administration trade policy with christine mcdaniel at mercatus center. then our spotlight on magazine features ben austen, author of a story on community policing strategy. ♪ good morning. it is saturday, july 28, 2018. it is 7:00 a.m. on the east coast, and a three-hour "washington journal" is ahead for your. in our 8:00 hour, we will stand time talking to american farmers. in our 9:00 hour, we will hear from some of the country's police officers. to american talking veterans after a week that saw a confirmation of a new veteran affairs secretary and president trump addressed some troops, we to hear howed veterans view president trump and the trump administration.

veterans only. in this segment. if you are in the eastern time zone, (202) 748-8000. if you are in the central and mountain -- mountain and pacific time zone, (202) 748-8001. on twitter, @cspanwj. on facebook, it is facebook.com/cspan. a very good saturday morning to you. the pool of americans we are looking forward to talking to in this first part of "washington about 20 million strong. those are some of the numbers on united states veterans population according to the pew research center in one of their recent reports. here are some numbers on windows veterans served. as of last year, there were 6.8 million american veterans who served in vietnam. point one million spanned from august of 1990 through the present. veteransorld war ii

and 1.6 million best served during the korean conflict. about three quarters, 77% in the united states had served during wartime. peacetime.during as we said, president trump addressed one of the nation's largest veteran groups. that took place tuesday when president trump spoke to the annual veterans of foreign wars national convention. it was in kansas city, missouri. here is one of the newspaper headlines from the next day. reaffirming its commitment to veterans" is the headline. the new veteran affairs secretary robert wilkie was confirmed by a vote of 86-9. we want to talk to veterans only in this first segment of ," gettingn journal your view of president trump and the trump administration. as you are calling in, let's get a little bit of president trump

convention, talking about improvement to veterans health care. [video clip] promised, weas established the white house the a hot line and every v.a. medical center now offers same-day emergency mental health care. something very important. [cheers and applause] pres. trump: we are greatly expanding telehealth and walk in clinic's solar veterans can get walk-in clinics, so our veterans can get anywhere, anytime, and they do not have to drive anywhere and wait. it has been a very big success. we are also processing veteran disability claims more quickly than ever before -- by far. the v.a. has implemented the decision ready claims process where claims can be completed in under two weeks. we are striving for one day.

it used to be many, many months. host: by the way, if you want to watch that speech in its entirety, you can do so, go to c-span.org. president trump not strictly sticking to veterans' issues during that speech. some criticism for going to more campaign-style issues during that speech to veterans. there is headline from npr on that topic -- "a campaign style speech at the veterans of foreign wars convention." "stars and stripes" also picking up on it. "president trump injected partisan politics in the nonpartisan event. he criticized democrats for their immigration agenda and singled out claire mccaskill for voting against the tax cuts and jobs act. mccaskill is widely considered one of the most vulnerable democrats up for reelection this fall."

following that tweet from the vfw national headquarters, noting it is a long-standing vfw tradition to give our members a chance to hear directly from the sitting president on the issues that affect veterans, service members, and their families. and our members are from all walks, and the vfw is nonpartisan. we only want what is best for veterans. we have opened our phone lines in the first hour of the "washington journal> view ofto he your president trump and the trump administration. central and eastern time zones, (202) 748-8000 is the number. in the mountain and pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. milton is up first in west virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, sir. caller: well, i was in the to 1970,ra from 1967 and i was drafted while i was

still in high school, so i had no choice except i had to go into service. is this person who we have for president, had five deferments, never offered to go into service. i never had a chance to be able to do this. he is the most disgraceful president. if that's what you want, my attitude, he is not going to help the veterans. he is a liar. he constantly tells lies. i would not listen to him with anything. i would not even trust him as far as i can throw him. host: milton, on your first point, do you think commanders in chief should serve in the military to be qualified to be president? caller: yes, i do. host: why? never had no choice.

like i said, i was still in high school when i was drafted to go in. he has got money. he has had money his entire life the muscle he can buy his way out of anything. the poor people down here like me, they had no choice, so the they either went to service or they are a deserter, and they went to canada. no way what i do anything like that. milton in west virginia. steve is in new jersey. go ahead. caller: good morning, john. thanks for taking my call for it i watched our dear leader bragging about the economy and notice whenbut you the good times come, if you are smart, you pay down your bills. but we are not paying down our bills. we have an enormous trillion dollar debt, and we are spending more money than we have ever spent before. nothing is getting fixed. we are subject to having our electric grid.

our health care people are dying because they cannot afford the just, and, you know, it is , you have got to do something. say you inherited $100,000 and you owed $100,000 on your house. instead of paying on your house, you go party all the money away, and then you go bankrupt. that is pretty much where we are going to. the only ones being truthful -- thank god for the fbi and robert mueller, because they are the only ones in our whole government that are telling us the truth. host: steve, when did you serve? caller: it was during jimmy carter years right after the vietnam war. it was in peacetime. i served three years in the united states marine corps. host: you say when the good times come, we need to take care of ourselves, our economy. are we taking care of our

veterans? if this is the good times, are we using the good times to take care of our veterans? caller: well, see, if we had universal health, we would not even need the v.a. every veteran, even if you did not serve in wartime, does that make me any less of an american? does that mean i do not get to go to the hospital and, you know, get things taken care of, because i cannot afford health care? that includes all americans. if you are a real american, you do not have to be a veteran. you have got a right to at least get your health care. we are not taking care of none of this stuff. we are just spending money and playing games and running a cricket operation, i think. thank you, john. you all have a blessed day today. host: in north carolina, jack. good morning. when did you serve, jack? caller: good morning, sir.

i just listened to the other veteran comrades of mine. in the was a veteran early 1960's come really early 1960's, like 1961, 1962. we can have different viewpoints of presidents in general and president trump in particular. i remember the boy, harry truman, all the way forward now to president trump, and i must say president trump is almost a duplication of harry truman. ,hat is to say he is upfront what you see is what you get, and transparent in that sense of the word. i would like to just say i disagree with my other two veteran brethren. i think trump is the best thing that has happened in my lifetime, and i date back to truman. i was actually born before roosevelt died, but i do not know much about roosevelt it i am sure he was a great president, because he conducted

this country through a world war successfully, so he had to be a great president. back orte truman , andlate truman to trump trump is another truman, and he is great. host: coming back to one of the first callers you mentioned, does it matter to you whether a commander-in-chief had served in the military? absolutely not. a commander-in-chief can surround himself with good men, and trump has. just look at mattis, for example, and look at our secretary of state, for example. early on, the appointment was kind of thrown at him by the gop. he did not have much control. he had to get a government together in that first 30 days or so, and there were appointments thrown at him, so he selected some folks that the gop wanted, that the establishment wanted.

now he is getting his cabinet together, and this country is moving forward big-time. host: thanks for the call from north carolina. to illinois, chicago, william is up next. william, when did you serve? guest: good morning, how are you doing? are you there? host: yes, sir, when did you serve? caller: i served in the first desert storm and the second desert storm. host: what are your thoughts on the current commander in chief? i have some major concerns about this president. i think he is a clear and present danger for this country, foreign and domestic. on the foreign aspect, i think he is undermining nato, which i respectfully disagree with my brethren from north carolina, cultivating nato -- trump is doing the opposite.

on the domestic level, he does not acknowledge white supremacy groups as terrorists. and i am really concerned about that. he does not illustrate what america is supposed to be. hello, are you there? host: yes, sir, and what should america become a william? caller: america should be a diverse nation. contributes to this country. my ancestors were slaves, but they helped build this country. and they should be acknowledged as well as people shoul of color should be acknowledged as well as whites, and america stands for the. we are the beacon of the world. with this president, he has pushed away from that ideal. host: that is william in chicago this morning. kevin, el paso, texas, good morning.

caller: good morning. iam currently serving, and retired from the army in five months. bill clinton, bush, obama, and now trump. noticedthing i have with trump is that there is no bones about it that he loves us military. the previous eight years, the morality my unit was very low. with bush, we were too busy going to wars and everything else. , he cut us pretty good. no one liked him. no one liked him. probably -- do i think it is a requirement that you serve in the military? didn't.ump the

well, bush did a couple of years, air national guard, that is it. obama did not serve at all. .linton, he was deferred it is not really fair to base one standard on trump and not the others. so i fully support trump. on results,cision not emotions, not how i feel, not his words. i look at actions, and right now, i am very happy with donald trump. host: kevin, why did you decide to make the military a career? joined latetually in my life. i was just shy of 33 years old, and i joined infantry. i am still infantry. i have been deployed five times. i actually just got back last year. it was to turn my life around. i was heading down the wrong

path, and at that time, i had to make a decision, and i thought, way i can change that direction, that path was joined the military for a few years. it 20n was not to do years, but when i got deployed, i honestly liked being deployed because i actually do my job. during training, half the time, back here in garrison, it gets boring, and we keep doing the same kind of training. it just gets boring. it is like going through the motions, like rehearsals. you arevin, when deployed overseas, how often to the actions or the comments of a president come up in an infantry unit? how much are you paying attention to the day today, back and forth that the commander in chief is dealing with on the political side? well, i would have

to say when i deployed under ush would sayt b would get talked about amongst the soldiers in my unit and myself. with obama, we did not really talk about it. and with trump, i have not trump has been in office, so it is not a topic of what we really talk about on a regular basis. more worried about getting some free time, calling up their wives or their friends back here in the states, getting some sleep, reading a book, or just getting a hot meal. host: kevin, thank you for the call from el paso. best of luck in your final couple months. charles is in california. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing today? host: doing well.

caller: i wanted to respond to some of the comments that some of the last speakers did. commander in the chief is not constitutionally required to serve in the military. he has to be qualified, and i think he is doing a damn good job. mentionedntleman something about race, and i think people in this country have taken this race thing a little too far. americans, black americans japanese-americans -- the thing is, we are all americans. people forget about that. that is important. that is what bonds us together. as far as our president's performance, gdp is up, unemployment is down. way better forg our country across the board. trump exposed what is going on in washington. stuff coming out, and

for everybody seeing all the bad stuff going on under him in washington, now we can work together as a nation to correct that. i think president trump made that possible. if hillary had been elected, it would have all been swept under would knowd no one anything about it. i support our president, just like i did barack obama. i did not really like him, but i supported him as our president, and that is what we should do as america. host: charles mentioned gdp, the headline of the lead story of journal,"all street growth leads on, investment helps the gdp grow at a 4.1% up from thering, first quarter's revised growth the of two point 2% of of strongest growth since 2014. here is president trump from the white house yesterday talking about the economic situation in the country. [video clip] pres. trump: i am thrilled to announcepres. trump: that in the

second quarter of this year, the united states economy grew at the amazing rate of 4.1%. track to hit the highest annual average growth rate in over 13 years, and i will say this, right now, and i will say it strongly, as the trade deals come in one by one, we are going to go a lot higher than these numbers, and these are great numbers. during each of the two previous administrations, we averaged just over 1.8% gdp growth. tracktrast, we are now on to hit an average gdp annual growth of over 3%, and it could be substantially over 3%. way, means by the approximately $3 trillion and 10 million jobs. think about. each point. if you go up one point, it does not sound like much -- it is a lot.

