delivery, decades ahead. >> mediacom supports c-span as a public service, along with these other tevision providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> coming up on "washington journal," your calls and comments live. then we will talk to shelby talcott about the trump campaign's reaction to the new democratic ticket and its strategy this fall. also, biographer and historian john farrell discusses the 50th anniversary of president nixon's resignation and his book, "richard nixon: the life." "washington journal" is. -- "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning, friday, august 9. former president trump held a news conference yesterday at

mar-a-lago for just over an hour. vice president harris wielded a few questions after her rally in michigan. both have agreed to a debate on september 10. we are getting your reaction and thoughts on campaign 2024. here are the numbers. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. include your first name, city, and state. and we are on social media. facebook.com/cspan. and x at @cspanwj. we start with an article from the hill that says trump says the honeymoon will end. he held an hour-long press conference thursday when he lambasted vice president harris

as incompetent and appeared exasperated at questions about democrats newfound momentum after elevating harris to the top of their ticket. here is a portion of that news conference from yesterday. [video clip] fmr. pres. trump: look, she has a convention coming up. it is about policy. it is not about her. i think she is incompetent, because i have watched her. she destroyed california, destroyed san francisco. everything she has touched has turned to bad things. i am not going to use foul language, but everything she has touched has turned bad. she is incompetent. the reason she is not doing what i do not doing what she should be doing, she will not even do interviews -- she cannot do better than biden. he had a reason for not doing well. he was never, 20 five years ago, the sharpest or brightest bulb in the ceiling.

he wasn't, but he could do interviews, at least. not likely -- not lately, he couldn't, perhaps. but she should be doing interviews she does not want to do interviews. the reason, number one, her policies are so bad. just to answer your question, i think it is not going to change because it is ultimately not about her as much as it is about our pocies. host: an article from abc news about the debate, trump agrees to abc news debate with harris. harris says she's looking forward to the bait. is is the former president says he has agreed to an officer -- an offer from abc news to debate vice president harris on september 10. that was the original agreement with president biden. trump said during a news conference on thursday, i look forward to the debate because i think we have to set the record straight. here is vice president harris taking a few questions from reporters on the tarmac in

detroit yesterday. [video clip] >> president trump at a press conference today. i wonder if you have a reaction? vp harris: i am glad he finally agreed to a debate on september 10. i am looking forward to it and hope he shows up. >> are you hoping for more debates? vp harris: i am happy to have a conversation about additional debates. happy to have that conversation. >> why do you think he pulled out of the debate with you? vp harris: i am beyond speculating about that. >> what do you think about what he said about voters -- vp harris: i did not hear them. >> some about the vice president old desperate vice presidential pick and leading -- some about your vice presidential pick and leading the guard -- vp harris: i think we all should

respect anyone who served our country. >> [inaudible] vp harris: i have talked to my team and want to get an interview scheduled by the end of the month. host: we will start with john in california, republican. caller: hi, good morning listen, i have been on top of this harris deal. she has not topped about what she plans on doing. she says first day in the office she going to lower prices. well, she has had three and a half years and has not done anything. and yet, the questions that you media people have asked her doesn't pertain to the election. so why do you keep carrying

water for these people that are communists? they want to destroy the middle class. host: john, did you listen to the former president at the news conference? what did you think of that? caller: if that is a news conference, my 12-year-old grandson could do better. what questions did she answer? host: actually, i was talking about former president trump. caller: yes. host: so what did you think of that? caller: i thought he did a hell of a job. he is a straight shooting big mouth new yorker who gets things done. and this country is in trouble, and i am a vietnam combat vet. i have been through it through nixon, kennedy -- kennedy was a good man. kennedy was for the people. these democrats today, they are

not the democratic party of yesteryear. and i want you guys every -- i want you guys every morning, and i am up at 3:00 in the morning to watch you people. host: you get up at 3:00 just to watch us or do you just get up naturally at 3:00? caller: naturally, i get up at 3:00 in the morning. i get up at 3:00 and 4:00 west coast time. i listen, i watch you people. it infuriates me to hear the people that call in with no information and they act like they are voting for high school president. host: well, let's hear from more people. lori is also in california, modesto, independent line. hi. caller: hi, thank you for taking my call. yeah, the conference, the news

conference that trump did, just unbelievable the lies he comes up with. too much. i love the choice that kamala harris made for vice president. i think he is awesome. it is about the future and about moving forward, not going back. trump only cares about himself, that's it. he could care less about anybody else. so the chance of having this country move forward and become the ideal we were built on is through kamala harris. i watched her and i know. something for people to think about, too, for the questions, in the end times, trump, it is like madoff, an embezzler. don't vote for him, please. host: john in florida,

independent. caller: good morning to you. good morning to everyone listening to c-span. the caller previous to me, they were talking general platitudes. what policies is kamala harris going to bring forward except the same policies we have had for the last almost four years? we have been under democrats rule, eight years of obama, than four years of joe biden, so probably about 16 years of democratic rule. we had the trump years. what was better? i had the most money in my pocket during the trump years. this country with no wars during the trump years. as a combat veteran myself, i am kind of disgusted with tim walz and them portraying him being combat veteran. it is a disgrace. as far as policy, i think that

is what we should be talking about. this is not a popularity contest. it is really about the policies. i think people should look at the policy. we do not know what kamala's policies because she will not do as a down interview with anybody and will not talk about anything. this is the exact height in the basement 2020 campaign strategy they used for joe biden -- hide in the basement strategy. they really need to have harris sit down and answer some questions. when she ran in 2020, and if anybody is paying attention, we know what she wanted to do before she was kicked out, the first candidate kicked out of the race there, so there needs to be some pressure -- host: she has said she wants to do a sit-down interview before the end of the month. but since you brought up walz's military background, this was on fox news. says harris companion walked

back walz's bio amidst stolen valor controversy. it says they hear his campaign has altered the biography of minnesota governor tim walz on the campaign website, changing a reference to his military service amongst ongoing scrutiny of the 2024 four vice presidential nominees military credentials. it was originally stated he was a retired command sergeant major. it has been updated to say that he served as a command sergeant major.vice president harris announced waltz lz as her running mate tuesday, settingff attacks on his background. anthony is in san bernardino, california, republican. caller: hey, good morning. i wanted to comment on yesterday's press conference. i cannot speak for a lot of

other republicans out there, but i for sure will not be voting for trump. i think it is time for some younger blood. i know the previous gentleman was talking about what are kamala's policies? i would like to ask him, what are trump's policies, his economic policies, what about a new health care plan? you will notice none of it happened, because he had no policies. if you watch economic trends, you would know that trump lived off obama's economy. he did not have an economic policy cast forward, aside from a tax cut that benefited nobody but the ultrarich. i will not be voting for trump. he has no policies. time to get newer blood in there. as a republican, i say this emphatically, trump is not a republican. he is a maga, whatever that means. i want true republicans back.

i want conservative fiscal policies, family values back, all the good stuff the party stood for. this guy just not embody what republicans are, and i would like to say that. and thank you, c-span. host: judy is next in wisconsin, republican. caller: yeah, i am a republican, but i have an issue about the abortion rights. i have listened to women that claim to have answers to their problems. they all seem to think that an abortion will solve all their problems. well, what they don't know is it has and will be the biggest mistake they will ever make. what they have not taken into consideration is the fact that

they are killing, murdering, their own children, which, in fact, are god's children. these women are strongly thinking about themselves. they have not even considered that the babies living inside of them is a human being. an innocent child of god. women should realize that they were created by god to bring children into the world. a purpose to create a generation of people. god made male and female, a man, a woman. i strongly believe there is a solution to their problem. it isn't drugs. it isn't abortion. but for some women that have

felt that a life living inside them has somehow ruined their life, then my only solution to your problem would be to keep your legs closed. host: an former president trump to admission abortion yesterday in his press conference -- did mention abortion yesterday in his press conference. he said it is not a big factor in elections anymore. he said this, he believes it will end up being a very small issue in this year's vote. speaking at a news conference in mar-a-lago, he was asked if he plans to vote on the constitutional amendment in florida that would protect the right to abortion and overturn a six-week ban on the procedure. he reared rated -- he reiterated

his support for exceptions in cases of rape or incest. but it seems to be much less of an issue, especially for those states where they have the exception. edward on the democratic line, michigan, good morning. caller: can i ask you a question about the abortion thing? did trump actually say that he was going to vote for this florida -- is it a ballot proposal on abortion? host: he did not answer the question directly, so we do not know how he will vote. caller: he did not answer the question directly, typical trump. i would say most at the press conference, it was filled with lies. but questions asked by the press were just rambling, almost incoherent. he would change the subject. he would go off. aside from that disastrous press conference, i have to comment on the last year of the trump administration. what i recall is covid lockdown.

i recall hospitals being filled with covid patients. i remember trump holding press conferences without any medical information. i remember the recession, the stock market crash in may 2020, 10% unemployment. i mean, that last year of trump with the covid-19 was horrific. there is no other way to describe it. the number of deaths, over 100,000 deaths in 2020 from covid-19. that was a very bad year. host: and let's go to ingleside, texas, independent line. is it rudy? caller: roddy. host: good morning. caller: good morning. what i do not get is donald trump keeps on rambling,

rambling, keeps on talking about the same old shit that he doesn't fucking know what he is talking about. host: all right, we need to watch the language, please. marie in ohio, good morning. democrat. caller: i think a lot of people are getting tired of the lies that donald trump shows constantly and the constant negativity and the name-calling. people are just way too sick of this. the lying has to stop, the name-calling has to stop. he has no policies. i agree with a couple of the callers that you have. a republican. i honor and respect him for seeing the truth. so harris and walz. host: and john in tennessee, republican. caller: yes, i just want to say that i will vote for the person who goes back to securing the

border and paying off the debt. that's it. thank you. host: let's hear another portion from former president trump where he talks about tax policy and social security. [video clip] fmr. pres. trump: our tax cuts, which were the biggest in history, our tax concert coming due very soon. and if the democrats do not renew them or make it possible to renew, because it is pretty close in terms of votes, if they don't renew them, it is the equivalent of having a four times tax increase from what you have now and it will destroy the economy. i think they are under tremendous pressure to do it. i have never seen, in all my life, i grow up and watch politics and used to be on the other side, then i run for office, but in all the years of study and politics, i never seen people elected by saying we will give you a tax increase. these guys get up, think of it, no security, a weak military, no walls, no borders, no anything. all these things they're doing.

i mean, transgender, transgender became such a big thing. but that you all of these things, but they always say, we are going to give you a tax increase. i never heard him buddy to paint on a tax increase -- i never heard anybody campaign on a tax increase. i will give you one example of politicians -- one example, social security, they are going to destroy social security. i am going to leave social security. not raising the years, not raising the age. i will be saving social security. and i am going to work it out that there is no tax on social security for seniors. i am also doing no tax on tips. no tax on tips. waiters, waitresses, caddies, people that drive cars, people who get tips that have been harassed by this government, we are going to have no tax on tips. that is a big thing. host: back to the phones. sue in michigan, independent line. caller: good morning. i did listen to part of trump's

press conference, and i had to turn it off. putting people down. then he gets obsessed with crowd sizes. rather than talk about policies, he is talking about crowd sizes and martin luther king. i think there is seriously something wrong with this guy. i did like some of his policies when he was president, but i think he is too old right now. i think he needs to get out of there. i would have voted for nikki haley in a heartbeat. but this guy, i could not stand to hear him talk. i think we can do better, personally. as far as harris goes, i am more of a centrist, so some of her policies are way out for me. but my alternative is trump, and i do not think he is fit. personally, i do not think he should be a president next time. thank you. host: sue, you sound like a swing voter in a swing state, michigan.

