and hope you'll tune in next time. have a great day. later today, president trump holds a news conference with reporters at the white house. you can see that news conference live here on c-span3. "the presidents" from public affairs, available now in paperback and ebook. presents biographies of every president, organized by their ranking, by noted historian from best to worst and features perspectives into the lives of our nation's chief executives and leadership styles. visit our website c-span.org/thepresidents. order your copy today wherever books and ebooks are sold. dan cox is a research fellow with the american enterprise institute and joins us now to talk about his latest report

looking at topics regarding parenting. dan cox, good morning, welcome to washington journal. >> thanks for having me. >> there are a lot of aspects being released by a lot of fronts. what were you looking for and hoping to find when it comes to the topic of parenting. >> i think it's pretty basic. we had seen a lot of polling about what parents think about certain policies, how they view the federal government's response and dr. fauci. we were interesting in checking in on basically how are parents feeling, what are they experiencing, what are their day to day lives like. and the responses we got were pretty grim. >> a lot of this was if i understand it correctly because schools were closing, daycare were closing, parents were spending more time at home taking up these basic e responsibility. how does that factor into the overall results of what you found. >> a colleague of mine conducted a report about when a lot of the public schools had closed and the majority of them closed

about mid-march. so, if you do the math, you know, for parent who is can't rely on daycare, schools or summer camps now, we're entering month five of people who are working doing full-time jobs and taking care of their kids full-time. >> when you take a look at these issues just to get a sense of who you were talking to, define what parents are in this report then. how do you define that? >> this was based on a national survey. we interviewed all americans age 18 and up. this report was based on parent who is had a child in the house under the age of 18. >> so single parents, two couple families, how does that work? >> yeah. we looked across the board at different type of families and different family arrangements. and we saw some pretty significant differences in how folks are experiencing parenting during the pandemic. so, not surprisingly two-parent households doing much better than single-parent family

households in terms of depression or feeling lonely and isolated or feeling you don't have time for yourself. a majority of single parent households experience that at least once a week. >> we'll go into that. if you want to ask our guest questions about this topic, we've divided the lines differently. if you're parents of children under the age of 18, 202-748-8000. all others, 202-748-8001 or pick social media sites or text us too. one of the things you start off with is the idea of comfort about returning to school. we could show you the graph but talk about the numbers but talk about what's behind the numbers, what parents were telling you about the comfort level they have sending their kids back. >> one of the really interesting things is this study was conducted back in early june, so before we saw the second surge with school returning a little bit more distant. now, you know, it's five, six weeks away for a lot of parents. so, it's much more of an

imminent thing. things may have shifted a little bit. most of the recent point is consistent with our own which suggests that parents are really uncomfortable with the idea of sending their kid back to school. and we saw this across the board. but certain families were expressed a little bit more and people expressed this a little bit more than others. so, mothers were a little bit more concerned than fathers about sending kids back to school, and parents of color were more concerned than white parents. so, we saw racial disparities as well. but it's not just the schools. if you look across a variety of different measures whether it's going to the movies or restaurants, even having someone over to your house, parents are significantly less comfortable engaging in all these different type of social activities than non-parents. >> so, just to show you the chart again, 56% of those mothers expressing when it comes to sending their kid back to school or daycare, they're very uncomfortable with that. 24% say something what uncomfortable and goes down from

there. 42% of fathers saying they're uncomfortable with this idea. does this idea about discomfort extend to going to a shopping mall, going to a park, et cetera? how far does it go? >> we asked i think around 10 or 12 different items including playgrounds. so, going with your child to the playground. and i know that we're in the summer months and a lot of parents in my neighborhood certainly, but i think around the country, are taking their kids to the playground. its outside, supposed to be safer than indoor activities. but again we're seeing a lot of discomfort. and of course, you know, being uncomfortable is something that does not necessarily mean you're not going to do it, but it may mean how you approach it will be a little bit different. when it comes to schools, that's a whole different ball game because it's inside, because the latest research actually suggests that kids as young as 10 years old can transmit as well as adults. so, there's a lot of uncertainty

around the information and i think a lot of trepidations and anxieties in all parents. >> how much do finances factor into this, even the ability to send a child to day care for an extended time more than they usually are under a normal circumstance so to speak? >> it's huge. we're hearing reports of more affluent parents trying to part their own microschools or pandemic pod where is they work with a couple of different families, hire a tutor or teacher and create their own kind of school environment where kids are getting professional instruction. and obviously that's very expense skp expensive and not available to the majority of students, certainly not low-income students. so, we're seeing these differences. we saw in our survey how people are fearing the emotional managing this crisis that wealthier parents are better able to manage because i think they have more resources whether to hire nannies or off lode some

