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public service, along with these other television providers, giving a front row seat to democracy. coming up on "washington journal," we will take your calls and comments live. then real clear politics senior elections analyst sean trende discusses the latest development in campaign 2024. after that, bob kerrey, a former democratic senator, presidential candidate, and concord coalition co-chair talks about the 2024 campaign and greater fiscal responsibility and action on the national debt. "washington journal" starts now. ♪ host: good morning. monday, july 8, 2024. the house is back at noon eastern today.

we begin at the other end of pennsylvania avenue where president biden is facing increasing pressures to drop out of the race. we want to hear from just democrats and independents only. should joe biden stay in the race. if you say yes, call (202) 748-8000. if you say no, call (202) 748-8001. you can also text (202) 748-8003. include your first name, city, and state. you can catch up with us on social media, on x or facebook. a very good monday morning. here are some of the headlines that the biden team is facing this morning. front page of the washington post, pressure on biden from part increases. from the new york times, six top democrats privately say biden should go.

the wall street journal, more calls for biden to exit the race . online from the huffpost.com, top house dems bl on biden. "meet the press" his work congressman adam schiff and democrats appeared yesterday, asked about joe biden staying in the presidential race. here is what he said. [video clip] >> you watched that interview on friday, and a lot of democrats say it was fine, he certainly seemed stronger and more robust than during the debate. but it did not put concerns to rest. are you confident he can beat donald trump or do you think you should drop out of the race? >> that interview did not put concerns to rest. no single interview is going to do that. the president needs to decide, can he put those concerns aside?

can he demonstrate that what happened on the debate stage was an aberration, that he can and will beat donald trump, given the supreme court decision making trump a dictator and king, it is all the more important. now i think the president takes the time to consult people and has an open mind about this, he will do it joe biden always does, which is he will make the right decision, in the best interest of the country. that is what he has always done, and i am confident that is what he will do here. >> nancy pelosi said it is legitimate to ask if this was an episode. president biden refused to take a cognitive test. do you think he should take a cognitive test? >> i would be happy if both of them took one -- >> so that is a guess? >> they both should be willing to take a test. frankly, a test which of donald trump has serious illness of one kind or another.

but ultimately, the decision is going to come down to what joe biden thinks is best. and if his decision is to run, then run hard and beat that s.o.b., and if his decision is to pass the torch, then the president should do everything in his power to make that other candidate successful. host: adam schiff on "meet the press" yesterday. off the record, according to washington post, four senior house democrats declared sunday during an off the record call with leadership that they believe joe biden should step aside, including jerry nadler, adam smith, a representative from california, and one from new york. they join five other house democrats and publicly called on biden to drop his reelection bid or said they believe donald trump will be to mid-november. 18 current and former top democrats as of saturday had

publicly raised concerns about biden's fitness for office and his ability to defeat trump in the presidential race. that is from the washington post. in light of that reporting, in light of what has been building over the weekend, we are asking democrats and independents only, should joe biden stay in the race? (202) 748-8000 if you say yes. (202) 748-8001 if you say no. eric is in maryland, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i am extremely disappointed with joe biden. when he run the first time, he said he was a transitional president and he was going to pass the torch to the next generation. so the time has come for joe biden -- thank you for your service -- two take his retirement and leave the next

generation of democrats to run this country. it is not about just joe biden or about his ego, it is about the country. joe biden is destroying his legacy by hanging right there. so i think that it is time for him to leave, and he will be remembered as a big man. but if he stays, he is going to lose. he is going to drag the house incident, and that will be very terrible because we will have trump. -- he is going to drag the house and the senate, and that will be very terrible because we will have trump. host: who should he pass the torch to? caller: kamala harris. first of all, she would be the first black female. we already had the first like president. this would be the first like female. it would be a different feel of america. host: jason and little rock, arkansas, good morning. caller: yeah, this is jason.

i live in oklahoma city, the nicene president -- and i think president biden is good for our country. he has a lot more job to do, and i think he will do a wonderful job in the second term. host: jason, what do you make of these concerns that have bubbled up since that debate? caller: i think the democrats need to stop panicking and let god handle his business the way god need to handle his business, stop panicking. because god got everything under control. he knows he is going to be inside the white house. they need to stop panicking and just do their job in congress and stop all this panicking because god got everything. we don't got god, we don't got nothing. host: this is donald in maryland, good morning. caller: good morning. host: what do you think, stay or

go? caller: i think you should go. he has signs of old timers. seems like he is not really helping the people. he is all about the big businesses. all these wars and stuff going on. it don't make sense, we don't got nothing to do with that. we in everything. americans are hated all over the world because of the democrats. host: donald, did you support him four years ago? caller: yes. well, i thought he was the lesser of two evils, but it seems like he is the worst. i know donald trump has his issues with prejudice, but i think he is getting over it. i think biden is worser then donald trump, to tell you the truth. caller: and you are an independent? caller: no, i was a democrat,

thinking about changing over to republican. we was born as a republican, it says in the republic we stand, not the democrat we stand. so i am going back to the old ways, being a republican. host: talking to democrats and independents only, getting a pulse of how you're feeling about joe biden and the 2024 presidential contest. this is tom and fort lauderdale, florida. what do you think? caller: i am an independent. first, i think a watermelon could beat donald trump. the question the democrats have to ask is, is joe biden smarter than a watermelon? instead of calling for him to step aside, they should call for him to give a press conference. after the debate, two days later, he should have given a press conference, answered 20 questions, not sit down with these scripted interviews where

one radio host was fired because he told everyone the interview was scripted. have a press conference, and not a two-question press conference. step out in the white house and answer questions a week later, then have another one, and people can see you and they can see that you are with it and smart enough and that you are quick. that is what people want to see. host: what did you think of that george stephanopoulos interview? caller: i do not know how much of it was straightforward or how much was one guy reading a teleprompter and another guy reading a teleprompter. i am just not sure because it was not a free, willing press conference. biden does not seem to be engaged in the campaign. in the campaign, you do not read from a teleprompter. you go to a town hall and hear from the people, and you participate in a campaign. and he is not participating in a campaign, fighting for other candidates. that is what the party needs.

host: what do you think this nato conference this week that a lot of eyes were already on, joe biden expected to speak to reporters during the conference -- what does this week mean for him? caller: again, not two questions, you answer question and the other guy asks a question. the stephanopoulos interview, they said that he helped put nato back together. he did. he has done a great job with that, a great job with the economy. he does not talk about the economy. where was the economy when he took over? where was gdp and the stock market and unemployment on his first day? where is it now? he does not talk about it. he keeps reminding people of how old he is he does not have a team around him and the messaging around him. democrats, newsom and witmer or witmer and riomondo, they

need to look at those candidates if he is not giving press conferences. host: the new york post story, philadelphia radio station cut ties to a host who admitted to asking president biden questions that were supplied from the biden team, according to the radio leadership yesterday. the previous host scored that first postdebate interview with biden last wednesday, revealing on saturday that she was fed eight questions and used four of them from the biden team. caller: and she was fired for telling the truth. cnn reported she has been pretty accurate in holding the press accountable, and more should be doing that. but it is simple, he needs to give a press conference. walk out during the white house press briefing, answer questions. americans think that they are

smarter than joe biden. i think the president is smarter than them, and he needs to show them that he is smarter than them. a press conference every week would do that. host: that is tom in fort lauderdale, florida. yesterday in philadelphia, this is what was said to a congregation. [video clip] pres. biden: folks, i know with every fiber in my being -- i know i look like i am 40 years old, but i have been around a little bit. [laughter] all kidding aside, i have been doing this a long time. i honest to god have never been more optimistic about americans future, if we stick together. i really mean it. [applause] here is what else i have learned, what many of you have learned, you walk your face, as well.

we are all imperfect beings. we do not know where or what faith will deliver us to erwin. -- or when. what we do know is we can seek light, hope, love, and truth. we can seek that light. take all of our experiences and give everything we have to work together, because when we do, you cannot stop us. i mean it sincerely. i am about to host the nato nations in washington. we put them together. the world is looking to us. not a joke. the world is looking to america. not to carry the burden but to lead their hopes. ladies and gentlemen, i am going to be inclined to go on longer than i should hear, but i just wanted to say, look, i think that we just have to work together. [applause] i believe when i ran the first

time for president and i said something basic, i said, we have to bring back dignity and hope to america, number one. number two, we have to give working-class and middle-class people like the family i came from a shot to build the economy from the middle-outcome of the bottom-up, not the top-down. thirdly, we must unite america again. that is michael, what we are going to do. god bless you all, and may god bless our troops. thank you, thank you, thank you. [applause] host: president biden at the mount airy church of god in christ in philadelphia yesterday. this is this morning's headline from the editorial board of the wall street journal, the almighty calls for biden, saying it is not the deity biden invoke friday on the interview with george stephanopoulos, the big

guy appears to be sitting out this presidential race. we need the closest thing to the almighty in american politics, calling on the democratic media establishment. that is from the board of the wall street journal today. asking democrats and independents only in this first section of "washington journal," do you think joe biden should stay in the 2024 race. (202) 748-8000 if you say yes. (202) 748-8001 if you say no. this is sarah in hawaii, up early. good morning. caller: hi, good morning, i think the president should definitely step aside and let somebody else take over for the democrats. the debate was a disaster. i wanted to give president biden the benefit of the doubt, but i was absolutely horrified and shocked at the debate. there were rumors around before hand that he had, you know, i don't want to call it mental

lapses. but the thing is, you know, we have two old white men running for president. the thing that scares me is if he stays in the race, i do think he is handing the presidency to donald trump. i think that there should be an age limit on people who want to run for president, maybe 75. by the time they are 79, their term is up and let somebody else take it. the other thing is nobody is talking about -- that is what we saw, it was just today, this week, within the last week. what is his state of mind going to be in another year, another two years? nobody has discussed that. because as you get older, your body changes and your mind changes, your brain changes. we need some younger people taking over, and i just think that the democrats are making a huge mistake. if donald trump is elected

president because biden stays in the race, then so be it. we will have to deal with it as a country. i thank you so very much for letting me say that. god bless them, but we need to find some younger people who are sharp, strong, and can actually handle the job. because a president's job is demanding. host: are you calling as a democrat or independent? caller: i voted for biden last time. i consider myself an independent. i just wish we would have candidates that are middle of the road. with some conservative stuff, and liberal things, i definitely support liberal causes, as well. the radical left and the radical right do not represent me. when i talk to people, most people are middle of the road and what common sense solutions. and what we see today is so disturbing. look at president trump, right? he is telling the republicans in the congress not to vote on the

immigration bill or how to vote and turn it down. if the republicans cannot make up their own minds being a senator or a member of the house, then they should not be in that office. you vote on your own conscience what you think is a good bill. and this partyline things you vote democrat or republican line just because you are democrat or republican. i do not buy that. we should not have republicans or democrats do that. you vote on these bills by making up your own mind, and that is what i do not see. host: we will see more of what happens this week when the house and senate returns. the house at noon today eastern time, senate at 3:00 p.m. thanks for the call from honolulu. this is victor in waterbury, connecticut. good morning. you are next. go ahead. caller: yes, i am for biden and

wish he would stay in. for all you democrats around who does not want him to stay in, they had a problem with him at the beginning. i am with him 100%. he did not all of a set and forget what he has been doing as a president, and he is still that same person. if he had a problem at the debate, he had a problem at the debate. host: the previous caller was concerned not just about winning the 2024 presidential election but what happens to a president biden two years from now or four years from now, whether that age concern only increases or perhaps exponentially increases four years from now. caller: that is why they have a vice president and why they have a 25th amendment, for that reason. so until then, he can be joe biden. host: when is then? what is that point for you, when the 25th amendment should be invoked? caller: i probably will not see

it because the administration, but the administration will make that decision privately. because he is not going to make any decision by himself, all joe biden. he is going to have multiple people to make the decision or they are coming to a decision for the united states. so when these people say he is going to do this, it is not like that. i wish some of these people would stop with the talking points. host: this is mark in arizona, good morning. you are next. caller: hello, how you doing? host: doing well. what do you think? caller: i support president biden. i believe that he -- i'm sorry, i had a stroke, i talk slow.

