>> if you ever missed any of c-span's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org videos of key hearings and debates and other events speaker markers that youtube interesting and newsworthy highlights. >> by these companies and others, including mediacom. >> mediacom, coast-to-coast connect 850,000 miles of fiber,

delivered one gig speaks to every customer and have developed a 10 g platform and now with media, mobile, the fastest, most reliable network on the go. decades of delivery and decades ahead. >> mediaco supports c-span as a public service along with these television providersivg you a front row seat to democracy. >> on saturday, and presidential nominee former president donal trump and his vice presidential pi, io senator j.d. vance will hold a campaign rally in grand rapids, michigan. this will be president trump a senator vance's first rally after formerly acceptin the nominations. watch at 5:00 eastern on c-span, c-span now, our free mobile app or online at c-span.org.

host: good morning. it is friday, july 19. the republican national convention wrapped up last night with former president donald trump's speech, accepting the nomination. on the democratic side, president joe biden continues to face mounting pressure to exit the race with both polls and big donors turning away. we are taking your calls on last night's speech or on the pressure on the president to step aside here are the numbers. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. be sure to send in your first name, city, and state. welcome to today's "washington journal." before we get into the two big topics, i wanted to share some

breaking news. this on the new york times, global tech outage grounds flights and hits businesses, airlines, banks, and broadcasters among the companies around the world. they are citing technical issues. there is a massive global technology outage on friday, taking down airlines, medical services, tv broadcasts, banks, and services around the world, an example of the fragile dependence the global economy has uncertain software in the cascading effect it can have when things go wrong. outage was attributed to crowd strike, psych are secure -- a cybersecurity firm that has software to protect against hackers and outside breaches. a software update appeared to be at the root of the problem, resulting in crashes of machines running michael soft windows operating systems. among those tv broadcasters

affected is c-span, so we're going to do our best. we have some systems not working, but thankfully our phones are working, so you can go ahead and call in. let's look at former president trump accepting the nomination for the third time. [video clip] [crowd chanting usa] fmr. pres. trump: thank you very much. thank you very much very much. wow. thank you, dana. thank you, kid rock, sometimes referred to as bob. [laughter] thank you, lee. things from the beginning, thank you very much, what a talent -- thanks from the beginning. friends, delegates, and fellow citizens, i stand before you this evening with the message of

confidence, strength, and hope. four months from now, we will have an incredible victory, and we will begin the four greatest years in the history of our country. [applause] together, we will launch a new era of safety, prosperity, and freedom for citizens of every race, religion, color, and creed . the division in our society must be healed. we must heal it, quickly. as americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. we rise together or we fall apart. i am running to be president for all of america, not half of america, because there is no victory in winning for half of america. so tonight, with faith and

devotion, i proudly accept your nomination for president. [applause] thank you. host: that was from last night. this is a reaction from the biden campaign from thehill.com, biden more determined than ever to beat trump after rnc speech. the biden campaign on thursday ripped the speech as a way for trump to -- there was a statement such to connect trump to project 2025, a controversial policy blueprint from the heritage foundation that trump and his team have aggressively tried to distance themselves from.

this says, tonight, donald trump rambled on for well over an hour and failed to mention project 2025 even once. and we will go to the phones now. this is dwight from georgia, democrat. good morning. caller: hello, can you hear me? host: yes, we can. caller: i have just got one comment. i watched the convention last night, and i really think the republicans are all just catering to donald trump. they just catering to him. then one gentleman introduced him, and when the father came on, you could just tell he was reading something trump had rode for him to say -- had wrote for him to say. he kept looking off and looking down to see what to say. to me, he was not comfortable

with what he was saying because he kept hesitating. my whole thing right now is, democrats, what they need to do, go ahead incident over to kamala harris to be the president -- go ahead and send it over to kamala harris. and then she needs to go on with a vice president, and i think that is the only thing that will save the democrats. because that fence -- vance guy switched over. dick cheney wife, his daughter, said she want to save this country. they republican, people trust both of those. people want to save the country,

they need to turn it over to kamala harris. host: ok, we got that. let's go to michelle from north carolina, independent line. caller: hi, listen, americans need to wake up. trump is not your friend. he wants to destroy this government from the inside-out. biden will keep our freedoms. women have already lost freedoms in this country. blacks have lost voting freedoms in this country. the republicans are trying to suppress. when have you ever seen a person of convicted felon run for public office and somebody follow him? america, wake up. what is wrong with you? and this is all i have to say about it. biden should run and kick is behind.

thank you. host: this is john from new jersey, republican. caller: thank you. as far as the conviction of felonies, it is ridiculous, we all know that. anyhow. harris is the ultimate dei candidate. trump is so good right now, lower taxes, drill baby drill, secure the border, among others. what's wrong with that? host: all right. let's go next to joseph from arizona, independent line. good morning. caller: you said joseph? host: yes. caller: sorry, thank you for

the opportunity to give my input. i want to talk about the way i feel joe biden is being mistreated by his party. he is the -- he gives the democratic party 50 years of loyal service, and now that they feel he might lose, i feel like they are kind of stabbing him in the back and kicking him to the curb. it is kind of reminiscent of "animal farm" with the horse boxer. as soon as he got injured, they sold him to the glue factory. i think that if they are going to do that to people that they -- that gave them 50 years of loyal service, if they are going to treat them like that, then how are they going to treat the rest of us? because they really cannot be trusted, in that sense. host: you are an independent. have you decided how you're going to vote in november? caller: i think biden.

host: and you prefer him not to step aside? you want him to stay on the ticket? caller: i would like to see him stay on the ticket and not be harassed so much by his party. host: all right. joyce is next, pennsylvania, line for democrats. caller: good morning. actually, i agree with joseph about president biden. we are for president biden and kamala harris. and another thing, trump should not even be running. he tried to overthrow the government. we are an embarrassment to the rest of the world. and he comes in white sneakers with the assassination picture. what kind of president does that? and then he wants us to be isolationists so we can be by ourselves. you know, don't have any other

countries aligned with us, with nato. americans need to wake up and just see. i work for the government. he could not even pass a clearance, government clearance. yet, they put us through all the hurdles to go through the clearance. america, wake up. thank you. host: and andrew is in virginia, independent line. caller: good morning. i thought former president trump's speech was more subdued than what it would have been. and i was earlier in the rnc convention, i was shocked that they had amber rhodes speak. that was interesting. my favorite speech was sean o'brien from the teamsters.

he did not necessarily endorse the trump-vance ticket, but he put it out there that he was sort of open to working with both sides. and he also put forth the pro-worker, pro-living wage, pro-benefit message. so he was my favorite speaker of the convention. host: all right, andrew. c-span put this out, and analysis of the length of the excepts to -- of the acceptance speeches, just the republican national convention was going back to 1984 when ronald reagan accepted his party's nomination. this is breaking donald trump's former record, this one in 2024 was 92 minutes long, over an hour and a half. in 2016, he spoke for 75

minutes. in 2020, he spoke for 70. the shortest one in recent history was in 2012 by mitt romney, at 38 minutes. you can see the other ones that are around in our, just under an hour. this one was an hour and a half. getting your reaction to the speech, the style, the policy in the speech, and also the news around president biden and the pressure on him to get off of the democratic ticket. the nuerare on your screen. democrats, (20-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. we will talk next to judy from north carolina, republican line. caller: yes. hi, well, me, personally, i love

donald trump. i want him to be the next president because i think he is going to bring america back. we have had so many gas taxes, groceries, you can't hardly do groceries anymore. what i pay is so high. i think donald trump is the best for president. i don't care what anybody else says. just look around what we have went through ever since biden been in. it has been terrible. poor people doesn't have a chance. i am a separated lady. i am having an awful time keeping my bills paid. i mean, i am for donald trump, 100%, donald trump. host: all right, let's talk to emma, also in north carolina but this time a democrat. caller: good morning. well, my thing is everybody need

to put the car in park. just put it in park for a minute. because when trump came out last night -- i am a democrat -- when trump came out last night, he ducked easy, -- he talked easy, then he got up, got a little higher, got a little higher. ok? then he said he has got a bullet. he is on buses. come on now. we all need to stop right now and get safe. we don't need nothing like that in the white house. i think joe did good. i think joe going to do good. let's just all put this in park right now. host: do you want joe biden to stay on the ticket or do you want him to step aside? caller: i want him to stay on there because i know he done did a good job for america. he never talk trash about it.

he is here to help america. trump is not here to help america. trump is not here to help america. him and j.d. they playing good now, but when they get into that white house, everything going to change people going to think, oh, wow. people need to stop right now, put it in park, hold on. host: let's talk to james from new jersey, a republican. what did you think of the speech last night? caller: i thought the trump gave a great speech. and the longer that he spoke, the more convincing that he was i doubt you are going to see biden on that stage speaking for more than 10 or 15 minutes without stumbling. he may not even make it to the stage.

in this is determining the american people's concept of trump, and i think if the american people are smart enough to see through the clouds, that the democrats are putting up, they tell us that it is a virtual tie in the polls. well, that is a light. trump is way ahead in the polls. or they would not be worried about taking biden off the ticket. if he had any chance of winning, they would not be taking him off the ticket. i believe that trump's speech last night reinforces what i just said. that is all, and i thank you her giving me the opportunity to say that. host: cbs news is reporting this, two senior house democrats believe biden could leave 2024 race in days. the article says, two senior house democrats still cbs news they believe president biden

could leave the 2024 presidential race in three to five days after pressure campaign from top lawmakers in his own party, including senate majority leader chuck schumer and house minority leader hakeem jeffries. the lawmakers did not have insight into the precise timing of such a move. the two house members said the tide has turned, and each day of a decision from mr. biden would be met by more democratic requests to step aside. so far, 22 congressional have called for this. senator jon tester of montana became just the second democratic senator to: mr. budd into dropout, telling the daily montana and that while we appreciate his commitment to public service in our country, i believe president biden should not seek reelection for another term. and next is carl in south carolina, independent line.

caller: good morning. host: what do you think? caller: last night, i normally don't listen to all the speeches. long -- they are really long. this was the same trump. you know, i'm not no big trump fan after he said some things about black people way back and all that. but i do love the way he have the people in his party really cater to him, because they know if you step halfway out of line, he will take them down for life. and then we got a military guy, there is one thing i want to say today though. they did bring out the parents of the people that died at --

[indiscernible] one thing i want to say about that is a lot of people died in the military. not everybody talking about all the people that died in iraq and everything. i talk about the people chopped up. nobody talking about none of them people. and then, ronald reagan, a guy that i voted for, really, when they left lebanon, i believe, it was like 300-some people got killed. nobody talk about them anymore. but -- [indiscernible] small town, want to mention the names of jesse baker and leon salters, they died in vietnam.

everybody knows vietnam was a pitiful war. everybody calling names, they should take time to call everybody who died in wars. does it make no sense. host: all right, carl. kevin is from west virginia, a democrat. caller: hi, good morning. how you doing? host: good. how's it going? caller: i'm good. i have lived in west virginia all my life, and my family has been democrat, always voted democrat. but one thing i can say, i think -- i am a black man 45 years old, and i have never seen any president affect my life more than donald trump has. so when trump was in office, i was able to obtain a good job and live the american dream. and that right there is enough

for me to want to vote and switch from a democratic vote for a republican, vote for donald trump. i think he did a good job, and i am excited if he gets back into office to see how lc can help people like me. thank you. host: bob from tennessee, a republican. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my. call itis a sad situation that the people in this country believes what they hear on tv. going back to thomas dewey, 11 out of the last 12 republican presidential candidates have been referred to or called hitler or hitler-like, except for dwight eisenhower, and of them turned out to be hitler -- host: i don't remember that. caller: it is easy to look up. all you got to do is look it up. host: you are saying mitt

romney, john mccain -- caller: every one going back to thomas dewey, except dwight eisenhower, you can look it up. and democrats talk about saving democracy, what they are trying to do to joe biden is not being fair to the people that voted for him in the primaries. now they are trying to push him out the door. look at the way they did bernie sanders in 2016. tell me about democracy. go ahead, tell me about it. who is more democratic? who is more pro-american and who is anti-american? who is pro-constitution and who is anti-constitution? thank you for taking my call. mostly -- host: all right. let's go to laurie from california, democrat. caller: hi, good morning. [laughs] i almost hate to follow that

guy. i shouldn't say that i have a couple points. i am horrified by trump, absolutely horrified. i did not even watch his speech last night because i can't, i just can't bear it anymore. i heard about it this morning, referring to hannibal lector and all kinds of crazy stuff. but the main thing to me, if he gets elected, he is going to dismantle nato. that breaks my heart. those are our allies since world war ii. we need them, they need us. they will never trust us again. also, trump is going to abandon ukraine, that is quite obvious. and that is heartbreaking. these people have fought really boldly and really bravely for their country. so many lies from the trumpers

about this prosecutor -- it is a lie. they twist it all. so those are my two main things. i did a deep dive in researching because i have a son who is autistic and he gets certain benefits because of that, and i was researching on what to expect if trump gets elected here in california -- he hates california. he is going to attack us. i guess they are worrying that they will do massive medicaid cuts by just doing block grants. only certain people who are most desperate will get medicaid. i think my son will continue to get his disability benefits. but they will cut disability benefits, really gut medicaid. he will say he is not going to

cut social security benefits, but he is. but nato, it will just be terrible when he destroys nato. it will be heartbreaking for ukraine. host: politifact did some fact checking on the speech last night, and you can see that online. here's a couple of them. it says that immigrants "coming from prisons, coming from jails, coming from mental institutions and insane asylums," and they say that is false. when trump said that biden is letting in millions of immigrants in jails and mental institutions, hands-on fire, immigration officials arrested about 103,000 noncitizens with criminal convictions, whether in the u.s. or abroad, from fiscal year 2021 to 2024. that accounts for people stopped

at or between ports of entry. 103,700 noncitizens with criminal convictions. not everyone was let in. the term not us senescent includes people who may have legal status in new york but are not u.s. citizens. -- the term noncitizen. they say despite the data limitations, there is no evidence to support trump's statement. many people in latin american countries face barriers to mental health treatments, so if patients are coming to the u.s., they're probably coming from their homes, not psychiatric hospitals. and raymond is next, colorado, independent line. caller: good morning. first of all, i would like to say that i am 66 years old, at the end of the baby boomer generation. joe biden is definitely too old.

