talks about education secretary changes to help colleges handle sexual misconduct complaints. and we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter as well. "washington journal" is next. is next. host: welcome to "washington journal." a new federal government report that has been mandated by congress says climate dangers in the u.s. and around the world are intensifying, affecting our communities, our lives, infrastructure, and the economy. if you have not seen this fourth national climate assessment, we are going to give you some information this first hour of the washington journal. we want to get your reaction to the report and to the headline, on the dangers intensifying in

the u.s. democrats, call (202) 748-8000. republicans (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002. if not by phone, you can weigh in on social media. handle. is our twitter place yous another can post your thoughts. the fourth national climate assessment, you can google this. it will come up through various sources. it talks about impact risks and adaptation in the u.s. there is an overview. one of the sections talks about our communities and says climate change creates new risks for us motorasperates existing abilities throughout u.s. to human health and safety and the

rate of economic growth. some say as much as 10% could come off the u.s. economy by the end of this century. lots of reporting on this report that came out yesterday. i'm a dangers intensifying throughout the u.s. rights the washington post. in unmistakable message, the effects of climate change, including deadly wildfires, debilitating hurricanes, and he waves are battering -- heat waves are battering the u.s. authors are increasingly sure that climate change causes -- contrast to stark the lack of any plan from president trump to tackle the problem.

mandatedessionally documented, the first of its time issued during the trump administration, details how climate disasters are becoming more commonplace throughout the country and how much worse they could become. of impacts ofst climate change according to this congressionally mandated report that came out from the federal government, the trump administration. it is already happening, they write. temperatures in the u.s. are 1.8 degrees higher than 100 years ago. seas are nine inches higher on average. worse thanare much 50 years ago, and wildfires are burning up ever larger areas. detail from the

this federal government report. calls coming in already on this. bernie, what is your reaction to what you have heard so far? caller: good morning. i think fema should be in california, but it is a blue state, so the president does not care. we can build detention centers for children, but we cannot help california. fema should have been there with trailers. should not be on the border. they should be helping put out even if itlifornia, means giving them rakes. the president does not want to do it. this era?ongress in host: we have talked about the white house a little bit, but where do you see lack of action from congress? what do you want to see

specifically? caller: i would like to see congress get off its butt and do something. they can pass the laws, aid bills, whether it is florida where i lived with hurricanes or anywhere on the coast. because of climate change, more severe storms, higher winds, more heat. as you said, the temperature in this country has gone up. the winds have gotten worse. the storms have gotten worse. where is congress protecting our citizens with bills that guarantee the federal government will send aid immediately and did not that people are not just dying because of these tragedies? host: let's hear from robert here in washington, d.c. good morning, robert. the scorched-earth

policy, something about global warming and how the earth was getting hotter and hotter. atently, i was looking internet is, and i saw 11 atomic bomb tests that had been exploded. 220 aboveas done like ground nuclear tests. if that doesn't change our atmosphere, i don't think nothing else will. it is not going to be any greenhouse gases. when i saw one of those videos, it brought nightmares, real nightmares. hasof 220, the u.s. alone done over 200 tests. that would change the climate. host: robert here in washington, d.c. wall street journal has this picture. the headline says efforts to

counteract the effects of wildfires are falling short. all told, 17 of the last 18 warmest years on record have occurred since 2000. report warns that economic being from climate change felt across the country, and u.s. economic losses totaling hundreds of billions of dollars per year. many companies and communities are trying to contract the effects of rising temperatures to worsenings wildfires. line fromm on the florida. good morning. caller: good morning. bestt want to say the scientists are saying climate

change is real, and i cannot believe the president and the republicans are saying it is a hoax. who are you going to believe? professional scientists or professional liars, i mean politicians. they just lie. it is not only here in the u.s. and california, it is around the world. we pay the price. millions of people are dying around the world. this is no joke. this is serious. what can be done about it do you think? needs to brings in a professional scientists, not professional liars like politicians. manyay people die, 77, how lose their houses?

caller was correct. send troops. instead of sending those troops to the border, which we are to have immigration -- already have immigration, send them to california. it makes sense. help the american people. think about it. who is in the caravan? are you kidding me? host: thank you. judith from texas. your reaction so far? caller: what i have noticed so far is that elected republicans seem to know more about climate change than all the scientists. i think this might be based on

the power of the fossil fuel industry contributions to the republicans. i wonder what you would think about that. host: let's see what some other viewers think about that. we welcome your calls. this report put out by a group of agencies. they do this every four years. if you want to learn more about your part of the country, usa today has a helpful map that talks about the various regions of the country. they talk about the northwest and say that according to the report, increasing wildfires are affecting human health, water, timber, recreation. plains,orthern great droughts, extreme heat are affecting ranchers and farmers. great heatest,

waves. we will go to more of those regions in a moment. good morning, deborah. caller: good morning. one of my concerns about climate is not looking at the root cause. our planet is 4.5 billion years old. it is only the last 10,000 years that climate has been stable. on mars, every year the polar caps shrink by 10 feet. we have two things. we have something we cannot control, which is one of the reasons we have so much controversy. we are not talking about the science of what we can control. what we can control is overpopulation and methane, which is animal agriculture. we can control deforestation and

co2. we only talk about co2. we don't talk about the science of why we are at this point. it would be political suicide to tell people around the world that we are not supposed to eat so much meat. we are not designed as homo sapiens to eat so much meat. until we actually address the science behind what is going on, we are going to have these problems. all we are ever going to do is just talk about it. host: what do you mean address the science? what is not happening that could be happening? caller: we need to talk about methane. animals produce methane. as a result of that, that is negatively impacting the atmosphere. host: i understand the points you made about the various aspects of science, but who is not discussing it enough right now here in washington?

i have not heard anyone talk about animal agriculture. your show does not bring scientists on and say what about overpopulation? we breathe out co2, breathe in go to. -- o2. i don't hear anybody talking about overpopulation. host: i'm sure we will be talking about it further. thank you for calling. angie is on the line from alabama, democratic line. caller: good morning. i tried to tell everybody this was coming back in 2010. i was left off the internet and told i was crazy. people are still voting for the gop, and they are drinking chemicals in their water in texas and everywhere else. i told everybody to get the water and food ready, and i was laughed at. you will need to do something

about who you are voting for if you want anything to change. it is going to get worse and worse. since 2014, taking you through the rest of the country, they talk about the southeast u.s., extreme rainfall is increasing flooding in louisiana. nations, one of the worst natural disasters. in the southwest, drought reduced nevada's lake mead by over half its 2000. the hawaiian islands, coral bleaching killed 50% of the coral cover in hawaii. recovery from hurricanes were worsened by transportation.

there is a brief bit about alaska. unpredictable weather and environmental changes are affecting the physical and mental health of rural alaskans. you can read thatthere is a brit alaska. today. we covered a global climate action summit this past september. we have a couple of pieces for you. we are going to start with michael bloomberg, former mayor of new york, who talked about the trumpet energy policy. trump energy the policy. [video clip] tofrom rising sea levels storms and wildfires, this year bloomberg philanthropies challenge to the 100 biggest u.s. cities to cut emissions from transportation and buildings. over the course of this fall, we will announce the winners, starting tomorrow. we are helping states great

plains to get more energy from clean sources, and we will continue working with the beyond coal campaign. lotould do a lot more a faster with support from the federal government. instead, the administration is inflicting real harm on america. according to the epa's own estimate, the new coal pollution rules just proposed would lead to more than 1400 premature deaths each year. i doubt those rules will ever go into effect because cities and states are fighting back. california is leading a group of states that are resisting federal rollbacks to fuel efficiency standards that neither automakers nor consumers want. other states are sending their own rules to reduce methane leaks from oil and gas operations. cities around the country are cutting climate emissions

through energy efficiency. we are going to keep fighting. we are going to keep winning. in thison-americans room, thank you for not giving up on us. we're going to do it no matter what obstacles washington tries to throw in our way. keep up all the great work you have been doing. i look forward to seeing new efforts and partnerships come out of this forum that will keep us on the path to victory in the fight against climate change. all the best. we are going to win. host: former new york mayor michael bloomberg at that climate action summit in september. kathlyn has been on hold. the morning. caller: good morning. in 1900, most families if they had a car, it was one car. they managed to get to work and

school and medical appointments by planning trips. it is not unusual for individuals and families to have two or more cars. the government could add a carly tax of $1000 on each over the basic one car. the extra dollars collected could be used, invested in solar, wind, and water energy. host: thank you for calling. mike is on the line from ohio. good morning. of smokeou have heard and mirrors, but actually what we have got is smoke and diesel mirrors. after the patriot act and the bush doctrine, and the citizens united case, what we have ended up with is a disney production

wrapped around a fascist twilight zone. host: what are you saying? tell us that in your english. and citizensmoney, united was pretty much fascist united corporate interests. as long as that dark money and corporate interest around fascist ideas like mussolini, this is the way it is going to be. how are you going to counteract all this crooked dark money when it does nothing for the citizens? have a good day. to nina in florida. what part of florida are you in? caller: the panhandle area. host: your reaction to this report? caller: i am commenting on the

callers calling in expecting the federal government to do everything. it is really up to the states, like in florida mexico beach just got wiped out. i guarantee you they will let them rebuild on that water for the next hurricane. until the states start making laws to get these people away from the water, it is nice to say i have a $1 million home at the beach, when the hurricane comes, we all suffer because people have to leave. i think it is up to the states. we cannot keep depending on the federal government to bail us out of everything. thank you. host: the website of the washington times, trump administration releases national climate assessment with dire warning. here is the front page of the new york times. this saturday morning, u.s. climate study has grim warnings

of economic risk. is a home in the path of the wildfire in paradise, california. a volunteer helping flood victims in north carolina. they are citing this new report, saying climate change is taking a heavy toll on the economy. this is the second volume of the national climate assessment, which the federal government is required by law to produce every four years. the first volume was issued last year. the previous report concluded with nearly as much scientific certainty but not precision on the economic cost that the tangible impacts of climate change had already started to cause damage across the country. it cited water scarcity, torrential downpours, severe heat waves and wildfires. they write the result helped

inform the obama administration as it wrote landmark climate change regulations. the epa finalized president policy,signature energy slash climate changing the missions. in 2016, republicans in general and mr. trump campaigned against those regulations. mr. trump vowed to and what he called mr. obama's war on coal. since winning the election, his administration has moved decisively to roll back environmental regulations. the report puts the most for sy's price deck to date on the cost of the u.s. economy of projected climate impacts. 140 $1 billion from heat related deaths.