host: that is ok, mark. do you think he should stay or go? caller: ok, thank you, sir. i support president biden. i believe that every senator and congressman that blew up about things need to get off the fence. president biden has support of the people. you can see it in pennsylvania. you can see it in wisconsin. you can see it with all the people that support him. host: you talked about members of congress. what member of congress who

formerly challenged president biden, senator bernie sanders speaking out in support of joe biden. he was on "face the nation." [video clip] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] what -- >> what we're talking about now is not a contest for best singer. biden is old and not as articulate as he once was. i wish he could jump up the steps of air force one, he can't. what we have to focus on his policy. whose policies have and will benefit the vast majority of the people of this country? who has the guts to take on corporate america? who is talking about expanding medicare so we cover dental, hearing, and vision? who is talking about raising the cap on the taxes people pay into social security that we can raise social security benefits and extent that? who is talking about a permanent child tax credit because childhood poverty in america?

those should be talked about. he has to bring them up. he has to promise the american people that if they give him a democratic senate, democratic house, reelect him, he will do that in the first 100 days. that is what i think the american people want. host: bernie sanders on "face the nation" yesterday. back to your phone calls, hearing from democrats and independents. should joe biden stay in the 2024 race? this is bill in georgia, good morning. caller: yes, good morning. thank you so much. certainly he should stay in the race, because at this point, it is too late in time to be changing courses. we put too much on president biden's speech, and that was only one speech. he has done an outstanding job, has accomplished a lot of things. the thing at this point, let's all get behind president biden and support him.

let's get him across the line. i am quite sure, once we can get him across the line, that president biden will make that determination. and if he decides to turn the torch over to vice president harris, we couldn't ask for a better president than vice president harris. right now, we're too late in the race to start running around like a bunch of dogs chasing their tails. we have to get behind president biden and support him. let's show that we're staying with him all the way and give him some confidence. and let's get him over the line so we can save this country. this is not a country -- we are not running against --it is not like biden and trump, it is like america and trump. we already know what he is about, so let's stay behind biden and get him across the

line. then we will worry about the next two or three years. this is critical. we have to save our lives, and this is critical biden biden. let's get across the line. host: got your point. this is met in philadelphia, were president biden was yesterday. -- this is matt. caller: you know, i think you should drop out. the thing that i see is -- i am a democrat and a never trumper. i am going to hold my nose and vote for biden if i have to. not everybody feels that way. in pennsylvania, we have a lot of independent swing voters, a lot of people of color in metro philadelphia, metro pittsburgh. and if these people are not enthusiastic about voting for biden, it is going to be hillary clinton 2016 all over again.

there's not going to be enough people to come out, even here in pennsylvania, to defeat trump, because trump's people are totally motivated. another thing i want to say that really irks me here is these people that have been around biden that have enabled him, that have shielded him from us, kind of colored of his mental deficiency -- kind of covered up his mental deficiency. they have known all along what biden is like. we, as americans, we need to know whether or not our candidate can go for four more years. host: what do you think about the caller who said he's not worried about the four years, he just wants america to get biden over the finish line and then we will figure it out after that? caller: that is one point of view, but you have just the question, are you voting for biden or are you voting for harris? if they get biden over the finish line, 1, 2 years into it,

they turn it over to harris. let's face it, you're voting for the guy at the top of the ticket, not the vice president. host: you talk about america not being excited for joe biden, do you think america would be excited for kamala harris? caller: she would bring in the african-american vote, which is kind of lukewarm, especially here in pennsylvania for president biden, they are lukewarm for him. she would definitely bring in the suburban women here in the philadelphia area. several counties out here. she would energize them much more so than president biden. same thing in metro detroit, metro milwaukee, metro atlanta, metro phoenix, metro las vegas. i think harris is a no-brainer. host: in new orleans over the

holiday weekend was the essence festival of culture, and here is a column in the wake of the trip. about the vice president, displaying chops developed as her -- in her years as a prosecutor, more powerful than biden himself, and therein lies the delicacy of her situation. should biden step aside, something he has vowed not to do, putting harris at the top of the ticket is the quickest and most logical way for democrats to recoup. donald trump's campaign is already organizing a full-scale assault against the vice president. that is from the washington post, a column today. taking your phone calls. if you say yes, joe biden should stay in the 2024 race, (202) 748-8000.

if you say no, that he should not stay in the race, (202) 748-8001. you can also give us a text at (202) 748-8003. we will also look at your comments via social media, @cspanwj on all your platforms. republicans going after the vice president, new national republican congressional committee ad targeting vice president harris recently released. i want to show you that ad. [video clip] vp harris: i have been privileged and proud to service vice president of the united states for joe biden as president of the united states. we have a leader with skill, vision, determination, and compassion. >> the biden administration

tasked vice president harris with the issue of immigration at the border. >> are you confident with border security? vp harris: the border is -- >> vice president harris is uniquely qualified -- >> as a successor? vp harris: based on what we have just been able to see, because we have seen it or not, does not mean it has not happened. i can imagine what can be and be unburdened by what has been, you know? that is it. [laughs] [chanting] host: that ad from the national

republican committee. about half an hour left in this segment. john in tuscaloosa, alabama, good morning. caller: yes, biden should stay in the race. all of these people who have been talking about get somebody else besides biden, they mention kamala harris and they mentioned gavin newsom. none of them wants to -- they are behind biden 100%. so who else do you have? the only thing that you would do by trying to replace or get somebody else now is disrupt the democratic party by doing that, so stay with biden. the other thing is about the george stephanopoulos interview with biden, he asked biden, would you take a cognitive test? i would say yes, take a cognitive test if donald trump takes a lie detector test.

we can judge it from there, too. the interview by george stephanopoulos, when you look at it, it really was not a good interview. george stephanopoulos asked so many hypothetical questions. almost each one of his questions were phrased, "if," "if," "if," and my last point is this, donald trump has destroyed everything he ever owned, from the day his father gave him the money that he made, he destroyed the casinos that he had in new jersey, they went bankrupt. he has filed bankruptcy six or seven times. he don't have control over the hotel in new york. he cannot get a loan in new york. this man has destroyed everything he owned, and you wanted this man to be over the american economy?

come on, let's wake up. host: you mentioned the stephanopoulos interview and the "what if" questions. here is about 20 seconds from the interviews, one of those questions that could've --got a lot of attention. [video clip] >> i have never seen a president without approval get reelected? pres. biden: i do not believe that is my approval. >> if you stay in and trump is elected and everything you are warning about comes to pass, how you're feeling in january? pres. biden: i feel i gave it my all. it is a job i can do. that is what this is about. host: joe biden in that interview with george stuff it up list. the word he used, whether it was goodest that he said or good as job, that was apparently up for debate among those who were reading this transcripts and asking abc about that

transcript. the white house asking abc to update the transcript. they originally put goodest job there, and after calls from the white house, the abc news tweaked the transcript to say "good as job." the white house wanted a word change in the transcript. a call from philadelphia, good morning. caller: hello. i am someone who believes that biden should drop out of the race. it is clear from the debate that he is just not capable of serving four more years, unfortunately. and i think that if he stays in, he will lose badly to trump. and since he just played the interview, i will say that i find it ridiculous that he says that if he loses, he is

basically ok with it as long as he gives it all, apparently turning a blind eye on what the consequences could be of trump wins. but the big thing i want to discuss though is that, while if biden stays in and trump wins, he and the democrat party will definitely be deserving of blame. i do find it baffling that there are folks who are doom and gloom on our democracy if biden stays in, yet they think that the supreme court is blameless and innocent when they clearly are not. they play a role, as well, to why we are in this position. host: this is les out of l.a. good morning. caller: yes, i am a firm believer that biden should stay

the course and stay in. the democratic stent -- senators in congress need to man up and get out there and do some retail politicking. get in there and support your gay, talk about him. they keep talking about kamala harris -- get in there and support your guy, talk about him. they keep talking about kamala harris, get her busy and out there. biden is a moral man and has done a lot for this country the last four years. he saved us from this lying man, donald trump. donald trump lies. he is a criminal. he just graces women. he talks about thugs and people who like the thug life, and people think he should be the president of the united states? i love a moral man, biden is a moral man we need to get back to that. we are listening to cnn and msnbc and fox channel and all these other places who are fighting for raises because they

are getting killed by social media. we need to keep biden. if you want kamala harris, she is already there as vice president. ain't nobody stopping her. biden can bowl over tomorrow, then she can step up. right now, democrats, get behind your man, get behind your congress and senators. get out there and fight for the country. host: you mentioned democratic senators, the story from axios, senate democrats not planning to meet monday not to discuss their support for president biden continuing his reelection bid, despite efforts for senator warner to organize such a meeting. senator warner saw a potential watershed moment for democrats to come together at this meeting. no word on when that meeting could take place later in the week, but apparently not

happening today. this is will in virginia, good morning. caller: good morning. i believe that biden should drop out of the race. i want to say that i think biden is a good man and served this country very well for the entire life, and other members of his family have come as well. i am an independent, but i duly left. i think that the best thing for the country would be to get somebody in there that is democrat, and that is not biden. it is clear when you look at him speak, he is only really working 50% of the time. the state of the union wasn't strong and the speech in philadelphia yesterday was pretty good -- the state of the union was strong and the speech in philadelphia yesterday was pretty good. but other times he completely falls apart. i do nothing a man only working 50% of the time is good for the american people. it is not good enough for me. i would like to see somebody else take over, because i think the longer the democrats wait, the harder it will be to defeat

trump. host: who is that somebody else? caller: honestly at this point, i would say kamala. i think she has the best chance to get running with such little time left, with this cycle. i would like to see pete buttigieg in there somewhere, as well, because i like him a lot. host: to the wolverine state, this is diana in ann arbor. caller: good morning. i do not understand this. trump is a convicted felon for 34 felonies. he is cruel. he had an affair behind his pregnant wife's back. he is friends with putin, america's archenemy. and republicans stay behind him. i do not see this question on c-span, should republicans stay behind trump? and what are we doing, we are parsing out his words now, what

each little word means. the author of the -- author of 13 keys to the presidency, he says stick with this. he has predicted the last 10 victories for who would be elected. he would have had 10 of 10, but with the supreme court deciding who won in 2020, that was the only one. he said gore should have won. he says stick with biden, biden will win. host: we did several of those questions, should republicans stick with drum, during the primary season -- should republicans stick with trump, during the primary season. i want to hear what you think of this column, saying many democrats are upset that the news is now dominated by biden's

debate and not the profound danger to the republic from donald trump. for those that admire biden, the sadness of this moment is that his withdrawal may now be the only way to move the focus back where it belongs, back on donald trump. what do you think of that? caller: there's 13 keys to the presidency, and alan lichtman says watch the big picture. he has been right for 40 years now doing this, and he has been right every one. he says if you take biden out of the running, it is a mistake. why did the republicans stay with their guy? why are they staying so strong? because they never question their candidate, ever, no matter what he does. and we're tearing our guy down,

the democrats. it is said. i think the media is jumping on this because trump is the goose that lays the golden eggs. they are making tons of money on him. if biden is the next president and trump is out of the picture, i mean, they are not going to make near the money they would have made on trump. i don't know why we're doing this, because it is our democracy at stake, not revenues for the next four years. we are losing our democracy. that is worth everything. host: that is diane in michigan. the washington post with an ongoing tally of the top elected democrats who have called on joe biden to drop out of the 2024 election. nine on that list, officially calling on him to drop out, and 18 raising concerns. you can scroll through that list

