that a intelligence committee would create. so for the united states models and the arrangement we have maybe as ago ward as it may be is a good one as long as you have a champion for keeping it integrated. >> watch "afterwards" sunday night at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 2's book tv. >> coming up live on friday, president trump will be the commencement speaker at the u.s. naval academy in annapolis, maryland. our coverage begins 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. on c-span 2, a couple events on venezuela recent presidential elections and we hear from juan cruz who serves on the national security council on the trump administration and later in the morning a conversation with the form ever president of the venezuelan national assembly at coming up in about an hour, reporter jenny leonard on

u.s.-china trade talks. also, james and deborah fallows, code offers -- co-authors about ." book "our towns [video clip] >> based on the recent statement of north korea, i have decided to terminate the planned summit in singapore june 12. while many things can happen and a great opportunity lies ahead potentially, i believe that this is a tremendous setback for north korea and, indeed, a setback for the world. that was president trump canceling the summit, at least for now. he tells north korea if you change your mind, do not hesitate to call or write. north korea responded last saying we are still

willing to talk any time. well come to washington journal. the firstssession hour, your reaction to the korea in thend what is next -- first hour, your reaction to a -- the korea story and what is next. democrats, (202) 748-8000. (202) 748-8001 republicans(202) 748-8001, -- republicans, (202) 748-8001. independent, (202) 748-8002. we begin with the washington times. president pulls the plug. donald trump was no longer going to win the peace prize anyway. he demonstrated his art of the deal with cancellation of the summit with kim jong-un, which --th korea -- south korea north korea had skillfully begun to the tray as a triumph of its

own statecraft. to the washington post, mr. trump lows of the korea summit. his abrupt cancellation of the summit with kim jong-un had the same air of hasty, strategy free improvisation that has characterized the diplomatic opening all along. president trump agreed to the summit in march without requiring any action by the north korean ruler or even a clear statement of his intentions. he even did a metal to commemorate the upcoming meeting . the post goes on to say that mr. trump has impulsively blown up the process with potential consequences that he and his would not bother to calculate. many publications pulling out the full letter from the president to north korea.

mike pompeo, the secretary of state, legislator at the start of a senate foreign relations committee, here is a look. [video clip] allowing me tor do this. the president requested that i to read thearing statement that i recently transmitted to north korea. the letter is to kim jong-un, chairman of the state affairs commission. -- dear mr.ollows chairman, we appreciate your time, patience, and effort in regards to our recent negotiations and discussions long sought to by both parties, set to take place on june 12 in singapore. we are informed that the meeting -- arrested by north korea requested by north korea, but it was irrelevant. i was looking forward to being with you, but sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your recent statement, i feel it is

an appropriate at this time to have this long planned meeting -- inappropriate, sorry. i feel it is an appropriate -- priate to have this meeting. the singapore summit, to the detriment of the world, will not take place. you talk about our nuclear capabilities, that our nuclear capabilities are massive and powerful, and pray that they will never have to be used. someday, i look very much forward to meeting you. in the meantime, i want to thank you for the release of the hostages who are now home with their families. that was a beautiful gesture and very much appreciated. if you change your mind having to deal with this important summit, do not hesitate to call me or write. the world and north korea in has an opportunity for lasting prosperity, peace,

and wealth. this is truly a sad moment in history. sincerely yours, donald j. trump, president of the united states of america. host: later in the day, according to the new york times, pyongyang wrote still willing, -- wrote "still mr.ing, anytime," saying kim had held great expectations for the meeting. --e unilateral cap cancellation of the summit was unexpected and regrettable." but weforeign minister, remain unchanged in our willingness to do everything we can for the peace and stability of the korean peninsula and for humanity. with a broad and open mind we are willing to give the united states time and opportunity. washington times front page inls that a mild statement one of their headlines. in one of our first calls this morning, what is next?

rob.ork, democrat line, good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for c-span. host: what do you think? caller: i think the president is letting his pride get in the way. of course, the north koreans will be hostile and aggressive. this is not playing nice in the sandbox somewhere. this president, he reminds you of a girlfriend who is cheating wrong, something feels you walk around with a not in constantlyh, she denies it, she gives all these fancy stories to convince you it is not true, she tells stories to your face that are not true and makes you feel all confused and starts to make you feel iq you are the one that is crazy. what is next with this story? what is the next move on either side? caller: you have to put on your

big boy pants, you have to go in and negotiate with these people. they are going to be aggressive and you can't back away from it because they have tough talk. he has plenty of top talk -- tough talk, they will have tough talk, and you have to break through these people to see if there is a will, there is a way. if there is a possibility, you have to try for it. host: jacob in west virginia, republican. hello. caller: hello, thank you for taking my call. i can speak for myself. thes for obama negotiating iran deal. i was for the iran deal because i think it actually helped us bring peace to the region. that said, i have witnessed numerous democrats that say that trump should not even sit down with kim jong-un. kim jong-un gets a victory, and

it is insane to me that we do not want to make peace. are there going to be setbacks? yes. if democrats think we should dive in and negotiate and make world peace, [inaudible] crap. isn't worth a call inseph is our next indiana, democrat line. what is next with this story and negotiation? caller: i think president trump -- kick came out. i think you should have spoke to kim jong-un. to kimhould have spoken jong-un. i think it is important for the anders to talk some renegotiate. i think kim jong-un played chicken with donald trump and donald trump jumped up offense.

i think it is sad. host: words from joseph in indiana. lizzy feels different, writing on twitter "it worked perfectly. kim was planning on being the one to withdraw. guess who won and who is begging to meet? kim. trump played his trump card on kim." jockeying the usual by kim jong-un to throw off what he perceives as his adversaries. trump's aggressive, loud style should make for an interesting time of i. t." this episode speaks to the larger issue endemic to the current administration, the on-again, off-again style of leadership exhibited by the president on issues across the board. most recently, calling off a trade war with china after multiple threats and loose talk about how winning trade wars is easy. from the time of his candidacy,

trump insisted being unpredictable is a central of his approach to problems and negotiations. a great ability can be an asset if it leads to genuine progress and constructive outcomes. unpredictability for the sake of unpredictability leads nowhere. so far, this has produced few of the dividends that have often been promised. melinda in henderson, tennessee, democrat. caller: hello. comment about the letter that our president sent. it really concerned me that he did not take the fact that we , reportersover there and stuff at the time that he sent the letter. know that they

would not get upset and told them hostages? very, that was just really concerning for me. int he did not take consideration that we had people over there at the time that he sent the letter. host: so what should come next? next --what should come i think he needs to sit down and decide one way or another what he wants to do and stick with it. and quit playing games. quit going off about libya. shouldn'te that, just

come in to be discussed. that will not get us anywhere. host: wayne in jamaica, new york independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i don't know. president 45 -- he needs to, as the last caller said, stop playing games. he needs to have real negotiators. is a not negotiating, he reality -- i cannot even say --r, he is a reality of the reality tv president was trying to disrupt the presidency. i do not understand why we have to sit here and listen to the president play games with world leaders were actually playing him. i was wicked move on and everyone have a nice memorial weekend. move on and could everyone have a nice memorial weekend. host: on twitter, if any

president can make a difference with them, this one can and will not stop trying. that is carol. chris writes the big question after the failure of diplomacy with north korea is whether the nobel peace prize nomination was a bit premature? not like the do letter, mr. trump, way too much fawning over a desperate. john, thank you for getting up early to talk to us. caller: hello, c-span. yes, i would just like to say in the north korean talks, there will be more talk from the d.c. swap and the media swamp -- d.c. swap and the media swamp. in regard to mr. kim jong-il, the fruit don't fall far from the tree. failedegotiations have since his grandfather was in

charge. host: anything else? caller: no, i think you have covered it. host: what is next to go what should be next, if anything? well, the president, he decided to cut off the talks because they are playing games, so they talk, they are going to fail. presidents have given too much and they failed more. this one is willing to cut off negotiations when they need to be cut off. carolina, in south independent caller. what do you say? caller: i think that the north koreans never did intend to meet in the first place. listened to the senate hearing

with pompeo. he said they were not doing any planning out all, not helping them plan this meeting. it is not like walking into the coffee shop and having a cup of coffee, it takes a lot of tonning and a lot of people pull this thing off. they were not doing anything. for callingme them it off. they were just playing us. and we got the hostages, we got hostages out of this and they blew up the test site. we already won. thank you. host: judy is in miami, republican. what is your reaction? caller: hi, hi -- good morning. can you hear me? all right, sir. it is interesting to people who have never been in any kind international negotiation and

their entire lives. president trump has a 30 year history of doing international negotiation to build 400 properties around the world. kim was doing his normal bullying by insulting president -- vice president pence. it is like a child you are dealing with. kim has to be set back in a , send to his room for insulting anybody in the united states, especially our president and vice president, who is trying sincerely to negotiate. this is probably going to take about two years, because that is how can functions -- he functions. ,e have a history with kim including bill clinton, who gave him nuclear technology which he used to make nuclear weapons. ismp knows exactly what he doing.

he is a world-class negotiation r, and if anyone thinks they know how to negotiate, they need to read trump's book, the art of the deal, and learn something. host: judy from miami. thank you. want to take it back to the senate foreign relations committee from yesterday. he was asked by senator ron johnson from wisconsin what inspired -- what conspired during the meeting between the secretary of state -- we were told that it happened run april 1. [video clip] has beenministration crystal clear, completely consistent, the result of your meeting was to release the three hostages. what has changed is kim jong-un approach -- is kim jong-un's approach to this thing, correct? i regret the statement that the north koreans have made over the past few days, and the fact that we have not been able to conduct the preparation between

our two teams that would be necessary to have a chance for a successful summit. chairman believe the also believed president trump's offer of assistance in return for that complete dismantlement? did he have any doubt of that as well? senator, i always -- my wife always reminds me i should be careful about knowing what is in someone else's mind. >> i'm just trying to get your understanding of how those terms -- >> i communicated very clearly this was a sincere commitment on behalf of the president of the united dates, that we were prepared to make that thataction happen in a way would allow his regime to have the assurances it needed in order to make this fundamental, strategic shift in the history of the north korean trajectory, to make this fundamental shift where for decades, it has been

that these nuclear weapons were the thing that provided them security. to convince him that his security was best assured by going through this process and working with the united states to achieve that. host: more of your tweets this friday morning. givesays i guess we can trump the nobel peace prize. he can wear it alongside of his purple heart. robert wright trump will not roll over like obama did with iran. tj -- trump did get three prisoners release. what did obama do with north korea? absolutely nothing. wanda, good morning. have two comments. the first, everything was looking really good until bolton mentioned libya, and look what happened there. trump and kim dueling pistols, maybe they will shoot each other. host: robert calling from utah, democratic caller. what is your reaction and what is next.

