that, when it comes to women's health care, and abortion is a part of women's health care and something that should not be decided by the government, by anyone other than the female and her doctor. host: this is deborah in alabama, democrat. good morning. caller: i want to say i agree totally with the three democratic women who came on. i like to say i've been a nurse for 37 years. i'm retired, i'm 73. i take care of my husband who has parkinson's the past five years now. he's been diagnosed with it for over 10 years. so i get very tired. i'm going to say about president biden's debate that he is tired.

he has a starter which is a deficit which gets worse when you are tired. that is the only thing i see. i do not see a mental deficit. i'm around people all the time. but the republican party doing is outrageous as far as instigating this debate. and it makes me mad with msnbc saying on this biden thing they need to get biden off for candidate. he is going to be president. i want every republican voted out. i would have never said that before but since trump has taken over the party, it is a disaster. have voted for republicans in the past. never again. let me tell you, this is the downfall of the united states and democracy and there is nothing but bad things coming if trump gets in. host: on who's instigating this

debate, this talk about joe biden, you have had five members of congress now come out and call on joe biden to step down and that story that broke friday, a democratic senator from virginia apparently trying to rally fellow senators around trying to get joe biden to step down. what are your thoughts? i think we lost the caller, but this is margaret in minneapolis. do you have any thoughts? caller: i do. it is wearing on my nerves here because it is not being tired. it is not jetlagged. they are going to say that kamala will be president if he steps down or dies, so why not

have her come on now? it is no different if he steps down. wouldn't you rather him step down and enjoy his retirement? come on. i am a leftist. i am a liberal. i vote with my heart, but this man is not ok. come on. you can do better. do it for your country. do it for democracy. if you do not cut we will end up with fascism. you just have to vote with your heart but do not get caught up in a mentality like maga. but with your brain. host: donald scott line for republicans. -- donald, line for republicans. i am not sure you are with us. do you want to try one more

time? we will go to mississippi. this is gary, line for democrats. caller: hello. i am really confused about why no one is actually speaking about project 2025 because that is a platform where donald trump has decided to run on and he is saying -- he is lying. he has at least 27 members that are writing it, so why is it that no one is speaking of it? host: when you say nobody speaking to it, what do you mean? caller: when i mean is no one has brought that out in the open. that is a blatant lie.

host: plenty of stories if you google project 2025, but one that might be helpful is business insider within the past day. project 2025 also available on the heritage foundation website and you can page through that report, but plenty of stories about it as well. also a recent story yesterday about that. this is richard in pittsburgh. independent. caller: the first thing i would like to say is you guys put the numbers on pretty frequently. normally it is a long time in between your phone numbers. anyway, my point is about biden and his age and whatever.

i watched the debates and they had a lot of excuses about why he was like he was. the next day, he was at a rally and he was sharp as a tack, but he was reading from his teleprompters. even when he apologized for his mental condition because of his age, he read it off a teleprompter. i am thinking that was something that should have came from his heart and it was kind of like -- anyway, i am 78 and i listen to all these old people calling in and i hope i am not as bad as they are. thank you. host: that is richard in the

steel city. patricia, good morning, republican. >> good morning. my name is patricia and i would like to make a comment about these people who talk about the morals of trump. that is his business, as is joe's his business. he was messing around with jill when she was married to her first husband, so you have to be careful where you lay a lot of blame. host: back to pittsburgh. caller: i do not understand. how can trump run for president when he is a convicted -- host: there is nothing in the constitution about not be able to run if you are a convicted felon. caller: ok. when he says it is going to be a

bloodbath if i'm not elected, is that not a threat? host: i think you are referring -- he said he was inferring to the car industry in that incident, that he was saying that industry was going to be a bloodbath, but that certainly raised some concerns about his language and how he deploys his language when he is on the campaign stages. caller: it is the same thing he said when they ran. he is going to have his people, which i do believe are supremacists, he is going to have them out again and there is going to be a bloodbath. that is a threat. host: this is jennifer in california, independent. caller: to the last caller about