and i watched the donald trump speech, and the one thing that fascinates me about donald trump is, he said this on national television, that he has never made a mistake, he don't need to repent because he has not done anything wrong in his life. we all -- we all are able to repent because jesus died on the cross. remember, people, just because he said god did it does not mean that something evil did not happen. i am not going to insinuate that what happened was mere luck or there is a purpose for it that we don't understand, but i can say this, donald trump's mother, before she passed away, she said on national tv she feared her son if he ever became in public office. and i applaud denise for telling the truth about this man.

so my final joe biden is too old. the baby boomers, who i am a part of, are ruining this country. if joe biden must step down, nancy pelosi must step down. in the minority leader of the republican party should step down. host: mitch mcconnell. caller: yes, mitch mcconnell. and this is my last point. c-span, when people are calling in, you should ask them their age, because age has a lot to do with ideology. and young people should speak up more because we are in terrible times right now. remember, last point, that the earth was destroyed by water because of wickedness and revelations state that the world is going to be destroyed by fire. destroyed by fire. look at all of the heat happening. god does destroy wicked.

it doesn't mean the devil does not save his own. host: got that. here is another portion from last night's speech. this is former president trump discussing the assassination attempt. [video clip] mr. trump: i am not supposed to be here tonight. not supposed to be here. [crowd chanting] thank you. but i'm not. i'll tell you, i stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty god. [applause]

watching reports over the last few days, many people say it was a providential moment. probably was. when i rose, surrounded by secret service, the crowd was confused, because they thought i was dead, and there was great, great sorrow. i could see that on their faces. they didn't know i was looking out. they thought it was over. but i could see it. i wanted to do something to let them know i was ok. i raised my right arm. i looked at the thousands and thousands of people who were restlessly waiting and started shouting "fight, fight, fight." [crowd chanting] thank you.

once my clenched fist went up, and it was high into the air, you've all seen that, the crowd realized i was ok and roared with pride for our country like no crowd i have ever heard before. never heard anything like it. for the rest of my life i will be grateful for the love shown by that giant audience of patriots that stood bravely on that fateful evening in pennsylvania. tragically, the shooter claimed the life of one of our fellow americans. unbelievable person, everybody tells me. unbelievable. seriously wounded two other

great warriors. spoke to them today. david that -- david dutch and james copenhaver, great people. i spoke to all three families of these tremendous people. our love and prayers are with them and always will be. we will never forget them. they came for a great rally. they were serious trumpsters, and still are, but cory unfortunately we have to use the past tense. he was a highly respected former fire chief. respected by everybody. he was accompanied by his wife helen, an incredible woman. i spoke to her today. devastated. two precious daughters. he lost his life selflessly acting as a human shield.

he went right over top of them and was hit. what a fine man he was. [applause] [crowd chanting "cory"] [applause] host: that was a portion of last night's speech. here is the front page of the washington times. trump accepts third gop nomination, reshaped party to attract more voters. the other story we are watching

today is this one. this is the new york times. it says the people close to biden say he appears to accept he may have to leave the race. one person familiar with president biden's thinking cautioned he had not yet made up his mind to leave the race after three weeks of insisting almost nothing would drive him out. you can read that at the new york times. i mentioned earlier that there is a global i.t. outage affecting computers running microsoft windows. we are also affected by that. while we are -- our social media feeds are running, but we unfortunately cannot show you any of those. our phone lines are working. we will go to noel in new york, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning.

my name is donald and i am a retired mortgage backer and i have interesting statistics for this program regarding the democratic policies. host: go ahead. caller: for example, when kennedy became president, at that time the social security trust, which was what it was called, was equal to the 13th largest economy in the world. kennedy borrowed from the trust fund, and never paid back what he borrowed. johnson got in and he turned it into the general fund. as a result, they say social security is going to run out because it turns out it was a ponzi scheme, although we thought it would secure some retirement income. it has been depleted by throwing

it in the general fund, and that is what they are using to support these illegal aliens. that, madame, is wrong. host: got it. this is darlene from new jersey, independent. caller: good morning. i'm a born and raised jersey girl. i'm a born and raised jersey girl, single mom of two, and 24/7 caregiver for my sick mom. i have a few things. one i had to leave a job i was at for 15 years for my mom. there is no help out there for anyone in my position. we see illegal immigrants coming into this country and hitting handed everything. that really is a problem for me. i worked very hard, and i'm just trying to take care of a family member.

my family is from sicily. europe. they came in good. inflation. i don't need social media to tell me the fate of the world or how are our economy is or anything, because i'm living it. i know what my food costs under the current administration. i know the gas in my car costs. lawless land. the threat of a world war iii. i mean, everything is so bad with this current administration. i think donald trump -- last serving as president. i believe he will do an even better job this time because he is seasoned, he knows -- down. i think he really does care about the american people and

this great country of ours. i really believe he will do an exceptional -- if put back into the white house. host: as a democrat, had you voted for -- sorry, you are an independent? caller: basically go with whoever i like at the time. i voted democratic and republican. host: who did you vote for in 2020? caller: donald trump. we have been waiting for donald trump to run for president since the early 90's. i was young, but i felt this man had something special about him. he's smart. he's a businessman. he is not your typical politician, born and bred into it. -- where he is because he is stupid, you know? i think he has had a very tough time in the white house the last

time, because at every turn they always tried to hit him with something. all that adversity, he still managed to do a great job. host: got it, darlene. let's talk to craig in alabama, a democrat. caller: yes, good morning. good morning. thank you for taking my call. i just want to say that all these people -- we need to bring this country together. the best way to start that is to stop lying about the 2020 election. if you could please just tell people when they say that trump won the election, it was a lie. it was not true. these people are trying to put a liar-in-chief into office when it was a lie? why would anyone believe what the conservatives have to say

when they tried to steal my vote? we did not cheat in the 2020 election. if you could please remember, remind these people, that the election was not stolen. trump is not a legitimate candidate because he lied about the election. and stopped the peaceful transfer of power over that lie. i don't know why people don't care about this. i don't know why people don't think this is important. we want integrity in our government, but the conservatives want to put liars in there and call liberals the deep state. how could the liberals be the deep state? thank you for taking my call. host: angela in california, independent line. caller: i am 64 years old, born in louisiana. my uncle used it look for lucky's, and then he retired and moved back to louisiana. he told me when i was 15 that

piggly wiggly, kroger, and all of them would unite as one supermarket. the government just stopped that merger. they will sell off 156 stores. kroger and piggly wiggly out of louisiana will take over the market industry. in louisiana right now, jim crow is taking place. they are segregating in the louisiana. building white-only communities. this is fact. my mother was born on a plantation. we have property there. another thing i want to bring up. how is a convicted felon allowed to be around guns and armored vehicles? and conspiring with another felon? amber rose is a gang member's girlfriend. i have so many concerns here. the democratic party is violating the american disability act, taking a

president, asking him to resign and get off the ticket. that is wrong, people. you are talking about bringing america together. i am married to a mexican-american living in a gated community for 20 years. you people, i don't know what y'all see that this world is in terrible shape if we do not elect the right party to get in that office. host: let's talk to robert in ohio, a democrat. caller: good morning. i would like to know why is it that the former president is always talking about if he was elected during the last cycle we wouldn't have been at war, ukraine and putin would not have been at each other, hamas and

the israelis would not be fighting. what wand is he going to be waving around that is going to change everything? i don't understand that. his tone was lower yesterday, last night, but it was the same message. he didn't change anything. hey was just a little more settled and presenting the rhetoric. that is what i've got to say. i don't think nothing is going to change. i am 82 years old. i was in the marine corps in 1961-1968 during the vietnam era. i have grandkids in the air force now. one is a second lieutenant and the other is an enlisted man. i don't know why they keep talking about the democrats.

when the democrats are in the united states is not as safe as if the republicans was in. i just don't understand all of that. host: a quick update on the outage from "the washington post." major u.s. air carriers ground flights as mass i.t. outage hits windows users. several airlines, including american, united, and delta grounded flights early friday due to a technical issue as mass outages disrupted airports, banks, broadcasters, and businesses around the world. microsoft said that it was aware of an issue running cybersecurity technology from crowdstrike. the issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed according to the crowdstrike ceo. american airlines said that it was able to safely reestablish operations. patrick is next.

north carolina, republican, good morning. let's see. wait. sorry. patrick, is that you? ok, let's go to rhonda in new jersey, a democrat, good morning. caller: hi, good morning, america. oh, my god. do we have the drama going on this election? i have never been so terrified in my life. after reading project 2025, and donald trump standing on the world stage talking about massive deportations and concentration camps in the

united states of america. wake up, america. this man is doing the hitler playbook. i don't care what anybody says. this is exactly how it started, with mass deportations. leaving kids abandoned in schools and their parents not knowing where they are. if you are bi-racial you are being locked up if you are jogging. host: james in south carolina, republican. caller: yes, ma'am, thank you for taking my call. it has been a few minutes, but a lady earlier said, let's put it in park. let's back up to trump just a second. as un-american and as a conservative. before i am a conservative i am an american. i voted democrat before when i thought they were qualified. i'm tired of the persecution of donald trump. let's back up and talk about joe biden. this is a man who claims that he

was raised in the black church. he also claims that he was a lifeguard in the projects. yet, we have a video of him on the senate floor talking about he is against desegregation and busing because he did not want his kids to go to school in a racial jungle. i don't appreciate being called a racist from a bigot. we have one more chance in this country. the enemies are not at the gates, they are in the wire. a lot of that enemy is in our government. donald trump is not a perfect man. we are all sinners. but people can change. i've lived a life and i have an overseas, i have been to normandy, i've seen the field with the crosses. it is appalling. i have been to the concentration camps. i'm telling you as an 11-year-old child standing in front of one of those ovens -- we know that children had a mind

different than adults. i swear to god, i could smell the stink. that has stayed with me my whole life. nothing disgusts me more than the democrat party calling everyone who doesn't agree with them a racist. host: james, you said you believe donald trump is not a perfect man and people can change. do you see any indication he has changed? maybe over the last 3.5 years that he has been out of office or since the assassination attempt? caller: i'm sure that donald trump has learned quite a bit. this is a man who has been in the business world. i hear the media talk about all of that he has filed for bankruptcy seven times. in america, when you get knocked down you get back up.

when you get knocked down, you have to grab yourself by the bootstraps and make a simple decision. do i want to live or die? that is what it comes down to. i will break bread with anybody, but let's look at what this democratic party has done to us. they have no message. they have no good policy. what is wrong with putting america first? what is wrong with keeping the united states out of war? what is wrong with asking nato to pay their fair share? host: james, i have to move on to iris in alabama, an independent. caller: good morning. thank you so much for c-span. just let it roll off you what they say about y'all. you are doing a great job. i wanted to get that in. the other thing is abortion is not the first thing we need to be worried about. our defense department is the first thing to be worried about.

if a mother wants to get rid of a child, throw it in the dumpster, they are going to do it. that is between her and god. the other thing is people are coming across the border with fentanyl. i personally know several people who has died, their children have died from fentanyl overdose. we could have gotten this board situation settled presidents ago. call it ppp. that is exactly what it is. we are at war with the cartel. we have got to cut off the head of the snake. it has got to be done. for the people coming over here, the fentanyl coming over here, whatever, it has to be done. another thing i wanted to bring up is, i am not going to vote for either party. i'm going to have a right -- a write in. i see why taxes had to go up.