how are your neighbors feeling? what are you feeling about how measurement -- about how michigan might go in this election? caller: i think it could go either way. i live in a rule area, heavily republican, and they are going by policy alone, not thinking about anything else. but i cannot stand to hear the guy talk. he is not really -- and the problem with me with him is he mixes up fiction with truth. i think this guy believes whatever he says, and half of it is not true. i have a hard time with that, i really do. host: and to brought up -- sue brought up the crowd size issue. this is nbc news, trump compares his january 6 crowd to the audience for martin luther king, jr.,'s i have a dream speech. he said he actually had more people than the civil rights leader did for his iconic speech. bob from illinois, democrat. caller: hello.

i love c-span, all the hosts and everything. when trump said -- when he had his news conference yesterday, it was just soft questions. someone from msnbc said it best, the soft questions. but the big thing i want to say is, how could i vote for someone that made fun out of nancy pelosi's husband being hit with a hammer? i look at him every day, i would vote for a chinese that don't believe in hitting somebody's head with a hammer. i can look at him and feel that way. and also, his brother-in-law was on -- no, his nephew was on tv,

and he was talking to trump, and trump said why don't you let your son die, because he was disabled and it cost a lot of money. how could i vote for a man like that? that is all. host: whose nephew was he talking to? say that again. caller: trump's nephew was on tv -- host: during covert or recently? caller: no, this was during the earlier years of his life, and they were interacting and he said his son was disabled, his nephew's son was disabled, and they were talking, spending a lot of money, and he said that trump said, hey, why don't he just died, it would be cheaper. voting for a man like that -- it is a fact, he was on tv. host: all right, let's stay in

illinois, but this time it is john, republican. caller: hello. my thought on this is we have lost the values of yesteryear, the way that this whole country has gone as distance enticed everett -- has desensitized everybody. i am watching commercials that are offensive, and i just think that we need to get back to real values. boys are boys and girls are girls. i think donald trump is a great man, and he is able to stand there and field all these questions. host: sorry, i want to remind

you and everybody on the phones, please turn down your tv because we can hear it while you are on the phone. tom in franklin, tennessee, independent. caller: good morning. i wish c-span could actually find out if people are really independent or republican or democrat. i sometimes wonder. i did not vote for trump the first time. i stayed out of the election, was living in new york at the time, and i did not vote for hillary. it really troubled me not to vote. i thought both candidates -- i am a baby boomer. and i looked at them, these are two flawed people, and it was really hard for me. i look for a candidate and tried to find somebody who was independent, and that was a sad year. second time around, i watched trump in action for the first year and did not like his

personality. i liked his policies. he gets no credit for warp speed for covid. bureaucrats had to decide one or two days, rather than sit in a pile of papers for 30. he sent an energy policy that got the price of gas and oil down. he set a strong defense policy that made europe pay up for what they owed us, the defense of the country. he got along with the craziest people in the world, the most evil people. but getting along is better than getting in a fight. so he was no friend of putin, xi's, or the guy up in north korea. he was just letting them know that we could talk, but don't come messing around with us. what happened in ukraine really is a result of weak foreign

policies. what happened in afghanistan, it is beyond words. ny -- and why did biden survive that? it is a miracle. there should have been a true investigation of that. instead, during trump's term, instead of accepting him for president, what happened? he got attacked by the press, got attacked by people in government. you know, the whole -- cannot even think of the name of it now, the scandal with the steele document and all that nonsense. they went after flynn. he was not even in office yet, and they were trying to take the man.down second time around when he is running and i moved from new york to tennessee, when he was

running against biden, i was not really in favor of his personality. it is hard to take, even for a new yorker. but when it came to policies, there was just no question in my mind. host: and you feel the same way now, tom? caller: it is going to come down to policies for me. look at the policies. energy. and the inflation reduction act, how much money did they put forward to find out if there was a better way to burn coal, a cleaner way, oil, a cleaner way, and gas? i do not think there is a dime in those bills. this is like a centralized government. trump is right.

people want electric cars. they work, certainly in warm areas. but batteries lose their power in the. -- but the batteries lose power in the cold areas. people want diesel. people don't want to be told what to do. host: it is the 50th anniversary of richard nixon's resignation. here is usa today. richard nixon resigned 50 years ago. the political world has never been the same. we have a portion of his farewell address with staff for leaving the white house this morning 50 years ago. take a look. [video clip] pres. nixon: i think sometimes when things happen that don't go the right way, we think that when you do not pass the bar exam the first time -- i happened to, but i was just lucky. my writing was so poor, the bar

examiners that we just gotta let the guy through. [laughter] we think that when someone dear to us dies, we think that when we lose an election, we think that when we suffer defeat that all has ended. we think that the light has left his life forever. not true. it is only a beginning, always. the young must know it. the old must know it. it must always sustain us. because the greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but the greatness comes when you're really tested, when you take some knocks and some

disappointments, when sadness comes. because only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain. and so i say to you on this occasion, we leave, we leave proud of the people who have stood by us and work for us and served this country. we want you to be proud of what you have done. we want you to continue to serve in government if that is your wish. always give your best. never get discouraged. never be petty. always remember, others may hate

you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. and then you destroy yourself. host: that was 50 years ago. washington post has printed its front page from 50 years ago, the date here, friday, august 9, 1974, nixon resigns, ford assumes the presidency today. we will have a guest later in the program, john farrell, joining us at 9:00 a.m. eastern to talk about the nixon resignation. you will not want to miss that. tomorrow all day, for american history tv, we will have all day coverage on c-span2 of seized -- of nixon's resignation. you can go to our homepage, c-span.org, to find more video resources surrounding that resignation and lots of videos

for you to peru's -- peruse there. back to your calls on campaign 2024. ed in ohio, republican. caller: good morning. briefly on nixon, nixon in history will be credited for a lot more great, he was really a good president. the thing that brought him down was worded gate, it was stupid. -- was watergate, it was stupid. he comes out of 'nam, took over as president. i had a lot of relatives in 'nam. i am a 30-year vet, commander, navy. anyone who goes in the military in this country knows what nixon did -- host: let's not go on and on we will talk about him later. caller: ok, it is night and day

this election in the united states, trump against terrorists in the democrat party against the republican party -- trump against harris and the democrat party against the republican party. nonstop trump being attacked, before he got elected, still attacked, trying to rule him with the weaponized doj, everything. harris, she has her history, from california to here today, whole opposite of what trump is about. she has flip-flopped on everything because she knows the policies are bad with biden. in every meeting all three and a half years, now 90 days before the election, and she says how sharp he was. she covered for how bad he was, going bad, going down, everything. ok, everything -- and the media

covered, still covering. so negative. there was a democrats who posted on social media, oh, so bad the aim was wrong when they tried to assassinate trump. there's a bunch of them out there. that is the democrat party. just look, the policies are there. by the time she does her first debate, they are already voting early, the democrats. ok? and they did not do a primary on her. they should have replaced him a year and a half ago and they could have done a primary. she would have got 1% like the first time. that's it. host: all right. daytona beach, florida, republican line, cheryl. good morning. caller: thanks for having me on. unfortunately, biden is being shoved out and kamala being coordinated and the people being told to shut up and vote for who

they are told to vote for is not a peaceful transfer of power. sorry, folks. and the media is the driver of the division in this country, unfortunately. they will lie and cover up for kamala, just like they did for joe. trump did more for this country in four years, and someday maybe he will be acknowledged for that. but he is reacting to the constant barrage of hate filled attacks on him. and i do not blame him. i do not like how he says some of the things he says, but what he says is true. and may he is not afraid to stand up and speak on behalf of the american people an answer to the press, something democrats will never have to do because the media will continue to lie and cover for them and blatantly, blatantly twist everything that comes out of president trump's mouth. i will never vote a democrat in my life again. they are not the party they used

to be. i do not know if they can be saved. i really don't. i feel sorry for the people that buy into what msnbc and cnn spew every single day. they just repeat it, not educated, not well-informed. they know nothing of which they spew across your airwaves, too. host: all right. let's take a look at vice president harris' remarks in detroit, michigan, yesterday, in front of uaw workers. [video clip] vp harris: people have been asking, what do you and tim walz have in common? i say, you know, i whole lot. we grew up the same way. we grew up in a community of people -- he grew up in nebraska, me over in oakland, california, seemingly worlds apart. but the same people raised us. good people, hard-working

people, people who had pride in their hartford -- you know, people who had pride in knowing that we were a community of people who looked out for each other. you know, raised by a community of folks who understood that the true measure of the strength of a leader is not based on who you beat down, it is based on who you lift up. [applause] and there's some perversion that is happening in our country in the last several years, where there is a suggestion that somehow strength is about making people feel small, making people feel alone. but isn't that the very opposite of what we know, union snow, to be -- unions know, to be strengths? it is about the collective, about understanding no one

should ever be made to fight alone, that we're all in this together. [applause] host: new york, line four democrats, jt, you are next. caller: good morning. i am a new voter, and i just have to say i am so disgusted by donald trump, and not even his policies, his demeanor, his disrespect. and what i also don't -- i kind of get it, but i do not really get it at the same time, how his supporters can say, you know what, that is the right way to act, let's be disrespectful, because you see it everywhere. when i go to school, when i go to high school, it is like you know who the trump supporters are, and they are the ones who are the bullies. they are the ones who get that demeanor from him. they get the demeanor from him, and you see it everywhere. people who are driving, the ones

who are driving and they don't care, they are the ones who have the trump stickers on their car. and i am not a big kamala harris fan, but at least i think she can bring the country together. i think she can bring the joy, like her and tim walz were saying. i think they can bring the joy back to this country, and we need it. because it is not a good lesson to show to our youth in our country to be mean, to be arrogant. it is disgusting, and that is why think people my age, 18 and going into college, should vote for kamala harris and tim walz, it is a must do. host: are you 18? caller: i am 18, yes. host: so this is your first election. how are you feeling about being able to vote now? sounds like you have been following politics for a while. caller: yes, i have been

following politics since 2016. i feel empowered to vote, and i think it is my duty to vote. and i understand why some kids my age might think, oh, politicians don't do anything, why should we do it, it is pointless. you have a voice now. you did not have a voice when you were younger. you have a voice now. what you want to happen in washington or wherever, you can vote, and you can get the people that you want elected in. and i think that is really important. host: all right, let's talk to john next in california, republican. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. so much to unpack here this morning. i hear every anti-trumper, every democrat call, trump lies, trump

lies, trump lies. it is their mantra. i wish just one of them would say, what did trump lie about? this is what he lied about. i might go along with he exaggerates about the size of crowds or things like this. but the lies that the press has been telling us since biden was elected, or even before, it is dangerous to this country. to have a man that does not have all of his faculties about him as the leader of the free world for the last several years and have everybody in the vice president, all the msnbc people, all the cnn people -- host: john, i want to ask you about this, you mentioned about trump lying in this story has been making the rounds since yesterday afternoon, and that is the story that he told about the time he nearly died in a helicopter crash with willie

brown, the former san francisco mayor. it turns out not to be true. it says it wasn't the famous former san francisco mayor on the helicopter flight at all, it was governor jerry brown, the former governor of california who bears little resemblance to willie brown. there is also no emergency landing, and the passengers were never in any danger at all. according to governor gavin newsom, who was also on the flight. jerry brown left office in 2019, says through a spokesperson, there was no emergency landing and no discussion of kamala harris. what do you think? caller: well, i heard him talking about being in the helicopter that made an emergency landing with willie brown. you know, i don't know, and i just now heard it was someone else, and it does not surprise me. there is a similarity between

them, they have the same last name and are also radical democrats. i hear there was an incident on a helicopter involving some california democrat politicians and donald trump. i don't know all the details. but joe biden and kamala harris, that administration, lied about something that a president and their administration should never lie about, and that is the death of american servicemen. he lied about the withdrawal, lied about the 13 that were killed. this press that we have today is criminally liable for a lot of the problems. everybody says we have got to come together. i do not disagree with that. i would like to be able to have a kumbaya moment with everybody. i am not willing to settle for my 14-year-old granddaughter having to share a locker room with a 17-year-old boy.