of the parental responsibilities to others. one of the real interesting findings in terms of how they spend time, parents are spending a lot of time just doing basic housework. so, talk about child care and the importance of those kinds of responsibilities for parents. but majority of parents said they're spending at least four hours a day every day on just keeping the house clean and running. >> because we'll show people the chart of what the parents are responsible, but why focus on housework per se? >> well, parents, anything like mine, you have your kids around 24/7, there's a lot more to clean up. there's a lot more dirt being tracked in and just keeping up with basic household chores a lot more difficult when you have everyone in the house. >> 26% of those parents responding saying they're spending more than four hours each day doing house cleaning and other activities. that goes down to 16% of parents saying it's about three to four

hours. if you compare it to parent/non-parents, parents without children, 14% saying they're doing 3 to 4 hours of cleaning per day. there's more to this study, if you want to ask our guest, 202-748-8000 for parents with children under the age of 18. and all others, 202-748-8001. on the political front, you can factor this in, there's a story in the "wall street journal" this morning about where the congressional role should be in offering assistance. they highlight the fact that it was back in march, approving the family's first coronavirus response act which provides 12 weeks of paid leave for employees of home bound children through the end of 2020. you could talk about the specific or you can talk about the larger aspect of providing that kind of resource. what do you think? is that a good thing, bad thing? is there a mix there? >> well, as a parent, i think it's kind of a no brarn. we know a lot of child care centers and public schools are going to need additional funds

if they're going to bring on and install ppe and plexiglass and all the different things that will be required to do. i actually have a 2-year-old and 4-year-old in daycare now. the daycare just reopened and they're having to do a whole mess of additional processes and protocols which is expensive. and so i think a lot of daycare centers and a lot of schools are going to need some additional financial support. there was a recent report out by another think tank in washington, d.c. that what they found was that at least half of all daycare spots in the u.s. could be gone as a result of the pandemic. >> this is, again, daniel cox of the american enterprise institute, serves as a research fellow for the organization. we'll start off this morning with mark. mark is a parent of kids. he's in new york in amsterdam. you're on with our guest. hello, you're on.

>> caller: how are you gentleman today? mr. cox, i'm trying to figure something out and no one's yet been able to answer this simple question for me. what is more valuable or what would cost more? federal aid to keep parents who cannot work home so that they can take care of their kids or the life of the child? i mean, which one -- i know that we've seen human capital coming out of the white house as a term. what is the human capital value of a child in america today according to the american enterprise institute and/or yourself? >> right. so, i mean, this is a -- you certainly have a ethical question for a lot of folks. but i think the caller raises a

really good point. when you think about the folks that are hurt because of the pandemic, there's been a lot of anecdotal evidence and research that suggests that women and mothers are bearing the disproportionately negative impact to their careers. there was a recent study that found among parents who couldn't work because they were taking care of their kids, 80% of those were women. when we think about the financial toll, the economic cost, its affecting a lot of people across a lot of walks of life. i think we can't ignore the fact that women are bearing the brunt in terms of their finances and their careers. >> fort myers, florida, our line for others. susan, hello, you're next. >> caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i'm a grandma, 77 years old. world war ii. i understand all of the things that you're pointing out, but i would like to point out a different type of education that is being transmitted.

these children, our children, are frightened. the adults in the room are scaring the day litlights out o them. between the politics, the covid, they're frightened. and they do not understand. in fact, a lot of the adults don't understand. it's really a sad thing because children learn what you live. you can talk from now til doomsday. they will take their queue from what they see people doing and their behavior. and the second point i would like to make is i like hollywood. i like the entertainment industry and everything. but can they possibly produce any more garbage? everything on that television is violence, sadism and sex. i mean, can't you be funny without being dirty?

you know? there really -- it's overwhelming. and children are victims of this. >> okay, susan, thank you very much. and mr. cox, if i'll just jump on to the last part of susan, if you wanted to start there, the role of technology when it comes to the current situation. you can bring in the matters of content as the caller was talking about. >> yeah, so, i mean, i think in terms of video technology, it's been a boom. and i think a small relief to a lot of parents. we know that close to 3/4 of parents said that they use video conferencing to connect with family and friends many of whom they don't feel comfortable getting in touch with in person. i think that's something that's been great. there's been a lot of discussion about how virtual education has a lot of limitations. but in terms of it providing at least some available outlet and possibilities for students, something that we wouldn't have