it is $3 trillion and it is 10 million jobs. if economic growth continues at this pace, the united states economy will double in size more than 10 years faster than it would have either under president bush or president obama. host: we are talking to veterans only in this fo first segment of "washington journal" on this saturday. we want to get your view of president trump and the trump administration. as you are calling in for veterans on the eastern and central time zones, (202) 748-8000. mountain and pacific time zones can call in on (202) 748-8001. i want to show you some of the headlines that americans are waking up to this saturday morning involving veterans. this from the daily news online from wyoming, a story on the last virginia and between two world war ii army veterans, meadham.ral and ida

front pagefrom the thise "pueblo chieftain" morning. one more focusing on the korean war and the news yesterday, the return of romance coming to the united states from north korea. the story from "the career" out of ohio focusing on those remains coming back. those respected to be flown to remains being it transported to pearl harbor where the identification process those remains north koreans. 55 cases believed to be holding american remains from the korean war. one of the pictures from the "wall street journal" today shows those remains and you can see them draped in the united nations flag there. defense secretary james mattis

saying it is not necessary that all the remains are those of americans, they could be those from allied nations, and because of those uncertainties, the returning cases were draped in the united nations flag, not the american flag. getting your calls this morning, talking to veterans only. steve has been waiting in st. louis, missouri. good morning. caller: good morning, everyone. i'm going to try to keep this as non-political as possible. i am a vietnam vet. i served in the infantry for one year in vietnam. i did like the military. i was a draftee. i came down with numerous illnesses probably the last 15 to 18 years. and i have to admit under the current president, what hand he had a mess, i do not know, but i will say there has been a distinct change in how veterans are treated. there hasn there --

been a distinct change. they keep their appointments. i never have to wait. it even seems like their attitude and when you schedule an appointment, "are you trying to get medicine?" they are very courteous. i am not going to badmouth president obama, because i didn't vote for him twice -- i twice, butr him it seems like with president trump, whatever he has to do with this, with the people at the v.a., there has been a distinct change. i also like the way he always brings of veterans. i do not care if it is a rally or he is bringing veterans to the white house. i could care less if he served or not certain i mean, there have been other presidents who did not serve. there are many americans who never served. it does not mean -- i do not like them any less to it i mean, i am glad he did not have to serve. host: going back to the v.a.,

what did you think about the previous the a secretary david shulkin, and what are your thoughts on a new the a secretary, robert wilke? caller: what i know of the just got thethat position, what i have read, he seems to be a very good man. , will be honest, under shulkin i know there was controversy, but i myself in the group that i belonged to, the vietnam combat veterans organization, we are that the lastnt two years, things have changed with the v.a. like humanted more beings, like you go to a private doctor. there have been our stories, i have heard, with treatment, even courtesy, when you go in for an in the last 10, 12 years, and i experienced it

myself also. believe that president trump and the administration that he has put together has put veterans as one of his top priorities, and i am very pleased. host: steve, thanks for the call this morning. wilkie, confirmed on monday by a vote of 86-9. the know" from democratic senators cory booker of new jersey, kamala harris, and diane einstein of california, kirsten gillibran of new york, elizabeth warren, widen and jeff merkley -- and bernie sanders of vermont. e will have a massive job in front of him. the v.a. is still facing delays with massive wait times,

according to a new report. president trump touted his veteran's choice program for helping to ease those delays in his speech on tuesday, but researchers say reforms will not likely fix the wait times that the agency has until the agency improve this data collection and monitoring. the choice participants can face up to 70 to red receive care due tape. if you would like to read that story, it isn't the "washington times." manny in daytona beach, florida. when and where did you serve? caller: i served from 1960 to 1963. i was at the war college in carlisle, pennsylvania. support donald trump 100%. has done what he

said he would do. he is straightening out americans, he is draining the swamp. people do not like it. you talk about the kind of lifestyle that he had that he gave up to help the american people. way peopleulous the are criticizing him and tearing him down. this place was a mess, the country is a mess. why anyone with common sense beld know that it has to fair trade. you cannot be charged -- canada charges 280% on dairy products. that is not right. i support donald trump 100%. host: today, we will be talking a lot more about trade in or 8:00 hour of the "washington journal."stick around for that discussion. the first half hour focusing on foreign issues and farmers. a wider dissension in the second half hour -- in the second half hour, a wider discussion on tariffs and trade. host: bob in high springs,

florida. caller: good morning. i think trump is restoring our military strength and standing behind americans more than ever before. think he is bringing home prisoners of war and getting our enemies to return remains that had been held for lots of years. he is working to make the va even better than they are. he is improving the veterans economic status and helping veterans get off of food stands, like with veterans the valor programs, which are severely wounded veterans that i volunteer for. ambit memberme too. and if that is what obama was using military in the

white house as waiters, it was pathetic. vietnam era veteran from 1963 to 1967. i was in communications and intelligence, mostly in europe, but overseas for four years. the the a hospital system has gotten so much better in the last couple of years. it is a good system. i have been in it for a little over 12 years, maybe 12 years. i got good treatment except for one doctor that i had to of aally dismissed because poor attitude he had and poor -- a neglect of systems of prostate cancer for a couple of years, to defeat it got when i got a good doctor. the administration has changed to make patient-centered care

even better. they have a mission statement over each person's desk. they believe in giving the best care and treatment that you can give. and i am very happy with it. else? bob, we will take the comment. plenty more people want to chat this morning, including rick in idaho. go ahead. caller: good morning, john. from the 90's to 2000. the president may not know you personally, but he can tell you not you have -- you have enough to get by or food stamps, so i give you fair warning, my friends, he is here to put the pork back in your plate, pork back on your belly, and the pork back in your wallet. the money train is here, and trump is the engineer. bless president trump or

try to make america safe. have a good one, john. host: have a good one, too. alan? caller: good morning. the air force from i 69 to 1991. vietnam.in host: what do you think of president trump? caller: i think he is an insult to the electoral process, he is an insult to veterans, and he is an insult to americans in general. that is my opinion. host: why do you use the term "insult," alan? caller: because he is not what we envision when we envision a president. doay president because we not elect a president, we elect a candidate in chief. it is what we do in times of war, and trump is not

presidential material, basically. lan, who do you think in your lifetime performed the commander-in-chief duty the best while in office? caller: ooh. that is a difficult question there. we have not had that many real wars. and prior in vietnam to it and after, that was mostly nixon. suppose he probably was a fairly decent commander in chief, but, you know, it would ,ake something like a world war the ability to be commander in chief to really stand out, so i cannot think of too many

presidents we have had who effectively were commanders in chief. [inaudible] a alan, thanks for the call from georgia this morning. if you are a veteran in the eastern time zone, (202) 748-8000. if you're a veteran in the mountain or pacific time zone, (202) 748-8001. we will take this conversation till the top of the hour for veterans only. we will also look at your tweets and comments on twitter, @cspanwj. park storm rights in this morning "no self-respecting veterans who values honor, integrity, and leadership good support trump." writes in about the remains of north korea "thank president trump, god bless you. "

donna "every single that under every single president should get the best of care after the sacrifices they have made." shelton is waiting. caller: the treatment in the v.a. for the most part is pretty good. goes, generally poorf them have used people, working-class people as cannon fodder, fighting these wars to redistribute the wealth in the world. up, poverty gdp is is steady on the increase. wages are still stagnant. a large chunk of veterans are still homeless. we see a continuous, endless

wars in our society. that is not good. towards --e working to have a world where the vast majority of people in our society can live together as brothers and sisters and not be at the back and call of corporations and fighting wars for the rich. all of them -- obama continued started, andbush still in afghanistan for over 17 years. that is terrible! and young people, you men and women that barely passed 21 years old are still dying. that is not a good thing. our environment is terrible. inshould be working together

this planet. all of us should be living together, working together. host: why did you join the military? caller: i did not join. i was drafted. that was one of the things that happened to a lot of people back in the vietnam era. they were told a lie. we were told a lie about vietnam. in the wholea lie fight over libya. young people, like i said, young peopleand working-class have been fighting these wars throughout the centuries. grandfathers, his grandfather, my father, and on down the line. host: clarence is in virginia beach, virginia. good morning. caller: yes, sir, and good

morning. . donald trump -- you could put andrepublican president in, you will get the same -- republicans are generally strong supporters of the military, make no mistake about it. trump the man, he is a traitor. he stood up there with bad man putin. that almost made my stomach turn. i could not believe what i was seeing. and i joined the military during the cold war. the first thing they used to say , "russia this," "russia that," so, in my honest opinion, trump the. policy maker toward the military is great no doubt about it. hands down. you can have any republican that

strongly supports the military, but as far as the man, he is a , and ie, he is a traitor will put it this way, all of these veterans that call in and support him, look at the demographics. i hate to put it that way, but look at the demographics, and you can pretty much the who his strong supporters are. host: clearance, what are you implying? we have not asked the demographics. caller: i know you have not you can hear it through the phone. you can tell who supports him and who is not a strong said her. 1/3 of what this guy did. you would hear public outrage, but all the setting, the strong military guys are turning their

heads pure it am not going to turn my head. but this guy here, taking five deferments -- i just do not understand it. virginia.ence in skip is in valley springs, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. they give are taking my call it i am definitely not a trump supporter. i was in vietnam. i am 72 years old. after i got back from vietnam, i avoided the veterans administration's like the plague because it was horrible. lot throughmprove a various presidents of to this time. i have been fairly happy with the veterans administration. host: who do you think improve the v.a. the most? which president improve the v.a. the most? caller: i think it was during the first bush and clinton, that

is when i seemed to see a love of things start happening that were good for veterans. i started going to them on a regular basis. i was getting very good support as far as preventative medicine. i am a diabetic. i have done a good job of controlling my diabetes. but now i see that this president supports all of this privatization, because he is an idiot. [laughs] because i have tried to use this private system they are trying to push on is now, and as far as i can he, i have been better off with the doctors i am seeing directly in the veterans administration, and i have seen to doctors now. right now, i am trying to get cataract surgery.

the v.a. says ok, you can go more than 40 miles to go to a private doctor. i went and saw a private doctor, they get another exam, which the v.a. are ready to, and they determined yes, you need cataract surgery and turn around and tell me well, we do not handle it with eva we do not do cataracts for the v.a. well, what the hell were they doing sending me to the place? and just wasted my time, now i have to go find another eye doctor, and i found one who said yes, we will do the v.a., but now that i cannot go because i already went to one. and i have to go through all the process, paperwork over again. this is what we are going to get for privatization. host:, get on the issue of privatization, from story.com, recently late last month on this topic, more than 30 veterans

service organizations have backed funds to pass the the a mission act. are opposeds, which by the white house, would give over $55 billion. you know, signed into law day $5.2his month, billion to keep it running until next may while the department of veterans affairs puts in place the v.a. mission act. the choice push and puts pushes veterans toe pushes private character the mission act lives restrictions on caregivers. the v.a. mission act will open it up to veterans of all eras. if you want to read more, military.com with that story. don is waiting in illinois. thank you for waiting. caller: good morning. good morning to c-span and good

morning to america. i am a veteran. my father was a that are in. my brothers, and a slew of cousins. we have served this country very well. i seeso upset when veterans who support this president, a president that is shown to be a traitor. meetings withret the russians. it is just a circle. -- it is just hysterical. my brother was a vietnam veteran who lived in michigan. i would take into the veterans hospital for his appointments and things like that. before he passed, i mean, we got very good care from the veterans

administration. sent a person out to help him get his medicines and things like that to his house. i mean, it is a big organization. it is going to have problems with anything that is big. but the veterans administration treated my family and family members very well. host: sebastian is in california. go ahead, sebastian. caller: yes, good morning, john. thank you very much for your c-span broadcast. i listen to it always time on saturday. host: i appreciate that. caller: i support president trump. i think he is an axle and president. he has come i think, a military bearing and posture. to seest so happy somebody in charge and telling people what to do, and if he does not like something, he lets them know that as well. to me as a veteran, and i think that most veterans understand