at washpost.com. this is deborah and the grand canyon state, good morning. caller: morning. i don't believe that biden should stay in the race. i did not believe that he should have been in the race when he got the presidency, and donald trump, also i do not believe he is young enough to be in the race either. but the point is, i know everybody wants to talk about social issues, because it seems like so many are unaware of what is going on in our world around us that we need somebody who is on the ball, somebody who knows how to play chess and not checkers. i do not know who to replace him, because as far as politicians go, this is my opinion, but the corruption that is in d.c., i never seen anything like it i and all my 70

years. host: a columnist today in usa today points out that if democrats were to replace joe biden, all of the aging old man questions that are being asked, those then get turned on donald trump as the old man in the race , if democrats replace joe biden was somebody younger. caller: like i said when i started this, as far as i am concerned, donald trump is too old, too. it is the policy, not the personality, that people should pay attention to. there are so many uninformed voters. you know, i am amazed what people are fed by the media. do they really look at anything? but i just -- no, i do not believe that either one of them

are young enough to be the president, to tell you the truth. host: we promised to show you a few social media posts. this is stephanie writing on x, president biden should stay and vice president harris should step down and allow biden to select a vice president that will help to strengthen the ticket. i have much respect for hairs, but too much is at stake this time -- i have much respect for harris, but too much is at stake this time. this one since i plan to support and vote for president biden, he will still be an excellent leader for this country. trump and his crew are desperate to win and will say and do anything to win. why do we criticize president biden over one slip when donald trump has had numerous slips? trump is aging, as well. annie writes, no, he should not stay in. he is a wonderful man and has done a fantastic job as president, but he has lapses in

memory from age. there is a lot to be dealing with, along with being president. bless him. a few of your social media posts. back to your phone calls come about 15 minutes left here. democrats and independents only. we will come back to our usual lines in the next segment. dee in new jersey, thanks for waiting. caller: good morning. i would like joe to stay in. i would like everybody to go out and support the democratic congressmans and senators, just in case, so we have a democratic congress and senate in november. no second debate. that was a terrible debate on both sides. and it is just going to be another repeat. joe should say no more debates. i fully support that. the media right biden biden now is only talking about, not talk --the media right is only talking about biden, not talking

about trump or what the supreme court just did, with both immunity and with chevron. nobody is talking about chevron. some are starting to talk about the 2025 project. but we have to get back on track. joe, you have to make a decision this week on what you're going to do. you have got to get back to telling the world what trump is really going to do for this country. thank you very much. host: zach in washington, good morning. caller: good morning. well, i am 35 years old and i think i speak for good majority of people my age, at least in this area. this guy needs to drop out of the race. it is ridiculous. the world is watching. we look like fools. people need to look themselves in the mirror and ask, is this really who we want to represent the united states of america? it is a joke, and people are

laughing at us. it is mind-boggling. i wish this guy would just disappear, his whole camp, and let's get on with it. trump 2024, let's do it. host: talking to democrats and independents only. to virginia, go ahead. caller: this is tommy, a registered democrat all my life. i think president biden should stay in the race. he is a good candidate, has a competent vp. i do not see what the downside is if something were to happen. i am disappointed in my senator, senator warner. he is only bringing doubt. back in 2000 when gore ran, he lost, not because of the voting machines or the chats or whatever, it was because he tried to avoid president clinton. he did not get the support.

and the people on the fence, they see this. they say that democrats do not have a backbone, their spineless. if republicans can stand behind 34 felony trump convicted person, then the democrats need to learn how to write or die. -- how to ride or die. host: janet in new york. caller: i definitely think he should step down, and i do not think we should have kamala harris as the nominee. i think the people should choose the nominee. i think there would be much excitement. i think trump would surely lose if we went into a convention with a younger, fresher nominee. i have some names. andy beshear, val demings, i love her and think she would be an amazing candidate from florida, josh shapiro. former governor of montana, he got pretty far in the primary four years ago.

he has good policies. all those people would be wonderful. host: do you read the new york times? caller: sometimes. host: did you read ezra c line 's column today? he writes, imagine the excitement if democrats ran a mini primary this summer? democrats need to hold a real contest, give interviews, debates, conferences, town halls, speeches, pete buttigieg, for instance, never looked better than when he was on fox news. democrats try to play it safe and failed. it is time to open themselves to a bit of risk. the candidate next in line is not always the best choice. leaders perfect on paper do not always perform. contests do not just future disappointments, they reveal who

is ready to rise to the moment. democrats should give themselves and this country the gift of finding that out. as recline calling firtash --this is pam in south orange, new jersey. caller: a lot of great points were made just now. the thing i want to highlight is, what is biden's real crime here? ageism? is it age? i think this country's downfall is going to be based on a couple things, racism and ageism. and potentially social media. but all this talk about his age versus the other guy who has 35 felonies, is it, and counting, i did not know that age was a crime. i did not know that stumbling was a crime. america needs to come to terms with its own fallibility and

what is hurting its own globe? what is his crime, policies? those who claim to know will point to jobs and inflation. let me tell you, the thing about inflation and jobs, you have to watch financial news and get some education. what did biden do for jobs and inflation? he propped up investor industry, and that will drive technology. technology is going to drive everyone's jobs, middle class and below. are they going to have jobs in the future? is that biden's fault because he propped up the semiconductor industry? people need to get more education. we also talked about the maga side of republicans, essentially it is a cult. what are cults made of?

made of lazy people who look to other people to tell them what to do. people need to educate themselves. host: jimmy is in cuba, missouri. you are next. caller: i do not know what is wrong with these people that are democrats and the independents. i don't like joe biden. i don't like donald trump. i think the guy from louisiana, that kennedy guy, would make a better president than any of them, for the simple reason, he does not fit in with the rest of the people. the lady that just called from new jersey or wherever, people are not as ignorant as what you think. are y'all blind? the man cannot even hold a conversation. you just see him looking off into never never land, and half the time he don't know where he is at. and who is running our country? host: christina in san diego, just about five minutes left. go ahead. caller: thank you very much.

i think that joe should stay in. i am a, very upset about all the ageism in this country, and i think that the qualifications for somebody should be wisdom and experience and accomplishment, not whether or not they can run up and down the stairs of an airplane. as we all get older, yes, things happen to our bodies, but that does not mean that our minds are going to degenerate necessarily. there's many, many people in their 90's and even close to 100 who are very wise and look at people like we are a muppet. i am trying to think of some other people, that i just think that the democrats, we are killing ourselves.

if i thought that kamala harris had a chance to win, i might be willing to think that if he decided to drop out, that would be ok, but i do not know the country is ready for a black woman. look at what happened after two terms of joe biden, and we ended up with trump. that is backlash. i hate to say this, but i think that it would be lovely if the country were ready for a black female president, but maybe not this time. maybe next time. host: kiki in boston, good morning. caller: good morning. look, to the yes voters here, the problem is that biden cannot make the case against trump. that is why he should drop out.

not that he has not been a good president, he has. but he cannot make the case against trump, and he had an opportunity to do that at the last debate, and he failed woefully. neither want to lose. he himself has said the marquis he is on the line -- has said democracy is on the line. i agree with ezra from the new york times, we need to revitalize and bring the dems together again. we have a few weeks to do so. we need to move on without biden . host: denise in lewisville, texas. caller: good morning. biden answered every question in that debate. donald trump did not answer one question. biden stutters.

and biden has his mistakes. but he answered the questions. donald trump is a felony, 34 counts. he is charged with rape. he cannot fund charities. come on, people. i am 60. i am old, but i can still do my job. thank you. host: that was our last caller in this first segment of the "washington journal." plenty more to talk about this morning. next, we will continue our conversation about campaign 2024, joined by sean trende of real clear politics, and later, joined by former democratic senator bob kerrey who cochairs the watchdog group the concord coalition. those conversations happening this morning on the "washington journal." ♪

>> c-span's 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 elect the republican nominee for president. watch as they lay out their priorities for the next four years and their vision for the future. republican national convention, live monday, july 15 come on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. c-span, your unfiltered view of the conventions. saturdays, american history tv features historic convention speeches. what's notable remarks by presidential nominees and other political figures from the past several decades this saturday, vice president george h w bush accepts the 1988 republican presidential nomination, calling

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hearings, party briefings, and committee meetings. c-span gives you the front row seat as to how issues are debated and decided no commentary, interruptions, completely unfiltered. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> if you ever miss any of our coverage, you can find anytime online at span.org. videos of key hearings, debates, and other events with workers that guide you towards interesting in newsworthy highlight. the markers are on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. the timeline tool makes it easy to get an idea of what was debated and decided in washing. scroll through and spend a few minutes on the it's of interest. host: c-span viewers are familiar with sean trende,

senior election analyst with real clear politics. the place to go for polling. sean trende, as we are now 11 days since the debate with questions swirling about joe biden staying in the race, what do polls tell us about the state of the race? guest: well, we have seen a pretty consistent answer to the question. joe biden's position in the polls has deteriorated. perhaps not as severely as some people would have thought. he has lost about two points across the board. he has gone from being down a couple of points on donald trump to being down three or four points on donald trump. it's not a great place for an incumbent to be at this part of the race, but it isn't the collapse that some people feared on the democratic side. host: is that just the general public polling or is that in the battleground states that become so important as we get closer

here? guest: well, that's mostly the general public or popular vote polling. in the states there has been some deterioration, just haven't had that much state polling, frankly, partially because of the july 4 weekend, posters don't like to poll on holidays. but the consistent story we have seen has been a two week decline in the link. some of that might be democrats declining to pick up, pull wise. we see that in polling sometimes when there is bad news for one party or the other. again, two points seems to be pretty consistently the rule. host: what's your expectation moving forward this week? when can we expect more numbers on not just the presidential race but also what it means in the all-important down ballot races? guest: that's really the big question. there's been almost no independent polling of senate and house races.

we don't know if this is just joe biden thing or an across-the-board democratic slump. this week, i think towards the end of it, you will want to see a lot of people, a lot of posters putting down their markers before the republican convention because pollsters like to do before and after polling pictures. we will get a pretty rich view of where the race really stands starting wednesday, thursday, friday. host: back to the top of the ticket, is there more to be read in just two or three point of difference here that there wasn't more of a trump bump since the debate, considering all of the airtime that has been spent and handwringing on the democratic side? guest: you know, this is a weird race and all kinds of ways. what makes it unique from the analyst perspective is you have two incumbents running against each other, which you don't see

that often in presidential races. every american knows who trump is and has an opinion of him and every american knows who joe biden is and has an opinion of him. it's very difficult to change those entrenched viewpoints. realistically, there probably isn't that much variation available to the antedate. so, i think this is probably about four for joe biden and any democratic candidate, but we will have a better view by the end of the week. host: as some democrats cast about for a replacement joe biden, who are the other democrats that all americans know and have an opinion about? who fares well in a hypothetical matchup against donald trump? guest: you know, that's really the problem that the democrats who want to replace biden run into. kamala harris is the best-known

non-biden democrat, but she doesn't fare much better against trump than president biden does. there have been other names known about. governor gretchen whitmer of michigan, governor gavin newsom of california, governor schapiro out of pennsylvania, probably the most common. they are known as well as president biden, or as widely as president biden or vice president harris. they are so -- they also don't fare well against trump. part of the problem is a kind of party wide just disaffection, i think, with the way that things have gone over the last four years. somewhat surprisingly for democrats, the public seems to look back on trump years more favorably than they did four years ago. so, i think it is a tough slog for anyone in this environment. really, the polling shows pretty consistent trailing against donald trump.

maybe other democrats at work upside, so we would have to see if one of them goes in and how being the nominee might change things. host: when someone gets a bad poll, often the only one that matters, we hear, is the one of election day. throughout the election season, this general election that started a lot earlier than usual this cycle, we heard that for the longest time the polls don't matter. when do polls start actually to matter as we get within three months of an election? guest: well, the old rule is that after labor day is when you should start paying attention to . the problem with that is that with the rise of early voting, you know, labor day is most when start cast ballots.