had the opportunity to even do a decade or two ago. >> because of who called, is there a generational role in this? she's identified herself as a grandmother. i suppose that could be assistance to the parent as well. i know your report may not touch on it directly, but is there anything about having multiparents or grandparents involved in the process. >> i think that grandparents and older care gives played a critical role for a lot of parents who are struggling, particularly parents who both are working. and there was a recent study by the kaiser family foundation that we talk about schools reopening and the potential threats. well, 3.3 million kids are being raised or living in households with either older caregivers or grandparents. so, when we talk about people who are vulnerable, we need to think not just of children and the teachers -- although those are important groups -- but also

the older caregivers that are at higher risk. >> you talked about the parents working from home. what's the flexibility of an employer these days. if the parent says i have to take care of the child because they're not in school, how are employers factoring in? >> yeah, so i think that, you know, we didn't look at this in our particular survey, but the anecdotal evidence and what we've seen is that a lot of employers are being as flexible as they can so. so, if they can do extended work from home, off hours work, you know, they're trying to make it work for their employees. but, this can only go on for so long. if you're a parent taking care of your kids all day and trying to teach them and doing the home learning activities and then trying to do your work hour after they go to bed between the hour of 8:00 and 2:00 in the morning, there's only so many days where you can continue to do that and still function as a human being. so, i think for a lot of folks, you know, we need to see the

end, the tunnel, and unfortunately we don't. to the caller's earlier part of the question about the anxiety, i think a lot of that is the uncertainty among kids and parents. there's a lot of uncertainty about what's going on, what should be done. that's really come from the top-down. there hasn't been a consistent committed federal response to this. >> so, the level of anxiety and the issued i've talked about, because of that, one of the charts that you show, a mother showing mostly about feeling lonely or isolated. can you expand on that? >> yeah, one of it has to do with that mothers are disproportionately likely to be single, heads of single parent households, which we know that's a really important factor in term of being lonely. we know that also from other studys that mothers tend to take on additional both emotional labor and physical labor around the house. so, they're engaged in more of the everyday activities.

so, i think those two things are really a large part of the disparity between mothers and fathers in terms of both being lonely and feeling depressed, both of which mothers score significantly higher than fathers. >> you mentioned about the idea of not feeling time for themselves. you highlight that. but then two specific category, felt depressed and then actually physically crying because of these emotional issues. >> yeah, right. so, we found a significant mothers -- we asked this question about how much in a week. so, that's a relatively short period of time. and a significant number of mothers said they cried because of feelings of being overwhelmed or frustrated less, less common among men. but one of the things that we both discussed internally and how i talk about this stuff is that we didn't actually ask a question about feeling angry or other kind of emotions that are more commonly associated and perhaps men might be more comfortable conveying and

sharing in a survey. so, it may just be that women are more comfortable sharing these emotion but that men and fathers are actually also in a great deal of emotional distress as well. they just express it differently. >> we'll continue on our conversation with our guest until the house comes in in just a few minutes. george in ohio in richwood. good morning. >> caller: good morning. >> you're on, sir. go ahead. >> caller: i was just calling about. i'm a grandparent and we have a grand child that we have in our home that we raised and stuff with their mother. but i was talking basically about parenting and school. and what i'm trying to get at is that people are worried about sending their children back to school because of the social environment that they come in contact with when they're in school that they don't come in contact with at home. but if they are in school under conditions, they're not going to

have the social compatible with their friends like they would under normal conditions. so, as far as the social distancing and wearing the masks and all that, those are all good things. but when you send your child back to school under those conditions, they're not going to be able to socialize with all their friends like they normally would. so, people have to look at it. when they send their children back to school, okay, under these circumstances, they're not going to get the social occurrence with their friends like they normally would. so, those are things that you just have to knock and delete out the window at this moment. you know? so, when people are trying to teach their children at home, their socialization at home with their family is just as good as with their friends. they're still able to communicate with their friends over the phone. over the internet. and so they're still being able to socialize with their friends, just not in person. so, by being safe in school and

doing the things that the cdc and the local governments want us to do in school is a good thing. so, parents sending their children back to school for the simple reason of getting the social accommodations with their friends is not going to be what they think it is because they're not going to get that. it's just a matter of, you know, you have to be able to protect your child at all cost. and when you have something like this and people say, well, it doesn't affect children. yeah, it does, okay? in certain circumstances. do you want to be one of those one to send your child to school and they do get the virus and it does affect them? how are you going to dpeel? you're going to feel worse because you're not protecting your child. if you think you are sending your child back to school for the simple reason of they're not getting the social