that behavior. he has a military posture and a military bearing. i am just glad he is up there. host: sebastian, explain that a little bit more. what is a military posture and a military bearing? caller: what he does is he takes command. he takes command of himself when he is giving orders to his staff, when he is coming up with his programs. that is a military posture. military bearing would be he looks like he is in military. he is in control of himself. even though people are complaining about his various comments, i believe president trump's comments are purposeful. and i think he is getting the job done and moving the country forward. host: sebastian, on tuesday, when he was at the vfw convention -- you can see some of the video from it -- one of the things he talked about a got criticism for is his continued criticism of the press. the story on the front

page of the "washington post" focusing on trump and how he treats the press. "trump has repeatedly sought to punish the press" is the headline. what do you think of trumpet his treatment of the press. ? what do you think veterans think about the press right now? his comments and criticism of the press is fair. i mean, who else is going to battle back? the press is coming forward with the battle, accusing him of this, accusing him of that, and who is going to defend him? he has to defend himself. he has to defend his government. i think veterans, the majority of them, are in line with him, because it is common sense what is going on between him and the press. the press does not like him. he does not like the press. that is the bottom line. [laughs] host: a tweet from the vfw

headquarters after the president's remarks on tuesday, they tweeted after the president's speech "we were disappointed to hear some of our members who the press during the president's remarks. we rely on the media to spread the vfw message, and cnn, nbc, abc, fox news, and cbs news, and others on site today were our invited guests. we were happy to have them there." speech, shedix's writes "i have covered for decades working side-by-side with our soldiers, marines, and airmen, and i am glad to the rd-won respect, but i worry as i listen to the president's vitriol that those days will disappear for the next generation of reporters. "trump's rally before

hundreds of veterans at the veterans of foreign wars convention tuesday and kansas were disappointed." when president trump boasts he would fix the department of veterans affairs, have they forgotten the press? has drawn attention to those issues? bethany is next. caller: good morning, john. i am an older gal. i served during the reagan years. , i go to thel you veterans administration on a weekly basis, and i try my best to talk to everyone about politics and what they believe, many approaches here. one of the things that concerns the absolutes

antagonistic nature and promiscuous lying that everyone is well aware of. i think a lot of these veterans, i suspect that they may be identifying with the president, you know, that they are older men, they are can tinker us, they do not want to be told what to do. they want to grab women when they feel like it, and they do not much care to be told that they are wrong, and i think they are living almost vicariously the vfwhis power, and thing, that was absolutely disgraceful. that we are soe easily brainwashed. and no one even knows -- or the veterans do not seem to know, like, one of the first things he did in the first few months when he was in the presidency was

that he tried to cut benefits, like me, i have got cancer, and i have got ptsd. i am at the end of my life right now, and i am a fairly young woman -- or at least i think i am -- and i am going to go out of this world watching this. i just -- i cannot forgive the bsolute misogyny that he has re this country, and i see it everywhered in. to ohio from colorado, and it is like the mason-dixon has crept northward. racism is overwhelming. host: why do you think it is important to talk politics every time you go to the v.a.? caller: because nobody wants to do it. nobody wants to do it.

because i have ignored so many people, and they are trying to get rid of me, and i keep my mouth said shut, and i say it is your chance to tell me what you think, go. and they have nothing to save your they cannot tell me why they hate pelosi. -- they have nothing to say. they cannot tell me why they hate pelosi. you should probably let someone else ago. host: bethany is the first female to call in during this veterans only segment. more numbers in the research center, demographics expected to change in an accepted. men.in 10 are the share of female veterans is expected to double to 18%. mike, wilmington, delaware,

thanks for waiting. caller: thanks for taking my call. i think president trump is doing a great job. mean, america was great before he come to office. he is a businessman, you know. he is worried about, you know, his money. mike, what did you think about the concerns expressed by the caller before you as you are waiting? caller: the lady? know, i really, uh, i was in the military. i remember when i saw my first -- i was a combat arms most of the times. it, you know, it is like anything else, you know, when

something is new, i mean, you in the military, the military has been all men in combat arms for the longest, so it takes time. now it should be just about the norm. i mean, there's a lot more. we, uh, are military, a long brand of loyalty. you have to take into account it has just been 1%. fighting isis since iraq. they cut down in iraq, there are only 37,000, when i heard the other day, in europe, 300,000 something, footprint there. know, i, uh, i believe

that we reinforce modernization under reagan. that pulled all the material on. it ended up in iraq. it iraqis ended up giving away to isis, and we had a new problem. you know, it is just really -- it is hard to manage. it is hard for people to is the people's money that is paying for all of this military hardware. are you concerned about the few americans who actually serve in the military? some numbers on the number of veterans who served in congress. you can see the percentage of members in the house and senate that were veterans declining years.e today come in the current

congress, 20% of senators and 19% of representatives have prior military experience or service. reached a post-korean war peak in 1975 when it was 81% while the share among house 75%.rs peaked in 1967 at if you want to see any of these numbers come the pew research center with their facts on the the servicee of members. good morning. anon, 1970, 1971. it breaks my heart for people to burning everything president trump has done down. he has done more than anything, really. he is catching up with reagan quick. fast for the country so people can live better. there are more jobs.

they cannot fill the jobs. i do not understand what people are complaining about. are they still on welfare coming in? soldier, especially combat soldier calling and complaining about being alive, so these people calling income i do not believe they ever got shot at or returned any fire anyway. we have to stand up for our country, because russia and china are working together, and i hope it does not happen, but when it does, we are going to be in the worst fight we have ever been in. and some of it might even be on this land. host: chris, is president trump standing up to russia and china? becausei am glad he is, they are really taking advantage of us, and have been since clinton. he is the one who opened the doors and said here, come on in, have everything we have got. host: michael in sydney, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning.

i am a veteran, 73 years old. my wife also a veteran. economically, we are more fortunate than most, so i have no points one way or another about how trump is doing with the economy, but i do have an observation that trump -- i used to listen to him for years on the don imus show, and this guy has not changed one bit. a blowhard, a liar, i mean, the guy is just -- i cannot stand him. plays, i mean, his people who support him, it is just -- it says so much about them that he constantly lies, the big lie, you know? it out,ody can check but they choose not to believe -- theyse it is just just can't -- i don't know. they can't face the truth or they don't want to. he i don't really think that

is going to do anything long-term, but kurt our country, certainly not help it. what about the role he plays as commander in chief? caller: [laughs] that is a joke. me?you kidding commander in chief -- this guy was a draft dodger. he did not do anything except insult the military. look what he said about the goldstar family. i mean, just because they were not white. now, i am white, but i have known for years, because of the field -- i was in the medical field. my wife still practices anesthesia. i am telling you -- this is such a racist country. it really is. it always has been. it has changed very little. there is a thin veneer of respect ability over people you would think would be too

educated to be racist, but they are still racist, a lot of them. host: that is michael in ohio. caller: i was just listening to the colors from the gentleman just before i got online, he was talking about the racism in the country. i was thinking about -- i'm a veteran, a vietnam vet. hello? announcer: what did it make you think about, tyrone? caller: i was thinking about -- when he said about the racism in this country, i was wondering if all the people that were separated at the border, if they were blonde haired blue-eyed, would they have been separated, because they were of mexican descent that they were separated? most of them haven't even gotten back with their parents. how do you do children away?

the things that happened in helsinki to me border on treason. donald trump has never been in the military, he's a draft dodger, he doesn't care about this country, he cares about himself and his family. whole family is traders. host: that's tyrone and savanna, georgia. your first point, some of the latest numbers, the department of health and human services identified 2634 miners separated from their families at the border. children, 103were were children under the age of five. of those under the age of five, 57 have been reunited, 46 not due to various ineligible for reunification reasons, including the adult being outside the u.s. or red flags from background

checks, or the fact that the adult couldn't be found. 5-17, 1820 have been reunited, 711 deemed ineligible for reunification. those are some of the latest numbers. we will keep updating you as those reunification's continue. that will do it for this first segment over the "washington journal" today. up next, we will change from talking about veterans to talking to farmers. roger johnson will join us to discuss how farmers are faring amid ongoing trade disputes, and later we will continue the discussion on global trade and the u.s. economy with christine mcdaniel. we will be right back. ♪ announcer: this weekend on "oral histories," the first of our eight part series on women in

congress. sunday at 10:00 a.m. eastern, congresswoman susan molinari. >> it made me a fighter. i was forced to be tougher. that's the secret. at least it was back then. we were constantly being underestimated. sometimes being underestimated is a good thing. you have the element of surprise. i remember a lot of my debates or the people i was debating didn't take me seriously until he got up there, and it was too late. the same thing happened when you are negotiating. announcer: in the weeks ahead, we will hear from pat schroeder, sue myrick, eva clayton, helen bentley, barbara can only, nancy johnson, and lynn woolsey. watch "oral histories" sunday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3.

announcer: on c-span next week in primetime, monday, former presidents george w. bush and bill clinton on lessons from the life and politics. tuesday, nasa administrator jim bridenstine nine on president trump's proposal to create a military space force. wednesday, the 2018 national governors association summer meeting on the transformation of the workforce by artificial intelligence. thursday, the net roots conference from new orleans, with cory booker and the lieutenant gubernatorial candidate john federman. friday, more from the net roots conference with senators elizabeth warren,, harris, and deborah holland. next week in primetime on c-span, c-span.org, and with the free c-span radio app. announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: for discussion on the u.s.

farm economy and the trade battles, we are joined by roger johnson, president of the national farmers union. for those unfamiliar with your group, what is the national farmers union? guest: we are an organization that represents family farmers. we organized more than 100 years ago, mostly in the great plains area. but we have members all over the country, so we are a national organization, 200,000 members. part organized in large around markets, around making sure farmers have fair access to markets, making sure markets are competitive, that kind of stuff. host: you say family farmers. these are the small farmers, not the large businesses. guest: they tend to be small or medium-sized farmers who were members. because we are general farm organization, we represent all kinds of farmers, whether they are great, rural crop farmers, livestock producers, you name it. they are all eligible. host: when you say represent,

what does that work include? guest: it does include lobbying, and that is in part why we have an office in washington, d.c. organizational -- our organizational object is a triangle, and that the base is education. we do a lot of educational work for our membership and for the general public about agriculture and family farmers. then on the sides are the words cooperation and legislation. when i talked earlier about us being organized, a lot of the w ork that was done to bring competition in the marketplace was to organize cooperatives, so that there would be another business that would provide competition in fair market. isn the last triangle point legislation. ultimately, in any country, if

you are going to have policies that make sense for the industry that you represent, you have to have a voice in that public policy setting process. host: there has been a lot of focus on farmers in washington and coming out of the white house. has it been a good week for farmers in washington? guest: you know, washington is a crazy place. i spent most of my life in north dakota, came out here about nine years ago to head up the national farmers union. years, i think washington has become less and less predictable, maybe a little more and more dysfunctional in lots of different ways. think course, i don't anyone would disagree that with this administration there is less predictability to what you would normally expect to happen. was it a good week? there were a lot of things that happen.

issues one of the big that farmers are facing right farm income is very low. we have been on a five-year slide. net farm income to farmers across the u.s. is less than half of what it was just five years ago. the latest numbers out of the usda predict that this year, net farm income, the median number, half of all farmers below, half of all farmers above, should be negative. it is very difficult economically right now. in this last week, a lot of what has been in the news has been about trade and tariffs and disruption in the u.s. market. we have lost massive amounts of money in the agricultural market in the last month and a half or so, and even maybe a bit before oft, with all the talkf

tariffs came out of the white house. now that they have been put in place, we have seen dramatic increases in prices for farmers. host: as we are having this conversation, we want to hear from farmers and those in the agricultural industry. if you want to join the conversation, (202) 748-8000. all of us can colin that (202) 748-8001. roger johnson will be with us until about 8:30, so you can colin now. bring it to let's one of the main announcements from the white house this week concerning farmers, the $12 billion in aid for farmers impacted by those trade deals. is that something you are in favor of, and what will that do? guest: well, of course it is better to have some aide than n ot. a're pleased that there is proposal that has been made.

