tv Washington Journal 02172019 CSPAN February 17, 2019 7:00am-10:01am EST
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looks at the future u.s. role in afghanistan. as always, we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter as well. "washington journal" is next. host: good morning. in the middle of a long presidents' day weekend, congress is off for the week. a delegation led by speaker nancy pelosi for an international security conference over the weekend, while a number of 2020 presidential candidates in the early primary and caucus states, we will be live tomorrow afternoon. with senator kamala harris. she's in new hampshire. it is sunday morning, february 17, and ahead on the "washington journal," with an eye on road to the white house, is there room for a third-party presidential candidate? and would you consider voting for someone other than a democrat or a republican? if you say yes, 202-748-8000.
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if you say no, 202-748-8001. send us a tweets, @cspanwj, or join us on facebook at facebook.com/cspan. thanks very much for being with us. a lot to talk about over the next three hours, including this headline over the weekend. senator bernie sanders, the latest entry into the 2020 presidential race. the story from bloomberg news with the headline, bernie sanders recording a campaign announcement video, although that video has not yet been released. the story points out that senator bernie sanders, who is 77 years old, an independent senator from vermont who caucuses with the democrats, said earlier this week that he will introduce a medicare for all bill fairly soon. in the event of a sandain announcement, he would be joining a widening group of candidates, including fellow senators amy clobe what are, kamala harris. in that headline from bloomberg news. and there's this from the hill.com with howard schultz as i considers a 2020 bid as an independent. the headline is shultz says that he would reconsider a 2020
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bid if the democrats nominate a centrist candidate. he appeared on cnn this past week in a town hall meeting and was asked about his potential candidacy. >> it's a lot less about me than giving the american people a voice that they don't have, and what better expression of our democracy than giving the american people a better choice, a new choice? there's nothing in the constitution, not one word, that says anything about parties. so why can't i raise my voice and say i'm deeply concerned about where we are as a country, i'm deeply concerned about our standing in the world, which we have not gotten into, and i want to restore a set of values and dignity back into the oval office, and i want to see the american people once again feel as if america is a place for everyone, regardless of your station in life, the color of your skin, your sexual orientation, your gender, that everyone has an opportunity in america, and
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give the power of our government back to the american people. that is why i'm here. host: that from howard schultz, the former c.e.o. of starbucks, and a democrat, saying he is looking seriously as running as a third party candidate in 2020. what do you think about a third party presidential candidate? what has the pod told us about the potential future. let's look at what some third party candidates have gotten from the popular vote, dating back to 1968 when george wallace received 13.5% of the vote. in 1980, it includes john anderson, former republican congressman from the chicago area, ronald reagan, who won that year, and jimmy carter. in 1992, the most ever garnered by a third party candidate was ross perot, getting 19%. he ran again in 1996, with less than half of that at 8.4%. and ralph nader, who many
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people people say must have tilted it to george w. bush, getting 2.7% in 2000. would you vote for a third party candidate? that's our question. we welcome our listeners on c-span radio, also sirius x.m. channel 124. let's gets to your phone calls. patrick, oklahoma city, good morning. you say yes. why? caller: this is patrick. i would consider a third party candidate if i thought he had a chance of unifying the country. this country has been so divided. we need to be united to face our enemies and help our economy and to help people in general. so i would vote for a third party candidate if i thought he united the country. host: who would you vote for? who is that candidate in your ind? caller: i think it needs to be a christian and somebody in industry, but i don't have a
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name. host: by the way, we ask you turn the volume down, because otherwise there is a slight delay. that eliminates the echo. this statement from michael bloomberg, who had been considering a third party bid, but now says if he runs, he will run as a democrat. here's what he wrote, according to his statement at michael loomberg.com -- host: virginia is next, langhorn, pen, you say no. you would not consider a third party candidate. caller: it would be ridiculous to have a third party candidate. there's too much money in the emocrat party.
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of course, because they have all that money doesn't mean they're going to win. host: we'll go to bob next in tyler, texas. good morning. what's your view? caller: i would support any party that follows the constitution. and this border budget is unconstitutional. because it violates our reason for being, article 4, section 4, and also section 3 of the 14th amendment, which says no person shall hold elected position who has engaged in rebellion against the constitution or has given aid to the enemy, and that's what this budget has done. i'm sorry, i'm so excited. host: well, we're glad to hear from you. you want to finish? caller: i guess i'm done. but it looks like he knows the
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constitution. and he might be a candidate that i would support. host: republican senator from nebraska, thanks very much. crystal is next, wilkes-barre, pennsylvania, good morning. caller: good morning. i would never vote for a third party candidate. as bloomberg stated, he would just split the democratic party up and have trump in office again. i would never vote for a republican. i would vote for biden and beto. that's who i'm looking at right now. that's who i want to win. i want trump out of office. i don't think he did a great job. i think he just divided the country up. and i can no longer take him anymore, not even listening to him for five minutes. thank you so much. host: thank you for the call. and still speculating on whether or not the former vice president and the former texas congressman will enter the race, although we're told from the beto o'rourke campaign that
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he will make an announcement by the end of this month. no indication on whether or not the former vice president joe biden will officially enter the race, although there was a story this past week that he had been consulting with democratic donors and also met with dianne feinstein. this is a story from "the washington post," finish that wall is the headline. trump seeks to turn his failure to build the wall into a campaign rallying cry. here are some of the details from the warrant post, --
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host: again, that story inside "the washington post" and at washingtonpost.com. joe is next from north charleston, south carolina. good morning, joe. caller: what a great segue into my comment. i wasn't going to say a thing about the wall, but one of your callers did, and now you mentioned this piece here. just very briefly, because i'm a third paint kind of guy. there's a question that should haunt all of us, and that is why immigrants would want to cross into america illegally, why they would want to choose a place other than a poor country
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that could probably process a&document them so that our government could know how many people are in this country so we could plan fiscally for their well-being, including healthcare, education, and social programs. we know the conspiracy theories and it just haunts me that there's an ulterior motive why people want to come in illegally. now, you may not remember this, but i've called you before, and i really appreciate c-span covering this third party situation. didn't make much difference when i voted last time. south carolina always goes red. you can feel comfortable voting your conscience. let me tell you. this time, i'm so scared that this country is on the brink of turning socialist that i may not do that. again, the piece last time, hillary won the popular vote. i mean, we are in dire straits here as far as i'm concerned, as far as heading towards socialism, and it bothers me.
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i welcome third party candidates, and thank goodness for c-span for having these guys on, because they never get on the national stage. occasionally they do back in perot's day they did, and george wallace did. you know what he did. but this guy may get on the national stage. darryl castle didn't, but you did have him on c-span. we thank you for that. that's the only place they get shown. i've always maintained that money and media control these elections. this time, let's see if that's not true. let's see if this guy can at least be heard. host: if we put together a third party presidential debate, would you watch it? caller: i'd be the first in line. host: joe, thanks very much for the call. we appreciate it. you are a familiar voice, and we're glad to hear from you. news today on the passing of at cadell, in 1976, a pollster and strategist for candidate jimmy carter, who went on to
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become president of the united states. the "new york times" has the obituary, he helped send an obscure peanut farmer named jimmy carter to the white house, later became disillusioned. he died yesterday in charleston, south carolina. pat caddell was 68 years old. his death, the result of complications from a stroke. he was considered instrumental in mr. carter's victory, and he also shamed the blame for limiting him to a single term. he helped him deliver a speech that was intended to inspire a country, but instead tarred mr. carter as a weakling who was unable to lift the country out of its malaise. in 1980, voters erected ronald reagan. that speech from july 15, 1979 from president carter, it was dubbed as the malaise speech. pat caddell died yesterday at 68. back to phone calls. springfield, maine, good
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morning. caller: good morning. i don't think there should be any political parties. there should be a system where we're not fighting so often. i think the voting should be better inspected. i'm a little nervous here. anyways, i don't think there should be any political parties. game good with that. host: two other obituaries from inside "the washington post." ray price was 88 years old, speech writer who crafted some of richard nixon's most consequential statements, including i shall resign the presidential effective noon tomorrow. ray price was 88 years old. this is a photograph from him back in 1973 in the west wing of the white house as he was writing speeches, including during the height of watergate. lee rads i well, the younger sister of jacqueline kennedy onassis, she passed away, the obituary this morning inside
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"the washington post." now from louisiana, good morning. caller: good morning, steve. steve, i would vote for anyone that could help bring unity to this united states and the world. steve, this morning, i'm very sad. i'm very heartbroken, so please, just allow me to say a rief prayer for this nation. i am a black american female. and this is a prayer, very brief, steve, please. our father up in heaven, hear this prayer. may the people of all nations be united in our care. peace and salvation can come only by thy grace and not through bombs and missiles and our quest for outer space.
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until all men recognize peace of earth cannot be won with strategies and swards. we will go on vainly fighting as we have in ages past by the only empty victories and a peace that cannot lost. host: thanks for the call from louisiana. on that note, we'll go to new york city. good morning. would you vote for a third party candidate? if so, who? caller: good morning, no, i would not. i think it's total stupidity. if you want to diverse the electorate, you need to deal with third party candidates on the local level. look at people on school boards, municipal he leckedses. the world and this country have too in problems. total, total insanity.
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i think that you're diluting the vote. bernie sanders, all these people, deleted the discussion, the national discussion, and we have donald trump. and we had the russian influence. we need to -- people talk about socialism. well, what is medicare? what is social security? putting it in one big pot so that everybody can have a certain stand and a local standard of living. host: al, you are next from missouri. good morning, third party candidate, would you vote for one in 2020? caller: myself, i would vote for a third party. i think of we the people, it's not we the democrats or we the republicans. it should be who's going to do the best for our country. that's where i've always voted. y been independent all my life.