there is no compromise there. it is wrong. it is weird. it border lines on insanity. kamala harris did want to defund the police. she has never disavowed that. here's an ironic thing about the democrats, they want, only one hand, to confiscate your guns. while she proposes this confiscation, it is not a program that we will only take your military weapons, we're going to let you. keep your little pistols they are going to take our weapons. then, or maybe before, they are going to defund the police. they will take 15, 20 minutes to get to where i am at at best, and i am going to sit here were no weapons? with everything that is going on now. i don't mind the republicans don't make more of a deal of this, these 10 million that are

here today, they claim that 14% of them -- 14% claim to be eligible to vote. if that 14% votes, the republican party is over, the conservative movement is over. host: let's move onto george in missouri, independent. caller: i tell you, you are a saint the way you handle all these people calling and the emotions. i wish people would take emotions out of their thought and use common sense. i would like to think of myself as that. and in doing so, look at what these people are saying. this is not a personality or popularity contest, although a lot of people, that is the way they vote. you need to be informed, need to know the issues. now ms. harris needs to get out there and explain what her positions are on such things as

immigration, on such things as the economy, fracking, etc. and why, if her positions have changed, why they have changed. trump is trump. you get what you see there. when somebody says that the president is going to bring the country together, i ask you, when was the last time we had kumbaya with any of the presidents? they all say that, all embellished things. but facts are facts, and let's compare his 3, 4 years to what kamala harris has done over her period of being in office and make a reasonable judgment and a sound vote by being reasonable. you know, trump has been what he is, but i truly believe had covi

d not hit, trump would have had his four more years in and we would be done with him by now. ok, i happen to like some of his policies and think they would be good for the economy. but it is a president going to bring everybody together and we are going to have this kumbaya moment? i don't think so. host: here is cnn about the defund the police movement, says kamala harris praised defund police movement in a june 2020 radio interview. this says that she did voice support for defund the police in 2020 amidst nationwide protests for police reform, this month before denouncing the movement after she joined the biden presidential campaign. she said the movement rightly called out the amount of money spent on police departments instead of community services

such as education, housing, and health care, emphasizing that more police did not equate to more public safety. it says the whole movement is about rightly saying we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities. she added that u.s. was militarizing police but defunding public schools. michael in pensacola, florida, democrat. caller: i have been listening to the callers, and at one point the person always talking about cnn and msnbc, they haven't been sued. however, fox news have, and they sold out of court for $700 million, and there is another suit pending. part of the problem is these people did not take civics in

high school. we had a mandatory class and they taught us communism versus democracy. and i talked another class on american democracy -- i talked another class about american democracy. there were required assignments, and you knew about the people. people don't know who i am talking about. the situation with nixon, nixon had -- he was prepared. everything he did in life, you could tell he was prepared to be the president. however, trump has had failed businesses, five bankruptcies. the situation -- [indiscernible] that saved him. it was not really his show. the guy that does "shark tank"

brought trump in, but the executive producer did that show. the willie brown situation and how he can confuse a black man to a white man, i don't know how that could happen. host: let's check in on social media. on facebook, trump'prs conference is just an extension of his usual rally rambling. harris and walz were speaking in front of a uaw, a weirdo old guy speaking in they called awful room that is gold versus them spking in a room full of labor workers. ethan and michigan, i watch that soalled news conference by trump, he did not talk about an agenda, all he did was lie. bill on facebook says sooner or later, harris will have to stand and deliver to the media. as soon as she starts rbling, the bloom will be fading.

unless the media continues their cover up, it will be over. don in california, republican. caller: i want to put my two cents worth in on this mantra of trump lies, and every time trump opens his mouth, somebody has got an encyclopedia trying to fact-check him. try fact checking kamala harris for a change. you guys never fact check joe biden. you don't check kamala harris. you played -- you played a clip of her clinic she grew up in oakland, california she did not achieve grew up in vancouver, canada, in the nation of canada. you just never say that. her formative years were spent outside of this country. ok? also, she gets up on the stump and claims trump is going to tear up social security and medicare. never once has trump ever said that. in fact, every speech he makes,

he makes sure to include a val that he will never touch medicare and social security -- he includes a vow he will never touch medicare and social security. joe biden did try to hurt social security die never hear that from you guys. the shoe on the other foot test is all i am asking from the media. it will never happen. and you sit there and claim that, no, we are very fair. you were even talking about the defund the police thing with kamala harris. host: hold on, i want to go back to something i have been looking into weird where did you get that kamala harris was raised in vancouver? caller: from kamala harris. now you are going to sit there and lie to me. she spent her formative years in vancouver, canada. my god, you cannot look that up? host: she moved to canada for a job at mcgill university in montreuil, what on to howard in

washington before returning to san francisco for law school. her early childhood in california, then she did move to montreal and then came back to the u.s. i do not have a number of years that she was in montreal. not in vancouver. caller: i am sorry, but you are a hider. you're going to hide this stuff. host: this is from the independent. you can take a look. it gives her entire background here. caller: you know what -- when did she move from oakland to vancouver? what year? host: i have not found anything that said she lived in vancouver, but montreal, canada. her mom was working in mcgill, which is in montreal.

how many years, i do not have that, but we can look for it. john in delaware, democrat. caller: good morning. curious, i have been listening to c-span for many years and have learned to understand you got to put extremes of both sides to the site. my standing is this, and i understand a lot of people are trump fans. you know, he never lies. ok, we will put that to these ip doesn't cheat we will put that to the side. a couple things you cannot put to the site if you are an american. one, you try to overthrow an election. we all seen it on tv. cannot put that to the side. number two, cozying up to putin. you cannot put that to the side. i like some republican policies, like some democratic policies.

i like the country more than both of those. and trump does not value a democratic way. he just does not. i am not trying to trash trump or his supporters, and i'm not trying to elevate democrats. i am just trying to be a patriot. it is my standing. if barack obama did the things that trump did in office and out of office, would trump supporters be ok with it? that is my standing. if barack obama did the things that trump did -- if barack obama was convicted of felonies, with the trump people respond the same way to him, if barack obama took documents out of the white house and had all this stuff going on to get them back,

would trump supporters rick the same way? would they give barack obama that same grace? i am only using obama because he is a black man. trump, he is a white man. ask yourself, trump supporters, if obama did the same things that trump did, would you give barack obama the same grace that you are giving trump? thank you for your time. host: that will be it for this segment. next, we have political reporter shelby talcott for look inside the trump campaign. later on the 50th anniversary of president nixon's resignation, a conversation with historian john farrell, author of the book "richard nixon: the life." we will be right back. ♪ >> today, watch c-span's 2024

campaign trail, a roundup of campaign coverage, and one-stop shop to discover what the candidates across the country are saying to voters, along with first-hand accounts from political reporters, updated poll numbers, and campaign ads. watch the 2024 campaign trail today at 7:30 p.m. eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org, or download as a podcast on c-span now, our free mobile app. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. >> i shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. vice president ford will be sworn in as president at that hour in this office. >> president richard nixon resigned from office on august 9, 1974.

saturday, to mark the 50th anniversary, american history tv will air to any four hours of programming focusing on the 30 seventh president, the watergate scandal, and the key layers in the nixon administration. a discussion on the impeachment investigation at 12:45 p.m. eastern. 3:30 p.m. eastern, the july 8, 1974, supreme court's oral arguments in the case of united states versus nixon, focusing on president nixon's use of executiveeastern his farewell te house staff. and then his regulation -- resignation address. in discussions on his legacy, historic newsreel footage and interviews with staffers and those who served and work congress at the time. watch the speciahe 50th anniversary of the resignation of president richard nixon all day beginning saturd at 8:00

a.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span2. >> c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington live and on-demand. keep up with big events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearings from the you house -- the u.s. congress, white house events, the court, campaigns and more all at your fingertips. you can stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for the c-span tv networks and c-span radio plus a variety of compelling podcasts. he's been now is available at the apple store and google play. scan the qr code to download it today or c-span.org/c-spannow. c-span now, your front row seat to washington, anytime, anywhere. >> washington journal continues.

host: welcome back. we are joined by shelby talcott the politics reporter with semafor, welcome. what prompted the news conference. it was called early thursday morning after former president trump had been largely absent from the campaign trail. guest: twofold. one of the reason is that donald trump likes to be in the news and this has been a new cycle dominated by the vice president so this offered him an opportunity to be front and center in front of the cameras and some of the aides tweeted images of each different network holding the press conference live. the other reason is that the campaign has tried very hard these past few weeks to pressure kamala harris into being more proactive and speaking with the media. she they argue that she has not taken many questions or done any interviews since she became the nominee and so that was part of

that was to say we are out here talking to the press and we are doing media interviews, why isn't she? host: what stood out the most out of the news conference? guest: the non-answer on abortion situation happening in florida and how he plans to vote. he claims he will have a press conference at a later date to announce that. also on the abortion topic argued that it is not a big deal for voters and he has put that issue to bed, which is interesting because of course democrats have made that one of the centerpieces of their campaign. it was also notable how many times he brought up january 6 which is a topic he has tried to stay away from even as on the campaign trail he likes to mention it and has leaned into the january 6 dissent over the past few months. there was a bunch of notable comments that it was really long and meandering and there were

differing opinions on whether it was helpful and whether it matters. i know a lot of people on the vice president' team says that there was a lot of fodder that they could use to go after him. i am not convinced that it matters how many every day voters are watching at 2:00 p.m. on a thursday, but we will see. host: what do you make on the time that he spent on the crowd size issue? guest: this is something he has cared about a lot historically. we always see him on truth social and x posting about how big his crowd sizes are. it is clearly bugging him to an extent that the vice president is getting -- is more popular it seems than joe biden was and the democrats are rallying around her in a way that he has not had to deal with throughout this presidential campaign yet because the democrats were frustrated with joe biden and he did not bring the same amount of excitement. host: do you get the sense that

he will start adding more rallies and campaign events? he has an event in montana and do you think that there will be more of those now that he has had the news conference? guest: eventually. he did say that he will sort of the slowing things down through the dnc convention which is later this month which is an interesting decision. of course he could say that and then sort of change his mind. host: but why would he slow down going into the democratic convention? guest: we are not sure. it was a passing comment and tbd to see if his aides will decide to ramp up and on the flipside jd vance has been on the campaign jail over the law -- a lot over the last week and a half. so maybe they are taking j.d. vance handle the policy stuff and reinvent himself after a rocky start.

