institute. then, democratic socialist of talks aboutria democratic socialist in america. ♪ashington journal ist: good morning, it wednesday, august 1, 20. the house remains out this week, but the senate remains in. we are with you for the next three hours on the washington journal. we begin on the issue of 3-d printed firearms. night, a federal judge blocked the release of 3-d gun designs. the debate over the future of those firearms and plans needed to make them is now back on the national stage. hearmorning, we want to from you. how should 3-d guns be regulated? that is our first hour in the

question of the washington journal today. if you are in the eastern or central time zones, call in at (202) 748-8000. not a pacific -- mountain or zones,c time (202) 748-8001. hear from, we want to you. (202) 748-8002. you can also catch up with us on twitter, @cspanwj or on hear frm you. (202) 748-8002 facebook, which is @cspanwj -- facebook.com/cspan. fromssue, 3-d guns wisconsin this morning. the headline of a paper? trump pressured to block blueprints for 3-d printing of plastic guns . the news-times, court blocks 3-d gun printing. that story quoting the attorney general of connecticut, george jetson, saying to make these weapons easily available simply defies logic.

one more headline from the washington post in washington, -- posted blueprints for 3-d guns hours before release. one of those reporters on the story, megan flynn, joins us now on the phone. good morning to you. can you explain for those coming to this debate what a 3-d gun is? guest: absolutely. essentially,guns, it is the company -- it would be uploading this data, technical data that users can download. it is basically working like instructions for a 3-d printer to know how to print various types of guns. they are plastic, which means they do not have serial numbers, which means they are untraceable, and that is really the big issue for a lot of the states that are suing in this case. host: we mentioned connecticut being one of the states where

the attorney general weighed in. what brought this case and what convinced the judge last night to step in and block the release of this data that would allow guns to be printed on three printers? guest: sure. eight attorneys general brought the case, and the main one was from washington, where it was filed. they argue this is a national security and a public safety ask, because you do not need background check to print out these guns. it essentially skirts around all regulationss' gun that are intended to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, miners, certain mentally ill people, so that was their main argument, as well as the fact that the role change that the state department initiated this summer as part of the settlement agreement was through defense distributed, the by -- that violated theibuted

main grounds on which the judge blocked the availability of the downloadable guns on the internet this morning. defensedhost: you mentioned distributed, run by cody wilson. who is cody wilson and why does he want to distribute these blueprints? he is a majorse, second amendment proponent. essentially he is trying to skirt around gun regulations more broadly just to make guns available to anybody if they want a gun. they cannot print off themselves. they are based in texas, they are a nonprofit. this information that she has been working on it for several years -- this information -- he has been working on it for several years developing it. it went live in 2013 and was available for download for free once the judge -- or was, once the judge blocked it. he called it global access to 3-d printable firearms. host: and he argues this is a

first amendment issue he is fighting, correct? yes, that is what is so interesting about this case. it basically blends the first and second amendment. they are arguing that yes, the government's attempts to block information from being published online about -- is [inaudible] attorney compared the case to me to the pentagon papers case, when the white house tried to block the post from publishing the contents of the papers. he believes this is your test textbook first amendment case, in which the governments cannot blocks a buddy from publishing something on the internet. that is their main argument. they are not making it about public safety or national security, but it is strictly a first amendment case. host: so what happens next with this case and what action is congress trying to take in the meantime? guest: sure, there are some democratic lawmakers that have

introduced some legislation and are attempting to block basically anti-3-d printable firearms -- any 3-d printable firearms more generally. in the lawsuit, as i mentioned the main issue for the government right now is how it went about changing a regulation that involves [inaudible] that specifically allowed defense to go forward with its plan. is lookinge at whether they skirted around their requirements to congress, and the judge basically said in the ruling it does not appear either of the things they were supposed to. that is where that case stands right now, and more broadly they are concerned about public safety in the meantime, what , if it contains

the spread, and that is really what we will have to see how that goes forward. flynn, covering this for the washington post. thank you for walking us through it. guest: thank you for having me. host: and we want to hear from our viewers. -- 3-dught on cd guns guns, the debate on the distribution on the blueprints for those guns. we also have a special line for gun owners this morning. (202) 748-8002 is that number. otherwise, phone lines are split up by regents in the country -- regions in the country. if you are in the easterner central time zones, (202) 748-8000. mountain or pacific regions, (202) 748-8001. we should know that the president weighed in on this issue yesterday on twitter, saying he is looking into 3-d plastic guns being sold to the public. already spoke to the nra. doesn't seem to make much sense, the president said yesterday. that is before the federal judge in washington stepped in late last night to block the release

of these blueprints. the washington post staff writer mentioning defense distributed, these company -- the company planning on releasing the blueprints, here is the website they set up to do that. it now says after legally committing it files to the public domain has been ordered to shut down by a judge in the western district of washington, and asking supporters to join them to uncensored the site. getting your thoughts this morning. janet in washington state, go ahead. caller: hello, this is janet. i think that anybody who has a mental illness or is on drugs or alcohol or has a felony should not have any guns. when i was just a little girl, i cousinr my neighbor, his , they were in a room where they

had guns and his cousin got killed. after that, i was always nervous around guns because i was so young. , never bought my kids a gun they never owned one to this day, or my grandchildren. i was faithful because they are -- thankful because they were safe. and my girlfriend, she has two sons that live together. had an argument and one shot the other. he had a friend in prison, and [inaudible] and she got the other one out of prison, but my cousin got killed in the war. i hate wars and i hate guns. janet, thanks for sharing your story. paul in wisconsin. go ahead. caller: thank god for judges to block this. i mean, plastic guns? oh my god. they can go through metal

detectors. you want to talk about terrorism? plastic guns, are you kidding me? is the trump administration going to let -- is letting this happen? oh my god. he is supposed to make america great again? you take it easy, baldy. host: the statement from the an array as this debate was happening, saying many anti-gun politicians and members of the that have wrongly claimed 3-d printing technology will allow for the production and widespread proliferation of undetectable plastic iraq. regardless of what a person may be able to publish on the internet, undetectable plastic guns have been illegal for 30 years. federal law passed in 1988 drafted with an array support makes itra support unlawful to manufacturer, import, sell, ship, deliver, possess, transfer, or receive an undetectable firearm.

the nra also tweeting quite a bit yesterday about this, along with other gun rights groups as well. gun owners of america with a tweet yesterday on 3-d printed guns, saying they are freedom. from thate tweet group yesterday afternoon, amid that debate. vivian in tennessee, good morning. good morning. this situation with these plastic guns, what is happening with our country? to -- strangeant people would take those guns, going to schools, going to news and usetions, airports, them on people because they are undetected. and may i say something else? i know this is about guns, but may i say this quickly, please? i want my democrats to get out there and speak up, like the trunk people speak -- trunk

people -- trump people speak up. host: j in baltimore, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm a little curious why the nra has not been a little more vociferous in their condemnation of these guns. this can circumvent people actually buying the guns. it seems when problems with guns arise, the nra becomes quiet. i did hear the comments before but whenegal firearms, you hear about children killed, when you pure about people innocently shot and the nra is it makes the whole situation look very nefarious. i would like to see an organization like the nra step up and really talk about real, quality gun control. host: before you go, let me ask you about your thoughts on the idea of banning these blueprints from being online.

is somethingthat the government should get involved in them? absolutely. if these were synthetic drugs that people can make in their home -- you can't download bomb making equipment online. there are certain things that, you know -- it has to be controlled. control of information. it is too dangerous. host: what you make of senator mike leigh of utah, a republican, coming out yesterday with this tweet in the wake of legislation that was introduced by democrats to stop the publication of these blueprints. mike lee says any legislation that comes from congress that begins with "it shall be unlawful for any person to oughtionally publish --" to be equally concerning to each and everyone, democrats or republicans alike. caller: it is a sticky wicket. the question is what connotes dangerous? the gun debate seems pretty

black-and-white to me about danger. if somebody wanted to publish an article against the president, against his policies, that could be considered dangerous. that is the difficulty. that is the difficulty, you make the notion which one is dangerous. for the call.u bonita in new jersey, good morning. caller: good morning. there is an expression under the law, for the greater good of all . i don't think our founding fathers in their wildest imagination ever conceived of people printing their own guns. the constitution says guns can , aheld in a militia monitored or controlled militia. it does not mean that any psycho who wants to blow up people in a shopping mall, first of all they never thought of shopping malls.

theink we have all learned detriment of people, guns getting into the wrong hands, how it affects people. i think the judge's decision is wise, and it should be upheld. allow usno reason to to be able to print a gun and go even a childmean, could print out a gun. host: you mentioned the founding fathers in your statement earlier. this is from an array spokeswoman dana lotion, who noted yesterday that at home, gunsmithing has been legal since 's founding. somehinks it is amusing think it along existing -- something a long existing capability is brand-new because they just discovered it. caller: this is a different

thing altogether. gunsmithing takes time. you could print out a gun, go out, and blow somebody's brains out because you are angry at your neighbor. a gunsmith is a craft. i am making a big assumption here, and i am giving a lot of leeway, but a gunsmith at least has a skill. it takes time to smith a gun, to machine a gun. people like that are not quixotic, they are not printing out a gun on the way to kill their neighbors. this is a totally different thing. this puts guns in the hands of idiots and minors. what are we turning into in this country? host: anita in new jersey. we will be showing you some reaction from members of congress from yesterday, whether on twitter or several different statements made by members of congress, including senator ed markey of massachusetts,

speaking yesterday about the administration's responsibility when it comes to 3-d gum printing. [video clip] the online availability of downloadable firearms is a public safety crisis that is entirely of the trump administration's own making. in 2015, a company called defense to strip you did -- defense distributed and the second amendment foundation sued steps -- sued the government oversteps --in 2015, a company d over steps taken to keep these published -- have -- the trump administration made arguments that this over legisln justified its position at every single stage of litigation. the court sided with the government. but in a stunning reversal of course last month, the trump justice department, on behalf of the trump the permit of state, quietly settled the suit,

agreeing to pay nearly $40,000 of defense distributed with the attorneys fees, -- fees,buted's attorneys and allowed the release of the blueprints in any form. ass decision is as dangerous it is confounding. not only will people be able to download these guns here, but hamas will be able to download these plastic guns in the gaza. it is not only a domestic security, it is an international security issue as well. host: some other reaction from other members of congress. bernie sanders with a tweet, at a time when gun violence and school shootings are becoming more and more routine, the last thing we need is to enable anyone, including allowing people who could not legally purchase a gun printing on a 3-d printer. senator lisa murkowski also noting that more than 1000

people had already downloaded --ns to 3-d prints and -15 style assault rifle. our next caller, brian. go ahead. caller: mi on? i think the whole 3-d printing thing is silly, they're trying to regulate everything. i used to -- we lost that one. we will go on to darlene in nevada. good morning. caller: good morning. my dad does gunsmithing and also makes his own bullets. we just happened to be discussing this yesterday. he could not believe that y,eryone was in such a tizz because it was completely unbelievable to him. if anyone knew anything about making bullets, for instance,

the primer one needs and the actual -- my dad could calculate for you the actual speed of any given bullet as it exits a barrel. he is that kind of wicked smart .t 73 he told me, i can't believe that overe are in such a tizz this. if anyone knew anything about what they were talking about, they understand these things would blow up in your hand. so i laughed and said you would be better off buying a squirt gun and putting dangerous chemicals in it yet though he said correct, young one, correct. host: do you think as 3-d printing technology gets better, though, these guns will also get better or more reliable? caller: yes, at some point they will become more reliable. would take better materials than are currently available. his best friend is the number again, we oracle, and

were all really interested in why people were so, so upset. it is because people who do not know what they are talking about are busy flapping their lives, sir, and that is the scary part for gun owners. people are just looking at them going, really, you have lost your mind. you are screaming the sky is falling, and you do not know what you are talking about. it is very, very terrifying to see that evil can do this, but it is also disgustingly illegal to make any gun that does not have legitimate serial numbers on it. so let people print them. let them get caught with them. morning, sir. you are always a lovely host. we appreciate that, darlene. the wall street journal today talking about adderall laws and how they apply to guns made at home.