look at the natural disasters, fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, you name it it has just about happened since he has been in there. they are called epic and catastrophic. i never remembered those words as a child when a tornado or hurricane came. it never happened before. hundreds of years this hasn't happened. volcanoes, even. host: iris, do you know who you will write in? caller: i am not sure yet. i'm not sure if biden will step aside. i do not want donald trump in there. i've seen the division in the country myself. i know friends who do not speak one another. i know family members who do not speak to one another simply because of politics. i am not one of those people. i believe in debating amongst one another and trying to talk it out. you might learn something if you listen to one another, you know? host: that is what we are trying

to do, listen to one another. jimmy in new jersey, republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. i seriously don't know what all these democrats see or what kool-aid they are drinking and cannot see how much better things were when trump was in office. everything -- you go to walmart, get your groceries, everybody sees that the prices are doubled. the roads are falling apart, beating our cars to death. why is it ok with them to want to give trillions of dollars to other countries and not spend it here? fix our roads, help our elderly, help the homeless veterans. i could go on and on. we have tons of oil underneath us and we are buying oil from other countries and shipping it over here for gasoline.

what sense does that make? trump 2024. save this country before it is too late. make the senseless wars, they are dying over senseless wars, why are we worried about other country's problems when we have our own problems? trillions of dollars being shipped to other countries when we need it here first. i don't see how anybody can say that they don't want trump in here. host: jimmy, let's look at what the new york post is saying. it says trump vows incomes will skyrocket, inflation will vanish in his second term. he said, the federal reserve would bring down interest rates in a possible second term. the 78-year-old former president laid out his economic plan, including the elimination of taxes on tips and

tariffs on other countries. do you believe that? that incomes will skyrocket and inflation will vanish? caller: definitely. number one biggest reason, costs went up and people are -- i don't want to say too stupid to see. we have millions, not thousands, millions of people who have came across this border now because joe biden's administration has let the borders, let the wall down and let them flood in our votes. guess what -- host: let's go to michelle, a democrat in virginia. good morning, michelle. caller: thank you for taking my call. i never had any problem with republicans, democrats, independent. i felt like last night donald

trump doubled down on the black jobs. i don't understand what his thinking is that immigrants are coming over taking black or hispanic jobs. so, he is a racist. that is where my confliction is. i don't see where people just overlook that. that is all i got to say. host: this is more from who was fact checking the speech last night. one thing he said about the jobs that are created under biden, "107% of those jobs are taken by illegal aliens." politicafact rates that as mostly false.

the biden years are painted as being better for foreign-born workers, but that is wrong. the number of foreign-born americans employed has risen by about 5.6 million. over the same time the number of nativeborn americans employed has increased by almost seven point 4 million. unemployment rate for nativeborn workers under biden is comparable to the final two free pandemic years of the trump presidency. next, carol, independent line. good morning, carol. caller: i don't particularly care for the personalities of either biden or trump. i'm not voting on a personality.

i'm voting on policies. i like the republican policies. because they are putting america first. they are putting the people of america first. it's not white people, asian people, or any people of color. it is not anybody, it is everybody. we are not putting the boxes, what i call the boxes. the difference in the policy. the democrats' policies, everybody has to be in a certain box. i'm not understanding how they are growing if everybody has to be in a box. if you have to be judged on your gender, your race, whatever. as far as the fact checking goes, i love the way that everything trump says is fact

checked by every media, but nothing that biden says is the fact checked. i am upset and disappointed, because if i was going to vote democrat or republican, now that it is coming up, just my point of view, that in 2020, when i voted for joe biden, ok, they knew, the elites and establishment, if they knew that he had the early signs of dementia then, i was lied to. i was lied to. now, because i voted in the primary and wanted him as my pick, now they are telling me

he's not going to be reelected. now, we have to slide someone else in there. that is not who i voted for. i would feel the same way when they tried to take trump off the ballot. that's wrong. wrong. host: got it. that will be our last call for this segment, but more to come. we are focused for the next two hours on campaign 2024. lots of opportunities to get your reaction to the rnc, the acceptance speech last night, and the calls for president biden to step off of the democratic ticket. after the break, two political commentators join us to talk about the former president's acceptance speech and our current president's political trouble. first nationally syndicated

columnist cal thomas, and the editor of nation, d.d. guttenplan. we will be right back. ♪ announcer: on saturday,020 four republican presidential nominee former president donald trump and his vice presidential pick, ohio senator j.d. vance, will hold a campaign rally in grand rapids, michigan. this will be their first rally after officiallyccting the nominations. tc live starting at 5:00 p.m. eastern on-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. announcer: if you miss any of c-span's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights.

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with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back to "washington journal." we are with you until 10:00 a.m. eastern, as usual. joining us is cal thomas, a syndicated columnist. he is joining by phone because of the computer problems affecting microsoft windows users. welcome to the program. guest: in the spirit of the age, we need to find someone to blame for this outage. let's blame either the republicans, the democrats, the russians or the chinese. there has to be someone that we can blame for this. [laughter] host: your latest column earlier this week, you said former president trump had a golden opportunity to lower the political temperature. how do you think he did last night? guest: i think the first

30 minutes, as "the wall street journal" lead editorial points out today, in the online version, i think that the first 30 minutes were very good. he talked about he wants to be president of all, not half of america. that was a good line. he said no victory is in half of america. i felt the hand of god on my side. that will appeal to the evangelicals, the franklin graham types who are doubtful about his faith. some people have expressed that. i think that he hit a lot of right notes. but then he went off script and devolved into what sounded like to a lot of us a stump speech. he brought up the so-called stolen election and some other things. i think the whole thing was too long. shakespeare wrote in hamlet "brevity is the soul of wit." eric trump went on for too long. hulk hogan was a nice feature, but he went on for too long too.

the former president had 93 minutes, the longest acceptance speech in the history of acceptance speeches. a lot of people went to bed, on the east coast anyway. that included me. host: do you get a sense that his worldview has changed in any way as a result of the assassination attempt? guest: he was certainly more moderate in his voice. you could tell that from the last few nights when he was sitting with his family. he didn't have the bragga docious look that is familiar to many people. you can't go through that and not be changed in some way. he mentioned if the bullet went another inch towards his brain he wouldn't be there. i thought that there were a good showbiz techniques with his name lit up in lights. that was cool. then he had the pictures in the background. overall, in the end, i don't

think that the speech was memorable for any great lines other than the one that i mentioned about being president of half of america is not really a victory. presidents have talked about unity going back to nixon. he recalled a sign that a little girl was holding along the side of the road saying "bring us together." we have deep ideological, economic, and other things that divide us in the country. it out to be less about the idea of unity and more about the idea of winning election. he says he is going to bring down inflation. the only way to bring down inflation is reduce the debt. we have a $34 trillion debt. he added to it. biden added to it. bill clinton was the last president to balance the budget, of all things. we have been going deeper in debt ever since. that is the primary cause of high gas prices, high food prices, mortgage rates, these other things. he won't say how he will bring down the debt because that will

require reforms in social security and medicare, the biggest drivers of the debt. you have to be honest with people. secondly, one of the reasons people are frustrated is because they are asking too much of government and to little of themselves. i remember a great line from barbara bush who said, it matters more what happens in your house than what happens in the white house. government cannot make my life better. that is up to me. government should be a last resort not a first resource. republicans and democrats fail us when they don't try to empower the idea of the individual rather than the collective. host: we will take your calls for syndicated columnist cal thomas who will be with us for the next 10 to 15 minutes. i am sorry that we cannot bring you his video. we are working on that. that is part of the global outage. our phone lines are working. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001.

independents, (202) 748-8002. cal, what did you think of mr. trump's choice for running mate, senator vance? guest: to be frank, i finally watched "hillbilly elegy" the movie. i think glenn close was fantastic. i even liked amy adams playing against type. i'm not that impressed by him. a lot of people say the hardscrabble, he grew up dirt poor. a lot of people grew up dirt poor. clarence thomas grew up dirt poor but he didn't get any credit for that. we will see. he is new on the national scene. he will have to develop his bona fides over now and the next election. he has a personal story with a lovely wife with three kids. he looks good on tv. we'll see.

he is new to the national stage. it will take a while to get used to it. host: some people in the media are calling senator vance "the maga heir apparent." do you think that's true? guest: trump suggested that. i remember jfk's line in his inaugural address in 1961. the torch has been passed to a new generation. that has become a cliche now. but when you have an 81-year-old versus a 78-year-old, and you have world war ii era candidates in the past. bob dole for example. it is time to pass it to a new generation. we need 40 or 50 something new blood. vance, depending on how he plays his cards, is the future of the republican party or certainly his age group and worldview is. host: anna in connecticut, democrat. caller: thank you, mimi.

good morning. donald trump did not ever, ever tell how he would do anything. the democrats should have a million-dollar march to the polls. trusted democrat voters. i don't think if the president did win, biden, the down ballots wouldn't lose. they could lose anyway even if the president wins. one more thing. i am thinking about a democratic president. this is a question for the guest. a democratic president, a republican house and republican senate, it could be a good thing. that would make them learn how to compromise if they wanted to get something passed and not vetoed by the president so they are working together. thank you. guest: all presidents and

candidates make promises, many of which they don't keep for a number of reasons. they don't have the majority of the party of the house and senate or the poll numbers or they have to figure in political factors. i think the caller is right to appoint. he's -- right to a point. he says he is going to do these things, but you can't do it without reforming social security and medicare. everyone knows they are going to run out of money. it is not a partisan issue. they have known it for years. yet, no one wants to touch it because look what they did to paul ryan. they made the commercial of a paul ryan look-alike pushing an old lady in a wheelchair over a cliff. that is pure, raw politics. these are generalities. the democrats are going to do the same thing no matter who they nominate, which i'm sure you will get into deeper with

the other columnist. host: cal, she mentioned divided government would promote compromise. do you agree with that? guest: sometimes it does, but we have had divided government before and we have had it during the first trump administration. we have had it when democrats have been president. i think the greatest example working together across party lines was welfare reform with bill clinton and newt gingrich. that was an astounding thing. host: that is the last time there was compromise? that was a long time ago. guest: of any great significance, yes. then you had the personal relationship between ronald reagan and tip o'neill, two irishmen who would fight it out during the day and work it out at night over drinks at the white house. those things, especially in the social media era, are few and far between. if you say that you are democrat

and have dinner with a republican, someone will take a picture with their cell phone and put it on a website and accuse one or the other or both of compromising. the hate and vitriol is stronger than the desire for the solution to problems. the solutions are there. we are not talking about a cure for all forms of cancer. we are talking about economic cures, foreign policy cures, they are obvious. but people would rather have the issue than the solution. if you actually solve a problem, you no longer have the issue. isn't that cynical? host: let's talk to joseph in maine on the independent line. joseph? no? caller: hello? host: go ahead. caller: hi, cal. isn't that a wonderful thought you just had? if you don't fix the problem that's a good thing?

that is ridiculous, but let's get back to facts. donald trump put $8 trillion worth of debt that went to the 1%. 80% went right to equity to elon musk and all of the millionaires. let me ask you something, cal. do you have all of these heritage folks come on, and they can't tell you who signs their checks. who signs your checks? guest: i don't get a check, i get direct deposits. it is my syndicate, tribune. i don't work for any organization. i don't get any third party renumeration. my ideas are my own. i am not paid to say or not say anything. i have been a journalist all my life. next question. caller: you are a liar. you come on -- guest: we don't tolerate name-calling. if you have an issue, say it to

me but don't call me a liar. are you saying that i get paychecks from other people? can you prove that? because it is not true. host: i agree, we don't take personally -- personal attacks on the guests, stick to the issues. arizona, a republican. eric? hi, eric. caller: can you hear me? host: yes. caller: i am craig in tucson, arizona. a hospital in northwest tucson. i am worried about my health care and stuff. i can't afford this thing laying in the hospital. i don't know what i'm going to do. host: cal, your comments on health care? guest: i think -- i had property

once in the u.k. and have seen how the nhs-run health care runs. for minor things it works well. major things, not so much. people expect things from the government that the government cannot deliver. our first obligation is to take care of ourselves. eat right, exercise, don't put substances in your body that it was not made for. after that, if you acquire something like cancer or some other disease and you don't have proper insurance -- obamacare was supposed to make health insurance affordable for everybody, you can still get it -- then i think the government has a role to play. if you start with government, you look at how little government achieves, you are putting your faith in a false god. host: do you think obamacare should be repealed? guest: i don't know.

i think people should have the choice. if they choose that, if they cannot get private insurance, if they cannot get help in some other way, if that is the only way that they can get insurance, go ahead and keep it. i think what we need to see is whether a program works. i have advocated for years that we have an independent agency come in from outside with no skin in the game and do a top to bottom audit of the federal government. the government continues to grow, money continues to be wasted. reagan said, the only proof of eternal life in washington is a government program. it is easier to kill a vampire than a government program. it doesn't matter if it succeeds or not. it is like the department of education. look how far behind we are in math, science, and reading from many other countries. the department of education goes on.