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this last time i voted for trump because i didn't think hillary was anything special. host: al, thank you for the call. road to the white house coverage, we are back at new hampshire tomorrow afternoon about 4:45 eastern time. live coverage on presidents' day of senator kamala harris as she continues her journey through the early caucus states. tuesday morning she will be at what's called politics and eggs, that also would be live at 9:00 a.m. eastern time. i'm of our coverage available on our website, c-span.org. on friday, the former republican governor of massachusetts, went on to be nominated, but is not deserve as u.s. ambassador to mexico, and he served as the running on the libertarian candidate as vice president. now back as a republican, announcing he is gearing up for a challenge to president trump. here's what he said friday morning. >> i'm here because i think our
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country is in grave peril, and i cannot sit any longer quietly on the sidelines. we have a president who openly raises and encourages despotic and authoritarian leaders abroad, while going out of his way to insult and even humiliate our democratic allies. the question presents itself, why? we have a president who is set out to unravel rather than promote arms control, nuclear arms control agreements with other nuclear powers. why? he has lightly tossed around threats of the united states itself using nuclear weapons against north korea. why? he has railed against the very idea of the rule of law, the cornerstone of all of our individual freedoms. why? he has virtually spat upon the idea that we should have freedom of the press. why is that?
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he's failed to call out and denounce appalling instances of racism in our country. why? he rid cules and dismisses the looming threats from climate change. why is that? he has demonstrated a repeated pattern of vindictiveness. there's really no other word for it. he calls it counterpunching, but it's really vindictiveness. he acts like a school yard bully, except, of course, when he's around other bullies, like mr. putin. and then he turns ingratiating all smiles kicks the american press out of the oval office and has his summit meeting with mr. putin with no news media present except tasks, the state organ of russia. for what possible reason? the answer to all these questions, and i do say this with a heavy heart, i wish it were not so, is that we have a president whose priorities are
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skewed toward promotion of himself rather than toward the good of the country. host: saint anselm college, bill weld, a republican, is gearing up for a potential bid to challenge president trump, and this is the headline from "the washington post." rebecca has this from our twitter page, in the recent past third party candidates have caused a person without a majority of popular vote to win, thus i would not likely vote third party. in case you're interested, there is this study put together by pew research looking at where the public views the republican and democratic party. as you can see, they're going in two different directions from 1987 through 2019, the headline marks jort now say there is "a great deal of difference between the republican and the democratic parties." the percentage says there's a difference, you can see 54% compared to almost tied back in 2007, between 35% to 40%.
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back to your phone calls on whether or not you think there is room for a third party presidential bid. john is joining us from baltimore. ood morning. caller: absolutely i would vote for third party. these parties right now are destroying the country. i think these political parties , the democrats and the republicans are part of the reason why we're in a civil war. i can't deal with the republicans, because they love white supremacy, harbor white supremacy. but then the democrats, they want to harbor line ticks, all these crazy ideas coming out the democrat party. i'm just a rock and hard place. i don't know who to go to. so at this point in my life, i'm thinking, hey, what do i have to lose voting for a third party? the starbucks guy, i kind of like him. got to hear more about him. don't really know who he is. i would like to hear what he has to offer.
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as of right now, like i said, the republicans, too many white supremacists, and the democrats, too many doggone asinine lunatics. host: next to rockford, illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. this time i would vote for the president again. i don't know what's wrong with only having 3.7 unemployment rate across the country. that's more people than has ever been working, and the economy is booming. it's the economy, stupid. that's what they used to say when it was i believe a bush running. one thing that really ticks me off that i keep hearing all these social democrats saying is, we got to save our democracy, and we got to keep our democracy. we are a constitutional republic. a representative republican. a civil war probably wouldn't be the most horrible thing. you have to clean the corruption with the blood of
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patriots. host: thanks for the call. two headlines from "the ashington post." cardinal mccarrick was defrocked by the vatican with stories of more than 30 years that he sexually abused young boys, including in the confessional. that headline from "the washington post." on the other side, in the wall of failure, a trump rally cry. again, the story about the wall and how republicans plan to use it in 2020. yesterday during the winter meeting of the democratic national committee, this from d.n.c. chair tom perez. >> donald trump declared a national emergency earlier this week, but you know what? you know where there's a national emergency? there's a national emergency of gun violence. there's a national emergency in healthcare. if you can't afford your insulin, that's a family emergency, a community emergency, and a national emergency. we have a national emergency on climate. we have a national emergency of voter suppression.
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we have a national emergency for women who work a fair day's wage and don't get a fair day's pay. folks, 400 years after the arrival of slavery, we still have a national emergency where the president of the united states, after charlottesville, cannot call racism racism. we have a national emergency. those are the emergencies we should be dealing with. america has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the prison population. that's a national emergency. too many americans are living paycheck to paycheck. that's a national emergency. americans are carrying $1.5 trillion of student debt. that's a national emergency. host: tom perez, on our website at c-span.org. from the "new york times,"
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trump's move to bypass congress for wall funding the putting the g.o.p. in a bind, looking at what impact it would have in the 2020 presidential race. elk grove, california, good morning. is there room for a third party canned rate, and more importantly, would you vote for a third party candidate? caller: if i would see a third party candidate on a ticket, i would. i'm from sacramento. my education in los angeles. i hail from pennsylvania. so i see the difference in the eastern and western styles of government, and as somebody who's in educational debt, studying health, seeing myself through to retirement, i solutely would vote yes on a third party presidential candidate. host: thanks for the call. this tweet, it is time for new blood, fresh faces with fresh ideas, justice for all, not just the rich and greedy. the rich need nothing.
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help the lower and middle class. this from dean who says donald trump hasn't answered the third peard question, i will vote for trump. from the outlook section of today's "washington post," a look at a number of female candidates, and the headline is called the electability trap, is the country ready for a female president? read it online at "washington post". north carolina, you say yes? caller: good morning. yes, i would. i mean, it doesn't matter. you can have a fourth party. the electoral college is broken. people vote a president in, whoever the people vote in should be president. it doesn't matter how many parties it is. it's always going to do, if you have a third party like the gentleman said earlier, it's
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going to -- the funding is going to be taken away. host: thanks for the call. the "new york times" sunday magazine, the history, the secret history of women coding from world war ii. and from cq weekly, the state of the state. we've been carrying a number of state addresses by the governors. this more than we aired the governor of michigan, and the full schedule is on our website. katherine, you are next. good morning. from georgia. caller: i would definitely vote for trump again, so no, we do not need a third party. we just need trump to have an opportunity to do what he's trying to do. if they get out of the way, this country will really go on fire. thank you. host: thank you very much. let's go to richard in pennsylvania, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking the call. yeah, yeah, from pennsylvania, i just -- and i am a democrat.
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although i do split my tickets locally. i do not see any good coming from him. i'm almost ashamed to say it, my from pennsylvania, people from my own state had voted for him. i would not do this again. if joe biden ran, i would vote for joe. not, then i'm leaning towards sanders. i do not believe in a third party. host: so bernie sanders is 77. joe biden is 76. if he runs, michael bloomberg is 78. is that a factor in your onsideration, their age? caller: ok, i want to see, on bloomberg, i don't know too much about his -- where he stands, you know? ernie and joe biden, i think
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joe would do very well. host: from the town hall meeting that took place on the cnn network this past week, howard schultz was in houston, texas. he took questions about his potential bid. here's more from that program. >> the majority of americans who are not on the extreme left and the extreme right feel as if they are not being represented. and that we are losing something. we all know something is not quite right. when i look at the situation, i have a strong belief that it's time to disrupt the two party system that is broken, that is based on revenge politics. people have asked me, how could you win? and i think this is a very important point. i know you want to get to the next question. in the last almost 30 years, every presidential election basically came down to eight to 10 battleground states. but can you imagine a situation, if i run for president, we will be on the
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ballot of every state, and then the majority of every state, almost 50 states, a couple of them will not be in play, but let's say 45, for the first time in over 30 years, everyone's time in over 30 year, everyone's vote will matter. if you are a democrat in a red state, your vote does not matter. race, ine-person almost 50 states, for the first time in over 30 years, american people have a voice and their vote counts. i am here not saying i am against the democratic party, i am here saying i no longer recognize how far left they have gone. i don't see myself in the party. the majority of americans feel like i do. the far right and far left does not represent them. they are looking for a home. , think millions of republicans who do not want to pull the
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lever for donald trump, if they have a better choice versus a far left democrat will come my way. that from howard schultz and -- in his time -- town hall meeting. more tweets coming in. would you vote for a third-party candidate. this is from steve saying absolutely considering a third-party candidate after the hypocrisy of most of the democratic party in 2020 candidates who won virginia's north and out immediately taking too long to ask fairfax to resign. the lack of leadership and inconsistent principles. this from another viewer saying a progressive looking run as a democrat. send us a tweet and we will read it. let's go to david in middleton, new jersey. caller: good morning. the best channel. i am fine. talk to you.to especially concerning the topic this morning. for every presidential
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candidate since uber -- herbert hoover. i have loaded every presidential candidate. what i want to say is i would vote for a third-party candidate , i am an independent. the democrats and republicans, unfortunately, no longer represent we the people. they represent themselves, the party, and special interests. in my lifetime, the greatest president was harry truman. he had the courage to drop the two atomic bombs on japan. by doing that, he saved 500,000 of us who would not be here today as well as 3 million to 5 million japanese. he was a people's president. he was a fantastic president. i wish we could have somebody
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like him. candidate.ird-party the american people are ready for a third-party candidate. someone who will represent them. like i said, not the party, special interests. and themselves. the only -- to come out as multimillionaires or billionaires. harry truman when in as a decent man, he left office as a decent man. he went home in his own car. to independence, missouri with his wife. >> which is incredible to think about that. 70 years ago, hopping in a car and driving to the middle of the country back to his home >> in delaware avenue. yes. that is it. deserved better than what is going on in our great country. i am pete's the american people to look forward to next year in
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2020. hopefully, we will have a good third-party candidate and the american people will vote for that candidate. who represents we the people. >> always a pleasure to hear from you. thank you so much. we appreciate it. >> thank you and the best to you. and all the listeners on c-span. have a wonderful, wonderful day. host: you too. stay well and stay healthy. this from politico.com. heather, a state department spokesperson and the president's choice to be a next u.n. secretary replacing nikki haley has withdrawn her nomination for consideration. the story points out that the state department's spokesperson has done so in part because of the vetting process for her nomination hitting a snag when it turns out that she had previously employed a nanny who while in the u.s. legally did not have the correct work authorization. make a that could
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confirmation harder she wrote she did not want but her family through that. a person familiar with the announcement and the statement said i am grateful to the president and the secretary of state of state for the trust they placed in me and considering me for the position of u.s. ambassador to the united nations. however, the past two months have been grueling for my family. it is in the best interest that i withdraw my name. available at politico.com. president trump is up early in florida with a tweet on the nominations that are before the u.s. senate and with past presidents, president criticizing the slow process in the u.s. senate. in a tweet which came just a front while ago the president wrote the following. immigrants in the senate are still slow walking hundreds of highly qualified people wanting to come into government. ourr been such an abuse in country's history. mitch should not let the senate go home until they are approved. we need our ambassadors and all others now.