how he runs be a felon, we never needed a law or something in the constitution saying a felon cannot run. the bar is just so low now that half the country would vote for a felon. that is the heritage foundation about 2025 -- project 202520 says he knows nothing about it. he stood in front of the banner that said heritage 2025 on the back of it and he is a complete liar. during the debate, they should have in fact checking every lie out of his mouth. how could biden respond? he was just getting lie after lie. the next day, there should be some fact checking going on. host: mobile, alabama, bill, republican. caller: good morning. i am a chess player. i have noticed about a year ago

the democratic party suppressed legitimate opponents of biden to keep them from running against him and having a real primary. i said to myself and to a group i had dinner with, this is a poisoned pond. a poisoned paw is when youn -- pawn is when you put something out you do not mind losing. my prediction then and now is that before the democratic party puts biden in as a nominee, which they will not do for another month and half, they are going to go to michelle obama and beg michelle, save the country. her speech has already been written. it was written years ago in the story of br'er rabbit.

please don't make me run for president. please. if you insist on letting me save the country, i will. wait until she gives that speech. host: it is bill in mobile, alabama. in tucson, arizona, good morning. go ahead, ramon. caller: i want to say something about trump. can i say it? host: what do you want to say? it is an open forum. caller: did you hear that? host: what are you referring to? caller: trump had a friend commit suicide. host: this is in boston, independent. caller: thank you for taking my

call. i think this is a sad day for our country. we all watched biden for a long time, three years, going all over the place looking like he is talking to somebody else that we do not know. what i want democrats to do and republicans is to respect each other. donald trump is being nominated by republicans, not the party. it is the people that want to elect him. biden -- everybody who looks at biden will know that biden is not well. even our governor calls for biden to step aside. what is going to happen? we do not know, but we all should be supporting biden and

do the best for him. if he is sick, he should go over tire and take care of himself. nobody should push him to do what he did not need to do. host: just a couple minutes left in our open forum. this is steve in virginia, republican. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i would like to say something to everybody listening. we have to recognize that a lot of the situation with our politics today have diminished significantly and a lot of the media is not representing things from an unbiased position without people really having opportunity to see the facts,

not project 2025 and trying to tie trump into that and trying to tie biden into the problems with his son. just take time and inform yourself about the actual presidential nominee physicians and what their parties -- parties'positions are. i would hope we can get the parties and candidates to express their positions on facts. host: what issues would you look to see a debate on? two or three issues. caller: i would like to see a debate on the immigration policy and on the economy. i would like to see a debate on foreign policy. i lived overseas for many years.

as a military dependent. if you have not seen what has happened to these other countries who are not informed about what has happened in these other countries as a relates to the immigration issues, it is a concerning thing. host: let me try to get in anne in wisconsin, democrat. good morning. caller: thanks for c-span. really appreciate the opportunity to give my opinion. i wish the media would talk more about project 2025 and explain what their plans are for the united states. i do not think people really understand the changes they want to make. this is a plan that they have in store for us if we choose the republican party. i think democrats need to

support each other and stand behind biden. republicans are standing behind a felon. they have no problem doing that. biden is old. that does not mean he cannot run the country. he is doing a good job. nobody is talking about how things are going, low unemployment, a lot of jobs being created and things are -- inflation is there, but what direction do we want to go? do we want freedom or -- i cannot say the word, but a king. host: this is alan, san antonio, independent, last caller in the segment. caller: thanks for having me. i think the politics is so bad.