reagan tried to kill it and congress wouldn't allow it. we need to recalibrate the federal government and get rid of stuff that isn't working. host: let's talk to gilbert in ohio. independent line. caller: good morning. how are you doing? i was listening, and i had to quit my job. i think it was around 73 or 74. they tried to get me into all kinds of social programs. tell me, you have to do this or we will cut you off and all that good stuff. i had my health and i had health insurance from my work at ups. now, later on i got covid. everything fell apart. i mean, everything. the only thing that saved me was

the health program from the government. this gentleman that you have on had a lot of good facts, but we should all remember that during trump's presidency he got rid of a lot of social programs that help people. one of the programs that help people was the disease committee for infectious disease overseas. they were doing the inspection of different things. he got rid of that. he got rid of respirators and everything else. host: let's get a response. guest: he didn't get rid of respirators. i remember one comment after another when he was with dr. fauci in the press room talking about turning out

respirators for people who need them. i don't know what the gentleman means by disease committee. i've never heard of that. i don't know how that affects your own health problems, a disease committee overseas. host: it might be the pandemic preparedness task force that was done away with. that might be what he is talking about. i'm not sure. guest: everyone was blindsided by covid. there were a lot of people who were making statements that were not true coming out of the cdc. dr. fauci was making statements, you don't need a mask, you do need a mask. if you get the vaccine you will be protected. then, there is no guarantee you will be protected after you get the vaccine. we saw a lot of people getting covid after they got the vaccine. this is one of the things in my view that has reduced the credibility in the minds of a lot of people of the truthfulness of the federal government. host: what do you make of the conversations around the

pressure on president biden to step down from the democratic ticket? guest: well, it is pretty amazing. when you hear about all of these leaks from nancy pelosi to adam schiff to hakeem jeffries, and now even former president obama, i think it's going to happen. i have known people who have had cognitive issues. whether it be alzheimer's or other forms of dementia. it is extremely sad. i don't wish the president ill and i'm not rejoicing over this. it is very sad for him and his family. but to prop him up like this and put him in interviews where he is not comfortable and makes mistakes and adds to the image of his decline is a form of elder abuse. it is very, very sad. host: to wrap up, who do you think on the democratic side would pose the biggest challenge to former president trump? guest: well, it is early. anything could change and

probably will. you know the names. one of the real problems for the democrats is you have vice president harris, a woman of color as they say, and she is going to think she is the natural successor. she certainly would be constitutionally if anything had happened to the president or the 25th amendment was invoked. you have governor witmer, i think you can forget gavin newsom, but harris' approval numbers are worse than president biden's according to some polls. you're talking about is not primary. this will be difficult for the democrats. there is no guarantee that one party should remain in control forever. i like something that trump said some years ago to an african-american audience. why do you continue to vote for these people? what have they done for you? your cities, your schools are a mess. people are ready for a change again. a lot can happen between now and november and probably will.

host: cal thomas is a syndicated columnist. you can find his writing at calthomas.com. thank you for joining us. we will cont to take your calls on elect 2024, y reaction to president -- former president trumps speech, also about news regarding drop out of the race. biden to the numbers are, democrats, 748-8000. (202) 748-8001 if you are a republican. (202) 748-8002 if you are an independent. robert in indiana, republican, good morning. [dialtone] host: robert is gone. let's go to washington, d.c., independent. caller: how are you, happy friday. host: happy friday to you. caller: appreciate it.

your guest was talking about reagan and reaganomics, trickle down, hoo doo economics, caused more harm in this nation based on the fact that it widened the financial gap between the wealthy and the less wealthy. i wanted to comment on the earlier thing. dave from texas said yesterday in regards to us all being together. that he wishes black people would say that we are american blacks. black is not a race, it is a color. it doesn't exist in other countries because they have a culture and nationality and ethnicity. here black is black and white is white because of how the nation was formed. this is the first nation to practice democracy and tyranny simultaneously. that said, i have listened to some of the other callers, but

even the behavior, particularly on the maga, not the republicans, the maga. i'm not sure if you covered it, but last week they have been identifying the remains of people who were killed during the tulsa massacre in 1921. the first person identified was a black soldier in world war i. i'm not sure if c-span covered this, but thank him for his service. these people today reflect their ancestors in this country. it is a dangerous rhetoric. unfortunately, we don't have a lot of options and opportunities, especially for people of color. host: thank you. jay is a republican in new jersey. caller: good morning. i heard you ask someone if you think what trump said about the policies, the changes in the first two years will help the

economy and inflation. i believe it's going to work, because we are paying right now for illegal immigrants. for their health care, for their food, for them to have a phone, for them to have a hotel stay. i believe you should be able to come into this country, but it has to be legally because it messes up the economy when you have to pay for everything for free. they get wic, they get food stamps, and they continue to work under the table which hurts the taxpayers. host: what cal thomas was saying was the only way to change it is to bring down the debt. it is not the spending. it is really social security. illegal immigrants don't get social security. what do you think about that? caller: well, you know, what happens is that i don't know if

you are aware of this -- unfortunately, a lot of the money doesn't get spent here that they make in their under the table jobs. they send it back to their country because it is a bigger ratio. 20th-something pesos one dollar. they help their family. the money they're making doesn't even get spent here. it hurts our country all over the place. not just with that -- host: would you be willing to have cuts to social security to fix or improve the deficit? no? caller: no, i don't think you should have to make any cuts to social security. if anything, it needs to be lowered. 702i believe is the going age right now. it keeps going up. something needs to be done about that. half of the time people die, and the government gets to keep

that. i think that needs to be changed and lowered. i don't think they need to do any of that. if you have trillions of dollars to help other countries, help the older people on social security. i had a neighbor who was 90 years old. ham and his wife lived on social security -- him and his wife lived on social security. he worked at a grocery store all his life. back then you could support a family of six. his wife was a stay-at-home mother. they lived off of ssi and with the high prices they struggled. by the time that they bought their medicine and a little bit of groceries, they had no more money left over. you mean to tell me that you can't help somebody who helped raise us? host: got it. let's go to michael in kansas, independent-minded. caller: hello, this is michael in kansas. how are you? host: hello, michael in kansas. how are you? caller: i am doing

caller: i am doing good. i would tell everybody who does not support trump to read revelation 13. i also believe biden should drop out, personally. host: who would you like to see at the top of the ticket? caller: i would like to see maybe kamala, maybe someone else , from somewhere else, but not donald trump or president biden. host: william is in ohio on the line for democrats. william? caller: good to talk to you this morning. i am just a true hillbilly. just a dumb 89-year-old hillbilly. i worked all of my life, started working when i was 12 years old. i worked until i was 77. cal, i think i am entitled to my

social security. my lovely mother and father both got killed and died before they were able to collect. but they paid in all their lives. just like anything else to do with he give-erment. you have crooks and lobbyists. i am just a dumb 89-year-old hillbilly, and i am proud to say that i wrote a book. i do not publicize it like the guy from middletown. it is called "group usa -- "broke usa." go to the library and get it. pay close attention to chapter one, "tommy's angel." well, i am tommy. i feel sorry for my nine lovely

grandkids. they will not stand a chance to survive because our crooks and politicians in the give-erment. host: jess is on the line for republicans. caller: yes. i have a question not talked about enough. what is the deal on all of these illegals being able to vote? why is this not front and center? host: it is not legal for a non-u.s. citizen to vote in a u.s. election. caller: ok. is the democrats trying to get them to where they can vote before the election? is that going on as we speak? host: there is no legislation right now trying to allow non-u.s. citizens to vote in the next election. caller: ok. a lot of these laws, i hear

things. i don't know what is fact or fiction. all of this early mail-in ballots, have any of these laws changed since 2020? host: that all happens at the state level. each state determines their election policies. some states have early voting. some states have mail-in voting. some states continue to count ballots after election day if they have been postmarked by election day. it really depends on the state. caller: ok, say i live in a republican state, or a democrat state, either one. host: ok. caller: the people at the top aside, i know, let's rig it to where our side is going to win no matter what. how do you find that?

host: rigging election, you use that word, that is not legal. but i guess if the state legislature were to vote on for instance early voting and you were against that, that would go to your state representative. does that make sense? caller: yes, it does. my gut tells me there is a lot of stuff going to be going on. i have always voted republican my whole life. but ever since the election of 2020, i got so that night as to what i was seeing and hearing that i unregistered. i said to heck with it. i just want to see how this goes because i have a bad feeling some stuff is going to go down. host: all right. we will build next to alicia in oregon, independent line. caller: thank you very much for

having me. i have seen a lot of politicians in my life. what is going on right now with donald trump being shot and how convenient that boy was shot and they knew that he was there and somebody was nearby to do it so nobody could question, and then for biden to have covid-19. now they have him already dead because they are putting harris in his spot should he die. really? is this a new politician trick? feel sorry for me here, feel sorry for him there. they are doing pretty good. the doctor nearly killed my mother at humana hospital. host: we do have breaking news from "the wall street journal."

we want to share that with you. he has been sentenced to 16 years in russian prison after wrongful conviction. sentencing came after a secret trial the u.s. condemned as a sham. that is at "the wall street journal" if you would like to look at that. jerome? caller: how are you doing? host: i am doing ok. caller: what is the topic? the speech from last night, mr. trump's acceptance and also presid biden being put under pressure to drop out of the race. call you know what? i have been a democrat all of my mainly. i even registered to vote wh i was 17. i was turning 18 the following month. right now, i do ow who i

am going to vote for because bothties talk about a plan with they do not say what -- talk about a plan but they do not say what they are going to do. the democrat side are fighting each other. they do not know who they want to be the nominee for the democrats. i am just going to wait it out and see what happens. if either one of them can come up with a plan -- host: is there somebody would like to see at the top of the democratic ticket -- is there somebody you would like to see at the top of the democratic ticket? caller: i would like to see kamala on there not think america is ready for an african

american woman to be president. you have this populist country, right? they do not like women to be in charge. they still have an old boy way of thinking. thank you for taking my question. host: we are continuing to take your calls on the two big issues of the day which is the rnc wrapping up yesterday with former president trump's acceptance speech and the growing pressure on president biden to drop out of the race. the numbers are for democrats, 202-748-8000, republicans, 202-748-8001, and independents 202-748-8002. here is the headline. it says when biden pitched himself as a bridge candidate to

a younger generation of leaders in 2020, they believed him. there is an entire generation standing behind me, standing next to governor gretchen whitmer and cory booker any campaign rally in detroit in march of that year. that is 2020. "they are the future of this country." getting your reaction to that and taking your calls. randy in wisconsin, a republican, you are next. caller: morning, everybody. host: good morning. caller: two questions. number one, you talked about it a little earlier. project 2025 is by the heritage foundation, not president trump. on joe biden, me being a strong conservative, i hope biden stays

in. help him along and help him stay in. if they kick him out or he resigns, vice president kamala harris will not get the campaign funds. if they do not have kamala in there and jill drop out, nobody gets those funds -- and joe drops out, nobody gets those funds. they are in a world of hurt their. one last thing. social security was started by roosevelt. it is our money. it is not the government's. the government have been robbing the social security fund forever. lyndon johnson is the one that started it. it is turning out to be nothing but a big ponzi scheme the way the government is taking our social security.

i feed into social security and medicare just about all my life. host: i have a question going back to the election. you said you would want to see president biden stay on the ticket because you think former president trump would beat him. who do you think as a conservative would be the strongest candidate going against former president trump? caller: oh, golly. i thought a lot about that. you can probably get minority leader cory booker. host: wait, minority leader hakeem jeffries? caller: yes, excuse me. it will take a strong democrat that is well known. who would that be? chuck schumer is not going to run.

elizabeth warren is not going to run. who would it be that the rest of the country knows? democrats have put themselves in a bad position. host: let's talk to mary jane in massachusetts, independent. caller: good morning. in my time, politics have changed greatly. he has said make america great again stated he would be a dictator. he would eliminate those who oppose him. he filled the supreme court with his appointments who absolved him of the indictments. another senator has received his prison sentence. he would eliminate social security, medicare and medicaid,

the right to choose. he would continue to give tax cuts to the high income but not the low. this is not the president i would want. who would want to isolate the united states from nato and other countries and leave others to the mercy of russia who would seek to conquer our own country. we are a nation desiring peace left caring for those who are left fortunate. the former president is not the one to become president again for he would continue to withdraw given freedoms guaranteed by our constitution. i pray that god will protect our country from him. host: all right.

michelle is in north carolina and a democrat. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i'm calling about trump. trump has not changed. he is still doing that. it was in him. he got all of his speakers to do the bad talking, which they did, so he did not have to. but people got to remember what he has done and what he said he was going to do. he said if he loses, it will be a bloodbath. he means just that. leave president biden alone! host: frank from connecticut, republican line, good morning, frank. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, cap -- caller: taxes going up for the rich and tariffs are the

worst economic problem. they would both increase. if you think inflation is bad now, you start a tariff war, all products coming into the united states are going to go up! number two, to fix social security, all you have to do is take away the [indiscernible] and make it so the government has to vote every year on how much rates people will get. you do not want to give someone getting $3000 a 10% increase in someone getting $250 a 10% increase. it does not make sense! number three. the person that should run for the democrats should be michelle obama, for two reasons. a, she is smart. b, she has been in the white house eight years already. c, she would have a president at

her elbow every day advising her. it is a no lose situation! host: all right, got it. we will continue to take your calls until the end of the program on campaign 2024. we will take a quick break and get another perspective on the political news of the past 24 hours with d.d. guttenplan, editor of "the nation" magazine." stay with us and we will be right back after this break. >> on saturday, republican nominee former president tmp and j.d. vance will hold a campaignal in grand rapids, miig this will be their fit rally after officially watch live starting at 5:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span, c-sp,

