guard troops? take your point, give cale thomas the final minute here. >> you have a lot to unpack there. i don't believe that general milley wanted to launch a civil war. one of the things about these demonstrations that the media never asks is, who are these people? don't they have jobs? who paid for them to come to washington? who paid for their signs? are they getting some kind of stipend for being there? they show up at all of these things, on buses, they fly into washington, who is paying for all of that? is it george -- , is other left-wingers of a type who support these district attorneys around the country that offer lower no bail, they let criminals out of prison and never sudden there in the first place? there's a lot of questions that need to be ask. this is when i met earlier. i get back to the idea of the other side, where people cross examine some of these people.

there is a lot of stuff that is not being asked. a lot of answers that are not being generated as a result. >> cal thomas, syndicated columnist. available online at cal thomas .com. on twitter at cal thomas. do always appreciate your time, sir. thank you so much. >> always my pleasure, john. thank you. we welcome back to the program, william barber, joining us ahead of the poor peoples campaign whirl march on washington. taking place this saturday here in d.c.. reverend barber, remind you or is with the campaign is and what you're marching for. >> we have tens of thousands of people, already over 500 buses alone, coming to the mass for peoples low -- wash into, with the poor peoples campaign is saying, whether it's people from appalachia, or alabama, massachusetts, or mississippi, we cannot have a country where we have 140 million people living in poverty. over 60.9% of black people, 30%

of white people, that 66 million white people, i could go on with a number. 52% of our children, 43% of adults. when, where the wealthiest nation in the country, if we just raised the minimum wage to a living wage of $15, 32 million people would immediately rise out of poverty. we have 87 million people either uninsured, all of this also creates a level of that. 700 people a day were dying of poverty before the pandemic, a quarter million people a year. the pandemic exposed this in poverty. we put essential workers on the front line. we treated them like they were expendable. so our campaign is saying, let's get a real account on what poverty really is in this country. let's stop the lies about scarcity. let's have the wealthy pay their fair share. billionaires make two trillion dollars during the pandemic

while 8 million people fell into poverty. let's do the things that make sense. they're not even radical, universal health care, living wages for people who are working. let's do what is right by all the people and change this. >> let me give the phone numbers for the viewers to join in this conversation. solid as usual, republicans 202-748-8001, democrats 202-748-8000, independents 202-748-8002. we have the house coming in about 20 minutes. of course, we'll take you there live for gavel to gavel coverage. until then, your questions and this conversation with the reverend william barber. i want to focus on that last part of the name of this march, and to the polls. what do we know about americans living in poverty and their voting habits? their ability to get to the polls? >> two things, we did a study, i want you to listen, it's called waking the sleeping giant. he had three things most americans don't know. number, one in the last

election, voters who make less than $50,000 a year voted higher than normal. they were critical in at least 4 to 5 key states. their votes alone. secondly, poor and low wealth voters make up 32% of the electorate now, and 45% in battleground states. number three, in 15 states, if -- between one and 25% higher than they did in the last election, they could close the margin of victory for any candidate. they can decide who sits in the senate, who sits in the house, who sits in the presidency. so we can no longer ignore 32% of the elected. saturday is not a day, it's a declaration. it's people coming, regardless of party, we have people from appalachia to alabama, white folk from appalachia, black folk from alabama. they're saying, here's what i demand. our vote is not support, it's

demand. then we're gonna mass mobilize all through the summer. poor low wealth people can shift the electorate. >> poor peoples campaign that work is where you can find that report. waking the sleeping giant, low income voters in the 2020 election. i know leading up to this march, there had been some effort on your part and the campaign's part to have a sit down with president biden. is that gonna happen? >> it is, i believe it's gonna happen. i think it's been more -- than the president, the president has said that ending poverty would be a major part of his effort. his back better plan was a good step, it wasn't as much as we know it ought to be. the level of poverty is so extreme. part of what we're doing is putting a face on it. one of the things that's gonna happen after saturday is that america will see herself. this is giving the people standing together, people have not seen. whether they're from massachusetts, california, or the carolinas. all the way down in

mississippi. i believe it's gonna happen. in fact, it must happen. the truth of the matter is, if we don't change the way we do public policy in this country, from republican versus democrat, where manchin versus mcconnell, or mcconnell versus the president, to how does this piece of public policy establish justice. how does it lift all of the people in the society. part of the way you do that is that you have to put a face on it so that the debate is not just about numbers, but about real people. lastly, we have to ask a different question now. it's a question that joseph sickly, nobel peace prize economists raised, it's, not how much does it cost to fix poverty and low well, it's, how much is it cost to not fix it? it causes a trillion dollars year toilet child poverty stay where it is. we have lost 300 and some odd billion dollars pumping into the economy, because two democratic senators and 49 republicans block releasing the living wage to $15 an hour.