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the problem is improper vetting. the senate is out this week for the presidents' day break. that is your phone call. dan is next from somerset, california. good morning. there is room for them because, you know, what are going on right now is you have nothing but but and paid for parties. if you get a third-party in and have them work for the people, instead of for their special interests groups, we can get things done. you know, trump is more of an example of what politics should be. he is out there saying what he means at doing what he said he will do. if you are going to stick to your guns and go ahead and do what you said you will do, that is a refreshing thing. i have heard all the politics for years and all i can tell you is they all do anything to get elected. once they get in the don't do anything they said they would do. if you get a third-party that is not beholden to
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the long-term special interest group, they will go ahead and set the example and atone for the rest of the parties. know what they're getting. otherwise, you are just a bunch of liars. all after the money and reelection and hold onto power. like theat sounds problem. when it comes to the borders and all that, i think that if people in south america like it so much of your, we should let them peaceably become part of america. we will divide them up into states here it and the people that like the way one type of tradition is and the way they run their country and the way they have their certain traditions, they go moved to those countries. and form certain states down there. we let them join america so they don't have come of p or for their entitlements. we will develop their infrastructure like the key promising here. the whole country is crumbling. bridges are ready to fall over. it is all over the place. the roads are damaged. you get one good winter and all
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the power goes out. it is ridiculous. don't put any money into infrastructure. they just do little patches everywhere. i think they ought to go through and straighten the whole country out. update it should at the same time, put them all to work. kind of like the new deal. go ahead and let them join the united states appeared have the benefits, everything. so they don't have to fall off the planet when there is no government response to their needs and there is no food or anything. nothing is figured out for them. host: thanks for the call. this from another viewer. the handle that one tech guy. this is a simple. an analysis of the map created to be as favorable as possible to shows resulted in the conclusion that he has no chance to win but does have a chance to reelect trump. he is running -- his running would be selfish. if you are just tuning in,
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listening on c-span radio or on channel 124, which carries as program every sunday morning, perhaps on the bbc parliament channel, we are asking about third-party politics and whether or not you would vote for a third-party presidential candidate. this story from the new york times on the story that was essential friday, the president declaring a national emergency. the first since 9/11 to authorize military action. here are some of the details from the new york times. president to divert military money to fund a border wall is an unusual rise of emergency powers. the last four decades has an emergency declaration authorize military action back in 2001 after the september 11 terrorist attacks. typically invoke emergency powers to impose sanctions on foreign individuals, groups, or nations that threaten national security, though they have also been used domestically amid public health
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crises and to regulate exports. since the national emergency act was passed in 1976, 7 presidents have declared dozens of national emergencies. 32 are still alive. this is a story from the new york times. if you scroll down, you can see which national emergency was declared by president trump and by presidents dating back to jimmy carter. for story available at nytimes.com. david joins us next from california. good morning. caller: good morning. the answer to your question is yes. believe that -- bureau think a lot of the colors answers will be different if we did not have the electoral college system. i do not agree with the system at all. i think it should be a direct vote. someone who would be a strong independent candidate would be governor kasich from ohio. he has the experience. he has modified his views a lot
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from when he first went to congress and the house. until he left as the governor of ohio. he is much more centrist. he never endorsed president trump. i did not vote for trump and would not do so. the otherst of what have talked about as far as the two parties. i just don't have trump and the two parties are going to nominate a candidate who is going to look out for the well-being of most of the country. they will mostly be looking out for the party and how they get reelected. that is very frustrating. i'm from california so i know that the state's electoral votes are going to go for the democratic party candidate. i don't like that. the electoral college should be revised or eliminated. host: that is another cup question we will have on another day. on the electoral country -- college. this tweet. the purpose for a political party is to nominate candidates who support the political views of the party.
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bernie is not a democrat. trump is not a republican. trump is a third-party president . parties should not exist after they are elected. a historical look at past performances by third-party candidates from 1968 through 2000. we will look at that and listen to bronson who is joining us from colorado. good morning. >> -- caller: good morning. thank you for taking my phone call. i am in favor of the two party. we should rename the two parties. we should have the party of the filthy rich and the rest of us. the party of the grinches and the rest of us. the party of the uncle scrooge's and the rest of us. the party of the greedy and the rest of us. the party of the heartless and the rest of us. people are living paycheck to paycheck. angry, starving people from central america invading this country.
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why don't we move some of the companies in china, china is our amp -- enemy? why not move some of those companies to central america? anthony has this tweet. i have voted independent for 25 plus years. every time people tell me i'm throwing my vote away. too bad more people don't vote independent. this is somewhat have changed years ago. this from fred saying it is the -- the economy is stupid and doing great, don't change a thing. donald trump, 2020. we can change the president to a democrat and what's the economy go down the toilet with their far left ideas that will put a burden on this economy. they don't care, listen to the way they talk. that is from fred. next from lawrenceville, georgia. good morning. caller: good morning. i have been voting independent since 1990 two but i am a libertarian. i have voted in every election except for one.
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in 2004 i voted for bush. candidates, have not done well. i continue to be optimistic. fact of the matter is that they don't. they take 1%, 2%, you have to give a balance of 50 states. shields come i wonder how he will do that. i heard he has got this infrastructure already in place and that as soon as he makes a decision they will have the ground running and get on the ballot. i'm not sure he knows exactly what is involved with getting on the ballot in all 50 states. there is 50 different states and 50 different laws. in the state of georgia, the democrats and republicans make it really difficult to get on the ballot. ande is a signatures petitions that have to be found. it is a nightmare. i don't know how he will do it. i don't think he is going to win. i think he will -- i think he is too far left on his positions.
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not as far left as the democrats. i think he is still too far left who call themselves independent in this country. host: we will see. thank you for the call. drawing the lines, a look at the u.s.t justice of the supreme court. brett kavanaugh, the newest supreme court justice could decide how redistricting is done. the story also available on the cq weekly website. frank, next. from glencoe come american -- maryland. caller: good morning. i don't think independent has a chance. i agree with the last color. it is just going to take votes away from the democratic party. fors the democratic party the people, for the middle class. the republicans and this president are for the rich. just look at their policies.
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personally -- personal exemptions. make just really going to my family, we will pay more in taxes. there is no -- in the map already. no, i don't think an independent has a chance. at all. i think this guy is just trying to get his name out there. so, that is what i am saying. host: this photograph on the front page of the new york times. a child in yemen is a country not only dealing with famine civil war, but also landmines. liens of them, literally, the hidden calamity in yemen's civil war. one million landmines is the story. who lostee this child part of his foot because of a landline. frontpage and the new york times today. chris is joining us from cary, north carolina. good morning. hello. i have a comment to make. i will not be voting for a third party because it is not
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something that the system counts for. not had a 30 party protest third-party president win an election for president since george washington one as independent twice. of those words in the electoral college to receive 270 votes out of a combined total. not something that a third party is allowed to do because you don't have the media coverage that they would need to get their presence out to people and let them though they are there. we have not had media coverage for a third-party candidate such as joel stein or going back to -- senate or people who are working, not since rough probe. there is no media presence. people begin to believe the two party system is opposite. they are two sides of the same coin. they don't have a third-party option on the media. they can't focus them. thank you so much. host: the stakes are too high to have another billionaire whether
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he is honest or not enable a billionaire that has proven himself a serial liar and russian asset, get reelected. that is from david. this is from steve saying i say -- see dictator donald whose national emergency is that because cans games he is only a 52%. in reference to a tweet a moment ago by the president, he is spending the weekend and mar-a-lago. 93% in the republican party be at a record, pretty amazing considering that 93% also is really bad. people are smart. excavation mark. him, of course, at real donald trump. jeremy from georgia, would you vote for a third-party candidate? caller: yes, i would. inm running as a candidate 2020.
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i have is jeremy and been through the system in multiple ways. i'm am a combat wounded soldier. i served my nation, i am doing this all out-of-pocket on a veteran's salary. . don't want people's money i want to ensure that people of the united states are taken care of. when it comes down to the actual national emergency, i believe ptsd is the number one focus that we all need actually look where most --t is actually come from. host: how do you get on the ballot in all 50 states? caller: i am having to petition and each state. the gentleman who mentioned, it is near impossible to get put onto the ballot as an independent. my supporters support me. they want me to go through. i will. host: do you have a website? caller: i am currently in the process of getting my website up and running right now.