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followed by yawn, followed by yawn. it reminded me of fidel castro. i was in milwaukee. everything republican said was partly designed to troll the democrats. you have a president that may be ill and not capable of the rigors of campaigning and then you stand trump up and he talks for 90 minutes, it is like passing an endurance test. in terms of specifics, it was two speeches. there was the speech he gave the first 20 minutes about getting shot, how it affected him. that was an effective speech. even if you are not a trump sympathizer, it was an effective speech.

but it was then devolved into his standard stump speech with a series of hits from his standard stump speech. the theme of the first part was i was deeply affected and i want to unify the country, and i want to run as a president for everybody. the second was we are still going to get you and we know where you live. it was disjointed and rambling. frankly, if president biden had given it, it would accelerate calls to resign. it was basically a mess. it does not seem to matter every single line even though they have heard it before. host: we will get to the call for president biden to step aside. sticking with the rnc, any other speeches throughout the four days that stuck out to you or any moments that stuck out to you? guest: yeah, the most effective

speech i heard at the convention was by marco rubio. that was almost a compassionate conservative. a lot of what they were doing during the convention, and i have to say this was very well done for the most part, was to detoxify the republican brand or turn maga from a fear, hate, and loathing emblem at least for those of us on the coast to your uncle with weird views at thanksgiving. marco rubio's speech was about putting america first. there's nothing terrible about that, it is what you would want from anyone. you would put the people you care about most first and then american politics would care most about america. i think that is a narrow view. but rubio delivered it in a convincing and relatable way.

when i watched it, i wondered if trump was feeling sorry he picked vance instead of rubio. but then i saw vance's speech and it was a guided missile aimed at michigan, wisconsin, and ohio and pennsylvania voters which is to save three swing states of the industrial midwest. it was all about his life story which was coming from a place where the austrian list -- deindustrialization hollowed out his hometown and left his mother addicted and unable to care for him, but also about how much people are hurting and left behind parts of the country and how much of that hurt was better off by the deindustrialization after clinton embraced nafta. it was a speech i heard senator

brown delivered several times, and brown's was more honest. this was a speech joe biden could not deliver because joe biden voted for nafta. when he said they send our sons and daughters off to fight foreign wars and pay the price, again, biden voted for the iraq war so that is not a speech he could deliver. it is a speech that will resonate with a lot of swing state voters. i thought that was a memorable and frankly frightening speech. i don't mean because he said frightening things. it seems by picking someone that could deliver that speech, republicans have made their chance of victory in december much more likely. host: what you think of senator vance's policies? he has been criticized for his stance on certain social topics, for stance on ukraine. what are your thoughts on that?

guest: he is an isolationist. he is not someone who waivers on a woman's right to control her fertility. he was one of -- he is one of these no exceptions for rape and incest people. i find that insane and repulsive. for those of us who have universes -- uteruses or have family members with them, it will get a lot of democrats out to vote. i think that is not everybody's main issue. it is the main issue for some people. in states where it has been on the ballot, it has helped democratic turnout even in places like kansas that we think of as a solidly red state. it is not i am a fan of any of his positions except for

domestic manufacturing. you wonder how sincere a guy is that takes money from and is basically sponsored by peter thiel who founded paypal and runs palantir and has nothing to do with manufacturing goods for americans. it is all about software and ai. those are not jobs that will come to the ohio river valley. those are silicon valley jobs that will keep the money in silicon valley and new york banks. vance talks about wall street, but he is a creature of the oligarchy. he is a creature of the silicon valley oligarchy. in terms of his policies, i do not think they will have wide appeal. if elections were decided on policies, president biden would be easily 10 points ahead. we have an economy more successful than any economy in

the world post-covid. he has ended the war in afghanistan. we are engaged in supporting ukraine and israel, and those are policies that are controversial. but there's not a major commitment of american troops in any war at the moment. prices are starting to come down. if elections were about policies, the democrats would have nothing to worry about. but elections are about a lot more than policies. host: if you would like to make a comment, ask a question of our guest, d.d. guttenplan, you can do that on the lines for democrats, republicans, and independents. you have called on president biden to step aside and step down from the ticket. why and what is the biggest

reason you are calling for that? guest: we have called for it at "the nation" in a number of ways pick the piece we ran right after the debate was the piece that first raised the idea that if biden stepped aside as president then kamala harris would become president which would allow her to show her mettle as an executive and leader of the world for some months and also to calm the fears of those voters who think, oh, my gosh, if a woman of color is in charge, the world will end. i think in that sense, we raised that issue very early. as for why i think the president should step aside, which i do, in which we will be running an editorial about early next week or the end of this week, is because i saw what everybody else saw on that thursday night. i was hiding under the couch during the debate because every time you thought it could not get worse, it got worse.

it was a disastrous performance. i have been covering elections since 1984. there is always a time where there is a candidate you are in favor of but they are not doing a good job. i remember going on the road with michael dukakis and making endless mental excuses for his poor performances and sometimes in the dispatches i was filing. but there is a difference was somebody who is not barack obama, the most talented politician in my lifetime, someone who is not an incredibly charismatic candidate. donald trump showed last night he is not a charismatic candidate. he is not an exciting speaker. people get fired up because they invest in his fantasy, but he is not someone who personally has a lot of charisma. it is not about joe biden's energy level. it is about the fact there is a great deal at stake in this election, perhaps more than any other election in our lifetime,

and you need to be fully on an fully engaged, fully coherent, fully persuasive, and fully credible. joe biden is just not any of those things. host: do you think he should just defer to vice president harris? should it be automatic? you wrote earlier this month if biden resigns before august 7, the transition to a harris-led ticket could be relatively seamless. guest: that is right. the machinery is another question. my own preference would be for biden to resign the presidency. there are reasons that may be difficult. the reason for it are that it would be the most seamless way to have this transition. and also, frankly, because if you are not capable of campaigning for president, are you really capable of governing as president? there is that argument.

i think the question of who should succeed biden is a matter that could be debated in good faith from lots of perspectives. my perspective is harris is there, she had been doing the job. she is not in tune with the nation's politics, she would not be our ideological choice. it is those on the left to have been the adults in the room since 2020. the democratic party shut down the bernie sanders campaign in 2020 because they were afraid either that they would lose their power and privilege, that is the cynical view, or that they thought -- they were not sure he can beat donald trump and they felt joe biden was most able to beat donald trump. the thing is, bernie sanders accepted that view and then he threw his full weight behind president biden's campaign because he felt defeating donald trump was the single most important task of the democratic party. it is the single most important task for the democratic party again. unless you are really confident joe biden can do it, it is time

for him to step aside because the polls consistently show a generic democrat will do better than joe against donald trump. we do not have to settle for a generic democrat. kamala harris, her record as a prosecutor in california will not endear her to the nation voters, but it will make her more acceptable to broad swaths of the american public. her work the last few months defending a woman's right to control her fertility, she has been out front on that issue. she has no trouble pronouncing the word abortion. if you think, as many of us do, that is the main issue that will drive positive democratic turnout in the fall, she is a terrific messenger for that message. host: let's talk to callers and start with kanas from florida who is -- with kenneth from

florida who is independent. caller: i have been holding since open phones. i had a question. since he was talking about joe biden should step aside, everybody knew joe biden was over when he first ran three years ago. if you can see now he should not be there, we should replace him, why did you not in the beginning when joe biden ran three years ago sake you will be a one term president so democrats get your act continue if trump runs again. the democratic party likes to wait, just like when obama first took over a long time ago with the lady on the supreme court who died instead of get out of the way. a long time ago, i called about six years ago when trump came on the scene with his "make america great again." no one yet has let me know when

america was great for anyone. was it right when they first came and killed all the indians? was it right when they imported black people to be slaves? was it great in world war i and world war ii? is it great now and black people are denied the g.i. bill? even today, there is a 50/50 chance a black person gets stopped for a minor traffic incident and can lose their life. tell me. i hope you would do the research since he's been don't want to do it. name a time and have these people that call in and talk about making america great again, when was it great for everyone? host: ok, kenneth. go ahead. guest: i share your views the democratic party should have thought about this sooner and people should have been allowed [indiscernible] i feel we intermediate deserve some of the blame for suppressing the debate until --

suppressing the discussion until the debate made it unavoidable. i think you make a fair point and i have written a book about this. there were times in america when it felt like we were all making progress. we were not all making it at the same rate and some of us were excluded were left behind. if you look at the new deal when lots of workers were joining unions, when we were coming together to fight fascism, when there was work in the factories in the north and in california for black-and-white workers, and when civil rights first began to be put on the national agenda, that was a time when we were making progress. you look at the great society of the 1960's printer was great civil rights legislation. there was medicaid, there was a lot of sense that we are all in this together and expanding our common life. i feel like there was a lot more

work to be done but under reagan there was a backlash that we are still living through. i from there have been times when the arc of history does bend toward justice. it does not bend by itself. we have to bend it. host: hello, stephanie. caller: hello. i have a question. what about the 14 million people who voted for biden in the primary? everybody, the congressmen, the centers want him out. what about us? guest: good question. i don't think it is all that jermaine, frankly. there are 70 million registered democrats. the fact that only 14 million showed up to vote in the primary is not a decisive vote of

confidence in president biden. i meant to do this this morning but i am afraid i just got back from milwaukee and have not had the time. if you look back at 2020 and see how any primary votes for bernie sanders got before he ended his campaign, i am sure it is more than 14 million. 14 million votes is not nothing. but it is not a significant number in the context of the democratic electorate. the democratic party rig the primaries this time just like the last time. this time, nobody objected because we had a sitting president. it is not as if any of the primaries were real choices. vladimir putin did just about as well as joe biden did in the democratic party. do you think he is the legitimate leader of russia? host: let's go to -- sorry. i have the wrong lineup. guest: [laughter]

that is ok. host: wayne from texas, republican, go ahead. caller: good morning. guest: morning. caller: i just got a response to mr. d.d. guttenplan's charisma on donald trump in the speech he did last night. the speech was great. his charisma is off the chart. there is a lot of love for him. i can tell you are obviously a trump hater. guest: i am not a trump hater, i'm just a long-suffering voter. if you felt he was charismatic, good for you. where are you from in texas? host: he is gone. here is mitchell on the line for independents. guest: ok. caller: i am just listening to all of this. if somebody don't know donald

trump from way back when, donald trump called himself the big donald. he was begging people for money to build this and that. he never built a thing with his own money. if he could get it from something else. as far as being president again, i think the biggest mistake the world ever made is everybody look at that picture and he was supposed to get shot. that was one of the times donald trump has been out campaigning and all the other time except that time, donald trump has always worn a tie. this particular time, he did not have a tie on. i think that was a signal. host: ok, ok.

i did want to go back to the conversation about the vice president. one of the major criticisms of her is she was the border czar and assigned to the problems pushing people across the border. what do you make of that, what is your response? guest: my response is she was given a lot of hopeless tasks by the biden administration when she came in. i don't take i can say on tv how john vance carter described the job of president. in her case, it was worse because they put her in charge of things nobody on earth could solve. you can let them go to the country's sending people and say, what do so that your people

can prosper in your own country so people are not fleeing dictatorships which in many cases we are funding become through our borders. she has the title but she has no power. could she have complained about that? i don't know, maybe. but if you are vice president, you take what they give you. there are things about kamala harris' policies i don't particularly like, brought her failure to solve the border is just a sign that she is a human being. host: the associated press has just put out a poll on that. the headline is that a majority of democrats think kamala harris would make a good president. here are the actual numbers. about six in 10 democrats believe kamala harris would do a good job in the top spot. about two in 10 democrats do not believe she would. another two in 10 say they do not know enough to say.