$32 billion from infrastructure damage by the end of the century. we have ron on the line from michigan. you are a democrat. thank you for waiting. what do you think? caller: an observation from the new york times this summer about the last workout born. -- orca born. prematurely born. she carried that baby for 10 days to show the world the seas are dead. fast, thisold to it planet is doomed. thank you. maryland,o to independent color. what is your first name?

caller: mansa. host: go ahead. caller: climate change is natural. that is what the climate does. rain, snow, cold weather, hot weather. it is natural for the climate to change. what people are implying is that snows causing it to rain, for the weather to get hot. i don't agree with that. people that are trying to go from a war economy to collecting money for admissions, charging people for breathing. i think technology they are trying to keep secret as well as causing a lot of those fires, the microwave technology and the

being technology -- laser beam technology they are using out there. they are causing conditions in the climate by using this weather modification technology in secret. that is why when i hear these kind of reports, they sound like used-car salesman trying to sell you something. that is why they are so certain about the future of the weather because they have the weather modification technology. google it. these weather modification technologies they are using against you to try to push, to try to change the economy from a war economy to collecting money. host: thank you. we have mike from minnesota. caller.ent

go ahead. what do you think? caller: i am sitting here and laughing at the comments this morning. there is a variety of comments. i will tell you that. the one woman that was talking about florida, panama city had the right idea. building intop flood zones, we will have the time there is a storm. the same thing in houston. all those houses that were flooded in houston were built on a floodplain. they were first told they were not supposed to build on the floodplain. then it was ok for them to build on the floodplain. host: you mentioned florida and some of the coastal areas. what about inland california where the fires are continuing to rage? what about the midwest, where they see drought on a regular basis? caller: i don't think there is

anything you can do about drought. that is something that is going to happen regardless of what we're doing as human beings. i agree with the caller that said instead of the president yelling at people for not taking care of the forests, he should instead army out there of at the mexican border. they should be doing something that is helping everyone. host: more of your calls in a moment. some facebook comments. ben writes, where is the proof except when the computer says? back,says, let me go there it is, climate science tells us that in california fires were more intense and frequent in 1850. if you want people to believe science, you have to accept the inconvenient truths too.

we are living the proof of climate change. politicians are still paid to deny the truth. lie like a rug. we will read more in this next half hour. we will hear from richard trumped up, the president of the afl-cio. he was at the global climate change summit in september. [video clip] leavemate strategies that plansiner's pension bankrupt and construction workers making less than they do now, plans that devastate communities today well offering vague community promises about the future, they are more than unjust. they fundamentally undermine the

power of the political coalition needed to address the climate crisis. [applause] our enemies use these plans to divide us. to feednt to them politics of division and fear that threaten our entire democracy. i understand that many are frustrated with the pace of action on climate change. industriesnding that and projects be stopped or shutdown with no plans for the people that are put out of work, sacrifice, shared and no dialogue or solidarity with those whose lives and communities are dependent on

carbon-based fuel, that poisons the political well and slows meaningful action on climate change. it is not good enough to simply call for the end to carbon emissions. we have a responsibility to think thoughtfully and strategically about how to .ctually make that change as a labor movement, we are ready to move faster. what does that require? it requires people like you and me sitting down to figure out how we fund and invest in technology and workers and communities that can build a sustainable economy of radley shared prosperity. host: more of your comments on

facebook. jody writes, if you cannot tell the weather is more extreme, you don't spend much time outdoors. not until the 1990's didn't stay above 100 for a month. that was jodey. have brock on the line, a republican. good morning. if republicans and democrats cannot control a $21 trillion debt, how can they control climate change? until the people in that building behind you start worshiping the creator instead of the creation, they will never be able to control the climate. thank you. host: thank you for calling. rob is on the line in north carolina, independent. caller: i hope everybody had a happy thanksgiving. thank you for taking my call.

geology shows us that hundreds of thousands of years ago, we had one super continent. over the last 200,000 years, we have gone through an ice age, and the level of the ocean is ,aising about 200 or 400 feet and we have had bridges between the continents, and we had the ice bridge that melted on the coast and allowed the population in from alaska and china 12,000 years ago. if we do not have the paris climate accord during those times, and we are not superheated about it politically, i wonder why nature, the world, and man, which we know we have been here about 50,000 years, why we haven't destroyed the world yet without a little political intervention that we are so

hyped up about right now. let's take care of some real problems. that is my question. host: in rhode island, democratic caller, william. what is your reaction? caller: this is what i think is causing climate change. every country we have has mass population today. if there are more people in each country burning more wood, more , thathatever they can use is causing pollution. it is that simple. alcohol we pute in our cars is using more energy to burn the corn to make this fuel. doing any better for us. it is really hurting the atmosphere.

is what ision hurting this country as far as climate change. they let you build in california and these hillsides, it is foolish. the people that build in flood zones, i will tell you what i think. month.ch went up this they should be made to pay more for their insurance, not the rest of the country. not everybody. if they live in these dangerous areas and want to have -- i showed the area where paradise burned, it looks like a trailer park from up above. california is really in the dark about not clear cutting and they wonder why they have fires. now they are worried about mudslides. we cannot take care of all these people. if they don't have good

management in their towns and cities, that is their fault. that is their problem. i am telling you it is overpopulation that uses everything we need more. more of everything. it is overpopulation. thank you. host: william from rhode island. chicago tribune speaks to the report. they show a soybean farmer in illinois last summer. that rising temperatures in the midwest projected to be the largest contributor factor to the declines in u.s. agriculture productivity. midwest farmers will increasingly be challenged by warmer, wetter, and more humid conditions from climate change, which will lead to crop disease and more tests. during the growing season,

temperatures are expected to climb in the midwest or than any other region in the midwest. alan from little rock, arkansas, good morning. good morning. good morning, everyone. happy thanksgiving. without to mention being specific that i have got academic credentials that i think would match most of the aboutthat keep talking climate change as fact. my complement to those folks that have argument calling in with impressive information i did not know. i wanted to offer an analogy about comparing some things i have seen on c-span. wikipedia program a couple years ago, just their

conference near san diego, i believe. they had a native american spokesperson that was involved in a tribal group. how they had an oral tradition talking about their island communities where they live that were now underwater and had been underwater for 300 years. we know that this water level thing has been happening for a long time. one other comparison in the mediterranean, there are flights of steps that anyone can travel and see they were built at a time when they were not underwater, but there are many steps that are underwater in the mediterranean, which is the atlantic. ofhave seen this progression ocean level rise over time, but

500 years ago, it is been occurring for the last 2000 years that we can document my point is if the folks on the left who push the climate change agenda, if they just take the tax out of it, we would be happy to talk to them. it is all based on ripping us off, the u.s., not india or ,hina, to rip off our country hobble us with this scam of tax to diminish the usa -- usa. twitter, touching on what our last caller just said, that sea levels have always been rising, that the glaciers have been receiving for thousands of

years and will continue. from president trump, a tweet about global warming. extendedpproval and cold last could break records, whatever happened to global warming? he said this is the coldest weather in the history of the thanksgiving day parade in new york city. we have reaction from congress. sanders.enator bernie the trump administration tried on climateew report change. he is talking about it being released on the friday after thanksgiving. he says, our task is clear. we must immediately and dramatically reduce carbon pollution emissions. alexandria ocasio-cortez, the newly elected democratic member of the house from new york city, people are going to die if we don't start addressing climate change as soon as possible.

urgent.make it that is why we need a select committee on a green new deal and why fossil fuel funded officials should not be writing climate change policy. , arerkey of massachusetts most critical challenge that human civilization changes. our best scientists are sending up an emergency fair. we need to take action now. politico has this story about the diary report. the headline says hans ammunition to democrats. officials warned that changes in the climate will disrupt every region of the country in coming years. echoing decades of sobering conclusions from the world's leading climate scientists. despite the timing, the report

is bound to energize the new class of democrats said to take control in january. many of them are pushing for a new green deal. rather than hiding the facts, president trump should heed the message of our preeminent climate scientist. that is from the congressman of new jersey. he added that days of the nile and -- denial and inaction are over. that is in politico. victor has been waiting. caller: good morning. i have been hearing this for the last 30 years. we are going to die if we don't do this or that. these people like al gore living in their mansions, flying in

airplanes, i don't believe a word they say. i have a name for these people. watermelons, green on the outside, red on the inside. i am sick and tired of them. what do you do. i like global warming because it will not snow. as a blind man, i don't want to walk in snow. if you are so concerned about carbon and everything, stop breathing. host: victor mentioning al gore. president trump of burying the climate change report on black friday. whose 2006 documentary an inconvenient truth warned of the effects of climate change.

he has said deadly tragic andfires rage in the west, the trunk administration chooses the friday after thanksgiving to try to bury this climate change report. his own experts have made it as stark and clear as possible. bob is calling from the republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. host: good morning. you are welcome. ple to: i wanted peo understand that there was this perception for many years that if we poured tax money into subsidies for renewable energy that they would get better and more efficient at their business, and that they would innovate. the opposite has been true. gas to aize oil and tune of one dollar per kilowatt

hour, which seems outrageous when you think about the cost of what a barrel of oil and natural gas until you look at the subsidy for wind. the subsidy for wind is about $33 per kilowatt hour. outrage is solar. subsidy about $65 of per kilowatt hour. the perception has been if we just give these people money, they will innovate and get better. the opposite has happened. they become fat and happy. we just for that money, and they sit back and take it in. if they are going to innovate, they are going to have to do it without our taxpayer money. i understand fossil fuels are finite. they eventually run out. we have to get to the point over , buts, but -- renewables

those people will not innovate unless we take away subsidies. will have tome, we burn fossil fuels. it is the most efficient way for all of us to get back and forth from work, to school, to get things to the marketplace on and on. the people that cry about climate change, until you have a viable solution, all you are doing is crying. all you're doing is crying. we have to have practical means for our economy to thrive. of pouring money into subsidies for wind and solar has just made all those people fat and happy. they will not innovate. they will not innovate until we take away subsidies. some genius in a garage .omewhere necessity is the mother of invention.

up with theho come innovative ideas will not be the ones that are fat and happy. they will be the ones that are starving somewhere, working in some garage to come up with a genius idea. you will not get that if you keep pouring money onto these people so they can put these solar panels on their roof. it seems such a waste of time. what do you think? host: let's hear what some of our viewers think about what bob has to say. good morning, gary. caller: good morning. happy thanksgiving to everybody. to that last man that spoke, i would say there is no sense in being stupid unless you show it. in 1978, noaa said the

weather was going to become more erratic and extreme. what is your mission statement down there at c-span? host: why do you ask? caller: i think you could show aent bullets from an m-16 and mm round, and that will .223you the reason the round, the m-16 round is so lethal. shoot them through a gallon jug of water into a sand pile and recover the spent bullet it and show it on your desk. it would not take up that many inches. one ounce jars and put a piece of bread in each one and close one, and then breathe into the other one and close

that. have super glue so the cleaning people don't move that around. host: thank you for calling with your thoughts. one more tape we want to show you this morning, from the houston mayor at this global action climate summit in september. he talks about climate change and hurricane harvey. [video clip] >> we believe that climate change is real. [applause] houston is part of c40 cities. i also cochair the united states congress of mayors, and we believe in the paris agreement. as a result, over 400 meters in the u.s. have signed on that we will do everything we can to fulfill the paris agreement.