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i am on instagram, facebook, and twitter. host: jeremy, from georgia. you are in texas at the moment. caller: yes. i'm running my campaign in texas or i have been helping of veterans. go figure. i believe in helping the people instead of taking the money from the people. the people actually need the money. most families nowadays actually have to maintain at least two to three jobs just to provide what they need. host: what is your last name? burnheisel. bloomberg, who thought about independent bid come up a statement on his website. saying given the strong pull of partisanship and the realities of the electoral college system, there is no way an independent can win. that is more true today than ever before pure it in 2020, the great likelihood is that an independent or just split the anti-trump vote and end up reelecting a president or that
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is a risk i refuse to run in 2016. we cannot afford to run it now. that is from michael bloomberg. joining us from michigan. good morning. caller: absolutely i would. thank you for taking the call. i have enjoyed a lot of intelligent discussion today. the problem is if we are all out of debt we understand that trump was elected president because he was just a little bit less despicable than hillary clinton. i think there is a definite move that most of us republicans would like to see a more pliable person run as a republican. i would there is no way consider voting for a democrat. they don't stand for anything. but hypocrisy. they were for the wall come another president trump is there, it is a moral disgrace to have the wall. that is a bunch of baloney. anybody with an honest, open
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mind would readily see that her they don't even hide it anymore. they come out and say their job is not to govern. the job is to obstruct. that is plain sad for our country. yes, i would definitely consider a third-party if trump is renominated. thank you for taking the call. host: thank you, richard in a from louisville, kentucky. caller: good morning. listen, a third-party candidate will absolutely muck things up for either the democrats or the republicans. donald trump is redesigning the republican party. swamp, they just absolutely cannot stand the fact that, trump is taking and trying to take apart all, he got rid of paul ryan. paul ryan showed his true feelings when he chose not to help the president secure the
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border down around the south of america. at a newsthat came up conference on friday. he did mention paul ryan's name specifically. caller: everybody knows who he is talking about. ryan has this multimillion dollar a year job. you won't ever hear from him again. here is something i wanted to talk about. the electoral college. if we do away with the electoral college, you will have california and the eastern states like new york and florida that will control the country. let me ask you something, how is it going in california? how is it going in new york? in have this amazon, ring 25,000 jobs and this goofball told them we don't need you. 25,000 jobs. need thehy you
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electoral college. so that you don't have goofballs like that girl running, she'll be running the country. think about your electoral college now and thanks so much. host: this is from jodey purity donald making up his own facts. not even going to fact check the glaring lie. that is a tweet. this is from another viewer saying what does it say about the person who says no to youider when we ask would consider a third-party presidential candidate. finally, these idiots call in and say get rid of the electoral college, right, we just need a constitutional amendment with the majority of states can see their sovereignty to california and to new york. our producer on the elector, maybe tomorrow. a window -- linda in ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. in regards to the electoral college, i think a lot of people forget the history of how that came about.
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in the modern-day context. the amendment was passed in a very difficult time of our country in 1913 when there was a lot of stuff going on. changes in the laws and that kind of stuff. big influence. had some of the capitalists, a former military marine corps general who was trying to defend the government. at that point in time, 17th amendment, senators of the states actually elected, were senators of the states elected the centers for the federal government. they were elected by the representatives of the state. the point is that the people in the government of all the state government was to keep that in balance. the people and citizenry were popular elected for the congress. the kind of balance out the whole idea of government to keep federal governments from becoming, you know, basically a kingship like what it has become today. and put it in the hands of the people of the state governments
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who really understand what was going on and they elect the senators. the 17th amendment was passed. that basically turned over to the popular vote. i think winston churchill said it best that the best case of a popular democracy is a positive conversation to deal with the terror in person. if we have the college today, the electoral college today, the people that are appointed are appointed by the party leaders. there is no third-party representation that would be able to support anything in the electoral college. thanks for the call. the president has been based -- busy tweeting since 7:52. he is not here in washington. he traveled to mar-a-lago on friday. he will give a speech tomorrow in miami before returning to washington. nothing funny about the tired saturday night live on fake news nbc. how to then is networks get away with these total republican hit jobs
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without rupture fusion? -- richard beard and? -- retribution? that is from president trump. we will go to kelly from bluefield, west virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. i don't think a third-party candidate would win. if you think about it, to me, president trump, he could not win as an independent. what he did, he sided with the defeatedn party and he all those other republicans and then he defeated hillary clinton. schulz was smart. to me, he would run as a democrat and defeat all those democratic people that want to be president. and then he could run against donald trump. he will never make it as an independent. on the democratic
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ticket, he could win. thank you. this from president trump. 7:56. just a minute ago. the rigged and corrupt media, the enemy of the people. david is joining us from a staunton, virginia. would you vote for a third-party candidate? caller: yes. thank you for taking my call. i have voted for third-party candidates a number of times. most recent, gary johnson. in the last election because i just do not like the other two candidates. i really voted against people as opposed to for people. as well, i voted for ross brooks. the problem is third-party candidates don't have much of an opportunity to win unless you have open primaries in every state where people can run and the top two vote getters could
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--n be in a run off a letter rot off election. you also have to eliminate the electoral college. if you could do those two things, it would even out the playing field and a third-party candidate would have more of an opportunity to win. thank you. host: to you and all of your calls, comments and tweets, the conversation continues as well on the facebook at facebook.com/c-span to we hope you tune in. coming up, we will continue our look at the present administration, the wall, and 2020 politics. -- joining us to discuss conservatism and the president. and later, democratic strategist, former chair of the committee, donna brazil. c-span's newsmakers following the washington journal. the president of the american federation of teachers with strikes in denver earlier this year in los angeles, the impact districts are having on educators, teachers, and
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students. are -- the strikes are having on teachers and students. >> a last resort. teachers do not go on strike unless they have tried everything else. there havee is that states years of protecting their disinvestment by using privatization and the disparagement of teachers and at one point or another, the straw is going to break the camel's back and i think you saw after 17, the marches in ' activism on fighting to make sure we have protected could -- pre-existing conditions from , the work inable terms of gun violence as we we are at the as
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year anniversary of parkland, that teacher started thinking of having the imagination that if they actually work together, go through their unions and together as teachers, that they could actually achieve what had heretofore been impossible, which is turning around the lack of investment. resoundingt it is a 25 states thathe spend less today than they did on public education 10 years ago. 41 states spending less in higher education than 10 years ago. there was a real attempt over these 10 years to try and use normal lobbying, to use the fact that the public supports public education, to try and get the
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reordering of priorities that the neighborhood public education, which serves 90% of kids in america, should be the priority and when that fails, you started seeing these walkouts in west virginia, chicago, l.a.oma, and frankly even perhaps now in west virginia again. president of the american federation of teachers, our guest on newsmakers at 10:00 eastern. it is also available on the free c-span radio app and online anytime at c-span.org. want to welcome david harsanyi, senior editor with the federalist. 's work is available online. -- his work is available online. i want to go to a piece you wrote last week on the democrats and their problem as you put it
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with anti-semitism. guest: i'm talking about upper freshmen senators who have said anti-semitic things or people think they are anti-semitic. i think there is a deeper problem than the troops they have been tweeting. i think there is a problem with israel and the ideas about palestinian rights the conflicts with what many jewish people in this country believe in some of us believe those ideas are somewhat anti-semitic. that rift between young and old in the democratic party is only going to grow over the next few years. from ane of those quotes freshman democratic senator who later apologized for her twitter remarks referring to jewish money is what is driving the political process. guest: the troops on twitter that people are mad about are a manifestation of something deeper that she believes and i think that is the problem. i don't think that she thinks there should be a jewish state at all. it is a debate worth having.
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host: she sits on the house foreign relations committee. guest: her opinions are not merely just insulting, they will have something to do with policy moving forward. it is important to understand what she believes. host: will it impact u.s. policy? you have some loud voices out there. guest: i don't think it is yet, but we are trending in that direction. host: how so? guest: many of the progressive monday congressmen. for the investment bill israel was blocked by democrats. it is worth having a debate to understand and when you have young against old, you have to pay attention to the young people who are coming into congress and the senate. host: this is the headline from the washington post. while the president seeks to turn his failure into a campaign
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issue, i want to read what this part of the washington post is reporting, saying the president and his team plan to make his ears long quest for a border wall one of the driving things of his reelection effort, attempting to turn his failure to build a project into a combative sales pitch that pits him against the political establishment on the issue of immigration. his campaign is fundraising off of his showdown with congressional democrats over the border, portraying the opposition party as more interested in political gain than public safety. faced with the fact that he has yet to build it into the concrete or steel wall he promised, trump is relying on a rhetorical wave of the hand. it largely assumes he remains popular enough to rely on the same strategy that delivered him to the white house through a thin electoral college vote even though he lost the popular vote by 3 million. it was a core idea of his
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presidency, or one of the core ideas. will it be successful? it might be because democrats, for his most excitable voters, the wall is still a big deal in the idea that the democrats have once voted for that but have seemingly obstructed any sort of funding for it will be helpful for him. host: but for the guy who wrote the book the art of the deal, where was the deal with nancy pelosi or former house speaker paul ryan? guest: there is legitimate criticism of the president to say that he did not make this the first thing he tackled and that he dealt with taxes and things of that nature. but in the end, people want the wall or at least his core constituents want it. i don't think washington is like a business deal. nancy pelosi has nothing to lose
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in undermining him. the incentives are completely different and the art of the deal does not work in washington. host: our guest, david harsanyi, senior editor for the federalist. here is the president from his rose garden talks. >> what do you say -- [video clip] two -- do you say to what do you say to some of your republican allies that said you are abusing your power -- not >> not too many people have said that but the courts will determine that. i expect to be sued. i should not be sued. very rarely do you get sued when you doing national emergency. other people say if you use it for this, what are using it for? we have to get rid of drugs and gangs. it is an invasion. we have an invasion of drugs and criminals coming into our country. i think we will be very successful in court.