is -- i amreaction like the rest of america. three fourths of us are scared to death of what this man is up to. but what we don't realize is he believes everything that he says . it is not a lie to him. he has never told a lie, because that is just the way a person like that, their mind works. and the callers should quit hiding in the hallways and get up and do something. i think that is my comment. host: in the weekly standard this morning, we have reaction from congress. the headline -- the prize. summons reacts to cancellation on party lines. "the president made the right decision in the battle between that kim the peacemaker

and kim the propagandist, kim the propagandist prevailed. this is an opportunity for us to have peace in the peninsula, but tim johnson decided to continue with his provocation. that this mentioned reflected a deeper understanding of the kim regime. that kimso said jong-un is a murderous desperate and a habitual liar. the president made the right call. laudatory.ere not endez saidb men the cancellation appeared to be the result of a lack of understanding in preparation. caller: hi. i think everyone is very quick to judge president trump and the decision he has made, and i think they are quick to judge kim jong-un. but we have to member there is we have to about --

remember that there is very little we know about that regime and we have a president who likes to grandstand. so we have seen donald trump ran standing about his nobel peace prize, and in response to that, we are seeing some kind of internal pressure emanating from north korea, where kim jong-un feels he needs to put on violent rhetoric in order to protect, i guess, his status as chairman and leader of north korea. i am not sure everyone inside the regime will agree with him. and people also might think you might be the sole actor of all decisions made, but in reality we are just seeing a game of maximum leverage. both sides want to gain maximum leverage. canceltrump was wise to the meeting when kim jong-un was heavy rhetoric, but kim jong-un wants to keep his nuclear weapons program. going forward, it is just important that people are paying

attention to the small steps that are made and don't look at actions taken by either leader as an end-all, be-all. this process was not going to happen on june 12. this meeting was not just going to take one day and one summit. there is not really a whole lot in this situation right now that is clear when both sides have made clear what they want, but neither side has made clear that they are willing to give it. the united states has not made it clear they are willing to economic support. north korea has not said we are willing to give up our nuclear weapons program. we would be open to it. so there is nothing really set in stone, even as mike pompeo likes to say that we are very clear. kim jong-un is a very smart man, he was educated in europe. he knows that nothing on the

table right now will still be on the table potentially six months from now. if anyone thinks this process with is something that will be wrapped up over the summer, they are naive and have not paid attention to world politics. obama dropping weapons in libya and seeing what happens, we are trying to negotiate with the regime in power. that is kind of my thoughts on that. people need to wait and see before they are quick to judge. host: jason in pennsylvania. tennesseency -- on to , avon is on the line. wanted to make a comment. i think president trump did the right thing because of the fact of all of the rhetoric and stuff and kim jong whatever his name is saying that well, they might not come or whatever and for their group not showing up to work with our people on the meeting. half to say just

your point, we are not going to play this. i think that is what president trump said. come back when you are serious about it and we will talk. the other comment i would like to make is just about the media. at one point when this first happened, everybody was just about wellthe media he shouldn't have done this, he shouldn't have done that as far as setting up this meeting. you should not have put us out there with a person like that. has been condemned because he canceled the meeting. their minds to make up, because i would really like to watch another station with sides -- besides fox and c-span. i love your program because it gives opinions on both sides and i think we all need to be heard. watchinghope you keep in tennessee. one of the earlier callers mentioned libya.

the washington post headline from this week -- how kim-trump tensions escalated. the more the u.s. said libya, the angrier north korea god. here is my president -- vice president mike pence last monday. [video clip] >> there are some reports that the president is concerned if it fails or does not go well, it will be embarrassing to have gone this far down the road and he is seeking input as to whether or not we should rethink this whole thing. >> well, i don't think president trump is thinking about public relations. he is thinking about peace. he is thinking about how we achieve what has eluded successful american administrations. truthfully, the clinton administration and even the bush got played in the past. we offered concessions to the north korean regime in exchange for promises to end their nuclear weapons program, only to

see them break those promises and abandon them. it would be a great mistake for kim jong-un to think he could play donald trump. >> but clearly the president is still willing to walk away? >> there is no question. .ook, we hoped for better we really hope that kim jong-un will seize the opportunity to dismantle his nuclear weapons program and do so by peaceable means. there was some talk about the libya model last week. clear,president made this will only ends like the libya model ended if kim jong-un does not make a deal. >> some people saw that as a threat? >> i think that is more than a fact -- of a fact. president trump made clear that the united states of america under his leadership will not tolerate the regime in north korea possessing nuclear weapons

and ballistic missiles that threaten the united states and our allies. in the washington post says a closer look at history shows libya might have been the worst example pence or trump could have chosen and might have contributed to the renewed escalation of tensions. nation choseican to voluntarily give up its nuclear weapons program in 2003, but the u.s. and europe help topple the got off the -- health regimethe gaddafi anyway. sterling, virginia. hi there. youer: good morning, thank for c-span. i appreciate you being there for all of us. i would like to say that i am kind of referring this to that christmas program, where i double dog bear you and that kind of attitude, this is serious stuff. we have two bullies messing with each other and it impacts the rest of us.

i can only pray for our country. we will hear more from the president and nancy pelosi but we will hear from you. george in clarksville, tennessee, republican. caller: hi, i hope you are doing good today. -- and others have said it -- i think the leader of north korea is so paranoid i think he is really afraid to leave his country. he is afraid that everyone will likely defect and leave him there by himself, and people in this country will attempt to overthrow him. he is just afraid to leave. he would do these things and actions and say these things to could blame ithe on the president for canceling it. i think the guy is very paranoid and no one in his position has ever left the country. i guess they are afraid of what

would happen if they did. new: damien is calling from york on the democrat line. what is your reaction to the summit news and what do you think his next? for taking thank you my call. i'm not surprised by any of this. the idea that you can go in there and treat it like a real estate deal is laughable, or you can go in there and talk tough and the north korean leaders will somehow banned. north korea is beholden to china, not the u.s., and what china dictate to north korea is dictates kim jong-un's behavior. we have an administration that cannot keep their mouth shut for these kind of negotiations and certainly backing out of the iran deal did not help the situation either. it is not just a matter of talking tough and looking tough and thinking you have a slamdunk , i think people laugh at donald

trump because of that. host: and the capital journal and the wall street journal, he writes the north korea summit got lost in translation. that eitherat -- side did not understand what the other was saying -- tensions build up and erupted. to the american side, the denuclearization of the north korean peninsula meant a rapid is not instant abandonment of the nuclear program, to be followed by relief from economic sanctions and economic assistance. to north korea, denuclearization meant a gradual process in which it slowly backed away from its advances in nuclear and missile development while the u.s. reciprocated by reducing its military commitment to south korea and began providing some immediate economic relief.

when national security advisor john bolton refer to the libya monocle -- libya model, he was sites toing open up western observer. north korean officials, by contrast, appeared to read comparisons to libya as a sign the u.s. was interested in seeing mr. kim suffer the same fate as libyan leader monarch and off the -- libyan leader gadhafi, who was killed in an american sponsored revolt. caller: good morning, sir. i have heard many people give their opinions. everybody is talking about kim jong and all of this, but why does he want nukes in the first place? separatekilled his there, his uncle, and a couple tothe people in his family

keep the process going for a nuke. so he will thinking he is just going to give that up because donald trump talks tough, this guy has looked at the united states around the world and attacked people. regardless of how people feel about it, that is what he has done. one thing that he has noticed, that the united states does not attack anybody who has a nuke, regardless of how people feel about it. that is his goal, to get a nuke said the united states will not attack him. in the process of doing that, he is showing everyone on that arensula in korea that supposed to be allies with the united states that the united states really does not care about them. i think this was a show to show them that the united states does not care about them. he had a billion -- the united states did nothing. we did not decide to step up the process or, as trump goes, apply

maximum pressure. they had a nukes that could reach or a missile that could reach the united states, but once they got a missile that could reach the united states, we wanted to show great action and show that we are so worried about the world and that we are so worried about this. this is like world war ii all germany andwhen russia decided that they were going to split poland. states did not get into that war. we were cool. --was not until hibbler hitler decided that he wanted to invade russia is. we did not care about jews or russia or any of that, we cared when people got too much power. understand that power is what dictates responsibility to the united states, not life or anything like that. he wants power. he is not going to be ginving

of his -- giving up his power like that. and mentioning libya made it worse. the minute he gave things up, you were cool, but then you turned around and kill this man. why would you ever bring that up? that is the dumbest thing in the world. sean in florida. here is nancy pelosi reacting to the president's letter yesterday. [video clip] goodthink it is a thing for kim jong-un. here you have a thug, a person who killed off his own family members, a person who runs a police state being legitimized by the president of the united states. they were on par with each other. you got the vocal recognition and the guard. he is the big winner. when he got this letter from the president saying ok, nevermind, he must be having a giggle fit

in north korea. as you probably remember -- maybe not -- i am one of the few members of congress who have been to pyongyang, right into the north. not into the border, but their capital. most of the members on that trip are no longer in congress now, but it is a police eight. it is a terrible place. the suppression of their people, the brainwashing that they do, kim jong-un,es schmoozing the president of the united states. he is taking the bait. we were sympathetic to say it is talk, talk, talk. that is better than war, war, war. but this takes preparation. this takes knowledge and judgment, and clearly it takes preparation -- with the did not make. and now he is walking away from it. in this very chummy, powell the

alsyer to kim -- p letter, this is -- host: the abrupt decision to cancel is not surprising given decades of volatile relations between the u.s. and north korea. it is also not necessarily bad news if it means the trump administration will now take the time to do the preparation needed to make such a high-stakes meeting successful, but it will prove deeply regrettable and utterly desolate really dangerous if it winds up meeting of the two hotheaded leader's sotloff and resume the schoolyard concept they exchanged over the past 16 months. they finished the editorial by saying to his credit, president trump has accepted the urgency of solving the north korean threat. his ultimate goal? -- to deprive north korea of its material, nuclear