go ahead. guest: the 1.i would make about this kind of poem "washington journal," -- the one point i would make about this kind of poll, and what people have to understand, is if there is a change at the top of the ticket, there will be such a wave of excitement. people will be so tired of these two guys and the rerun, whichever side of politics you are on. they are confident now because they feel trump will beat biden. that was the mood of the republican convention. it was like a restoration convention, not a revolutionary fighting convention like in 2016. that is because they think he will beat biden. if you put him in again somebody who has energy and relative youthfulness and is quick on her

feet -- on their feet and whose story is not totally known so there is an element of we can introduce this person to the american public, whoever that person is, they will get a bump. i think in kamala harris' case, it is an inspiring story. she is an engaging politician. he did not win statewide in california without being able to convince -- you do not win statewide in california without being able to convince millions of people to vote for you. host: let's go to stellar, a , a democrat. caller: i think the republicans and democrats are making the same mistake. both parties are spending too much time looking for personality when they should be looking for a real leader. in my opinion, that should be someone very high up in the military. if i were a senator, if i could partner up with hakeem jeffries and chuck schumer, i would go to the pentagon and look for

america's next leader. we need a dwight eisenhower in this era. think about what russia and north korea are doing in terms of trying to expand their power and so on. i think the writings on the wall that we need a very strong military leader as our president. i want to add one more thing and get your guest's opinion. we hear a lot about project 2025. how about the democrats coming up with the restoration project question work that could be about restoring our military, restoring our border to the point where it should be a functioning border that protects america's autonomy and our right to exist as a real country instead of, i don't know what to describe it at this point, it is heartbreaking. but that is my idea for the democrats. a strong military leader and the restoration project. what is your response? guest: well, i guess i will say

in my view you are betting 1-2 -- batting 1-2. we have a strong tradition in this country of civilian leadership. dwight eisenhower was an exceptional leader in exceptional circumstances. his political views were unknown and both parties tried to recruit him for president. i just do not think the military veterans are where we would go for national leadership. our military has grown and grown. one of the few things that reassures me about the incredible increase in the size and the pentagon is it is still under civilian control. i think the first idea is a bit scary to me. the idea the democrats should come up with their own version of project 2025, and i like your name, too, i think that is a great idea. as a nation -- at "the nation,"

we have been arguing for that since 2012, that the democrats should lay out an agenda with all those recommendations. while i abhor the views of project 2025, i have to admire the scope of its ambition and the thoroughness of its execution. one of the problems for those of us on the left is we do not have billionaires funding us like the heritage foundation and the cato foundation do. the coke brothers don't give "the nation" any money. they cost a lot to produce. could not agree more that finding the money for that and producing that kind of document would be a huge help for any incoming democratic administration. host: you could make the argument that george soros is a billionaire and he does fund projects on the left. guest: he funds at some but not

anything like that. maybe he should. host: i want to ask you about supreme court. "the washington post" is reporting printed biden is finalizing plans to -- president biden is finalizing plans to change the supreme court. what is your reaction? guest: my reaction is too little, too late. the supreme court definitely needs to be reformed. the court is stocked politically with right-wing justices. frankly, it has done everything it could to destroy the reputation of the court as an impartial arbiter in our politics. biden proposal have no chance of getting through a congress democrats should not have a super majority in. their chances of getting a super majority in the next election are about the same as mine becoming pope.

secondly, i do not think those changes are enough. i think right now, the court will rule the way donald trump once on every conceivable question -- wants on every conceivable question. the only way to change that is to expand the court and appoint new justices. you could say we will expand it so we get equal numbers of justices. the court needs much more than term limits and an ethics code because it is seriously broken. host: let's talk to wayne who is in texas and is a republican. caller: yes, i am not wayne, i am jim. guest: we had wayne. host: we are having some technical problems, including with names. caller: yes. mr. guttenplan, i would like to know how honest of a person you are. the republicans and the

democrats on the mainstream media say they have a good plan to work on closing the border. host: i see what i did, sorry. caller: they neglected to cite -- guest: i have lost audio, i am sorry. i do not know if you can still hear me. host: i lost him as well. jim, are you there? go ahead. you dropped out. guest: could you state your question again, sir? caller: yes, the mainstream media says the democrats and republicans had a good thing working on the border, and trump came in and told them to not vote on it and shut it down. but they do not say that on that bill they were still going to allow 4000 a day into our country. why do they say that next time? dictator! the mainstream media says donald trump will be a dictator. donald trump says he will be a dictator only on day one to

drill, baby, drill, and close the border. that is it. why do they not tell the truth? host: let's get a response to those things. guest: first, there was a bipartisan border deal that was moving through congress and that the republicans championed as much as the democrats until donald trump told him to put the brakes on it, we will not give joe biden or the democrats any win on this issue. that is true. whether it would have let 4000 people in a day, i do not know, but it would have been a bipartisan deal. you can pick any number you like out of a hat. unless you are prepared to fund the enforcement machinery to keep to that number, you have no hope of doing anything. this bill funded more border agents. it was a bipartisan bill. i'm sure it would not have pleased me on every particular, but it was a deal and donald trump derailed it because he did not want joe biden to have a win

. on the second question, could you remind me again? host: dictator for a day. guest: you are absolutely correct that he said i will only be a dictator on day one. i have seen in the left-wing press and some mainstream media that trump wants to be a dictator. they are taking it out of context. i feel bad about that. we try not to do that at "the nation." if you want a reliable left-wing news source, you should read "the nation." a dictator day one is still a dictator. you can get a lot done in one day if you are issuing edicts. i do not think a dictator for even a day is a good idea. i think if we switched to drill, baby, drill, my kids and your descendants are not going to have a planet to live on that is bearable. how you can sit in the heat in milwaukee and complain about the heat and then chant "drill,

baby, drill" is beyond me. we are going through wildfires on the coast and fish dying in the ocean, and they want to put more carbon in the atmosphere? that seems insane to meet. host: we will talk to max who is an independent. caller: hello? host: hi. caller: good morning. host: good morning, go right ahead. caller: yes. i just want to say i do not understand why there is such hatred of trump when, looking back at his policies, the world was at peace at that time. and still superior to what has happened during the biden administration. and the border was closed during that time.

likewise, so superior to the present time. people who support biden, how could they support someone who brings in millions and millions of people illegally? his first contact with the united states is to break the law. they do not know who they are. and the fact that they were under trump, there was no real inflation. that was so superior to what is going on now. and the fact that under trump, the abraham accords were bringing the possibility of peace to the middle east finally . and putin did nothing during trump's administration. host: let's get a response. guest: well, i think we just

heard a good regurgitation of republican talking points. the only problem with them is none of them are true. you tell me how many people were coming in a month illegally under donald trump and how many are coming in now under joe biden. the answer is you have no idea because they are coming in illegally. if they were stopping and getting scanned on the way in, we would know the numbers. there is no way to count that. when trump says he closed the border he is full of baloney. as for the abraham accords, yes, the trump administration thought they could just cut the palestinians out, to negotiate a deal with our wonderful friendly saudi allies, the same people who brought you 9/11, and the palestinians would just lay down and go away. that was the seed for happened on october 7. the palestinians decided to remind the world they are still there and have not gone away, and you cannot have peace in the middle east without dealing with

them. i have to say you were very cogent in your arguments, but unfortunately none of them were true. host: he also mentioned prudent not -- putin not invading ukraine under the trump administration. guest: that is true. if putin had invaded ukraine under president trump, he would have called first for a courtesy call, gotten a green light from trump who would have said crimea is a long way from cleveland, i don't really care, do what you want, who knows? that is counterfactual. it is true. one thing i will say about president trump in his favor, and i mean this, is he does not seem mostly interested in maintaining american empire. he is interesting in pulling back militarily from the rest of the world. the withdrawal from afghanistan which joe biden gets flamed for

-- blamed for was put in place by donald trump. he is the one that made the agreement with the taliban that we would withdraw. you cannot credit trump for his good luck not being in office when putin invaded ukraine and not fault him for the terrible job he did respond to covid which left millions of americans dead. host: let's talk to glenda in texas, a democrat. caller: i have a few concerns. i would like to say i love america. this is my home. the thing i have concerns about is the democratic party at this point. i am very concerned about it. i heard your guest speak about bernie sanders and the support he had in 2016 and 2020. at this point, i am thinking i

would love to see kamala harris and bernie sanders at the top of the democratic ticket. i want to know how he would feel about that. guest: wow. well, i see bernie on tv and he still has plenty of energy, so maybe it is an idea. i think we need some of bernie -- someone with bernie's ideas. i am not a young man but i think we need someone with bernie's ideas with a little more use and energy than bernie. i am with you thinking if you had those ideas and kamala harris' energy and commitment and ability to relate to regular people, that would be a very powerful ticket. host: d.d. guttenplan, editor of "the nation" and also host of a podcast about elections called "see how they run," thank you

for joining us today. guest: a pleasure talking to you. host: we will continue taking your calls. you can keep on dialing in. the numbers are democrats, 202-748-8000, republicans, 202-748-8001, and independents 202-748-8002. we will show you a portion of last night's speech where president trump speaks about the assassination attempt. [video clip] [applause] >> i'm not supposed to be here tonight, not supposed to be here. [loud reaction from the crowd] >> yes, you are! yes, you are! yes, you are! >> thank you. but i am not. and i will tell you, i stand

before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty god. [cheers and applause] >> watching the reports over the last few days, many people say it was a providential moment. probably was. when i arose surrounded by secret service, the crowd was confused because they thought i was dead. there was great, great sorrow. i can see that on their faces as i looked out. they thought it was over. but i could see it. i wanted to do something to let them know that i was ok. i raised my right arm, looked at the thousands and thousands of people that were breathlessly waiting, and started shouting, " fight, fight, fight!" >> fight, fight, flight!

>> thank you. >> fight, fight, fight! >> once my clenched fist went up, and it was high into the air, you have all seen that, the crowd realized i was ok and roared with pride for our country like no crowd i have ever heard before. [applause] >> never heard anything like it. >> usa! >> for the rest of my life, i will be grateful for the love shown by the giant audience of patriots that stood bravely on that fateful evening in pennsylvania. tragically, the shooter claimed the life of one of our fellow americans. corey comperatore.

unbelievable person, everybody, trust me. [applause] >> unbelievable. and seriously wounded two other great warriors. i spoke with them today. david dutch and james copenhaver, great people. [applause] >> i also spoke to all three families of these tremendous people. our love and prayers are with them and always will be. we will never forget them. they came for a great rally. they were serious trumpste rs, i want to tell you, and still are. but corey, important, we have to use the past tense. highly respected former fire chief, respected by everyone. he was accompanied by his wife, helen, an incredible woman, i spoke with her, devastated.

two precious daughters. he lost his life selflessly acting as a human shield protecting them. what a fine man he was. [laughter] -- [applause] host: we are taking your calls on the rnc and former

president trump's speech and calls for biden to step down. this is a usa today reporter and white house correspondent reporting this from the biden campaign, you have heard from the president directly time and again. he is in this race to win and he is our nominee and is going to be our president for the second term. he said a broad coalition of people who stand with the president is bigger and wider than the people who don't want him to run. he is going to beat back on the campaign trail next week. we are taking your calls on that and on the rmc -- rnc. we will go to bonnie calling from iowa, a republican. caller: here is my comment, i

was your previous guest was there to respond. it is ridiculous that he in reference to the convention or republican party or donald trump, he said something about it when i just walked in and he reminds me of fidel castro, how dare he in the 1980's, i taught in naples, florida. the children of the families who had fled the murderous, evil regime of fidel castro. how dare he compare anything in the republican party to that. and ene wonder why there are things like an assason attempt on president trump. shame on your guest and should have called him out. late he told rublican caller "you speak a lot but you make cstatements but none of them are true." your guest made ma egregious

errors. he referred to women as "people with uteruses." i teach student and every one of them knows that the only people throughout history who have uterus is our women and the fact that your caller cannot use that word, just like the supreme court justice nominee doesn't know what a woman is, that tells you what is wrong with the democratic party, one of many things i might add. when your guest claims that democrats are 10 points ahead based on policy, that is a ridiculous claim. host: cay is an independent in north carolina. caller: thank you for taking my call. just a few things. your guest was talking about

holes. -- the polls. i cannot understand why the democrats are not rallying around president biden. i would vote for him over former president trump, simply on the abortion bill. how can a convicted felon run the country but yet a felon cannot vote, you cannot join the ranks of the service. these are important issues i have. host: let's go to, is it carlin from nevada, democrat? caller: first of all, while i

would like to tell you who i would like to run, i think the president should step down. i also want to bring up since they have been going on about trump and everything, i can't stand that man ever since he took away the children from their parents. there were even tiny ones that couldn't even tell their first and last name. i don't think some of them got back to their parents again. that was the most wicked, cruel thing. i cried and cried over that. he is absolutely terrible. who i really wanted to talk about is i wanted biden to step aside. i don't like kamala harris. i voted for biden and had to

hold my nose because i don't care for her. the one i wanted to see run would be gavin newsom. host: why is that? caller: he is the governor of a huge estate. he is young -- a huge state. he is young. and i wish as far as someone in the house, adam smith from the state of washington is great. i would like to see him there someplace. i think gavin newsom, the governor of a huge estate -- huge state. host: an update on the computer outage. this is the wall street journal, major i.t. outage grounds banks and flights worldwide.

major airlines including delta, united, american halting departures according to advisories by the faa. windows computers and tablets crashing countries from u.s., china, australia. forced restarts across social media. many machines were unable to start and it showed a blue error screen, sometimes called "the blue screen of death? ." it has said that this was not a cyber attack. next is danny in arizona, a republican. caller: good morning. host: how is it going in arizona? caller: with all due respect,

let me be clear with all due respect, your last guest was obviously a democrat. when he said that the democrats don't have a problem with policies, that is a lie. the policies are a problem. i look down on the border and the numbers are down and the reason is because there has been excessive heat. last week it was 118. people are dying in the desert. they are not going to cross an issue. that doesn't make sense. i wish you guys would have more guests that are censored, -- center. , not left or right but center. -- not left or right but center.