law note that federal generally does permit individuals who are otherwise barred from owning firearms to make those firearms for their own personal use, getting back to that home gunsmithing issue we talked about earlier. thomas, baltimore, maryland. go ahead. caller: hey, how are you doing? thank you for having me on. say to thegoing to ladies coming on earlier about gunsmithing at home, you can get 80% lower or whatever on some of these parts, and there is already blueprints for people to drill. it does not take an expert to make these parts at home. people that want to make guns at home with their plastic, not only do you have to have the printer,own a plastic nobody is going to go around two a plastic gun that is

are three levels harder than hot glue and shoot it off. it is only good for one round, and then it is overheating and belting in your hands. we need to have people that know what they are talking about be on the forefront of the issue, because right now we have a bunch of angry soccer moms and ignorant white-collar workers talking about things they don't even know and have not even owned, or even shot. host: do you think we should have this debate about whether these blueprints should be available before we get to a point where the guns do not melt after one shot, or how you describe it? , that is a great comment, but i do not think that we should be restricted in our knowledge of things.

except when it comes to, you -- weapons of mass like that. what we are talking about guns that are on the lowest part of the data charts of death in america. but until they get higher on the list, we are pretty good. no, no. host: chris in alexandria, virginia. go ahead. caller: hey, good morning. thank you for c-span. i would say this is not a good topic. there are many other topics we could talk about. specifically, i am a gun owner, i have of firearm license, i have gone through gun training specifically in the military, and the 3-d printing technology is not there.

companiesn new gun that have come out, they have gone through rapid prototyping, equipment required for fancy machining, those kinds of things , costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. a3-d printed gun with the currently available plastic and other things that they can use, it is not going to be reliable, it is not going to hold up to the pressures and the heat, as the other callers have said. this is getting way too much attention, and it is typical of what we see in the mainstream media today. it is much of you about nothing. nothing.do about host: what about printing this out at home and the regulation of that process. is that something the government should get involved in at all, regard list of winners technology gets better -- regardless of when this technology gets better? caller: i think there are rules on the books, and instead of creating a holy bevy of regulations, we should look at the existing laws and how they can be adapted to new

technology. again, i am not advocating for a van, i am not advocating for registration, and i think that the founding fathers, a couple callers ago someone was saying that they did not think people should do this at home -- who do you think built a lot of the rifles and muskets that were used by the minuteman and the colonial soldiers that fought for our freedoms over 250 years ago? if something like that where to happen again, you would not want to have all those tools out the people's hands? gun owner ina alexandria, virginia. a special line for gun owners in this segment of the washington journal. (202) 748-8002 is that number. we want to get your thoughts on the 3-d printed gun debate. if you are in the eastern or central time zones, (202) 748-8000. eleanor pacific time zones, -- mountain or pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001 is that number.

this is congressman ed royce, his letter to the white house yesterday saying in part i'm very concerned that the distribution of these blueprints could allow terrorists and international criminal organizations to manufacture guns that cannot be detected accurate security checkpoints in airports, schools, and public buildings. these will not be tied by serial numbers, making them challenging to trace. this could also undermine u.s. laws that seek to stop the flow of weapons into war-torn countries and other places where regimes use violence to retain power. it is critical that our laws keep pace with technology. we cannot give terrorists are violent criminals and easier path to obtaining deadly weapons. i stand ready to support your administration's efforts to bolster our national security. we want to hear from you on the washington journal. john is waiting in brownsville, virginia. go ahead. caller: hello? host: go ahead, john. agree with a lot of

, and it has been my experience from reloading ammunition, especially for and -- and what not, that [inaudible] john, i apologize. you're going in and out. we will try to get a better line from you as we hear from neil in north carolina. caller: hey, thank you for taking my comment. it is probably good politics to take a stand. we want to make sure it is more difficult for terrorists cannot get their hands on firearms. but the reality is that people who want to do bad things, if

they want to get her hands on firearms they do it now anyway. you can create a firearm from a -- it will end up being out there anyway. illegal doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. that other comment from another caller, it is already illegal to have firearms without a real numbers. numbers. that is the way it has to be. and maybe you know more about this than i do, but --, where they publishing an online magazine where they were encouraging their followers to create bombs and they were showing them how to make bombs online? what was that going on? host: you are talking about the isis publication that did that? caller: yeah, yeah.

look, this stuff is happening already. i do not quite understand -- i do understand the knee-jerk reaction. this shouldn't be, it should not be. but that is neither here nor there. host: should the government get involved in making it as hard as possible to find some of that and shutdown sites when they do find that information being put out there? caller: no, no. it is really -- the -- give me a reason why. what is the other side of that? what does the government get to decide, what is good and what is not morally good? that is probably not a good decision we

want our government in. neil in north carolina. more calls in just a second. we want to keep you updated on a couple other stories making front-page news today. we have been speaking about the white house chief of staff john kelly, saying he accepted president trump request to stay at his job through the 2020, according to officials, as tensions between the two men have increased in recent months. the wall street journal writes mr. kelly had probably been expected -- broadly been expected to leave the white house this summer. -- stay through the toy 20 election, he would be one of the longest during chiefs of staff in history. andy carter remained at his post for a little over five years, the longest serving chief of staff is john steelman, who spent five years under the post with resident harry truman. and facebook detected a covert campaign to influence the

november midterms by targeting hot button social issues, raising the possibility that russia is again attempting to interfere in u.s. elections. the 32 pages and accounts that were created between march 2017 and may 2018 were first discovered two weeks ago. they have not been definitively tied to russia or the kremlin. facebook will leave that determination to law enforcement currently investigating the activity. facebook chief operating officer cyril samberg -- sheryl sandberg said the pages and accounts were moved on tuesday, and the pages spent about $11,000 on 150 ads on facebook and its graham, paid for in u.s. and canadian dollars. they were placed between april 2017 and june 2018. back to your calls this morning as we talk about the free gun issue and the debate that has come up around the country. steve, highland park, illinois, good morning. caller: good morning, good morning. i think guns should be treated in the same manner we treat cars. every car has a license plate,

and i think every gun needs something like a license plate printed on the gun. if you are caught with any kind of gun outside of your home without that license plate on it , which refers back to you, the owner, you go to prison for 30 years. that is a mandatory federal crime. host: jeanne, miami, arizona. your thoughts this morning? are people saying -- guns or weapons. -- either amendment way, i am a 79-year-old disabled vet. they are not guns, they are weapons. in the second amendment, i write my will with it. when that thing was put in the process, there was slavery and so on. so maybe we should go back to lavery and segregation, everything.

i see people walking around with a weapon around their waist. they think they own the world. so thank you very much and god peoplemerica, and thanking me for what they do for me. i also had prostate cancer for over 23 years. to mr. trump, the golden boy, don't mess with the v.a., you'd draft dodger -- you draft dodger. host: greg in west virginia, go ahead. forer: prototyping now probably 10, 15 years. the only difference is the cost of the printers are coming down. one individualp from sending out blueprints because it is not that hard to make. a quick search on a 3-d prototype model i can get a hold of. i got 10 or 15 hits on guns that could be changed over to real guns. it is here, we have to deal with

it. we cannot regulate the guns, the printers, or the technology. we have to deal with it. that is all i have to say. host: 25 minutes left in the segment of the washington journal, having this conversation about three guns and their regulation. , special line for gun owners otherwise if you are in the eastern or central time zones, (202) 748-8000. mountain or pacific, (202) 748-8001. calling in this morning as we take you to one story to talk about, the criminal trial of president trump's former campaign manager paul manafort got underway yesterday, with a busy first day. there is a story about the first day. jacqueline thompson is a reporter for the hill, covering the manna for trial. take us through everything that happened in a busy first day of his trial? guest: thank you john for having

me. the day started off with a jury selection. they were able to see the trial, six women, six men, and in they moved on opening statements from manafort steam and federal prosecutors before putting one witness on the stand. host: unusual for that many take place on the first day of the trial? guest: it definitely did move faster than a lot of people were anticipating. they figured there would be a bit more challenge over the jury members. jury members actually said they did have connections to the department of justice, but they said they would not be willing to impact their judgment within the trial health. the extent ofs of the charges that paul manafort is facing in this trial? guest: he is facing about 18 charges in this one trial. they are all related to bank and tax fraud, so they are mostly related to his work as a political consultant in the u.k.. prosecutors are alleging they

hid millions of dollars in overseas accounts and brought them over to the u.s. without paying taxes on that income. when that money ran out, he hetted bank fraud, alleging was making more money to take out more loans, in order to fund what they described as a lavish lifestyle. one of the pieces of evidence they actually sided in the opening statement yesterday with a $15,000 ostrich jacket. that is just some of the examples of things that the prosecutors will be bringing up throughout the course of this trial. defensed take us to the 's opening statement and the strategy here for palm and a fourth legal team? team?l manafort's legal guest: their strategy is putting the blame on rick gates, his former business associate and a former member of the trump campaign. ,hey are saying he is the one he is not to be trusted.

he has already pleaded guilty. yet the government is asking the jury to go ahead and trust him. they are saying he "had his hand in the cookie jar," that he was embezzling millions of dollars from manafort, and when he feared he get you -- you would get caught, he flipped over to manafort. so they are saying -- to mueller. so they are think he should not be trusted and the blame lies on him at the end of the day. we beat what point will seeing rick gates take the stand, if at all, in the manafort trial? guest: we are not sure on that. be called towill the stand. five of them have been granted immunity. they are saying today, we will be seeing another political consultant who worked with manafort in the ukraine as well as an fbi agent, but as for whether or not gates will be on the stand, that is still to be decided. name, frankat other bruni, a column in today's new york times.

too.ort's trial is trump's did the president get brought up at all yesterday during the opening statements of this trial process? he actually has not been mentioned, mostly because the judge in the case has says collusion should not really play trial.in this there was actually a motion filed by manafort's legal team, saying they wanted no mentions of trump within the trial itself. mueller pushed back against that, saying manafort's role as trump campaign had was going to play a role, and we can see that with the ties to gates a bit there, as he was also part of the campaign. so while trump is not really involved in the trial self and will not really be mentioned, it is notable this is the first within special counsel robert mueller's probe, which trump has repeatedly called a witchhunt and has tried to attack the legitimacy of.

a conviction on any of the charges would prove a win for mueller in that sense of it being a more legitimate investigation, perhaps, in the president's eyes. host: jacqueline thompson, before you go. there was some thought right up to the point when his trial started that a deal could happen. paul manafort could make some sort of deal with robert mueller and testify in the russia probe case. now that the trial is underway, is that off the table? lawyers saidrt's yesterday there is no chance he would be entering a deal with mueller's team. trial withe another mueller in d.c., set to start in september and another series of charges, such as -- foreign lobbyists and in spirit if obstruct justice after mueller alleged he attempted to tamper with the witness. so it does not look at this point like there will be a deal. host: jacqueline thompson, a reporter with the hill newspaper. thank you so much for your time this morning. guest: thank you, john. this back to your calls in

first segment of the washington journal today, talking about this national debate over 3-d guns. we want to get your thoughts on how, if at all, you think they should be regulated. the special line for gun owners, (202) 748-8002 is that number. otherwise our lines are split up regionally. lt in irvine, california. go ahead. caller: yes, the idea of 3-d printed guns is kind of funny, because you cannot control the wind. you cannot control thought. like the fellow who said earlier -- for 15 years, today, you can make your own printer. not just the product that comes out of the printer. so there is no way to control any of that.