weapons, missile, and nuclear test facilities is right. if we are lucky, this is just a hiccup in negotiating a standoff that has defined resolution for nearly 70 years. john in maryland, just outside d.c.. caller: good morning, how are you? host: doing well, how are you? caller: very well. thank you, c-span. when i hear nancy pelosi's -- that -- giggle fit is amazing. getting back to your issue, i think trump was smart to forgo the meeting. i think there were issues elevated and and change the posture with north korea, and trump was realizing that the leverage that he had slippinging because -- because china -- they got into two meetings, and the second meeting occurred under the notes

to the u.s.. he was smarts to bring it back and say look, we cannot have this. so china was creating a dynamic that created a difficult situation. he brought it back and now he will try to put an even keel on it and say look, if you want these negotiations to go forward , you will have to prepare. the united states was preparing, but they were not if you listen .o pompeo that needs to take place and china needs to know if they're going to mess around with this, that is very difficult. separate and apart from all of that, look what happened during the last few weeks. there is a nuclear poland the dutch peninsula with hostilities from the north versus the south, and the south and the north got together to say hey, we will end hostilities . is that still on? who knows? that was a huge, huge pragmatic shift, and the potential in the

future opportunity there is huge. how nancy pelosi can look at this and say it is all about donald trump -- no. it is about potentially a huge pragmatic shift. i think going forward, we have to see how these things develop with china and the north koreans . that is where the pinch points are. calling,nk you for john. the headline in the hill reminding us that north korea says it is ill open to talks after trump canceled the summit, so we will see what happens next. and on twitter, trump canceled because he knew north korea was not going to give up their nuclear weapons. north korea does not trust america and he should not. america has a history of lying and not keeping agreements on street he's, and john bolton's statement did not help. missed tweet, maybe you the fact that kim capitulated. here is charles, florida,

democrat. caller: good morning, c-span. how are you doing today? host: doing well, how are you? caller: i have a christian and i love this country, and in god we trust. trump [inaudible] he is trying to fool everybody because he likes the glory. he keeps tweeting all kinds of crazy stuff, plus john bolton messed up everything by speaking out about libya. that is not diplomacy. the other countries -- in god we trust. a communist, country, [inaudible] we can't do nothing with cuba.

we need to pray for this country, pray for our nation. [inaudible] he is fake. he is a fake leader. it is like look what happened to israel and palestine. they tried to make peace with a created chaos. thank you, c-span. danny in ohio, republican line. caller: i think he is one of the best presidents that we have ever had. , if not the best president. also, what is going on with north korea, our president is not going to tolerate a nuclear north korea. this being memorial day, we have

people who sacrifice their lives for a free korea. now, they are in their group. i am aistian to -- christian too, but being a christian means liberty and our founders knew that. that is why they put it in the declaration of independence. to really, for them be free, they have to have liberty. we have to stand fast in the liberty that god has given us. and we have to hold to it. our senators said we -- our d we hold these truths to be self-evident, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. home to ourhat came country that was beaten in

prison, did he have liberty for taking a poster off of a wall? does he have liberty? as far as jerusalem goes, our bysident did the right thing putting that embassy back in jerusalem because jerusalem is israel's capital. host: all right, danny. more calls coming in a moment. the washington examiner has this line -- no deal is better than a bad deal. they write a deal with north korea would be good, but it does not mean any deal with north korea would be good. confidentd are fairly that this was president trump's mindset as he called off the june 12 meeting with north korean president -- dictator kim jong-un. trump, who takes pride in his dealmaking skills, knows that one can only get a good deal if one is willing to walk away. this is more from the president on the future of the potential summit. [video clip] >> there was a difference when

kim jong-un left china the second time. i think they were dedicating an the unitedrrier that states paid for, ok, because we paid for a lot that was built in china. >> [inaudible] >> no, but i think president xi is a world-class poker player. and i might be doing the same thing that he would do, but i will say this. there was a somewhat different attitude after that meeting. and i am a little surprised. maybe nothing happened. i am not blaming anybody, but maybe nothing happened and maybe it did. but there was a different attitude by the north korean folks after that meeting. it was a greatnk meeting. nobody knew about the meeting and all of the sudden it was reported that he was in china a second time.

the first time everybody knew about it, the second time was like a surprise. afterk things changed that meeting. i cannot say i am happy about it. host: on twitter, why are people surprised? kim jong-un played trump like a was aboutt everything trump. he was more anxious that kim jong-un had a meeting because he swore it would get him a noble. trump and his baby go are our threat. security lionel, how are you this morning? caller: good morning c-span and good morning, america. one thing i want everyone to think about is russia, china, north korea in the 1950's. no matter what happens, north korea will have china on its side. china will have russia on its side. all of this rhetoric about we

got so much power we will blow this thing up, we will destroy whenyou cannot have that you are trying to negotiate something. remember, the united states has won no wars since the civil war's. not saying the government between then and now were bad, just saying they were just ill informed. how can a country, the most powerful country in the world, not win one war since world war ii? america, listen. our president is saying things and doing things that just don't seem right. on the domestic side, i think america is doing very well. or as thessador

theident, the leader of country dealing with the world, he is not doing so good. he is scaring me, and america should be afraid of the sky because of that. remember -- china, russia, and north korea are allies. bases in theding russia isa sea, trying to rebuild its soviet union, and north korea has south in check.japan think about it. lionel from baltimore there. another piece from the post, they do a timeline on how the decision was made and announced yesterday. they write that inside the white alarm soundedst on 10:00 p.m. wednesday when security advisor john bolton told trump about north korea's public statement threatening a nuclear to nuclear showdown and

mocking vice president as a "political dummy." trump was dismayed by pyongyang's battle coast -- , the samerhetoric theatrics that trump often deploys against his adversaries. that threatening language was a bad sign and the president told advisers he was maneuvering to back out of the summit and make america look like desperate suitors, so trump called it off first. his recent predecessors had failed -- that is in the washington post. they go on to write that trump's move brought south korea and other allies offguard, in part by design. the aides said the president feared that the news would leak if theyoreign countries were alerted. foreign diplomats got word that the summit was off at the same time as the general public, shortly before 10:00 a.m. yesterday, when the white house sent a copy of the letter to reporters.

officials were blindsided. had returned home from washington, where he met with trump on tuesday, and moved hisonal security -- and national security adviser recently put a chance of the summit happening at 99.9%. jasmine from south carolina, independent caller. good morning, thank you for c-span. this is the best thing ever. refer client -- brief reply from the caller florida? he is an only child, he has never had any children, and nobody with his dna is ever in a uniform or law enforcement. handow, to the subject at -- it was breathtaking to watch with hisident pence incredible, egomaniacal,

al arroganceogic that donald trump will not tolerate a nuclear armed north korea. i would like to express it this way. above it all and underneath it all, i smelled the psychological stench from the cesspool of once is in my lifetime, i could vote before you can't. -- i can vote but you can't. i was 12 years old before my mom could cast a vote in america. this will be around forever. thank you. host: david, north carolina, republican. caller: hi, how are you doing this morning?, thank you for taking my call. host: sure. caller: i had to call because pelosi's face was on. 1937, 130 p 40's saved china

from japan, who had chopped up 300,000 in about a week of chinese people in southern manchuria. north korea -- russia supplied north korea. the nuclear enterprise in 1954 -- his older brother was on the world war ii enterprise. i listened to all of these comments and i will tell you what i have been telling fox news in new york, because i have been after this for 10 years. i have been telling them what is going on with the games, everything, and now they just get the news -- but the news, it about the news' fault what is going on in north korea, because i have listened to the assumptions and rhetoric going back and forth with what we are going to do to north korea when he let those three guys go. everybody should have shut up until this meeting took place and then we might have some not being able -- the clintons, billy bob gave $4 billion to north korea to not make nukes.

look where that got us. and i won't let nobody forget about yellowcake. and if hence wasn't vice ence was a-- p vice president -- the guy helping build iranian nukes was the guy in canada in charge of accepting that yellowcake out of the united states, where the clintons and all these people making money. host: some other news from the capital. if you haven't heard, the wall street journal writes that the billdent signed a banking that rolls back certain regulations for both community and regional banks. you're a member the dodd frank legislation, the most to get it changed yet -- you remember the dodd frank legislation. the most direct change yet to dodd frank.

that's in the wall street journal. the washington times tells us that senators have passed a new bill on sexual harassment. this happened yesterday and would make lawmakers rather than taxpayers responsible for paying but in one bill, there are better protections for complaints. and back to the wall street journal, mcconnell, the leader in the senate, says a vote on daca is unlikely. he threw cold water on the idea of holding it rushed senate vote -- a fresh senate vote, saying he has no desire to spend time on bills that are bound to fail. from capitol hill. congress is in a weeklong recess for the memorial day break, and will be back in early june for likely a busy month. jack is calling from scottsdale, arizona. hello, jack. hello, thank you. good morning. are you there? host: go ahead.

caller: thank you for taking my call. the gentleman from ohio, i would like to compliment him, and the gentleman from one of the carolinas, i would like to complement him and their comments. let's make one thing really clear here, ok? those two gentlemen were very accurate. have of your other callers are just liberal trump haters, and second of all, let's look at the record here. it is crystal clear, ok? we did not pay to get back any hostages and we did not have anybody killed, ok? obama had in a massacre killed killed.bassador let's make that crystal clear, ok? ares look at the facts that right in front of us. trump has accomplished more in 15 months -- and he is not taking a salary. last time i checked, obama is

probably still getting a pension. the bottom line is half of this country needs to get this stuff whiners, quit being liberal cupcakes, back the president of the united states of america, and get together and say look -- this is the way it is, we need to stand up and be americans for men like my mom's older brother that was in world war ii, the uss quincy, that god the japsot bombed by and floated on a raft of dead bodies until he got picked up by an australian ship. quit whining and do your best to back the president of the united states of america. if you do not want to be an american, leave, ok? quit whining. all of these liberal politicians -- stop. host: jack from arizona. president trump's first tweet of

the day speaks about the commencement address at the naval academy. "i will be making the commencement address today at the u.s. naval academy in annapolis, maryland. looking forward to being with some of the greatest people on earth." we will have live coverage of that event at 10:00 p.m. eastern today in an annapolis. headline on korea as it relates to china -- uncertainty of talks upends asia, but it could means gains for china. of japanister abe might be worried. they were worried that talks were moving too quickly without japanese involvement and could leave japan vulnerable to north korea's arsenal. president xi jinping also appeared nervous about the pace of the talks and the prospect of mr. kim getting too close to the americans, particularly given his independent streak and pass willingness to buck china. but the cancellation allows mr.