host: we have had left and right-leaning columnists. we tried to get people who are just in the center. caller: 28, he was really -- one more thing. if i had one word to describe president trump's speech last night, it is guts. he almost got his head blown off and is on a stage making an excellent speech. host: and elizabeth is calling us from massachusetts on the line for independents. caller: good morning. i want to go back to the caller that was trying to figure out, trump wants to make america great again. if you look back at some of the

pitches from the early 1900s and sometimes you will see them. you go back into the past of the united states and see the people were dressed in suits and men with ties. i am not saying people should do that all the time but in those days, people were slower living. women use to her hat to church and that changed. i think that was a good era for the united states. i wanted to make a comment about making america great again. i don't know if the days will ever come back to the country. i saw putin the other day. people were just nicely and we don't see that here anymore. people used to like to dress up.

i don't know what happened. i feel upset about that. host: you want to make america dress better again, right? caller: not just dress better but live the lifestyle they lived in those days. there wasn't so much talk about abortion. they kept their business in privacy and there wasn't such a common problem as we have today with the pro-abortion stuff. caller: let's go to pennsylvania, langford democrats. caller: -- line for democrats. caller: i cannot agree with you with the press. i am 84 and what i called to say

it was we need a candidate in the democratic party that will appeal to a lot. i suggest george clooney. host: why is that? caller: he is wonderful looking, and a good actor and a democrat. host: he is good looking and a good actor and that is why you want him to be the president? caller: yes. we have had good looking presidents. he could convince the people it is going to be alright and george clooney could do that for me. host: and he has a pretty wife? caller: i don't know if he has a wife. [laughter] host: let's go to felicia from texas, a republican. caller: thank you for taking my

call. i was calling because i wanted to make a statement. the democrats talk about the end of democracy. they are the party of the end of democracy if they think that they can get joe biden to be there candidate. they need to put saying term is the threat to democracy for the democrats of the threat to democracy. host: nbc news says rnc hires an advocate to craft the platform. at martin was hired in may and pushed to overturn donald trump's 2020 loss and marched outside the capito onl january

6, 2021. it says he was -- and gave a speech to supporters on the eve of the capitol on the morning of january 6 he attended the speech during the white house before joining the crowd and merging to the capitol and posting about it on a media. next is darrell, north carolina, independent line. caller: the first thing is the border, neither joe biden nor president trump had a better border policy than barack obama in place.

they have to work on that regardless. the second thing is the new york justice system. if donald trump believed that system is flawed, he needs to apologize to them because he applauded that same for june ssent. the economy in america is a pyramid scheme. if they want to get out of that they have to raise the corporate taxes and tax the people. nobody is talking about that. bush started the issue were nobody talks about taxes. the system isn't going to work if you aren't putting more money in it. i agree with the previous guest

about a supreme court expansion. expand the system to equate with the country looks like. it looks like 13 circuits and i believe that is just as well. if trump wants to gain anything, until we get an apology from downtown about the central park of five, don't vote for him. host: loretta, ohio, langford democrats. caller: i am upset with all of this election cycle. first i want to give a little history to both of you americans out there. i don't want you to hang up on

me because i am just going to tell the truth. the way i see things through, white people are the original illegals. they come here and got off of boats and ships and started killing everybody. and then enslaved black people. i don't see anything in the way this country began as something to be proud of. and you have the nerve to call people illegal aliens wear black people were always here. that is my heritage. i am a black indian. the latinos were always here. they were expelled out of america. the native indians, we three got along until you all come over

here beating up each other over there in europe. in killed the soil over there. potatoes wouldn't even grow. i am tired of this dumb system called immigration. who vetted all the people at ellis island and who vetted and let in the nazis. host: let's talk to fernando on texas, line for republicans. caller: thank you for taking my call. your colors are very entertaining. i am in -- your callers are very entertaining. the immigrants coming in are not refugee asylums.

i read the document. they are arrested. you don't throw away test was at the border if you are looking for asylum. this is a country of laws, either you break the law or you don't. i usually don't watch pbs but because my hotel room on had pbs last night i had no choice. watch the commentators and work shocked to see they were all left-wing commentators. it was not one middle of the road or conservative commentator and i find that to be consistent -- disgusting. i hope and trump becomes president he will take away anyone who can find you. caller: are you getting us confused with cbs?

we are c-span. that is different. caller: i apologize. pbs should be defunded. host: let's talk to willie from missouri, line four independents. caller: i am from kansas city. why are you not humor more coverage on rfk junior? that is not a real democracy we only focus in on biden and trump. we need to have rfk involved in the second debate so we can hear what he has to say. i think he has a good platform they national media is not giving him the surgery he deserves. he was given a protection after what happened over the weekend.

that makes him a major candidate on the rise. we should have him involved in the actual discourse so people can have more choices, november then the two people we have right now. host: are you going to vote for rfk junior? caller: i am leaning towards it. i have been a democrat my whole life. this year because of my disappointment in the democratic party in my reservations about trump, i am pleading toward rfk junior. as a historian, i love the kennedy family and what they did in the past and i would like to see another kennedy in the white house again. this year i am thinking about voting independent for rfk

junior. host: frank from illinois, democrat, good morning. caller: i can explain what is happening here. i am all for joe biden. there was a pbs once about putin and our president. putin was afraid of one person, and that was joe biden. that was the only one he feared out of all the presidents. so what happened was, joe biden had to give resources about the border. what was happening was russia was building up around ukraine and doing military practice and joe biden said they are not

doing it. he can invade you. what happened was the day the olympics happened, he invaded ukraine. now -- i feel sorry for him. what happened is biden had to keep nato together because we screwed it up. biden did a great job getting nato together. host: do you think he should stay at the top of the democratic ticket? caller: because what is going to happen is we didn't send enough to ukraine. we need to fund them to keep putin from going in because what

will happen is the minute putin invades any nato, everybody has to invade. that is going to be world war iii. and that was biden -- what president biden was trying to prevent. host: let's talk to dave in georgia on the line for republicans. caller: i listened to the call pins -- call ins and even the independents sound like democrats. they don't love this country. host: you really believe democrats don't love this country? caller: i think they always think there is a problem. i have been watching this for years, even as of they believe, and i think the media, not so

much you guys, you try to play it straight, but they just lie. even the caller mentioned that she was upset about the children ripped away from parents but what was in the news was a photo that was from 2014 before trump was president. all of these misinformation or lack of information or even the last caller talking about biden. where has he been? when russia was amassing troops on ukraine, joe biden did nothing and said nothing and gave them the tacit green light. i think he kind of invited them in instead of stopping and saying what are you doing. the back and forth has to stop in this country. i don't know where we are going.

they can't admit women are women and they talk about trance and is only taught the -- talks -- trans and that it's only been talked about for the last three or four years. this has to stop. we won't have a country if they stop -- don't stop doing this. we need to protect our borders. every country throughout the world forever has protected their boaters -- borders. they need to start living this country. host: nevada on the line for independents, dave. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am a veteran and when i went into the service they ask me are you a communist and do you plan to overthrow the country? the constitution says if you try to do that you cannot run for

president. trump tried to do that. plus he is a convicted felon and sexually assaulted a lady. i don't know what is wrong with the american people. he is going to cut security and medicare. he won't even admit that he lost the election and he snapped. you are going to let someone like him put the finger on the button. if he snaps, that is world war iii. he is a psycho. everything he has done and nobody seems to do anything. nobody is doing anything. has the court rigged. what are we supposed to do. i will vote for biden because i know he is a good person and trump is the evil person. host: let's go to john from

pennsylvania, democrat. caller: thank you for taking my call. first of all, donald trump's attempted assassination, with all the hate in this country for him, do you think they cared if he died. do you think if he was assassinated dancing in the streets. donald trump is an evil person like putin and i don't know if he deserves to live. host: let's go to julie who is in south carolina, independent. caller: good. i want -- good morning.

i want to say, there is another option. there are more choices and that is the only thing that i want to bring the light is that you see it online and look on facebook and you see everybody, trump port biden and they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting a different result. this is all i want to say to whoever can hear me. there are other options. we live in america where everybody complains about the two party system but nobody votes third party. all it would take is enough people to vote third party and give kennedy a chance. he has my vote. i am sick of these two altogether. at the end of the day, biden is an older guy and is doing the best he can. trump is an older guy and is doing the best he can. i don't hate either of them but

i am tired of the both of them let's take a chance on somebody else. we haven't done that. people complain about the parties taking the rights away but if they would look into the libertarian party, and let us live. host: that is our last call. thank you for joining us and ♪ when is your unfiltered view of government, funded by these television companies and more, including mediacom. >> annuity 30 years ago,

mediacom was funded on the powerful idea, bring broadband to underserved communities from coast to coast, he connected it hundred 50,000 miles. our team's brute spade barriers and delivered high speed internet two minutes of customers and now mediacom is offering the fastest multilevel network on the go. mediacom, tickets of delivery. decades ahead,. mediacom supports c-span as a television service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. ♪ if you ever miss any of c-span coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and those highlights. these "points of interest" markers appear on the right side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. this timeline tool makes it easy

to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. scroll through and spend a few minutes on c-span's "points of interest." >> that is a look of that stuff in june milwaukee last night, and former president trump officially accepted the gop nomination for president in the november election. tomorrow the president and his running mate ohio senator j.d. vance will hold a rally in grand rapids, michigan. skin will bring you live coverage starting at 4 p.m., or was on this. now video app for online at c-span.org. snow take a look at some of the highlights from the final day of the convention in milwaukee. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome chairman of the national republican senatorial committee, united states senator steve daines of montana.

[applause] sen. daines: how about that national anthem? [applause] i am u.s. senator steve daines and i represent the great state of montana. [applause] when i was a kid growing up in montana, my grandma taught me an important lesson. that is to have a thankful heart , to count your blessings. as i was heading to breakfast this morning, i thanked god for my sweet wife cindy. i thank god for our four children and their spouses. i thank god for our six grandchildren. and then i think god that in six months, joe biden will no longer

be president of the united states! [applause] think about this moment this evening. it was just five days ago, we were a quarter inch away from having a memorial service instead of a nominating convention. and we thank god here tonight for protecting president trump. [applause] but we have important work to do because going forward, we must fight, fight, fight. and i will tell you as chairman of the national republican senatorial committee, i am working with president trump to win the senate majority and to fire chuck schumer! [applause]

back in early 2023, president trump and i met at mar-a-lago. we agreed our highest priority is electing an america-first senate majority that has his back. senators that will stand with president trump. [applause] and tonight, tonight i want to speak directly to the voters of west virginia, of montana, of ohio, of pennsylvania, of nevada, of michigan, wisconsin, arizona, virginia, and new mexico. [applause] and here is why -- because your democratic senators are lying to you. look, they talk like moderates,

but they vote like radicals. they say they are with you, but they vote with joe biden. never forget these liberal senators voted to impeach president trump twice. and i will tell you, an america-first majority will stand with president trump. [applause] these liberal senators allowed millions of illegal immigrants into our country. an america-first majority will secure the border and we will build the wall. [applause] these liberal senators shut down the keystone pipeline. an america-first majority, we will drill, baby, drill!

[applause] these liberal senators want to take away your second amendment rights. those are fightin'words back in montana. an america-first majority will protect your precious right to keep and bear arms. these liberal senators covered for biden after 13 american service members were killed during his botched afghanistan withdrawal. an america-first majority -- by the way, i am the son other u.s. marine -- an america-first majority will stand with our military. [applause] these liberal senators stood with anti-semitic mobs. an america-first majority will stand with israel.

[applause] and, look, these liberal senators want boys in girls' sports. i am the father of two daughters. they want men in your daughter'' and my daughters' locker rooms. they cannot even define what a woman is. let me tell you something. back in montana, we know the difference between a bull and a cow. [applause] we must replace these liberal senators with great republican leaders, like jim justice in west virginia. like kimchi -- like kim in

montana, like bernie in ohio. like sam brown in nevada. mike rogers in michigan. eric right here in wisconsin. [applause] virginia. new mexico. and of course, kerri lake in arizona. [applause] we must elect an america-first senate majority that will stand with president donald j. trump. but look, right now the left-wing billionaires are massively out-spending us.

that is what is keeping me up at night. we need your help. you can go to senate24.com today. help us fight back. because together, we are going to win back the senate, grab that gavel out of chuck schumer's hand, deliver a historic victory for donald trump and make america great again. god bless you!>> ladies and gene welcome the chairman of the national republican congressional committee, congressman richard hudson of north carolina. rep. hudson: my name is richard hudson and i'm a congressman from the carolina dutch from north carolina. great to see my north carolina

folks over here. i want to acknowledge my brilliant amazing smoking hot wife renee who worked in the trump white house. she is here tonight. i love you too. i want to acknowledge my son who is at home watching on tv. i want to acknowledge god above who redeemed this center and on saturday saved president donald trump's life. [applause] my job has the chairman is to grow our house majority. in my district in north carolina, we have the largest military base in the world, fort bragg, home of the airborne and special forces. [applause] the men and women there at fort bragg are willing to give their lives for the flag. if they make that ultimate sacrifice, that same flag accompanies them home on that

final journey. they deserve a commander in chief who respects them and who honors their service. ladies and gentlemen, donald trump is that commander in chief. [applause] donald trump loves america. he literally embraces the flag. extreme democrats, they will burn it in the streets and on college campuses. joe biden and kamala harris stand with those flag burners. they want to rule over you. house republicans, stand with president trump. we stand with america and we stand up for the flag. [applause] because house republicans understand we don't rule over you. we work for you.