but we will see, i do anticipate as we get closer, we are already three months out that he will have to be hitting the campaign trail a lot more aggressively. host: he said this is the honeymoon period and it will end for harris. what are his campaign aide saying about the harris- walz rollout. guest: they are arguing that part of the reason that she is getting these numbers that are different than joe biden was because simply democrats are happy. they are relieved that they are no longer running against joe biden, and they argue that once she has defined, which is different killed for republicans to do. -- difficult for republicans to do. but once voters decide what they stand for then voters will come back. host: if you would like to join

our computation -- conversation you can do so. the lines are republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. you wrote an article for semafor that says "donald trump's personal attacks on kamala harris split his campaign message in two." what do you mean by that and what are you learning? guest: two different factions of arguments when it comes to donald trump. and kamala harris. there is the more traditional argument that his campaign has really been focused on which is immigration, crime, the economy and the kitchen table issues that voters really care about. and then there is the more abstract arguments that we have seen some republicans and in some cases donald trump bring up, the dei argument, the kamala

harris dating willie brown back in the day comments. and a lot of his campaign aides seem to mostly focus on the first part, on the economy, immigration, crime and the standard issues. but they are saying that their candidate in donald trump has sort of started to mention the other stuff. though they have to figure out how to balance that because ultimately as donald trump has told us time and time again what donald trump wants he has the open designer of what he goes on. so there is clearly the push and pull in how much rope do we give donald trump and incorporate some of these things into more traditional campaigns. host: you had an inclusive interview with senator j.d. vance on wednesday and what did you learn from him? guest: we talked about tim walz, the running mate, and we spoke about tim walz has been painted

by democrats as the profamily candidate because he expanded tax credits and decreased school lunches. the one thing is that j.d. vance said that he did not disagree with everything that tim walz has done but argued at the same time that he has not the profamily candidate because of the other views that he holds like the transgender bills back in his home state and we learned a little bit about his worldview , he has taken a little bit more of an isolationist stance so we talked about the ukraine war. his argument is that he does not believe, unlike the biden administration that vladimir putin has the ability to run through neighboring nato countries given how much he has struggled in ukraine. host: military capability. guest: correct. any also argued that neighboring nato countries need to pay their fair share and become independent militarily and with energy. so that was really notable. and then we asked a football

question and he gave a diplomatic answer about ohio state. host: you wrote recently that " the presidential contenders might matter the most but senator vance has become a bigger target for democrats than trump since he became his running mate." why do you think that is? guest: there is a lot of fodder. he made the childless cat ladies comments which outraged democrats and frustrated republicans. internally when donald trump picked j.d. vance there is a faction of republicans who were frustrated with that because i did not see him as the best option. they saw him as the best option to solidified the already solidified maga base. they were concerned about those sort of isolationist viewpoints. so there is already a little bit of drama brewing among republicans and democrats just went ahead and amplified it. host: are there signs that that

is exciting or are there still worries within the republican side about j.d. vance? guest: there are certainly worries this week has helped. this week served -- j.d. vance was trailing the vice president literally throughout the country as she was holding rallies and he was holding press conferences calling for her to speak to the press and talking about the policy issues that we mentioned. this week served as a reset for him. to be clear democrats are still going after him with the labeling of weird. he hopped off of the plane when we were traveling with him on wednesday and harris' plane was right there and he walked over to her plane and republicans of course said that is exactly what he needs to do and he needs to be aggressive and point out to the press that she is not taking questions. the democrats said that is weird, why is he doing that?

they are still going after him. but this week served as a reset, i think. host: let us talk to some callers. starting with john in florida, republican. caller: is important to understand that 90% of the communication industry certainly, the news, the print and internet and cable tv and cable news is pretty much owned by billionaire big donors to the democratic party. these people are basically afflicted by the concept that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. they look at themselves as having a zero-sum game between themselves and the american citizens. basically they have arranged things like laugh -- like nafta and other things whereby the wealth of american citizens are drained into their hands. the freedom of the american citizens are drained into their hands and the political power

over politicians of american citizens are drained from them into their hands. host: is your comment about money and politics and how much the democrats have raised? from donors? caller: it is about understanding the dynamics about what is going on with respect to this upcoming 2024 election. we have donald trump who is a reformist representing the american people and america as a whole and then you have the democratic party all paid off to act in the best interests or the desires of these billionaire sociopaths. host: let us get a reaction. guest: i do not know much about who funds these networks and stuff but i will say that money matters in presidential elections. host: there has been $300 million? by the harris campaign since she has been announced. guest: it does shift.

a month or two ago we saw donald trump raising big numbers and the democrats are worried so there is an ebb and flow with who has the momentum. host: greenville, south carolina. democrat. good morning. ulysses, are you there? caller: yes. i have a comment about donald trump. why would anyone vote for a nasty man as donald trump? host: was at your question? caller: yes. host: what are the latest polls showing? guest: they are showing that the race is close and some polls where the vice president is up on donald trump. she has tightened the lead that donald trump has and at times erased it and some of these key

voting states. and so the race has gotten tighter since she jumped in, compared to when joe biden was in it a month ago and when i was at the rc -- rnc convention and it was an exciting moment. they are in a tougher spot, not horrible, but tighter. host: wanda in fort worth, texas. independent. caller: i am so ashamed of the american people because they are not informed and they do not believe their lying eyes. what about he is going to get mexico to pay for the border wall? what about them calling her a border czar? and they just say it with conviction and enough that people believe it instead of researching for themselves. and the last thing is that trump is a convicted felon. felons cannot vote.

how are we letting somebody run and vote? and we just change the rules for trump. and it is just amazing. no black man, particularly, could do the stuff he did and a caller said what if obama did the same thing, we just make excuses for him. host: she mentioned the border, how is that playing? guest: she was tasked with the key issues of migration and a portion of the border. and that is sort of why this label has been brought to her for years now, quite frankly. back when she was originally tasked, you can look at articles and that is what they dubbed her. the root causes of migrations. it has become a big issue and has been a really big issue this entire election, migration. it is an issue that republicans feel like they can capitalize on.

at the same time the vice president has the opportunity to come out and clearly state what she plans to do and what the administration has done under joe biden, but i do think it is one of the top issues that voters care about. host: dan in atlanta, georgia. democrat. good morning. caller: hello shelby, i like you as a reporter. but icu and the rest of the report -- i see you and the rest of the reporters and i just thought yesterday that we are going back to 2016 to where reporters just allow donald trump to say and lie about anything. and then nobody challenges him. now, i want to ask this and have a comment after. when you had your conversation

with j.d. vance, did you press him about 2025? did you press him and now he is flip-flopping out -- how he wrote the forward for the guy who was going to write the book. answer that question and then i have a backup. guest: we had 10 minutes with the vice president -- sorry with the vice presidential nominee and we asked him a lot of questions. one of the tough questions i asked was about his recent tweet -- recent text messages with charles johnson who was declared to be a holocaust denier by the rj c and we talked about that. and we talked about some of the other controversies that he has had since he announced. i would have loved to sat down with an hour for -- with him for an hour and asked him a whole host of questions. we had five pages, we got through one of them. host: what is your follow-up. caller: my follow-up is simply

this right here. now when kamala harris finally holds her news conference, i want her and i want those same reporters to ask for -- asker those same softball questions and i am not just saying this. you can see how the reporters try to hold the democrats to the letter, but trump, once trump said yesterday that nobody died on october -- on january 6. host: we got it. he did say nobody died on january 6. guest: correct. and in our articles we always know when donald trump is lying about something. i wrote in my article yesterday about that that he falsely claimed that nobody died on january 6. i think the benefit in terms of

asking the vice president questions is that every news outlet has a different base that they are adhering to, which means that we have a vastly different idea of what question should be, which is great. i might ask a question about ukraine and israel because semafor has international focus and cnn might ask about the news of the day because they are a tv network. that is the benefit, you get a lot of questions all wide-ranging and some tough. host: i want to circle back to project 2025. former president trump and his campaign have been emphatic about distancing themselves from project 2025. my question is in the past when heritage has put these out before, how much of that did president trump at the time take from their recommendations? guest: heritage foundation had

an announcement back in the day and i believe it was about 66%, something around there. they ended up using a lot and part of the reason why there is confusion over project 2025 this year is because there are a lot of people who are working on it who used to work for donald trump's campaign and donald trump's claims that he does not know who is running project 2025, the news -- he knows the guy who runs heritage foundation so that is not true. a lot of the policy proposals in project 2025 are ones that donald trump himself has mentioned in the past. so it is murkier than the campaign wants it to be but at the same time the campaign has maintained that they have their own agenda and that is what people should be focusing on. host: pat is a republican in decatur, illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to ask about the

comments your guest made about the personal attacks versus the policy attacks that the trump campaign has made on harris and walz. i guess it is interesting to me like the fact checking that was ubiquitous during the trump presidency and suddenly it went away when biden came in, and i guess this new metric of personal versus policy seems to be applied only to trump because if i look at the harris-walz ticket if you -- it seems like 100% is personal versus policy. and i would ask why that same metric is not applied to harris and wyatt seems to be applied to trump to make the obvious inference that somehow this is dirty campaigning and beyond that trump goes when it looks like 100% personal attacks coming out of the democratic side.

the other thing i would comment on is this focus on 2025 that the press has been extremely cooperative with democrats and trying to push that out there. why don't we get some context when you look at democratic organizations like the center for american progress and john podesta is very close king makers. when they were in power these huge bills appeared. these think tanks put together these policies. there is nothing unusual about it. the policies are chosen and which one goes through.

the press has cooperated with the democrats so enthusiastically. guest: on your first question, which remind me was about kamala harris and the difference in -- host: in fact checking. guest: you talked about personal attacks versus policy attacks and the big difference here as i reported it is with the donald trump campaign there are aides who want to focus on the policy issues and then the candidate who wants to focus on the personal issues. kamala harris' campaign there does not seem to be such a split. they are calling them weird. they are offering up policy attacks but they are more cohesive. that is the difference on that. on project 2025i would argue the reason that it is newsy is because donald trump's campaign has so forcefully come out against project 2025 and made this into a bigger deal.

if project 2025 by itself was just existing and donald trump campaign and himself has said i would disavow this and i do not know anything about it, the policies are radical and whatever he has said it would've not been a big news story. host: daniels, west virginia. independent. caller: i just wanted to make a comment on abortion. i know that trump said it will not be a big issue and i know that harris is -- it is a big issue. i have been following all of these politics. we grew up in a family that had some democrats and some republicans. so we were taught to look at both sides and make our choice. and one of the things that i looked at with the governor of minnesota that is going to be

her vice president is his issues on abortion. and i know that they say that trump lies when he said that they do not do up to full term. but i heard on statistics on one of the broadcasting networks just wednesday that walz in minnesota, his policy is up through full term. and they have to keep statistics, i was told. and they said that during his governorship there have been eight full-term babies aborted under his governorship. and they keep statistics on the number of whites, blacks and the number of months and they -- as they do that. so that has not been brought out. i think it should be.

i think people need to look at both sides and look at the issues. there is so much extremism that i think so much with the transgenders on the side. i also heard this wednesday on that network that if your children want the operation to have a sex change and the parents do not approve that the state can take the children and do that. and i think these are things that need to be brought out. host: let us do that with shelby. guest: he did sign into law a temporary court measure. i believe this is a term at which in cases where the parents disagree and they are state lines involved then the court can intervene. and that has been really controversial with republicans in particular. and that is something that donald trump's campaign has brought up.