-- casting ballot. -- ballots. certainly, after the democratic convention in august, that's go time for paying attention to the polls, people will be voting very shortly. host: with the likelihood of reminding that there is some sort of on the floor primary at the convention in august, how likely is that right now? guest: boy, a lot of this -- it's like asking who the vice president will be. a lot of it comes down to whatever is going on in the mind of one person, and in this case that's joe biden. he keeps his own counsel very tight his family. so, he is the one person that can really answer that russian. based on what i have heard, i'd

say it was 50:50 that the president stepped down, declines, steps out of the race, and if he does bow out, there might be an attempt to kind of name his successor, most likely kamala harris, but the floor fight, there will be a lot of people who want this shot at the white house and i don't think or a nation is going to go over as well as some people expect. i think that if biden does step down, some sort of floor fight is likely. host: sean trendes r guest in this segment of "washington journal," a great person to ask about the polls. real clear politics, their website is where you can check out the writing that his writing. for my -- phone lines as usual. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002.

sean trende is with us for the next 35 minutes or so this morning. eight, republican line, good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i have a polling question. i have voted republican all my life. i cannot vote for donald trump because of his character. and other national defense issues. it has been obvious in the primaries that there are quite a few republicans that cannot vote for donald trump. also those who have worked for donald trump. people that cannot suppose -- cannot support revoke four. i have always wondered, how does the polling capture the people that will not to sue paid that normally do? i would like to hear the answer to that question. thank you. host: sean trende? guest: yeah, so there are two

different variants on that. there are republicans who will dissipate at all, then there are republicans who would vote for the democrat. what we see in the public polling, what you will see in the cross tabulations, you will see detailed answers of how different groups would vote. you will see consistent, about 8% of republicans, people who identify as republicans in the poll, they say they will vote for democrats. there is that other option but though, people not participating. getting closer to election day, the polls will start to reveal what they call likely voters. they will ask people how likely they are to this in the election and will say not likely, they will just kind of drop out of the poll. when you see the likely voter polls, those are the ones that most heavily account for what

the caller describes, people who just aren't going to participate in this election because they cannot bring themselves to vote for a democrat but cannot bring themselves to vote for donald trump. host: albany, new york, line for democrats. caller: i'm a person who pays close attention to the polling and from what i can surmise, all the polling shows, far back as it goes, that biden is pretty much flat. he's kind of stuck in that 45 to 46% range, far less than he got in the last election. when you look at trump's numbers, trump's numbers have continued to rise over the course of the primaries and is consistently ahead of biden by about 1.5%, according to real clear. after the debate, they expanded to about 3.5%.

sometimes even more, if you add third parties in there. also, looking at your website, i have seen most of the swing state polls, he's losing almost all of them. i think this really comes down to -- it's not a question of age with biden. it's do you want to put someone in there who has shown no upward movement and only downward movement against trump, who always has a ceiling, worse, but he is -- trump seems to be getting back all this he has lost among republicans and independents, but biden seems to not be able to gain the support he once had up to that 51% that he had when he was the winner of the election, so to me it's not really a question of age, it's a question of can he win swing states and the election? and he'll need to make a decision to step down and take a good, hard

look at these polls and realize that things are not going to change, he needs to step down and get someone like kamala harris and there, who is very wise, very articulate, funny and goofy. i think she is a lot more relatable to people like me or younger. i wanted to say about the age gap, we have bill clinton, w bush, trump, and biden, the same people have been running this country since the night 90's, -- since the late 90's, except for barack obama, and it helps to have a younger candidate who understands us better. host: we will take the point. sean trende? guest: there's a lot in there. i think the main point is a solid one. in a lot of ways it has been fascinating to watch this post debate debate on full.

it was almost like eyes open on where the state of the race was, regardless of what the polling was doing post debate. a lot of us watching the polls said look -- biden is in a precarious position right now, as the caller absolutely correctly points out. he was trailing in the national link. he was trailing in the swing state polls. you could say -- yeah, michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin are the key states where he was doing ok but was still behind. it's like scales fell from the eyes people were watching the race after the debate. a lot of that debate that's going on now is not so much that he will fall into a hole, it's -- does he has what it takes to overcome? a lot of people really started lessening other he could do it based on that debate

performance. the caller is 100% correct, even pre-debate, the president was in a precarious position. the debate now is about -- does he have what it takes to close the lead? or is this as good as it gets? host: on their screen, we are showing the general election trump biden matchup, and this is polling over time from real clear politics. that chart showing that the last time joe biden was ahead in the matchup was september of last year. guest: that's right, that's right. and i think there has been a lot of i don't know call it putting your fingers in your ears so you don't have to hear it, but it's been refrain among people who follow elections closely. this president has been consistently trailing in the popular vote. remember, trump lost the popular vote but won the election in

2016. so for him to be ahead in the popular vote polling outage -- average is really unusual and i think it exposes a reality that has been around for a long time. if you are a democrat. good news, it's late in the game but there is still at least theoretically something that can be done about it. whether or not there is practically is another question altogether. host: conley spring, john, independent mind, good morning. caller: it's amazing how these democrats is calling in and is putting biden before the country, you know? trump done some very, very good things and they hate something good. i don't understand that. you know how it is. they don't care about what the country is. they just care about joe biden. the people then running south carolina, they go down there and

threw them trial down there with our republican judges, lawyers and juries. what they think he end up coming out being? that's what trump is in new york . he's going to be that case, no doubt about it. they ought to put country before the man. i don't care if it's who it was. they got to read their bible. people, good, that's what they doing. thank you. host: any thoughts on that, sean trende? guest: well, i think there are a lot of people who in good faith see the democratic policy platform and agree with it and a lot of people who see the republican party platform in every. one of the great's about this job is i get to travel all over the country and you shows like this where i hear people call in

and i think in this country are basically decent, even if we don't always agree on politics. i have to disagree with the premise about democrats. i would do the same for republican. host: one column from "usa today," talking about polling in a hypothetical situation. imagine how well nikki haley or any other republican with water would be doing right now at the peak of the gop primary, where she was shown doing better against joe biden long for the entire democratic machine turned on the president. candidates like haley would have had the added benefit of capturing the turncoat democrats most put off by the tragic biden debate performance while some republicans say they don't want those voters to capture them at a boats from diehard trump

supporters. guest: yeah, the polling definitely showed former governor nikki haley doing much better against president biden then former president trump was doing. you know, i think she was viewed as a more moderate persona, someone who could reach across the aisle more effectively. once she becomes the republican nominee, the democrats start attacking her and start fleshing out her quite conservative positions on some issues, whether she is able to hold onto that. but she was an engaging personality -- not as polarizing as former president trump has become. there's a good chance that she would be doing better in the polls right now, but there are caveats to that. you cannot just blindly rely on what the polling was showing, that she was the trump alternative and not the biden alternative.

host: jane, louisiana. it would be easier if you just turned down your television and we could hear you better. caller: sorry, i should've known. go ahead with your -- host: go ahead with your question or comment. caller: ok, i really did have a question. yeah, i do have a western. -- question. did joe biden have a cold? i watched the whole debate. i did not see him sneeze, have a runny nose, use a kleenex. it looked like he didn't have a cold. which would have been another lie. of course, i don't think he started that lie. it was his lady that talks to the press. she started that.

anyway, i wanted to also say that i'm 81 years old right now. i don't think it is age. i don't have any problem with carrying on conversations. i watch television. i get a lot of information. that is why i wanted to let people know about that cold business. host: sean trende, on trust in the administration in the wake of what was seen over the last 11 days, i think it was maureen dowd or a different columnist, saying that democrats are losing the moral high ground because it looks like they are lying to the public about the president's health and ability. is there a way to measure that trust? guest: you know, trust in

government in america has been on the decline for 50 years, ever since watergate and the vietnam war. we have asked these questions and it's gone from an era where the majority of americans said they trusted the government to where that is down in the 20's. so, i think you start with a baseline of people being skeptical of the government and when something like this happens, you know, it's not just about the allegations in a poll. i don't want to diagnose president biden from a debate and maybe he had some really strong sudafed to keep the runny nose from happening. but there has been this kind of six-month drumbeat from within the administration, from democratic supporters that there is nothing at all going on with the president, everything is fine. i think what made the debate so shocking for a lot of people is that it just became barry's hard

to support that. i agree with the caller on one thing. it's not just age. there are people who are at fairly advanced ages that are still sharp as a tack. i think the question with biden after this debate is -- is he that person that reaches that age and is still sharp as a tack ? or is there really some genuine decline going on? course, this is not happening in a back. there have been clips and you can see snippets of him at the top of his game. we will see. he will do more campaign appearances. he will have to do more interviews. if the old joe biden comes back, some of that concern will be alleviated. if not, he is going to face a mounting chorus of people who say look, we don't trust what you have said about your health and that this and we think maybe

it is time to go in a different direction. host: on trust, kevin from x says that americans have zero confidence in polling and that the industry has done that to themselves. what is the intent? why do you do it? can you talk a little bit about the real clear politics polling, poll averages, and how you do that? guest: well, i think that one thing we try to do, but it doesn't always get through, is emphasize that these are samples . we are only talking to 500, 1000 people, and there is good math that you can show a good sense of where people come from with a sample but they do have error margin. they won't be perfectly precise. they will be within a few points of the out come, but a few points in a close race can make a big difference. one thing that we do, but our philosophy is,e average polls.

so, if you get one pole that is kind of skewed and an outlier, as we call it, the other polls will pull the outlier back and you get the average of the polls, which over time is more accurate than any particular single pole. so, i would advise people that when you hear there's a poll that shows president biden is here or a poll that shows senator brown is here, don't just listen to the pole. don't think like real clear politics, see what other polls are showing. it will give you a complete view of the state of the race and help to minimize any error that is just inherent in polling. host: delving a little deeper, the real tics paul -- pollster scorecard, if you hear someone ran a poll and you wonder if it's skewed one way or the other, how can they use the

pollster scorecard? host: we have a scorecard -- guest: we have a scorecard on our site showing the major pollsters going back and we have the averages across wing cycles. -- across polling cycles. as well as whether it is going to favor republicans or democrats. we have some pollsters who favor republicans, generally. for an individual poster, the scorecards are an invaluable way to evaluate the pole. when you put it all on the average, the republican and democratic biases tend to cancel out. host: new york state, ann, democratic line. caller: good morning, c-span.