so anti-gun people are going to a talk about logic, the logic of controlling things. that is pretty much all i have to do. don't try to control the wind. host: on the idea of controlling access to these 3-d blueprints for 3-d printers, this story from nbc news yesterday, noting that even after the judge order blocking this one group from distributing those blueprints online, a coalition of gun rights advocates challenged the federal judge's order, temporarily barring that texas company from publishing blueprints by saying such publications were protected by the first amendment right. they say after years of litigation and the temporary order released yesterday, some of these groups plans to release some of those blueprints anyway.

that's the story if you want to read more of it on nbc news. gun rights activists oppose plans for three firearms after the judge's order blocking them. james is a gun owner in alabama. james, go ahead. what i keep peering is people are all upset about 3-d printed guns. you are not printing the hold on. it is parts and pieces, metal pieces, the barrel still has to be metal, the spring in the magazine still have to be metal. it is parts and pieces. he will not create something that will be undetectable. yes, it will not have a serial number, but that is not going to stop, it is not going to keep guns out of the hands of people not supposed to have them. if they are going to get a gun, they are going to get a gun. it does not have a serial number on it or not.

that is all, thanks. the nra spokeswoman taking up this issue of undetectable in a tweet as well yesterday, saying the undetectable firearms act for hires a percentage of metal used in -- requires a protected -- percentage of metal used in a produced firearm. the undetectable line you here is an uninformed talking point used by people who don't understand the process or the law. our next caller, from utah. hi, you're always the best dressed host on c-span. host: i appreciate that, go ahead. caller: as far as plastic guns, there are plastic guns around. they have only made a presence in about the past 15 years, and their polymers -- they have gone through a lot of testing. as thengs you see as far prototypes they are showing,

they look like squirt guns, to be honest with you. i do not think they would be effective. see one testfired. until they do, i do not the any problem with it except for the .act that they are illegal i think they are causing more panic then they should, to tell you the truth. do you think we should be talking about the legality of even posting the blueprints for these things online? is it a first amendment issue as opposed to a second amendment issue? i would say probably yes, you know? sok at 9/11 and box cutters, -- you can make anything into a weapon somehow, someway. a comment from a gun owner this morning. mike says unless 3-d printed

guns can have some sort of serial numbers, they should be banned. these totally get around the background checks and registrations. having three be printed gun -- 3-d printed guns on the market is inevitable, however, the government needs to put checks in place. and one more from tony, this topic is clearly a first amendment issue. can the government not prohibit the publication of nuclear secrets? the argument should be made on national security grounds. levi is waiting in charlotte, north carolina. go ahead. caller: good morning, john. listen -- my thought on that the internet, the way that theg is printed, why can't companies that sell that technology shut that down? they are capable of shutting everything else down in such, why can't that company shut it

down, just like they got worked on that with russian interference in the election. they were supposed to be working on that. if they got that technology, looking at that, just think about that. why can't they do this? host: levi, you think the federal government should step in and shut defense distributed down, the company that has been wanting to put these blueprints online? caller: well, my opinion -- not think about it. we have -- host: we have what, levi? caller: my opinion -- listen. i hear people calling in, talking about the government doesn't have any business in any of their personal business, but we are the government. government should get

involved in that. surely, though, that is what we elect them for. a story in the new york times focusing on cody wilson, the head of defense distributed, area andork in this why he is doing this, why he wants to publish these blueprints. the story notes that mr. wilson has described himself as a techno-libertarian and an online heretic. his critics have said he is a media hound and a peddler of open source. he promotes decentralized solutions and enter centralizing world -- in a never centralizing world. appearance, he said companies like google, facebook, and you do have tried to exert more control over public discourse. he said they can decide i will who isn't able to participate,

adding he hates silicon valley will most as much as he hates washington, d.c. in the push to democratize information, mr. wilson has said 3-d printers will only become revolutionary tools when they are used not for useless things like tickets or lawn gnomes, but medical devices, drugs, or guns. the story in the new york times today by david montgomery if you want to read it. loretta and huntersville, north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to say that this is just another example of america swirling down the rabbit hole in its quest for guns, guns, guns, everywhere, all the time, in any way you want them. we can't get universal health care, but we can always get more guns. these people are claiming that these guns are so innocuous, they will backfire and won't work right and all that, but

just like computers and cell phones, they will just get better and better and more and more lethal. all i can say is, we better hope that nobody brings one of these guns to a trump rally and shoots him dead to his mouth. thank you. napa,chris is in california. good morning, chris. caller: hello, thank you for answering my call. host: go ahead. caller: my question, why is this topic just now coming to a head? the first time i saw information about 3-d printed guns was about five years ago. chris, coming to a head today after a federal judge stepped in and stopped the distribution of blueprints late last night. those blueprints were expected , and online as of today eight at attorney general's in the district of columbia -- they're arguing for that to be

blocked, the judge did. now we are waiting for that legal case to play out. caller: ok, i understand that, but the first time these rents were out were again, like five years ago, 2013. it is the first time i saw them being published. it seems maybe they are a little slow at catching up to some of this technology. was youris, what opinion and and what is your opinion now? caller: well, i am not really sure, but am of these comments musk,the technology, elon he is making three metal parts with 3-d printers, so that is going to continue. i don't know. even if someone were perhaps to have a blueprint for some smith & wesson gun, i am sure that

into ay could make that prince, could make a 3-d gun out of it. i do not know what to think about that. but iot a pro-gun person, think as i have heard other commenters say, it is sort of an inevitable. host: right, daschle, north carolina. good morning. caller: hi, how are you doing? the person who called last, i think he has it right there. i do not think technology, it is just way too far ahead of everything that is going on. i mean from old -- i can hear you. wait amended -- wait a minute. host: from what? caller: ok, now i am hearing might recording. host: you just have to talk to your cone. -- phone. caller: i think the constitution

needs to be worked on, and these are laws that have been worked on more than 200 years ago. i do not think it is at all keeping up with modern technology. torything from guns to drugs whatever else is going into the whole thing, i think it is not keeping in time. it is like you are watching a tv screen and the sound is off, and moving mounts but the sound have to catch up a few seconds later. i think that will be the whole downfall of this whole world and humanity as we know it, and as we have learned how it can be. it is just not like that now. host: sharon in asheville, north carolina. more reaction yesterday, this department spokesperson heather knauer on this ongoing debate over three printed guns. [video clip] >> a lot of people have been ignoring this fact for a long time since the story began. at least since the year 2013,

these cad files, these computer assisted design files, have been available online. they have been legal for u.s. to do since actually download these cad designs for quite some time now. they have been able to get these designs and print out these three guns in the united states. guns in the united states. our only equity in this in the state department is because of our role in controlling foreign access to u.s. technology. in simpler words, the state department wants to prevent the wrong people from acquiring weapons overseas. that is our equity in this. it has obviously gone through a legal process. the department of justice was advising the state department on this entire legal matter. the department of justice suggested that the state department and the u.s. government settle this case. so that is what was done. we were informed that we would

have lost this case in court or would have likely lost his case in court based on first amendment grounds. the advice of the department of justice, and here we are right now. i think ultimately, what this get down to is a domestic case where it is a domestic gun control issue that needs to be addressed, not just by congress but also by law enforcement. so i imagine there will be many conversations housed here at the federal level, the have conversations about the next steps that should happen now. host: we have been having this conversation for the past 55 minutes this morning on the washington journal. time for a few more of your calls and thoughts on this 3-d gun debate, and i you think they should be regulated. andy in louisville, kentucky. caller: yes, i would just like to say that the government ought to get involved in this. theybama administration, knocked it down, and this

administration picked it back up. number two, we ought to be in the business of producing things that are not harming people. i think some of the things, people would do anything for the south side of it, once someone gets hurt by an instrument like this and they is a useless it instrument. thank you very much. host: a tweet from stella this morning as we have been having this conversation, asking what also the government banned that might be produced on one of these printers? our caller from selma, alabama, but ahead. caller: c-span -- are you still there? host: yes, ma'am. caller: i'm saying -- the young man that made that gun, it will be the opposite of saying that it shouldn't of been -- it should not have been printed. caller canple of congratulate that man and tell

trump, thank you. take the opposite side of it. i bet you they are going to pick all of that off of their. they don't make any guns like that. calls andor two more his segment of the washington journal. we also did want to keep you updated about this ongoing story we have been wallowing about the return of remains of u.s. soldiers who were killed during the korean war. the latest from cbs news this morning. when north korea handed over 55 boxes of bones that etc. the remains of american war dead and single military dog tag, but no other information that could help u.s. forensic determine the full identity. an official said it will probably take months if not years to fully determine , identitiesdentity

from those remains, which have not yet been confirmed by u.s. be those ofas to even american servicemen. if you want to read more about that process and more about how officials are going about that, cbs news.com is the story. those remains will head to hawaii after a repatriation ceremony. gus in ohio, go ahead. caller: yes, yes. am i on? host: yes sir. caller: ok. the second amendment was made and it was used because gun back then -- guns back then were tools. they needed it to get food and needed it for hostels, and it was part of the -- it was a part e. their lif they took part of the second

amendment and perverted it, and changed it over to where people can walk around with guns on hadr hips and the law they in florida, which until that gentleman, because he was protecting his family, they didn't do anything about it. me, it is getting totally out of hand. now they are printing guns to show people how to make guns out of plastic, and what are they going to do with that? people think it is harmless? it is not harmless at all. these guns are not to go out and hunt. to shootto go out people, to kill people. in fayetteville, north carolina. go ahead. are you with us this morning? caller: [inaudible] host: stick by your phone. you would have been our last

caller in this segment, but we will end this discussion there. coming up next to this morning, we will be joined by the manhattan institute's oren cass to discuss the rise of automation and its impact on the american later we will get a one on one on democratic socialism with maria thets -- maria svart's national director of the democratic socialists of america. we will be right back. ♪ sunday night on "q&a" congressional historians. >> one of the questions i hear people asking all the time -- is this the most uncivil time in history? >> certainly the years leading

to the civil war, when a house in 1856aned a senator and the role a lot of senators that cheered on that house member. musical is a broadway about the shooting of alexander hamilton, he was shot by the sitting vice president of the united states. we have had terrible political times. in 1858 was a brawl that had 80 members rolling around on the floor fighting one another. one of the members pulled his -- pulled his wig off during a fight and someone yelled used out tim -- you s capled him. sunday night at 8:00 eastern on

c-span's "q&a." in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. >> "washington journal" continues. seniorren cass is a fellow at the manhattan institute and author of the book hee once and future worker." joins us a day after president trump signed a new technical education bill into law and after president trump signed an executive order last week on workforce education.

the focus on the trump administration when it comes to preparing american workers for the jobs tomorrow -- the jobs of tomorrow. there's a lot of focus on career and technical education, which we used to call vocational idea wen, which is the cannot just be trying to do high school, college, four year degree for everybody. when you do have a lot of other options that help while you're in high school and certainly after you leave high school to give you the kinds of skills you need to get drops -- to get jobs in the modern economy. the trump administration has been doing a lot of work focusing on how we develop those alternatives. what are some of the best ways to do that and house the trump administration focusing their efforts? guest: first of all, doing more cte type work in high school. our high schools are college prep schools. we say the goal is to have througho to college, up