the other thing that donald trump's campaign has brought up against democrats is the argument that more so that democrats have not defined where they stand on abortion where you hear this claim that democrats support abortion up until birth. i have not heard a democrat come out and say that. certainly, it is a issue for democrats in terms that they have to define where they stand on the issue. host: steve in san jose, california. republican. caller: your call screener said this would be an excellent question for your guest. due to our public education system, not educating our children to where they can get good jobs and the sense of entitlement that is growing and growing, this is the basis of my

question. i am going to flip to another subject. in the early 1800s there was a french historian who came to the u.s. to write about this new democracy. he wrote that when the electorate, the voting public, realizes that they can vote themselves money that the grand experiment will be over. and i believe that we are at that point with two democrat socialists candidates that promise the world. free this and that, everything paid for. and it is not the time to be doing that. not with russia and china on the verge of expansion. it is not the time, and it will

lead to the destruction of the united states. your comment. guest: i think that is a debate going on within the democratic party is the progressives versus the traditional democrats. we have seen it with the so-called squad and how they have stood up over the past few years and argued within their own party over key issues. and so that is something plaguing democrats right now is this progressive versus traditional democrat and where do we want the future of the party to be? host: david in concorde, north carolina. democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i was going to ask the lady when she said that donald trump was fact checked about no one dying on january the sixth. he said that ashli babbitt got killed. she was shot by an officer of the district of columbia and

killed. and on top of that the abortion act. while you are talking out is i want to commit murder with this child. that is what you are saying. if you think it is ok to commit murder, you all go ahead and have a blessed day. host: comment? guest: on the ashli babbitt thing, he has said that a lot and it was true that she was shot at the u.s. capitol. but yesterday during his press conference he said that nobody was killed on january 6. and not mention ashli babbitt. so obviously that was false just with the ashli babbitt death alone. so, that is my last comment. host: shelby talcott, you can find her work at semafor.com. thank you for joining us. ca: coming up on the 50th anniversary of richard nixon's resignation a conversation with

author john farrell the author of "richard nixon: the life." first more of your phone calls with alpine -- open form after the break. the numbers on your screen. you can start calling you now. ♪ >> booktv every sunday on c-span2 futures leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. we will mark t 50th anniversary of president richard nixon's resignation from office with three authors. at 6:15, garrett graff the author of "tergate: a new history" provides a comprehensive history from the 1972 break in to the resignation two years later. 7:15 p.m., michael dobbs with

his book "king richard" which focuses on the nixon's administration's reactions. and then can kachigian takes a behind-the-scenes look at the administration. watch booktv every sunday on c-span2, and find a full schedule in your pgr guide or watch online anytime at tv.org. -- booktv.org. >> the next stop for the coverage of this summer's political party conventions we go to the democratic national convention in chicago. watch live on monday, august 19 as the party puts forward their nominees. here about their vision for the next four years as a fight to continue the white house. the democratic national

convention live monday, august 19 on c-span, c-span now or c-span.org. do not miss a moment. visit our website within the latest schedule updates and watch our full coverage of the republican national convention. you can also catch up on past conventions anytime on demand at c-span.org/campaign or by scanning the code. >> the house will be in order. >> this year c-span celebrates 45 years of covering congress like no other. since 1979 we have been your primary source for capitol hill, providing balanced and unfiltered coverage of government, taking you to where the policies are debated and decided all with the supports of america's cable companies. c-span, 45 years and counting, powered by cable. >> washington journal continues. host: we will go back to open

for them and take your calls until 9:00 a.m. and we will start with ron in new york. independent line. hello. caller: i just wanted to mention this and i think this might be an apt literature metaphor for trump. this guy strikes me as being all 12 angry men. not just one of them, but all of them. and may be of these trump people could go and watch that movie. it is not much longer than trump on the stump. but he is. he is all 12 angry men and you could also throw in a dose of scrooge, that is my comment for the day. host: anna, amaral island, north carolina. republican. caller: i just wanted to say a couple of things. i did have a question, what was

the in the news, was it hunter biden? i am trying to figure out if it was a russian or romanian oligarch that he got money from. i cannot find anything on that. but, president trump, nobody reports this. when he was in office, he and melania would fly overseas to feed the troops for thanksgiving and christmas. and there are videos of it. and he went down i think it was thanksgiving and said the law enforcement officers down on the border the holidays. he gives so much to people and nobody ever reports that. and i just wish that somebody would do reporting on that. and what he meant by nobody died on january 6, he was talking

about law enforcement officers because he had talked about that repeatedly. host: and i believe six law enforcement officers died as a result of january 6 but not on the day. i did find information on hunter biden from the bbc. allegedly play -- paid in a romanian influence plot. period u.s. -- "u.s. prosecutors in hunter biden's tax evasion case accused him of accepting money from it romanian oligarch who sort to -- sought to influence u.s. government agencies." you can see that on the bbc. carl. alexandria, virginia. democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: good. go ahead. caller: let me just say this. i hear the people talking about border control and all of this. the man came over here, stole

the land from the red man. and then brought -- bought and brought the brown man over here to build it for him. no one found this country, it was already found and they just named it. not one man found this country. the red man was here before. so, why is trump and all of them talking about border control? you are a visitor here. listen. put the people on the television that got killed. people are still talking about trump. he is talking 2016 and he has

done and over with. host: james in harvey, louisiana. independent line. caller: i do not know how you do it. so i hope i do not cause you to see a therapist today. we pick on the media about what the media presents and so forth and so on. most of the shows people are paying attention to are not views, they are analysis. it is their responsibility to pick up the facts. i want to talk about a couple of economic factors. it all boils down to money. before mr. trump was in office, when i was in school i was taught in economics 101 that generally tariffs are inflationary. but somehow in some way and i do not know how you did it, he

managed to show us that it was not and it could have been because of conditions at the time. we started a war with china basically on tariffs. another basic economic fact is whatever transaction today you cannot measure it until later such as inflation. inflation is always a look back. well, inflation is also caused by too much spending, too much government spending. let us not talk about what who did it or whatever. we spent a lot of money before inflation showed its ugly head and before mr. biden was even inaugurated. inflation just started showing it said before mr. biden did a thing. where did it come from? we are blaming him because he is in office and we should be.

go back and look and see what inflation was when nixon was in office. so, it is up to us and particularly on people unlike mimi and others and people in the media with what they present and that is them putting in and we deciding the facts. host: cnn is reporting that iran is stepping up and influence campaign aimed at u.s. voters with fake news so -- fake news according to microsoft. "i iranian operatives have ramped up their attempts to influence and monitor the u.s. presidential election by creating fake news outlets targeting liberal and conservative voters and by trying to hack an unnamed presidential campaign according to microsoft. one of the phony new sites allegedly created by i iranian operatives called former president donald trump an opioid-pilled elephant in the

maga china shop according to researchers." sharon, democrat. caller: hello. i would like to reference a may 20 24 article in the associated press in which he addresses the fact that after a survey that they did that six out of 10 americans think that trump was better on the economy than biden. and i will quote here which says "the economic numbers exposed a far more costly reality. his tax cuts never delivered the promise growth. the budget deficit surged and stayed relatively high under biden. his tariffs and treaty bills never brought back the lost factory jobs and it was a pandemic that caused job boxes for which trump accepts no responsibility including low inflation for which he takes full credit.

if anything the economy never lived up to its own hype." and i think a lot of people need to know that. when you ask people what did trump do -- do you think -- what do you think he did to make the economy better i think he inherited a good economy and i know that for a fact. they can never come up with anything. everything they come up with with like the trade deals and you can debunk that. and i think people need to hear that. host: just for the schedule, later th ening at 10:00 p.m., former psint trump a republican presidential nominee trump will be at a campaign rally in bozeman, montana we will have live coverage of that starting at 10:00 p.m. eastern on c-span and c-span now and online at c-span.org. at 8:00 p.m. eastern, vice president harris will be holding

a rally in arizona and joined by her vice presidential nominee tim walz, and we will have coverage on that on the c-span networks. be sure to check our website on that. everett in grand junction, colorado. republican. morning. caller: i would like to make a couple of comments. host: sure. go ahead. caller: maybe a month ago there was somebody who called in and has only one side comment. host: everett, you are breaking up. give us a call back so we can hear your comments. ernest in exeter, rhode island. democrat. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my

call. i want to make three quick points on the hot topic issues. the first is abortion and the unintended consequences of the republican policies. in idaho, 20% of the ob/gyn's have left the state. there has been a reduction of 10% of medical students seeking residencies in idaho. what this means is that women are traveling three to four hours a day to go to a prenatal appointment. three to four hours one way. so the people who say that they respect children are putting women under duress. that is just in getting prenatal care. the second issue is immigration. one of the most conservative senators that we have, tom cotton, the day after that bill was killed he came out and said

the quarterback was sacked by his own team. there is blatant evidence right there that trump interfered with passing that legislation. the last thing i have is the economy. people are complaining about high prices. the president does not set high prices. when will people realize that when general mills decides to raise prices that the congress and the president have nothing to do with that? it is capitalism at its worst. i want to thank c-span for all that they do. host: ed in pleasant valley, new york. republican. morning. caller: and little comment to the fellow from rhode island. when fuel prices goes up, everything goes up. to my point, i live in the empire state of new york. i will tell you that the state is draining every bit of blood and money out of its residents. they are leaving by the hundreds. i just heard the other day on

the radio that our great governor hochul is trying to get the $2.5 billion not for the residents, but for the asylum-seekers. guess who is going to pay for it? people like me. i am a senior citizen and i am fearing my $800 school tax bill in the area that i live because of the border problem. if you people out there really think that this will get better with the same administration that ran us into the ground for the last three years you have a rude awakening coming. it has been going on for three years and it is getting worse and our state is not looking like it was three years ago, it is in bad shape. thank you. host: jonathan in minneapolis, minnesota. good morning. caller: first off, i do not know if you are aware i am from minneapolis where our fine

governor from the state of minnesota, tim walz is from. i am an independent and i choose wisely about what is best for the country and the future of our people. i do not know if you are aware but there are rumors going around that he did not send in the national guard. first of all it takes four days for the national guard to be activated during the protest riots that we had in the city. the energy that that man has is beyond compare to anybody that we have running now. what people need to realize is that this is for the future of the country that we live in. it is for the 18-year-olds to 40-year-olds and the 40-year-olds to 50-year-olds. i am tired of fighting. let me explain one other quick question. if you have a question about minneapolis, please ask me or minnesota, please ask me because

people online are being so nasty towards what happened here in 2020. here we are on planet crazy. host: i do, since you were there in 2020. tell us about it. the criticism for governor walz is that he waited too long to make the call to the national guard. caller: sure. he made that mistake. and he has owned up to it. that is the problem with society that we live in now. now in minneapolis he did make a mistake and he admitted that he made a mistake. it took four days for anything to happen. you could not walk outside without seeing something going on. and we now in the city that i live in. if you fart wrong, you get a protest. i love the man and he is so nice and kind.