i'm terrified about trump getting back and implementing project 2025, which she claims to know nothing about, but we know it's a way -- another one of his lies, taking away the rights of people in the light of the supreme court ruling making him immune. i hear people talking about changing or switching out joe biden. this is not a football game. you can't just put someone in a player is having a problem. my concern is i have heard republicans, if this happens, plan to pick out a bunch of swing states and then sue in those states, many of which have republican legislatures, to say they cannot change the ballot to, say, kamala harris, though she's on the ticket. could your guest please address those mechanics? the mechanics of changing biden to some other

democrat? host: something you looked into? guest: yeah, we have looked into it and boy that could be an entire 30 minute segment on its own. not as easy as some are making it out to be. the caller rightly intimates that our federal elections are ultimately governed by state law. they have their own quirks regarding ballot access. you can imagine the republicans are not going to just quietly accept democrats swapping out biden for some other candidate. they will revel in the chaos. it's a difficult process and in every day that goes by, it becomes more difficult. states like pennsylvania, we are coming up on eight weeks before

they start voting. there's a lot that goes into that. it's not easy to redo the printing of millions of ballots. it's not too late in most places, now, for that type of swap to go on. time is joe biden's friend on this metric. the longer he sticks it out, the more difficult that process, which is a 50 state process, not a single i'm not the nominee anymore process, the more difficult it becomes for the process to work itself out. host: down tocaller: yes, i woue to say harry truman, he was a good christian man, a democrat. he was a good man. and jfk. i know jfk had a few false here

and there he was a good man, a good democrat. but since then, especially what we got now, it is pretty pathetic. i mean, biden, he is just kind of a joke. i mean, he is letting these murdering killers come across the border down here and has not done nothing about it until his poll numbers started to get bad. that is pretty pathetic. and kamala harris is even worse than him. i would rather have marco rubio running, you know, being in the white house. but it is what it is. i mean, at least donald trump will get these killers and drug dealers out of this country and seal this border up. host: sean trende on the immigration issue this cycle. guest: immigration is such a hard issue because i think there

are valid concerns about not knowing who has come into the country. there is a reason we have an orderly immigration process set up. i think you can make the case it is too restrictive, and that is part of what drives illegal immigration. look, i also think it is very hard to seal up that border. the fact of the matter is we have a multi thousand plus mile border with mexico. it is very difficult to control. i know what president trump has promised he would do, but the reality is that working that out is going to be tough. maybe you say at least he is going to try, and i think he will be more concerned with border security than president biden. but again, in the big picture i come back to it is a very difficult country to govern, and we all have different ideas on how it should be done. i don't think the various democratic presidents we have had are bad people as a general

matter, and i don't think generally speaking the republican presidents have had have been bad people. i think it is an incredibly difficult job that people generally try their best at. host: the caller brought up marco rubio. who do you think will be on the republican ticket with donald trump, and when do you think that will be announced? guest: it will have to be pretty soon since we are coming up on the convention. i think later on this week we will get the announcement from president trump. and again, who is going to be the vice president nominee is a little bit delving into the psyche of one individual who gets to make that decision. marco rubio would bring a lot to the republican ticket. a young telegenic hispanic male who would take states like nevada and every zona off the table completely for democrats, but there are other candidates. i think president trump feels come people with j.d. vance, who

has been named on analysts. i think senator tim scott from south carolina offers an interesting kind of companionship or complement to president trump's personality. president this time has a lot of options, which he could not say in 2016. it makes it particularly difficult to know how he will come down. i think it is interesting to come back out 2016 and he actually made a pretty good choice in retrospect for who he was running in 2016. this is something he tends to give a lot of thought too. i would not be surprised if it is senator rubio, but senator scott were senator vance have to be at the top of his list. host: california, this is lita, line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. i don't trust polls, and it is not because of the posters themselves. it is republicans why to posters

-- lie to posters. they have lied for years and years. i listen to conservative talk radio. there was an incumbent behind in the polls and the host asked him, are you worried about it? he said, no, he is not, because he knows the republicans lie. if he is showing four points behind, that means he is three point ahead, and that was somebody out of pennsylvania. i think they were doing it before to try to discredit the pollsters and the mainstream media. i think now they are doing the lies to make it look like biden is really behind. that way if he wins, they can say he cheated. look at the polls. he cheated. just my opinion. thank you. host: sean trende. guest: again, polls have the error margins that are not just something we kind of give a wink and a nod to. they are very real.

because we are just drying relatively small samples of the population. i think it is important when you evaluate polls to remember that in 2016 and 2020 is the polls had the skew to democrats and republicans over performed across the board. at the same time, i think part of that is the trust issue, that donald trump has a lot of appeal to low trust voters who may be not lied to posters but they are less likely to pick up the phone and spend some time talking to a pollster, which is hard to compensate for. we have to remember that in 2022 committee polls -- 2022, the polls had a pro republican bias. either way. it is unpredictable which side of the error margin you end up on. you just have to remember the error margins are real and that while the estimates we give are the best guess, they probably will not be the exact

result. there will be some type of error towards republicans or democrats. host: stepping away from american politics to french politics, france rejecting the shift to the right. the headline in the washington post, a major upset by the left and center. how much have you studied what happened these past couple weeks in france? why was it such an upset and not seen ahead of time? guest: it is interesting because european polling has generally been better than american polling over the past few years. again, we had a rough go. there is no doubt about it, in 2016 particularly add 2020 -- and 2020. i think what happened in france is the same thing that always seems to happen to the right coalition there, which is they do fairly well in the second round and the centrists would rather align themselves with forces on the left rather than

form a coalition with marine le pen's party. there is a unique aspect of french politics because they have this sort of two-stage runoff, which allows the center and left to regroup in that final-round. there is no doubt that was a disappointing result for the right there. it is a good reminder that the aphorism you other two earlier that the only polls that matter are the polls on election day had a lot of truth to it. trying to remind people, these polls have errors that are built into them. so it is not surprising for things to be off a little one way or another. host: less than 10 minutes left with sean trende this morning. taking your phone calls. phone lines as usual for democrats, republicans, independents. thank you for waiting on the line for republicans. go ahead. clay, you with us? caller: yes.

good morning. thank you for taking my call. i would like. to make several comments -- i would like to make several comments. the previous caller, the lady who said she was terrified trump would be elected, that he would do this and that. trump is not a modernist. he gathered over 80 million votes last time. he represents a wide swath of the working class of this country. and one final comment i would like to make. they accused trump of lying this and that. the biggest lie is hiding the fact that this president biden is totally inept. he is past his time, and they should acknowledge that. thank you for taking my call. host: sean trende. guest: i think that the reader

-- that caller hits on a few important points. i think he highlights the trust issue that was talked about earlier that is debate for a lot of people. lowered trust even further in the current administration. the main things though as we have a situation where democrats are terrified of the republican nominee and a situation where a lot of republicans were terrified of the democratic nominee and a lot of people are worried about where the country is overall with this president. this is why i think the shift you saw in the polls has only been a couple of points, because we are so polarized when it comes to these presidential candidates. it is very difficult to change people's minds when you have the democratic party terrified of the republican candidate. they will vote for almost anyone to keep that from happening. of course, the flipside is true on the republican side to at the

end of the day, this will not be probably a net for style blowout -- 1984 style blower. it will more closely resemble the elections we have seen the past few cycles that have been relatively close. host: time for two more phone calls. this is angela in california, independent. go ahead. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i am a 64-year-old black woman so when you talk about biden's age, i wonder about ada and where we are going with social security and medicare. they are talked about increasing the age but there are people working every day to 70 and 84 so that is mind-boggling to be how everybody is focused on his aged and forgot about the trial with donald trump and all of that. how is the president going to run the white house with felony convictions when you cannot be around guns? the same goes for gang members and convicted felons. you tell me the same thing does

not go for president? that is scary to me. i want to talk about polls. presidents do not win all the popular vote. they went based on the electoral vote, so when you do your polls, are you doing your polls in those states that control the electoral votes that pick the president? because it is just mind-boggling to me what i am hearing here. i got a convicted felon. host: i got your point. let me let sean trende answer your question. guest: i guess there is two points there. the first as a caveat, we do not conduct the polls. we aggregate the polls that other people perform. the caller is 100% right. this is about the electoral college, not the popular vote. we track the popular vote because we do not get polls in every state to gives us a sense of things but we aggregate in individual states. if you look at individual states in the key states like wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, the president is behind.

we are seeing second-tier states like virginia and new hampshire come into play. it paints a pretty consistent picture. of the other point about social security and medicare, those are very real issues. there is a fiscal train wreck coming, and it is something that is not getting much attention because of all the debates about felony convictions and age. but there is a very serious policy debate we are going to be forced into in the next few presidencies about how to handle entitlement spending. host: last call. deborah and florida on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: hi hi. can you hear me? host: yes. caller: it seems like polls can give you whatever information you want based on how you phrase the question, so when you are looking at these, you said you aggregate them. is that something you pay attention to, these questions

are asked -- how these questions are asked, if they are leading to a certain answer? guest: boy, that is absolutely spot on. especially when you get into issue polling. slight changes in the verbiage can produce very different results in how people react to policy proposals. most posters when we are asking questions about presidential elections or approval use a few slight variations on the question. if someone gets too far out, we will not use the polling question. if someone were using an obviously leading question or push polling as we call it, that poll would not make its way into our average. the caller is right. different poll companies use different questions for job approval ratings and head-to-head questions. we pay close attention to make sure they are all in the same general bandwidth of exceptional

questions -- of acceptable questions and use those polls for performing other aggregates. host: realclearpolling.com is the place you can go to see all of the aggregates and keep track of the latest polls. sean trende is a senior elections analyst at real clear politics. appreciate your time. thank you, sir. guest: thank you. host: coming up in about 30 minutes this morning, we will be joined by bob kerrey, former u.s. senator from nebraska. a conversation with him and our viewers. it is our open -- until then, it is our open forum. any political issue you want to talk about. the phone line is yours. go ahead and call in on the phone lines for democrats, republicans, independents, and we will get to your calls after the break. ♪ >> welcome a great national

crusade to make america great again. taxes still go up. anyone who says they won't is not telling the truth. >> we are in the midst of a springtime of hope for america. >> because we are the party that believes in the american dream. >> read my lips. no new taxes. >> i still believe in a place called hope. >> here is the question for the american people. who do you trust in this election? >> the real choice is whether we will build a bridge to the future or a bridge to the past. >> i have confidence in the wisdom of our people and the future of our country. >> i stand here tonight as my own man, and i want you to know me for who i truly am.

>> they had their chance. they have not led. we will. >> i am john kerry, and i am reporting for duty. >> these four years brought moments i could not for c will not forget. >> it is time for us to change america. >> i was not my old man anymore. i was my country's. >> i do not believe in rolling back regulations on wall street will help the small business woman expand or the laid-off construction worker. we have been there. we have tried that. we are not going back. we are moving forward, america. >> under my history should come our friends will see loyalty and mr. peters will see in the select ability and more backbone. >> he wants to make america great again. he can start by actually making things in america again. >> we will make america safe again. and we will make america great

again. >> here and now, i give you my word, if you entrust me with the presidency, i will draw on the best of us, not the worst.this towering >> this towering american spirit has risen over every challenge of the best every human endeavor. >> c-span, your unfiltered view of the election powered by cable. >> since 1979 in partnership with the cable industry, c-span has provided complete coverage of the halls of congress from the house and senate floors to congressional hearings, party briefings, and committee meetings. c-span gives you a front row seat to have issues are debated and decided with no commentary, no interruptions, and completely

unfiltered. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> "washington journal" continues. host: about 30 minutes here for our open for a. any public policy issue, any campaign issue you want to talk about. now is the time to do it. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. for republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. a reminder, the house is back in session at noon today, noon eastern time. the senate, it is 3:00 p.m. eastern. here are some of the events we are covering other c-span networks ahead of this week's nato summit. mike mccall will lead a discussion with other members on transatlantic security. that is taking place from foreign policy magazine starting about 15 minutes on c-span2.