there are a lot of details that have not been laid out yet, so we are not sure how it will play out. we have long argued that the right way to respond to this, since we have taken this direction about very dramatically changing our approach to trade around the world, decided that we are going -- we are basically taking on much of the world with our trade approach. since we have decided on that approach, we have argued that it makes more sense for the administration to sit down with congress and write policies that help to protect farmers from the damage that is being done as a result of this trade war. now, some aid coming directly out of usda is better than no aid. but it is short-term. the damage that is being done from the way our trade agenda is being prosecuted right now around the world is going to be

a very long-term damage to farmers. we spent years and years building markets, and they are being destroyed. o you don't just quickly flip that switch back on again once we change, and who knows what that change is going to be? host: we want to know your thoughts on this deal the trump administration announced with the european union this week. focusing trump specifically on how it will impact farmers, when he spoke about it in iowa on thursday. here's what the president had to say. >> we just opened up europe for you farmers. you are not going to be too angry with trump, i can tell you this. you are essentially -- you were restricted, you had barriers that really made it impossible for farm products to go in. i said to them, "do me a favor, because china is doing a little number, they want to attack the farm belt, because they know the

farmers love me, they voted for me, you look at the middle of this country, a little bit of glue on the outer edges of the figured weo they will attack them. i see that in i said, "there are not going to win, we have all the cards." but it's not nice, what they are doing. but i said to the europeans, i said, "do me a favor, would you go out to the farms in iowa and all the different places and by a lot of soybeans? no tariffs, no nothing, free-trade." that's called free-trade. host: roger johnson, what's your take away from the president? do we know of the details? guest: no, we don't. in fact, one of the things we have heard is that the europeans are pushing back and saying that is not what they agreed to when they met with the president just a day or two ago.

importantthink it's to look at the relative size of this whole thing. away the number one market for u.s. soybeans. europe is a tiny, tiny sliver in terms of volume, because they raise a lot of the crops that we raise, and they don't have food shortages, they don't have this big population the chinese have and limited access to land. the europeans are going to be a very, very small piece of the action going forward. verydly, europeans have different standards that applied to the products that they will allow to be imported. they're much more skeptical about gmo's. the vast majority of soybeans that are raised in this country are gmo beans.

so i would expect that there will be a long-term process of trying to get some of these products into the eu, and it's not just the government, if the consumers that will be resistant. listen, it's good that we are making some progress with the eu. i don't want to discount that at all. but let's not somehow think that what's happened with china can be replaced by the eu, because it can't. is a tiny fraction. host: let's have you chat with some colors.a farmer in amsterdam , ohio. you are on with roger johnson of the national farmers union. caller: thanks for taking my call. china'sou know that going to go down to brazil, they will start buying soybeans from brazil, beef from brazil. they will also start getting more of their own farmers to start growing as much as they possibly can.

these markets are never coming back to this country, never. well, i don't know that i'd say never, but i take your point. you are spot on. the chinese, in fact, have already largely discontinued purchasing from the u.s. as a result of the trade war that we are in with them, and they have diverted their production to brazil. that is expected to continue. we've seen this pattern in the past. it is what has happened decades before, when we had embargoes of different sorts put on agricultural products. and what happens is you simply diverged that country that was importing from the u.s., they buy it from someplace else, in this case brazil is the big dog. and there's no question that's

happening. one of the things that is really start, if you look at the market price, soybeans have dropped off dramatically. i know were talking a lot about soybeans, but really what listeners need to understand is that in agriculture, if soybean markets are going to fall, corn is going to fall, wheat is going to fall, all the commodities are going to fall in sympathy for the very, very logical economic reasons. we can read into this all of agricultural production. soybeans -- once on, itariffs wen tont dropped by about $2 a bushel, $10 per bushel beans. don't hold me to these numbers because they vary a lot. in general, $10 per bushel. you take $2, down to $8.

if you look at price charts between the u.s. and brazil, it's the brazilian -- the u.s. market went like this, and the brazilian market went like this. that $2 difference all went to brazil. that is what happened. the chinese are paying more for these soybeans, and i'm not arguing that the entire $2 was a result of the tariffs, i wouldn't make that case, but the difference in price between the u.s. and brazil is enormous. what that means is that the brazilians are going to increase production of soybeans, they are going to bring more land into production. that is going to squeeze income in the u.s., it will take that market share away. long-term we will lose market share, no question, and the brazilians will gain it. host: stats on u.s. agriculture. there are over 2 million farms throughout the united states,

covering some 910 million acres. 97% of u.s. farms are family-owned. in u.s.40.5 billion agricultural exports in 2017. we're talking with roger johnson this morning with the national farmers union, the president, about trade and tariffs and farms. we especially want to hear from farmers. rick is a farmer in oklahoma. what do you for? caller: a little bit of everything. rye, corn, soybeans, cattle. host: what's your question for roger johnson this morning? caller: well, what i'd like to see roger do is start a movement. the chinese have targeted us as pawn in and we're ua the deal. what trumps doing needs to be done, they have been ripping us off for 30 years on tariffs, and

i know a lot of farmers that are for him to hold the course and stay with it, but what he needs to do is start a movement and try to get the farmers of the united states not to buy chinese goods and everything related to chinese agriculture not to buy chinese goods. host: has there been a hit on your bottom line when it comes to these rising trade disputes? caller: sure. fall., not till you sell soybeans, it's not the time to market your products. some -- i got on the right side of the deal, but it's going to hurt everybody. let's remember back. if we make an uproar in this country, we're not going to buy your stuff, you're targeting us and we will not buy your stuff. host: thanks for the call. caller: so rick, you make a

really good point. it's a point i should have made earlier. we don't necessarily disagree with the diagnosis that the trump administration has with respect to trade. and in fact, in particular, relative to china -- china has been misbehaving in the world order for a long, long while. we were one of the countries that pushed to have been permitted to enter into the wto at the turn-of-the-century. part of that push was predicated on the assumption in the promise that they made, that they would develop into a market economy, that they were going to behave like we and the rest of the democratic world behave. that influence from government will be minimized, that the market signals will make the decisions. in fact, that has not happened. in fact, what the chinese have

done is they have lied, they have cheated, they have stolen products, they have stolen industries that they have a state directed in state-controlled economy. their government, which is a communist party government, directly influences many of the businesses and the business decisions. so they are decidedly not a free market economy player. they needed to be called out. so we absolutely agree with the trump administration, that the chinese needed to be called out and needed to be held to account. where i think we would disagree is the way the administration is prosecuting this trade war. they seem to have decided that they are going to pick a war with the whole rest of the world instead of just what the chinese. there are lots of countries, i think, the mexicans, the

canadians, the eu, that would be here to join us in bringing some discipline to the way the chinese behave in this marketplace. but we are not engaging them to do that. we are, in fact, deciding that we will put tariffs on them, to o. it is likely decided to declare war on the whole world, a trade war on the whole world. so that, from the tactical standpoint, we just have a lot of difficulty with how this administration's prosecuting it. i think a lot of folks in congress feel that way, as well. i think a lot of the american public believes that the chinese need to be held to account and we need to be taking them on. it's how do you do that. and at the same time, recognize that agriculture is going to face collateral damage, because the one part of our trade in the u.s. where we have a surplus,

and having a trade surplus is a good thing because it creates jobs and more economic activity, the one piece of our economy with a trade surplus is agriculture, meeting we sell more stuff than we by her mother countries -- then we buy from other countries on balance. that's a good thing. the problem is the rest of our economy is hemorrhaging a big trade deficit, and the trade surplus is a small part. host: if you are a farmer or entity ag industry, we want to hear from you. (202) 748-8000 is the specialized we have set aside for you. all others, (202) 748-8001. bill is on that line, from florida. caller: good morning. smallke to know what the buy theo not have to gmo seeds. chemicallyat are

rearranged, or whatever it is. and i'd also like to know the effect that fracking has had on the water that the farmers in our country use, because i see -- when i go to the supermarket -- a deterioration in the flavors ain the different fruits and vegetables produced here in this country. host: thanks for bringing up the topic, fracking and on gmo seeds. where do you want to start? guest: let's do the non-gmo thing and the small farmers. the 2 million farmers, that's an accurate number out of the usda. understand isd to that the usda definition of a farmer is roughly as follows -- someone who sells or would normally sell in the course of a year $1000 or more of agricultural products.

that's a relatively small bar. or low bar. more veryre are a lot small farmers then that 2 million number then there are large farmers. the small farmers tend to be more direct marketing folks. fruit and vegetables, marketing at stands, etc. more of them also tend to be part-time. they have a full-time job, they farm on the side. they make some real general statements. there are exceptions to everything i've said. but the gmo crops are predominantly grown by the larger farmers, the more commercial producers, the producers of what we call commodities. that would be things like soybeans and corn, those kinds of things that are not generally directly consumed by people but are ingredients. most of them, corn and soybeans

are good examples, our food stock. they don't go directly to humans. most of the very small farmers don't raise gmo crops. a differentat's question. my don't get a lot of that in line of business. i will tell you that i spend most of my life in north dakota, which is a big oil and gas state, so i know a fair amount about fracking and oil and gas development. what i do know about it is that it's a very different, depending on the geography and the geology in which it is conducted. i'm sure there are cases where fracking levels are relatively near the surface, and you have the potential of intersecting with water aquifers, that's something that

requires a whole lot more care and concern than if you're two miles deep, as we were in north dakota, which is significantly below were any aquifers with potable water are. so that's a real general answer. host: a little bit of time, a couple calls to get through. don, california. thanks for waiting. caller: hi, yes. i wanted to speak on the subject. i'm all for president trump's so-called trade war. what i find very disturbing is people such as congress trying to white flag of surrender before a shot has been fired. case in point, paul ryan. on the day the eu caved on these trade barriers, he said that we shouldn't be using tariffs, that

there are better tools in our toolbox to use, which to me, i asked, what are these mythical, magical tools, and why haven't we been using them for the last 30 years? guest: yeah. it's a good question. inten, i talked about this part when i talked about the farmers union agrees with the trump administration in terms of their diagnosis of the problem, that our trade agreements need to be renegotiated, that china in particular has been misbehaving for a long, long while. that mightd argue make more sense rather than just immediately going to slapping tariffs on much of the world is to be sitting down with some of our allies. instead of seeming to pick fights with our allies, why aren't we sitting down with them and leading them in an effort to

hold china to account? it seems to me that, long-term, that might be a more effective strategy. obviously, i'm not in the white house. but there is a good example of instead of just doing tariffs, let sit down and talk and get new rules in place. host: last call. mark is a farmer in ashton, maryland. two minutes left, go ahead. caller: thank you. serviceor an agro company in maryland. it has been a wet year, and a lot of producers want to get soybeans in the ground, and what we have had, we haven't had the better weather for the growing patterns. i've had an interaction with one mid-julyowers, come -- host: you were going in and out. what's your question? caller: i was just wondering,

what might be -- i understand there are three tenants, three divisions -- --within the third division host: in the minute we have i think we lost mark. i think we lost mark, i want to ask, what are your priorities as we look at the december 30 deadline for the farm bill? we think there needs to be a functional safety net for family farmers, it's on point because these market prices have dropped dramatically. there is a lot of financial strain in agriculture, there needs to be some sort of a backstop, so we do not lose a whole another generation of family farther's -- family farmers. it's important to have a safety net. number of other provisions, particularly dealing with the conservation area. we want to be good stewards of our land, water, and air

resources. there are a number of programs in the farm bill that need to be kept whole, so we can have the right kind of incentives. if you want to learn more about the national farmers union, they have a website and can be found on twitter. roger johnson is the president of the national farmers union, thank you for your time. up next week will be joined by christine of george mason university. we will continue the discussion on trade disputes and the impact of tariffs. and later on her weekly spotlight on magazine segment, we will talk to ben hoffman, a contributor to the new republic which talks about his new article reckoning with the legacy of police brutality. ♪ sunday night on afterwards,

former white house press secretary sean spicer discusses politics,he briefing, the press, and the president. he is interviewed by michael steele. --ronald weight reagan ronald reagan and donald trump are a hundred 80 degrees apart from each other, and here we are. how did you navigate that? we are both reagan conservatives in that regard. was it a dance every once in a while? how did you do it? >> with respect to the president himself, there is no question that he is not traditional in terms of how he takes, he has a zone were inaccurate. he connects to people in a way that most politicians never have. he talks very bluntly, in his own style. i dump and he would have won the thenancy, the nomination -- presidency, the nomination if he did not have that style. there is ours a with elected officials they say the right

things and they do not get things done. in the case of trump you get things done, but people say i did not like how he interacts. i'm a results-oriented person and i look at how the country is doing. are people making more money and is it safe for? i think, net net, most people seerally agree that we can the right thing being done for the country is a better place than talking about the right thing to get done. >> watch afterward sunday night on nine eastern on booktv. today at 10 a.m. eastern on american history tv, live all day coverage of the confederate icons conference from james madison university in harrisonburg, virginia. coleman include christy , this figure of the american civil war museum and the historian john koski.