he knows your name and family. i cannot vote for trump. i cannot. i will cry if this country goes to job -- to trump and i will go to washington like everyone else planning to do something. i just want to say one more thing and then i will hang up. he tried his hardest. it was the mayor of minneapolis's fault that everything burned down to the ground. he did nothing that mayor, fry. one more thing. if you are online and you are trashing minneapolis and minnesota, please stop. we are kind and decent people of the state of minnesota. if you want to see what it is about, comment c. --come and see. host: paul in kingston, new york. democrat. caller: i would like to make a

few comments about honesty in politics. everybody seems to recognize that donald trump is pretty loose with the truth. but, a lot of people look back on ronald reagan as a really big hero of the conservative movement. and i will never forget the time that ronald reagan went to the soviet union and addressed -- and went to the university of moscow and address the faculty and students at the university of moscow and with a straight face he stood at the podium and said that there were no homeless people in america. ok. i think there were. i will now say something positive about a conservative from many years before that did something very courageous and paid the price for it. that was the reverend billy graham, remember his classics crusades? he took his crusades to the soviet union.

and when i grew up, what i was told in this country about what religion was like in the soviet union it was a godless and atheist country. and if people wanted to read the bible they had to do it by candlelight under their bed otherwise they might be sent to siberia. well, reverend billy graham took his crusade to the soviet union and the people there were not hiding under their beds by candlelight. they came out in droves by the thousands every stop he made just like in this country. i will never forget and i saw this one live. it could not have been edited because it was broadcast live. a reporter when he got that asked him what he had observed about religious freedom in the soviet union? and i have to give him credit he answered honestly just with what he had observed and experienced. he said that he actually observed more religious freedom in the soviet union than he had

visiting many countries whose governments that we supported. and he was bitterly attacked for a long time after that by many of his closest friends and longtime allies. my final comment is that it reminds me of something a friend of mine said to me many years ago. you can sell anything in america except for one thing, you can sell washing machines in america, you can sell cars in america. you can sell beer in america, and religion in america and sex in america. there is one thing you cannot sell and that is the truth because there is no market for truth in america. host: just a quick update about what is happening in russia. here is "" the washington post ukraine stuns russia in cross-border assault. a surprise incursion into kursk appeared to u.s. -- to use

european and u.s. armored vehicles. here is sarah. the publican. in morning. caller: i am calling to say that they keep criticizing trump about covid and criticizing him about the economy. the economy was fine. if it were not for covid we would be ok. they keep talking about lies. the democrats lie also. trump does talk a lot of crab but his policies and when he was in office went well. i just want to say i am tired of the democrats calling trump supporters all of these loser names. we are not losers. we just want a better life for our children and families. thank you so much for having me on. host: iris in alabama. independent. caller: good morning. i just want to throw this out there.

and i just want to see if there is anyone who has common sense. i live close to atmore, close to the indian reservation. ok? they have a council, they get $83,000 a year, each indian does plus $5,000 at christmas. $5,000 for their birthday. they have medical care and assisted living out there. they help other counties around here with the schools, and have bought computers with the money. they open businesses and they have went into another county and close to the shores and built a water park. they have addiction programs for drugs or gambling addiction. they have people that go out and sit with the elderly for eight hours a day and the indians all

pay for this. and they are federally recognized so they pay federal tax on their money. they have casino -- a casino in atmore. host: if you could get to the point. caller: the point is why can't we do something like that with the government? we still need somebody for the political and the law end of the stuff. we still need the armies and navies and the politicians could tend to that kind of business. host: got it. bobby in north carolina. democrat. caller: i love you so much. this woman from alabama, i would love to like just go down there

and just tell her and explained to her how we need to go and think about how we need to -- host: it looks like we lost bobby. that will be it for open forum. we will be talking about nixon because this is a 50th anniversary of president nixon's resignation. we will have a conversation with john farrell who wrote a book called "richard nixon: the life." we will be right back. ♪

>> today, watch c-span's 2024 campaign trail, a weekly roundup of c-span's campaign coverage. providing a one-stop shop for what candidates are saying to the voters along with pull rating -- pull numbers, fundraising data and campaign ads. watch c-span's 2024 campaign trail at 7:30 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org or c-span now. the free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. >> i shall resigned the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. vice president ford will be sworn in as president at that hour in this office. >> president richard nixon

resigned from august -- from office on august 9 1974. saturday, to mark the 50th anniversary american history tv will air 24 hours of programming focusing on 37 the president, the watergate scandal and the key players. programs include a discussion on the impeachment investigation at 12:45 p.m. eastern. at 3:30 p.m. the july 8 1974 supreme court oral arguments in the case of united states versus nixon focusing on his use of executive privilege. at 6:30 p.m. eastern the farewell to white house staff. at 8:00 p.m. eastern, his resignation address to the nation. see the discussions on richard nixon's legacy, historic newsreel footage and interviews with administration staffers and those who served and worked in congre athe time. watch our s on the 50th

anniversary resignation of president nix all day beginning sa at 8:00 a.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span2. >> the house will be in order. >> this year c-span celebrates 45 years of governing congress -- covering congress like no other. we have been your primary source for capitol hill providing balanced and unfiltered coverage of government, taking you to where the policy is debated and decided with the support of american cable companies. c-span, 35 years and counting powered by cable. >> host: we are joined by john farrell, author of “richard nixon: the life." what is the significance of

president nixon's resignation 50 years later? guest: i think he is with us always or at least will be because he was the only president to resign in disgrace. but also because his life was so operatic or shakespearean. he came from nowhere, he had a meteoric rise to vice president, lost to john f. kennedy, made the greatest political comeback, claimed the white house again and then was brought down by his own flaws. it is an irresistible story, along with the way that he was a polarizing figure, so half the country hated him, have loved him. each portion of the country -- a huge portion of the country loved him right up until the end, so as long as a couple of generations are around, he will be a magnetic figure. host: what was president nixon doing 50 years ago this morning? guest: he varied from his usual

routine. usually eight a very simple breakfast of skim milk, cereal or yogurt from his favorite famous southern california dairy. he was down in the kitchen this instance and there was a meeting from his steward and he said let's have corn beef hash and eggs, so they whipped him up corn beef hash and eggs, which she later said was probably too heavy for the events of the day he had to face, but he did have that little flare. when lunch came, it was back to his pineapple and cottage cheese , but he did have that little deviation of the norm for breakfast. host: let's hear how he announced his resignation from office, the day before, august 8. [video clip] >> prefer to carry through to

the finish, whatever the personal agony would have been involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. but the interest of the nation must always come before any personal considerations, from the discussions i've had with congressional leaders, i have concluded that because of the watergate matter, i might not have the support of congress that i would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interest of the nation would require. i have never been a quitter. to leave office before my term is completed is a warrant to every instinct in my body. but as president, i must put the interests of america first.

america needs a full-time president and a full-time congress, particularly at this time, with problems we face at home and abroad. to continue the fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication, with almost -- would almost totally absorbed the time and attention of both the president and the congress. in a time when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home. therefore, i shall resign the presidency, effective at noon tomorrow. vice president ford will be sworn in as president at that hour in this office. [end video clip] host: john farrell, you would have been a very young man. what was your reaction?

guest: i was here in washington, d.c., and the atmosphere that night and that afternoon before he announced when word got out that he would make the speech, was giddy. people were driving around the white house in caravans honking horns. there was a great celebration, and in contrast to the next morning, when it was 50 years ago today, it was a typical, swampy august morning, misty day, and it was much more solemn and one of the great moments in american history was his speech to his staff. host: why giddy? guest: i think because of vietnam, vietnam, vietnam. his chief of staff said if you

examine the nixon presidency, your first thought has to be that every single moment of every day, every decision was somehow related to vietnam. vietnam tour the country apart, ripped it apart, and i think we are still enduring living through repercussions from vietnam today. host: we are going to be talking about richard nixon's resignation that happened 50 years ago until the end of the program. you can give us a call if you would like to make a comment, if you are old enough to remember it. call us and share the memories with us. the lines original. if you are in the eastern or central time zones, call us on (202)-748-8000. mountain or pacific, (202)-748-8001. i would like to read to you a quote from your book, and it says, "the final house hamo than their share of shakespearea scenes. nixon was choking ba sobs an

rushing from the room after telling a group of his old friends from congress, 'i hope you wl t feel like let you down,'but no scene an astonishing spectacle was more memorable than nixon's fair will talk to the white house staff friday morning. the actor t e moment. it may well have been the most raw and clearly painful and unforgettable speech in american political history." what do you mean by that? guest: richard nixon was personally a very awkward person and did not have great personal relationships, aside from a few friends and family. and the way he got along that way, going back to whittier high school and college in southern california, was to be an actor. he was an accomplished actor, so he was good at memorization, good at getting prepared for an event, and then carrying it out,

a much better than he was as a spontaneous human being talking very we are talking right now. there was a couple of anecdotes in the book, one of which, when of his aides is brought in to be introduced for the first time to the president of the united states, and nixon stands up and basically hums and hazen cannot even think of the words to say, hi, welcome to the staff. in his famous comeback many years later after he left office , and he began to polish his image, he is have dinners at his home in new jersey, and various reporters and columnists would be invited. he would sit at the head of the table, chinese food was served to remind everybody that nixon was the one who went to china, and he would get this amazing speech about foreign affairs, going from one hotspot to the other, analyzing different players and people, and one of

the reporters had to go use the bathroom, went upstairs down the hall, was walking down the hall on the side table, and they were nixon's notes. he looked at them and realized that the speech had been memorized. nixon was great at acting at memorization and presentation, not a great guy at one-on-one conversations or relating to fellow human beings. host: we will take a look at this and then to cause. here's a portion of president nixon's farewell address speech to his ecstatic the white house. [video clip] >> sometimes when things happen that do not go the right way, we think that when you don't pass the bar exam the first time, i have been to, but i was lucky. my writing was so poor, the bar examiners that we just have to let the guy through.

we think that when someone dear to us dies, we think that when we lose an election, we think that when we suffer a defeat, that all is ended. re-think as tr said that the light had left his life forever. not true. it is only the beginning. the young must know it, the young must know it, they must always sustain us because the greatness comes not when things always go good for you, but the greatness comes when you take some knocks, some

disappointments, when sadness comes because only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain. and so i say to you on this occasion, we leave proud of the people who have stood by us and serve this country. we would like you to be proud of what you have done. we want you to continue to serve in government, if that is your wish. always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty, always remember others may hate you, but those who hate you do not win unless you hate them.

and then you destroy yourself. [end video clip] host: that very last line, "and then you destroy yourself," was that him accepting responsibility? guest: this is spontaneous, this is self-knowledge, richard nixon had allowed himself to be visible over the years instead of contrived of personality, i think he could have maybe survived watergate. but he was instinctively a guy who fought back at his enemies. his career in politics was self-made. he had no great sponsors. he was picked to be vice president by eisenhower and was not treated well by the eisenhower staff or by the president. everything he did was by himself. he had no great person to learn from. it made him opportunistic, and

it made him swing from time to time to the dark side of his personality, which i always thought came from his father. his mother was a very idealistic quaker. host: he called her a saint. guest: he called her a saint. and that is where i think he got the peacemaker urges. he wanted to bring about any's attentions from the cold war, but his father, frank, he was a real sob and brought his sons up to think that they could not quit, that they had to fight, fight, fight, and the odds are stacked against him. and many of the strains of what we see in today's politics were pioneered, championed by richard nixon throughout his career,

praying on the fears and grievances of the people. host: we got a qstion from text from scott, what, if any, parallels can you draw with what is happening today with former president trump? guest: i get askedguest: guest: i get asked that a lot, which is that nixon had a governor back there who said if you do not push the line, yes, you can play on the edges of race and racial resentment, but you have to be subtle about it. you cannot destroy the country, if the supreme court says you have to do this, then you go out and do the best job of any president integrating public schools in the south, and that

is what he did. donald trump i do not believe had that scholarly side or has that idealistic side. i think he certainly has the opportunistic side that nixon had. he is a self-made man, but the great comparison is that both of them know how to take the average american and say, you know, they are screwing you. i'm the one person who can represent you. that other person has different colored skin, he is getting benefits you are not getting, and you are paying for them. they are both very good at that. and coincidently, they knew each other. both learned a little bit from roy cohn, a noxious, horrible new york city lawyer, and there are a few strings where they touch each other. host: let's talk to harry, west virginia. guest: good morning.