if you don't lead at the top, mayors will lead from where we are. [applause] that includes places like houston, texas. in the last three years, the city of houston has faced three 500 year floods in the last three years. it was clear. it was a question of whether or not i would make it to this conference because there was a system forming in the gulf. it was not about whether it was a hurricane. you can have a major rain event just from a system. harvey was a game changer. we have all learned sustainability and resilience go hand in hand. you can be the energy capital of the world, and at the same time, you can recognize we have to do a lot to address the climate change for the future of our city and other cities across the

globe it is real. it is the energy capital of the world, that the city of houston is the number one municipality in the u.s. on the utilization of green energy. the energy for the city of houston is wind. 10% is solar. we just entered a power purchase agreement. we increased our solar consumption from 30 megawatts to 50. over 20 years, we will be saving the city of houston $40 million. green power is energy power. for communities that have been ignored and overlooked for decades, we are transforming and revitalizing communities through the use of rain energy. you can be the energy capital and at the same time believe in climate change. more from the global

action climate summit we covered in september. that last caller mentioned our c-span mission statement. you can see that at our website. liz writes that climate changes have been happening for millions of years. if the world remains, there will be millions of more years of climate change. stop wasting time trying to take over nature. government climate report warns of worsening u.s. disasters. they write that the california catastrophic fires, people rebuilding after hurricanes. this massive new federal report warns that disasters are worsening in the u.s.. government climate report warns of worsening u.s. disasters. daniel is in washington,

illinois. hello. caller: good morning, sir. be patient with me. i am nervous. host: take your time. .aller: great show anytime the citizens of the u.s. can give their opinions on things is awesome. first of all, craddick or republican, there are core issues that if you are going to be part of that party, you always have to vote for or against. i think this is one of them. change is scary. if we have been using fossil fuels and nuclear for as long as we have, the idea of going away from that something unknown is going to scare a lot of people. toring this back reaganomics, which trump is for. if we make the big money more money, like coal, and we get more jobs, that makes everything

better. i guess it all comes down to, i tried to be a christian. i think we are stewards of this earth. if we have facts that show that we are affecting what he has given us, we are not being good stewards. that's take care of each other and not that $.20 raise that you are willing to take for the detriment of the earth. host: john smith writes on twitter, it used to be global cooling in the 70's, then global warming in the 1990's, and then climate change after 2000. john says, i simply call it the weather. hello, karen. caller: good morning. , know it was about a week ago "washington journal" was

covering the fires in california, and they spoke with a journalist. i cannot remember his name. i did not look it up. he was based out of boulder, colorado. he was talking about different .ethods that they are using he was remarkable. touches, thisis topic touches on what he was , i heardich is that somebody calling from illinois, if you are going to live there, i should not have to pay for it. people want to live in forests. we are human beings. we can always do better. addressing you are climate change. it is kind of weird how you have that in parentheses because i guess that is what the white house put out.

it does happen. of course the climate is going to change. here is an example from michigan, flint, michigan. everybody has talked about the water crisis. the state of michigan has sold public water rights of lake michigan to nestle. they are showing advertisements on my city in michigan about how nestle cares so much about giving free water. but that is our water. what i don't understand is why people can't understand that it is in your backyard. it's in my backyard. it is in everyone's backyard. host: ok, thoughts from karen. frank pallone, who we quoted earlier had this tweet, it is clear that no region in the u.s. has been spared from the warming

climate. americans are already suffering the cost. this is frank pallone on twitter. here are some more from pages from around the country. san francisco chronicle, tired to forecast on global warming. tribune, extreme harm, findings at odds with president trump, worsening weather and fire will smash the economy and the environment. climate change could triple frequency of large wildfires. they also talk about climate change could triple the frequency of those large fires. when more to show you here, , whether iny star disaster only getting worse. this is also the arizona republic. urgent warning on climate, u.s. reports far-reaching effects if

emissions are not quickly curbed. mandated federally report, a federal report by various agencies mandated by the u.s. congress. if you google the fourth national climate assessment, you will come to this page, the fourth national climate assessment. you can read lots more in addition to some of the news reports on all of this. randall, maine, independent color. -- caller. caller: good morning. this is randy. we don't ever hear anything about maine on the national news. you know why? we just get dumped on with snow. we are in a sweet spot. two years ago, popular science had a whole book on the weather.

was showed how california going to be swept by fires, mudslides, and it went right into the center of the u.s. and how tornadoes and hurricanes and rainstorms were going to hit. this was two years ago, right down to the southern states, where the south was going to have hurricanes of the waterloo -- up the wazzoo. i wish i had the issue. maine is going to be a perfect real estate investment for all of you down there running from the coast. host: anything else you want to say about the report? caller: nope. host: talking about his own and opportunities there. thank you for calling in.

meantime, a short break, and then when we come back, we'll talk with dr. roberta debiasi to talk about the recent paralyzing polio-like illness affecting children in the united states. and later antonio regalado will talk about hyper personalized medicine and inequality. this is "washington journal." we will be right back. who was martin van buren? >> good question. a lot of people felt we needed to ask that question. martin van buren was the eighth president of the united states. he is often forgotten. his presidency was only four years long. witmer onon q&a, ted

his fire fee of president martin van buren. with spent a lot of time aaron burr. there persist in throughout the life of martin van buren, so persistent that gorby doll -- gore vidal plaintiff that he made in the illegitimate sign of aaron burr. we don't know. wroteincy adams once that martin van buren looks a -- aaronehrenberg burr. he's always trying to organize factions and get southerners and northerners and political alliances together. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q and a. c-span, for history unfolds daily. 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. continues.on journal host: at the table is dr. roberta debiasi, division chief for infectious disease at the children's national health system. good morning. becauseou to come on your story has been getting our attention. afm, acute flaccid myelitis. its prevalence right now around the country. what is afm? guest: it is a polio-like disease. that caused 10,050 get it paralyzed.

we are seeing something similar to that. usually are coming in after a mild or typical viral infection and about a week later coming in with paralysis or severe weakness of one or more limbs. host: there are symptoms we will put on the screen. one is the sudden onset of or more leg weakness, loss of muscle tone and reflexes, facial drooping, drooping eyelids, difficulty swallowing or slurred speech. people are getting this now. guest: we don't really understand why this has emerged that we have seen this now since 2014. it is happening around every two years. 2018,2016 and this year, we have these spikes of frequency where kids are coming in with unusual symptoms. we have looked hard, along with the cdc for the cause of this.

we can talk more about the viruses that have been isolated but we don't have a specific or proven cause yet. host: what is being done about it? guest: a lot is being done. from this agreement standpoint, looking in the community for what viruses are commonly circulating, it was appreciated in 2014 there was a spike of a type of virus called d68. around that same time it was circulating and causing severe respiratory illnesses, soon after there was this emergence of these children coming in paralyzed. it was thought initially this could be due directly to the virus. for that reason the cdc and other centers around the country have done intensified surveillance. looking for what viruses, including that virus are circulating. we have appreciated that many

viruses, which we know always circulate in the fall, can be associated with this particular paralysis. just to put this in context for the viewers, polio virus is one type of virus, but there are non-polio enterovirus is. . 78 have been found in these patients. that --acute flaccid myelitis. 106 confirmed cases in 29 states across the country. 33 in 16 states. 149 cases in 39 states and thd.c. guest: we have only had this for four years.

we have seen this with other illnesses. enteroviruses are extremely common. we know from the surveillance i talked about, viruses of a specific type may peak and go away for a year. that is another piece of evidence this may be due to one or more enteroviruses. host: phone numbers at the bottom of your screen. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. explaint is here to this illness called afm, acute flaccid myelitis. she is dr. roberta debiasi. he mentioned kids.

is that all kids? guest: there have been some adults. the ranges from two years to 32 years of the reported cases since 2014. thevast majority of kids, range is two to eight years of age. host: can you catch this from someone else? guest: no. people are concerned about this. even within families there have not been multiple cases within a family or within a school or the community. what we think is happening is a common virus, probably one or more of the enteroviruses that circulates through the community like it always does in the fall, but then there is a group of children that are more prone to having this one in a million chance of inflammation or infection of the spinal cord, which leads to the paralysis.

that is a large area of research right now. what is it that predicts which of those children who all have a very common virus to get this very rare case of paralysis? host: what is the prognosis? guest: that is the part we are looking at closely. all these cases have happened with few cases in each center. we have had probably a dozen cases in the last four years. withwe are trying to do the cdc put a more intense personnel into this is finding the follow-up on each and every one of the children confirmed. of the publicized or published cases, as series from colorado in particular, about half the kids have persistent paralysis. they may have some improvement but it does not recover at least a year out. one third of that complete recovery. there is a wide variability.

background and before we get to the calls with si, how does the cdc work with children's hospitals to monitor cases? host: the centers for -- guest: the centers for disease control is a surveillance and public health organization. they have really driven the surveillance and trying to figure out what is causing the illness. they work with us at children's hospital to make reporting systematic. veryve certain case forms, specific specimens we all send. we will send blood specimens, respiratory specimens, stool specimens and spinal fluid. analyzed rigorously with standard methods to look for known viruses, as well as partnering with scientists who

can look using sequencing to find any particular infectious pathogen that might be present. ust is how they work with together the samples and the case information to confirm cases and try to determine any similarities amongst the cases. host: let's bring in a couple of calls. bob from maryland. good morning. caller: how are you doing today? host: fine. caller: with all these illegals coming across the border is this what is happening? the illegals come and go. are they bringing viruses with them? not just south americans, but illegals from other countries? guest: no. enteroviruses have been present in our community for hundreds of years. we areicular this d68

concerned could be causing afm has been detected as early as the 1950's in the united states. the question is an absolute no. host: statement from new york. -- stephen from new york. caller: good morning. this disease is coming from ecuador, isn't it? it is rampant in ecuador. host: he is making a connection to the country of ecuador. guest: there is no connection to ecuador. host: why do you bring that up? caller: in california there are a lot of cases from immigrants that came from ecuador. host: where you have had two callers thinking about where the disease comes from. guest: i am not sure where that came from. enteroviruses, there are hundreds of these viruses. they are very common.