cheney, a purdue university professor, and james robinson, author of the book after the civil war. the civilians and shoulders who -- the -- after the civil war: the civilians and shoulders -- soldiers who changed the world. >> washington journal continues. oft: continuing on the topic trade this morning where joined by christine mcdaniels, a senior research fellow at george mason university and a former economist in the george w. bush administration. what is your definition of fair trade? is it is simple as a country's imports matching or coming close to exports? >> fair trade is being used more and more these days, i grew up in the free trade era.

trade and of the fair free trade are misnomers. remember, people trade, governments do not trade. i think the important thing is to remember that if people are best off when they can buy and sell how they want with whom they want, and really with the least government involvement. host: this country's trade deficit last year was between $550 billion, how concerned are you about the trade deficit we currently have? guest: the trade deficit reflects a lot of things, but mostly macroeconomic forces. the trade deficit really has nothing to do with trade policy, and i think that's a myth out there. when you hear about the trade deficit, that just means that

americans are buying more from other countries than they are buying from us in terms of goods and services. the flipside of that is that other countries invest a lot more here than we invest in them. no one is getting ripped off, the same number of dollars coming into the united states amount ofople the dollars leaving the united states. but americans like to consume a lot and the u.s. economy is an attractive place for investors. host: president trump is very focused on the trade deficit, talking abouttop, the gdp growth in the second quarter of this year, he took time to talk about the trade deficit. here's what he had to say. >> the trade deficit is very dear to my heart, because we have been ripped off by the world. has dropped by more than $50 billion, 52 billion to be exasperated it has dropped by more than 50, think of that, the trade deficit has dropped by more than $50 billion.

adding, oned, and point to gdp. that's a tremendous drop, we have not had a drop like that in a long time, you have to go back a long time before you find it. host: two questions, what do you attribute the drop to? and is the president's focus on the number misplaced? time, if you look over the trade deficit bounces around. it has generally been increasing over time as the u.s. economy grows, consumption grows in a lot of consumption is imports. but our gdp also grows. the administration's focus on the trade deficit is concerning to a lot of us, because it has very little to do with trade policy. there are three ways to address the trade deficit, and not have to do with trade policy. americans could save more, and

consume less. we could depreciate the exchange rate, or we could tax capital inflows. right now, none of those things are being done or pursued. there is truth in terms of market access that some of your callers asked about. this obsession with the trade deficit is concerning. join we invite callers to the discussion this morning with christine mcdaniel, a senior at george mason university. she also worked in the george w. bush administration, a former senior economist for international trade. now would be a good time to ask trade questions. for democrats (202) 748-8000, for republicans (202) 748-8001, for independents (202) 748-8002. our calling in, president trump also talked about terrible trade deals of

the past, is it your opinion of the united states is bad and has been bad and -- in recent decades when it comes to negotiating trade deals? there's don't know if -- a good trade deal is when both sides come to the table and try to work out how to lower barriers. that is certainly what our prime -- our president -- our presidents have done over the past several decades. the u.s. is generally an open economy, we don't have a lot to give on terms of further reduction in tariffs. other countries are increasingly open, but there are some areas where there could be a win-win. if we could get other countries open up their markets more. and there are gems of truth into what the trump trade team is saying.

e.u. are areas where tariffs are higher than u.s. terrace and vice versa. and vices versa. explain the deal that president trump has reached with the e.u. as you understand it. there seems to be some dispute even among europeans about what was actually included in the deal. should all be we cheering that there seems to be some sort of truce on further escalation. but it is a long road ahead, i don't know if anything has been changed in terms of terrace. --tariffs. we will be watching closely for both sides to follow up on those commitments that were verbally made.

let's take some calls, rafael in new york, on the democrat line. caller: i have been reading a lot about trade deficits and what spread does president trump has been doing to alleviate our aoblem, but there are also lot of american companies that are going overseas. apple, they are making all of the products in china. and findalk to apple out what it is that you are doing in china with product thing sold in america, particularly the united states. can we do something about that to alleviate that problem? question, the

trade deficit in and of itself is not a problem, if you want to reduce the trade deficit we have the budget deficit, americans basically need to consume less and save more. -- americanssume are consuming a lot and not saving a lot. the budget deficit keeps going up it does not look like our trade deficit will be declining anytime soon. to the caller's point about .pple, i love that story for those of you who have an iphone, if you turn it over you will see it says designed in california, assembled in china. that tells a great story. trade is all about getting people to focus on what they do best. americans are increasingly doing ideas best. we just don't have the competitive labor force in terms of assembling electronic

components, china does. that is why we largely design stuff here and it gets assembled abroad. host: but don't we want that? should be the policy of administration officials to have that to make things here? guest: the government's role is not to decide what should be made here and what should not be made here. , americanears manufacturers have just gotten a lot more competitive and innovative, so it takes us to do things today compared to what it ago10, 20, 40, and 60 years . it's not cost competitive for apple to make their products -- to a sum of their products here. it is cost competitive for them to have ideas, research and development, marketing, and design. the u.s. has a surplus in royalties, and we receive a lot of money from countries that are paying us to use our ideas, more

than we pay them. host: steve, on the independent line from illinois. caller: i have two questions and a statement. these automobile manufacturers in europe, coming over here and their companies to start assembling, but they are also bringing employees in order , which does company not put our laborers to work. to haveas supposed their wages raised and their economy built, that's how come we did the nafta agreement. ,or your comment on apple people are jumping off buildings because of the hours they have

to work. those are great observations. when one company, a multinational company sets up shop in a different country, just like toyota sets up shop here, or volvo, or ford sets up shop in china. they will hire the best people they can, sometimes they bring their own, what we see in the u.s. is that foreign owned multinationals are a large ,mployer of american workers foreign multinationals in the u.s. tend to pay higher wages and better benefits on average, they are a big driver of economic job growth and productivity and innovation. overall, that is what we found.

to your point about mexican wages, it has definitely been in the news a lot. i do not think the u.s. government should be telling other countries how to set their own wages. it's always best when the market determines prices, whether it's ,he price of labor, hospitals and other services. mexican wages have increased over the years as mexico's economy develops. atanother country is better doing something, then they should be doing it, just like we are better at doing certain things and we are doing those things. host: what do you think the best outcome would be from the ongoing nafta renegotiation? guest: first to come to some type of resolution and get certainty to the marketplace. the gem of these trade agreements is a certainty. -- is certainty.

businesses, they terroristat pick a we just want certainty. that is what is harming investor confidence right now, the lack of certainty. nafta is amazing, but look at notenergy sector, there was a lot of trade liberalization in the energy sector but because of certainty and investor confidence that nafta brought, the north american energy sector is more competitive today than ever, we are more self-sufficient on energy than ever, and that comes from investor confidence. we are watching closely and hope they can renegotiate these issues. host: about 15 minutes left with christine mcdaniel. we are taking your calls this

morning, peter, in maryland is next on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to convey my support to , and commend him for what he is been able to do in the short time. it's very hard to go on a radio and you have, someone calling him anything, they have literally thrown everything at him. host: peter, what do you think about these trade disputes and the potential for terrorists --tariffs? caller: just like the lady has

said, there is some truth in what the president's team is saying, but i think it's a lot of truth in what they are saying . -- it's not some truth that there is a little truth and everything is alive, we know very well that the previous administrations has used --itics you want to compare the trade strategy of the trump administration to the a bomb -- to the obama administration? in the big picture they are very similar, they are both trying to open up markets abroad for u.s. firms to compete. that is always the best golfer government. for government.

individuals trade, governments do not trade. the best role for government is to negotiate the best rule they can get and step back and let the market take place. peter's point about what the president is trying to accomplish, i don't think there is any debate on the virtues of trying to open up markets abroad for u.s. businesses. 95% of the world consumers live outside of our borders, it's a huge value for government to be going out and trying to break down those barriers. the unsettling part of it is the uncertainty, and some of these issues are harder than tariffs can solve. if you read the report on china and their intellectual property rights issues, there are some serious allegations and legitimate concerns laid out in that report. it is not clear that tariffs

will solve those problems. that is why we often see companies teaming up with like-minded allies, like we tried to do with the trance -- countries teaming up with like-minded allies, like we try to do with the transpacific partnership. many of these countries are just as frustrated with china as we it's worth thinking about if we go with a unilateral approach, or do we think about playing the long game and team up with our allies and try to set stronger rules that we want moving forward? host: jerry, on the democrat line. caller: there are so many different directions you can go with trade policy and this discussion. country by country, there is a whole different view of issues from japan's china, but what i

want to ask -- from japan to china, but what i want to ask you, if you want to change the deficit and maybe improve the and i getion at home, the feeling you are a no holds , what do yourader think about quotas instead of tariffs? quotas, that's a way to basically limit the quantity of imports. steel, thate, allows u.s. importers to import tariff free, and then after that no more, or maybe with attacks. -- a tax.

it's similar because it raises price, it will raise the price for u.s. imports, but also the price of any u.s. business manufacturing consumer that buys steel or products with steel in it. is that thece government does not collect tariff revenue with the quota. usually want that to go to the import source. so sometimes quotas sound better than a tariff, but the u.s. government is not collecting those duties. there is that trade-off. higherend of the day, prices for u.s. manufacturers, , and once youon start slowing down competition, you can get in trouble.

you were brought into the trump administration, what would be your recommendation? guest: i would say focus on the market access issue. this trade team is right, there are issues that we have to address in terms of increased market access for u.s. firms. ,ut it goes beyond tariffs there are data flows across borders, huge rules are getting formed on how data goes across borders, and more and more regulations that affect small and medium-sized businesses. these are the things that modern trade agreements need to deal with, and the u.s. wants to be at the table when those roles are being written. in terms of subsidies and enterprises, those are key issues that will have to be addressed, it might be that the wto is not the place to address them. that means we have to work with

our allies. i would say increase focus on market access, stop with tariffs , let's get back to the table. we can still get tough on china, but let's play the long game and get with like-minded allies and really push them to see how far we can go to write down the rules that we want, that they want, that will be more of a win-win for the global economy. china is eventually going to go in that direction, or at least we would hope. we want to be at the table when those rules are being written. host: jeff, a democrat from indianapolis. caller: thank you for taking my call. namess a famous economist jane there -- named james mccarter that came up with the law trade advantage.