even the media is bashing biden. at the same time, they are ignoring trump vulnerabilities like earlier, a couple days ago. he tweeted out on truth social that he does not know about project 2025, yet there are people that look into the administration that are part of that thing and i do not know. for democrats, i think the age issue is concerning about biden. i did watch the interview and the rallies. it is concerning about him. in my opinion, we have to get rid of -- we have to have -- i don't know. it is just the thing is that the

issue is one issue is that the debate from last week to be honest was a disaster. it was really on biden way worse because it showed his age. host: last caller in our open forum. 45 mess left this morning. we will be joined by an msnbc columnist and talk joe biden campaign 2024. stick around for that conversation after the break. ♪ >> c-span's campaign 2024 takes you live to milwaukee for our coverage of the republican national convention. tune in live july 15 as delegates across the country gather to select the republican

nominee for president. watch as they lay out priorities for the next four years and the party's vision for the future. the republican national convention on c-span or online at c-span.org. c-span, your unfiltered view of the convention. >> weekend bring a book tv featuring leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. the author of challenger talks about the january 28 space shuttle disaster that took the lives of all crewmembers. then chris dixon describes how it represents the next stage of development for the internet in his book. watch book tv every weekend on c-span and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch

online anytime. c-span has been delivering unfiltered congressional coverage for 45 years. here is a highlight from a key moment. >> for every soldier, thank you, america. every sailor, thank you, america. for every marine, thank you, america. for every airman, thank you, america. for every coast guardsmen, thank you, america. from all of us who proudly served in the middle east in your armed for cap -- gore armed forces, thank you to the great people of the united states of america. >> c-span, powered by cable.

>> "washington journal" continues. host: it is paul waldman, msnbc commentator. you watched the interview. what did you think? >> i think if you look at where joe biden was four years ago and where he is now there is no question that he speaks differently. he has a different voice. sometimes his thoughts are less collected than they used to be. what that highlight is right now we are in a moment where there are two things going on simultaneously. one is the objective reality of the president and his capabilities, his ability to do the job and his ability to run for reelection. those are two different things. how capable you are of being

president, which is a demanding job, and running for president, which is a demanding job. there is an objective reality there and it is complicated and there is also a media freak out going on that is in some sense removed from reality even though it is related to it. so you have right now, if you look at news organizations, the washington post, tv networks, they are in kind of full battle mode on this. they have teams of reporters assigned to the joe biden age story. if you open up the new york times front page, any day during the last few weeks, you would see 10 stories about this and maybe one or none about donald trump. so what has happened is they have basically, for a number of reasons, decided this is the

story of the moment. the current executive editor of the post sent out a memo to his staff saying, this is a great story. those were the words he used, so there is a level of excitement that this is something new and dramatic and something that happens almost every four years. there is some kind of thing that happens where the media converge on the democratic candidate and start to raise the sorts of questions. then you have a situation crating his own incentives so now you have 10 reporters assigned to do the biden age story calling out members of congress and writing more and more stories and it takes on this life of its own. it is important to understand there are legitimate questions being raised and a lot of people who think we should have had this discussion two years ago,

but at the same time this is being refracted through a perspective in the media making it seem like the only thing we should be paying attention to. host: the washington post has an ongoing count of members of congress who have called for joe biden to drop out and a separate column on those who have raised concerns. what is the incentive for those folks to make themselves publicly known? what is the tipping point within which we hear that senator mark warner may be trying to rally some democratic senators to may become to joe biden and ask him to drop out -- when does it become a number that joe biden can no longer write off as one or two people? guest: i do not know that there is any specific number. ultimately, this will be his decision and every politician has their own incentives and tend to be risk-averse.

there are a lot of democrat politicians who have had their own concerns privately and have thought to themselves, i do not want to go and talk about this in public. what if i'm undermining my party's nominee and making it more likely that donald trump is reelected? at some point, maybe some of them feel like they may have decided for their own evaluation that it would be better if he departs the ticket and therefore they are going to try to nudge that along. it does matter a great deal. in this way, democrats are different from republicans. they tend to be more quick to organize a firing squad. republicans, look at how they reacted to donald trump getting felony convictions. democrats are quicker to say let's replace the leader of our ticket.