accommodations of their peers, okay, look, this is going to pass at one time. and kids are going to be able to go back to school. i mean, i am optimistic. i am optimistic that this is something that we're going to have to face. our country has faced huge things before and we're going to face it now -- >> caller, i don't mean to interrupt, but we're running short on time. is that because of covid related issues. >> caller: yes. >> and how old is the child? >> caller: 12. >> so, from what you talked about the techniques of socialization and things like that, is that what you're applying to your own grand child and how is that taking, how is that, woing? >> caller: yes, it's working. it's working good. you know, my grand child, she socializes with all her friends. you know, over the phone, over the internet. so, she still socializes and she's in contact with them. okay. so, you know, this idea that

it's for the purpose of you know not the learning but the socialization of being with their friends, you know, that's what they're missing. >> got you, got you. that's george. mr. cox, i kept him on a little longer, but go ahead if you wanted to add to that. >> i think one thing that struck me as the caller was talking was just how difficult the logistics are of creating an entire new sort of school environment that can minimize the transmission. in our own daycare, they sent us a five-page list of new processes and protocols that they were engaged in. and all these schools are going to have to figure out what to do. there's a lot of significant age ranges in terms of activities and needs, whether they do special needs education. so, it's really a herk leculeank for these teachers and administrators, particularly if

they're not receiving funding to do so. i think it's a real parent. every parent is going to try to do what's in the best interest of their own child. so, if they're not comfortable sending their kmichildren to school, if they have any way not to do that, they're not going to do that if they're not comfortable. >> from suttons bay, michigan, our line for others, we'll say high to ron. >> caller: good morning, mr. cox. i'm a retired teacher after teaching for 32 years. i'm not going to address all the levels because we're dealing with a very complicated situation. but one of the things that we did when i was teaching school is when we wanted to change our academic structure, we contacted numerous schools across the united states and we used that information that they gave us per subject matter, reviewed the subject matter and adopted what we felt was applicable to our situation. questioning is why our country

doesn't or maybe they have, only i'm not aware of it, contacted countries throughout the world to find out how they're adapting their educational system to the covid crisis? and i think possibly that could be a beginning for us to pick from and use an adaptable in our communities. and i think if that was being emphasized a little bit more, i think possibly we could even do within our oun country and then we won't have to spend so much time scratching our head as to what we should or should not do. i'll wait to hear your comment. thank you. >> thank you, caller. >> yeah, i mean, i think it's slight right. there's a lot to learn from countries that have done things right and a lot to learn from countries that have done things wrong. i think even within the u.s. there are communities and states that have done things better than others. and i think there's a lot of learning that can be done and

help guide us for the future. you know, one of the real challenges of covid was it was a new disease and there's a lot of uncertainty about transmission, what are the best ways to prevent it. and now there's a consensus in terms of mask wearing, we know that mask wearing is important. and unfortunately been slow to adapt to it than a lot of other countries. and i think we're seeing results. >> this is daniel cox with american enterprise institute. that report online, by the way, if you wanted to go to their website. mr. cox, out of all the things we've talked about, we only have about a minute or so left, is there something else interesting, something else you found the things we didn't talk about interesting that was found in the report. >> yeah, again, i think that when you think about how parents are doing, again, there's been so much focus on the policy environment and what people think about schools.

but in terms of their emotional well being, again, a lot of parents are really struggling. children too. i think that a lot more research should look at that. we also didn't look at this particularly in our report but we're going to look at it moving forward is what is the state of american marriages. this pandemic has actually put a lot of stress on american marriages, financial stress, stress of raising children, you know, dealing with extended family and other caregivers. all creates stress in the environment. and we're, you know, really interested in seeing how the state of american marriages are fairing, and i'm worried that the news may not be good. >> if you want to find that report online, if you go to aei.org, you can see some of the research there from daniel cox and the rest of the people involved on this report on parenting. thanks for your time. >> thank you. we'll hear from another guest with the american

conservative union. he serves as their chair. welcome to washington once again. >> great to be with you. >> as it stands today, how would you make the case that president trump can win a second term? >> oh, it's -- this race sets up very similarly to how the race set up in 2016. the biggest dynamic, pedro, which i think is even bigger, is this idea that if you're a republican, if you're a conservative, that you promulgate hate speech or that it's a racist party when actually history shows it's just the opposite. this is the party that stood up against slavery and kept the union together and pushed for civil rights. but because the fact that if you support trump or if you're a republican or you support republicans and holding on to the majority in the senate, when that's equated to racism as it is so easily done in most media outlets, you know, what happens is trump supporters and republicans just start to ease