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i think it is clear. the people that say we create , 56 a lot of times, that creates precedent. many of those are far less important than having a border. you don't have a border, you don't have a country. before i got here, we fight all over the world to create orders for countries, but we don't create a border for our own country. is wek what will happen will be sued and it will go through a process and happily -- and happily we will win. host: the president hedging his debts at the end. will the white house win? i think congresswoman ago advocated -- abdicated much of ago-- i think congress long abdicated much of its responsibility.
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i think it is a terrible precedent because democrat presidents will use it and have abused it. i think president obama abused his executive power in many ways. part of the reason that president donald -- that donald trump is now president is that many voters felt like president obama circumvented congress to do what he wanted. now that this president is doing it as well, it hurts his case. host: when you look at three coequal branches of government, if the president is successful, and that is a big if, it would fundamentally change the power of the presidency and delude the role of congress. this would allow the president to do whatever he or she wants by declaring a national emergency. is that not correct? guest: i don't think they can do whatever they want. this is talking about moving money around that exists.
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that funded subsidiaries -- with money that was not allocated by congress. trump is not the first president to try and do this. there is a danger in declaring a national emergency because will have different ideas about what a national emergency is. even if it turns out to be legal, i think as a precedent, it is a dangerous thing to do. host: let's get to your phone calls. jim is up from georgia. caller: good morning. this, that our issues with central america are not recent. they go down -- they go back decades. if you look at the movie the good shepherd, you see how we treated central america as basically a colony. price ofe paying the
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not managing those relationships with those central american countries properly. generations, even. it just seems like that is something that is not considered in managing the problem. that is my comment. host: is this in your wheelhouse? involved inve been central america for a long time and for a while we were fighting communism and other things. the blame -- to blame the united states 30 years later is not a great argument. there was a lot of corruption and poverty and it is not our fault that is happening. we have often tried to help countries in central america with things like that. that is part of it. was better in central
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american countries, we would not see as much pressure on the southern border. i am not sure how we tackle that. host: your family knows about that, coming from hungary in the late 1960's. guest: my parents defected and came here. host: what were they facing? guest: they were facing socialism. poverty but not the kind they are facing in honduras. it was more a lack of freedom and the ability to do what you could do in a society here. they were running from something a bit different and they were not going to starve and they were not worried about their family starving. the president was up early this morning with a number of tweets. i want to share just one of them saying, 52% approval rating, 93% of the republican party, calling that a record. 93%ty amazing considering of my press is really bad.
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the people are smart. guest: not sure how smart the people are. isot of the support he gets sort of partisan support any president would get. however i do think the democrats republicansto the see that the democrats have gone so far to the left that they don't have much of a choice. host: our next caller is on the democrats line. good morning. , mr.r: good morning president, good tweeting. hello to your just. -- to your guest. i have never been more ashamed and frightened to be an american. congress has allowed mr. trump's abuse of powers.
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we have known for weeks of this was a possibility. how can an unrealized campaign promise from 2016 be designated a national emergency in 2020? i think republicans have been damaged and that damage will be a repairable unless they put our country first. this is a reminder to all those trump supporters. things that qualify as a national emergency or 33,000 gun deaths a year. climate catastrophe. thousands of kids locked in cages on our southern border. 47,000 people who died of opioid overdoses in 2017. 2200 veterans committing suicide every day. care or out of health undernourished. 2.5 million homeless american children.
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the list goes on and on. not to mention supporting puerto rico or california. our border with mexico is not -- host: we will stop you there and give our guest a chance to respond. using a agree that national emergency to circumvent congress compounds something that has been going on a long time. congress has abdicated its responsibility in lawmaking and has given it to the executive branch. i don't think every problem we face is a national emergency, including all the problems he mentioned. gun violence over the last 30 years has dropped tremendously in the same way that border crossings have dropped. these are not national emergencies but his point of view is important because it shows what democrats are going to try and do if we move forward with this. host: this tweet from senator marco rubio in columbia.
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today,ed in columbia another huge delivery of humanitarian aid will arrive for venezuela. i will meet with officials leading the effort. that is in the country with a big mess. -- that is another country with a big mess. guest: a socialistic disaster of corruption. to deal withhave in some way and most americans want to -- don't want to intercede in the business of other countries anymore but it is worth paying attention to. host: john in pennsylvania, good morning on the republican line. caller: good morning. i am from long island, not pennsylvania. we had eight years of a national emergency when we had president obama in this country. thank god we have president trump, someone that is standing up for law enforcement. i am a first responder from 9/11.
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i see what happens as a result when people come into this country and want to do harm to us. it is ridiculous. you can go to an airport and you have to take off your shoes and be searched. you could go down to mexico and walk across the border, come in and do harm to this country. the democrats have gone so far to the left, these new democrats that were elected are so out of touch with the public that i feel it is going to be a walkover for president trump in 2020. as a policeman, there are no more riots in the street, nobody screaming should the police. now we have law and order restored, after eight years of no laura and order -- no law and order. mr. trump, if you are listening, do let them get you down. pollre 100% ahead in my and a lot of people feel the same. thank you for the call and i
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feel the president is doing a great job. he is on the right track. he speaks the truth when a lot of americans want to hear. host: we know the president watches the program. he has told us so. guest: i don't think president trump gets down over polls or anything of that nature. i think he is fine as far as that. i will think it is going to be as easy as the caller believes for him to win reelection. democratsinue to see tacking hard left, it will help him in that effort. tot: i want to go back venezuela because this is a tweet from one of our viewers saying venezuela's problem is corruption, not socialism. you cannot complete the two alachua willing to lie -- conflate the two unless you are willing to lie. guest: i can conflate them because when you centralize power to the state and collectivized your economy, it
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will always become corrupt. that is why we have the system we do. host: dorothy is next from new jersey, independent line. are you with us? we will try ann in ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. about there isng no problem at the border. don't these people realize we paid for a wall 100 times over with all of the immigrants coming in here and all the things that they get moneywise? it is time for the american people to wake up. people, you-class don't have a chance in the world if the democrats get in. just bend over and kiss it goodbye because that is what is going to happen. this is the most corrupt government i have ever seen. host: from new carlisle, ohio. guest: there has been money
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allocated for the wall and we voted on a wall in 2006. made them accredits voted on a walk -- many democrats voted on a wall. we are still in a system where it is very clear that the president is circumventing congress that clearly made its will apparent with the one point whatever billion they allocated. it is worth thinking about that as a problem, especially as president. host: randy from kentucky and you will have to help me with the first name of your town. where is that located? caller: just north of lexington. host: you are on the air, good morning. caller: thank you. thank president abraham trump for the wall.
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he has always been so independent as far as both parties. i feel like he is a third-party because no onelf on either party wants to take on the wall or protect our country from the ills of abortion. why do we need immigrants into this country if we are not keeping up our population? that is why we need these people to come in and help keep up our social programs. president abraham lincoln wanted us to emancipate us from the slavery of socialism but have some control on our population in this country. he has been excellent at taking on his own party. he will need to continue to do that because the majority of the people that voted for him feels like he is a third-party candidate and then you also have
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the teachers. 85% of them are women. host: thanks for the call. guest: he has a point. donald trump many ways acts as a third-party candidate. he ran against establishment republicans in 2015 in the primaries. atmany ways, when we look his actual policies, he has been pretty conservative, other than tariffs. the wall is an issue that is interesting because republicans have long talked about it but very rarely have actually follow through. host: kenny from arkansas. caller: i was wanting to talk about president trump and his tax reform bill. i have always been a republican and conservative but we voted for president trump because we was not wanting hillary clinton
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to be real elected -- to be reelected. as far as republicans being for the rich, because on the tax reform bill, we got back an extra $1500 on our income tax this year and i only make $30,000 a year and i can't see how people call in and say republicans are for the rich and democrats are for the people, middle class and lower income. i just can't see how people can say that when i got a next for $1500 this year. that is all i am going to say. host: thank you for the call. guest: when you have an across-the-board tax, which people are going to pay more and are going to have a bigger cut. republicans have been trying to cut taxes and this is a good talking point for the dem -- for the democrats but i agree with the caller. host: here is the headline. the president's foreign-policy
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facing growing dissent in congress. 43 republicans backed the measure. it was authored by the senate report leader mitch mcconnell who has been careful not to publicly split with the president. it was also backed by a republican of oklahoma who is the chair of the armed services committee and the chairman of the foreign relations committee. this resolution basically condemned the president's decision to withdraw troops from syria and afghanistan. guest: this is one of the biggest sticking points and definitely one of the biggest rifts in the republican party, what we are doing a broad. in establishment washington, many democrats and republicans do not want to remove troops from there. the president has more support that people believe. why are we in syria, while we still in afghanistan and iraq?
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that is something to watch that could help the president with many independents. host: steve, democrats line. caller: good morning. i called both lines just trying to get through. i have a couple comments. guys take a film of hibbler and his speeches and trump and his, turn the volume down and watch their actions. it is almost the identical thing. has guide has -- this guy told over 8000 lies in his presidency. how can republicans sit back and praise this man? guest: sn's you hit hibbler, the discussion becomes pretty ridiculous -- as soon as you hit hitler's, the discussion become ,- hitler's, the -- hitler the discussion becomes pretty ridiculous.
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-- not as good at doing it as other politicians. sometimes i think the press often focuses on it a lot more than they did in the past. i am not going to say he does not lie, he does. it is not as far out of the norm as people suspect. host: a tweet on the screen from senator lindsey graham, one of the president's closest supporters in the senate. i stand firmly behind president trump ticket decision to use executive power to build a wall, barriers we desperately need. i want to go to an earlier point because if there is a democrat in the white house and a democratic president issue some sort of national emergency, how do you think senator graham would respond? guest: he would probably say it is not an emergency. hypocrisy runs through both parties all the way through. host: we did see senate republican leaders supporting the president.