influence as beijing negotiates a trade deal with washington. it is in his interest to have the summit pending for as long as possible, said the author of "the china fantasy." our next caller, hello. caller: hello, good morning, sir. i really appreciate your time and patience in accepting my call. in regards to the last callers, i really appreciate those war stories, but what do those stories have to do with the summit? i am a republican, by the way, but what do those war stories and officials floating on dead bodies have to do with the current politics of today's deciding? -- society? they have nothing to do, sir. trump tried to start the summit and pulled out immediately.

i believe he is the best president we have ever had, but him deciding to do that shows his strong impulses and his unwillingness to listen to any direction and decision made by his superiors. host: so what is next, bill? caller: what's next? first, i think this is a sign -- we are not going to get it, possibly, but for trump to possibly understand that him listening to his impulses is not going to lead him to the direct foress, diplomatic affairs the u.s.. this will not lead to any success. him thinking this is a videogame and following his impulses will not lead to success. from all right, let's hear steve in ohio, democrat. what do you say? caller: good morning, c-span. i would just like to make a statement, and that is why -un take the word

of a con man? take thed kim jong-un word of someone who is about to be incriminated and in peach? -- impeached? thank you. host: bill is our last call for this segment. i understand why north korea doesn't trust america. i'm afraid of my government. killing peoples unnecessarily. i'm a fan of america. my government will not tell the truth about 9/11. thank you. host: that was our last call. thank you for everyone who weighed in.

next, jenny leonard will visit us to talk about the latest on u.s. china trade talks, and later, james fallows. they have a book called, "our town." we will be right back. >> monday morning, watch our centennial. 3.rican history tv on c-span

and americans in the crucible of combat. we will look back 100 years to .ey battles died,han 10,000 americans were wounded or went missing. ,atch world war i centennial u.s. and france, 1918. commencement speeches next week in prime time. representative steve scalise, rod rosenstein, tuesday at 9:00 eastern. thomas, rosalyn gaetz

brewer, and nikki haley. tillerson,nton, rex and just in trudeau. thursday tim cook, governor john kasich, governor kate brown, and congressman luis gutierrez. and keishak meadows, lance bottoms. now, here totable talk about the trade talks, bring us up to date. we have seen the news. we have seen the video of cars coming in and out of buildings.

bring us up to day on the china trade talks. guest: we have had two rounds of talks. the third is happening the week after next. we have had the white house and the chinese announced a deal walked backnt trump from and said actually we need a .ew structure we need to think about this is a working out so well. thingsks are a lot of with the north korea summit complicating the upcoming visit. the hour.ging by >> explain what issues are on the table. where are the major sticking points? >> on the table in the framework

, the chinese agreed to buy products from the u.s.. ofwasn't any announcement how large that number would be. economic advisers need 200 billion. point, there is this chinese company banned from buying u.s. endpoints. the chinese have made it a condition for any agreement that would include buying products or anything else if it is not resolved. >> why is it a problem area now? >> it intersects between trade and national security.

there is opposition to walking back those sanctions congress secretary announced. with the chinese pressure, to say you need to ease those saying we are not supporting you, the administration is stuck. is talking leonard about the u.s. china trade talks. we have the phone numbers on the bottom of the screen for you. we look forward to talking to you. here is a little bit from president trump talking about the status of the trade talks. >> look at what we're doing on trade. china, much different. different reporting. we don't want to do that. we are working well and hard with china. i. blame china for this. china has been taken advantage

for manyited states decades. our representatives for missing in action. deficit withe china of at least $375 billion. we had massive theft of intellectual property to the hard to values $300 billion a year. .hat is all ending our relationship with china is a good one. --old president she president xi i don't blame china, i blame the united states for allowing this to happen. what did you hear there? guest: we are not making a deal.

when you go to his tweets from last week he referred to a deal. he touted the deal saying this is going to be amazing for american farmers. now he is walking it back. the administration has finalize an investigation into chinese ip theft. we have not seen these tariffs. the tariffs are on hold. we're not doing a trade war right now. he put out a statement saying all options must remain on the table.

president never talks about china without saying he has a good relationship with the chinese president. host: you cited his use of the word structure. he said the deal is moving along nicely that we will have to use a different structure to verify results. what does he mean? >> i think we are all trying to figure that out. members on capitol hill have .een sending letters , whoar secretary mnuchin we have oversight over. there's a lot of question marks. bury, democratic

line. c-span -- watch not frequently, but i keep up with politics. but see the ignorance among people generally doing as what trump is for the country. am completelyt i against trump whatsoever. but all the propositions he's made that have targeted his base, he has went back on or not followed through with completely. , feel like this country

, the lack ofations , the housing bubble, the ultimate highs. host: what about trade itself with china and these talks? what do you make of that issue? caller: where is that going? initially we were going to what hundred 50 billion dollars worth of tariffs -- $150 billion worth of tariffs on steel. that hasn't happened. trump has realized he has backed himself into a corner with talks

of a no go prize and everyone propping him up as far as that goes. getting all of these things into giving a little bit of leverage. host: thank you. guest: it is interesting he mentioned the base. ,f you look at twitter basically after the sunday shows when secretary mnuchin declared it on hold.declared you saw old campaign advisers, ou come out. getting the messaging through. i think people know how to do that. his base, his allies were saying

you are abandoning a campaign promise. you need to follow through for your base. we saw that ramping up a lot last week. trump backs away from china. deal under pressure. guest: pressure within and without the united's -- administration. host: hello. caller: i want to make a quick comment. i think everybody needs to get out of the bunker. this is about national security.

there is a difference between trade and national security. aboutituation is all national security. there is reason why there is bipartisan support to ensure this doesn't go through. 75,000 people in china are going to use -- lose our jobs. i'm a cyber security analyst. i understand what cte has been doing. they have been using our phones to route into companies to steal information, or steel private company -- or still private private-- or steal secrets. the idea we should go along to get along with china is ludicrous.

thank you c-span for hearing me out. i pray that somebody gets in the president's ear and explains this is a national security issue. host: anything you want to add? guest: the national security angle is what capitol hill is stressing to the treasury secretary. they keep saying this is not something you can trade away. this is a law enforcement issue. it is in the pipeline basically to stop the administration from walking back because members of congress feel so strongly. host: i was going to ask him how much power does congress have to stop something the president

might want to do? guest: if they were to do something on the trade front, this lies in the u.s. trade representative. here i think it is a little bit complicated. letters.write they are trying to pass .egislation to stop the president has a lot of authority he is making use of. host: republican of montana. it is important we engage in these negotiations. keep in mind china's strategic approach and goal.

>> thank you for c-span. up a building put . when i was checking in to putting it up, they told me the price of steel the past four weeks went up 10%. about anyomment was money that was donated to a trump organization from china. host: can you speak to that? guest: i don't know where the price increase has come from. it is hard to gauge. the trump administration

excluded some allies. host: remind us of what parts of the country, what industries and businesses are most likely to benefit or get hurt depending on how these trade talks work out? steelworkers, the aluminum workers, they have .sked for action against china there is overcapacity. other countries agree china is most likely the cause of that. it is always the first in the target line to be hit by retaliation. , lobbyingthat clear

around town. with the agriculture secretary brings up. it is a little bit of everything. host: we are talking here about u.s. china trade. our guest is jenny leonard of bloomberg who writes an entrée for bloomberg. educated at duke. he is taking your calls. early june visit now by the commerce secretary to china.

guest: good question. asking, wel hill is need the trade representative. the white house argues what is the framework of the deal they announced. it is not clear if you will be the only one going. i would say it is not clear why depending on everything with north korea. those are the two main arguments

from the white house. people want someone else to be in charge. host: how are agenda set and agreed to? does it look like in terms of size? can you give us some flavor? untraditionalre trade talks. if they went that route, it would be comparable to the nafta negotiation. of ais a little bit smaller sized group. we have the chinese delegation. we have the u.s. trade representative. we have members from the cap

net. then there advisers that negotiate a smaller circle. the white house usually has a big trade round. , a large have a hotel convention center. something like that. unconventional trade negotiation. --hor: host: how is that decision made? made: that decision is with a lot of negotiation, fighting on the china side. and talked last thursday friday. this statement did not come out until saturday because the two sides were fighting over what are we going to say?

the u.s. side pushing for trade deficit reduction. was not a lot of substance. host: going back to your calls. caller: thank you for c-span. my question has to do with trade and our allies. opinion, how we interact with our allies versus trade and tariffs has been erratic. how is our confidence level moving forward based on what is erratic behavior? >> the latest announcement we

saw was the president is looking into the auto industry and considering tariffs on auto imports. i think that caught everyone by surprise. no ally was briefed. a lot of surprise in the trump administration trade policy towards our allies. with thell negotiating european union on whether or not they will be subject to the steel and aluminum tariffs that go into effect. there is a lot of confusion. host: good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. about thisrt comment more concerned with

immediate gratification and not thinking long-term. tariffs to tax cuts, from syria to north korea, he is not possibleng long-term i juste consequences think our adversaries are thinking long-term, not short term. i think we need to adjust our thinking, and think more long-term. , has any --know besides the steel and aluminum tariffs, any tariffs actually been implemented? a couple of things.

to the last question, have any tariffs actually been imposed? , no.: on china those are supposedly on hold. the second rounds, we have a billion worth of chinese goods that could be subject to tariffs. additional 100 billion. floor for went to the comment. host: the instant gratification. some are arguing the opposite. the fact that he is getting to the table means he is interested in the long-term. can you give us more flavor there? host: if you just look at it from the china standpoint, i think he has definitely advisors

who are pushing for long-term vision on china. china, that is something that is concerning to the president's closest advisers. .hey are looking at long-term they are pushing for a long-term vision. that is why the tariffs might be viewed by some -- this is because i need you to take me seriously and negotiate. you won't negotiate until i threaten you. the car tariffs. there was this headline, trepidation on all sides.

where exactly did that part of the story come from? if you ask anyone, that morning when he announced it, news cominge big soon, the auto workers did not know this is coming. there was surprise across the briefed.o was not up naftaing to wrap talks. maybe this will help get them to the table and help japan think about a bilateral trade deal with us.