11th and 12th grade all of curriculum is focused on preparing you for more study. if you are not likely to and up with a college degree that is not the best used of 11th and 12th grade. technical education into high schools, connecting people with employers sooner is one powerful route. the other one is what gets called apprenticeships. differentean a lot of things but ultimately it means creating a program that connects people who are still students with jobs and on-the-job training. you actually need to bring the employer into the education process in partnership with the school in a way that has the student in class part of the time but also on the job for part of the time as well. that is obviously a different model for running education, and for the trump administration and the federal government, it means we have to change the rules for how we test, what our standards are, what certification teachers

have to have and where all of the funding goes. all of the funding goes to college. we spend about a hundred $50 billion a year trying to support students in college. $1 billion aram is year supporting cte. host: we will be talking about the future of the american workforce and american workers for about the next 40 minutes on the washington journal. oren cass is with us for that discussion. eastern and central time zones can call in at (202) 748-8000, mountain pacific time zones, , a special line for displaced workers, i want to hear your stories, (202) 748-8002 is that number. you can start calling you now. the book is not out yet. when is it coming out? guest: it will come out the week after the midterms. host: "the once and future

worker." why do we need to have this discussion now? guest: in the aftermath of the 2016 election a lot of folks who are real policy experts did not take the lesson that we had gotten anything wrong, they thought it was a marketing problem. they said people do not understand how great the economy is, maybe they do not like the way trump sounds, but the model that we will keep doing globalization and keep expanding the safety net and somehow get people more skills, that has to be the recipe. i think what that missed is that at the end of the day that treated everybody like a consumer. if we grow the pie big and up and give everybody a slice they will be happy. i think we have learned that it is wrong. youle do not care how much give them to consume, they care about their own ability to produce and contribute to society and be included in the economy.

if that is correct, then our policy cannot just be grow the economy as fast as possible and give everybody a slice. it has to be go back and look at how our labor market works, what kind of jobs are available, how much do they pay and how we -- and how can we change those conditions in ways that make sure a majority of people who are not going to earn a college degree still have good work opportunities that allow them to support a family. host: what is your vision for the future of the american workforce? what kind of jobs will be going away in the decades to come? guest: obviously the workforce will change. the idea that manufacturing is going to go away or that robots will take all of the jobs is severely overstated. the reality is that we still consume an enormous amount of stuff that has to get made. as people get richer, what to they consume more of?

they consume more of stuff that has to get made. it is not like they consume services and digital downloads. they consume houses, bigger cars, more electronics. the future potential of the economy looks just as things intensive as the past has. are we going to use more automation and more robots to produce those things? absolutely. that is the same as it has always been. we have always been introducing new processes city can make more things with fewer people. the question of what everyone is going to do is how are we going to find more things that need to be made to ensure there is more demand for not just high end knowledge work but also for building things, for making things, for providing the kinds of services that someone with a high school education or a

little bit more than a high school education can perform. that can happen. the idea of capitalism is you have people with capital and you want them to try to earn money by finding productive ways to employ workers. if we keep that structure in money can find ways to employ people productively. host: i've have seen projections of very large percentages of this country's job that might be impacted by robots. what study do believe? guest: there is an important distinction that sometimes get lost. are we talking about jobs that can be replaced entirely or jobs that can be augmented or helped by automation? there are bad studies that will say -- the most famous study is from oxford university that says 50% of jobs will be replaced by robots. some of the jobs they say are

most likely to be replaced are things like fashion models, real estate agents, school bus drivers, as if we would just walk kids in a metal box with robot driving them around. that is not going to happen. what has historically happened and what studies find is going to continue to happen is a lot of jobs will have some of their tasks automated. if it instead of thinking of the job as a thing, automated or no, look at the job and see what are the tasks in this job and which of those tasks do you automate. when you look at it that way you find maybe half of the tasks could be automated but you will still need a person involved in that. that is the secret sauce for prosperity and rising wages. the person still has to be there to do the job but now he will do it twice as much as he could before. that is the way to think about it. host: what about the other people who are not needed to do those jobs?

they're still be a job for a few people. how willing are they to retrain and how much should we invest in that retraining or how much support should we give those folks during the retraining process? guest: a lot of them do not necessarily have to go anywhere because there are two things that happen when you make twice as much stuff as you did before. one is you make twice as much , the other is you make twice as much stuff. let's say you could get 5% more productive every year which would be astronomically high. historically we rarely get above 2%. let's say you get 5% more productive every year. a business that is successful and growing is growing their sales at least 5% per year. this means that in theory you still want all the workers you have and you need to use this automation and these productivity gains not to get rid of your workers but to meet

the growing demand for your product. historically, if you look at what happened in the heyday of the 1950's or 1960's, productivity growth was much faster than it is now. we would call automation destroying jobs used to happen a lot faster. back then, demand also grew. as the automation occurred and people can make more stuff, they need more stuff. we do not use fewer people. the question is, is that what is going to happen in the future? can we make sure we use automation to allow us to make more stuff, or is it going to be a situation where we make the same amount of stuff and do not use a lot of the people? host: the future of the american workforce is the topic of our conversation. we want you to join into that conversation as well. a special line for displaced workers, (202) 748-8002.

i want to hear your stories and what happened in your industry. eastern and central time zones, (202) 748-8000. mehlman specific -- mountain and pacific, (202) 748-8001. you are on with oren cass. caller: my question is about how we have a five-day work week. are we going to do any adjustments on the working conditions because studies have been saying the american worker is more productive but it seems to me that the gulf we have is our productivity has risen but that has noton for come back to us. for instance, i'm getting more work done working the same hours, but my wages are not rising. you see that all over. weekhould i work a 40 hour

when the reality of it is we could probably get this work done in 25 hours but people are not going to adjust that 40 hour week. that seems to be impacted in our mind that you have to work 40 hours to get full-time. guest: the structure of work, like the work week is definitely one of the things we could see you've all over time. -- we could see the ball -- we could see evolve over time. productivity is not going up right now and one of the region -- one of the reasons wages are stagnant is if you look back over the last 15 years we have stalled on productivity growth. we might feel like we are busier, but the economy is not making a lot more per hour than we used to. that is something that has to change. as it does change, one option is to say we could work less. that is something that ideally

you would want to leave up to people. , therethink historically was a time when people have to work all day every day just to grow enough food. you could say now you could work a few hours a week and earn enough money for your food. obviously you work a lot more than that because everything else we have around us that we also value and want to be able to afford as well. going forward, if you take $40,000 a year someone might are , theorking full-time question is fast-forward. with a rather earn $40,000 a year working part-time or with a rather earn $60,000 a year and then $80,000 a year still working full-time as they become more productive? the ideal answer is to say you want have flexibility. we want to have structures in place and employers who say both of those r.o.k. answers.

if your sump -- both of those are ok answers. if you have someone who says i'm happy with 40,000 year, let me work less. we see lots of people who work part-time. what we have seen his people will want to work full-time because as society grows richer they will want to participate in that and be able to afford the new things we might be developing and producing host:. larry in unionville, tennessee, good morning. is whatmy question happens to the vocational programs we had when i was in school? i grew up in the 1960's and 1970's. ,e had metal shop, woodshop auto shop, drafting, all of these programs that were in the high schools all of the time. you had opportunities for whatever you wanted to do.

that does not occur anymore. you go to a mcdonald's and these becausenot make change the education system we have is so unused. thank you. guest: that is an important point, larry. thinking back to the 1960's and 1970's is exactly when this change, that we went from a model that had a lot of vocational training to a mindset that said because we want more economic opportunity we want everybody to go to college. this idea that some people should be on a vocational track and preparing for the workforce is somehow un-american. instead we are going to lift everybody up by sending everyone through college. that was a real mistake. there are two things to say about it. no one else in the world has tried to do that. if you look in europe in the most advanced economies, most of

their high school students still go down a vocational track and prepare for the workforce and moving into apprenticeships or more concrete job training by the end of high school. so dramatic and different that the oecd, which is the big organization of developed and -- developed economies, put out a report looking at the structure of high schools. they showed how much was vocational in each country. they had to put a footnote for theunited states, saying united states is too different from everybody else and we cannot put them on the chart. we are in extreme outlier in our refusal to invest in that kind of training. the other thing to say is it has not worked. we have the idea we have doubled what we spend per student, we have massively expanded our higher education system and the money we put into that, and yet test scores do not look any different than they did in the 1970's. the share of students going into butege is much higher,

graduating from college the rate has not gone up that much, especially for men. if you look across what is , the share of our population that actually goes successfully completes high school, completes college, it gets a job that uses the degree they are, it is -- the degree many -- is mainly a fifth of our students. host: if you suddenly doubled the vocational programs, with the demand be there to fill the spots? guest: i think it depends on the quality. it depends on employer engagement. one thing we have learned a lot from job training and in the education system is that if you want to do concrete skills training, you have to have employers involved. that means a culture shift in schools, which would think it was weird to have employers

involved and it is a culture shift for employers who do not think it is their job to be involved. they expect the school system to provide workers for them. the last reason is is it a culture shift for families. we have moved away from this idea that everyone should go to college, but now the idea that not everyone should go to college -- people will say i agree someone over there should not go to college but you better believe my kid will go to college. what we have to help people understand is that if you're are someone who is going to succeed in college, then absolutely, college is the right choice. if you are someone who is not likely to succeed in college, and most americans don't not even achieve a community college going to college cannot successfully complete college is not a good choice. you will end up with a lot of debt, you'll waste years you could be gaining skills and you

will end up better if you are on a track with investment from society in you to get you into a good job sooner. host: when you say we visit the government's job to make that pitched people? guest: i think government has a role in it. some to making the pitch, but more in constructing a viable alternative track. one of the things, if you step back and think about who are the winners and losers in our economy, people who complete a college degree are those with a golden ticket. those are the ones we put all of the investment into in terms of taxpayer money. the message we sent to somebody in high school right now is you may as well go as far down the college track as you can because if you do there is so much money for you. if you're somebody who thinks maybe i should get into the workforce, there is no money, there is no support. that is what sends a message and it creates a practical choice.

weould like to see us say are going to invest at least as much in somebody who is trying to go -- trying to get a high school job as somebody who is going to college and if we have to choose between them i would rather invest more in the person who is headed for a slightly lower wage job or a much lower but is going to get out there and the workforce sooner and invest less in the person who may need to borrow to complete their college degree but they are going to be the ones with the higher earnings of the room down the road. host: to clinton, maryland. munro is waiting. caller: i was reading a book all the end of average and he talks about the father of industrial engineering and it had me do more reading as to when did we get to the dawn of the employee versus mastering apprentice and i read more about why we have an eight hour workday and i kept

doing more and more reading. the situation we have in america is not something that happened overnight and it is not going to get undone overnight. as you were just talking about the college students, we have plenty of studies that show having that degree is going to help, but you have more college graduating than you have job which causes me to go back to a few callers ago. why doesn't america relook at the eight hour workday? we have more than enough people graduating to where we can go part-time. you made a statement about how people might want to work for $60,000 or 80,000, i would say they need to work that job because of things costing so much great if we could look at insurance costs and what is considered full-time versus part-time benefits, if we could look at credit rating and credit able to workmebody part-time and so get approved for that house or auto loan, i

believe we have more than enough people in america that can work part-time. it would lower poverty, it would lower unemployment rates and so many other things would benefit if we could take a good look at the eight hour workday. host: thanks for the call. guest: the question with something like that is how much is the government's responsibility versus how much it would be leaving up to people's own arrangements? there are some places in public the eightt codify hour workday, for instance the treatment of full-time under obama care for health insurance where the definition of how we calculate overtime. by and large the choice of how many hours you work a week is one made by the employer and the employee. there are many eight hour day, five days a week jobs. across the economy there are a tremendous number of jobs that are much more than that, either

because you are not an hourly employee, you're on sourly and working all hours of the day, and part-time workers who are not working 40 hour weeks. it is not true that the eight hour workday is the only option out there now. if we wanted to, we could do something like what france does, which is mandate a less than eight hour workday. if you eat said everything -- if we said everything ever six-hour workday's you had to pay overtime, we would default to a six hour day. we are talking about a lot of different groups of people. there are a lot of high earners who are working a lot of hours but maybe have a lot of control over whether they would rather work fewer hours. a lot of the folks are most affected by the regulations around how many hours they have to work when overtime kicks in, those tend to be lower wage workers and those people are

people who are already working overtime, might be working a second job or have someone else in the family working to earn more money. those are not the people wishing they could work less and are less. -- and earn less. when we asked how much people want to work, relatively speaking, the people earning a lot of money have more choice over how much they work. people for not earning a lot of wishinge not the ones they could work fewer hours and earn less. they're the ones trying to work and earn as much as they can. host: that line for displaced workers, (202) 748-8002. rob is on that line. edgewater, maryland. what is your story. caller: i would like to recommend a book called taming the tiger, the struggle to control technology. and another one, the double-edged history of human culture.