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this is taking power out of the legislative branch. guest: that is the real problem. congress does not like to make decisions and they have let the president make too many for too long. if they want a wall or barrier, they should either vote for it or like more people who will. this is about moving funding and i am not sure that that is applicable to all issues that democrats have brought up, for instance guns and things like that. perhaps on a green deal, they might move money around but it wide a move as people are saying. host: and we know you tweet. how can people follow you? guest: just my name. @davidharsanyi, . host: our next caller is from mississippi. caller: good morning. i have a question for david.
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how close is this country moving to the failed experiment of socialism? i will hang up and listen. host: thank you. guest: i think it is a problem because we see -- it has to do with the cold war ending and many young people understanding what communism and socialism was about. you see many younger politicians, specifically progressive politicians embracing ideas that would have undermined their election prospects only a few years ago. that is a problem. the american system is setup in a way that it would be very difficult to nationalize industry. i worry about the energy industry and other areas where americans might move in that direction. host: our last call is from indiana on the democrats line
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with david harsanyi of the federalist. guest: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i have been listening the whole time and i think there is something very wrong going on with the president and with the republicans. it feels like they are trying to become a dictatorship. i don't understand why. we need to fight this. i don't think it is a good thing , how he is controlling, going above congress. host: we will get a response. democrats criticized republicans now and republicans criticize a democratic president. guest: none of this is dictatorship. obama bragged about using a pen to pass legislation. every party gets mad about it
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but it does get worse and worse as we move forward. it is not a dictatorship. he is moving around money to build a wall. president trump is the many things to pull back executive power. i don't think it was because he does not want executive powder -- power. he was just rolling back obama initiatives. may be each president will roll the other president's abuses back and maybe that is a good thing. maybe the partisanship works in that way but we are not yet close to a dictatorship and when they areeak like that, undermining legitimate. debate we should be having. -- which limit debate we should be having. host: we learned that william is now back inside the republican party and gearing up to challenge donald trump. guest: i don't think it is going to make a difference. if anyone was going to challenge
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from, it would be on the right. a more moderate candidate is going to hurt him because activist conservative voters, especially in the primaries are not coined a vote for someone less conservative. they might first -- they might vote for someone more conservative. host: do you see a more conservative candidate jumping into the race? guest: i don't. host: david harsanyi, senior editor at the federalist. thank you for stopping by. the conversation on 2020 politics and here the table is author and political strategist and former dnc chair donna brazile. she will be with us in just a moment. later, michael o'hanlon joins us to talk about foreign-policy issues. this weekend we traveled to springfield, illinois as we look at the life of abraham lincoln on this presidents' day weekend.
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here is a portion of the program which is available online. [video clip] age, abrahamrly lincoln said he knew that slavery -- if slavery was not wrong, then nothing was wrong. we believe he would have seen slavery growing up in kentucky, when he was very young but as a young man, he traveled down to new orleans twice which was at that point the biggest slave trading market in america. he stayed a block or two away from one of the major areas of the slave auction. we are certain he saw it and was repelled by it. he saw it as a moral evil, something completely counter to the founding ideas of america. he also saw that it made no sense economically, that people should be able to reap the benefit of what they do for their work. some speculate that early on,
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him being farmed out to other farmers by his father showed him the injustice of sweating and working for a product. a fundamental moral and philosophical repulsion to slavery, also realizing that this was fundamentally unfair in every way and he had that all of his youth and put that into effect as president. >> if beale street could talk received three oscar nominations for original score, best supporting actress and best adapted screenplay. we will discuss the movie based on the 1974 james baldwin novel with a washington post deputy editor. >> i felt the film was visually beautiful and the thing that really sticks with you is just how loving and lovely the film is.
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doesnk his writing really deal with love, whether it was universal love, loving oneself, love between people and society. i think that is the overarching thing -- overarching theme. was sosee him when he passionate and fighting for the rights of african-americans, that sometimes people mistake that for anger and i don't think -- i think he was not angry but forceful in his denunciation of racism. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we welcome back a familiar face, donna brazile, longtime democratic strategist, interim chair of the dnc, author of many books. you are one busy person. guest: i am enjoying it. i am the electric chair at
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howard university. and my predecessor was james comey, the former director of the fbi. to bring inllows us prominent speakers from all walks of life. i am very excited about that opportunity. host: your newest book for colored girls who are considering politics. guest: we have been involved in politics for over 30 years at the national level. we have worked in practically every role within the democratic party. forbook was just nominated the naacp book of the year. who haveis for women blazed the trail of american politics, helping to elect presidents, working for presidents and working to encourage more young people to get involved in politics. host: let's talk 2020 politics. bernie sanders over the weekend preparing a campaign video that
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has not been released, but indicating he is seeking the nomination again. he is 77 years old. guest: no surprises here. bernie sanders randy phenomenal campaign as a democrat. a lane for bernie sanders is a lane for kamala harris and amy klobuchar. joe biden is considering. jay inslee. at the end of the day, it is likely we will have anywhere between 15 to 20 candidates who will make their official announcements in the next couple of weeks. make anto o'rourke will announcement by the end of this month. do you guest: think he will jump in? guest:yes -- do you think he will jump in? guest: yes. he could stay in the state of texas and run for senate in 2020 or he could run for the president. stacey abrams has the same opportunity. run for president or for
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governor. host: what about joe biden? guest: like bernie sanders, he is a known commodity within not just the democratic party but the country. host: but do you think he runs? guest: i have not talked to the vice president in a couple weeks. i know he is exploring it. he is talking to donors and former staffers. he is likely to jump in but if he does not, there are more than enough democrats who will fill that lane that vice president biden will normally fill, looking up for working people, helping to make a difference on major issues. joe biden is another great candidate. host: there is another candidate who has 100% name modification based on what might come out of the -- report. is there any chance to clinton jumps into this race? guest: i don't know. i have talked to her a lot of
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her -- i have talked to a lot of her closest confidants. while she has not joined in the interest, i have not any evidence that she might be running but she is a remarkable woman, phenomenal. she ran a campaign that sought to bring people together. stronger together was the message. at the end of the day, we all know what happened in 2016. most americans understand by now that there was interference. the fact is, i think hillary technically screwed out of an opportunity to become our first female president. i don't like to use those words but there is no other way to say it. it was a tough political year. she could not get her message out.
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there was foreign interference. with day we had to deal the assault of the males coming from nowhere. it's as if somebody goes in your house and steal your property and then puts it out on the street for others to see it. host: if the mueller report does have a clear link between russia and the campaign, and that is a big if, does that give color clinton a path to say i was robbed and i will do this one more time? guest: that is up to secretary clinton and her advisers. this is a two-year process. this is not an easy process. if she wants to run, there is a lane for her but i also believe that secretary clinton has made it possible for more women to run than ever before. we have a historic number of women who are running. they are formidable, talented
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and i believe that of the four or five who have already announced, we might see a future president or vice president. i really do believe that. host: in four months, the first debates will get underway. the first one will be done by cnn and cnbc. as you look at the outside -- at this from the outside, how should they identify who is in these first debates? polls?it be placed on should it be random? guest: it should be democratic. i want to fault the dnc for not having more than enough debates to get the people to know our candidates. msnbc and nbc will host the first debate. tom has not announced the city. two executive nights so we would have enough airtime for candidates to share their platform and their vision. host: it is not the afternoon
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debate or the evening debate. table fillede a with experienced proven leaders and experienced public servants. the individuals who will be selected based on the most recent polls starting now, but they will also be -- it will -- if you haven donors in all 50 states, you must show some viability. you cannot be summit who just wants to promote themselves. you have to show some viability and you will be selected based on that. host: let's get to your phone calls for donna brazile. greg is first up in washington, d.c. i am gregory from d.c. and i really appreciate donna brazile. guest: thank you. caller: i will have my daughters
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get that book. d.c. have nothing in the taxationare without representation in d.c. i love you being on this air. guest: while i love c-span. the dnc yesterday convened in washington, d.c.. mayor bowser was there. to d.c. state party sponsored our reception. we strongly support making the district of columbia the 51st state. it was in our 2016 platform. i'm sure it is going to be in our 2020 platform. mine -- she has more cosponsors lined up for
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d.c. statehood than ever before. greg, we need people like you to make phone calls all across this country and encourage your friends and family members to get congress members and senators. ic. residents like greg and helped clear the ball of trash -- the mall of trash. we provided services until the federal government reopened. d.c. deserves to have a vote in the house of representatives and we deserve to have two united states senators. host: let's go to california. caller: good morning. -- i've gotalling two questions. one question that i definitely want to know about. social security is called an entitlement. when they started social
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security, everybody that they paid in, that money was supposed to draw interest. there was something always said about a third rail. raise the social security? it could have paid for itself. second question. if it is proven that russia had something to do with the election, and because as far as i am concerned, they installed trump in the white house. that is an act of war. is there anything? can we make this country whole again? things are really screwed up. have a great day. guest: thank you. you are up early. i believe we have the strength to protect social security. have to ensure that all of our in title -- entitlement programs
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have the resources that will allow these vital programs to succeed. we have to ensure that we can sustain them and not borrow from them. i am a strong supporter of these valuable programs. with regards to the russia investigation, i have taken the position from day one that we need to get to the bottom of the cyber attack on our nation. this was not an attack on hillary clinton or the democratic party, this was an attack on our democracy. we need to ensure that we secure our elections in the future and figure out if any americans had any involvement in this attempt to destroy our democracy, that is the bottom line. mr. mueller has already indicted 37 people. he has not completed his investigation. ofdon't know what the status
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his investigation is, but we are looking forward to getting to the bottom of this so that we can protect our elections in the future. host: what are your thoughts on the democrats lurching to the left and its impact on the success in 2020? guest: i look at our platform. when you look at our platform, everything from criminal justice for warm to ensuring the health and safety of all americans, this is not looking to the left is designed to make us disagree with each other without having a formal discussion about the issues. the democrats would like to have a conversation about climate change. climate change is real. we want to have a conversation about criminal justice reform. president trump just signed the first step act. what is the second step act and the third, toward ending this insidious policy that
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criminalizes things that should not be criminalized? we need to have a conversation about health care. leading drivers of people filing bankruptcy. this is not lurching left. i don't understand why democrats who want to raise the wage so that every american can have a quality life, why is that lurching left or lurching right? it should be about strengthening , preparing americans for a future where everyone can survive and pay their fair share of bills and so forth. host: your first campaign was. nine, downhe age of in my beloved louisiana, in my hometown. i was born in new orleans. i worked with the city council candidate who promised to build a playground. i went door to door, encouraging my mother and father's friends and coworkers to go out and vote. host: did he win?