host: does a headline like this help nudge along? host: i am as guilty of anybody at being caught up in the discussion of the moment. legitimate questions have been raised. the presidency is a difficult job. it ages everybody who occupies the office and biden is the oldest president ever and has visibly aged. there are legitimate questions being raised. i think the white house did things that, upon reflection, they should not have done. they constrained his ability to be in front of it -- the cameras. there have been press conferences where he has stumbled and gotten things mixed up and they wanted to minimize the risk of that. as a consequence, that has put him in a bubble that has made reporters angry.

they feel they have been deceived by white house staff who reacted negatively to any suggestion, and there have been plenty of articles, in newspapers and things over the last couple years, about his age. every time that happens, white house staff would react harshly and build up a lot of animus and bitterness and now that is coming out. there are legitimate questions given that the job is so difficult and he has experienced decline and what we have to ask is not just can he do the job but can he do the job in four years when he is approaching his 86 birthday? i think a lot of people, even people who think he has been a terrific president, are saying i do not think that he can. democrats, their attitude is the most aborted thing is that donald trump not be reelected. if it means biden serves another

year and then passes it off to his vice president, most of my kratz would say that is fine. but at the moment we are now at this crossroads. even if you are a democrat and say news coverage has been overblown, now you have a choice and there is no perfect answer to which is the more risky option for democrats. a lot of them are looking at what has happened since the debate and saying that this is a sinking ship and it is a less risky choice to have him drop out of the race and vice president kamala harris or someone else be at the top of the ticket. nobody knows for sure what the answer to the question is. host: let me get the phone numbers for viewers to call in. it is (202) 748-8000 for democrats to call in. republicans, (202) 748-8001.

independents, it is (202) 748-8002. paul waldman is with us. how can they get your newsletter if they want to? guest: go to paulwal dman.substack.com. host: and on twitter as well. the headline we are talking about is why kamala harris is a stronger candidate than you thought. guest: politics is a lot about timing. a lot of it is can the person meet the moment. four years ago, joe biden had perfect timing. he ran a pretty abysmal presidential run in 2008 and people look to that and said he is just a bad candidate, but his timing was perfect four years

ago and he won. in 2008, the timing was perfect for barack obama even though he was fresh on the scene. even though there are people who look at harris's race and said she did not do that great a job and she does not have the same supernova charisma that somebody like bill clinton has, this might be the best time for her in this extraordinary situation. if joe biden were to actually step away, we are only four months from the election. it might be, especially given the different constituencies in the democratic party who are unhappy and dissatisfied and look at the top of the ticket -- there are democrats who do not have anything against joe biden and think he has been a good president but they are not excited and might sit out and that is a threat to the democratic ticket, people who

are democratic leaning voters who, if it came down to it, do not really like donald trump but are not excited enough to get out and vote. that means black voters, young people. he has a problem with voters in places like michigan. it could be that harris taking the top of the ticket would be a fresh start on those things. we should say that the media frenzy attacking biden, she will get something like that. there will be a moment when the press converge on her and come up with some new version. maybe she will be able to withstand that and maybe not, but some of the things we have identified as weaknesses for her in the past are not necessarily so harmful if she were to become nominee this time around. she is at her best when she is acting like a prosecutor as opposed to talking about her personal story.

right now, what democrats need to make a case against donald trump, and she can prosecute that well, probably better than joe biden could. people who look at this race and say you have a candidate that is 81 and a candidate who 77, she is only 59. she is young by these standards, so there are reasons like that why this could be the right timing for her, especially since there probably would not be a contested convention. host: line for democrats, james. caller: i think the democrats have greater problems for themselves by not reflecting on joe biden's debate last thursday night because he answered every question that the commentators

asked him. he got a little confused by the rebuttals of donald trump's, but the next day democrats is our own worst enemy. they should have just reflected on 34 counts felony and the lies that donald trump shows -- he did not answer any questions. if this country wants to continue, democrats, if you want to take the house and senate and continue with the house and senate, forget about msnbc and news commentators because they will grab the first headlines that give them that edge of newsworthy for today.