instead of facebook and the way people prefer to the political system, how technology is a double-edged sword. in the old days politics was one thing. this new technology has revolutionary implications. the separation between the poor and the rich. all the way back to the rebellions in england, the loop tight rebellions and other rebel -- the luddite rebellions and the weavers rebellion. how has technology impacted you in your job? caller: i do a lot of bargaining. what i did -- i do a lot of gardening. what i do is by hand. now you have all of these men with power tools a company can come in and do what it takes me four hours to do in one hour.

my wages have gone down because i do things the old-fashioned, more environmentally safe way. i started my business as an environmentally sound way to do things. there are still people that respect that. technology -- man is the ax maker. he is the one who creates tools. these tools have put our planet in jeopardy and put everything in jeopardy. humankind in jeopardy because of these tools. tools for everything and tools for war. i want to go back to facebook and the political situation. this technology came around and everyone was like, it is great and now it having implications beyond what everybody thought. guest: i think there are a lot of kinds of technology. when we talk about facebook we are talking about communication technology. when we talk about weapons of war we are talking about military technology. when we talk about productivity enhancing technology, which are

the powertel's you might use for gardening, that is one small subset. if -- the example he gave about partners and what happens when you introduce power tools into gardening is a good one. it is the same sort of thing we have seen over time and all sorts of industries. you could still build a house by hand, you can still garden by hand and in theory do almost anything by hand, but if everybody does everything by hand then we can produce a lot less stuff. we will all be less productive, we can all earn a lot less and all have a lot less at the end of the day. it is important to have regulations in place to look at technologies -- are your tools damaging the environment?

but where you can use a tool that allows you to do more, and a lot of times you are doing better, that is something you want to have and that is going to benefit workers in the long run. host: staying on the automation and technology discussion, of -- i wonder your thoughts? guest: robots are not replacing people. anys clear in the data from angle you look at that the problem in recent years has not been robots replacing people. it has been we are not bringing robots in fast enough to make people more productive and boost their wages. in the future, will robots replace people? i cannot prove it will not. if it ever happens i think we will have to have that conversation. , think using it as a pretext

using the future fear of robots as a pretext for demanding a change in policy now is a little bit backward. what we should be talking about now is how to make the jobs that are available and that robots could help people do more productively, how to connect people to those jobs so they can earn living wages. host: to don in north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. i've a question relative to the policies at c-span. i have watched c-span for years and it is very evenhanded. i am concerned in the last few that was the policy you people have and where can i find it relative to your selection, evenhandedly, there are a lot professors,ations, who are now supported by libertarian funds than there are

by progressive funds or people in the middle. organizations00 for you to choose people to come ,o your program and talk to us how you work it out? the: that is one of toughest things we do was try to find a wide range of opinions to bring to you. every day we have those discussions of who we can bring in. of groups inot washington, d.c. that talk to policymakers and lawmakers that influence their opinions. that is why we do have that washington, d.c. focus if they're the ones making the laws, we want you to hear from those people as well. it is certainly one of the toughest parts of this job to try to make sure we bring in opinions from all sides. you have your criteria written anywhere on your website? host: we have plenty of

information about this program and how we go about this program. we have a whole q&a there for you to look at about the "washington journal" at c-span.org. caller: now to mr. cass. i have a question to you. you seem to not agree with the people from oxford, which is fine. i would like to know why you aem to be on somewhat of narrow tunnel vision and it is a short tunnel. you are saying i am dealing with these problems and you're doing a good job talking to people, i have to say that. in the long run, in terms of ,eople, if automation continues and i do not agree with you that takes care -- one

person can take it of two jobs because of automation. look at amazon and their supply chain. it does not work that way. in the long run, since you have people and you can produce more with one person and automation , you need100 people the 100 people to buy the products. where are we going? does your organization look at that long-range or do you keep it what you might call politically -- a political horizon of one or two election cycles? guest: i think the wrong range is incredible -- i think the long range is incredibly important and you are asking the right question. the better way to understand the long run is to look at the evidence we have from what is

happening now and to look at the evidence we have from what is happening in the past. you can go back 100 years or 200 years and imagine having the same discussions and people did have the same discussions. what are we going to do when we do not need everybody to farm anymore? what are we going to do when we do not need everyone to work in the factories anymore? as automation and other technologies allowed us to produce all of the food we needed with fewer people and produce all of the material goods we needed with fewer people, what the economy has always done is generated new opportunities for people to work and produce and serve each other in productive ways. the question is, is there any reason we should expect the future to be different? the burden has to be on someone who will say there is something different about this wave of technology. are cool, artificial intelligences pull, but so is the -- artificial intelligence

but so is the computer, so is basic machinery. we have gone through extraordinary revolutions of technology and the result has always been more prosperity, higher wages across society. i think our baseline assumption has to be that that can continue if we have a policy framework in place that values work and says our priority will be an economy not where we mail checks to everybody, but one where we actually help connect people to work and make sure people have those opportunities and that people building the businesses want to use workers and that relationship is at the foundation of what makes our society work in a lot of ways. host: less than 10 minutes left with oren cass who is with the manhattan institute and the author of the book the once and future worker. randy, thanks for waiting in michigan. go ahead. caller: i would like to start by

thanking you and your guest and all the men and women that bring us this great program. this is very interesting. question is on your future of the workforce, my daughter has just won an apprenticeship from our local 557 international electricians union and the reason she had the opportunity to do that is because the men and women in that union take a little bit of money out of their pockets every week and put it into a program to have apprenticeships so they can have workers of the future. do you see a push toward that because personally, i do not use a computer that much, i want a plumber that keeps the plumbing running. i do not care about being on the moon is how i look at my life. technology is great, been there, ,een it, i know it has got good

but when you say robots do not eliminate people, you could go into my body shop in my assembly plant and on one day i had 300 workers and then the next day i had 30. they are running these robots. it does have an effect and those are good paying jobs. i think we have to balance this. i should get to the point. your argument about productivity . i never understood that argument. productivity means you do something with less people. does that mean we have people stop having babies? people are still being born every day. i guess that is what i do not see. how do you make that connection? host: thanks for the call. guest: that was a great call. there were a few important points i want to try to touch on. the first was about the apprenticeship. congratulations to your daughter. it is wonderful. you heard there is a union involved there and there's

something i talk about in the book. i think it is important to talk about the role of what organized labor can be in this in the future. our union system we have is one that was built in the 1930's and has proven not effective and a lot of cases for addressing the problems that we have right now. as a result, union membership has plummeted even in manufacturing and yet that role of an organization that , that takesorkers dues from workers when they are successfully employed and helps invest that to provide opportunity for more people, that is a crucial role. i think that is the kind of thing we need to take much more seriously from the left and the unions areay 1930's not going to get us where we need to go but some form of organized labor that makes these connections, provides apprenticeship and training opportunities has to be part of the formula. the second point i wanted to

touch on was the point about what the apprenticeship is in, which is an electrician. it is an important point that a lot of these jobs we are going to be talking about in the future that are good jobs that do not require college degrees, first of all in many instances are the hardest to automate away. an electrician can use more technology and be more productive, it will be a long time before we have a robot that can crawl around the basement and why are our house were robot that can do what a plumber was. those kinds of jobs remain critical ones that we have shortages of. there are ones that pay better than a lot of jobs for college educated folks. i'm not saying that even as i was discussing, college versus high school, i struggled to emphasize. someone who is a successful college graduate with a good degree in a field where they get a good job ends up among the higher earners in our economy. someone who does not complete

college or even people who complete college not with the moat route -- met with the most relevant degree and end up in the lower half of college graduates, they do not end up earning more money than successful high school graduates , people at the upper end of their high school class and to going to good jobs out of high school. is ave this idea there high school world on one side and the college world on the other side and that is not true. they overlap tremendously. that people to understand and recognize that if you could be one of those people who goes from high school to a successful betterat is not just a path for you, that is a higher earning path than somebody who goes into college but does not does complete, but now the kind of degree and the kind of job that the upper end of college students might in the with. host: the line for displaced workers, robert is waiting on that line in miami, florida. caller: good morning.

industry weh care have also seen a change. i went to school 35 years ago in a nursing school in a hospital program. today they are all focusing on bf degrees and nursing and most of those nursing homes do not want to do -- most of those nurses do not want to do bedside nursing, they want to do supervision and education. the training of nursing is 75% clinical training and most of from the hospital programs that are mostly now closed. most of your major hospitals had schools of nursing. now it is all degree, degree, degree and these degree nurses come out with no clinical background or clinical training. they are not as efficient as the three-year diploma nurses used to be. i was eventually phased out of my position because of no degree

and i had worked in nursing for 35 years. nursing is mostly in on hand job program. it is a lot of clinical training. they are not getting this clinical training in these degree programs. i know that. they are coming out and they are unable to function. we need direct patient caregivers. changes needed health care. host: robert, what you do now? host: i think we lost robert. another great story i think points to a few things that are important, especially the critical role of employers. one thing he was talking about that we need to think about more is credential inflation. do nota that jobs that use to require a college degree employers know what a college degree for. even though the person in the job right now does not have one, it is a shortcut in hr to try to

screen people quickly. it does not produce the best candidates are give you the best or most experienced workers, and what we are starting to see is the labor market tightens and the economy heats up, the wall street journal had a wonderful story about this. employers are having to admit they cannot do that anymore. they have to go back and pick the person who can still do the job. there was a great example where they were looking for a bunch of business school graduates and instead they broke the job into smaller jobs for people without that credential. you ended up creating more good jobs for people with less credentials. that is something we will see naturally in a tight and labor market. it is something employers have an obligation to look at honestly as well and say is this -- what is it about college and a college degree we need for this job?