there's lots of rumors. i would note the commerce secretary has to initiate this. the investigation hasn't happened. a process. it is not something immediate. host: last couple of calls for our guest. you doing this morning? the question i have, i overheard the president talking. he is interested in fair trade. he does have a point. payingh tariffs are we on foreign cars? same?pay the is it fair both ways? host: hang on.

what do you make of his question? is it fair both ways? guest: the president would argue it is not. it is lower than the european union. we heard the president say reciprocity is his favorite word. he uses that in the trade context with trade. tariffs.ty, we have others don't lower there's. -- caller: does he not have a point? 30%, shouldn't there is be 30%? could you repeat yourself? caller: if we pay 30% tariff what net be fair for them to pay 30%? what theat is

president things. it is not fair because the tariff levels are different. if they don't lower there's -- theirs, we have to increase hours -- ours. host: last call from our guest from birmingham, alabama. good morning. my question is, it seems to me , production isy tied in a big way to the wage levels in any given country. exchangey the currency or whatever drives those things. offset the way to

trade deficits to at least level the playing field on wages? when you have a country that has low wages, through currency or a trade terror of, to level that wage so you are measuring the productivity of that country's production? host: let's hear from our guest. in the nafta negotiations, the u.s. is pushing for a wage component. we have heard the president say auto production goes to mexico because of the low wages. they are trying to balance that out saying the high-value components need to be met with high-value labor. that is moving along.

they are negotiating on that. that is a component the administration is considering. about out ofjust time. what will you be looking forward to ahead? guest: as the commerce secretary going to china? are they going to get on the same page with capitol hill? allies trying to's event one direction or the other. it will be interesting to see how that plays out on twitter at -- on to. twitter. 30 here in washington. we are going to do some open phones before he putting on our

next guest to talk about their new book. states by plane. some open phones, here are the numbers. (202) 748-8000, ,epublicans (202) 748-8001 .ndependents, (202) 748-8002 his: james clapper with book facts and fears. himes.nterviewed by jim >> what are the weaknesses today? what are the changes guys like you and me need to think about? the 9/11ness

commission came out with was the fact the community was not as integrated as it needed to be. it was they he recommended a ,reation of leadership position whose full-time job would be to foster integration across multiple components of the intelligence committee. law that wasthe passed after the 9/11 commission which established the position, there was talk, why don't we create a department of intelligence? which i think would be a mistake for this country. the privacy concerns and fears, for the united states model and

our values, as awkward as it might be, you have a chance for keeping it integrated. live coverage of the utah senate debate. listen on the free c-span radio app. make c-span your primary source for campaign 2018. 25 minutes of open phones. you can talk about anything you have heard about this morning. more tweeting by president trump . he treats democrats are obviously rooting against us and

our negotiations with north korea like they are coming to the defense of ms 13 thugs saying they are individuals that must be nurtured more asking to end your big tax cuts and raise your taxes instead. lost touch. and speaking about yesterday statement the we are willing to meet. we will see where it will lead. in case we have not heard, harvey weinstein surrendered to new york police. he surrendered to manhattan friday morning on charges he raped and sexually assaulted two women. he wore a black blazer and powder blue sweater, caring books -- carrying three books.

word. not say a here is robert from baltimore. are you there? try back. you may be on a cell phone and we are not hearing you well. another robert. go right ahead. caller: i just wanted the american people to pay close attention to what is happening with manafort and the trial coming up. i think it is going to open floodgates of all kinds of impropriety flying can and out of the campaign, and a lot of illicit activity. i think people have been distracted over the last 3-4 months of what is coming up. people need to pay close attention.

you lookingre forward to hearing? caller: the funneling of money into the trump campaign and the connections manafort to the ukrainians. recently the ukraine government drop charges against manafort. he was a $13 million for influencing the ukrainian election on behalf of the russians. peculiar he was named as trump campaign manager with that kind of evidence already presented and spent by the same thing to not believe that he had some connections with russia to do similar things here in the united states. thank you for calling. lawmakers are print on --

briefed on the fbi informant. it was a concession to president trump who remains the most prominent subject of the inquiry. they write the top justice department officials posted trump administration officials and republican allies before moving to capitol hill to meet with those who have clashed over whether such information should be provided to the white house. usa today tracking that story. mary elizabeth is calling from new york. caller: good morning to everyone. will remembere our veterans. i am annoyed to hear trump supporters make the statement that the president has done more

in 15 months and barack obama or anyone else in the prior year to their term. people need to remember and under dan -- understand civics. comparing and contrasting the records, i would suggest people go to title iii, office of the president and read what has been generated under the bush term, clinton term, obama term. the trump term thus far. these regulations that people talk about that he is getting rid of, these positive regulations were passed by bipartisanship in the past.

people look at the positive aspects of positive things that will benefit all of us citizens who are residents here. the other thing i want people to clinton,hillary rodham the presidential election, people think this is weird. inneed to have confidence special counselor mueller. whether there are any material motives that have tried to destroy our democracy. thank you. , my father wasd

a veteran. we have to be patriotic. we have to do the positive things we used to do to take care of all. the u.s. naval academy commencement will be taking place in two hours. you can see folks packing in already at the venue. the speech is at 10:00. the president will make a speech, he will give the degrees as well. the commencement address, 10:00 eastern time. we will play it in prime time. barbara is on the independent line. caller: i called to say about

what i think should happen next with north korea. i think north korea and south korea should negotiate the between themselves, may be using china as a broker. south korea should tell the united states to get our troops off their land. i think north korea should tell the united states, after you tell israel to get rid of their nukes, you getr back to us. what part of the state? caller: on the gulf of mexico. five miles from the coast. steve. host: all. caller: i'm sorry. i did not vote for trump. i voted for hillary.

once he got into office and i saw the way he was, he was saying a lot of things i could agree with. i used to be an auto worker into and moved toed mexico. i know what he is saying. i know what he is sing about the illegals. they hold down american wages. we have them big time in florida. , theyill take any job will work for nothing. so that hurts. i did not vote for him the first time when he ran because he seemed crude. of.s kind and theere he is going things he makes move. behinde to have a muscle

your negotiation. , it is a two edge sword. you can have peace or war. there is no sitting on the blade. he is not going to be played like they play the other presidents. i solve this. give us oil, give us food. every time they broke their promise. you pick your promise with trump you will regret it. everything he said on his campaign, he has followed up. means andays what he means what he says. the problem with this deep state is even though he ran as a republican he is really independent. to the threat politicians of both parties. he is not really either one of them.

host: let's move from richard to mark. good morning. thank you for having me on. i want to say couple of things. a christian army war veteran. love the country. i voted for barack and donald trump. there's a couple of things i wanted to say. piece back to the earlier on north korea. and trade. north korea and china, north korea and china are working together. trump's idea of pulling out of the deal was an important one

because china and north korea were working together to take away trump's leverage. bena's influence should not overlooked. deficit that trade we have with china, and the intellectual property theft it is a big one. i was in iraq. there was a lot of rebuilding going on. china was there making heavy investments in iraq's communication infrastructure. while they were putting in telecommunication presences all over the place.

we have to understand, these are state sponsored companies. they are working tightly with the government to put in whatever backdoor they need to glean information, pull information. the committee case and patterns of the local populace. phonese selling us cell and putting in malware and backdoors constantly pulling data. it is important we look at this as an entire basket instead of separately. we have to look at trade, what china is doing in africa, how .hey are influencing

host: we do get the point. thank you for calling. 10 minutes left. the headline says he is not guy's s--/ guys -- . it was just another exercise in trump friend called the art of the deal. move that shows his and stings can translate to the world stage. he is not taking this guy's

s-h-i-t. pledge,hone despite the talking about immigration related bill. that would give young undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship. even as he threatened to veto any bill. move.a rare procedural and six to mys credits added their name to the discharge petition thursday. we are one to see how that plays out. mcconnell says a vote on docket is unlikely. he says no matter what happens a vote is unlikely that chamber. from tallahassee, welcome. hello. i have been watching c-span

since 1980. my mind is not work as quick as some people. host: don't say that. the going. caller: i agree with the last two callers. , if you or any other people at c-span have analyzed your ratio of callers by political affiliation? host: what demon? -- what do you mean? caller: the ratio of democrats to republican and independent. like democrats and independents outnumber the that get republicans

in. i'm not blaming c-span for that. it seems that is the way it is. i did a survey. i listen to 100 calls and found out that there is a larger percentage of callers are democrats. . host: is there a good percentage of democrats wouldn't you agree? could be. anyway. this morning i noticed there were 10 minutes where not one republican, maybe one of 10

-- was a republican. it just seemed out of the ordinary. host: thank you for pointing this out. we do keep statistics. the beginning of the program we did not have any gop callers for several minutes. we are basically taking what is coming in. hopefully the equity comes forward. i would be interested to see. keep the comments coming about how we are doing. caller: how are you doing? i'm doing outstanding. what would you like to say? caller: i would like to talk about lies going on about trump. there's no fax.

except he is doing a great job. that is a hard thing to do. i want to talk about hillary and obama. this is fax. this isn't fake news. obama going over to europe and apologizing for services we did. when someone is in trouble we give more money and food that in the country. if it wasn't for our military i would be speaking german. thing, talking about money given to politicians. uraniumsold 20% of our for $400 million. that is a fact. a halfave a billion and to iran, the worst enemy in the world.

i don't understand how people can down trump. all they have is a bunch of lies. unemployment is down for hispanics, african-americans, and everybody. democrats are about -- are against him. what is he doing for the country? host: thank you for calling. more news out there. failure in afghanistan. stabilizer effort to afghanistan has failed according to a report released thursday by the special inspector general. the efforts was largely wasted. some of it siphoned off by corrupt officials. projects that did more harm than

good. here is a photo in the wall street journal of mark zuckerberg. and the president of france. they met in paris. he urges silicon valley to apply. firms to applych highest it has been since 2014. reachemorial day gas will three dollars. prices may be close to peking. dan is calling from bridgeport. thanks for c-span. i want to mention an article in new york magazine. it is called the original donald trump.

cohn.about roy pretty much train 10. if you want to understand the person, not the image, this is a great article. it is worth finding this and reading it. article. roy was a person who was disliked and persecuted people and hunted them and thrived on fear. the article is well worth -- it will give people more of an understanding on what donald trump is up to. host: leslie, republican color -- caller. caller: good morning. i believe if the democrats had their way they would turn this country into a third world country overrun with immigrants. every time i turn on my tv, i

find a lot of programs in spanish, and i am paying for cable tv and i cannot watch it because a lot of channels are in spanish. i believe the country would fall apart if democrats had their way. they are anti-gun and anti-everything. host: one last call. derek, what is on your mind? caller: good morning. american people, let's stop less democrat and republican. the truth of the matter is we have more in common with one another than those on the hill in washington. you have had people call, they put down obama and they tell you to get with trump. all of us had trump is doing right. i am with him.