guest: james is right that there is an impulse among democrats to panic and there is clinical power in the way republicans approach these situations, which is they are going to stand behind their guy no matter what. even -- the only thing you can compare this to is back in 2016 when the access hollywood tape broke in terms of the immediate questions raised in the republican party about should donald trump get out to how do we handle this? they have that debate internally for about five minutes and then they said, he is our guy. we are all rallying around him. if it had been donald trump who had the same performance, there would not be this discussion because they have built into their culture a real unanimity and insistence that what is most

important is that they despise the people on the others and they will not allow internal dissension to keep them from moving forward. democrats tend to be more fractious. republicans fight among themselves in congress, but when election day is approaching they are unanimous. >> is the democratic party apparatus different from the republican party apparatus in that it could help move joe biden out of his candidacy easier than the republican party trying to move donald trump out? guest: to some degree. one of the things that has happened to the republican party is that anyone who had doubts about donald trump has been removed, pushed out, in some cases threatened. there is -- i think a lot of

democrats would call it a cult like atmosphere. there is almost nobody in any kind of power in the republican party who is willing to stand up to donald trump. host: nikki haley tried to. guest: quite carefully. you can have within that situation a primary and other people will run, but in the structure that is left there is nobody who can -- who would want to push him out in a solar situation. if you went back 20 years and said there's going to be a candidate who is leading to become party nominee and he gets convicted of 34 felony counts, he is found liable in civil suits for sexual assault and business fraud, what is going to happen to the party? you would say of course they are going to get rid of him and get somebody else, but at this point

that is not how the republican party operates. there is nobody with institutional authority who can tell joe biden the time has come. the only people that can convince him of that is himself and maybe his wife and a small inner circle who right now are saying let's stay the course. so everybody remembers during watergate there was a delegation of republicans who told nixon the time has come and you have to resign. there is not a delegation of democrats who could do that and persuade joe biden. they might try. he will listen, but ultimately if he decides that he still feels like he is the only one who can save the country from trump and like he deserves a second term after what every democrat agrees was a terrific performance in his first term, they are going to have a hard

time persuading him otherwise. host: coming up on the 50th anniversary of that resignation speech. this is sophie, independent. caller: so earlier your guest said that the media is in a frenzy about the debate, about joe biden, and that is like he was saying, kind of pushing people, like a manufacturing consent kind of thing, but people can just look and listen to biden and see something is wrong that he is not all there. i think is a disingenuous way to frame the concern about biden's age. on top of that, they are running a horrible campaign. if you look on joe biden's

website, there is no policy there. also please stop calling joe biden a communist. communists actually have policies to help the working people of america and -- host: we will take the point on policies. several callers brought up in our open forum segment on project 2025, saying the media is not talking enough about project 2025 and wanting, especially on the democratic line, democrats to focus more on what that would mean for the country. host: i will get credit for the chomsky shot out. one of the important things is so much of how we think about the presidential race is about personality and what these two people are like, but every

president brings with them thousands of people they will point and a party that has a particular agenda. it is more imported for trump than other candidates because he does not really care about policy. he cares about immigration and trade and nothing else, so project 2025i'm sure most all your listeners are aware of but it is a plan assembled by the heritage foundation leading about 100 other conservative groups putting together an agenda for the incoming administration and the key to it as personnel. there is an old expression back to the reagan years, that personnel is policy. it is more true for donald trump than anybody else because he does not come in with a small group of people who have been with him for 40 years the way joe biden did. he does not come in with his own strong agenda. people who are spread through the government are going to

determine what that administration looks like and that is why, when the people who are his loyalists start to prepare for the eventuality of him taking office in 2025, that is the core of their focus. they want to change civil service rules so they can do wholesale firings of tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with trump loyalists who will be there so anything that trump himself wants to do and they want to do is unimpeded. they feel when he was president he would give orders and sometimes people would say we cannot do that, it is against the law or crazy. those things would not happen. they tried to do this at the end of his administration with an executive order. there was not time. now they have developed this plan and they are going to stack the administration with people who are ready to carry out a trumpist agenda that is not