you will stay with us here at 9:00 a.m. you can watch that discussion on data on the free mobile app c-span now and c-sn.org. and then on c-span2 at 2:15 p.m. eastern tay, house speaker mike johnson will discuss foreign policy, china, russia, iran. that discussion athe hudson institute. you can watch c-span2, c-span.org, and the c-span now video app. now with your phone calls in open forum, any policy issues on your mind, now is your time. donald, ohio, democrat go ahead. caller: yes. thank you for taking my call this morning. what i would like to say is in this country -- we put these people in there to make decisions for us but they seem to pass their own agenda. what we need to do is make sure

that these guys listen to the people of this country. now, if joe biden did not make it today i would still vote for him tomorrow because i think he is a way better leader than what trump is. from what i have seen from donald trump when he was in the white house the last time, all heated was play golf and did not read the country in no way. that is about all i got to say, and i hope the people of this country wake up and do the right thing, thank you. host: from ohio to memphis, tennessee, this is bob, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i think what people are looking at is not noticing the elephant in the room. the elephant in the room is the

vice president, ms. harris. the country is not going to elect a woman. they did not elect the most qualified woman on the ticket or the most qualified person when they rejected ms. clinton. she was the most qualified. surely, they will not elect ms. harris. host: that is bob in the volunteer state. to the lone star state, oscar, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing today? host: doing well. caller: listen, on immigration, i live down here on the border. how come we don't have a better issue of working with our government? everybody says we cannot fix the problem, but it is not that hard to fix. if you have people coming in here, if we would have just set up a system where we are worried about social security paying for everything because we are blaming them for coming in from

other countries and we are with the immigration issue so why don't we have them set up a separate social security for them when they come in and after they come in, they come in and work for reputable companies if they are doctors or lawyers or workers and set up a system where, you know, you give them a social security which belongs to them, it is a separate system, and they pay into that while working for us and also being monitored because they are coming in legally? if they come in with a legal document, if we give them a passport or they already have a social security so we give them a passport, that we can put a chip on them and record where they are at and know where they are at at all times. host: legal immigration in this

country -- do you think we need more legal immigration in this country? caller: of course we do. of course we need more legal immigration but they are in the wrong format to get it done. i worked for the government for 27 years. host: what did you do? caller: i was in the department of agriculture actually so you get to see a lot of different things coming in and out of this country. working all over the country. i worked throughout the united states. we need immigrants to come in and work of course. i worked in kansas, texas, puerto rico, america, but we need people to commit and work. even in kansas, they had people in the food line that were looking to eat and they could not speak english. they were immigrants at one time or another. but if we have a better immigration system that we can set up, it is not that difficult to do.

host: we will take the point out of texas. this is david in massachusetts, independent. good morning. caller: i called in before to talk about my experiences as an iraq veteran and an activist. 20 years and one or two weeks ago, i was on a stretch of highway in iraq. we had set up a checkpoint as a ruse for something else we are doing so there is no value in it itself. a white nissan spent over the hill in front of us and ran through the checkpoint and almost hit the guy manning it. he yelled open fire and several of us did. i was on the ranch and spun around and shot three rounds into the car. it came to a stop. someone yelled medic. miraculously, no one was killed or injured seriously. drive the worst of it and had have some metal fragments taken out of his back. his 16-year-old son in the

backseat had cuts to his head from the windshield. what i think about things -- i had just turned 19 that spring and it was the first time i shot at someone. what i think about things like the fourth of july and the flag, those are the things i kind of think about, moments like that. i think about it. it sucks seeing kids get shot. it is mainly what i wanted to say. host: david, you talk about being an antiwar activist, and i know you called into this program before and talked about other experiences. what do you do as an activist? caller: so i have been trying to participate as much as i can in everything having to do with protesting our supplying arms to israel during their campaign of genocide in gaza and the west bank. i was recently at the redline demonstration in d.c., and i am

going to be in d.c. again other tony forth to protest netanyahu visiting. host: who are you working with in that protest? where are you going to be? who is organizing that? caller: there are many, many organizations around the country and in my area working together to just get people down. i mean, there is a bunch of northeastern coalitions for peace and justice for palestine. there is also a national campaign that is going out. i actually don't have the website in front of me at the moment, but yeah. host: where do you think you will be in d.c.? are you going to come to capitol hill? caller: right now, i think it is capitol hill or the white house. i am not sure what the main focus is. it is still kind of getting organized or at least information i am getting. i know i am getting down there

and transportation is big organized. this is a nationwide thing. any interest in that of a please go searching and find information. host: that is david out of massachusetts. ddenise, republican, ohio. caller: on july 8, 2016 16, under barack obama's presidency, i looked up this article to see if it said anything about the person who committed this crime, who he was. it happened in dallas, texas. it was the largest mass murder of white police officers in u.s. history. there was 14 police officers shot. five died. this was done by a black nationalist named michael johnson, i believe. he came out of a peaceful protest black lives matter.

there was nothing said on the news who did this. the next month in louisiana, there was three white police officers shot and killed by a black nationalist named gavin long. i guess also want to say that president barack obama -- host: i found the article from july 9 from nbc news. dallas shooter micah johnson was an army veteran, a loner. police found bomb making materials in his home after that shooting. one of several stories about it. caller: ok. well, they never say anything about him being black. that is what i'm trying to say. they always do it when it is a white person. i just want to say one other thing. that president barack obama labeled the antifa people as domestic extreme terrorists. they were terrorizing all of the

trump supporters from the time he started running in 2016 until all the way to 2020. nothing was said. they were throwing t-shirts that were caught on fire into the crowds. they had asked handles with large commercial sized boats, jabbing that my people -- bolts, jabbing them at people. nothing came out about the violence until that thing in charlottesville which was only 300 people. this country is not full of white supremacist people. it is full of hard-working americans, black, white, green, yellow, purple, whatever you want to call us. i have been called more names by the democratic party than i ever was my whole entire life growing up. i am not a maga republican. i am just a white american person who has worked really hard since i was 15 years old. host: that is denise in ohio.

this is joe in louisiana, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning to you. the questions that i have are towards c-span, the programming that is offered each morning. to your listeners. i am wanting to know, how are topics selected? once you answer that question -- hello? host: i am listening. once i answer the question, what? caller: i have two other suggestions for topics for the program. would you answer that? who selects the topics? are the moderators involved in the selection also? host: sure, there is a whole team that works on "washington journal," several producers, an executive producer that tries to book guests every day for a seven day a week show three

hours every day, seven guests on each program, and we are doing a lot of what you are doing, seeing what the public is talking about, what is in the news, what is getting a lot of attention on capitol hill, and we try to find those relevant topics and have conversations about them every day, have guests whether it is reporters writing about those topics or members of congress who are the subjects of a lot of these new stories can have them on to talk to you. so there is a whole team within c-span, the "washington journal" team that includes producers and production assistants and an executive producer that puts on this program, and the hosts. several of the hosts are on that team, and the hosts that are on the team are involved often in the shows they are hosting. does that help? caller: let me ask my question. will you allow me to ask my question now? host: yes, ma'am.

caller: one suggestion is or my concern is when will you have a topic on giving an explanation to the public in the project 2025? you had people on who just mentioned it because a caller will ask a question, but when will you have someone on who will educate the public on what is at stake if the powers that be follow the outline of project 2025? the next question i have -- host: to answer that question, it was a topic we have discussed this program and spent a decent amount of time yesterday with someone from msnbc talking about that topic. i am sure we will do it again but it is a topic we talked about before, and it sounds like you would like to hear about it

again. i am certain we will do it before this election cycle. i just cannot tell you exactly when right now because i don't know when that will happen. caller: ok, because to me, that document is something that republicans, democrats, and independents need to know what is at stake if the republicans and donald trump get into office. because some of those initiatives are already in place. my second concern is during black history month, i was sort of disappointed at the content of the programming that you had on. and each time i looked, you were the commentator. and it was always a topic of

controversy. black history month was originally developed or came into concept to educate black and more importantly other ethnic groups, let's say white folks, in the united states of the contributions that blacks have made to the united states other than being enslaved. i did not know anything about black women and black people being involved in the state project until the movie came out. do you realize that even a toy, the viewmaster, that was an industrial product but a black man redeveloped it, so now it is a toy that children play with?

it became something everybody could use viewmaster. talk about things like that as opposed to always having controversial topics regarding blacks in government and black folks in particular. host: appreciate the suggestions. one suggestion where you might go if you have protected up as american history tv on c-span2. i know there was a lot of programming on this topic during black history month on american history tv. all of our "washington journal" programs are available on our website, c-span.org. all of our american history tv topics are available on c-span.org. that could be a place you could be a place you can check out as well. a lot of collars waiting so i want to be to marvin in michigan on the line for democrats. go ahead. caller: great topic. the last caller was on about

project 2025. i would like to call out "washington journal," c-span. that article has 900 pages. can you guys put that on tv every day as you come on? because you have the eyes and ears of america every morning like i am listening to you right now, just to remind the people how they plan on treating us as human beings. so i call out c-span. every day like you hurry up and get all the other things that are not too good, you need to educate the people on that. host: project 2025 was certainly a part of yesterday's sunday show. it was marco rubio who was on cnn. he was asked about project 2025. i just want to play you that exchange yesterday. [video clip] >> there is a conservative effort called project 25, and it

includes several former trump administration officials. they are arguing, and they have in their platform if you will, to purge thousands of civil servants from federal agencies, vastly expand the power of the presidency, and i want you to listen to what one of the leaders of project 2025 set this week. -- said this week. >> we are in the process of the second american revolution will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be. >> are you comfortable with that? >> he is not running for president, is he? our candidate is donald trump. i did nothing donald trump said that. donald trump is running on restoring common sense after the lunacy of the far left in the chapel now running the country with joe biden as its figurehead. that is what he is running against. think tanks do think tank stuff. they come up with ideas.

i like the heritage foundation and like the things they stand up for but there are scholars that are around and work on projects. our presidential candidate is donald trump and donald trump is working on restoring common sense, working-class values, and making ever decisions on the basis of that, not ideological lunacy. host: that was marco rubio on cnn yesterday. if you want to learn more about project 2025, the segment specifically devoted to that on this program, it was on june 18 when paul came on to talk about project with 25 at the heritage foundation, that transition plan. you can watch that on our website, c-span.org. this is george in michigan, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. it was my first time hearing that soldier that was on i would sincerely thank him for his service to our country, and after i said that, i was just

wondering what i was listening to him speak. he has turned into an activist, and i was wondering how he would feel if that happened to the united states instead of israel. if a bunch of terrorists came into this country and attacked and murdered a bunch of our citizens, if he would feel the same way or if he would say we have a duty to go in and get everyone of those terrorists. if they were hiding behind our citizens and some of our citizens had to die to get rid of those terrorists, if he would still feel as sincerely about his activism as he does now. thank you for your service. i appreciate it. the second thing i wanted to say was a lot of people call into these programs and cnn ever signaled a. i am what you, c-span. excuse me, sorry about that -- every single day, and i watched

you, c-span, excuse me, sorry about that. we all watched the same to me. joe biden got up there and stammered and stuttered and was weak. he came out a couple days ago and almost fell asleep during the debate. he would say a fact. cnn had fact checkers of their own. they fact checked almost everything joe biden said at almost everything the man said was a lie. president trump would give his turn and would take up most of his time refuting almost every lie that joe biden hole he would have a few seconds left to answer the question as best he could, and i am just wondering if we were all watching separate debates because i heard president trump gives a really good answers. he might have embellished a little bit. i also saw joe biden as very

weak, unstable. he is in no position to be the president of our country. host: george in michigan. less than five minutes left it open for a. this is tom from south carolina, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. initially, let's look at the proposition, the goal of every alta should is to get elected or reelected. and they do this using every means they have available to them and both parties over the last number of years have used demonization of the other party as a weapon, whether claiming the other party is incompetent or liars or any one of a thousand different excuses. given that, there is a hypothetical. i need a major operation.

i am going on a trip, an airline trip with very bad weather. i go into the operating room and there are the two candidates for president. both doctors. which 1 am i going to feel comfortable with? giving them my life in their hands. would you want an 81-year-old or a 77-year-old surgeon? host: who do you pick, tom? caller: honestly, i picked neither. host: you will not have the operation? caller: i will find another doctor to do the operation, or the airline pilot. what i want captain biden or captain trump to be piloting aircraft i am on in a bad weather situation? host: that is tom. this is one more time out of

ohio, democrat. go ahead. caller: yes, good morning. thank you for taking my call. the caller two callers ago from michigan, i would have to agree with what he said. watching two separate debates because what i watched, joe biden had a bad night, yes. but donald trump was fact checked in over 30 lines. do we want a liar in the lighthouse or someone who tells the truth and the last four years has done everything he could for the american people? i don't know. wanting him to bow out over the race over one night, which you cannot even call it a debate because trump did not debate, all he did was lie. host: what do you say to those

folks who expressed concern in recent days that they think that maybe not joe biden but his team has not been truthful or maybe have lied about the extent of joe biden's health issues? caller: yeah, i don't think they have come out honestly. but look, the way i look at it, his wife is the closest person to him. if his life was in jeopardy due to his job, she would be the first one saying do not read, and i am sure she has influence on him. they need to get the story straight on his health and if he has to have a checkup or whatever, one more recent. but i do nothing joe biden would let her husband go through this -- jill biden would let her husband go through this kind of race if his health was in jeopardy. host: that is tom in ohio, our last caller in our open forum.