thank you for taking my call. first, nixon's legacy is not what he did wrong but what he did right. he opened up china, much like admiral perry. who among us can say we have never committed sins? the question about america as we forget, we are forgiving and loving people, and what nixon did, yes, it was wrong. i lived it. i was in school until my dad told me you have got enough degrees, masters, a law degree, phd. he said, you have got to make a living and do something with your life besides read books.

and nixon allegedly had been a good student in law school and allegedly his name was iron butt because he could just sit there for hours and hours and hours. so it is true that he had a good memory. watching all this watergate with erlichman, and john talk about the cancer on the presidency, watching it unfold live, it is so devastating, but we have to forgive and move on. host: all right, harry, we will get a response. caller: thank you guest: one of the things that

struck me when i started out to do the book was i made the calls to people on the staff and friends of nixon who were still alive, and i was struck by the devotion and love that these men and women had for him, which clashed with the caricature i had grown up with, which was that he was a mean guy who could not inspire affection or love. and that made me want to say there must be something else there. i think you're something else there that i came to believe and put in the book is that they recognized the personal cost that it took for young dick nixon to rise from nowhere in the outback of southern california by himself, over and over again, as he said in that

clip, to the highest mountain top, and to do things like go to china, integrate southern schools, create the environmental protection agency, to do really good things in his presidency, yet, that there was this fatal shakespearean flaw that he recognizes in that speech to his staff and then you destroy yourself. it is a great story, and i think that is one reason that he will always stand out as someone, as that caller remembers fondly, and many people will forget him, and other people will not. host: anthony, kentucky. guest: -- caller: my thing was 1972 was

the first year that 18-year-olds got to vote for president, which is kind of a big deal. before you had to be 21. i did vote for nixon, but nixon stomped the grass. -- stop the draft. my draft number was really low. i was going to go. what he did with watergate, the men had grace and guts. he stood for something. unlike today, i do have a question, by the way, but we have a president who has dementia and will not step down. nixon steps down for evidently from what i read, they erased a few things of tape? he did not edit or do all the things of today. he did not get rich from china. he did not make a lot of money from china. nixon had grace and guts, and he

was a true american. and i have got to say that he did come through here, and my wife did play in a band when he had come in, and it was kind of a cool thing. but i did turn around, vote for him, and then he stopped the draft and saved me, so that, a lesson, too. thank you for your book. i'm going to pick it up. guest: mission accomplished. [laughter] yeah. changing to an all volunteer army was another on the great list of domestic accomplishments , with a great deal of dispute over how he handled vietnam. in the book i suggest that he would have been much better to have brought it to a quick end since we did not get much out of the long run, but in his mind, he had a great geopolitical

picture of a structure of world peace that required him to go to beijing and moscow from a position of strength and he did not feel he could do that if he had cut and run from vietnam and is a 20,000 american lives but more importantly, it would have saved hundreds of thousands of southeast asia, and that is one of the great sins of richard nixon, that he had been a young lieutenant in world war ii, he had seen churchill, roosevelt, eisenhower bomb the german cities, and he had become convinced that these great men believe that if civilians had to be sacrificed, then they had to be sacrificed, and i don't think he's saw the proper distinction between bombing a nazi regime

and laying waste to villages, a backward people in southeast asia. host: talk about his life growing up in los angeles and how begun to politics to begin with. guest: he had a series of ups and downs, he grew up -- like i said, his father was dirt poor. they bought an abandoned church and turned it into a grocery store, and that is where richard and his brothers worked. so he was always one of the brightest kids at whittier high school but also one of the poorer kids. that was a source of irritation because no matter how much you would go out for the football team, there would be a feeling of snobbishness among some of the kids.

and that feeling of snobbishness, the resentment towards the elites, he carried through his entire life. when he was president, you can hear him on the tapes railing about georgetown elites, but he was a star student, incredibly bright. he was invited by the alumni of harvard and yale to apply. they said that it will not be a problem, but the family did not have the money to pay for him to make the trip, and he went to little whittier college. in the day he got accepted to duke law school and the family said you are going, he was described as being excited because he was getting out. along the way, he meets this magnificent woman who calls herself pat. and they settle off in this incredible idealistic crusade to

change the world for the better. and she gives him on one of their first anniversary is her birthday present, a little figurine of a knight on a charger, which is how she saw him. he volunteers for world war ii, he annoys his superior until they sent him to the war zone, and he serves under fire for a combat air support for the guys to load and unload the planes, and goes up to the next island in the south pacific. and things have changed in america in 1945. there is a feeling that is gone with life, and a bunch of conservative republican businessman from south carolina come to him and say, would you like to run for congress and are you a registered voter, and you are republican, right? he was a complete nobody.

when i say he did it all by himself, he did it all by himself. host: sylvia, virginia, you are next. guest: thank you. in 1974, i was taking a summer school class, and the history teacher wanted us to write a paper, a term paper to graduate. i had to go to summer school on all the president's men, and i refused to do it. we were puritan republicans, and i cried and told them i could not write a paper on that, so he was kind enough to allow me to write a paper on another person. i just cried when he resigned. i was not able to get to vote for a president. at that time, i was able to vote for the primary of pennsylvania, and we were republicans to the point where we did not think

that president nixon could do any wrong until several years ago, i do not understand exactly what happened at watergate. and it is just the love we had for him. thank you. guest: nixon used to say on the square, he would draw a square, and he would say, i'm proud of it. and i think what he called the great silent majority in middle america this, as you can hear from this caller, there is great affection and love for him that was worn down by watergate, but also nixon was never very good on economics. and his presidency ran into huge problem with inflation in the watergate year, which is not a great time to have a double whammy of family subset of rising prices and seen scandal in washington at the same time. host: did we have reliable

polling at the time? can we tell how popular a president he was? guest: at the end, he still held on to an approval rating of the american people, but he had lost liberals long ago, and he had lost the middle during watergate. host: darrell, michigan, good morning. guest: good morning. -- caller: good morning. finally, i think we have got a great historian, and they have sliced and diced the watergate situation in his books. so my question is, i do not understand why a lawyer would authorize, and i do believe he authorized, i remember reading

in a newspaper that they were invading the democratic headquarters because they believed that the democratic party was using soviet money, and they were trying to get documentation to prove it. of course, they were caught in the act. do you have anything to say about that or can you add details? guest: first of all, this is a long-standing, well-planned bunch of dirty tricks. there was a white house tape that did not come out until several years later on which richard nixon is talking to aldermen, hr aldermen, and he says, bob, i want more wiretapping and surveillance. so you don't have a tape of halderman walking into the oval office and say that they're

going into watergate tonight, but there certainly was a tone set from the top that we are going to use every trick possible, and of some of them go across the lines, some go across the lines. there is an amazing memo from that same time where you before watergate, nixon's aids runs into the manager and says we are going to put spies into all the different democratic candidates headquarters so we know where the desks are and where the phone lines are. ahead of this, so we are ready when it is time to start doing the illegal bugging. a major problem is that he lied to the country and try to cover it up. and the famous smoking gun tape, he talked about using the cia to lean on the fbi and shutdown down the investigation, and then

the tapes come out. if they never came out, he probably would have survived, but when the tape comes out, and they shall all the wrongdoing, his support evaporates. why were they going into larry o'brian's office? it was the democratic committee's headquarters. i think it was a logical target. they were not after one particular thing. they were after what scandals do they know about us and what scandals can we find out about them? and anything that they got they would have been happy with. host: i would like to go back to your book, another quote about the time leading up to the resignation. "the judiciary hearings work for the most peater to sustain an existing consensus. it was time for tricky dick to go. as he reached a conclusion after

the saturday night massae, it takes an intense contravening force to shadow the consensual judgment. in nixon's case, the subsequent months only reinforced evidence." that's go back to that saturday night massacre, a bunch of staff members resigned. he had asked for archibald cox, special prosecutor to be fired. remind us of that time and with this have had happened if the special prosecutor was not fired? guest: so, as part of the condition of surviving, mixing agrees to appoint a special prosecutor -- nixon agrees to appoint a special prosecutor, a law professor, and he mounts a very energetic investigation, staffing is legal and investigative teams with bright, young ivy league lawyers who

would like to make a name for themselves and see nixon as an enemy who needs to be brought down as all prosecutors do. cox hears about the tapes from the watergate, the senate watergate hearings and presses for access to them in court. he is being too aggressive, and nixon asks the attorney general to fire him. the attorney general refuses. the deputy attorney general refuses, and finally, the solicitor general go ahead and fires cox. and then you have a firestorm at the time, which was accurate, which is everybody saying, oh my god, he is putting himself above the law, and the outcry was so large that republican numbers of congress got on the phone and said, i'm calling you from grand rapids, missouri, we are losing

on this one. you have got to do something. so they appointed another special prosecutor. and he went ahead and got the tapes, and they were devastating . it is very interesting in that before watergate, americans had this idealistic and warm view of their presidents. presidents could do no wrong. and then watergate happens. after watergate, there are things like they investigation into the cia, the fbi, the kennedy and johnson administration assassination plot. in this whole veneer allows us to see for the first time what people have been doing in our names, and this is a crisis and also a feeling of shame and alarm that congress then reacted by passing a series of laws,

nance -- campaign-finance, and it was called the watergate reform laws. americans being americans, we went back to making money, having a good time, lobbying in washington, and all of those watergate laws had been eroded, either by the supreme court lobbyists in congress. the situation is actually worse now than it was right before watergate and what we know about how american politics is financed. what was the second part of the question? host: i know you are not a legal scholar, but devon currently the supreme court's judgment on presidential immunity that acts taken while in office would be immune, do you think that what richard nixon did, the illegal stuff you did back then, would

he be considered immune under today's report -- court ruling? guest: it would get an argument, i'm sure, from the dissenters in the ruling. but that is what this rolling opens the door too, that a president who says, well, as a matter of national security, which was the excuse that nixon gave for the plumbers, we are going to go and break into the psychiatrist's office of a major critic of the war, and we are going to use that stuff against him to show the country that he is a threat and a dangerous weirdo. what i read about that decision would absolve the president of the united states from prosecution for that order. host: susan, massachusetts, hello. caller: hi. i'm so glad this gentleman is on

today. i grew up in that era, and i would watch every day the watergate hearings, and i grew up in the shadow of washington, d.c., and the washington post was the family newspaper, so we had been reading the whole drama as it played out from start to finish. i did come from a republican household, but my parents were very nuanced, and they thought nixon should resign for the good of the nation because the facts were there. but i have maintained great admiration for nixon's incredible grasp of foreign policy. he was a visionary in that area, and even though he lost the white house in disgrace, i think