if a country can manufacture a product at a more efficient rate , they will have the advantage. that is what china has. one of the things the united states has helped the situation -- has noted this helped the situation is that americans have become addicted to the cheap goods from china. that thely thing president will do is raise the cost of goods in america. .uest: that's exactly right we should hire him to go to the white house. that's exactly right. that's a whole idea behind trade, whether its trade with your next-door neighbor, the person in the next state or across the ocean, we engage in trade because we can all be better off by specializing in what we do best. that is not to say that there is not an adjustment cost, but that

adjustment -- trade is just increased competition. so automation, innovation, there are a lot of great reasons you get these adjustment cost, which can be painful. but the question is how do you want to address that? through domestic policies, or making it harder for the country to keep moving forward? host: the united states has collected at last estimate some tens of billions of dollars in terra already, where does the money go? in terrorist- already, where does it go? already, where does ago? guest: it goes to government think there's't anything particularly set aside for those duties, just more money for the government. host: jesse, in albany, independent.

caller: there are so many different perspectives on this, when trump first brought the issue up, he said it was a national security issue. it really is, especially with china. like the last caller was talking about, china is more competitive than we are, they are communist say this is what you are going to make and this is what we're going to give you, now get out there and do it. we don't have any way to compete with that in the united states, i think people lose perspective of that. they like to put out phrases like global economy, and say free-trade is what is best for everyone in the global economy. i will be honest, i don't care about the global economy. i care about policies that are going to hurt the working poor

and the lower middle class in the united states. because what is happening is not everybody is going to be an engineer for apple. i saw on the local news that one third of african american areents in jay-z ps --jcps below standards in reading and arithmetic. if we cannot provide gainful , thenment to those people our government is not doing our job with trade. if you run your household and you have $800,000 going out, and you are only bringing in $80,000 a year, then you have an issue. host: christine. guest: that caller brings up a lot of good points. there is a lot there. let's start with education. that's exactly it, in terms of

what the putting its lending into are the things that will have longer-term payoffs like infrastructure and education. those are workers for tomorrow. the investment in education will have a much bigger payoff and trying to tax imports that -- then trying to tax imports that you think might be competing with a particular sector in the u.s. unfairly. to address the unfairness, there are ways to do that. leastk taxes are the helpful. a tariff is a tax. lower is always better and zero is best. there are ways to go about addressing unfair trade practices. his point about merkel, everything is global.

have a goingand i list on stories across local newspapers. every day, there is a story about a small or medium-sized company getting hurt by tariff restrictions, and that is not helping anybody. farmers are getting hurt by retaliatory tariffs. there has got to be a better way to address this than the tariffs. security,al absolutely there are national security concerns. that is above my pay grade. american steel producers have about 70% to 80% of the market and the department of defense in their response to that national security section 232 on steel said they did not see it was a national security threat. if you want to see more -- host: if you want to see more of

christine mcdaniels work, s.com is where she is a fellow. up next, our weekly spotlight on magazine series. we will be joined by ben austen from new republic about one city and how it is choosing to deal with crime and the legacy of police brutality. we will be right back. >> there are lots of people who feel like, i don't want my kid to read stories that are sad, downbeat, whatever. that is not a totally illegitimate thing to say, i want to choose is apparent when my kid understands stuff that might bring them grief, but there is also a certain point .eyond which, they are 14 now when will you introduce them to the idea that not everything is perfect outside of your all-white suburb? swirled together

to create the perfect dumpster fire of mass censorship of books by marginalized people. >> cory doctorow will be our guest on in-depth fiction addiction august 5 at noon -- fiction edition august 5 at noon. interact with cory doctorow by phone, twitter, or facebook. our special series in depth fiction edition, sunday, august 5 from noon to 3:00 p.m. eastern on book tv on c-span2. a,sunday night on q and constitutional lawyer david book "impeached, the trial of president andrew johnson and the fight for lincoln's legacy." >> the chapter on johnson, i won't speak beyond that. the chapter on johnson should be expunged from every library in the country.

whoocuses on edmund ross was credited with casting the single vote that saved johnson's tail. vote the most heroic moment in american history. i actually think it was bought, that his vote was purchased. saving johnson i think was not a hero comment. night onstewart sunday sunday -- on q&a. >> "washington journal" continues. host: each week, we take some time to spotlight a recent magazine piece. this week, ben austen joins us from chicago, the author of the and the fatesers of american public housing." he is the author of the cover story of "the new republic." he focused on a version of

extreme community policing taking on test taking place in rockford, illinois. -- taking place in rockford, illinois. what is the plan? guest: they are moving officers to live in high crime areas, to actually live in the neighborhoods. really, there only assignment is to be a good neighbor, not to go out and bust guys for drugs and prostitution, but to be there for the community, share their cell phone numbers, figure out the needs of the people who live there. host: what is the philosophy behind this kind of community policing? guest: for too long, neighborhoods, police, and the communities they serve have separated. they do not feel a great connection. police do not know the communities and the communities have stopped trusting police. this is a crisis we are seeing

across america, so hopefully this is an antidote to that, to bring back this sense of trust and actually what policing fundamentally is. host: in your story, the police officers are given housing to wheren these communities they are policing and where they are expected to be a presence in the community. how many police departments around the country are going to this level to provide housing to do this kind of police work? guest: not many. rockford, a, in police force of 300, there are only two officers doing this. this feels like an idealistic sideshow, but something that ofls like the right elements regaining trust and legitimacy in policing. it is not widespread in the country. the los angeles police department is doing something not with housing but actually

putting off in certain communities and neighborhoods and having them work closely with nonprofits. there is proof that works. there are lots of barriers to making it happen. host: describe rockford for someone who has never been there. guest: 90 minutes north of chicago, a former industrial powerhouse mid century, last century. it has fallen on tough times. normally, when it comes up in the national conversation it is for some form of problem it is having. it is making lists like the most miserable city in the country, high levels of crime, high levels of drug use, high levels of unemployment, also segregated. it actually looks a lot like big cities. it is a medium-sized city. it is experiencing some of the same city changes that are happening all over. it has a somewhat resurgent

downtown, that sort of a golf between that downtown -- gulf between the downtown and wealthy suburbs is an issue. police do not have a due connection to the neighborhoods in which they are sworn to serve , so they not only don't live there but they may not even have much experience with the community. you can imagine some of the problems that happen when you show up in a place and it feels like you are an occupying force. when you look at the community for only its crimes and not thinking about its assets, it leads to bad things. in this segment, we have a special line for police officers if you want to join the conversation. (202) 748-8002 is that number. in the eastern or central time zones, call us on (202) 748-8000 . if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones, (202)

748-8001. you mentioned earlier, only two officers signed up with this program. who are they and why only two? guest: eric thurmond and patrice turner. one is a young cop, a rookie cop. the other is a veteran, both african-american on a force that is predominately white. throughout america, police forces, although they have become more integrated over the decades they are still predominantly white and male. turner turner, officer grew up in rockford in public housing, feels a great connection to the city and believes this is the right way to stop crime. you treat the underlying problems, the underlying issues and individuals will not have to turn to crime to feed their families. eric thurmond, officer thurmond grew up in the suburbs of

chicago. he is new to the city but very eager to make a mark and was steered in this direction. one thing i think about when i think about a pilot program like this, there is a kind of educating of officers in a different way. is seeingurmond policing in a different light. i think there are senior officers, veteran officers, giving a different message. it is the sense that you can be in a neighborhood and you can get to know the underlying issues, and you can sort of see what is going on and show up and be familiar with it. i am in chicago. we had a shooting in my neighborhood two weeks ago in south shore. , thought a lot about this these officers in rockford. an officer showed up in chicago

and clearly did not know the block, did not know the people. a person who was carrying a gun, our legaled, which is right in the united states unless you do not have a permit, a barber in the neighborhood, a black community and a white officer, and officer turner talks about in rockford showing up in knowing people and putting a shoulder on them and saying, you need to call down. that sort of diffusing something terrible which could happen, an officer involved shooting of a person. host: some of the photos you have been seen from the cover story of "the new republic" went out. i want to focus on the reaction from other officers for a second, because you get into that. you write "many officers in rockford seem to distinguish between what eric thurmond and police turner did and what real police work does.

officers barked at him as a greeting. did you watch sally jesse raphael yet today?" why that kind of reaction? host: it is in the culture. what is interesting is eric is in his 20's and sort of implicitly believed many of this . he went to rockford because he wanted to bust criminals, get guns off the street. this is what he thought policing was. it turns out that only a quarter of 911 calls have anything to do with crime. very few arrests have to do with violent crime. most of policing is interacting with people, so even if officers still have this culture of sort of bravado, sort of macho is machoism, it does not

fit with what they do. dealing with a homeless individual every day and incredibly frustrated about what to do with him. you can imagine the kind of social services they would have to link up with to actually diffuse and treat those situations in the most effective way. that turned out -- turns out to be what the brunt of most police is. many domestic calls turned role isand an officer's to be a communicator, to listen and separate people and figure out what the situation is. it is not like chasing people down and car chases and gunfights all the time. those are the exceptions. host: "good cops, how to reinvent policing in america." ben austen, the author, answering questions. the special line for police officers, (202) 748-8002.

we will start in newark, new jersey, moses called in. caller: the biggest problem in the black community is our political leaders do not have any backbone, from the governor to the mayor all the way down. we know the problems. we know the problems that go on in our street. the people of the community can take you house to house and tell you what the problem is going about. our political leaders, they show boat but they do not have no backbone at all. host: ben austen, take that to rockford, illinois. guest: you know, when i think about the inability of police to solve crimes in neighborhoods, and not having the neighborhood trust, moses just said that people know who did the crime. and we have one

of the lowest homicide clearance rates in the country. it is in the teens. as is incredibly problematic. -- this is incredibly problematic. how do you win the community's trust? is it political leaders? in rockford, the mayor and chief police -- police chief are on board for this. there is this on the ground connection you have to make between veteran officers, police officers, and people in communities and this individual said, in black communities. the distrust is so deep. years just past. ferguson, there was an incident in rockford and baltimore with the videotape of a police officer shooting a man 16 times. this is the time we live in, where these kinds of issues are being shown and how do we mend

that broken trust? how do we reestablish this legitimacy? sure, it is coming from politicians. messageetting the wrong not from local politicians but from federal politicians, that any issue of reform has been called the war on police by donald trump. his administration, jeff sessions is attorney general, has tried to roll back efforts to reform local departments. host: harris is waiting, port republic, maryland. caller: is this me? host: that is you. caller: i am an ems sergeant in southern maryland and i'm talking with a lot of people about something called community para-medicine. it is essentially the same thing you are talking about with police where they go into the community and talk with people before medical issues and before crimes. that is something that is really good and needs to be encouraged.

i am sure police officer see the same thing i see. you go to certain places where you go somewhere for a problem three or four times and the fourth time it is actually something serious and you have to do an intervention that would not be necessary if it was dealt with before in the community. i really appreciate that is becoming a thing. host: in your part of maryland, is there political will and funding behind what you are trying to do with the para-medicine? different is a little in medicine because the people primarily behind it are the hospitals who want to cut their fees. it is less of a political motivation for the government and more of a money thing for the hospitals. it is a similar concept that for a different reason. host: ben austen? guest: one thing that is fascinating about this issue is that broken windows policing, this concept that if you leave a broken window and do not fix it, more windows will be broken.