[applause] in just the last two years, house republicans have passed and historic border security bill that would lock down bidens open border. we passed legislation to unleash energy production and lower cost. we passed legislation to remove woke indoctrination from our military. we passed the parents bill of rights because we think parents ought to make decisions about how their children are educated. and we impeached bidens failed border chief al hunt remind work is -- how a hundred mayorkas. joe biden and chuck schumer killed those bills and blocked any progress for the american people. for the last two years, house republicans have fought alone. ladies and gentlemen, we need

back up save america. we need to grow our majority. we need president donald trump back in the white house. [applause] a republican house is also essential to ensuring donald trump's success as our president. can you imagine what nancy pelosi's protege hakeem jeffries would do if he was speaker of the house to undermine donald trump? if democrats control the house, they will block every tax cut, budget, border bill and crime bill he proposes. they will hold sham investigations and hearing to bog down his agenda. they will impeach him for doing his job. but we are not going to let that happen. [applause] together, a republican house and

president donald trump will preserve the historic trump tax cuts and eliminate taxes on tips. together, i republican house and president donald trump will fund the police. we will rebuild our military. we will stand up to communist china. ladies, we will finish of the wall -- we will finish the wall. [applause] a house majority will make donald trump's second term even more successful than his first. let me hear from you. who can we count on? who can we count on to return us to unprecedented american prosperity? who can we count on to stand up

to our enemies? who can we count on for a secure border and safer neighborhoods? absolutely right. we can count on president donald trump so let's work together. let's elect donald trump. let's grow our house republican majority. together, we can make it happen. thank you. god bless you. god bless donald trump and god ♪ ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 70th united states secretary of state, mike pompeo. [applause] >> good evening. good evening, my fellow americans. it is great to be with you. special shout out to my good friends from kansas.

i had the incredible privilege to serve as president trump's cia director and secretary of state. it was my greatest honor to work with him every single day to serve you, the american people. now, you all are paying attention so you know what the trump administration achieved but it is worth going through a few of these accomplishments. let's start with this. there were no new american wars. [applause] our order, our southern border closed. [applause] it may seem like a long time ago but when we took office, there were people's heads being cut off at the beaches. we destroyed isis and its

caliphate. and you know, here is another fun fact. we never lost our secretary of defense for two weeks either. you will remember for those four years, the people of vladimir putin was held at bay. when we walked out, january of 2021, the iranian regime was afraid and the people of israel were strong and secured and we treated them like the friend and allied they needed us to be. everywhere we went, religious freedom was protected. we held three summits in north korea. north korea was quieted. we had begun an honorable exit

from afghanistan. and not a single chinese spy balloon flew across the united states of america. four years. had i been the secretary of state and a chinese spy balloon flew across our country, i would have been the former secretary of state and rightfully so. under president trump, the chinese comet's party which to this day present the greatest threat to our nation from outside of our country, we confronted it like never before. in short, we put america first every single day. [applause] 42 months on, what has joe biden and kamala harris done? what have they delivered to us for security and prosperity?

let's start with this. you sell some of them last night. . third he knew goldstar pham -- 13 new goldstar families from afghanistan. as an army veteran come i want to speak to everybody who served in afghanistan. i'm disgusted by the biden administration's incompetent pullout from that country. [applause] to those of you who served there, know this. know that you are service was honorable. that you saved american lives and the pompeo's love and admire you for what you did for america. thank you and god bless each and every one of you. [applause] every one of you who has served in uniform and families, you deserve a president who will not check his watch while he is honoring our fallen brothers and sisters. it was in decent.

of course it was that very weakness we saw in afghanistan that prompted putin butchering ukraine. we saw what it meant. a children hospital bomb. innocents killed. and now a second war in gaza. president biden will not even talk about the fact americans are still being held by the iranian regime. contrast that with what we did when americans were wrongfully held. president trump centimeter north korea to bring home three american pastors. we brought them home. we brought them home along with dozens of others. dozens of other hostages. we did so without paying one single penny to the terrorists. [applause]

and what about iran today? when joe biden eased up on president trump's maximum pressure campaign, we gave money to the ayatollah he could cut more checks to the genocidal maniac who conducted attacks, barbaric attacks in israel. and now, closer to home, a massive national security challenge. our southern border is a welcome mat. it is a welcome mat for islamic terrorists, drug dealers, chinese spies and violent criminals. . ladies, president biden sold out our citizens and security and our sovereignty and we need to get it back and i am confident we will get it back. i had this incredible published to serve as your top diplomat -- this incredible privilege to serve as your top diplomat.

i saw how the world always looks to our nation as the unrivaled example of what a free society should look like. but unfortunately, president biden struck the global stage. maybe i should say the shuffles the global stage. he talks a big game about american values but what has he done at home? what has he shown the world? what have he and his leftist base actually shown other nations? he has censored free speech at home. he has put woke into the military i and you so desperately love. we must reclaim it. he put it in our schools as well. he has weaponized the justice system against our political opponents. to this day as we sit here today, he and vice president harris are providing appeasement to the pro-hamas radicals on our streets inside the united states. even worse, today this

administration treats illegals better than our own citizens. that is in decent. and the entire administration, the entire administration has failed to tell us the truth that we all know and is so dangerous to our nation. the truth that joe biden can't handle the 3:00 a.m. phone call. he will not take a phone call after 4:00 p.m. my call to you tonight is straightforward. it is really simple. we cannot trust the biden administration. that means we have work to do to uphold american values. it is up to those of us in the room tonight and those of you watching tonight. donald trump will every day -- i saw it firsthand -- he will put america first. [applause] so let's do what is right and

elect a president who is not ashamed of our nation and will never apologize for our country. [applause] and when we do, we will put a strong america first leader back in the white house, we will reelect donald j. trump and make america special, accessible and great again. god bless our veterans and[appl] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome journalist, author, an american citizen tucker carlson. tucker: thank you. [laughter] this is wild. thank you.

good to see you. thank you. i feel like i know about half the people in the room which is wild. what are you doing? thank you guys. peter navarro is back. welcome to peter navarro. suffering the fate that has happened to so many. thank you for having me. i have -- i have been to many convention spirit i have never been to a more fun convention or a convention with better vibes. they literally let navarro out of prison. first of all, thank you. this feels a lot different from what i thought it was going to feel like.

i can't hear you but i know it is something good. so i watched a video of what happened in butler, pennsylvania, about 50 times. i think i was one of about 8 billion people around the world who watched it and the more i watched it, the more it struck me that everything was different after that moment, everything. this convention is different, the nation is different, the world is different, donald trump is different. when he stood up after being shot in the face, bloodied, and put his hand up, i thought at that moment promote that was a transformation. this was no longer a man -- welcome i think that. i think it was divine intervention but they affect that it had on donna -- the effect that it had on donald trump, he was no longer just a former president or future president. this was the leader of a nation.

i think there is a difference. i spent most of my life in washington where the president was at the top of the pyramid. if you think about the presidency, it comes with great power. that is a title that is bestowed by a process of sum sort that can -- some sort that can be subverted. in the end, it is not conferred by itself, as -- it does not confer legitimacy. just because you call yourself the president doesn't mean that much inherently. i can call my dog the ceo of hewlett-packard. it doesn't mean -- it's true. you hate to say it but it is also true, it's a fact that you could take, i don't know, a dead person, and make them president. you could. you could. i'm just saying, theoretically possible. with enough cheating, that could

happen. but being a leader is very different. it is not a title. it is organic. you cannot name someone a leader. a leader is the bravest man. that is who the leader is. that is true in all human organizations. this is a law of nature and in that moment, donald trump, months before the presidential election, became the leader of this nation. that was the most obvious to me. i have to say, you know, i think it changed him. reach out to trump within hours of it that night and what he said to me, that night, having just been shot in the face, he said not a single word about himself. he said only how amazed he was and how proud he was of the crowd which didn't run.

i thought two things. the first thing i thought was, well, of course they did not run . his courage gave them heart. a leaders courage gives courage to his people. and the second thing i thought is that this is the selfish guy i have been hearing about for years, really, not a word about himself? about his people, period. the second thing i noticed -- why not? he turned down the most obvious opportunity in politics to inflame the nation after being shot. to inflame the nation, which is an opportunity that almost every other politician i ever met and certainly his opponents would have taken instantly and they would have said, well, what is this? how did he get shock? how did this happen? those are real questions we have to get to the bottom of. in the moments, the days, the week after the shooting, he did not say that.

he did his best to bring the country together and i thought this was the irresponsible person. no. this is the most responsible unifying behavior of a leader i think i have ever seen. so the question is, where is he leading us. i could go on for hours but let me just sum it up. i do you the entire point, from the famous escalator ride nine years ago until today of donald trump's public life, has been to remind us of one fact, which is a leaders duty is to his people, to his country, and to no other. that is the point. that is the only point. and another word for this is democracy. democracy, in case you are a little sick of being beaten in the face with democracy on television, actual democracy is the proposition that the citizens of the country own country. they are not renters, serfs, slaves. they are the owners of the country, and for that to be true

, their leaders have to represent them. they have to do what the people want them to do. or a close approximation they arose. but if they completely ignore what people want, not just one year, but jenna relationally, say, for 50 years, then it may be i don't know what, but is not a democracy. the entire trump project paradoxically is to return democracy to the united states. hey, let's pay attention to what people actually want. and the lack of interest in that question in washington is something that ultimately drove me out of the city after 35 years. lawmakers stepping over the prostrate bodies of their fellow citizens, od and on drugs -- o d'ing on drugs to go send money to foreign countries.

more americans from drugs in the past years then we -- we have lost more americans from drugs then we lost in world war ii. our bloodiest war, more than we lost in world war ii. does anybody care? it is pathetic. it is pathetic. and do you hear a single word from washington about doing anything about it? we know where the drugs are coming from. we know the supply routes. the u.s. military spent billions bombing the ho chi minh trail. you don't see the protector -- or the lives of its citizens, no. that is for ukraine. and it is too much, actually. it is insulting. it is too insulting. it is a middle finger in the face of every american. it is a very clear statement, which is unmistakable, and that is we don't care about you. and donald trump, whatever you say about him, and i think he is a wonderful person. i know him well. at the funniest person i ever met in my life, actually.

you can't be funny without perspective or without empathy, which is true. but everything else about trump aside, he actually cares because he is interested in the people who live here because that is his job. a father's job, his duty is to his family. an officer's duty is to his men. a president's duty is to his citizens. he seems to be the only one who thinks that. and in his choice for vice president, j.d. vance, he has made that really clear. j.d. vance, i will say this about him, is a decent man had i will just admit it, it friend of mine, one of the few politicians in washington who actually is very close to his own wife which is wonderful to see. and she's wonderful, actually. but j.d. vance has views that are closer to trump's voters than anyone else in office. therefore, he is the vice president. that is called democracy.

so i will stop on just one point and that is what has happened over the past month, since the debate, and particularly on saturday in butler, i think a lot of people are wondering, what is this? this doesn't look like politics. something bigger is going on here. i think even people who don't believe in god are beginning to think, well, maybe there is something to this actually. and i am starting to think -- i am starting to think it's going to be ok, actually. i do think that. the day after the midterm elections in 2018, antifa came to my house. the democratic party's militia, ok. i was at work. it was obvious when i was at work because it was public. they tried to come in through the front door and terrorized her. she hid in our pantry. it was on television. it was horrible, actually. i'm not whining about it. i wasn't getting shot in the

face, but it wrecked our day. the neck morning, we are lying in bed and the phone wings for my wife and its donald trump, who is not like a regular text buddy of donald trump's. she picks it up, hello? i could hear it and i am lying in bed. and the first thing he says is, i'm going to stand guard outside your house. she goes, that is so nice. he says -- i will never forget this as long as i live -- he says, there's a lot of hate out there. she says, there is, mr. president. he says, but there's a lot of love. there's a lot of love. and we are seeing that love. i don't think it is human love. and i will just stop with this. i am always convinced i am on the right side. i have been on the wrong side many times. you will never hear me say i am on god's side or god is with me or even i am with god. i want to be. i'm not sure i am. but i will say