if we went out on the street in the u.s. between june and november, we could culture enteroviruses from almost anyone walking around. they are superduper common viruses. we don't want people to think this is some extreme imported exotic virus because it isn't. the other thing is that of the cases confirmed, we have only actually found the virus and about half of those cases. the places we find it are the places we find it in a lot of people who do not have paralysis. that is the tricky part about surveillance. we find a virus in the respiratory specimen or the stool, that may or may not have anything to do with a child who is paralyzed. it is in the central nervous system. you would have to biopsy the spine and we can't do that because it is too dangerous. the other specimen is spinal

fluid. we have only found the virus in four out of the 440 confirmed cases. to get back to the original question, no, this is not an exotic virus from another country or being brought in from outside of the united states. host: we are setting up phone lines regionally. eastern and western phone lines. we will keep the numbers on the bottom of your screen. i wanted to clarify that for you folks. there of theout cdc. here is a cnn story we picked up recently. it beinglking about criticized by its own advisors. medical advisors are criticizing them for being slow to respond against this polio-like disease. frustration, disappointment part of the commentary about folks at

the cdc being slow about all of this. guest: i don't think they have an slow. there is an increased amount of resources and personnel being put on this since it is now the third year in a row we have had an outbreak or a spike. i think that will speed the already made progress we have made. those of us who take care of these patients and work with the cdc are somewhat frustrated by the message that has gotten out to the public. up until recently every headline i read kind of hoped it to either a mystery or completely unknown or made it sound like nothing had been done and we are completely sitting around and have no idea what is going on. nothing could be further from the truth. host: that was the headline from the pew trust. , testinge illness, afm and overstretched public health

system. are the resources enough? can they ever be enough for something like this? did you get the sense this is stretching the american public health system? guest: i think this is a great model for how we approach and emerging infectious disease. if you think about it, in january none of us were talking about afm. we were talking about zika virus or ebola. the important part of a public health response is to be nimble. you have to be able to change your attention from one thing that is really happening acutely to another that is emerging. that is where people sometimes get confused and think nothing is being done. just because you're not hearing about the research or response for afm until there is another spike of cases, that does not mean there are not resources and personnel and research working on those the whole your long. -- year long.

when there is a spike, appropriately the resources and personnel are redeployed to that particular area. that is what we're seeing here. host: our guest is dr. roberta debiasi, from the university of virginia school for medicine. residency at her the university of california davis. she served on the faculty in denver before joining the children's national health system back in 2005. ken in miami, welcome to the program. caller: i am a neurologist. is doing a dibiase great job in trying to hunt down the cause. i want to suggest a hypothesis that perhaps we have a parainfe

ctions disease. --ething like younger rate the factor is no clear virus identified. perhaps we are dealing with a hyper immune response to a viral component. and we should look at nero immunology here and perhaps other treatments related to decreasing this perhaps excessive immune response against interior horn cells causing paralysis. guest: this is a point. in 2014 -- this is an excellent point. was an overs d68 half the patients. initially it made sense to pay more attention to a direct viral

effect. as we have now seen in these every other year spikes, it is not always the virus found and in some cases there are no viruses found. the caller is talking about either an autoinflammatory process while the body can accidentally attack other tissues of the body. in this case affect the spinal cord. this is a very important hypothesis that both researchers clinicians, and the cdc have been investigating with more attention in this last outbreak. there are panels of testing that can be done looking for circulation of antibodies against specific components of the spinal cord. patients we care of obviously don't have an antiviral because there is no

specific virus identified that we can target. we do use medications that are termed immunomodulatory. intravenous immunoglobulin is something many centers use on these children. there are two ways they can work. it provides a broad pool of antibodies from the population. includingey are various enteroviruses circulating in the community. that is one way this could help children. but getting back to the caller's point, ivig is know to influence what are called inflammatory cytokines, or chemicals that can inflame body tissues. downcan work by settling the possibility of inflammation the body is producing in response to virus or other triggers. there are also treatments such

as plasmapheresis. blood andhe patient's filter it to remove antibodies or possible antibodies attacking the spinal cord. we have done this in some of our patients, as have others across the country. what we don't know is which of these interventions that we use in many of these cases is the best. that is something that many of us at the children's centers have tried to collaborate and share our data. about a month and a half ago, about 50 people that take care of these patients for multiple centers across the u.s. and canada are meeting weekly to share our data and hopefully we will have a better idea when we pulled the data -- pool the data. host: a question from twitter. in theparalyzing virus same family as the poliovirus? viruses and

non-polio viruses are segregated into two groups. they are all within the family of enteroviruses. they are similar in terms of their molecular sequence, but they are different when we look at the likelihood of them causing paralysis. would paralyze 10,000 to 20,000 children a year. every single year. it was not we -- it was not --il we had an effective we are still trying to eradicate polio virus and other parts of the world. thankfully none of the patients we have had now have had poliovirus isolated. it is clear this is not polio. the non-polio viruses, there are

almost 100 of those. we break those up and other groups. thatr called echo viruses some are called -- some are called echo viruses. 71, they canovirus go with different frequencies every year. most are either mild respiratory or diarrheal illnesses. the same usually innocuous viruses can cause paralysis and that is what we are talking about now. host: alicia from maryland. caller: it is nice to see you. good morning, america. i am sorry but this is out of my area. i hope i don't sound too stupid. -- you said this

, butse is noncommunicable you also stated you don't know what is causing it. if youlittle confused don't know what it is caused by. guest: what we mean by noncommunicable is if we take a paralyzed patient and put them in a room with another person, the paralysis is not transmissible from one person to another. paralyzed, wet is look at their daycare or their school or their family. there is no transmissibility from people in close contact with that person. what that means is even if the virus that initially triggered that person to be the unlucky one in a million person to have thelysis is transmissible, disease itself is not transmissible. this make it back to the other

collar's question -- caller's question about what causes the paralysis. it is clearly not just the infection otherwise we would have many cases and we don't. it was probably about their immune system or their genetic background that makes them the unlucky person that is likely to get paralysis. die wants to know if these are new diseases. when i was a kid there was no aids or ebola. guest: climate change definitely affects what we call vectors of disease. for instance, not related to enteroviruses, the mosquito borne illness. if you have a warming in the climate that now allows a species of mosquito that previously could not survive in the area now be able to thrive, at least to the possibility of something being able to be transmitted in the area that previously wasn't because the

mosquitoes cannot live there. we talk about this quite a bit with the emergence of zika virus. cases in small parts of the southern united states for that very reason because as the climate has warmed the mosquito populations can survive and transmit those viruses. enteroviruses are not transmitted by that they are not arbovirus, transmitted by mosquitoes or ticks. the climate would not directly apply to a vector in this particular case. we do know human environments can allow -- humid environments can allow the viruses to circulate longer. are nowho look at this seeing emergence of different enteroviruses, or are they persisting longer because of the changes in the climate?

i think that is a very good question. host: virginia wants to know if it is caused by genetically modified frui food? guest: when this first emerged the cdc, and they still do, heaps of broad view of what to because in this, including toxins. so far there has not been evidence this is a toxin simply because they cases are occurring in multiple parts of the united states. usually if there is a specific toxin we will see a cluster in a particular area where the toxin is an higher prevalence and we will see no cases where there is no exposure to the toxin. for now there has not been any links to any toxins or gmo's. host: audrey is from south carolina. welcome to the program.

caller: what i want to ask the the specific area, will or suburban -- rural or suburban, or a race is prevalent in? guest: this data we have collected carefully with the cdc. it has happened all across the united states, urban areas, suburban areas and rural areas. it does not seem to be localized to any particular type of environment. of the cases reported, about 60% have occurred in caucasians. that means it is also occurring in other races. it does not seem to be out of proportion to the distribution in the united states. host: george from olympia, washington. good morning, george. caller: good morning. thanks for c-span.

an amazing program and thank you to dr. debiasi for explaining some of this stuff. the neurologist for miami sort of still my question but when i first heard the symptoms, when your program first came on, it struck me they sound like stroke symptoms. each one of them seem to have symptoms of stroke. host: we will list the symptoms again. sudden onset of arm or leg weakness, facial drooping or weakness, difficulty moving the eyes, difficulty swallowing or slurred speech. george, hang on for a second because i want to ask dr. whensi -- how do you folks they start getting the symptoms, how do they know where to go? to a primary doctor, a neurologist? onset if you have sudden

of weakness of the land or your -- limb or your face, that is an emergency. you should go to an emergency room. if you are near a children's hospital and have a child, we recommend going to a children's hospital. there are an array of specialists at the centers that collaborate to take care of these patients. he is right. you could have a stroke to explain the symptoms that we can rule that out by specific neural imaging. we have that capability of big centers. we can do an mri of the brain, the spinal cord, certain sequences or differences in the signal we used to sort out if there is a bleed, which is often the case for a stroke, or not a bleed which is not the case here. we will look for certain patterns of disease and the spinal cord that tells us this is consistent with afm. have evidence that people are not acting fast enough when folks first go in? guest: i don't think so.

looking at our cases and talking amongst the other centers, we get referrals very quickly. immediately really after someone presents to a place other than our center. we have not had cases where someone was out in the community in the week before someone thought of sending them to a major center. most physicians recognize this is an emergency, particularly in a child. host: george, what else would you like to say or ask? caller: thank you. when were the first cases discovered that it was something that did not understand and not something like polio? host: when was it first noted? guest: the real spike in cases was in 2014 at the university of colorado. now going back retrospectively, there were some cases as early

as 2012. another thing the cdc is doing is supporting a study looking at neural imaging of the spine going back 10 years to see if we can retrospectively find cases that met the new or existing case definition for afm. one thing we have not talked about our other diseases of the spinal cord. for instance transverse myelitis , where there is all across the spinal cord involvement. afm is a specific part of the spinal cord, the gray matter. that is for the neurons actually reside. if you go outside of that center area, we have a connection to the rest of the body called the white matter. for instance, in transverse myelitis we see involvement more across the entire spinal cord. what will be interesting looking back pain years to see if some

cases that were previously thought to be transverse myelitis, which we have seen for many years, actually have features that are more similar to afm with this central cord involvement. host: there was another critique of the cdc. parents accuse the cdc of not reporting children's deaths from this afm. they basically say parents of kids who has this horrifying illness are accusing the cdc of hiding the deaths of two kids he suffered from the condition. the parents say by not publicly acknowledging the deaths the agency is downplaying severity of this afm. "i feel like they are just sugarcoating this, said one mother." it eliminates my trust in the cdc. guest: i think that is unfortunate. the cdc is an institution that is held in the highest regard. it is nonpartisan. it is out for the public health.

there is really not a reason for them to sugarcoat or hide things. these are really dedicated health professionals out there to get information out to the public and to physicians taking care of the public. i want to put in context there have been 430 confirmed cases. this year there have been 406 confirmed cases -- 106 confirmed cases but another 160 being evaluated. are rigorously reviewed to see if they are an afm case. there are no confirmed deaths. what the folks that have mentioned this to the press may be suggesting is there may be children who have died from other things that are similar to afm but they are not confirmed afm cases. i think we are going to have to wait for more time and follow up with all those cases to know is

there a certain amount of death we have not yet appreciated. host: sheila from new york city, good morning. caller: good morning. this is really off-base. why aren't they using vitamin c if it is viral related? nothing better at preventing or treating it with c.sive amounts of vitamins -- vitamin c. it is inexpensive and extremely effective in a lot of cases. i do not know why it is not proceed. a thousand people died last year because of the flu. all of that could have been prevented with vitamin c. he has been constantly discredited by the medical profession, much to my regret.