let's get rid of the animosity. thank you to everybody who has called in this section of open phones. we have about one hour left. as we go into memorial day weekend, we will take you through the country through the book of "our towns." james and deborah fallows have spent years traveling around the country and their book is "our towns." they will be here to tell us about it. we will be right back. ♪ announcer: a look at some program highlights for the weekend. saturday, at 930 eastern a.m. -- the munk.m. eastern,

debate. meacham, author of "the soul of america." on in american history tv, reel america, archival films of world war i. sunday at 6:30 p.m., chris christie at the university of chicago institute of politics. on the to become a c-span2 at 9:00 eastern, former national intelligence director james clapper. sunday on american history tv on c-span3, at 6:00 p.m. eastern, a tour of the battlefield, monuments and american cemetery in france. memorial day on c-span, live coverage of the wreathlaying ceremony at the tomb of the unknown soldier. on book tv come 8:30 p.m.

eastern, in-depth with david dalchi. g -- bal them programs marking the centennial of world war i. this weekend on the c-span network. good to c-span.org for more programs -- go to c-span.org for more programs and times. >> this marks great skill as a grand strategist. he knew the advantages of shock and awe, and this is how he unified germany in the 1860's, he instigated wars with austria-hungary, and eventually france itself, just started them himself. having done that, he stopped and became a consolidator rather than an instigator. and his next 20 years in power as a german chancellor where he

e devoted toer building alliances with all of germany's neighbors, so they would get used to the idea of a unified germany. so it is that the station between shock and awe, and knowing when to stop and do something else, reassurance. announcer: john lewis calix and his book on leadership for contemporary and global book "ont, through his grand strategy." announcer: "washington journal" continues. ust: doing this -- joining at the table, james and deborah fallows. deborah, a linguist. our to guests are married. the two of them spent for have a

five years traveling -- 205 -5 years traveling around the country. the product of that trip is called, "our towns: a 100,000 mile journey into the heart of america." jim, we will start with you. where did the idea for the trip come from and what we are looking to achieve? james: the idea came from the china,e were living in off and on from 2006-2011, where we spent a lot of time out in the hinterland of china. we learned how different things were from the village perspective than they were from shanghai and beijing. when we came back to the u.s., we doubt they would use the vehicle of our small airplane. people think plane, they think private jet. this is a single engine propeller plane, where you can get to almost any place in the places arese most

within about 50 miles of an airport. what if we went into the heart of the country, we thought come into mississippi, north dakota, minnesota, not to talk about national politics, but to ask in this town, which businesses are growing, what is happening to the young people and the old? host: what did you find? deborah: this is probably more of a good news story then you will hear for the rest of the day. we found a lot of civic engagement. we found tremendous energy on the local level. there was a lot of creative experimentation with the schools and the economic development of the towns, and with the beautifying of the downtown mainstreets. and a general tone of positivity, no matter what people thought was going on in the country at large, they felt a good about their hometowns, by and large. host: we want to put the phone

numbers up. if you live in the eastern or central time zones, call 202-748-8000. mountain and pacific 202-748-8001. ,at the very start of the book is a map of the u.s. and it lays out that the different -- lays out all the different places you travel to buy plane. different sides of the country and a lot of places in between. how did you decide where to go? how did you put the plan together? deborah: when we first conceived of the project, jim put out a message, saying we were interested in going out to small and medium-sized towns in the country to see what was going on. challenges,facing like factories closing. tell us your message. within a week, we had 1000 responses from people all across the country, saying, come to our town. here is why you should come to

erie, pennsylvania. here is why you should come to omaha. so we put a pin in the map and started from there. host: how did you decide on the number of towns to visit? james: about a five towns we were in for serious periods, two weeks or so. the map is cocoa to buy the years we went. there is no state boundaries on the map, that is how the u.s. looks from the air, just a seamless web of mountains, rivers and hills. we kept at adjusting our approach to have a master of larger and smaller cities, ones with economic problems versus environmental problems. ones in the far northeast and southwest to spread the range as we kept going. host: what was the battle plan and how did you go about your work? deborah: we started with the usual suspects. we paid visits to the city

manager, mayor, somebody in the school system, a newspaper editor and we would always speak with librarians. ask what is going on, who are the movers and shakers, who should we see and what are the issues? from there we would fan out into a different topics and areas, and try to meet as many people as we could, not only at the top but we would go into schools, sit in the classrooms, talk to people and walk on the river walk. and engage various people in conversation. host: what were your favorite stories, each of you, from the trips? james: it is like a sort of, what are your favorite children? i will start in the golden triangle of mississippi, three cities of columbus, west point and starkville, which is 20 years ago would have been a poor part of a poor state, where the industries were like making things like toilet seat covers, low end bluejeans. now one of the most modern

steelworks in the united states is there. airbus makes helicopters th ere. may have advanced drone manufactures there. and the way that mississippians said their entire face, their image was changed, just the steps they have taken and the ways that east mississippi was training people in the area, black and white, many unemployed before this, many of them having very hard look stories, to train for these high wage jobs, you had a sense of the american economic readjustment happening before your eyes. host: with do you remember most -- what do you remember most? deborah: we were in charles the, west virginia, in 2014 and they were having a referendum. one of the things -- this was a time when houston was suffering -- wench ralston was a suffering

-- there was a referendum on a bond issue for the libraries. and that morning, while the vote was taking place, i was hanging out in the public library and in walks this hard-working man, obviously this hard-working guuy wity, with a plaid shirt. he said, i wanted you to know that i voted for the levy on the library. then he turned around and marched off. it was a wonderful moment that captured a lot of what we saw, of the local out of your own pocket support for issues that were important to the people in town. host: you wrote following your trip, in the atlantic, that america is becoming more like itself again. more americans are trying to make it so, in more places than most americans are aware of. even if the country is becoming angrier, divided camillus able to do the basic business of

governing itself, it is becoming better on a range of other indicators that are harder to perceive. the pattern of these efforts create -- or remains hidden, people do not realize how fast the country is moving toward becoming a better version of itself. tell us more. james: it is hard for most of show thatecause polls people think the country as a whole is negative and he cannot feel good about national cityics now, but city by we saw something that the national polls also indicate, that people feel like their own area things are moving in the right direction. san bernardino, california, very troubling city. i grew up nearby, where young people are saying we are tired of being considered america's failed city. they organized a group called generation now, where they are cleaning of the town, they are registering people to vote, they

are trying to engage young people. most places we went, despite the problems, they felt like they were moving forward, while they believed the rest of the country was sliding backward. host: a call coming in. stella from florida. caller: i wanted to ask you guys if you came to any towns in north-central florida, like -- we are a lot of cities here, so just your opinion. placeswe have, with 25 we were at length, we could not go to every state. i have a paragraph talking about all the places we want to get to next, as we continue our journeys, into florida is one of those. we are very interested in that part of florida, the way it is similar to the rest of the state, the ways it is disconnected, or connected to those around it, mississippi and georgia. you can write us through a web

address to tell us more about your city. host: is there something about gainesville that you want to point out connected to this discussion? caller: i heard them explain some of the aspects of what is going on, and a lot of cities they visited, and i think that is going on in our town. it is growing, the interest is vibrant, and i feel that it is a reflection of what they talked about, so i was wondering -- if also, there were any other cities in our area that where seeing the thriving movement. i wanted to say that i noticed that, and i wanted to hear about if they knew of any cities like that here. james: we spent a lot of time in couple states north. greenville, north carolina, which is a phenomenal city. it has diversified its base from being old mill. now people are taking towards --

tours through the area to see how they have done things. and we spent time in st. mary's, just north of the florida state line, at camden high school, one of the leading high schools in career technical education. everybody who goes through their as a normal academic, they learn how to weld, how to be certified health workers. and we spent time in alabama, we have been in birmingham. mississippi we have been to extensively. florida is ahead. host: you and your has been wrote, why you and americans, young americans are moving to small towns. why are they? deborah: it is a great story we found from columbus, ohio to fresno, california, that a lot of young people are -- part of it is driven by the extreme realistic costs in the major cities and coastal cities. for starters, this is an

affordable place to go, for the drive behind it is the smaller towns are places where the other people feel that they can follow their dreams, create a startup, have an impact on the town, and help create smaller towns into a place where they would like to live and raise their families and help shape it into a kind of millennial paradise. [laughter] that they are looking for. host: we have anna from white plains, maryland. caller: good morning. i wanted to call because i was born in in greenville, south carolina, and i think if they had gone there, i understand they love the downtown, but i wanted to talk about how it was twery somewhat poor mil l own when i was growing up, and when i returned after 40 years, my husband and i were amazed.

we stay at this amazing hotel that just blends itself into downtown. and i also want to say, downtown greenville used to be, when i was growing up, in predominantly downtown of stores that belonged to african-americans. but that has changed. but it is an amazing city. and now that my husband and i are in our 60's, we will go back to retire, so it is an amazing transformation. it is amazing. i am glad you had an opportunity to go. greenville is where everybody goes, probably the second most visited city and south carolina, outside of charleston, so thank you for going there. deborah: that was our pleasure. we loved being in greenville. to add on, there is an amazing tremendous cooperation between industry, the tech industry and

engagement with the public school system. we spent time in a number of the schools. aj wittenberg elementary school of engineering, believe or not, where they teach little kids basics of engineering for their early education years, with the help of the volunteers and guidance of the people in bmw, ge, and michelin. host: let me bring up jobs, because you write about automation and world trade. today's schools can help prepare students for other things. whichever party holds the presidency, you write, well hold -- measures of any sort very hard to push through.