really understood well by the american people. we do not talk about policy enough. there is not enough policy coverage in the news media. so much of it is about personality. i remember a famous study in 20 that found more coverage in major news organizations of hillary clinton's emails than of all policy issues put together, so by the time you get to election day people have not really focused much on what the differences are and this is a problem for democrats because generally the policy positions they have are more popular. people do not want to see abortion made illegal. people would rather see a higher minimum wage. but if nobody is talking about them and all the people are talking about personality stuff, that gives republicans a leg up and that is why you see from

coming out on truth social and saying i do not know anything about project 2025. the point is not that he understands the details but these are his people and this is what they are planning to do. people should be aware of the attack on the civil service, dismantling environmental regulations. they feel when they look back on trump's first term that it was a missed opportunity. now they are ready to hit the ground running in a way that democrats and even republicans find concerning. host: in kentucky, republican. caller: i am what they would call a rino. i wish the republican party would pick somebody besides

trump and i hope that biden can be trump -- beat trump. with his terrible debate, i wish maybe the democrats would select somebody different to go against him. i would like to say another thing on abortion. nobody ever takes credit or put anything toward it that many of these women make that choice because scumbags do not want to be a father yet. so they are not ready for single motherhood. that is why a lot of women choose abortion. host: you say you are a republican in name only. what issue makes you still a republican? caller: i think trump is a

racist. host: what is your belief that makes you still a republican? caller: i believe in gun freedom to an extent. i have many guns. i believe just most republican values are the values i hold. guest: i think there are a lot of republicans like scott who basically thought the party stood for small government and that was the essence of republicanism. it turns out that is not really true. it is selective.

they believe the party should not regular guns but also believe at this point the president should be able to order the justice department to go after his enemies. and that the government should tell you whether you can have an abortion. we are seeing now that half or so of the states have essentially outlawed abortion. there are all kinds of situations that people need to get abortion care for. even in extremely conservative states, there is backlash and you have seen valid initiatives in places like kansas where the abortion rights side wins and this is the consequence of the -- what has happened and what has happened with the supreme court and that is a topic that i do not know if we will have time to get into, but it is important that this is part of the picture

, that trump has plans that would make him authoritarian. he wants to use government to go after his enemies. he wants institute a mass deportation program of 10 million or 20 million people that will have a shocking kind of result i do not think people have grappled with but you also have a supreme court that has decided it is the final arbiter of pretty much every policy decision. people probably heard a lot about the immunity case, which is grotesque and un-american, to say the president can just go ahead and commit any crimes he wants and be immune from prosecution. we did not need that for 250 years but now a president cannot be bold and decisive unless they're able to do that? that got attention. less attention was paid to the case that will have more impact,

where they overturned a principal which probably 90% of americans do not know anything about. it means that now the supreme court and its super majority will decide every policy question they want. every time an agency says the law says you have to do this, they will step in and say we know more than the epa does about pollutants and more than the fda does about how drugs work and we are going to decide based on our own policy preferences. it is going to affect all of us. it did not get as much attention because it is hard to explain, but it is an enormous change. >> if joe biden does better in the debate, would you think we would talk more about that today on the sunday shows happening now?

guest: i think we would. if you look at campaign coverage, what happens is after a while -- this is the big, shiny new story. there is a problem with biden and his ability to carry out the duties of the job and campaign for president and you cannot sugarcoat that. it is a legitimate question to raise and i think legitimate to say he has shown that he cannot do the job or at least he cannot do the job of campaigning and the presidency is about making decisions and having a vision for where the country should go but also about performance and there is a perfectly good case to be made that he cannot do that part of the job anymore. it is also true that this is now the dominant story. if it were not, we would talk more about things that would

have a permanent impact on people's lives. caller: first, a man convicted of 34 felonies can run for president. the first thing we have to do is everybody that has one or two felonies should be pulled out of jail because that is disgraceful. trump is not -- trump is just an ordinary man whose lifetime has been destruction and hate and everything else. there is one thing that is more superior than trump and that is god. god decides what the world is going to be about.