cases where this is viral , why is that idf not pursued? -- why is that idea not proceed? you can check with the vitamin c foundation which does wonderful work. it is all very inexpensive. host: we get the point. does haveamin c recognized properties that may be antiviral or maybe boosting the immune system, but it is not a simple vitamin c works for everything for every illness and every virus. i hope my mom is watching because she tells me to take my vitamin c no matter what's wrong with me. vitamin c has been formally studied and is an ongoing study such now for things as in sepsis. someone can get an infection and

it can completely overwhelm the body's immune response where the patient needs life support, on a ventilator, these medication for blood pressure. there isscenarios quite a bit of interest in looking at extremely high doses of vitamin c. not doses you can take by popping a pill at home or over-the-counter preparation. we do think this is an area that is worthy of investigation. it has not yet been investigated in afm because we can't exactly prove a specific direct viral effect yet. there are no animal models for this could be tested. colorado has a very nice mouse model where they can take d68 that was circulating in 2014 and could reproduce a similar illness.

that allows us a platform to rigorously study possible interventions. vitamin c might be one of those that could be studied. host: kay from alliance, nebraska. caller: are they surveying physical therapist to see how many are being treated for this polio-like symptoms? my nephew had his right arm -- he quit using it. he just quit using it. the doctors said it was all in his head. they went to another doctor and the only treatment was physical therapy to build back up his muscles. curious if they are surveying physical therapist were treating older kids. guest: that's a great question. the physical therapist and the occupational therapists are integral to our treatment of these children. when we have a patient coming to our hospital and we start our treatment, either with ivig or

supportive care, we get the physical therapist and occupational therapists involved almost sunday one -- on day one with rehabilitation. we don't wait three weeks to get physical therapy going. we do know exactly what this caller mentioned. even a couple of weeks if this use of a limb lease to atrophy of the muscles and they lose strength. we want to be on top of occupational physical therapy. they are integrally involved in our multicenter group, in the weekly conference calls were we talk about the best ways to implement and continue rehabilitation for these patients. they are definitely part of the conversation. your idea of doing a separate survey, not only of physicians but occupational therapists to pick up other intentionally missed cases from the past is a great one. host: our guest has been dr.

roberta debiasi, division chief at the children's national health system. thank you for your time, your information and effort sees this morning. much appreciated. we have just a little less than an hour and a half left. when we come back we will do some open phones. you can talk about this topic or any topic you heard about this morning or public policy topic on your mind. we will split the phone lines by parties. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. we will be right back. first, this week's segment of newsmakers double feature mark green, the former corpsmen and head of the u.s. agency for international development. he will talk about the trump administration's foreign aid policy. he takes a question about his goal to eliminate the need for foreign debt. >> that is a lot of time talking

about how the goal should be eliminating the need for foreign aid by encouraging resiliency so countries can weather disasters. can youyear and a half, give a concrete example of where you see the most progress? >> first off, internally, we have made a ton of progress reshaping ourselves around that vision. we took the opportunity of the executive order to redesign government to embrace that. members fromaff all across the agency, including around 300 from overseas. we have looked at designing metrics to measure capacity in countries. we have looked at realigning some to be more responsive with that vision. in terms of concrete results, i would point to ethiopia. we had traveled together to ethiopia. if you take a look at a place like ethiopia which has had four

consecutive years of drought and not fallen and the full famine, i credit some of the work we have done in building resilience in a number of those affected areas to help them withstand the challenges. that would be one concrete example. i could point out other things. the country of peru, the work we are doing to fight coca production. we have been able to help them build internal support and capacity to provide alternative economics and livelihoods for coca farmers to the point where the government is funding nearly all of them. starting off we were doing the funding. now they are doing the funding largely and we are helping with tactical assistance. in that part of peru, i would say their capacities developing. every country is in a different place in their journey to self-reliance. we know in some cases it will be a long time. there are countries like her

like india-- peru, which are largely self-reliant and we are helping to capitalize investments and taken to the next level. >> mark green, our guest on this weekend's newsmakers program. newsmakers runs every sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern time. we have about 20 minutes of time for open phones for we bring out our next guest. the topics at 9:00 include gene therapy and its cost. we will document the education secretary and some new proposed changes to help colleges and universities handle sexual misconduct complaints. we will keep the phone numbers on the bottom of the screen for this segment and then bring in other news of the day, including the story of the new york post. is declaring a humanitarian crisis as the caravan moves through.

there was a picture of a migrant wrapped in a blanket at a border crossing. the story said the mayor has declared a humanitarian crisis in his border city and said friday he was asking the united 5000ns for approximately central american migrants, most who are capped outside -- inside a sports complex. cameomments that the mayor as city officials and volunteers work together to assist these 4976 men, women and children who arrived at more than a month of road. the trump administration has spent a week when investing the caravan that it was said was filled with criminals, gang members and even insinuated at one point without any proof terrorists. the man who leads the city's social services department says they are bringing in toilets, showers, shampoo and soap, but it was not enough. "because of the abandonment of

the federal government we are having to turn to international "nstitutions like the u.n., said that leader of the effort. that is an update to the caravan. maria is our first caller from frederick, maryland. caller: hello. i was listening about the environment. i had to change channels because i was getting so upset. my call is about the disease. anyone who has any of those symptoms to automatically get help, not just a family member. call the hospital. -- i thought i was having a stroke. i had a young child with me. i called when i could still speak. i knew something was wrong. i couldn't get help.

the person i got a hold of told me they did not have time. it has been 15 years. i almost died from it. i had children afterwards that were affected by it. mi -- it is from mice. don't waste time. if i went right back to the doctor, they may have figured it out. there who the t -- they removed the tick. there are too many things changing. host: marie speaking about our last guest. which is spoke with dr. roberta a polio-like illness in children called afm, acute flaccid myelitis. it looks like the numbers have spiked this year after going down the year before. there is an up-and-down pattern of these cases. the cdc is working on trying to figure out where it comes from and prevent it if possible.

if you missed that segment, you can watch it in a little while. it will be posted online at c-span.org. conrad, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i am glad i got on here. i'm a little late for the main segment.the 7:00 i wanted to talk about weather modification which is going to constantly between the air force and nasa. we are philadelphia being bombarded with chem trails. there are two trails a jet leaves. trails from the hot engines in the cold atmosphere, the other is chem trails that go from horizon to horizon. chemicals theyhe

are spewing out the back are any good for our health. modifications the navy and the air force used years ago. it is supposedly shut down now. high frequency active research project. 22 nations have this capability. used for weather modification primarily but there came0 patents that off of this. a lot of the modification topics are older so you have to watch out what is going on. back in 1966, i was in the navy. classified then is not classified today. in aticipated at my rank

whichr modification topic we eventually called operation popeye. we made it rain down the ho chi minh trail for five solid years to stop the chinese from supplying the viet cong in the south of vietnam. nations 1976, united seeing that we had conquered the weather past the united nations weather weapons treaty. all the information and giving you can be verified. host: thank you for sharing. i want to get to other calls. conrad talking about the first hour of this program where we talk to this report published in the washington post about climate changers and 10 --

climate dangers intensifying in the u.s. this was a mandated report the federal government put out. its us about the high cost, on flinching withn trump's views.temperatures are 1.8 degrees fahrenheit higher than 100 years ago. are nine inches higher and well fires are burning up larger areas. snowpack has declined threatening water tables. this is the national climate assessment, which you can just google. it pops right out. the combines the work of many current federal government agencies. it was published yesterday. chuck from colorado, democratic line. caller: hello, paul. thank you for taking my call.

thank you for c-span. trails --called kim chem trails is discredited. scientists call it geo engineering. there are several variations of geo-engineering. version is they wayspring coal fly ash as a to change the earth's albedo level, reflectivity. contains a lot of aluminum an other things that as it isof smelted out burned to create electricity. that explains a lot of my there is so much more on -- boron, calcium, aluminum, heavy metals.

ash is supposed to do is reflect solar radiation back into space. kind of give us a sunshield. the problem is the artificial clouds, they actually retain the earth's heat rather than letting it escape into space. they act like a regular cloud in retaining the heat. they are creating problems with forests. she theory and -- barium flow like water. tree'saken up by the vascular system. aluminum ---the

aluminum.aids the it bridges off the vascular system so the tree can't actually absorb moisture. host: i want to ask you what all that means that you laid out. what does all that mean? did a study, exxon and they found out it was bad for their bottom line. big oil is the problem here. host: let's hear from betty in florida. you are on the democratic line. caller: good morning. i wanted to ask you. we have congress and the senate. the way president trump is running everything, you can't speak or say nothing. he wants the country to be run like russia.

the saudi's will cut the tongue out of you for saying things. this is free speech. and wondering how we have got a thecongress and senate, president trouble cut your tongue. we are in a bad predicament. host: here is a tweet from the president about steve mnuchin. " i amghts, "-- writes, extremely proud of the job done by the secretary. true.ews is not they would not like to ask for a quote because it will kill their story." he was talking about a wall street journal story that came out yesterday about what president trump may or may not have said about steve mnuchin. trump is denying the report. the journal published the story yesterday.

that tweet came out three hours later. the story included a statement from lindsay walters that trump appreciates the secretary's work. trump openly blamed mnuchin for the volatility in the market, saying, "if he is so good, why is this happening?: " he also blames them for the appointment of jay powell for the president has frequent the criticized over interest rates hikes. we have stephen on the line from north andover, massachusetts. caller: good morning. i just wanted to comment on the climate change. scientist. i have been a scientist for 50 years. let's talk about the ocean rise. they never mention -- it has

been seven to eight inches percent three for the last 800 years. before that it was double and triple that. they never mention that. they put out a scare tactic. let's talk about carbon dioxide. carbonoxide now -- dioxide now is about 400 parts per million. the lowest was 320 in the last 100 million years. we are barely off the low. the highest was 2400 back in the jurassic and try asset -- triassic peirriod. the earth laid down hundreds of feet of peat and coal and oil. whereas a period everything was green from pole to pole. we had large animals. everything was very bountiful.

the idea that carbon dioxide is bad. it's a very heavy molecule. it does not escape the earth and go into the atmosphere. per million they are worried about is the 23,000 feet -- at 23,000 feet, the reflective layer. they never talk about the 10,000 commercial airliners in flight at any given time, each burning 1000 gallons an hour. isyou add that up, that hundreds and billions and trillions over the last several decades. it is one thing to shut down the airlines, which no one would ever do. it is easy to talk about your barbecue. this is all absolute hysteria to jumpstart the alternate energy. i have nothing against alternate energy, it's a great thing, but

it has nothing to do with climate change. host: thank you for calling. financial times has this headline. "donor nations miss climate funding target." wealthy countries are more than 20 billion dollars short of their target to help forward nations combat climate change. funding for the a contentious issue. rich nations delivered about $55 billion in public aid in 2016, for more than $70 billion with private capital included. both figures fell short of $100 billion a year, which countries have been promising the poo rer countries for nearly a decade. one name in the news is michael hayden, former cia director and retired air force general. he has been hospitalized after a stroke.