are we just trying to take a shortcut? the other thing he mentioned, hospitals used to do a lot more with nurse training. on the one hand you have a nurse shortage and hospitals with people in the health care industry complaining, and then you turn around and say what are you doing about it? we're waiting for the college is to train people. this is another example where employers will have to step up and become part of the solution, both for the sake of their own bottom line and for the sake of having a labor market that helps people get good jobs in which they are providing valuable services. host: james in herndon, virginia. thank you for waiting. caller: how's it going this morning? host: go ahead. caller: i'm in the i.t. industry. coming into the industry about seven years ago, i noticed that after i'd finished my degree in computer studies, a lot of the

people trying to hire from the i.t. industry were looking more for the certifications and things like that. especially in the d.c. area, i noticed that someone with a background, or security and a security networking certification was more qualified than someone with a bachelors degree. said, i wanted to know if these i.t. certifications were also part of the programs you would implement into the high school system? certifications are exactly the example of what we should be talking about when we do more of the education in high schools. some of the best programs that have started to emerge around the country do exactly that, and they say how do we get it so that when you graduate high school you get not only your diploma but an industry recognized credential that will

be valuable and help you get a job. there are a lot of lousy certifications out there and people will spend time and money and not end upem with a good return. but where you have the school systems are going with employers to figure out what is the valuable training and certification, that can be an incredibly powerful use of time. as he said, not just in the standard welding certification you might hear the politicians talk about. i.t. is a huge area where you're seeing more and more important good paying jobs you do not need a college degree for doing things like network management, system support, and those are the kinds of areas where you can connect high school students or those with a year of training after high school into apprenticeships, jobs with employers certifications. that is a much better path. host: ron in johnstown,

pennsylvania, go ahead. i am not a displaced worker, i babysit for my son, he is 26. i think a lot of my problem is the way they treat people with these labor jobs compared to college graduates. my son was making $14 an hour making pizza. he has been taking care of his kids for seven years. he went through a rehab facility and he got out and now he might have to start a mcdonald's monday. he is in a welfare to work program and i do not think that program is working very well. they sit there and there are a lot of jobs around here for forklifts. all they do is sit in them classes and they take personality tests, public speaking, dressing for

interviews, how to be a people person. it has been weeks and then they sit there and talk about resumes. he just wants to get a job. there is a big demand for for clipping. i did -- four forklift -- for forklifting. with all this technology why don't they invest in a forklift simulator. they could teach the men to run them and fill those positions. host: thank you for sharing your son story. guest: i think this points to another dimension, which is how does our safety net connect with our workforce? one thing we need to be doing is making sure the safety net, whether a program like disability or things like food makes, medicaid, how do we

sure those programs help people who do not have other resources but also are pushing people to work if they can? right now we have a lot of welfare to work programs, they do not necessarily do a good job preparing people for work. that goes back to the fact that government is lousy at job training. you would not expect them to be good at it. you need employers involved. the model you would rather see is one where employers in partnership with community college may be with funding from welfare to work programs are taking the initiative to say if we need forklift operators, let us tell you how we want to do training for forklift operators. let welfare to work provide some of the funding, because they would be spending some of the money anyway, to get the employer involved in the program. if you're just asking the state welfare agency to prepare people for jobs, there are examples of it being done well that you will see a lot of what we just heard.

you need the employers to lead the effort if they're going to pay people for higher-paying jobs. host: we will india there. oren cass, a senior fellow at the manhattan institute. i appreciate your time. guest: thank you very much. coming up, we'll be joined by maria svart, the national director of the democratic socialists of america. we will be right back. ♪ >> we have found out over the last years that many of the metanarratives introduced into the 2016 election were not of american origin, they were crafted by foreign intelligence agencies outside the united states. "afterwards"ht on a former cia intelligent officer and his book "the plot to destroy democracy."

>> these were propaganda techniques used by russia but which could never keep pace with the news media world of the 1960's or even the 1990's. it is only one social media came to the height of its power, the ability of you to pick up a fake story and in fact -- and in fact -- and infect three or four other people inside your facebook feed and they would do an same thing to create unbreakable link of false narrative. at that point, nothing you believe before can ever be real because he will abandon it on the basis it has been super reinforced by everyone you know, including the president. "afterwards" sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span tv. book to be -- book

journal"ngton continues. host: maria svart joins us. she is the director of the democratic socialists of america. to start this conversation, what does it mean to be a democratic socialist? guest: we believe we should all live a life of dignity and comfort and that in the richest country in the history of the world it is possible. we know that working people are the ones that make this economy work and make society work. the current economic system and the political system we have in place because of our economic system are not working for the 99%. we believe we need a society that we run democratically for human needs, not private profit. it is our believe there is an elite minority of people who

have rigged the economy and therefore rigged the political system for their own benefit. when he do work together as working and poor people to take back our economy and our politics and create a transformed society. we are an organization with chapters in all 50 states working towards that with everything from direct access to legislative work to electing democratic socialist candidates and more. host: how did you become a democratic socialist? guest: i come out of a union family. and my dad were union members. a lot of my extended family. i am biracial. i'm a woman. i know the world is not fair. i was an activist. i went to college and i was an activist around feminism and then one day there was an event about socialist feminism and that appealed to me because i felt the mainstream feminist movement was not speaking to the ,eeds of people like my mother

who people discriminated against because she is latina and people like my grandmother who was a poor housewife and struggle to make ends meet. i had a moment where i heard there is an economic system that is structured deliberately by people that currently have power to keep their power and that is when i had an epiphany and realized i was a socialist myself. host: how did you become the national director? guest: i became active when i was a student and that speaks to the need to have organizations. i became active in our young democratic socialists of america chapter at my school and then after college i wanted organizing and became a union organizer for a number of years. i organized hospital workers and realized the bosses do not listen unless working people stand together across our differences. i learned that in order to win better working conditions and wages people have to demand it

and we have to not let ourselves be divided. i was a member during that. -- during that period and learn to pressure the decision-maker and when the prior director retired i thought it was time to step up so i applied for the position and here we are. svart is with you, a special line for those who identify as democratic socialists. otherwise, republicans (202) 748-8001, democrats (202) 748-8000, independents, (202) 748-8002. i want to focus on your relationship with the democratic party establishment. the democratic socialists of america not a political party but an activist organization. explain the difference. guest: we are not a political party but we are trying to intervene in politics.

understanding of the world is that politicians and the government have a huge impact on our lives but at the same time the reason they are enacting policies that benefit the very wealthy is because the very wealthy owner them. -- the very wealthy own them. we do not want to become a political party. we want to maine kaine -- we want to maintain our connection with four people. we go to door to door listening about issues that are important to people organizing a mass organization with many members so we can maintain our independence from the politicians. whosep elect folks politics we like but we want to maintain enough distance that we can hold them accountable. we try to support them when they do the right thing and we also want to be independent so we can push them when they do not. host: you mentioned the democratic socialists of america have chapters in all 50 states. is the idea to eventually become the majority of the democratic

party? the democratic party has millions of members. parties in the united states are not the same as other parties. someday we would love to be a movement that is strong enough to actually become another party. we are so far from that now because of the way the two parties have worked together to set the system up, it is difficult for any other parties to become one of the main parties. there are many other parties, but the main parties maintain their power. there are structural battery or's -- there are structural barriers they set up to make it difficult to vote or for other parties to gain influence. it is mores is strategic to be independent and popularize this idea of democratic socialism and that there is an alternative to capitalism and we hope we grow big enough to become another party that becomes one of the

dominant parties or totally change the political system itself. host: as you go about your work in 2018, what is your relationship like with the dnc? we are pretty frustrated with the dnc. we do not spend a lot of time conflicts interparty because we believe the way to change political possibility is to organize people at the grassroots. conflictty because we believe that the way to change political possibility is to organize people at the grassroots. last presidential election, 46% of people did not vote. partly, there were racist partlys put the place, was because there were barriers put into all poor people voting, and partly because people do not

like their alternatives. they do not like the wall street democrats and what we have seen is that the dnc will consistently elevate and put there some on the scale to support wall street democrats and prevent the rise of more left wing democrats. our believe is our best use of our time is organize communities in all 50 states to build a base of organized politically aware people ready to fight back. you mentioned bernie sanders, do you think you will run in 2020? guest: i hope he does. i do not know where our members will be in 2020, but i think he has completely transformed the political system in this country. he recognized after the financial crash and occupy wall , the country was ready

and articulated that in a language that was accessible to people and changed olitics. p we wanted to and building that and chapters everywhere help everyone go to the experience that i went through where eyes saw an event about andalis feminism then i realized, there were decisions being made by the very wealthy. we want to create an organization in communities across the country so we can create political change but also, support change in between elections. in the labore work movement and the political system and in communities working on issues like tenants rights, affordable housing,

health care, medicare for all, and other issues that working people care about. host: we want to hear what the viewers care about in his conversation with the democratic socialist of america, the national director with us until the bottom of the hour. a special line for democratic comelists, (202) 748-8003 otherwise republicans, (202) (202)01, democrats, 748-8000. oscar is up first for a democrat, go ahead. all blaming the i am a former social security claims specialist and i've seen how government has helped not just but, healthy retirees, disabled people, and i wonder as a socialist, what is your take

on government itself? do you find government is to help yourol feminist movement or your when weive thoughts consider all of the programs that you would like to do, government always be there. yet, we always have this antigovernment feeling when we see a democratic socialist speaking. can you comment? host: thanks for the call. guest: absolutely. government is incredibly important because of the scale that we are talking about, a country with millions of people, were is no way that if do not have the control of the government, we cannot improve the lives of millions of people. i understand the impulse for folks on occupy wall street to be against government. born in then --

first year of the millennial generation and i understand the hasle of my age and younger never seen the government respond when people of butsroots demand things, social security, these are programs that ensure that nobody has to die in the street and people can retire with dignity, or somebody disabled can have access to care through medicaid. government programs are incredibly important because if we do not have programs like that, just imagine how corporate america would treat people. we see it of how they had tried to cut programs for the homeless, affordable housing stock is being cut, we see a and the fact that one in four children go hungry, so in the richest country in the world, we cannot rely on the very wealthy, the capitalist class, the people who own all of the companies that we work for every day and labor for, and get a small

rely onback, we cannot these corporations to take care of us. and we to come together talked about a grassroots movement because it is going to take all of us standing together and demand it -- demanding change. why we fight both inside government and in the political system to elect politicians, but we are also independent so we can push them between elections. we are also organizing against corporations whether it is our abolish ice campaign, or whether it is our tenant organizing for medicare for all where we are targeting the profiteers that are making money off of working people. ernment plays an important role in foreseeing a just society and a democratic

backlists, we want to take the government and use it to have a truly democratic society. host: do you think your abolish ice campaign is working? ofst: if you look at some the things that have happened recently, we have helped to move the debate. when we first started our campaign, our national immigrant committee decided we needed to launch this campaign because they were seeing horrific images from the border . we thought that this was barbaric, but we also knew as part of a larger economic system. fact thatssing is the u.s. foreign-policy both military and economic has created conditions where people need to migrate to survive so they come to the united states. it is also as a generation where corporations can send jobs

overseas and move money and factories across borders, but working people cannot cross borders. democrats andreet republicans that helped pass free trade agreements that devastated the economies in other countries. people are being restricted and the reason is because the bosses, the capitalist class of benefits when i have a workforce that is afraid. in the united states, american citizen workers lose out when their undocumented coworkers are living in fear of an ice raid and we know that employers like to divide people. part of their workforce is afraid, and makes it easier to exploit all of the workers. -- we believe that to -- ourigned abolish ice campaign is really meant to get at the root of the

problem and really point out the larger forces at play because the children being ripped from the arms of their parents and in inhumane conditions at the border is just the tip of the iceberg and there is a much bigger reason that this is happening and we need to highlight that because nobody else's. an independent in indianapolis. good morning. i find it interesting, everybody is a victim. that is the cornerstone of your thought. take a step back and look at the soviet union -- you think you know economics. but you know nothing but false degreesur in feminism, it is not so much -- you are not trying to do good, you just do not understand. up working when

you end up with a dictator like stalin, your system of economic development is built on venezuela. maybe you will think of your success one rerun -- when we run out of toilet paper. guest: our vision of democratic socialism is profoundly different. i would like to quote the famous socialist and union organizer, eugene v debs who said, "i would not be a moses to lead you into the promised land because then someone else would lead you back out." we profoundly believe that working people know how to run society because we not to do the work. our vision of socialism is bottom-up and democratic. what we do know is capitalism is not working. are drinkinglint

poison water, one in four children are in poverty in the richest country of the world -- it is clearly not working for everyone and we are channeling millions of people every day who go through the day was sore teeth because they do not have dental care, the millions of people who have the wes to bed hungry, so believe working people know how to run our society and we need to realize we have the power. host: willie is from michigan on the line for republicans. good morning. caller: yes, i am calling because i have been hearing a lot of stuff about the misplaced kids from different countries, but the government in the united states misplaced a lot of kids

that they have taken out of their houses and trying to figure out what is going on with that as far as getting them reunited with their family and changing some of the laws. host: do you want to take that up? guest: absolutely. i want to reiterate that the capitalist system as we have it now and the government that is run by capitalists is profoundly dangerous and violent towards american citizens, not just people who are not american citizens. uniteoblem is we need to with working people from other countries, we need to unite across our differences herein united states, people from different backgrounds and genders -- we need to unite together because i agree. mistreats ourtes own citizens and that is not going to change until we stand

up and make a change. organizer, the question i ask you boys who is benefiting from the situation we have now -- the question i ask people is to is benefiting from the situation we have now? that is how we are building a movement. host: robert is a democrat in new york. caller: good morning. , i just want to let you know that i am on your side and i have an idea that i want to run through you in order to make your point valid. i want you to make a video that shows two tables, one table has $50,000 on its which is what the average of what americans make, and i want you to put out 22% federal and 5% local taxes and show what a great percentage of that pay is. why do you want to do that?