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guest: hell yeah. he got the playground built. every time i go home, i checked on the playground. i love politics. host: your reaction to something -- on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you this morning? guest: god bless you, sir, i love north carolina. caller: i want to go back to wikileaks. a lot of stuff from wikileaks has been swept under the rug. we found out that there was racism in the democratic party in virginia. we found out there was abuse of women in the democratic party. look in virginia. we found out through wikileaks
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that there was collusion between the democratic party and a major news organization, cnn. if we want to talk about collusion, i think a major news organization and a political party colluding is pretty bad. respect,th all due wikileaks was not a great source of information. somehow or another, they had access to information that was stolen. it was like a robbery. someone walks into your house and take your property and then they parcel it out to build a , in many instances a false narrative. there was no rampant racism within the democratic party. had there been, someone like myself and many others would have stamped it out.
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i think i speak for all the former chairs and the current chair, we don't tolerate that within the democratic party and we find it, we condemn it and we ask the official or entity to explain it. the second thing, with regards to collusion between the dnc and cnn, there was no collusion. i was involved. i was with cnn and i was vice chair of the democratic party before becoming the interim chair. our party seeks media outlets to help promote our candidates but also to talk about our agenda. wikileaks used stolen information to create a false narrative. that is why director mueller is seeking the truth and we will get to know the truth within the next couple of weeks, once everything is put on the table. host: this is from linda
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hirschman, from the outlook section of the washington post, the electability trapped with this question, will americans vote for a woman? the assistant professor and your home state who teaches political communication louisiana state university found that when women played up stereotypically votersne properties, regardless of party rated them better. they were rated lower in terms of likability. with no similar backlash to mail candidates who -- male candidates -- i teach women and gender studies at georgetown. i have been a part-time professor for 17 years. there is another article in the new york times, a woman, just not that woman. until 2016, we have
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often seen one woman. we have seen one woman in this party, one in that party. we have never seen five or six run. we're going to look at these tart of the characteristics that women bring. are they collaborative, are they combative? we have a lot of things that we are going to learn on the campaign trail. the most important thing i encourage americans to do is get to know the candidates, get to know their positions and where they stand on the issues. don't get caught up on these traps where she is too tough or she is likable enough. where does she stand on climate change, infrastructure? where does she stand on public education or the deficit?
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most americans would like to talk about these issues in 2020. we are not going to talk about her hair. got forbid anyone talk about my hair this morning. where going to talk about her the whiter past to house -- we are going to talk about her policy, her path to the white house. host: and your hair looks nice. guest: thank you very much. host: this is another tweet from karen. should the democratic party eliminate superdelegates? have a votell not on the first developed. they have not eliminated our voices but they have a limited our votes on the first ballot. by the way, we are americans, we are activists and donors. we are people who have spent over 40 years knocking on doors and raising money, encouraging candidates to run, supporting
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candidates. i have not been a paid democratic staffer since i worked on al gore's campaign. isn you see me out there, it because i love my country and i want to encourage as many young people and old people to run for office. if you are out there, i might be coming in looking for you because we want more people to run. host: the book is titled "for colored girls who are looking into politics." donna brazile. brand new is joining us from south carolina -- brandon is joining us from south carolina. caller: i love your hair. guest: thank you. caller: i am the former democratic nominee in trey gowdy seat. we got almost 40% -- trey gowdy's seat. we almost got 40% of the vote. i am also a joe biden staffer.
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run a decides to campaign, would you accept the responsibility? guest: unfortunately i am out of the campaign managing business but i am in the cheerleading business. i have known joe biden i was 28 years old, over 30 years. he is a decent man, a great american and i wish him the best of luck. tara mccullough i have known for over 30 years. -- amy,nown amy,, love are all my friends, i love them all and i want to see a vigorous debate in the democratic party. host: ralph northam, democratic governor of for genia, justin fairfax the lieutenant governor, both facing serious questions. should they stay in their job? guest: at this point the democratic party of virginia has
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called for both officials to step down. it appears they are going to stay in office and try to work out these issues and problems with the virginia legislature as well as their constituents. honor -- anhave a honorable and decent conversation about race. this is black history month. we need to have a conversation that does not end with step aside or resign. when you do conversation where we are transforming, rebuilding, we are about redemption and forgiveness, but we are not about sexual harassment or assault or racism. these are not american values. i just hope we can have a conversation before we just say get out of town. i know ralph. not as well as i know justin. i know justin very well. ralph northam is someone who
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cares about the american people. he cares about equality under the law. forward,he has come and we don't really know if he was in the blackface or the klan outfit. what we do know is it appeared on his page and a yearbook. he needs to explain to not just his constituents but the american people why my face is wrong -- why blackface is wrong. it intimated it people. -- intimidated people. that is why it was wrong. of course sexual assault is a crime and that is absolutely wrong. we should allow victims of this abuse to come over it and tell their story. host: we will go to rudy in california, democrats line. caller: good morning. campaign, i016
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believe that as never can american, mr. trump -- as an african-american, mr. trump did not talk to the black community, he talked past the black community. addled all think it is would it work this time. when he is speaking, he speaks to an audience of 99% white. guest: i was at the democratic national committee headquarters when president trump said what do you have to lose. he was referring to the black community's overwhelming support for the democrats. we have everything to lose. like most americans, we don't want to lose our voting rights because we vote democrat. we don't want to lose our health care because we vote democrat. we don't want to lose our ability to have a balanced life because we vote democratic. we have a lot to lose when our party is not in office and that is why we are democrats.
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we have african-american lieutenant governors in wisconsin and new jersey and virginia. african-american attorney general's in places like new york and illinois. -- and of ensure course i want to be fair to republicans. you have tim scott from south carolina. we want to make sure that african-americans like all americans can enjoy the kind of quality of life, sharing prosperity and security that most americans want. host: indiana, good morning. guest: i love indiana. host: you have been everywhere. go ahead, kevin. caller: hello.
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i have a few things i want to talk about. thatuperdelegates ithe superdey superdelegates, there are only four with one time voting, but that dictates to gets to run for president. the other thing i was wondering, since you have been in politics for so long, how does the use of illegal drugs, like hard drives, thein, compared to recreational beer or marijuana affect the blacks, because i feel like, and from what i know in indiana, in the small towns, your rural areas, where it is all white, i mean 50% of them
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smoke marijuana. but if you're in the city, the cops are beating down your doors because of marijuana. guest: there are a substantial number of americans who are in prison because of recreational use of marijuana, and we believe there should be a pastor people with nonviolent offenses to be able to get out of jail. when a serpentine, get out of jail, and have the ability to live their lives, make compensation for their crimes, but to go forward with their lives. i do not like to think of heroin as being a poor white problem or a poor black problem. this is an american problem. we need to do something about it. that is why the legislation that was passed with overwhelming thertisan support, president signed the bill, we need to deal with opioid
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addiction, and these are we have to do with as americans, not just blacks or twice. superdelegates some of your automatic delegates. that does not mean something special, it means because you are the governor of a state or you're a united states senator or united states congressman, you automatically get a seat at the table. so-calledare automatic. we do not make presidents. the overwhelming majority of americans who pledged delegates, votesre the ones whose will ultimately decide who is the "democratic party" nominee. i love being an automatic delegate, because i have worked hard, i have earned my seat at the table. that does not mean i am against other people joining me at the table. i want as many people as possible to come through the door. and by the way, i will give you a seat, even if i have to bring in a folding chair. host: you authored a book
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-- guest: it is on paperback. thing,nd one final passing of someone you know in 1976 made his mark and the jimmy carter campaign. guest: you know, i was involved in the jimmy carter campaign. super we had all of these consultants and posters and what was justese gurus, pat a kid who wanted to do something great for this world and this country. carter's to make jimmy image larger than life, although jimmy carter is larger than life, but pat was an amazing person. was aversial, yes, but he trailblazer. host: donna brazile, your new
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book, "for colored girls who have considered politics," longtime democratic party strategist, thank you for stopping by. guest: thank you. host: please come back again. guest: will do. host: our friend michael o'hanlon will be joining us in a few minutes. we turn our attention to the u.s. involvement in afghanistan, 17 years after we first moved into the country, what is next? you are watching and listening to c-span's "washington journal" on this sunday morning, the 17th of february. we are back in a moment. ♪ >> "if beale street could talk" received three oscar nominations for best supporting actor is in adaptedt screenplay. novel withcuss the "washington post" editor monica
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norton. michael: i thought "if beale street could talk" was a beautiful film. writing really does deal with love, whether it is universal love, loving one's self, love between people and society. i really think that that is sort of the overarching theme. i think a lot of people see him, because he was so passionate in fighting for the rights of african-americans, that sometimes i think that people mistake that for anger, and i don't think -- i think he was not angry but forceful in his denunciation of racism. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." >> c-span, where history unfolds
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daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. >> "washington journal" continues. our: we want to turn attention to the situation in afghanistan, and here at the table is michael o'hanlon, longtime fellow and senior researcher at the brookings institution. pamela is joining us on the phone from afghanistan, the bureau chief who covers pakistan and afghanistan. what are you hearing on the ground, regarding u.s. troops, whether they will be withdrawn, and if so, when. we don't really know.