james: the big picture issue would be, we all know in the 1950's and 60's lots of americans worked in giant factories that are just not there anymore. you go through ohio, new jersey, pennsylvania, they are not there anymore. but the jobs that are growing, for the children of the people who worked in those factories, we are looking at advanced tech jobs. the wind turbine industry is a huge job creator, increasingly in the center of the country. we spoke withair, a guy in georgia who said, we cannot get enough people there. so we saw experimentations and local schools of training people whose children might have worked in the factories, training for these jobs. newerwas an out of her in california and -- he has not

become president of the school board and set of programs of training, largely underprivileged public-school students for aerospace tech jobs and making connections to the new jobs of the era. host: marion from aberdeen, north carolina. caller: hello. am i on? i have two comments. since this is the only chance i will ever have, i want to say that jim has been my crush for many years. [laughter] deborah: hey, wait! caller: i discovered him on an npr program. i hope you and your wife will come here. you can fly into carthage and have lunch at the pick and pig. and maybe you can go to raleigh and meet our wonderful governor and other wonderful people.

my hometown is raleigh, but now i am a small-town girl. thank you for writing this book. and cannot wait to read it appeared james: ok. -- it. james: ok. i was going to ask about the crush comment, but -- deborah: i am flattered. host: you are a licensed pilot. what was it like to do this by airplane? deborah: it was wonderful and convenient. there are 5000 small airports around the country, so we could go in place we wanted to go. it was wonderful from the point of view of the journey was really part of this. has were flying around and going into a town, you get a sense from looking down of where you are going, whether it is flying over the big mississippi at low altitude, where going into the plain states, or seeing why a certain town is located right there on the lake where the confluence of rivers. jim is the pilot, i am the

ground control, so he will wax on more romantically about being in the plane for hours and hours. james: we were running through the pictures. host: jim, tell us about you controlling things in the cockpit and how that worked for you. james: here is my argument why everybody should want to be a pilot. back when airplanes were first invented, they were dangerous and the assumption in the literary world was that everybody who is a writer, or painter or thinker, would want to be a pilot because the view of the earth is so unique and almost godlike from that perspective, from 2000 feet up. you can see why towns are the way they are, the interaction of mountains and rivers and bays, you can see the downtowns, the things they feature and the things that they hide, the presence that are tucked away --

prisons that are tucked away. you see the roads from above and what is hidden. you see what a beautiful content it is as ago from east to west. the first third is vegetation, then the appalachians. you have all of the farms laid and drier as you go. you have a sense of discovering the land anew. everybody should learn how to fly. host: we have anne from nevada. hello. caller: i am listening to the discussion now, and i am find the, how did you funding to actually write this book? it seems like it is a pretty expensive endeavor to travel hundreds of thousands of miles around the united states. where you sponsored -- were you

sponsored? how or why did you write the book? host: think you for asking. james: i can be specific. i have worked for 40 years as a staff writer for the atlantic magazine, so they paid my salary while we were doing this, off and on for four years. the main expenses were gasoline for the plane, which cost about $70 per flying our, when you go -- hour, when you go 200 miles. and motel 6. the atlantic was running a series of the videos, for went sponsorship. and we got a normal book contract. we had normal advertisements to sponsor the project. host: take us to duluth, minnesota. you write after college come a couple folks founded a company called true ride, which became a manufacturer of half pipes and

other ingredients of skateboard parks. they started the company in minneapolis, but moved to diluted because it was much more affordable. they liked the scale. deborah: these are two brothers that went to the university of minnesota, decided they wanted to stay. they look more like surfer guys, than they do businessman. they started the company moving from the big scale skateboarding to using the leftovers to make a kitchen utensils, which is now called epicurean. and they also made outdoor furniture. with additional leftovers. it is a perfect example of of what is happening in duluth, where the young people are determined to go there and knowing they have to make their own way, they have to start

something new. they get a lot of support, sometimes from public and private partnerships, sometimes from the government just making it easier to go into a certain part of town, or support them with loans from the bank, the private banks. so we saw a number of examples of this in duluth where they are turning around a major part of the downtown. host: you write that public-private partnerships is something that is real, not just a slogan. james: this was one of things that changed my mind in the course of traveling around, where anybody in d.c. -- there is the dome behind you -- we are used to hearing public-private partnerships as a slogan, or maybe it means a payoff the companies, but we found in cities that you could point to something real it came from. and the aj wittenberg elementary

school of engineering, that was a partnership between private companies and the public school system, to make a big difference. and in other places, you could see renovation projects. we saw that in fresno. other places, you can see the highways, the public art and renovation of the halls . so one of our tests for whether a town was serious about getting better, was if you ask, what is something specific about private-public partnership. it is that new park, program, that new housing effort. host: peter in north carolina, good morning. caller: good morning. i live in a small town in eastern north carolina. and it is the second oldest town in the state. the county is the smallest in the state, as far as land mass goes. in this area, i read a book

about railroads and from the turn of the last century, townen 1800 and 1900s, the and county has not gained or han 20 people. it truly has not changed. most people talk about central america, the flyover area. well, north carolina is the drive-through state. people go through the east, the northeast, driving through north carolina to get the florida. too bad they do not really stop here, it is all on 95. 95 divides the state in half. you know, the western part of 95 is all developed like raleigh, and all of the large towns. think the, people

ocean is on the other side of 95. but there is a large area between 95 and the ocean. there is nothing here. it is a beautiful town. it is gorgeous. and right where i live, the sound from north to south is about 11 miles, and it is about east to west.h on a beautiful day, you may see one boat on this gray area. -- great area. host: apply this to the larger conversation we are having about smaller towns in the country. caller: not all small towns expand like that, some stay the way that they were. tendeople, the politicians to think, not the politicians but the people who really know

the town. james: i appreciate his call. the point about driving through and flying over, we want to do the opposite, we are looking to fly into and drive into and be in these towns. and it is significant that there is a range of experiences over the last century and a half. since the civil war, there has been three patterns for small places, a couple thousand people. some have become much bigger places, those in eastern north carolina, some like this town have stayed the same. and deb's hometown in ohio, it has been pretty much constant population and to some of them have not been able to make it. we were flying over south dakota and you could see the railroad laid out. originally, the railroad had towns about every 10 miles, because it was a sufficient distance in the 1800s, but most of those towns have gone away,

now a town about every 50 miles. so there have been these different paths for small towns, and we are talking about the ones big enough to have some sort of traction. host: we have a picture of the factory workers sorting oranges. where is this and what is the story there? deborah: this is redlands, california. it was a major orange growing town and they still grow oranges. this is one of the packing houses there. we went to see some private orange groves, and some city groves that are still going on. this packing house that sells to sunkist and other distributors, it has also become a major medical hub because of the clinics and hospitals there, and the university, so it has a lot going for it. james: and a huge tech area. my first jobs there where

picking oranges -- were picking oranges. but the time has been transformed by a company, a world leading company whose founders decided to locate it not in cambridge, mass, but in their hometown of redlands. it has really changed things. host: thomas, welcome to the program. caller: good morning. my name is thomas. speaking of traveling, one way become a patriot, one form of patriotism is to love this country. and traveling is the way to love this country. a spiritualad awakening. and that over a year's time finally drove me out to travel. i mostly hitchhiked. i did some busing and airplanes,

but mostly hitchhiking. the way to love this nation is to travel this nation. excluding48 states, hawaii and alaska, but i had a chance to go to alaska and i blew it. and i regret that. [laughter] deborah: we are with thomas. it is amazing when we have gone into the towns how very generous and open-minded people are in talking with us about what they are doing in their towns, why they love their towns. an interestingly, this is experience that crosses party lines. we could be in the most conservative town, maybe greenville, south carolina, or in the most liberal town, burlington, vermont, and we would have the same kind of human interaction and and civic, gentle

conversations with people in a matter what was going on in the larger picture. so i think that we also became, we have always loved this country, but we became even more of patriots after this. host: you made it a point not to talk about national politics with people in the small towns. why was that? james: two reasons. one, it was always interesting and informative to ask people about their towns, it was never interesting or informative to ask them about national politics, because you knew the range of predictable opinions, everything that could be said about any national issue you have already heard. the other reason is it sort of polarizes people in a way that you otherwise could avoid. greenville and burlington, politically opposite towns, and while they seem opposite in that way, other ways they are

functionally very similar. the mayor works with the companies and with the schools. we did not ask because we do not learn anything by asking about international -- about national politics and a divided people rather than coming together. host: caller from mississippi. caller: good morning. the -- i am glad he made it to minnesota, duluth , and i hope you came during the nice weather to say how beautiful the lakes are. i grew up in a small town and i loved it. it is so nice to here people who -- hear people who agree the way that i do. i have traveled around to a lot of towns too, and every time they are great and everybody is so friendly. and i am glad you are not talking about politics, but i have to say one thing that came out when they would say that we

need to make america great again, i went, huh. i think it is great. i think it is wonderful. i am glad you are out there proving that. james: i appreciate that. and as you mentioned, thomas mentioned, traveling around inside the country and around the world has made deb and me avid american patriots, because all the years we spent in china and japan we reflected upon the things that were strong there, but also the american idea that remains. i cannot resist the temptation. decades ago, i was on a book tv talk with brian lamb, talking about a book i wrote about living in japan called "more like us," the idea that we had to become more like americans living in japan, not like them. the subtitle was "make america great again." that was 1989. host: good way to talk about

japan and america relations. what is your take on the state of affairs between the two countries, economically, militarily, influence wise? james: it is a difficult time between the two countries. i have argued over the years that americans should -do the challenging feat of taking china seriously without being afraid of it. it has such an effect on our economy, on war and peace in the world. we should not be afraid of it, i have argued, because china has structurally many more problems than the u.s. does, so the challenge for both countries is to manage in the relationship in a way that minimizes the damage and maximizes the area of cooperation. the changes within china in the last couple years under president xi have made it a more difficult partner to deal with, because he is becoming much more authoritarian, and more assertive militarily.