caller: i wanted to add on but she is speaking. she is not speaking yet. on the second table, i want you to put a billion dollars down and i want you to show at the highest rates was an 5% and to show what a small amount of money that is and that the a l can pay a hell of theore in order to make idea that america is a place that people should not be living in. guest: thank you. i completely agree. the very wealthiest of this country, the .01% have set up workplaces in the economic system and to they can make out like bandits. the tax reform of the in decemberpassed

had a really small tax cut for americans and a huge tax cut for the wealthy and the tax cut for the average americans expires and the tax cut for the very wealthy does not expire. we know that trump is trying to pass a potentially illegal tax cut on capital gains that would put almost $100 billion back into the pockets of mostly of the very wealthy, and this is money that they make off of our backs. working people go to work every day, we work hard, then we get a little bit back for what we have contributed with our labor. boss gets most of the profits. when they accumulate that and then they reinvest in the casino economy, they accrue a billion dollars so they not only have a lot more money but they can paying the higher rates but they have made that money by taking it out of our pockets.

we can decide where our tax dollars go and it should not go to subsidize their expensive lifestyle. host: tom is a republican in l.a.. caller: good morning. i was listening to your program, but i have a quote from abraham lincoln. i will be brief. "therecertain truths, are certain truths that are true no matter how much the world may question or denied them. , youe economic world cannot legislate the port to freedom by legislating though wealthy out of it. peopleents cannot get to -- give to people what they do not first take away from people. and that which one man receives without working for another man must work for without receiving it. nothing can kill the initiative of a people quicker than

having to give the idea that they need not work because the other will feed them. ideather half to get the it does no good to work, does not see the rewards to your labors. maria? myst: my response to that is response to many things which is just think about who is benefiting from the system we have now. do you think employers want everybody to have a job? what happens of everybody has a job? people can say, actually, i do not want to keep only 25% of the wealth that i produce for you, i want to keep 50% or 75% to because i am doing the labor. the only thing you own is the workplace or the factory. employers benefit when there are a lot of people that do not have work. peopley benefit to the

or inraid of each other, competition with each other, so not only did they want a large reserve army of labor -- the people who cannot find work because the people who are working car easily exploited, but they also want to be able to pit people against each other. that the people is more lazy or they do not work as hard as you do. pit us against each other because it makes it easier to exploit all of us. i disagree that people do not want to work. most people want to live in dignity, they want jobs, and it tothe employer that wants benefits. they do not want us all to have jobs. host: about 20 minutes left with maria. special line for democratic

,ocialists, (202) 748-8003 before we get to some other calls, i wanted to ask you about the story from earlier. the incident at the mexican restaurant in washington dc where it homeland security chief christian nilsson -- kristjen neilsen were shouting at her during card dinner. there are members of the democratic socialists of america . is that the kind of tactic you support? guest: absolutely. doingur government is at the border is barbaric. what the government is doing to the children of flint is barbaric, and if we do not stand up, it is going to get worse. we believe that people have resorted to this kind of tactic because the institutions that middle-class people have been told will protect us like the

supreme court, congress, the white house come are very clearly not doing that and clearly being weaponized to b e used against poor people. the whole debate about civility misses the point which is that when they uncivil feel that their voices are not being heard. what sort of boundaries do you put on that when you talk about using it among the different groups? guest: we are nonviolent organization. we believe in civil disobedience and public pressure campaigns as one of the tools we use in addition to things like mass strikes. we really supported the strikes and west virginia because it was working people, public employees, and teachers withholding labor and saying we are going to stop right now until you give us what we need. welobby elected officials,

do public education events, and one of the things we do our going door to door and talking to people about their health care. we support medicare for all and when you knock on people's doors , our experience is that they are either not calm or the rare "healthts because our care system" is so dysfunctional and does not serve anyone's needs. we are nonviolent organization that we do not put all of our eggs in one basket. host: william is a democrat in knoxville, tennessee. caller: good morning. thank you very much for this program and thank you for all of your comments. i am a member of the democratic national committee. 50 years ago, i was saying the same things your guest was saying this morning. it is the same arguments.

i happen to disagree on the democratic national committee is not addressing some of these problems, we are addressing it. the country and the entire world would be much have hillary clinton be elected had folks gone out and voted for them. i wish they had have. the democratic party platform calls for medicare for all. we are calling for a $15 minimum wage, $15 an hour. the democratic party platform was the most liberal platform in the history of any major political party, soap only, i iink -- so personally, think the democratic party is the vehicle that we hope people to and help us win

some of these elections in this midterm and change the course of america. i would appreciate your comments. host: thanks for the call. guest: i want to say that many are democrats, the majority are registered democrats. vast majoritye would have preferred hillary clinton presidency and many voted, especially in swing states. that hillarys clinton was not able to inspire the kind of people and turn out that that we needed in that election and we have to ask ourselves why. many people in this country have not been listened to, have been by peopleidiculed inside the beltway including clinton and everyone who was running her campaign. that is what we are fighting against.

the democratic party might have a better platform now but we also see right now, bernie sanders is introducing a medicare for all bill in the senate and there is a medicare for all bill in congress for lots of sponsors. we also see other democrats half measures and claiming it is medicare for all and muddying the water. and saying that medicare extra is the same thing is medicare for all. that is simply not true. policy,rganizing around we want everybody and for health care system and we want nobody out. we have seen what happened with obamacare when some people got coverage and others did not. people still get care rationed based on their ability to pay, it means the trump administration is able to undermine access, it means the private industry and pharma is

able to make money off of denying people care, and the only alternative is real medicare for all. many of our members are in the democratic party. many of our members want to push the democratic party to the and many do not trust the party at all. we have one foot in and one foot out. we do not trust the institution. host: who are some of the specific members of the democratic party that you do not trust and that you think are introducing half measures and claiming victory? guest: i think there are multiple bills floating around now. i just heard the representative from new mexico talking about is medicare buy-in plan and he called it medicare for all. that is in a deliberate attempt to muddy the waters. we saw paul krugman wrote

times"for the "new york writing this idea that the medicare for all means expanded care and that is not true. universal program that everybody is in, we need a program weather is not an insurance executive between you and your doctor, and we need a program that takes health care out of the private marketplace. the problem is this is 20% of the economy and we take it away, there's going to be a huge fights and all of the democrats that are getting money from the insurance industry are big pharma are not going to support us. that is why we have to build a movement. we are building a grassroots army of people. we are building the grassroots politicized base that bernie sanders talked about in the last election. we are talking to people who have not been voting. we are talking to poor people,

working-class people, who feel the system is completely ignoring them. toare organizing tenants stand up to their landlords, we are out in communities talking to folks and people are really ready for a change and they are not organized. when we talk to people on their doors, even people who have health insurance now are the satisfied because it is really expensive, there are lots of gs thatand gotcha thin the insurance companies do to you to make it difficult, and if we had a medicare for all system that was truly universal, it would be simple, efficient, high quality, and everybody would get the care that they need. are totallyterests poisoning our political system and that is why part of our job aboutialists is to talk the difference between fake medicare for all and real medicare for all.

host: one of those members of your movement is tim, in maryland. caller: good morning, how are you all doing today? host: doing well. guest: i love your energy and your passion. -- caller: i love your energy and your passion. point are talking about a to where abolish isa and how do you do that and how does the point is you want to win and you want to get your candidates to win, change around to reshape ice and then bring people into the movement to can then market and package that and change it around so that -- because you are trying to get at that root cause. you are trying to get at that cause to where the problem is not the people on the ground who away, itng to be taken is the people who are controlling that. it means to be reshaped and the needs to be done in a way that

is more considerate and passionate because we do need to control our borders, but the way that we are doing it now, has to be done in a different way. win, instead of abolish, reshape. host: thanks for the call. guest: will completely agree with you, the messaging is really important. many people in this country are concerned about jobs in the united states, but we are a democratic socialist calling out capitalisticof the system and ice and the whole immigration apparatus is the problem. if we're really talking about the root of the problem, and we are willing to say the capital system is totally indif ensible, we also need to say that about the immigrations and customs enforcement. it is really related to ions of ourand eros

civil liberties, it is not just about ripping children from their parents hands. theoke earlier about broader picture around the immigration system about how the global capitalist class benefits about having a system with borders open to money, but not people. we need to bring that message to more people because i believe pretty fundamentally that working people know that we have are fundamentally different from the owning class and we are taught to be afraid of each other, economic nationalism and anti-immigrant ideas are pretty american as apple pie. when it gets right down to it, we all know we are trying to get by and that is why you saw those images of children at the border, it's really resonated with what you saw with democratic politicians with ice.

we have created a whole set of systems to control people and if we are willing to challenge capitalism itself, we also need to a challenge -- to challenge the idea of ice. ice is just part of the whole prison industrial system. in jail andgrants the we have this whole segment of society that does not have jobs and the bosses benefit from that -- it is the same system. we have people who are locked away and if they do ever get out of jail, they are not allowed to vote. it is all a part of a system where the very wealthy want to keep us divided, afraid, and if neede willing and if we to challenge the economic system, when to talk about these bigger forces at play.

i appreciate what you are saying , but a chapter had a protest outside of a company that is toufacturing surveillance that is ane, and agency being used against immigrants but could be used against any of us in the future so we have a common interest and supporting them in solidarity. host: michael has been waiting, tennessee, republican. go ahead. caller: good morning. i want to know two things for clarification. i know during the democratic primary, there is lots of conflict between the burning supporters and hillary supporters in regards to the to social issues and economic issues. how much of them are determined by poverty and i was wondering if you could clarify that?

