>> saturday, american history tv features historic convention speeches by presidential nominees and fore political figures from the past several decades. this saturday, former vice president richard nixon continues his law and order campaign in miami beach. >> the wave of crime is not going to be the wave of the future in the united states of america. [applause] we establish freedom from america so that america can establish the freedom in t world. >> watch historic convention speeches on american history tv, on c-spa and watch c-span's live campaign 2024 coverage of the democratic national convention august 19-22. and you can watch the republican national convention any time on

our website. >> welcome back to "washington journal." , 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 host: we are joined by john farrell