back on any public comments on politics including even just in social situations, even these corporations that are, quote/unquote, woke and are attacking people with these views. if you work in one of those corporations, you're probably not going to answer any pollster's questions. so, what i see around the country is a whisper. i talked to jim jordan the other day. he calls it the trump whisper. i have people come up to me and whisper support of what i'm doing or what the president is doing every day on the job. it's that whisper that i think is almost un-american. they're afraid to be speak up because there will be consequences if they do. >> when it comes to re-election and itself, how does the president's management of coronavirus factor into that? >> i think it could be a very big issue in this whole chinese corona outbreak. and i think most americans who are fair realize that china set

this loose on the world whether intentionally or unintentionally. it ravaged countries like italy. it's gone all over the world. we don't know the numbers out of china because they're corrupt and dishonest. clearly that's where the disease has had the biggest impact. i mourn all the deaths. i think your previous guest i found her comments outrageous as the father of five kids who are literally being held hostage on whether they can go back to school or not because we live in a state with a blue state governor who's putting politics ahead of the interests of our kids. and i think there's a lot of people out there in the country, especially working moms, single moms, single dads, people that have to care for their kids and love their kids but they want them in school. and they realize that in the outbreak of chinese corona, something like 30 kids under 15 have succumb to it all with comorbidity. so, kids are really not in the pool of concern when it comes to chinese corona. they need to go back to school.

as a matter of fact doctors, psychologists, paediatricians ae saying we're doing more harm to our kids by locking them up in their houses than we would letting them face the question of chinese corona in a school, in a safe and responsible way, playing with their friends. i mean, for my kids, it's traumatic what's happened to them and we've done exactly the wrong thing in shutting down the schools. >> aside from that, the president himself -- to what degree are you satisfied with the president. >> i love how liberals think that a president can do everything. and even republican presidents fall into this idea of how they grow the economy, they create jobs, bullet at the end of the day the president is the most important job in the world but there's a lot he can't do. and you can't control the outbreak of chinese corona. all you can do is bring therapeutics to market, try to push for a vaccine. that's exactly what the administration has done really in record time. the therapeutics on corona, the reason why we're reading so less

frequently about deaths to chinese corona is because doctors have learned. tragically a lot of people died in the beginning, mostly in states like new york and new jersey, mostly elderly people in nursing homes tragically because of terrible decisions that they made. but in that process, we've learned a lot. the president has been at the forefront of pushing some of these therapeutics and it's funny how most in the media have pushed back at him as if that was irresponsible. almost all the studies they're showing that the therapeutics he talked about are positive. i read several articles about the push on vaccines. i'm aware personally of a much faster test that you can get results in three minutes. that was just patented. and could be getting fda approval depending on the science. so, there's a lot happening in a very fast manner. everybody in america knows we've never faced anything like this

because we've never faced anything like this. >> matt joins us until 9:00. if you want to ask questions, 202-748-8000 for democrats, 202748-8001 for republicans. let me reverse the first question i asked you. make the case that joe biden can't win the election. >> oh, i'm not going to make that case. look, i'm going to shoot straight with you here. i think that the race is much tighter than is portrayed in these polls. but i think it's possible for joe biden to win. i think the strategy is brilliant. he doesn't leave his house except for a couple of times a week. he put out this provocative tweet foreigners better not interfere with our election. i think a lot of us would like joe biden to start interfering with the election. it's time for him to get off the sofa and tell us what he thinks. our analysis is that he's very radical and he's very wrong.

and his prescription on what ails america right now, which is basically a lot of socialism and being weak on china, is exactly the wrong thing. so, i think the constitution says we have to do this. so, let's have these two gentlemen clash and debate and do a lot of interviews. joe biden does a lot of interviews with former rap stars. donald trump sits down for a hostile interview with chris wallace. i would like to see more interviews from both candidates, not just donald trump. all trump supporters should no longer think that this is any kind of a layup. this could be the battle of our lives. >> and are you saying the possibility for mr. biden to win is because they're not familiar with the full course of his ideas, the full scope of his ideas or other things to it? >> yes, i think it's two things. i think we all know this. joe biden has benefitted from ducking and covering and not really having a campaign and

explaining the socialist manifesto he just signed on to which is the most radical policy proposal for any democrat who's ever run for president, period. the second issue that joe biden has to face is the fact that clearly something's going wrong with going wrong with his cognitive abilities. most people feel like it's a tough topic to talk about when i talk to my 80 old mother, who i'm going to see this week, you know, it worries people that he is not really up to the job so what he ought to do -- my advice to him, he probably won't take a, but my advice to him is get out there and show people that you got to -- >> thank you very much. thank you. ,, with pfizer immediately following their approval hopefully the approval process will go very quickly and we think we have