people will believe nobody really cares and it is fine to do crying. that idea of broken windows is behind the concept of community policing and extremely aggressive policing that we have experienced for the last several decades. the idea is that if you have low-level crimes, marijuana smokers, vandals, you could treat them all as criminal cases and police arrest everybody, which is basically what we have done. or you could come out it in a way and try to solve those issues with the community, gain trust. police working with nonprofits, local groups, grassroots groups, to mend those issues together. what this caller is saying, it is proven that it works. it works in medicine. it is proven that it works with crime. there is a book eyesight in this article by a professor -- a book

ite by a professor when he talks about crying in the 1990's. -- crime in the 1990's. he said it correlates exactly with an increase in nonprofits on the ground in neighborhoods working with communities. that is where you can see the drops in crime. host: chuck is waiting in las cruces, new mexico, good morning. caller: i just had a question. we are talking about police ,anaging what, in my opinion that people have created. in 1964 and 1965 we created a great society. the whole community realized independents. the black community was 70% to 80% single parent families. to police are being asked

fix the situation that is being created. what will fix it? a liberal idea that reliance on you arent has had, asking the police to manage. we have fixed things from the wrong end. host: your thoughts? guest: i would approach that comment in two ways. one, i think blaming liberalism or social safety net programs is kind of hogwash and sort of a red herring. he is talking about an increase in poverty and people on some sort of subsidies. we think about what happened in cities over that same time with all the factory jobs disappearing, racial disparities, people with housing

issues, there is so much more behind that. right thatthat he is we ask police to do way to bring much -- way too much. they are the front-line people dealing with mental health issues, health issues, poverty. they are dealing with all these issues actually on the ground, meeting individuals. there are not social workers with them confronting people on the street. that has to do now with too much funding but with too little. we have closed mental health facilities. we do not have other things to back up the police. i think there is a different kind of investment. we actually poor so much money so muchicing -- pour money into policing for militarization and other issues. in chicago, 40% of our budget

goes to public safety. this is true almost everywhere. au can think about reallocation of some of those funds so that you go to the root causes of some of these problems. you can invest in things like schools, health care, community building, investment, and sort of at the front end, a dollar here might save more than a dollar on the back end. host: less than 15 minutes left with a bang, and author. he wrote the cover story for his month's "new republic," "good cops, how to reform policing in america." ,etting your calls and comments i want to hear from police officers if you are listening in. we would love to hear your thoughts, (202) 748-8002 is that number. claudia is in flint, michigan.

good morning. caller: when i want to say and ask is, first of all, you have to address for you hire, who you are recruiting on your police force first. startof all, you got to out with stop all this police brutality in the predominantly black neighborhoods. in,e police officers coming especially the white males, you are going to have to start addressing the ones you hired an recruit -- and recruit first. a lot of those officers come in and do not understand what they are doing in our communities, and the racism part has not been properly ever addressed. there was a time when the ku march, and now you do not even see them marching anymore with their sheets and hoods on. you do not really see them marching anymore, because a lot of them have went online through

the internet and whatever, and they have recruited them. they'd done hung their sheets up and put on badges. get them out your force. part of whatrst the caller said is exactly the reason to do this program, so that both recruiting people from the community's and making individuals know the community. any professional, you are a public servant if you are a police officer and part of the job is getting to know the community intimately. that is a job from the top-down and bottom-up that you are required to do, and you do it. this color is right that largely what has happened is we have isple who are -- caller right that largely what has happened is we have people who are from outside of the neighborhood, they not have experience in a black neighborhood. you see crime and you see this world is a place where crime is cropping up all over the place

and do not see it for other aspects. distrust that of this caller said about, that there are possibly clan members members ince -- klan the police, that shows that level of mistrust. i think police officers have an awesome power. they have this power in most situations to decide what is true, what becomes reality in the sense that in an interview, in an encounter on the street, their word is stronger than anyone else's. now we have cell phone cameras that have somewhat equalized this, but often that power can be abused. you can keep shifting the narrative to your benefit and that you roads trust more and more -- erodes trust more and more. it has been proven time and time again that officers have abused that power. they have shaped the truth to

their own benefit. that ends up hurting policing in the end. i want police to do their job and many police, i have talked to many. sure, many feel like they are under assault. any sense of reform or talk about racism, they do not feel like they are racist. and want to do a good job it is the finding that job differently that could benefit all. host: annapolis, maryland, rick is waiting. go ahead. ben, you have got a little knowledge apparently about the hud projects. riotsn 1968, we have the and the blacks burned their own housing. a small group of guys got together. i worked for had for 33 years -- ud for 33 years and i actually know who manages these

projects. they went around the country and bought the worst sections of land. they financed, they developed, and to this day, they owned and hellholehese hud, projects where we have concentrated about 60% of the blacks added this country out of 2 million. fast-forward, they are still there, the worst school systems, no jobs, and who cares about them? nobody. i went democrat, republican, democrat, republican. they did nothing for these people living in these hellhole projects. freddie gray was arrested 19 times for selling drugs. if he had been in prison, he would be alive today, thanks to the judicial system in baltimore. host: ben austen, a chance to respond. guest: i could talk about how in

white communities in chicago they also rioted and burned their own housing when public housing was attempted to be integrated. history is not told through these narrow lenses. ,ake freddie gray, for example 19 times for a drug arrest. there could have been many other interventions decides imprisonment as well, which is what i'm talking about. we have a constitution that does not give anyone the right to give him a rough ride, what it was cold, what the police did to him in baltimore, which essentially killed him to teach him a lesson. police do not want to be known for that. is talking about underlying problems of poverty and segregation. sure, this is the blight of our country. this is the embarrassment. it is something we need to address more deeply. host: time for a couple more calls with ben austen.

a spotlight on the magazine section of "washington journal." caller: good morning. i have not watched the whole program, but i think we underestimate the influence that just living in this country has on police officers. they are human beings just like everybody else. they grow up in a certain neighborhood environment, they go to school with certain people , and so as a consequence they are influenced by those people. like to become police officers, they bring all of that baggage with them. of course, the first thing that happens, and many police officers come out of the military like i was in the military, and you are influenced by that environment more

intensely because first of all, you identify the enemy. how do you determine who the enemy is? is it all of this growing up that you did or does it happen during roll call or does it happen when you police suburban neighborhoods as opposed to urban neighborhoods? you are prejudiced by that. and so as a consequence, urban areas police differently than suburban areas. host: ben austen? right, ands exactly i will even refer back to the previous caller, when he was describing public housing as llholes and murderous places, imagine being an officer with that mindset. your hand is on the trigger because you are terrified. if you only think of it in those terms, you are ready to go into war instead of looking at an

actual community of thousands and thousands of people where there are all sorts of lives going on, including a criminal element but most people who are not. host: do you get a sense that the two officers in rockford who are doing this have changed the way the rest of the police department views the entire community? guest: no. two officers don't change a culture of 300. this is back to what i was going issay, the larger question how do you have cultural change inside an institution that could not be more averse to change? in somewhere like rockford, you have this from the ground up from these two officers and also from the top down from the chief of police and the mayor and politicians. they want a shift in policing at the same time that they have a real crime problem, and have homicides and drugs and prostitution. that kind of cultural change

where officers, if you can't hire all officers from the neighborhood at least you can train them in a new way. that is a difficult transition, a difficult transformation. you have to believe it can be done, but it has to be embraced by an entire department. the chief of police in rockford says that this is priority number one, that every officer must do their job this way. that is certainly a start and a powerful one. host: in st. petersburg, florida, good morning. i want to be one of the employees of rockford. how much time did you spend in rockford with the police department? you have such a negative view of a fantastic organization. i am having a hard time

following all these -- i am understanding all the things the other people are saying. you seem so negative. , not only happy with as individuals, the jobs they did. i have lived in rockford myself. i was a single woman living in a house in a wax -- mixed neighborhood. people watched out for me. the police did also. how much time did you spend with rockford in the police department and with the people? guest: i do not have a negative view of the rockford police department at all. i heard from veterans and younger officers, went on patrol with those beat cops who did a fantastic job, respectful in every way. when i talk about a cultural shift in what policing is, it is not just a rockford problem, it is a nationwide issue. , i am actually

fascinated by rockford and i think it is a wonderful city. people are invested in all sorts of ways. you cannot deny that it is dealing with what we imagine as big city issues, deep divisions , and a great deal of poverty and a high crime rate. "how one american city chose to tackle crime, combat racism, and reckon with a legacy of police brutality." time for just one or does go more calls. mike, stratford, connecticut, retired police officer. caller: i am a retired bridgeport police captain and i can't say enough how wrong things are being done pertaining to police. i cannot say enough about it. i came on, i was from a relatively white neighborhood.

i worked 18 years in housing projects. the black police officers in bridgeport said, we have to get black officers on to relate to the community, so they had a special vest for black officers. they came on after doing a year or two in housing projects, went back to federal court, and said, here in the crime areas. this is not right. they took them out with it could work maybe six months of every three years. i did 18 years and i am white. a lot of this training is a lot of baloney. , do onto others. 18 years, i have no problems and two of the toughest areas probably in the country, father panic village and bears the terrorists. terrace.ey

i would love to answer questions about what real policing is like. host: ben austen might have a question for you. guest: i do not think there is any doubt that whatever your race is, you can do a fantastic job. i wish that golden rule that you said is something that we all followed. the video after video that finally things are being documented that are of course, this is showing only the worst of policing that is coming to define what is mostly, predominantly people doing a fine job. that has become the image. it is a reality, the kind of abuses that occur. you are not doing onto others as you hope they would do onto you. it has also become an image that most people have to wrestle with, their fear of the police. host: did you have a follow-up? caller: may i interject? host: yes, sir.

guest: please. caller: they are not hiring the right people for the job. it is a thing called command presence. if you are intimidated by the people you are dealing with, you are not going to be a good policeman. in other words, you do not have to be a professional wrestler but you have to have a fairly normal size and don't be intimidated. when you are intimidated, that is why shootings occur. one of the calls i had where a guy who looked like a linebacker for professional football, it was just him and i. that guy actually intimidated me where if there was a fight may be he would have ended up getting shot. guest: when you were working in public housing, you got to know individuals. you knew that a young guy who you have seen for years, seen you did not and

immediately jump to the conclusion that he might be a killer. you got to know that person. caller: that is yes and no. guest: it is a different kind of not being intimidated. that is not like your physical size or presence. that is not being intimidated because you know the environment and came to know the individuals. host: mike, last comment? caller: hire the right man that is not intimidated, and have somebody train the police that know what they are talking about , not some -- no offense to your guest -- pointy-headed pencil pushers, i call them. they do not know the first thing about policing and they make the rules. host: ben austen, i will give you the last minute. guest: one of the things he said when he said hire the right man, i think that is a wrong start. one of the things i talk about in the article is what a lot of

officers are calling feminine policing and dismissing in these ways. obviously, women on the job, a different mindset, not only puffing out your chest, macho, i am physically larger than you, that certainly helps. we have a consent decree in chicago coming down after a lengthy investigation of the police force. poverty orjust about that these neighborhoods, the wrong people were hired. there was a deep tradition of practice,terms of whether it was in individual's hearts. trying to rectify that is what we are trying to do and a program like that in rockford gets at it, in a complicated way beyond the extremes. you have activists talking about abolishing the police and on the other side you have blue lives matter or white lives matter.

those are people who are not speaking to one another. there is work also that could be done that combines the two that gets at what public safety is, which is what we all want. host: if you want to read about that program in rockford, illinois, ben austen, the july/august edition of "the new republic." guest: thank you so much. host: we will end this saturday morning by letting you lead the discussion. lines for democrats, republicans, and independents are on your screen. you can start calling in now. this week, newsmakers interviewed senator ben carson, senior democrat. of mikea discussion pompeo's recent testimony at a hearing before the senate foreign relations committee. don't have a great deal of confidence that mr. pompeo knows

exactly what happened in that meeting. mr. trump's way of doing business is that is not what he does, he does what he wants to do when he wants to do it. to the surprise of his own national security team. we did not get a comfort level as to what happened in the room itself. we do know that in the public settings after the meeting, in , president. putin trump raised questions about our intelligence agents and except -- accepted president putin's assertion that he was not involved, allowed him to make a comment about former diplomats being made available to the russian. that was not dismissed offhand as it should've been, and the list goes on and on. there is not a comfort level that mr. pompeo has a deep understanding as to what happened in that room.