45 minutes left this morning. in that time, we will be joined by former democratic senator bob kerrey. that discussion. we will be right back. ♪ >> c-span's campaign 2024 takes you live to block you for coverage of the republican national convention. tune is live july 15 as delegates from across the country gather to select the republican nominee for president. watch as they lay out their priorities for the next four years and their party's vision for the future. the public and national convention live monday, july 15, c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. c-span, your unfiltered view of the convention. >> robert is the walter annenberg admin joyce chair

emeritus in american studies and journalism at the university of notre dame. he has often written about the american presidency. his newest book is mr. churchill in the white house, the untold story of a prime minister and two presidents. the professor says both roosevelt and eisenhower eventually adjusted to the unconventional habits of their white house guests who not only proposed his visits but almost always by accident or design stay longer than initially intended. >> robert with his book "mr. churchill in the white house" on this episode of book notes plus, available on the c-span w mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> since 1979 in partnership with the cable industry, c-span

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serves as cochair of the concord coalition. for our viewers who are not familiar, what is the concord coalition? guest: concorde coalition was started, oh god, i think it was 30 years ago. concord, new hampshire, of course is where the coalition began, and they were of the opinion and so am i that it will take a fair amount of patriotism to solve the current fiscal problem. that is the topic of conversation. host: i want to get to those fiscal problems of this country and your solutions but i want to ask about the story of the day. president biden's performance in the debate, because for him to step down, increasing calls among members of congress from members of his own party. guest: having been a candidate myself, including running for president in 1992, it is up to

the candidate. it is up to president biden. i am a year younger than him so i recognize the symptoms of pushing 80 but here i am showing our age. i am sympathetic. he definitely missed an opportunity to show people that he can handle difficult questions. i feel like he will have more bad days that good -- i feel relieved that he will have more good days that bad days so i am happy he is running for reelection. host: on the record or off the record conversations have been leaked at this point to the press. do you think that will increase? guest: i don't know. even when i was living in washington, i did not predict

what might have happened. it has gotten even harder. your statement is true. there is an increasing number. there are 435 members of the house of representatives, about 200 of them democrats. until you get to a point where you have triple digits people saying he should not run, it is important that they made that call but it is a relatively small number. i will say it again, the candidate is to decide. host: if he makes that decision, if he decides not to run, who do you think would be in the best position to take on donald trump in november? guest: i don't haveguest: a favorite. we have governors and members of congress and a vice president capable of doing the job, but i don't know what the process is. i hope they don't have something that looks like it is rigged with a limited number of people who can participate in becoming the nominee of the party. the republicans already

announced they intend to sue to get anybody on the ballot that they consider to be competitive and the ballot changed. the court once again has to play a very important role if candidate biden decides he will pull his name down. again, i will say it for the third time and i promise this is the last time. he makes that decision. not me, not you, not anybody but him. if he makes that decision, it will be a process at the convention in august in chicago. i hope it is open and fair and not rigged. host: we have focused on in past 11 days. you wrote an op-ed in the washington post saying make them answer this question from a question about debt and deficit in this country. how far are we away today from a serious conversation between candidates in the news media right now on debt and deficit?

guest: i think we are a ways away unfortunately in part of it is the coming incumbents are not telling people what the consequences are of doing nothing so essentially we have 537 cosponsors in congress, the president, and the vice president who are cosponsors of the do-nothing plan. they don't have to answer the question. what do you say to a 60-year-old american who is looking at the do-nothing plan? oh, my god, you will cut my benefit. that is the law. that is the plan. unless you start to focus on the consequences of doing nothing and the overall accumulation of debt over the next 40 years, if you are 20 years old, that is the future. if you live as long as joe biden and i am donald trump, in 40 years that is your future. how can we say we care about our

grandchildren? how can we give speeches talking about we will preserve our democracy forever? you are not. i know. why. the only two solutions, republicans and democrats working together in the 1980's. we got to the end of that decade. we paid off debt. that happened not long ago. to get that done, we had to put caps on spending, have relatively small increases in taxes, although we decreased the capital gains task, and we watched the number. is it going down? it did and we eliminated. there are people who read their office. they ran again and the voters voted them out because they did not like what they did. they were looking for some magical way to solve the problem and there is no magical way. it is not like finding a cure for cancer. you have to have some constraint on spending and some sources of

record, particularly social security, which is relatively easy to solve. but again, 537 people right now are supporting the do-nothing plan. my own solution, being old enough to watch movies in 1976, you have to go back to network news and watch what the guy who ended up resigning said to his audience, which is we have to be mad as hell about this. it is another issue, we talk about that. you have to get mad as hell about this. if not, it does not get solved. host: the number is going up today at $34 trillion and counting according to u.s. debt clock. we continue to hear warnings about we will hit -- guest: the largest increase is going to interest. we don't spend -- we spend as much on interest as medicare and national defense, and all of

those interest payments go to people who own treasuries inside the united states or out. paying interest on the bonds that we sold them. i am worried about china. they have $800 billion of that debt. what do you do about them? you will pay it off, pay off the interest. it is a terrible problem. again, part of the reason it is an problem is people do not understand the consequences of continuing this. how can you say you want to make america great again when all evidence of this debt decreases our capacity to describe ourselves as great? our financial tradition is an enormous part of our strength and our ability to do well for ourselves and the world and we are ignoring it. widely assuming maybe it will somehow fix itself. it will. host: how much debt is too much debt? guest: i don't know. it is too much now because it is

continuing to go up. if they can stabilize it, that would be fine. i would like to get to a point where the revenue coming in exceeds the expenses that are going out. if you don't want to pay down debt, it and keep it -- just stabilize it and keep it at that one particular level. we don't have to be radical and stupid about it but we are paying down debt. host: concord coalition.org is where you can find them online. bob kerrey, former senator from the basket. guest: and jacobo republican from missouri, is my partner in crime. host: a bipartisan coalition at the concord coalition. if you would like to call it, you can do so. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. senator kerrey with us until

the top of the hour. david is in new york, up first on the line for democrats. go ahead. caller: hello, good morning. host: doing well. what is your question or comment? caller: i want to make a comment with regard to the immunity ruling they just made with the six corrupt supreme court justices who did this to keep donald trump from being in jail. what they failed to understand is joe biden is the sitting president and he now has that same authority to call -- they called official presidential authority. i beseech joe biden to use this authority to stop donald trump right now by having him removed from the ballot because he is a convicted felon. felons cannot hold federal positions. therefore how can donald trump be on the ballot for the presidency? host: senator kerrey what would

you say? guest: there is an interesting idea. if you asked me to vote on it, i would vote no. i understand why that is being proposed, but i don't think it is ever a good idea to say i know how to solve the problem, i will behave like my opponent's behavior i do not like. no, i do not support the decision the supreme court made, but they made the decision. i think it is going to encourage people to violate the law when they are president of the united states. i don't think it is a good idea, although trump has promised to do it, trump has promised to prosecute joe biden and everyone. i think it is a terrible promise to make. i hope just on that basis he is not elected. host: what are your feelings about trust in the supreme court these days versus the time you served in the senate? guest: we have always had

partisan supreme court we've aln supreme court justices. by that they look at the constitution, they see different things. unreasonable burden is a good example. it was attached to roe v. wade. but the government couldn't put an unreasonable burden on a woman choosing to have an abortion. i look at that and i see something different than in my day justice scalia and he was far more knowledgeable on case law. i thought something different. and i interpreted that differently. it doesn't mean he's a horrible person or that i'm not a horrible person. we just interpreted it differently. what's happened is you've got an organized effort, leading it out saying we want to appoint judges who take an originalist view of the constitution. it's hard to think they're using originalist standard but they

were very simple and they promised to do the same thing if trump gets elected. in 2025 the plan, what's in there is a proposal that trump replace the two older conservative judges with two younger conservative judges and then expand the court. i hear some democrats still proposing to expand the court being too rash by republicans or then get face a republican president if trump gets in was i want to expand so that i can point that becomes unalterable majority. were far better off in my view with the court that sits 5-4 slightly conservative, or slightly liberal. as we had mostly during the 1990's decision saying i don't know. but i can live with it. it's not in a radically alter the face of america.

i think we are feeling that. the argument over and over again. my state of nebraska has two constitutional amendments on the ballot. having to do with abortion. repealing road not settle the issue. >> we often talk about age and the executive branch what about the judicial branch, there's been some calls for an age limits or term limits for members of the supreme court. you support that? guest: no, i do not think it is a good idea. the court has the capacity to basically please itself. let me put it this way. be it more local, if warren buffett was president of the united states right now what i want him to be not allowed to run because people say he's 94 years old and that's too old? no. for warren buffett it's not too old. he may be too old for me but

it's not too old for him. part of the hardship of democracy is we have to decide and sometimes these decisions are difficult. they are not easy to make but we have to make it right now for a variety of reasons in the presidential contest try consider to be in my lifetime at least as important as 1968 which is an election that sent me to vietnam. >> this is max, an independent good morning. max, you are going in and out, give us a call back we will try to fix that line in the meantime -- guest: i can answer a question that i didn't even hear. host: i'll let you have that one next time. in california, republican, good morning. caller: good morning, how are you. good. i often say the same thing over

and over but i would like to ask senator kerry what do you feel about the let's see first of all -- the native american people who were slaughtered and mistreated and taken their land away. do you feel like any of our money should go to repair that wound or if unfinished, un-taking care of thing that we did? and then also for the black people of this nation who gave hundreds of years of slave labor which built the wealth of our country i believe, do you feel like they should get some money? people now living on the streets maybe like where i live and the bay area? host: we will take the question on reparations. guest: reparations is a bit more complicated. it's important for both of us to

acknowledge the tremendous progress that's been made. at least my 20's and 30's in nebraska, didn't even talk about the damage that it been done to the lakota, omaha, tribes and residencies and reservations in nebraska. it was considered to be anathema. couldn't have a conversation about leonard peltier and likewise with slavery. i wasn't really taught in school about slavery. i wasn't taught about reconstruction or jim crow. there were no black students in my high school in lincoln nebraska in the late 50's and early 60's. i think we've made a lot of progress in understanding the terrible things we did including the japanese internment where we did finally get restitution. i think we have to acknowledge it. i don't think we should be self-conscious and feel like

it's terrible and were facing terrible things we've done. that's really one of the strengths of this country's that were willing to acknowledge all were trying to do is make the union more perfect. that's -- people who supported stalin and adolf hitler, we recognize we are imperfect, and the only way to improve the quality of our country is to acknowledge the problems we created with our own policies. slavery was unconscionable. 700,000 men died paid is worse today than ever before? no. we went to war between the north and the south in 1861 and 700,000 men died because we couldn't decide how to resolve the issue of slavery without a war. i heard the heritage foundation guy say we will have a second revolution. that is if the democrats allow

it, the liberals allow it. it's a terrible thing to do to actually push yourself into a war if you can resolve an issue. i think facing the facts of the damage we did with slavery and with reconstruction. we didn't have freedom in america until the civil rights act and the voting rights act, the housing act of 68. i grew up in nebraska and i remember we had a moment where we did really bad things as a consequence of a racist attitude towards blacks. i think it's important that we recognize the damage that's done. are we could have reparations of some kind? i'm not confident at all we can do that. i don't see how you unwind all that. i think it leads to making certain we make an effort to help african-americans get to

college and get good jobs, etc.. as to reparations i've never seen something i could support. host: viewers, leaving new or viewers may not know along with your service in the united states senate you're a of honor winner, how did you end up in vietnam? guest: as with so many things that happened in my life, it was serendipity. i graduated in college finishing a five year program and i got a notice and all of a sudden i was eligible for the draft. i had undisclosed asthma the timing and did not mention it. i just read the caine mutiny and set i want to go to the navy. so i went down to the recruiting office and volunteered for the navy.