and many people may not know, the march in 1963, fought for $2 an hour minimum wage. which today, would be 15. so at some point, america has to say, we can i accept 140 million people living in poverty and low wealth. a quarter million people a year dying from poverty and the effects of. itcaller: good morning and god bless your heart. you're on with the reverend william barber. >> gordon guy good morning. let your heart. i want to know if you have a whole number that i could reach on some old school. i indeed take you really get sometimes by phone. so i want to talk and be proud of you and i pray to god will always placing give you good health and give you a long life. >> thank you. >> well first of all thank you so much. and let me say to colors like you, if you go to, i know the

website beach repairs dot org. but if you tell information to give you the numbers to breach repair and the president. i'd like to say that this might i'm hearing, there are thousands upon? thousands, we've traveled all over this country. we've been in appalachia, we've been in upstate new york, we bring in the box, we've been in california, we've been down in arizona. on saturday, you're going to see black and white and native american and young and old and gay and straight and latino and asians, all coming together as one voice seeing, we are the hundred and 40 million poor low which people and, we won't be silent anymore with our voices or our votes. we are calling for a third reintroduction because traction agenda. we actually have a full agenda that we've laid out, it's been vetted by some of the best economists in the world and. what it says is this will make america better or. not breaking, we are saying to america you, can say sustain the democracy and is

fundamental foundations when you have, again i keep saying the number, you have 140 million people living in poverty and low welfare. our did just that number and say, what! that's the point. and on saturday i want you to see, you're going to see yourself, you can adjust your uncles, you're going to see your answer, your children, your young folk and you're going to say, you know what? this has to turn from political fighting to a moral discussion in this country about what we are really going to be. >> here you're getting on where are you gathering on? the mall? >> we've gathered on third in pennsylvania. >> in washington? >> well actually, it's an assembly, which is different from march. so we are telling folks, come to third and pennsylvania. third all the way back to 14th street. and on friday night, we are going to the national mall at 7:00. well, actually, 5:00. we're having a communal feeding of all, anybody who is hungry can come. but the reason is to show how much longer exists two blocks from the capital. and then on friday evening on

7:00, we're having a service of morning because 1 million people died from covid and we haven't stopped one week and just quite as a nation. popular people died at the rate of 2 to 5 times higher the. pandemic didn't dimmest discriminate, but we did. essential workers were sent out on the frontlines but they weren't given health care, they went given 11 which, and it was almost like they were expendable. so we are going to have a service on morning on friday night for those that have died and the youths who have died from pandemic, those who have died from war. and then at 9:30 am on saturday morning, on third and pennsylvania, everybody should come and hear the voice. and can i say it quickly while we're going to the college, all the upstart you in movements like the government workers, the general workers, unethically workers in south carolina. they're going to have their voices. every union is going to bring

forth the speaker. and this is a different rally. i'm not going to do like a keynote. reporting the voices of the people, this is a peoples gathering. you're going to hear from real people and people you normally might not have seen together because folks are realizing whether it's in eastern kentucky or eastern south carolina we've got to come together and address the issues of systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation, and the nile of health care, the war economy, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism. >> simple, minnesota, this is rebecca, learn for republicans. good morning. >> good morning. i would just like to make a couple of points. and one is i would like to know when the investigation is going to include the democrats hand in this riot. nancy pelosi is in charge of the capital police. why was her only five guards posted there at the entrance of the capital? they knew at least two weeks

earlier there was going to be problems. yet they light it happen and they did nothing -- >> and rebecca, since you're on with the reverend william barber, do you have a question for him? >> you know, i just prayed for everybody. we need to get rid of these guns, guns, guns. this is a smokescreen smokescreen to cover up the real issues that affect every day people with food, inflation, gas. business this is a smokescreen. they need to take responsibility for the part in this. >> reverend barber, thank you jump in. >> when you don't, thank you rebecca for your call, actually, my daughter's name is rebecca as well. but you raises a problem. question now, you know, when the riots first happened, the insurrection, people first said it was a bunch of pork. and we found out from some studies it wasn't. it was more middle class and up, wealthy mental. poor folks have not rioted. poor folks are trying to make it. and one of the things we are saying to this country, if you keep allowing 140 billion

people to live in poverty in extremity and they lose hope, that is the breeding ground for all kind of discontinuous discontent, it's the breathing ground for desperate sent on to current leaders. we don't need that in this country. we had fact need to live out our constitution which says we are the we ought to promote the general welfare of every person. general welfare to me would mean everybody has universal health care, everybody has a living wages. universal health care in 25 of the wealthiest countries, where the only one that doesn't offer some form of universal health care. >> for folks who have lost hope, and they do call in this program and -- will say that, what do you say to them? >> well you know, is interesting what becker just said when she said this inflation and all is a smokescreen. treatable can. i want to agree with her. i want to agree with her and say, look, the lie of scarcity is a lie. that's what we're going to show you. you cannot say in a country where you have a 20 sum trillion dollar gross domestic