>> we saw a number of moves by lawmakers in congress this week to try to raise some issues. we saw a resolutions being introduced on various issues regarding nato, the intelligence committee's findings. we saw some strong statements from the republican leadership, speaker ryan, leader mcconnell saying that president putin would not be welcome on the hill. my broader question is what is the role of congress, and what is the ability of the congress to find some answers? >> it was interesting. when we look at the action of congress since the summit in andinki, you find democrats republicans both standing up saying no to what the president implied in helsinki. we did pass a resolution in regard to nato and in regards to protecting our former diplomats.

we are now looking at legislation that would increase sanctions against russia. we are looking at legislation that would prevent ownership by russian companies in the united states. we are looking at legislation that would make it clear our commitment to nato. that is bipartisan. i think the level in congress is that we have to assert ourselves. >> "washington journal" continues. host: our program today ends at 10:00 eastern until then, the phone lines are yours. it is open phones. for democrats, (202) 748-8000. for republicans, (202) 748-8001. .ndependents, (202) 748-8002 tuscaloosa, alabama, robert is waiting on the line for democrats. police, wen you hire have some people where most of

them could not get a job anyplace else. hiredon should never be who came right out of the army, in my opinion. i have a brother who was in the army. they are trained to target the dog. in other words, when a train -- when they train and killing at , if they see dark something that is not white they pull the trigger. policemen, they look at the black kids and people in the community as their enemy. host: how long do you think a veteran should wait before being allowed to join a police department? caller: yes, sir, in the classroom as a teacher they should be reprogrammed. they were trained in the army to kill and defend against the enemy, and some of them cannot translate that when they come back into the regular community, not all of them, but too many of them.

not only that, policemen have a job that they should have a four-year college training in psychology, in understanding other cultures. let's just say this -- if we were to change the targets and put them white looking faces in a black background, i think that would change the mentality of our so-called white brothers. host: that is robert in alabama. martha is in red wing, minnesota, independent. caller: i live -- i moved to red wing from durham, north carolina, and about 15 years ago, we had community policing set up. there was a substation in a mall near my home. this is not -- this is a couple

restaurants, grocery store, stuff like that. it wasn't like an upscale mall. my neighborhood was almost totally black. you, having a substation there, having police reduced the bug -- drug sales. certainly, the exchange of gunshots. host: what did community policing mean in your town when that was happening? itler: like the substation, was not just around the corner but it was three blocks away. there were more patrols in our area. car, but the police were around.

they came quickly when we had a complaint. let me tell you, it was the difference between night and day. the thing was, as i said, my neighborhood was predominately black. fact, if we saw a white person walking down the street i would go to look. just made all the difference in the world having them there. host: that is martha in minnesota. daniel is in jacksonville, florida, a democrat. caller: yes, i am. i wouldne question but like to actually add on to what she said. we have had a lot of transgender murders in florida lately. i think the cops really need to be retrained.

it is not just a race thing. it is a whole human thing. i am kind of wondering why the government does not study other countries like say portugal as to how to police properly? host: what is portugal doing right that we are doing wrong? caller: for one, they don't arrest people for doing drugs. they have more rehab centers. help.ctually get people when you smoke pot, if you are not hurting someone you do not get arrested. the cops do not carry guns and they treat people with dignity. they are trained to do that. host: danielle in florida this morning. an independent in washington, d.c., go ahead. caller: the nature of police officers is basically, you have to be a people person, for one.

you have to have that people person mentality. police officers have many hats that we wear. i have been a police officer over 20 years now, and i have learned coming from the military that you just cannot be one way in the sense of being so hard-core, so direct and everything is people do not respond to that. you have to have an understanding where people are coming from, but on the same token, our police officers have a lot of burdens they have to do. we deal with people's financial situations, people's housing situations, people's mental health situations. , so when theyats come to us, we are the boots on the ground as your previous guest said. we are in contact with them and there is a disconnect between the people on the ground and the higher people and the people

running this country. d.c. is there an effort in to get police officers to live in the communities they patrol? caller: absolutely, absolutely, it is. our chief is doing a great job. our mayor is doing a great job. at the same token, it is that disconnect. when you are hiring people coming from different areas and they do not have a connection with the community, it is kind of like, it is a new environment. it is a new culture. individuals who refer to the city as the murder capital. that is what they remember from the 1990's and when that stigma goes all over the country, that is what they know when they come here. we got to break that disconnect, and it is happening, but on a national level, police officers where so many hats. it is stressful.

social media going on and things of that nature, it is more or less like -- it is just a battle that you cannot win. host: thank you for the call. betty in bethlehem, pennsylvania, you are up next. caller: thank you for the time. is ther premise is, when media, when is the congress, when are the american people going to set a red line to this president to stop this craziness? crimetantamount to a hate for him to stand there and encourage people to shout out "lock her up." when are people going to draw a red line? he said, you can murder someone on the street and get away with it, when he is president of the united states. when is the red line going to be drawn?

that means sanity for our country once again. host: it is open phones on "washington journal." democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. in the last eight minutes, we will let you lead the discussion. congress, a column in the weekend edition of "the wall street journal" by orrin hatch, not running for reelection this year. he writes a column on the geneva convention for the culture wars in this country, saying "i am not calling for an end to the culture wars. it can and must be fought. atense disputes are functioning -- we need a detente -- norms to rein in

the worst excesses of the culture wars. shieldingsuggestions, communal spaces from politicization, discouraging the harassment of public figures and incursion into private lives, and saying that leaders in both parties play a critical role in setting boundaries for political speech. it is especially harmful when they come from members of congress or the president himself. in lj, georgia, line for republicans. caller: we love c-span. then calling 30 years. we had an incredible meeting. ginger howard who was on the republican national committee, she and alvina king are writing a book on racial relationships, which i think will become a great bestseller.

anyway, we are really fired up. our mantra for the republican party is capitalism will easily defeat socialism, which leads to venezuela. we think trump is the best leader in the world history. the stock has -- stock market is rising. this book i think will be incredible. i am a strong conservative, but if chuck schumer came, we would be very nice to him. .inger preaches love incivility you can be a strong conservative herei am and if you came and you are a big liberal, i would welcome you. strong reagan-trump conservative but i believe in being nice to everyone. host: i assume we will hear from you again before the midterm elections, but right now at the end of july looking at november, what is your addiction for

republican control of the house and senate? caller: i think we will keep control and i think in 2020, jump will win the biggest reelection -- trump will win the biggest reelection in the history. the economy hit 4.1%. under our good friend obama it was never over 2%. such economichad people running the country. so i haveeally great, never felt better about the future of america. host: that is joe mccutchen in lj, georgia. growth revs as economy roles on. grew at a states gdp 4.1% clip the spring. gene from texas, a democrat. caller: i am calling about the police in the 1960's and 1970's. i lived in a place called meade

village. we had police in our community. they had a home. they gave them an apartment there, and we had a day care center. we had a clinic. we all got along. the police walked the neighborhood. we knew them. we got along with them. , it lasted almost up until think the 1980's or the 1990's and eventually if they get bad because different people were moving in. this was a black and white community, and this was a new project. we all got along. we went to meetings. we went to the board of get things for the kids in the community. and a a basketball court ball field and kids participated, and everyone got along. tells really nice up and

eventually -- up until it got bad eventually. in those days, the police did walk the community and we got along with them. host: eva in california, democrat, go ahead. caller: can you hear me? host: yes, ma'am. -- watched the program with the guy working for the police and their relationships with the community , and i did not hear much said about general services that come from all of the officers like street cleaners, and the way they kept their streets and neighborhoods and the way they collected garbage in certain places. i lived in a community, both in the black community and then i moved from that to a primarily white community, and i saw a distinct this -- difference

between services the whole community got. when i was in the black community, the alleys were seldom or never cleared of garbage. when there was a snowstorm, they always cleared the white community streets before the black. i was just very much concerned about that distinction. i think you can determine -- in those communities where services are not equal, the attitude of the persons living there will vary. you have more of a hot style relationship between authority figures, whether that is the police or mayor or otherwise. i think that when you drive into a city, say from another town, you can see the differences if you are observant of how those communities look and how they are served. i really feel that has a lot to do with hostility from those communities that are not well served.

you can see an equal amount of not equality in the services, and the attitude of that city authorities, that attitude is reflected by the way they serve the communities, whether it is the schools or otherwise. i taught when i first went to one, that same community, in a white school. you could not break into it before the police were immediately there. that transferred from because of the reduced population to an all-black, generally black community school. there was a break in on a friday and there was no security there until monday when we went in and saw that there had been a break and. host: thank you for sharing your story from out in colorado -- california. our last caller. tune in tomorrow. we will be joined by barbara

slavin to discuss the recent tensions between the united states and iran. we will also be joined by real clear politics to discuss campaign 2018 and races to watch. that is all happening tomorrow that is happening tomorrow morning on the washington journal. can join us at 7 a.m. eastern, until then have a great day. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ >> here is what is coming up on --pan, sharding star shortly, federal and state officials discuss ongoing secure u.s. elections, and that is followed by remarks on justice anthony kennedy.

and a former self-described jihadist who worked with al qaeda joins a panel on combating violent extremism. the brexit look at negotiation and broadband use in europe. sunday night on afterwards, the former white house secretary sean spicer discusses his book, the briefing, politics, the press, the providence -- the president. he is interviewed by michael steele. >> ronald reagan and donald trump are about 180 degrees apart, yet here we are. how did you navigate thy? we are both reagan conservatives in that regard, was it a little bit of a dance every once in a while? how did you do a? -- do it? hethere is no question that is not in terms of how he speaks, he has his own vernacular.

but he can at the people in a way that most politicians never have, and he talks very bluntly in his own style. i do not think he would have won the presidency or nomination if it was not for that style. i think there is a balance with elected officials, they say the right things but they do not necessarily get anything done. in the case of trump he is getting things done, but people say they do not like the tweet, or how he interacts. im a results-oriented person, look at how the country is isng, are they doing better, the country safer? i think, net net, most people would agree that if we could get the right things done for the country, then that is a better place. as opposed talking about the right place to get things done. that is coming up on book tv. >> this august, on american

history tv on american -- on c-span3. series,r nine part 1968, america in turmoil. each night we look back 50 years to that tumultuous year. marked with war, and the rise of the political left and right. we will discuss the vietnam war on monday, on tuesday a look at the presidential campaign of that year, on wednesday civil rights and race relations, on thursday a discussion about liberal politics, and on friday conservative politics. , onaturday, women's rights sunday we will look at the media's role. monday, a discussion about the vietnam war at home, and on tuesday we will close out the series focusing on the cold war. turmoil,8, america in august sixth through august 14

at 8 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. looking at congress, the u.s. house continues its break with members not affected back until september 4, the u.s. senate will be in session with the chamber returning on monday at 3 p.m. eastern for debate on the nomination of rick grant to be the judge for the 11th circuit for rightormer clerk kavanaugh and was on president trump list to replace anthony kennedy. a vote to advance our debate the nomination is set for 5:30. up next, federal and state officials discuss ongoing efforts to secure u.s. election systems, we hear testimony from the undersecretary for the national protection and programs director