he ultimately was a great american, but a complex one. and i also think he represented the unleashing of america's great talent. it was the busting through up the monopoly the police had with the ivy league schools, etc. he was more of the technocrat. he could -- you could come out of small colleges, state schools, even law schools that were considered second-tier to harvard and yale, and i also was glad that somebody finally pulled the plug in vietnam and just ended it. it was messy and disastrous, and

the cambodian holocaust and genocide that would follow, i was so grateful because people came back deeply traumatized by their service. the rest of my family were able to avoid the draft with college deferments, and this hit america so hard from the elites to people coming out of coal mines and steel mills, it was class-based war, the poor were going to the were, and upper could avoid it with college deferments. it was such a difficult era to grow up in, to be frank. host: do you agree with that? guest: i think that there is very little i disagree with from what she said. the split -- vietnam happened in

conjunction with the women's movement, and with the civil rights movement, and with the first immigration reforms that began to change the color of america. and with the gay rights movement little bit later. so there was a tremendous amount to those patriotic americans who had gotten the uniform on and had gone over with hitler, and then they came home and were proud of what they did, of their flag and of their president, whoever was the president, and then all of a sudden, there was this time of huge unrest, followed by watergate, which was a time of huge disillusion, and i think ronald reagan, to his credit, and george chair britt bush, to his credit, sort of brought us back a little bit from the chaos, but i think that

those scars and wounds are still there. and as you have heard from some callers, people from my generation or member the turbulence of the time. host: let's look at another historical clip, it is john dean summarizing his opening statement during the senate watergate committee hearing. [video clip] >> it is a very difficult thing for me to testify about other people. it is far more easy for me to explain my own involvement in this matter, the fact that i was involved in the obstruction of justice, the fact that i assisted another in perjured testimony, the fact that i made personal use of funds that were in my custody, far easier to talk about these things myself than to talk about what others did. some of the people i'm referring to our friends, some arm and i greatly admire and respect, and particularly in reference to the

united states, i would like to say this, it is my honest belief that while the president was involved, that he did not realize or appreciate at any time the implication of his involvement, and i think that when the facts come out, i hope the president is forgiven. [end video clip] host: what do you think of that? guest: i think it is interesting because it has been 50 years now, and if you look at the c-span ratings of the presidency , nixon goes up and down, but he is in the high 20's or low 30's, which is not awful considering he is the only president to resign in disgrace and for his behavior in vietnam and watergate. i think that over time, he will never be totally forgiven as john dean says, but i think that over time people have begun to

appreciate more about him. lyndon johnson, who sins on almost every scale related to richard nixon's, is largely because of civil rights and the great society programs and has now risen up into the top 20 of american presidents, and many of those same values and those same accomplishments could be said to nixon. he will never be there with lincoln and washington, but neither do i think you will be angering in the basement of history forever. host: richard, iowa, good morning. caller: good morning. i'm actually in reno, nevada. i'm enjoying this conversation. i have a couple of observations and then a question. wasn't it under nixon that title ix, the establishment of the epa

and clean water and air acts are passed? which are so profound today. secondly, what is your read on his ability to pick talent around him? when i see all of them on tv when i was growing up, it just seemed that he did not know how to pick the people around him who could give him great support and advice. guest: i think these are two great observations. nixon's list of domestic accomplishments includes what the gentleman said, including the integration of southern schools, includes affirmative, it includes the volunteer army, it includes social security index so for the first time -- he did all of this with democratic congresses. he never had a republican

congress to work with, so who knows what he would have done. he was an opportunist. he knew that edmund muskie from was going to run against him on the platform for the environment, and he could steal some of his muster by creating the environmental protection agency or signing the clean water act. these are counter moves to combat what was going on in the democratic congress. but in his heart, this is a man who supported every major civil rights bill in his time in office. he drew the line finally at forced busing, which a lot of people will look back and say that was not a bad place to draw the line. as far as picking personnel, he was awful. not only was he awful, but he failed to supervise, and he wore

his closest aides down to the point where they failed to supervise until when they recruited the plumbers, they recruited the biggest bunch of knuckleheads as far as the spy-fbi underworld of washington, d.c. they were just ready to be caught. there were so many stupid things that they did. host: why do you think that was? because nixon was not a good people person and did not read people very well? he does not like dealing with people very much? guest: there is a great scene in history working henry of england is being harassed -- where king hey marie of england is being harassed -- king henry of england is being harassed by his friend, and he sits there one day and says out loud to his court, will someone rid me of this meddlesome priest, and some ambitious knights go out and

slaughter thomas beckett in the cathedral. and to a certain extent, that was the story of watergate. nixon hired young, ambitious people, somebody once said, they were alleycat sue would bring the dead mouse to the oval office door and say, look what we have done for you, boss. and they would sit there and listen to tapes on his enemies, they ch -- the jews, and then they would go out and do incredibly stupid things, and he would skip over it, forgive them, or he was so preoccupied talking about vietnam, china, russia, and we left out that he was the first president -- this

is a guy who had a lot of big stuff on his mind, but he definitely was a bad judge of personality. host: salmon, maryland-, good morning. caller: good morning -- host: sam, marilyn, good morning. caller: good morning, if you could answer this, it involves lbj, kissinger, and nixon. as i understand the story, and correct me if i'm wrong or elaborate or corroborate, that lbj had a peace plan early on for vietnam, but then nixon had envoys around his back and say do not do a deal with lbj, do a deal with me, and then later on, the peace plan that kissinger and nixon put forth was similar to what lbj had first proposed. i have a feeling kissinger knew

about all of this. but in your research, does this story have merit? all the cast was started in that area, and the people who could have been avoided-- host: all right. we will get you an answer. guest: i don't think there was a lot of expectation among historians that the lbj plan would have led to a peace deal in the fall of 1968, but i will tell you who believed it would, and that was lyndon johnson and his aides. they really thought they had an opening here. but these historians doubted, as we look at the stubbornness of the borough in hanoi, but at that moment, this was not a dirty trick to get hubert reelected as nixon thought it

was, this is a legitimate peace proposal. along the way, nixon opened up a channel to south vietnam. at that time, the channel was used by someone who was telling south vietnam that you will get a better deal if you wait for nixon to get elected, and there is a set of notes in the nixon library by hr haldeman, in which nixon is recorded as saying that the name of the envoy was working on the south vietnamese. so i think that there is very little doubt of what happened. the only controversy was whether nixon personally knew and supervised it, and i believe that that note was a mini smoking gun. i think the things he did in

watergate, working with the opposition headquarters -- breaking into opposition headquarters, it was reprehensible but it was also american politics. but playing politics with what could have been as far as anybody knew, a legitimate peace deal from the soviet union that summer, i think that was the more despicable of the two backs because many lives were -- two acts because many lives were at stake. host: this would have been september 8, president ford issued a full pardon, and we have a portion of that. [video clip] >> my conscience tells me clearly and certainly that i cannot prolong the bad dreams that continue to reopen a chapter that is closed. my conscience tells me that only i as president have the

constitutional power to firmly shut and seal this book. my conscience tells me it is my duty, not merely to proclaim domestic tone quality, but to use every means that i have to ensure it. i do believe that the buck stops here. that i cannot rely upon public opinion calls to tell me what is right. i do believe that right makes might. and that if i am wrong, 10 angels swearing i was right would make no difference. i do believe with all my heart and mind and spirit that i've come a not as president, but as

a humble servant of god, will receive justice without mercy if i failed to show mercy. finally, i feel that richard nixon and his loved ones have suffered enough and will continue to suffer, no matter what i do, no matter what we as a great and good nation can do together to make his goal of peace come true. [end video clip] host: what was the reaction to it at the time? guest: my reaction now, this is an amazing time, wasn't it? presidents going on national television, talking about destroying enemies, and how many angels will have to fight for him if he does the wrong thing. the reaction at the time was by the nixon haters, this is awful,

you are letting him get away, the guy needs to go to jail. over time, i wrote books about each, and both of them at the time said this is a mistake. years later, much of the country and many, many historians, the vast majority, have come to agree that this was the smart thing to do. it was the humane thing to do. by accepting the pardon, nixon admitted guilt, which was important for the rest of his life, saying that he had been ramrod it out of office, so it was a good thing for the american people. he went up, sat in front of the members of congress, got grilled by the judiciary committee, and he put it behind him. he succeeded in putting watergate behind us and allowed

us to make a stand. host: dick nixon do the rest of his life -- what did nixon do the rest of his life after office? guest: he wrote a wonderful memoir and appeared on a fascinating david frost interview shown, which the howard movie is a spectacular -- spectacularly captures that drama, and he wrote a lot of books, and he wrote another more -- another memoir that was not as good as the first one, but he wrote a lot of books about foreign policy, and he sort of regained his reputation as a foreign policy expert to a foreign extent, to the point where he was on the cover up

newsweek . sean, ohio, good morning. caller: i just wanted to bring up that the watergate scandal actually did not have to happen because nixon was never in jeopardy of losing that presidential run to mcgovern. he cannot even hold onto his vp pick, and after that, he was having a hard time trying to find a replacement, and the democratic party liens a lot on the minorities, and they were in trouble that year in 1972 because the first black political convention happened in 1972, and they were not backing george mcgovern. he had the hispanics, and that started their own party in 1972. they were not backing george mcgovern. and then you have the native americans in 1972, so that party was completely -- there was

really no momentum, no reason for the watergate scandal to ever, ever happen, so i do not understand why people are not looking at all the accomplishments that nixon was doing and not even focusing on who was the threat in the democratic party? nobody even really talks about george mcgovern. in my thing that i say really what happened was, you know, nixon's biggest mistake was he took kissinger as an advisor. that was a huge mistake because a lot of bad moves were made on nixon's part under kissinger's -- whatever you would like to call it. guest: most of the planning of all the dirty tricks happened way before they were actually caught. it was just becoming aware to everyone in the spring of 1972

that the government would actually be the nominee. but the original targets of the dirty tricks were ted kennedy, edwin muskie, and the bugging wasn't larry o'brien, and interesting enough, the night they got caught at watergate, they were going to move over and do the montgomery headquarters, as well, which shows you the expertise of these bumbling plumbers. host: we will take a quick call, martin, kentucky. caller: i wanted to point out i was 14. richard nixon may have been the best president we ever had in the united states on foreign policy, but his domestic policy was a nightmare. is to master policy was to lie to the american people and restrict information we were getting.

lyndon johnson was the opposite. in 1974, it became obvious that he was -- that he knew of the watergate and tried to cover it up, and they spent the whole night wondering if he was going to do what he actually said. guest: i think that going back, he was really, really good in certain things, and he was really, really bad in others, in the handling of the american economy, it ended up coming back to bite him. he treated it as a purely political problem and wanted to make sure the economy was roaring when he ran for reelection in 1972 and ended up with this huge inflation afterwards. but he is going to be someone that we are going to talk about for many, many years in the future, and they will be books like mine coming out for many, many years in the future.

i think he is always going to be this person of endless fascination because of the sentiment that we have got from these calls today. you can just see it. he is a person whose life story mean something to a lot of people, one way or the other. host: the book is called “richard nixon: the life," the author is john farrell. thank you for joining us. if you are interested in the topic, we have all day coverage tomorrow on c-span2. tune into american history tv on this topic. we also have on c-span.org, video resources surrounding president nixon's resignation 50 years ago. that is it for today's "washington journal." thank you for watching. we will see you tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern ♪

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