if it went to graduate school i could apply for officer candidate school which i did. underwater demolition guys came through and said you ought to join and come to san diego and train. i thought it was warm out there and i can swim pretty good so i went out there. so i went to vietnam. i wasn't there long enough to demonstrate any real capacity. if you went hunting with me it was probably a waste of taxpayer money to send me to vietnam. host: senator bob carry with us for another 20 minutes taking your phone calls. dorothy in michigan. caller: good morning. i have a question. yesterday i watched the u.s. report and smithfield hams is

cutting 350 jobs and john deere is cutting 650 jobs and i believe that was in i/o a. -- in iowa. when president obama was in it seems to me, and i could be wrong, that he gave loans to the ford company and once they got on their feet then they had to pay the government back. i'm wondering why president biden wouldn't think about doing -- helping some of these companies out with loans to get them on their feet and then they could pay them back? i will take my answer offline. guest: i think it's required

everyone in the congress should use the phrase i may be wrong. biden was vice president when that bailout of the auto industry went into effect. the car companies pay them back and are doing well. it's a good demonstration that there are times you can have government intervention that does something good. but it doesn't produce continuous funding of the problem. it was remarkable accomplishment for him to get infrastructure, bipartisan infrastructure and for him to get the chips act back. both of them are spending lots of money, they want to rebuild their downtown and they are going to rebuild their downtown. so there's a lot of evidence

that it's a biden initiative, so i think he would probably be sympathetic to your question especially with the two things i cited. but having the evidence that they paid the loan back as a consequence and secondly the very positive impact of the infrastructure bill and the chips act. >> a story out within the past hour as we've been talking, joe biden with a letter to democrats in congress telling the end talks of him withdrawing from the race saying he's running in this race. if that is the case, do you think he will be able to make the case about things like the chips act and infrastructure act in a second debate. will he get better at this? guest: i don't know, i hope he does because it's a problem. but he should also say i was in the senate when we started to

pay down and get to the point where we could pay down debt. it wasn't easy. spending and tax increases are never easy. especially the goals to keep the economy growing. i hope he comes to the conclusion as he's campaigning we can continue -- all the plan does is it penalizes people who will face this problem once they become eligible either for medicare or social security. it's a horrible problem and he's demonstrated the capacity to solve problems like this and i hope he puts it on his list when he gets reelected. host: this is anthony out of chicago, independent. caller: always glad to be on with you in the morning. i wanted to ask you, i wanted to go back to your commentary about the data. it always kind of strikes me as

a bit condescending when i hear from a former politician who took significant votes during their career in congress, the iraq war vote in the deregulation of wall street before the turn of the millennium there. the two votes that i say over my lifetime contributed the most to the debt that we currently hold. to then turn around and say we need to force austerity on the retirees who are taking an surviving off of social security , surviving off of medicaid and medicare, that that is their assistance, drawing from those pots of funds that they need to tighten their belts while they're already just barely getting by. that they need to tighten their belts, that their benefits are

to large pride we can find the money for it. yet over the course of your career you've made significant votes that contributed to most of the debt. i want to know why it is that the debt is almost become a cudgel that conservatives, fiscal conservatives like to have around so that you can constantly turn around and say that the small benefits people survive off of are the cause for the debt in this country. host: senator kerry. guest: first of all i participated in -- when i was in the senate i cast votes to constrain spending and increase taxes which was very unpopular we were at a point when i left the senate that we were paying down debt. i did not vote on the other things you mentioned but there's no reason for you not to be suspicious of a tired old man who's cautioning us about our debt and our deficit.

it isn't necessary for us to punish the people who are on the retirement program at all. we could increase the reimbursement to more middle-class americans. the average payment is about $1000 a month. that's not enough to support a family. coupled with the decline in the benefit program after the plan was enacted. there is no reason to suspect that there can be shouldering the burden of getting to a point where debt gets paid down. but you can do this with i hope it solves itself or its spending a lot of time. the numbers show it's not sustainable. the numbers show that the do-nothing plan. if we do nothing, in 12 years,

anybody who's a social security beneficiary have a 70% cut in their benefits. i'm not proposing a 17% cut in benefits. 535 members of congress are proposing a 17% cut in benefits. so i don't disagree with you, it's very difficult to find who's really responsible and i will take my share of responsibility. but you cannot take away the simple fact that in 12 years while i was in the senate we brought a 3% deficit to zero. and as a consequence it contributed very possibly to this -- positively to the economy. and the year after i left, we will cut taxes with the same old assumption that cut taxes and revenue will go up. we cut taxes mostly for upper

income and wealthy people, and we started borrowing money again. host: this is alex, a line for republicans, go ahead. caller: i want to talk about biden's illness. the democrats have been covering this up for a long time. donald trump was doing great until covid came. this country was in great shape and then they put biden in the basement. that's why people didn't get to see what he's doing and how he is. he's been sick for a long time and they've been covering this all up. they just went through radio stations the other day and they gave the woman the questions to ask. this is really something that's gone on. big coverups in this country and donald trump the other day said

let's have another debate right away. he called him out. they never want to talk about that, another debate. guest: they have another one scheduled. host: go ahead senator. guest: you can see in joe biden's debate in 2020 when he defeated donald trump he had known the problems he had in the first debate. so it isn't being covered up. and by the way, look at the things former president trump has been saying. do you feel confident he has cognitive ability when he's talked about electric batteries sinking in the water electrocuting you. when he talks about -- he's got plenty of evidence even at 78 beginning to have some difficulty sustaining sentence after sentence after sentence. i don't think it's disqualifying for either of them. i look at what they want to do.

what's the plan coming back. don't tell me something, tell me what you are going to do. i'm not going to cast a vote for donald trump as a consequence of joe biden's debate performance or some conspiracy theory but we've been hiding it. he said i don't walk as well as i use to, i don't speak as clearly as i used to. it's unquestionably true. it happens, but it doesn't produce incompetency or inability to be president of the united states. it makes it somewhat harder to focus on the issues of what biden will do versus what trump will. host: are we just at the point where even if they have those debates on the topics you're talking about the other side just automatically thinks that

that side is lying and vice versa, that we don't expect or even think the other side has any truth in their argument. guest: i love paradoxes were something happened and that confirms it could've gone the other way. what the internet has done, and by the way every single day of my political service was before facebook, instagram, before the cell phone. i may be sort of incompetent to talk but social media but what he gives me is the ability to search and get the facts. the problem is right along with it is the paradox allows me as well to build a conspiracy theory that's based on nothing other than the desire to do damage to someone i don't like. host: a candidate said truth is always more valuable than approval. i want to play clip of that from 1991. [video clip] >> 10 years ago, i asked for

your help in a campaign to be governor of nebraska. i ran for governor because it did not make sense to me that government should avoid the most important issues just because they are controversial. as governor and senator i have tried in all things to never waver in my dedication to do what i believe is right. in government as in life, truth is always more valuable than approval. [applause] once again i come to you and ask will you help me now become the next president of the united states of america. [applause] host: what you think about

listening to that clip? guest: i think it's a demonstration the older you get the smarter you get. i don't look at that saying i wish i was still 50 years old. it is a little embarrassing. [laughter] host: if viewers want to play it again they can do it on our website at c-span.org. guest: i heard an arrogant young man. because it isn't easy. one of my favorite friends in the senate was alan simpson. we did a lot of things together and it was risky for both of us. for george herbert walker bush to support a tax increase which started us on the road to our balancing the budget was brave.

and what did he get for it? he got defeated. these things have consequences. these votes have consequences. sometimes it produces a loss and sometimes it allows you to go on and fight on. but they are not trivial and that's why think it's important thinking about the debt and the deficit, do you support the 70% cut in social security that's the question that needs to be asked to biden and trump. host: this is benny in stockton, california, democrat good morning. caller: good morning. mr. kerry i watched -- i saw these served with distinction, god bless you. i did hear you say you would not support reparations and i would like to ask if you supported payment to the chinese when they

bombed hawaii? did you support giving them reparations? i just want to say a vote for joe biden is a vote for, let harris -- for kamala harris. joe is knocking to make it through, i just don't think he's up for the task. i saw the debate. he even said we defeated medicare. i think joe biden should step aside because he's not up for the task. host: senator kerry. guest: i appreciate that but first of all with the reparations, i haven't seen a proposal i would support. the earlier one that reference, the japanese attacked pearl harbor and they were not given reparations. the people who were given reparations were american

citizens who were incarcerated without any due process in internment camps. again something i didn't learn until much later. in -- fighting in italy and they finally let them in so it was the government to incarcerated american citizens. i will stay open to the questions of reparations, i just haven't seen anything that i consider to be reasonable. it's reasonable for us to say the consequence of slavery and particularly jim crow. i mentioned earlier, probably the best baseball pitcher ever in baseball after 1968 came back to omaha to try and buy a house and he had to go to court to buy

a house in the neighborhood he wanted. there's plenty of reasons to say without necessary getting into reparations. i never feel comfortable hoping somebody doesn't do well if he runs and wins, i'm confident -- i didn't think i would live to be 80 so i believe he's the one that gets to decide whether he's in a run. >> c-span recently sat down with actor george takei who wrote a children's book about the experience as a child, his family being interned. the book called my lost freedom for it that interview on our

c-span program you can watch on c-span.org. let me just give you one or two ideas just one or two more calls. >> i can well remember when you were in the senate. there was competition within the democrats and republicans but you are a fair man and senator. how do we cut out the violence between the two parties and get somewhere back to a civil tone? thank you. host: it's not just -- guest: it's not just in politics, it is everywhere. we now think it's good to behave like a villain, that insults are cool. that they don't hurt. but they do hurt.

and they make it difficult for people. it's not just an important question for politics. i don't have an answer other than the only person i really control is me. anytime i behave like a jerk i hope i have enough self-awareness to say that was a bad thing to do. host: that will be where we end this day on the washington journal. senator bob kerry, former senator from nebraska and cochair of the concorde coalition. we do appreciate your time. host: nice to guest: nice to be with you. host: that's good to do it for us this monday morning. we will be back here tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern. in the meantime have a great day. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024]

>> former national ielligence director john radcliffe leads a discussion on china's role in the covid-19 pandemic. hosted by the heritage foundation in washington dc. watch live today at 10:15 a.m. eastern on c-span. c-span now, our free mile video app or online at c-span.org. both the house and the senate return for businessod, later this week the houseplants to- attempt to override the president's veto revealing an sec current -- cryptocurrency

role. embers hope to work on the giative branch spending bill which provides $1.9 billion for house salaries and expse the u.s. capol police would see more fundi wh an increase tmore than 830 million dollars. in the sate lawmakers will work on judicial nomination. watch live coverage on the house. or follow our congressiona coverage with c-span now, our free mobile video app or online at c-span.org. c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? it's way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with 1000 community centers so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-span as a public service along with thes other television