god has taken people like trump and destroyed them and made it right for us. host: it was joe biden that george stephanopoulos interviewed and said if god told him to step aside he would but otherwise he would not. guest: that was his kind of folksiness. i don't know that we know what his decision-making will be like. he listens most closely to a small circle of advisers and his family. i am sure they are talking about it now. everything they say publicly as he is not leaving. that is what he is going to say until the day he does not. host: what does he need to do this week with the senate coming back and the nato summit coming up? guest: this is part of the problem. because his public appearances have been limited, it makes every subsequent appearance a big deal that we have to pay

attention to. so now everybody is going to be watching that like a hawk to see if there are any stumbles, if he loses his train of thought. and of course this does let donald trump off the hook. if you watch a donald trump rally, there is some pretty bizarre stuff that goes on. he might go on a 10 minute riff about whether he would rather be eaten by a shark or electric you did. you think this guy does not have all his marbles but that does not make headlines. host: the front page of the sunday new york times -- i do not think i see donald trump's name on the front page of a sunday new york times. guest: his craziness is kind of baked in and it is not news anymore. this is something that is new. new starts with new. it has to be no. this is a story that can get

attention but we do not know what will happen in a week or two and perhaps there will be a refocusing on trump and what he represents, but for the moment all anybody is talking about is biden. host: i found donald trump's name in paragraph four of the bottom left-hand story, so it is to on the front page. this is rick, independent. good morning. caller: i was curious about a couple things. first, with all the reporting that has gone on over the years on joe biden, nobody seems to report his senility. should there be any accountability for all of these people that just blew off the story because he is president or because they are afraid? i heard you talking about the white house press corps getting

flack from the white house if they said a nasty story about joe biden, but dozens the american public deserve to know -- doesn't the american public deserve to know this guys is on his way to being senile? the second thing -- i am curious , in the big picture of things, you have trump of course. he got his 91 or 94 felony counts against him. he was getting nailed in new york and florida and georgia. with all that happening, do you think it might be possible that the democrats or at least the white house themselves figured trump is going to either be so busy or put in jail that he will

not have to debate the sky so nobody would have ever found out about biden's senility issue? guest: i do not think they thought they would not have to debate him. no matter what happened, he was going to be the nominee. host: he said he wanted to debate him. guest: and they decided they wanted it to be as early as it was. on the question of being reported about biden's age, it was reported. there have been stories throughout the last couple years about that and it is not that nobody knew. this is something brought up constantly by voters and reported. they may not have been the story every day, but it was out there and the decision made in the

white house was we are going to push back on this and insist he is doing great. i think they probably thought they could just write it out and they felt he was doing a good job and this was an issue they could manage. so even though there have been stories and about a month ago there was a story in the wall street journal and other stories in other publications, whenever they would happen there would be discussion about it and whether it is warranted, who the sources are, so we had discussions about that from time to time. it was not talked about every day, but i think that was what they decided. the problem was that people could see. the president is out there a lot. he gives speeches. he gives the occasional press conference, even though he gives fewer than most presidents. it became unavoidable.

if you look at interviews he gave four years ago, the difference is striking. i do not think they thought there was going to be this. they clearly thought what happened in the debate was not what happened. host: now biden has lost the moral high ground because he had the evidence of cognitive deterioration. trump is a master conman, but biden is giving him a run for his money. he and his vice president and aids work hard to conjure a mirage where everything is fine in biden's world and that vanished on the debate stage. guest: i do not think that is fair. it is not like he was lying to people. he tried to project that he was doing fine. and that -- you could say that is misleading, but it is not quite the same as being a conman

and running trump university and scamming people out of their life savings. that is a hyperbole that i do not think is fair. host: in ohio, good morning. what is your question or comment? caller: biden has been in cognitive decline ever since he got in office. look back at the news clips and