product that it is you, can't deal with this problem. the fact of the matter is we have a lot of scarcity and we have a lot of we, don't know what to do. but the problem is we always start at the wrong end of the debate how. much is going to cost? how much is it going to raise taxes? we scare people. rather than, how much is it already costing us for all of this property, deniable health care, ecological devastation, to exist, and what would it benefit as if we changed those realities? so hope is when you come together, recognize that you have the power you have, poor and low -- electorate in battleground states. help us when you come together, they refused to accept this, but we don't have to use violence. we are going to be nonviolent but we are going to register our voices and our votes and we are going to stay at this as long as it takes. it took ten years to win the balance of the civil rights movement. this movement is committed to

as long as it takes to change the unnecessary realities of poverty and wealth in this country. ller:>> run, west chester, new hampshire, democrat. good morning. >> good morning. one of my most favorite guests programs in the world, reverend william, sir, you are absolutely correct enough. watching you a, watched you on msnbc. the poor peoples campaign is awesome and you know i could fill oh show asking and asking you questions, sir. you are absolutely awesome. i've got to tell you i think our policies, we're supposed to be trying to form a more perfect union here in this country. and we're just going backwards. unfortunately, the republicans are really pulling us that way. their policies, big corporations, they just take way too big of a chunk. you know, you wonder why we

have such a huge deficit beside our spending, and why middle class is being choked from taxes. the rich people pay very little because of loopholes and everything in the poor people by definition can't pay it. so that leaves the -- of the texas the onus of all the taxes or down good portion of them on the middle class. but our policies are just crazy. they are not there, not bad for people here. i mean things should be skewed a little more towards poor people as opposed to corporations, but it's the other way around it. always has been and probably always will be, unfortunately. >> well ron, let me stop you there and that reverend -- >> -- because people are going to stand up and we're going to fight back and change it. i also want to say, run, that poor and low wealth people -- because sometimes you want to isolate policy, sometimes the republicans want to say that poor people are their own worst and with.

you know, it's their personal morality. sometimes moderate democrats want to say, they don't even want to talk about poverty. the reality is we have to. the reality is when you when you look at the policies in, wasn't one or two policies it's, been policies over the years. you know even the pope talks about the near liberalism and trickle down economics, he says they're bad forms of policies that actually took us backwards. what we need to do in this country's scent of the hundred and 40 million people at low level in our public policy and lift from the bottom up and declare everybody has a right to live and do policies from that direction. if we did that, everybody benefits you know, recently some years ago it was all this clamoring. if you raise your living wage is, going to run prices up. and then from economists won a nobel peace prize, and guess what this study said? that's not true. it's absolutely not true! so part of what we have to do in this society is get over the lies. our gathering on saturday, most

people the wage workers assembly and moral march on washington to the polls, is about truth telling. we're going to put out an agenda. we're going to say what we're going to do. we're going to put the real play faces in front of the american people and we're going to challenge the lies of scarcity with choice and facts and footnotes, because until we can have to wait for debates truthful debates and moral debates then what we end up having is, like we had this year, two democrats and 49 republicans say no, watch this, two 32 million people. they literally said new to 32 million people. even though 100 and or in some cities since 1994 have raised their minimum wages to living wage. 14 republicans, two democrats a, said no. to 32 million people. they said no to 43% of the black community alone that would have come out of poverty with one vote. they said no to millions of white people, millions of latinos. this is the kind of

conversation we need to have an. what we are saying to congresspeople is when you have these debates, bring the people to the congress. that's why i want to beat the president. bring the people to the congress. bring religious leaders, bring impacted people, bring economists, and put a face on these policies so we can have a real moral debate and not just a normal the normal stuff that goes on in washington, d.c.. >> in a last minute before the house comes in here, when did we last have moral debates in washington? >> oh! we've never had them without a force. we never had them. we had them during the first reconstruction between 1860 1865 and 1898, we had them in the civil rights, the second reconstruction. they were forced by the people making it happen. and now we've got to have a third reconstruction. it's only going to happen if the people make it happen. our movement is saying we are declaring we won't be silent anymore, we won't be unseen anymore, saturday is not an and it's, the beginning. it's not a commitment, it's a commencing. it's not a date, it's a declaration. and we invite everybody to join

us. >> the reverend william barber with the poor peoples campaign co-chair. it is at this weekend. it is saturday, beginning at 9:39. >> 30. >> and tell folks again where to because they want to join. >> you want to join us? fight your way to pennsylvania and third from third to 14th. come and join us as we declare we won't be solid anymore and that these realities do not have to exist and we can change them the. >> poor peoples campaign can be found online at poorpeoplescampaign.org, and what is it on twitter? >> go to the dot org. i'm not as good as i should be with the 20. but if you go to the daughter you also get the tax number there and unite the poor you're, not a bore. >> as you know the poor revenue. barbara, always appreciate the time, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> and it's time for open form. many any public policy issue, any political issue you want to talk about, this is the chance for your call in and leave the program