, in regardsd thing to social benefits and open borders, bernie sanders himself that openvox article borders would lead it to the press to wages are too much pressure on a generous welfare system. was wondering how you would address that and make sure that a generous welfare system would not be overloaded. guest: the first question is contrasting noneconomic systems of domination in our m,ciety, like sexism and racis and how it relates to economic exploitation where bosses can organize people in workplaces f your labor and

you cannot control that. i believe they are directly related to each other and employers divide people based on any category they can think of. ender, but ageor g and and anything else, and they go after the weakest people and break down the bonds of solidarity. i will point out that this country was founded on genocide,d and and then we build our economic system on the back of slave labor that forcibly were imported from africa. into the baked capitalist system and as a woman, sexism plays a huge part. i'mexpected to clean house, expected to bear children and take care of children and my parents when i get older, and those are all things that and a democratic socialist society, we could actually say that not only

should women not to bear the burden of that, but we should not have to bear the burden of taking care of our younger, elderly, and sick. france, theres in are social programs where the wealthy pay taxes, and then people get things like time off of work to take care of newborns, and a paid sick time, so we believe we need to take into account different kinds of oppression and how capitalism interacts with them and thinking about the public policy we are promoting. the question about open borders. that our analysis is the very wealthy, the people who own the means of production, they benefits when they can pit people against each other. the reason that we have very bad social services is because it has been systematically defunded by the right winged

-- by the right wing for the last 40 years. taxes for the very wealthy have been cut for the last 40 years. working people are working carter and harder, productivity is going up, but the employers are keeping all of the benefits. they are not taking that money they are taking in to create new jobs because they want there to be a lot of unemployed people and come position between unemployed people. they are not using that to pay for the kind of services we need as a society. they are not using it to pay for the kind of thing like more health care, better infrastructure, better roads, more teachers pay an adequate wage -- they are not investing money. another thing i heard bernie sanders say, he pointed out that it is not the immigrant workers

that are deciding to move factories overseas, it is the bosses and that is our real target. is the director of the national democrats socialists of america. guest: thanks for having me. host: 25 minutes before our program ends at 10:00. it is open phones, phone lines for republicans, democrats, and your screen.on you can start calling now for any public policy issue you want to talk about. we will get the calls after the break. congressionalt, historians richard baker, donald richie, and ray smock. >> one of the questions i have people asking all the time -- is this the most uncivil time in history? >> it is going to be close if you were to pick another period,

the years leading to the civil war when i house member came senator in 1856 because he disagreed with what he said and a lot of senators cheer that on. musical that alexander hamilton was shot by the sitting vice president of the united states, that is dramatic. >> there was a brawl in 1858 led 80the civil war members rolling around on the floor, fighting one another. one of the members who had a wig, one of the members anded his wig off, someone else yelled, he scalped him! and that was enough levity to stop the fight. >> the congressional historians sunday night at 8:00 eastern on q&a.

where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's companies andon today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington dc and around the country. c-span was brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. washington journal continues. it is open phones on the washington journal, public policy issues you want to talk about, the phone lines are yours. we are letting you lead the conversation in the last 20 minutes. phone lines for republicans, (202) 748-8001, democrats, (202) 748-8000, independents (202) 748-8002.

we talked about this story earlier today, the trial getting underway for former trump campaign manager paul manafort happening just across the river in alexandria, virginia. trial, president trump has not shied away from talking about the trial. fewas on twitter just a minutes ago saying, "paul manafort worked for ronald reagan, bob dole, and other prominent and respected political leaders. he worked for me for a very short time. government tell me that he was under investigation? is what the president had to say. he was at a rally in florida of e of voter id and

the ability to prove who you are at the polls, here is president from the rally last night and florida. pres. trump: in some states, democrats are even trying to give illegal immigrants the right to vote. booing] about allp: what those people that are waiting in line for 7, 8, 9, 10 years. trying to get into our country, they do not have the right. we believe that only american citizens should vote in american elections. cheering] pres. trump: which is why the time has come for voter id like everything else. [applause] if you go out and you want to

buy groceries, you need a picture on a card. you need id. you go out and you want to buy anything, you need id and you need your picture. in this country, the only time you do not need it is when you want to vote for a president, when you want to vote for a senator, when you want to vote for a governor or a congressman. it is crazy. speaking about voting in the upcoming elections, here is a story focusing on facebook removing 32 fake pages and accounts. the social network uncovering a push to disrupt the midterms. pages and accounts created between march 2017 and 2018, law enforcement is currently investigating those to see if there's any ties to russia. on that front, the senate select committee on intelligence is holding a meeting today.

be committee is going to hearing testimony from third-party social media experts today. check c-span.org for our coverage and timing for that hearing. on the washington journal, what do you want to talk about? pam is up first calling from california, line for republicans. caller: hi, the reason i wanted to call and i make the same statement every time i call, and eventually someone will remember what i'm saying and quoting, am quoting from a tax letter and the issue from october 2017. i wanted to address this comment to your previous guest -- the pay10% of the wage earners 70% of the income tax collected. the top 10% pay 70% of the income tax collected.

they make about 47% of the income that is created each year. the bottom 50% of the wage theers, the bottom half of wage earners pay less than 3%, something like 2.83% of the income tax that is collected. think we have a very progressive income tax and the reason that more people at the top got tax breaks under the byent tax modifications president trump is because they are the ones paying the tax. wage earnersf the are paying 70% of the income tax that is collected. -- it is very hard to give a tax break to the bottom 50% because they are already paying less than 3% of the

income tax collected. citing figures from the internet, i am looking got the tax letter and they are getting their information from the irs. host: thanks for calling. nathan in connecticut, a democrat. caller: thank you. i want to tell you a couple of things, this is the best show on tv. guests is of your so broad. the skill of the moderators like you, john, and people get the call in and express themselves. i learned so much. i'm hoping another listener could call in, what i would have , who wasia absolutely brilliant, she used the phrase of the casino economy am i want to know where that

came from. and the two-party system and the electoral college is failed our country and the rest of the world thinks so, also. just that i want to echo and support, it was unfair for democratic socialist to run for the democratic party nomination. love, should have been the democratic socialist candidate because he is not a democrat. asked maria wyatt is fair -- maria, why is it fair that a democratic socialist -- host: before you go, if he had done that, would you have supported him over hillary clinton and donald trump?

supportedwould've hillary because i am a democrat but i am a far left democrat, and i do agree that hillary would have done a much superior job by and large as president. host: nathan in connecticut. in pennsylvania, independent. caller: hi. one of the problems whenever you have somebody who is usually professing democratic socialist, and i happen to believe in genuine democratic socialism myself, is that they on always very vague a exactly what they plan on doing and how to pay for the programs they want to implement. host: did you feel that way

about maria in the last segment? caller: slightly, actually enjoyed her a lot. is very focused and her answers to most of the objections and criticisms which is way better than what you usually get. she was very sensible, very same rational.nd in my opinion, it should not be so much about emotional, although that is important. it is about the rationality of it. this is a sensible point of view. it is a centrist point of view if you understand it correctly but that is not usually presented that way. i do not want you to cut me off, but basically, a very detailed plan and answers to most of these problems is set forth in a

comprehensive perspective for it at my blog site, the blog for the perplexed, i recommend people go to it. carolyn is in georgia, line for democrats. caller: it is hard to follow mariauy, but i think presented some of the issues and concerns we have as a nation about what is going on in the white house. i also believe that we do not have a republican in the white house, we have someone that is acting independently in self interest. all of the propaganda he is promoting about immigrants and voter id -- we have always had to have an id. you cannot walk in without some kind of id.

-- i amjust refreshed by the person you becauserlier, maria, she had deep ideas and views that have not been shared at on my favorite channels of cnn and msnbc. thank you for your subject today. martin, an independent. caller: hi, this is marvin. can you hear me? host: yes, sir. caller: thank you, i appreciate the show. s -- i personally do not like the president personally, however, the things he has been doing have been productive.

nobody gives him credit, except himself, of course. ain, i have to talk to people who are buisness peop le and again, i have to agree with them. he has been making a right point . tpp, trying to get out of these other trade things that are terrible, he is finally bringing to the floor how people are getting their businesses out of the united states. so thank you very much, i do appreciate c-span. host: marvin come are you worried about a trade war? caller: as long as it does not get to shooting, i could not care less. host: frank is in bayside, new york. i would like to meet a comment about maria, maybe give her a tip.

there is no way that anybody is going to follow her as long as she has that socialist word in her bio. people are afraid of that word. once they hear socialist, they think communism and everything else forget -- and everything else. agree with a lot of them, but if she wants to really catch on, that word must be dropped. host: what ideas that you agree with? medicare for all, i've been in the health care business for 20 years and i've seen the dark side of the medical business. it is a business. why not put everybody on medicare, take the money out of their check just like you do for and itivate insurances,

will be less because the whole country is paying for it. what is wrong with that? host: to william in florida, line for republicans. caller: i tried to call in when maria was on the air but i did not get through. maria has her finger on the butc problems in america, one thing she did not address no one seems to address is human nature. the reason that the t system works is there is always going to be a certain number of people who have a drive to succeed and those people are going to work their way to the top one way or another. obviously did not have any answer for that and never would have an answer for that, it is just a part of human nature. you cannot change human nature.

she had a good, foundation of what was really wrong. power inunions came to the 1950's and 1960's, they have had their own problems with corruption and becoming involved in the political process, etc., which i believe is one of the main reasons it led to the decline of the unions. host: joe in west virginia, a democrat. caller: yes, i thought maria did a good job and i supported bernie sanders for the ntial, but i agree with the callers. on thethe callers feedback for maria has agreed that she has good points and they are both democrats, republicans, and independents. listen, people. you need to get out and vote.

maria does have her finger on the button, but i agree with the socialist because we have been brainwashed. that socialism is the same as communism. communism is not the same as socialism because we have never communism even because most of them turned out to be dictatorships. vote and hillary clinton was not a good candidates for most of us but she would have been better than this guy we have. i would appreciate it if everybody would just go vote. host: joe, do you think the joe manchin will win in your state? we lost joe. mary from texas, go ahead. i am concerned about the lack of concern of people of faith who are

significant portion of voters and we cannot to vote republican because of the greed on the republican side, we cannot vote on the democratic they seemedause to disregard our issue of standards of behavior and want to push things like lgbtq into our public schools, and i think we need respect. a littlem without bit of socialism becomes communism. we have to have socialism without a bit of capitalism, because it also becomes communism. we need people of faith respected in their beliefs addressed. host: seth in tennessee, republican. caller: good morning. i just wanted to make a quick comment. i like your show and everything,

but i would like to see andrew mccabe's investigation into jeff sessions and here's why. strzok stayed in washington dc in march and i am pretty sure there is a text message of peter mentioning jeff sessions to get him to recuse, thanks, and have a great day. host: the president bring up both individuals and his tweets from less than an hour ago saying that, fbi agent peter stzrok on the miller team should have recused himself on day one. he was out to stop the election of donald trump and should have never ever been a loud to remain and the fbi well being investigated. this is a real issue the president said. interest ofthe

creating the illusion of objectivity around his investigation. alan dershow -- howitz, the president tweeted. a terrible, this is situation and ag jeff sessions. this rigged witchhunt right now before continues to stain our country any further. wheeler is conflicted and his 17 anger democrats, a disgrace. that is what he said. stan is in michigan, go ahead. caller: i just wanted to say ,hat your previous guest, maria that would not pass the truth and labeling test. if you listen to her punch words, she is clearly a communist. clearly a communist. she is not a socialist.

socialists and europe, so that is my statement. host: eric, at west hollywood, california. good morning. caller: good morning. in los angeleser and semantics comes to mind with the gay marriage fight. ton we changed the the term marriage equality to catch on, and someone was saying that 's term of socialism, it is not going to work in mainstream america -- and i wonder if it is just semantics. parity and equality need to be -- in terms of single-payer -- callingp shar health insurance, parity and eq uality, does that work better? there was a michael moore

documentary, where private education was being illegal, do we need parity? the most expensive elite adult and prep school in in manhattan to non-charter public pupil per year spending, so we need educational parity. need to be insurance in a utility status where someone can be in the red so many years and then the black for some years the way the u.s. postal service is? the socialism the word need to be changed into something else, semantics? all of these issues, are we fighting over semantics? host: as a member, would you be willing to drop the "s" from dsa? caller: democratic association? host: yeah, but how would you rename the democratic socialists

of america? caller: how would i rename it? i do not know. our lastt is eric, caller on the "washington pick of the we will conversation tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. have a great wednesday. ♪ host [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] an hour, up in half active environmental protection agency administrator andrew wheeler will testify on capitol hill for the first time since becoming the new epa administrator. scott pruitt left the agency early in july. that hearing of the senate environment and public works committee scheduled for 10:30 a.m. eastern live on c-span.

this afternoon, the associate nasa administrator for the science mission director is among the witnesses at a senate commerce and science subcommittee hearing. that is that 2:30 p.m. eastern, also live on c-span. sunday night on "q&a," congressional historians. >> one of the questions that i hear people ask all the time, is this the most uncivil time in history? >> certainly the years leading to the civil war, when a house amber came over and caned member because he disagreed with what he said and a lot of senators cheered on the house member. >> the shooting of alexander hamilton -- he was shot by the sitting vice president o