they feel like they have less of a sense of what the u.s. policy is, because it changes frequently. host: do you want to add something to that? deborah: on a person-to-person basis, we were in china for about four years before we started this flying project, and one of the things that impressed us was on a one-to-one basis how many similarities there were between chinese people in american people. there was a likeness, there was an openness and approachability, accessibility, among are two kinds of people. and it seems to us, that one of the most important things is keeping the changes going, person-to-person, student to student, getting kids into universities here and vice versa , to build on that sense of grassroots and at

americans and chinese should get along. host: james and deborah fallows offering this book, "our towns: a 100,000 mile journey into the heart of america." john in tennessee. good morning. caller: hi. i wanted to make it, about west virginia. commenttern -- make a about west virginia. southwestern was regina has been decimated by the loss of coal use. and i think senator byrd wanted to build an interstate highway, i think it started in cincinnati and came down through southwestern virginia and into south carolina. for would be a great thing opening southwestern virginia. or west virginia. but did you visit any of those towns. they have been decimated. james: yes, we went to charleston and we wrote about that. and understand very well the

rigors that appalachia in general, west virginia in particular, have been through over the decades. not just through the recent years. senator robert byrd, no longer with us, was a very influential person for the country as a whole, but also for his home state. the way i think about this in general is that through american history, the economy has constantly changed. in the 1880's, most americans were farmers. it has been that dramatic change, going from 50% to 1% or 2% in farm employment. in the coal mining industry, to me the most significant fact is the peak year of employment in american coal mining was 1918. it has been almost 100 years, 100 years of shrinkage as coal has been said to wyoming -- sent

to wyoming, the output has gone up, but employment has gone down. so this is worth taking seriously, the trauma and hardship that has affected communities, but it is a long pattern. host: it is worth discussing further, because there is a tweet about this conversation. they have an issue on what we are talking about. "these people are looking through rose-colored glasses." what else did you see and hear about with the issues like economic issues, health care, immigration, opioids? deborah: we saw all of it. we are not here to say that this is not going on. and what we saw -- take the opioid crisis. we were in towns where the crisis was one of the major issues. and we are not here to say that we have a solution to the

crisis. if we did, we would be somewhere else. but what we did see was cooperation on the local level among the police departments, the social services, the schools, the civic groups in towns, to try to deal with it on their own terms. or the peoplelp, se itved in this, and ea for those who were victims, address it for those who are the troublemakers, and they would they could to mitigate those issues. james: sorry. deborah: go ahead. i'm done. ecause ok, so this -- b this is so important, that is something about what we saw and what actual data indicates.

of course, everybody knows this is a time of serious troubles for the country at the national level, at the opioid levels, economic dislocation on a historic scale of racial issues of many sorts, so we are well aware and we try to chronicle places like san bernardino, where these things are coming to a head, or west virginia. the message we were trying to give was more about direction, that most places we were visiting said that they thought they were moving in the right direction, even though they understood how difficult the challenges were. the point about data is, in my current article i point out that very recent polls, even this year, by gallup and others, have showed at the time where people are concerned about the national situation in very different ways, most people on the range of 75%-80% believe that their own communities are moving in the right direction. that is what we saw and that is

what the data seemed to indicate. host: new york city, the bronx. good morning. caller: good morning. sir, i am from clinton, north carolina. and what i am looking at, i am looking at mass transit. why is it that these rural areas cannot have chains running running-- trains through them. you have military bases and stuff. i think about that. up here in new york, you have people taking over the transit now, making railroad paths and stuff. i do not know, you surprised me. you -- i was listening and i thought about my home. james: two reactions to that excellent question. one, the method of

transportation has shaped every stage of american history, whether it was the covered wagons, the canals, or highways, across that, people think about their own local circumstances and what y sustainability in burlington, vermont. a number of the public schools that had a theme, or charter schools with a theme, like this one, are very place oriented. this school was in a troubled section of town that was turned to be closed down, and rather than closing the school down entirely they turned it around and what is completely appropriate for burlington is something about sustainability. they have companies that make echo friendly products, and -- eco-friendly products, they of universities where the students are focusing on environmental issues. they are right on a lake.

so they put the school together through contributions and volunteers from all the local companies. they built gardens, they have a library filled with sustainable work, and i think it is all eco-friendly, all things coordinated. they grow their own crops in the school. the principal -- when i was there i met the printable and he said, stay for lunch. i made beef stew. i thought, come on. but in fact it was a vegetable and beef stew that they had made from the garden itself for the kids. miss was in a of town that had a lot of refugees, had a lot of lower-class economic people, but it has become a place where people from out of district are

fighting to get their kids into this school. host: another picture of a main street festival that you took. where is this? james: it is a sign of either good or bad, not sure if it is in columbus, mississippi, or it could be in georgia, but my confusion is a crucial point here, which is a lot of american cities have this great late 19th century good bones architecture that is still there, which is still there after long decades of decline. many places these are being rebuilt. as you can see, retail and restaurants on the ground floor, and often residential and office areas on the second and third floors. host: i am told this is in south dakota. james: it could be sioux falls or rapid city. deborah: where one of the places

where we had an emergency landing. wasto go where the plane being repaired. james: i think we will take the blur as a good sign of the many places where this could be. host: beth in massachusetts. go ahead. caller: hello, i cannot wait to read your book. i am in my 70's. when i graduated from college in 1966, all my friends were going to europe and my father said he cannot go to europe until you see this country. so for almost three months, i traveled around the country at a time that is very different from now. there was a lot of racial separation, just very different. it was a fabulous experience. since than i have been to all the continents. i still work in my 70's to support this expensive habit of

traveling, but the thing that is bother me so much that when people do not travel, there is so much fear. i just came back from two weeks in greece. the biggest thing that was bothering me was that people were afraid of the united states. all they hear about is the shootings. they wanted to know if we had friends who had been shot. and it was frightening to me to thierthere are fears, -- e fears, because i have the same fears hear from my friends when i travel. that is bothersome, because travel is the key to understanding. we all want the same thing, no matter where we live. i live in a very successful town, but i work in a very depressed town. an old mill town, pittsburgh,

massachusetts, which is struggling to get back to where it was many years ago. all i can say is i am looking forward to this and i say the more people travel, the more we will understand each other and the better the world will be. host: she says, we all want the same thing. james: that is the lesson of traveling and it cannot agree more. we have spent a lot of time outside of the united states with the same result. the point that is so important is without traveling you are irrationally fearful of things beyond your borders. of course the u.s. has a serious issue of gun violence, but most people feel as if the areas that they know, they feel more comfortable about them those places they hear about, where they are more afraid of them them they need to be. host: i want to follow up on libraries.

we have talked about infrastructure in the towns, but you say or talk about the importance of libraries. across the country, libraries are figuring out ways to be interesting to their communities. there is a list of popular offerings you find everywhere, book clubs, readings, computer yogaes, i have practiced in libraries. all across the country, i saw people dancing the tango in the entrance of the library. what is it about libraries? deborah: they are on a mission to become relevant institutions in their towns. and fill in those gaps where gaps have grown. in three major ways we saw that. one was in education, where they are doing a lot of reading readiness and education for the little kids, all the way to adult literacy. one is in technology, where they are teaching basic computer

literacy or offering free wi-fi to people who do not have it. the. search center says -- pew research center says that 25% of american homes do not have fast wi-fi. and they are also becoming civic centers. in civics, you can get help with tax preparation. with on how top pay your rent or mortgage. in the social sense, you can learn how to dance and get exercise. so in the columbus, ohio library there is etched in granite, "open to all." libraries have as a mission that this is for everybody and it is for free. you will see homeless people lined up in the morning to spend their days there, elderly people coming in from the senior citizens home, further our in

the library -- for thier hour in the library, you name it. host: you wrote the book together. seear as guidance, if you sections with a little plane, that is the part written by jim, and with a quill pen, that would be the part written by deborah. how long did it take to write the book overall? james: six months or so. deborah: i was going to say a year. james: we spent a lot of time writing the book in redlands, california. host: good morning. caller: yes, i hear you talking, but where i live i do not see any of that. our town is slowly disappearing fact that the population is moving out. many of the houses here are

built on land that is using -- used for farms, and the other part is we are in the middle of nowhere. , 10-20,but cornfields in some cases 50 miles around us. the closest town is paris, illinois. and if you go of the danville, illinois, both of those are 20 and 25 miles away. to if you want to go indianapolis, that is about one hour or one hour 15 minutes away. that is indianapolis, indiana. thatof the problem is state is pushing harder on homeowners then you can shake a stick at. that is one of the problems we are having here.

james: as i mentioned earlier, not every small town is finding ways to expand or deal with pressures of the era. for more than a century and a half, this has been the american pattern, that many small towns have not been able to hang on. and they have shrunk. so there are some places that have not been able to get the scale to attract new businesses or young people. so i hope the conditions are as good as they can be for you and your neighbors, and we are trying to talk about the places who have found ways to deal with the pressures and we really feel for the places where the pressures are going the other way. host: deborah, from your travels, what is the message of these towns to washington? is there even a message? deborah: what we heard is people are not waiting for washington to come and save them.

they are acting on what they think and know that they can do best to make the improvements themselves. you can do the usual things, lobby your congressman, may be tell them what is going on and ask for more support in that sense, but i think possibly more effectively would be to look at the examples in this book and see what your town can do that other towns have done, or feel encouraged about what your town is doing and try to even up the model. for the skeptics who are listening or think that we are being myopic, i think it would challenge people to get out to five or six towns that are not your hometown, and see what you find and it see what ideas you could get from that. 10.5 you end the book with signs of success. and what are the top signs you saw?

james: we had a checklist of you can identify patriots. the half indication is whether brew industry,ft it really has become a sign of a certain kind of customers and having these taking over parts of town and reviving them. caller: good morning. this little town, and the county are doing weller because of direct government investment. we have a district attorney here. all the other counties are

losing population. now, to the question. the road to you think desire for the continuance of white cultural supremacy has played in the slow progression or even regression of american society? for example, quickly, we just elected in this state the first black female candidate for governor of a major party. and there is going to be a backlash, obviously, because she represents a change, just like president obama. but further along. actually, diminished incapacity, because she will be a state governor, but nonetheless just the desire for white people to maintain cultural supremacy has kept them from progressing, just like it has in the entire country, and what role does that play? race is aism -- discussion we could have for

hours. i worked for jimmy carter as a speechwriter and president carter, what he reflected on then and since has been the role of racial tension and suppression of african-americans' rights as the great axis of our natural history and how to deal with the ramifications, and how to actively shape history in a more progression toward justice. that is the best i can do in a few seconds and i hope to see you sometime for further discussion. host: we have a few seconds for deborah and your takeaways. , diverseit is a big country. i think that one of the major surprises to us was that people are understanding where they live and acting locally to recognize their assets and make the most of them.

it is not necessarily a national solution to everything, but it is a local solution. host: deborah and jim fallows. the authors of the book, "our towns: a 100,000 mile journey into the heart of america." thank you. it has been a pleasure having you. host: think of for calling in. we will be back at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. we will take you to the floor of the been stay stand -- then stay tuned for the president at the naval academy. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., may 25, 2018. i hereby appoint the honorable christopher h. smith to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, paul d. ryan, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by the

guest chaplain reverend andrew walton of trinity presbyterian church,