is family said he receiving expert medical care. the general and his family greatly appreciate the warm wishes of friends, colleagues. he served as the director of cia george w.ring the bush and barack obama administration's. 2009.ired from the cia in he has been a vocal critic of donald trump's campaign and presidency. many of his offense can be seen atevents can be seen c-span.org. john from california. thank you for waking up early. caller: good morning. i appreciate c-span. i would like to make one comment about the refugees in tijuana. died at theelatives

gas camp steering the -- gas camps during world war ii. the u.s. was afraid of jewish 1938,es coming in in 1940, 1941. the browning of america, the breeding, and nonwhite, non-christian refugees. similarity and a very disappointed with this trump administration as far as handling the immigration issue. it is sad. these people need to be helped. that is my comment. host: thank you for everyone who called in the last 15 or 20 minutes. coming up in the last hour, when we come back antonio regalado of

the m.i.t. technology review will talk about his recent these about hyper personalized medicine and concerns about inequality of us you can afford it. sarah brown will join us with the chronicle of higher education to talk about the education secretary betsy devos at her proposed changes on how colleges and universities handle sexual misconduct complaints. we will be right back. ♪ >> >> this weekend on "reel on american history tv, the warren report, anchored by walter cronkite, answering unanswered questions about john f. kennedy's assassination. >> oswald is brought into the basement of the police building for transport into the jail.

in full sight of millions of television viewers, a man works his way through the crowd and shoots alleles will dea -- lee oswald dead. america," onl american history tv on c-span3. >> who was martin van buren? a good question. martin van buren was the eighth president of the united states. he is often forgotten. his presidency was only four years long. widmerday on "q&a," ted on his biography on president martin van buren. ted: he spent a long time with aaron burr, and there were even rumors persisted throughout the life of martin van buren, so persistent that gore et al. even planted them in his novel, that martin van buren may have been the illegitimate son of a

member. we do not know -- of aaron burr. we do not know. john quincy adams once wrote in his diary that martin van buren looks a lot like aaron burr, and he acts a lot like aaron burr. all these kinds of organized factions to get southerners and northerners and political alliances together. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." >> "washington journal" continues. joining us from boston this morning is antonio regalado, who is science editor for m.i.t.'s "technology review." thank you for joining us. i went to start with this photo "peopleseen an open wil magazine" and elsewhere, the lanza family. are a familysmans

in brooklyn. both of their sons were diagnosed with a rare disease, a ve disease,e ner ultimately fatal. they have one son diagnosed and also a newborn. theincredible thing about a fundingstarted campaign to get a new treatment for their family. they found scientists willing to get a shot, to get treatment for the family as soon as possible. quite aey have raised bit of money so far, antonio, that we know. here is a portion of the appeal through gofundme. here is a brief look.

[video clip] >> we are here in moraine park, brooklyn. we are overwhelmed because so much money has been raised on behalf of our twins. they had a rare disease, a degenerative disease where the children lose abilities that normal people should have come at the abilities to breathe, the ability to swallow, the ability to speak, any kind of motor function. >> we decided we were not going to just take what do doctors said, that we should go home and love them and make them, that we are going to find something, and when we searched, we found there was so much science and research done already. because it is a new disease, there is just not enough money.

to landsman: we are here bring about a cure for the disease, because when they hear canavan disease, it will be the first securing als. guest: they approached researchers working on the disease, will this work for our was yes, the answer but it would have to pay for it. gene therapy is arriving, and people, because they have big accounts or fundraising success like the landsmans, are able to reach into the future and get a little bit about their kids. host: here is the front page of the m.i.t. "technology review" and your piece -- $2 million to

save their life. could you pay? should you? medicine is becoming hyper personalized, hyper accurate, and hyper unequal. concept?xplain that where are we headed with this medicine? guest: the hyper personalized part is there comes a point in science and technology where someone with a rare disease, you know, they have a mutation in a gene that is causing a problem. it is not quite easy to diagnose those problems with gene sequencing, and the technology, gene therapy and other technologies, means you know the genetic error, there is no possibility of actually repairing it. specific.that is van is rare, but the way science is going as hyper personalization, so in

principle, they come payments, even for a signal -- single individual. is just the part incredible cost. not everybody is able to raise scientists to develop a treatment for their kids. for every landsman family, their there are 10 families, 20 families that are suffering and do not see a path for any kind of hope. i mean, they cannot gather the money selling cupcakes in big sales. part.s the when the drugs hit the market, they have a high cost, $1 million, $4 million for gene therapy, savannah question is how society will pay for it. -- so then the question is how society will pay for it. folks kencan call

in. (202) 748-8000 and (202) 748-8001. touch onegalado, you this in your piece, but let's expand on it. the problem is that who will pay? underlying the unheard of prices because of human resource, human research to get the fda to sign growing gapult is a that could be treated as gene therapy and those that actually are. guest: these are inherited diseases, muscular dystrophy, can advanceerosis, canavan's-

disease. a drug tot to bring market only treats 50 kids, the price will be really high. host: is the federal government active in terms of funding, research, moving this process along? jean barely a basic research has been funded by the government all along. national institute of health steps away once it comes to market. a companies are starting to invest. nobody has a solution really for this issue that the diseases are just really, really rare. represents a new form boutique medicine, a way to get those with bad checkbooks or

those with vital fundraising campaign special access to cutting edge, it is a preview of the personalized medicine that will be increasingly available more generally. tell us about what the future holds in this area, mr. regalado. that wasere was a case even more extreme here in boston, it was a family whose a disease called athens disease, and it truly was an individualized medicine. it was kind of a gene repair technology during that was a case where again the $1 million a drug for alop single child, that is where we are with the hyper or solicitation -- hyper personalization. it is possible these treatments will be tailored for one person. what we're missing is a system to deliver the kind of medicine it cannot cost $1 million,

$2 million, so the question going forward is how this new form of medicine is going to be organized. host: who is addressing that question? who is answering it? how are they addressing it at this point? guest: in our story, we interviewed a scientist named stephen gray at the university of texas southwestern, and he is one of the people addressing it. he has about 23 gene therapies in the pipeline. families come to him all the time with children, and he often takes on their case. so he has developed a kind of a pipeline of gene therapies to help these parents access the technology. but i talked to him, and he is not hopeful that a solution is in hand. again, just the people who can pay and that can raise $2 million, $3 million are getting access to the treatments. as yet, there is no sort of solution to how to deliver these

types of treatments more generally. host: we are looking to line up calls now for antonio regalado, writing in the m.i.t. "technology review." he writes that gene therapy is sort of in a golden age right now. explain the process of getting a gene therapy developed and approved by the fda. how long does it take typically? how much does it cost? guest: gene therapies are moving pretty quickly. the reason is that sometimes they can be extremely effective. a child can get a dose of a gene therapy, there is a disease called spinal muscular atrophy, and it is really kind of speeding up the approval process. in that case, they only treated about 15 children before they were almost ready to go to the fda and ask permission to market it, something they have now done. so kind of comparison, treat 15 gives with gene therapy versus a save forlinical trial,

a cancer drug, where you may see hundreds of thousands of people in a really long development time. it can be faster, but it is complex science. the gene therapies are delivered with science, bio particles, but the whole way to produce the gene therapy, sort cown bags of cowboy, is -- of located, but you make millions of particles, and if viruses go to the sales and basically deliver the new dna. we take a look at the calculus for the biotech companies and deciding which phases or which diseases are too rare to care, as you have written in your piece, and which diseases are worth taking on. 4, 5 years ago, people looking at a disease like canavan's would just

have ignored it because it was just too rare. if you have cancer, you can look online and find many studies of experimental drugs, but when you look at canavan disease, there is not a single one. that is how rare it is. no drug company would be interested in working on treatment in general because, as someone else in the article says, you and us in a company with a stack of 100 people that exists to treat 100 kids. the math does not add up. i mentioned the treatment is effective. this company that was developing the treatment for spinal muscular atrophy was acquired by novartis for $8 billion. so that open people's eyes. maybe these diseases are not too rare. if we can find something that really works well, there might be a market for it. but the price is going to be superhigh come in the millions.

host: with that background for our guest, antonio regalado, mic "technology review," we have todd on the line in kentucky. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to get your comment about the fact that people are willing to give $10 or $20 to help a couple with a child that has a unique genetic disease as a mechanism for funding the development of these treatments. it seems to me may be better than a government process. what do you think? guest: there is a lot to be said for it. in the case of the landsmans, they live in a tightknit jewish community in brooklyn. they really have a perfect storm of donors, people in their neighborhood, you know, the butcher, baker, that all came together to help them. does not always work, so there will be another person, you can look online, there is a site told gofundme, and you can see lots of appeals

for gene therapy, and someone raises $35. they will not get anywhere. i think it is true that when families involved, when they drive scientists forward, things can happen more quickly than under government funding. the families put i a fire really under researchers. they have a deadline. the clock is ticking. thanks can move a lot faster when families are involved. it is a model we definitely see. we found six cases of families that have actually gotten their children treated this wa, and then dozens more where the process is underway. host: there is the landsmans' page, the gofundme page, two children, they were looking for $1.5 million. $1.6 million,out so they -- $1.26 million, so they are well on their way. joe is: from eastpointe,

michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. box of pancake mix that i've been using for a while, and i was reading the ingredient list the other day, which i've never done. producedpartially through genetic engineering." what the hell are they doing to my flower, to my thinkin pancake mix genetically? i am too young to be poisoned. i am only 83. i want to get another 200, 300 years out of this. thank you. guest: it is a great question. 20 first century will be a century of genetic engineering. it is already in your pancakes, gmo's, biotech corn is probably what you are talking about. it is well established. host: you talk about the ing for a lot of

money on the website, but that is an unusual case, as he pointed out, a lot of people get money.rably less other people, you can imagine, might be able to flyfor this research if they are wealthy. besides a web, appeal or being flat out wealthy, our people raising money for this kind of treatment? guest: if you are going to wait for the government to get grants or scientists to be interested, you can be waiting a long time. even at the pace of sort of approval by the fda, it is going to take, like, 1000 years together all the rare diseases. people are definitely looking for ways to hurry it up. one of the parents told me, she kind of dream about asking bill gates to help out. bill gates works on diseases that are problematic in malaria,g countries,

public health questions, but this particular mother thought, if someone like bill gates would be able to set up an institute to develop the treatments, that can make a huge difference. we might see something like that pretty soon. host: let's hear from john in new jersey for antonio regalado. good morning. caller: good morning. i have been thinking about that issue for a long time. it is like defibrillators, they want to put on everybody's body and that sign of thing. i think it will end up on the courts, low income, immigrants, prisoners, they have a right to it, and the very rich will be able to get access with their money, movie stars and the billionaires like gates. it is just not enough money to extend everybody's life. i have never made a study, but it does not seem reasonable to raise that much money for a tax system. i hope it is not that way, but i think that is the way it is

going to end up. thank you. guest: i think it is a good point. you think about other countries. here is the united states, some of the treatments have been developed. they are very high-tech, available, paid for by insurance. the diseases affect people all over the world. in india, malaysia, and china. how are those countries going to pay for it? are they going to get the kind of cures, life i extensions that we have here? the caller raises another point of understanding people's lives. in the future, gene therapies might be used to help treat diseases, aging might be extended, the lifespan. that will be a whole new debate about who gets the. host: ethel is calling from california. good morning. caller: good morning. i was told gmo is a typical products to digest in the

digestive system, so how does that really affect? what are the long-term effects of that particular problem? back toou are getting the food questions, genetically modified food, not really the subject here, but we are talking about genetically modified people, which is quite interesting. therapy trials in the u.s., so you have people walking around whose genes have been modified. if we are ok with people getting their genes modified, you may not worry about so much what is in the pancakes. host: we have cody calling from la jolla, california. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for hearing me. the idea that i'm having right now, i wonder if it is feasible not, some kind of app or almost union, anyent's'

range from $100,000 to $3 million to the lumped into a group and offered in the marketplace. is happening. a lot of these diseases have were numerous patients, numerous families come together to fund the research. what we are seeing are a family-led or individual-led attempts. there is a large tradition of large foundations of affected people funding research and diseases. the cystic fibrosis foundation has been very successful, you know. host: anything else? caller: that is it, thank you. guest: thank you. host: we will hear from barbara from harrisburg, pennsylvania for antonio regalado. hi, barbara. hi.er:

i wonder, because i have a son with schizophrenia, do i have any hope in thinking that perhaps gene therapy might be effective for that mental disorder? thank you very much. guest: it is a question. schizophrenia is what they call a complex disease. it does not have a unique genetic cause. in the case of gene therapy, they are aiming at diseases called matt mainly in diseases -- matt mainly in diseases. is one disease with an error. they are using gene therapy to replace after something like schizophrenia is much more organic. the cause is not known, there is no singular cause, and so that makes it unlikely to be addressed by gene therapy in the near future. maybe in the distant future, it could be. talking with antonio regalado, biomedicine science editor at mic

"technology review." -- at m.i.t. technology review. hear about this particular case we are talking about out of new york and others? what brought it to your attention? i heard the case, must the idea that it exist, because we have been writing about gene therapy and it's kind of scenario that i am talking about, the idea that you can go directly from a genetic cause to a genetic solution seems like something that has to be out there, and furthermore, i had questions about in the larger gene therapy trials, i have questions about who was getting in them, which patients were being selected, and i had the idea that patients were kind theired in, but had done research on google or the web, they had diseases that had previously been untreatable, but if you are well-informed, you might vehicle to get into the trial. i am interested into the

information arbitrage, so to speak, where people who put their feelers out can sort of get this advanced medicine before other people can. and then it became a matter of looking for a case that was kind of dramatic and showed how all of this was working, so i found the landsmans. i found a lot of other families doing the same thing. host: you write in the piece that some families, other families are avoiding the rigors of formal studies and trying to secure untested gene therapy as emergency treatment. you write about florida, a little boy with canavan was treated after his parents had an emergency treatment. for patientsp whose life is immediately threatened. can you speak to? guest: when you think about the

fda process for my new person with a new drug that has never been tested, you need the approval of the fda, and if it works, years later, they might ultimately let you market it. but first, you have to get approval for the study, and the drug testing and tends to treat 10 people or 30 people, 100 people. there is an exemption in the allowsules that individual doctors to try hail marys, you might call them, try another drug with someone who has no other option. it is used commonly in. gene therapy there are about 700 gene therapy trials in the u.s. andagency told me about 700 them are expanded access trials that can involve a single person. that is a method people are using to pay to getting therapy now. host: let's get to daniel in pennsylvania. hey, daniel. caller: good morning.

saying that we are actually socializing the development of these treatments, and then prioritizing the distribution. natural resourcesona where we use blood and treasure to get access and then privatizers distribution. am i correct in that assumption? thank you. host: thank you, daniel. guest: i thank you are. aul mentions the case in florida. there was one boy treated for canavan disease, due to extended access protocol, so the family paid more than $1.5 million. it seems to have gone well. not cause any ill effects are suddenly, biotech companies are very interested in that and have formed a company to advance

it. the national institutes of health, the government, families, pay to get this to the research where principles improve, and then private industry picks it up. some of the risk is taken out, vacated the rest of the way to the market, and deliver it to us once again with very high prices. the possibility in my mind in a totally different system where these drugs would be delivered more like a hospital service. you go to the hospital, the replace your hip, they do something like that, the costs are not in the millions usually. in the future, it could be that hospitals ought to be the ones providing the therapy instead of the drug companies. host: we have one last call for our guests, joseph in willow springs, north carolina. hey, joseph.

us?ph, are you with guest,houghts from our antonio regalado. what are you looking for next in this story and where it is headed? guest: i think the next step is to really dig into the cost. people are trying to model what some of the treatments will cost and reach the market. i mentioned one gene therapy that cost $4 million. a lot of people are working on that question, the economics of that. tackle aresue i will just the prices there are some promising gene therapies out there. muscular dystrophy is a pretty common disease. it is fatal. if it were cured with gene therapy, i think society would then struggle with the true cost. if it ends up costing $2 million, $3 million, it will add up. host: antonio regalado is the

biomedicine senior editor at m.i.t. "technology review." thank you for your time this morning. appreciate it. guest: thank you very host: one half hour left in this edition of "washington journal." coming up, we will talk with sarah brown from the chronicle of higher education. betsy devos proposing a number of changes. we will walk through them and get your reactions to them and your questions for our guest in a moment. ♪ what does it mean to the american? that is this years c-span studentcam competition. as students and teachers from around the country are hosting on social media about it. heidi long from j string middle whatl in illinois tweeted does it mean to be an american theater social studies students brainstorming national human

rights, and important people and events of the nation. laurent from florida tweeted civics students brainstormed ideas for c-span studentcam. has had two students recognized for their projects in recent years. i think he is going for a trifecta. i visited tweeted -- a school and was interviewed by students participating in the studentcam competition. we discussed freedom of speech. and this is king from fort lauderdale, florida tweeted -- at c-span classroom is pbl, learning at its finest. we are asking students to produce a five-minute to think-minute documentary answering the question what does it mean to be american. we are including a grand

prize of $5,000. the deadline for entry is january 20. for more information, go to studentcam.org. "reels weekend on america" on american history tv, the 1957 special new series, the warren report, angrily by walter kwok right, investigating unanswered questions and you president john f. kennedy's assassination. >> sunday, november 20 fourth, the mob scene continues as oswald is brought into the basement of the police building, and then a full-size of television viewers, a man named jack ruby surges through the crowd and shoots oswald dead. america" onel american history tv on c-span3. >> "washington journal" continues. host: our guest is sarah brown,

senior reporter of the chronicle of higher education. thank you for joining us. guest: thank you for having me. host: i want to talk about education secretary betsy devos. she has put out new guidance, proposed changes, new rules on how college and universities handle sexual misconduct complaints. explain what she is proposing to do and compare it to what previous administration had in place. guest: the theme is fairness. betsy devos have been talking about fairness and the need to make the process of making handling sexual assault misconduct on campus fair. the proposed standard of evidence that the obama administration told colleges to of with a preponderance evidence, the lowest standard used in criminal cases. betsy devos will allow colleges to choose whether to use the lower preponderance of evidence standards or the higher

standards called clear and consenting evidence. for is seen as a victory due process advocate some that colleges need to provide more toe to students -- rights accused students. they have also posted drop cross-examination in life hearings. opposeda administration it because it was seen as potentially re-traumatizing for victims of sexual assault. the new proposed regulations would require colleges to have hearings when adjudicated complaints and having cross examination, not for personal confrontation between the two students, but advisors for the two students would be able to directly cross-examine each other. the third thing is the scope of complaints that colleges would be required to investigate would be narrower. so folks -- there would be an sexual definition of

harassment that have been proposed as well as colleges would only be able to investigate complaints that the college had actual knowledge of and was made to an official. that is seen as generally speaking narrowing the scope that colleges would be required at least to handle. are three harassment categories under the proposed changes by the education secretary. under the konica basis of sex so severe that it effectively -- what does that mean? guest: that is different from the obama administration. it is seen severe and pervasive. which means a one-off incident of sexual harassment may no longer meet the harassment of sexual harassment that colleges

must investigate, but if it is and itd and pervasive, is denying somebody the ability to go to class oracle about getting their college degree, that is the kind of conduct congress would be obligated to take action on. again, a one-off incident alone may not, repeat it might be the threshold. host: quid pro quo harassment and sexual assault. can you speak to those? sexual assault -- sexual misconduct is able spectrum, sexual harassment, sexual assault, unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature, and it is a little bit more serious, it seems. one other important change in the proposed regulations is that previously in cases of sexual assault, colleges were not allowed to have mediation, which is an informal regulation process, going to a formal

hearing investigation type process. the new proposed regulations would actually allow mediation for these sexual assault cases. that would be a pretty significant shift from the way things are handled now. that was discouraged by the obama administration because it was seen as colleges what sort of force sexual assault victims to go through this informal better and potentially would not be a sort of serious punishment for the accused student. now colleges would be able to do mediation more often. some input and reaction from our viewers. , if you hav if you're a college student. (202) 748-8001, if you love out zones, in a central time

or if you live in the mountain or pacific time zones, (202) 748-8002. questions for sarah brown. what is the process moving forward? guest: won secretary devos wanted to do that is different obama administration is actually proposed new regulations, because the obama administration approach has been to issue guidance documents related to title ix. that is not required that regulations do. so now we are going to have a andce and comment period, then revisions will take effect, and then we will go forward with the regulations. i am sure there will be a lot of input from a lot of stakeholders, particularly on college campuses. host: does congress get involved? guest: at this stage, no. this is a department of education local issue. congress has gotten involved on there are otherothe pieces of legislation's rolling

through, but title ix regulations are a department of education review. host: one headline without a sharp divide over the trump administration's title ix overhaul. what is the critique and where is it coming from? hast: the sharp divide materialized between advocates of victims of sexual misconduct and advocates for accused students. what the obama administration it was really trying to change the process to make it more fair to victims, because victims felt that they had been railroaded for a long time. they had not been believed. the obama administration's approach had fixed that, and that these would send things back the other direction, in a pendulum, slow to speak. advocates for the accused are cheering, particularly for the due process protections.

to seee pleased cross-examination in cap's earrings, because it adds another layer of sort of trying -- trying toxactly figure out exactly what happened, because it might be discrepancies in the victim's story that might point to a more capable outcome for them, so that is where the divide has really materialized. host: joe campus not like that plan. he says "no survivors should be cross examined by his or her rapist. ever. full stop." guest: a lot of people say cross-examination, imagine a hearing where you have a high-powered lawyer and a really vulnerable students on the thed, sort of the cross-examination, they say that is not right.

these are educational institutions and educational processes. is an education law, and the way things are moving with these required life hearings and cross examinations, that would be moving more toward a qualified judicial system. we think a lot of people say that is not appropriate for sexualf campus misconduct quietly within the campus setting. if these cases are also handled by law enforcement or investigated by law enforcement, that is fine, but a campus process should be focused more on educational, should have more of an educational focus. a las vegas would move it farther away from that. host: let's hear from our caller , david, from arkansas, you are up first with sarah brown. good morning. caller: i think joe kennedy needs to be introduced to the rural life. , have had a lot of rape cases

and i have never lost a single one. the reason why is because they are not guilty. all of a sudden, she holds the life of a young college student in her own hands. and the mere thought that you could not cross-examine a witness for prejudice or bias from the real facts that really happened is beyond absurd. in fact, i honestly think the whole thing should be handled by the criminal justice system, because the thing is, these are professionals. these are people that know what they are doing. you cannot deprive a person of due process, equal protection, cross-examination. these things are guaranteed by a constitution. i mean, goodness gracious. claire mccaskill was really the of this stuffl started, and if she had her way, and say "thiso up

guy did something to me," and he would have his life ruined. like what happened to the late justice who just got approved, that is what they wanted, removed the process from cross examination. they did not want her to be cross examined. to be perfectly honest, and i have not heard anyone state this, but i do not believe for a second that the first lady, the professor from stanford, i do not believe a word she said. host: thanks for calling, david. sarah brown. guest: it is interesting, he talked about how maybe congress should not handle these cases at all, let's put them all on the criminal justice system. that is a common thing we hear from critics of the title ix due process. title ix actually requires colleges and universities to handle these cases, so it is either sort of separate and very

different processes. he isof the themes bringing out, especially with respect to very severe punishment for accused students , which might seem like to some people minor offenses, that has been a big complaint and something secretary devos has talked a lot about, not just false accusations but severe punishment for students who have committed, again, relatively minor offenses. vos hasry ode spent more time listening to people like the caller in trying to grasp these regulations, advocates for victims, college officials, but also folks like that you have a lot of concerns about how the process has taken shape since the obama administration guidance was released. host: you mentioned any cross-examination would not be direct with the accuser and accused. how would it work? guest: the two parties would not

necessarily even be in the same room. one of the things the proposed regulations talk about our sort of technological modifications that would allow students to not be in the same room at the same time. that could be potentially traumatizing for a potential sexual assault victim. both parties would have a visor. it could be a lawyer, a professor, a family member. the lawyer would be conducting the cross-examination of the other party. that raises the equity issue, f one studentis has the resources to hire a high-powered lawyer and the other does not? that creates a situation where the cross examination by professional lawyer in one case and not in the other case. that is one issue that colleges will probably have to grapple with the life hearings are becoming a reality on all campuses. --t: on man, florida

home-baked, florida, keith, you are up next. since the existence of the human race, rules and rules will not fix the situation. you have a younger mind that is not always developed until 21 to 25, if you are putting them away from home for the first time, mixing in alcohol and stuff. liberal ago almost, the mind decided to put coed dorms . i suggest one of the bigger factors that could go toward a solution is going back to separate dorms. you are putting younger people in a situation where they are mixing and alcohol. all the rules in

the world, like basic, even a richer lawyer or this or that, and they can get around rules. i think the solution would be to go back to separate dorms. what do you think? host: sarah brown. guest: i do not think that is a tenable solution in this day and age. wave calledis the scandals is work in this day and age, there are coed dorms, students go to a lot of the same parties together, they interact with each other on a regular basis. alcohol and drugs and these sorts of things are kind of inevitability of college life in this day and age, and that does make sexual misconduct cases a in a lot of these cases during that certainly does make things more difficult when we try to parse through what happened. going back to coed dorms seems to be the kind of solution that, you know, it is not really fit with the culture of college campuses in this day and age. i think students would

regardless. they would go to the parties, and they would drink, and all of those aspects of college life would very much be the same. it is certainly something that when colleges are looking to try to prevent sexual misconduct, that is one thing that they are really trying to figure out how to address. how do we handle these situations that involve a lot of alcohol and drugs and the hazy memory? one thing that colleges have really done since the obama had sort ofon forced colleges to take this seriously is two institute training, the bystander training, to intervene when they see something that does not look quite right, encouraging more culture of that kind of intervention has taken shape on a lot of campuses, and those are the kind of solutions i think colleges have found to be promising from a prevention standpoint. host: that leads me to something

i was going to ask you. our colleges generally equipped to deal with this issue? guest: there are diverging opinions on bacteria it is certainly true -- on that. is certainly true that more high-powered schools -- the virginia, columbia university, they have the ability to acquire more staff and put more resources to this issue, so many of those institutions have pretty substantial title ix offices to handle these complaints. that is not necessarily the case at a small community college in, say, rural connecticut. the act of complying with title ix and handling these cases looks different on some campuses. some campuses have really struggled with the number of complaints that have come in. i think while there are definitely people who say,

again, why should college be dealing with this at all? the bottom line if they must . that is what title ix says they must do. kent college get to the point where they can sort of find a way of handling these sort of things and doing them in an equitable way with the resources that they have? i think a lot of colleges have struggled with that and will continue to. host: more of the reaction. this is a piece in the "wall street journal" by stuart taylor and casey johnson, who wrote a fra called "campus rape enzy" on campus rape due process. secretary of education betsy

just released a new set of rules that if they go into effect, it would undermine many of title ix's official protections. access to education for millionths, especially survivors, is on the line. where is this in the realm of the federal government? host: what do you make of? people has certainly raised the question -- what is exactly the federal government doing telling colleges what to do when it comes to these changes? because we are talking about title ix, the department of education has the authority to enforce, so that is absolutely within the department of education's purview. on the other hand, i think there are absolutely people who say

that super prescriptive for colleges should not be coming the department of education, that that is not really the role of the agency. the federal government does have an obligation to, you know, enforce title ix and to oversee these cases, oversee how colleges are handling these cases. the question is -- should they have the authority to execute these more stringent requirements for exactly how colleges should go about adjudicating and investigating the cases? that is something there is still a bit of debate about. host: the proposed rules deal with events and incidents that happened specifically on campuses, where in the past, the rules might have brought it it out geographically off-campus. guest: that is right. regulations,posed colleges would be obligated to handle on campus on it or an incident that occurred related to the educational program or

activity. offensively, that would not include off-campus student housing. would narrow the scope of complaints that colleges would be obligated to investigate. i will say that is not necessarily mean that colleges. investigating these complaints. i do not think it is the reality that title ix offices on campus will put up a sign that says hey, we will not investigate your complaint as it does not meet the criteria, we are closed for business unless you make these criteria. while they may not be legally obligated to investigate does not mean they will not take them in and respond to them, ensure that the victim have access to counseling and perhaps in a room measures -- interim measures, so room,an get a new dorm change classes.

while fewer of the complainants might go through a formal investigation process, if it is not severe and abrasive approach, the definition that has proposed, they will still take action. they will still sit down with the victim and explore potential options. that is not going to change i think in a lot of campuses. like it or not, there are a lot of critics of the obama administration's approach, but it has created a culture on many campuses that has started to take hold. here is the process for handling cases, here is who you go to to report to enough majority of employees are obligated to report to title ix. that has been significant over the last few years. it is hard to believe that is

going to change. proposed regulation takes some of the pressure off. but again, that remains to be seen. cindy,oseph, minnesota, good morning. caller: good morning. it brings to attention the story my father told me. in around the 1960's, he had gone to a retreat for men, and that the men,ed if they had children especially in catholic education, to take them out, or they would lose because there was some type of renovation in the church going on. after inspecting, we found it out to be true, the college close to hear was specifically run by the nuns for women only. a couple miles away, we had one run by the monks for men only.

experimentalthis process from a few decades back, now showing fruits of it, and the colleges are all coed. it is just shocking that they have these policies that they sign off onme kids sexual assault, there are condoms in the restrooms. i mean, they intermingled guys and girls, and then it is all about sensitivity and set of actual academics that they focus a lot more on. and they impose what agenda items they want to teach instead of it being like kids can type., like the vo-tech's i think we have proven the process of this experimental procedure has failed. we need to change it, get more of a grip on it, and go back to

specific educations with specific jobs and things that people can do to build up. are toldhe time we that the executive level, you have to go to college to be in the executive level. doet of people can just be rs, build things, whatever, start their own businesses, but we have gotten out of that even. i think we focus more on the time before, you know, these last several decades, we will probably get much more accomplished. and yes, it should not become way. i agree with that -- be coed. i agree with that. guest: that reminds me of the previous caller who talked about getting rid of coed dorms. these situations are going to happen on campuses. that is the reality. there are going to be men and women intermingling. there are going to be coed dorms. there are going to be parties.

how do colleges accept to make those situations safer? bystander intervention has been one way. issue has become so much more talked about on college campuses than it was even when i was in college not that long ago. i think that has really changed the game i think in a lot of people's minds. just the fact that going into freshman year, there are quite candid conversations about what is acceptable, what is not, saying no, for yes means yes, affirmative consent kind of conversations. more conversation if the kind of thing that a lot of people think will bring these issues, sexual misconduct, into the light. for a long time, it was kind of underground. silent, you did not

come forward, even when you did, you were often not believed. i think that culture has started to change, or at least the conversation has gotten going in a way. a lot of people say it is step in the right direction. sexual not eradicated misconduct on campus, but certainly the shift in terms of wording has been quite significant. the vast majority of colleges are getting more reports than they were before. that is a step in the right direction. this is chronically under reported because victims do not feel like they will be believed. more reports coming in shows that colleges appear to be taking the issues more seriously, and that, you know, more people feel more comfortable saying something bad has happened. it seems to be a significant shift. i think that is what people would point to.

it may not be a sign of significant process. host: what kind of legal challenges, if any, are you expecting to the new rules? guest: i definitely expect legal challenges. there have been lawsuits filed in every direction from both victims of sexual misconduct as well as accused students, so i imagine -- there are already legal challenges that have been filed by nonprofits, saying the department of education should not have withdrawn the obama administration's title ix guidance. that that was a problem. so i absolutely think we will see legal challenges. so this is an ongoing issue. it is certainly going to be tied up in court and public discourse for quite some time it will be interesting to see how things continue to shake out. host: sarah brown is the senior --orter higher practical

at higher chronicle of education. thank you for your time. guest: thank you. host: thank you for your calls this morning on "washington journal." we will be back tomorrow at 7:00 eastern time with guests navin the center for american progress to talk about the in 2020,r housedemocratic chals -- aboutll talk to the the refuge are of the republican party -- about the future of the republican party. that is tomorrow on "washington journal." enjoy your saturday. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> next, a discussion about

opioid addiction in the u.s. and then joe biden presenting constitution liberty medals to former president george w. bush and laura bush. then chief justice john roberts talking about the importance of an independent judiciary. host dr. drew pinsky, secretary of state alison lundergan grimes, and chris christie talked about the opioid epidemic from the politicon in los angeles. this is one hour. mo'kelly: we are going to get started. thank you for coming out for this important conversation talking about the opioid epidemic. let me do some quick introductions because i think it will be prudent given the status and stature of people on stage today. this is in alphabetical order by first name, not any preference.