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the indications are that it is likely to happen. in what numbers we think it will be, about half. but the negotiations are -- and acceleratingto be between the taliban and u.s. delegates, but there are no consequences of any kind. nothing has really been settled at all. so i think it is premature -- host: we are talking to pamela constable, and we have a little bit of feedback. i hope you can still hear us. my question, if you can hear me, what role does the president of afghanistan have at the table? is the advising the president of the u.s. in regards to what we should or should not do? ok, i am just walking
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outside. hopefully we will get a better reception and no feedback. the afghan president -- in his anger and disappointment. he has been left out of the u.s.-taliban talks. he has been left out of conferences, for example, the recent one in my out that involved a variety of afghan leaders but no one from the government. it has really been a difficult situation for him. there is feeling in many circles that the afghan government really does need to be part of this. that is the official american position, as obviously the official government position. the taliban remains absolutely insistent that they will not ghani or hissident government, because they claim it is an illegitimate
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government. maintain that pressure from the u.s. and other places. host: we're talking with pamela constable, the afghan and pakistani bureau chief for the "washington post." let me turn to michael o'hanlon, with a quick question for you, pamela. guest: pamela, thank you for your work and dedication in that part of the world. how realisticjust you think we can even talk about progress in these talks, how realistic is it to even get our taliban when the absolutely refuses to recognize the afghan government. it strikes me that whatever atmospherics are improving, it is close to a nonstarter if there is not even a recognition that the afghan government is a factor, because you cannot imagine any realistic power-sharing arrangement if one group refuses to even talk to the other. on these big step
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talks and wanted to push that point a little further with you. guest 2: i have always leaned in that direction, really more sort by instinct than what i see happening. i cannot imagine, as you can't, that's all actually happening without -- the government that not only represents itself but also represents 17 years of trying to build democratic institutions in afghanistan at the cost of many lives and a great deal of money from the international community as well as afghans. i find it hard to believe that this could all happen without kabul's participation. the concern raised by many the unitedthat states is so eager to get its troops that it is going to be willing to make a deal with the taliban that gives them too much power, too much leverage. i think that is unlikely to
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happen, because the american government keeps saying it is not going to happen. it keeps repeating that it once eventual dissipation by the afghan government, but as you that has not happened. i will not exactly call it a is somewhereut it between a nonstarter and accelerating process. host: pamela constable, you can find her work at washingtonpost.com, the bureau chief of afghanistan and pakistan, thank you for being with us on this sunday. we appreciate it. guest 2: you are very welcome. host: michael o'hanlon, let me share with you what the "washington post" is reporting this morning. "the top official sharing that the u.s. will not desert the country's security forces, the afghan defense minister said, according to the "wall street signaling american support for the jittery
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government while the u.s. holds talks with the taliban to end the country's 17-year or. ashis first overseas trip secretary,nse patrick shanahan met senior u.s. military officials and top afghan officials, including ghani."nt well, they summed it up well. there is a lot of uncertainty. but i think the point that you begin with, that acting secretary shanahan conveyed a message of resolute support for the afghan government, which by the way is the slogan or the name of the mission itself, was absolutely more newsworthy than most american news outlets have picked up, because we have seen a lot of isolation from president trump in particular, and there are a lot of doubt in
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kabul. i was there in december. a lot government in agencies as well as nato and u.s. officials are unsure of what the future holds, so for secretary shanahan to come in with a strong statement that we will not abandon the afghan security services, that is important. now in this day and age when we're not quite sure when president trump will change his make all of the predicates for that sweet, seems relegated to obsolescence, in other words, i do not know if president trump will change his mind, but at the moment, his secretary or acting secretary of defense seems in power to convey a message, which i am very glad to see. it is not exactly what people were expecting necessarily when i was there in december. host: and you know this, because we had talked with you many different times, but this is from the "new york times" this morning, how to make peace in
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afghanistan, point out that moscow has some lessons, some mistakes that russia made 30 years ago. i am a little reluctant to compare what we're trying to do in afghanistan with what the soviets did. iny blasted to oblivion an an effort to stamp out a communist government that they willnstalled against the of the people, a coup, that replace one communist party with another that they were behind. they didhing like what in the 1970's or the invasion in the next decade. so i frankly do not see useful lessons, except to the extent we know this is a country that has been broken by generation of war and was never a strong country before that. so there is a very difficult process here of creating any kind of a fledgling state. one thing i will say is we americans should remember just some of the afghans helped us with the cold war.
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they were the ones on the front line against the soviets in the 1980's, and it was largely a soviet defeat in that war that led to mikael gorbachev, his reform, and ultimately the tearing down of the berlin wall, the dissolution of the soviet union after the dismantling of the warsaw pact. we owe a strategic debt to the afghans. it does not mean we should keep a mission going that is undoable, but i think we need to bear in mind there are so many countries on this planet earth that have done as much for america and insecurity of the afghan people in that resistance against the soviet invasion in a 1970's. host: the u.s. may trim over 1000 troops from afghanistan, but the president telling congress this month he intends to reduce forces from it is in talks with the taliban, saying "great nations do not fight endless wars."
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host: but that number can fluctuate. guest: yeah, i do not know what to make of that story. we have been coming down ever since 2011. you may recall that president obama originally campaigned in 2008 afghanistan was the correct war, that iraq was a mistake. he put in a huge effort and builds of our forces to 100,000 u.s. troops early in his presidency, and now we are at 14,000 come so we have had an 86% reduction. president trump slightly increased the number last year from about 10,000, which is the number he inherited when he was
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inaugurated in january 2017, to about 14,000, as you said. so that is where we are, plus or minus 1000 i off of that number is not a big change, and it will just continue an ongoing trend, about seven years old now, where we have been downsizing. there are slight variations up and down, but if you imagine a curve or a graph, this is a very clear downward progression since 2011. that will continue, i believe, but we've got to be careful about the face. 1000 over the next few months, that is fine, i believe. 7000, or half the force, which is what had been suggested in september, and perhaps contributed to secretary matti'' resignation, that would be too much, in my judgment, for what the mission requires. host: what is downtown kabul like? guest: it looks like a bustling city in the developing world. it is not like baghdad was at
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the heart of the iraq war. war zone.ke a concrete barriers everywhere, a concern about suicide bombing and car bombing, truck bombing everywhere. you do get those suicide attacks in kabul. this time of year, the air quality is terrible, because people are burning everything they can find to stay warm. it is cold, sort of like washington, d.c., some people get cold, and it is not a wealthy city for the most part, not a wealthy country. so what has that sense of a teeming city, a big city in the developing world. what you see is you see people on the streets, you see markets, you do not see gunfights on a typical day. probably anin kabul aggregate two to three months in my life. i think i have heard one or two explosions in the remote distance over that two to three months.
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so day today, the sentence is yes, there are checkpoints, barriers, police on the streets, but you do not see or sense that you are in a war zone. of course, you are -- it is a violent country, but day-to-day, most people are preoccupied with their lives, and making ends meet. host: how do you get there? guest: the simplest for americans usually is to fly to the uae or some other part of the broader middle east, and then you have to take a non-american carrier flight over iran to get from, let's say, tol biden kabul -- dubai kabul. that ride is fairly short, say 20 minutes. you can do it either through europe or direct. host: our guest is michael o'hanlon, sharing his expertise on u.s. foreign-policy. we're focusing particularly on the situation in afghanistan. we welcome your calls as always.
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leo, you are first up from the bronx in new york. caller: good morning. steve, i like your hair cut. host: [laughs] go ahead. my question to michael o'hanlon is can you talk about the haqqani network? are they jihadists? and to what degree are they getting support from the pakistani isi? host: thank you for the call. guest: that is an excellent question, leo. network, to review the basics, is based over the border of eastern afghanistan in areas of pakistan, and it is part of the broader television network, -- broader taliban network, but it is the is its own cell. it is more extremist. overthrowing the government in kabul, perhaps even attacks on
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the west. it seems to be more deep rooted in a hard-core, hard-line ideology. it is responsible for a lot of the attacks on kabul itself, even though i said day to day kabul does not feel like a war zone for most people, of course it does have attacks, and a lot of those do originate from the haqqanis. i do not see them as peacemakers. i see them as among the most hard-line a difficult elements of the taliban. they will continue to create difficulty in the eastern part of afghanistan, around the ost and that part of the city as well. the haqqanis are pretty tough, and one of the reasons why i am over thisptical process at all is the taliban effort to distance itself. they have in some ways tightened their bonds in recent years, if i understand it. the taliban is a multi-reacher with a lot of different sub elements and different parts of
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pakistan and elsewhere and also also the haqqanis in between. i do not know where the taliban want to go, but if they want to associate with the haqqanis, that the fare badly. from what we can tell, unfortunately, they are keeping at least some tentacles into the haqqanis. over the years, they probably lessened their support for the at thes, and probably same time support a little more for others, the leadership bodies in those cities or that have an influence on what happens inside of afghanistan. they are also in pakistan, but that is where a lot of the leadership resides for the taliban. my sense is that the pakistanis themselves are a little bit nervous about the haqqanis, and
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would prefer not to have that be the preeminent element of the taliban. the pakistanis tend to keep their options open. i doubt very much that they tied off ties completely. a native of new york and now teaches at princeton university. you have a new book coming out. shout out.me do a i'm teaching at columbia, not princeton, but i do have a book coming out called the "centcom where we wake up and china has taken one of the eight islandsted, unimportant in the east china sea that japan also claims. we recognize that japan administers them. to me, it is a situation that is sort of right for misunderstanding or failure to turn, because in fact the chinese may decide they can press there interests and their claim, and then what do we do if
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one day we wake and consider the situation? i have similar scenarios in other areas. we test our alliance with nato or japan, how should we respond? take on ame get your chief negotiator, talking about afghanistan and the future of the u.s. role there. let's watch. [video clip] is not toall goal seek a withdrawal agreement but a peace agreement. agreement can allow a withdrawal, but it is not just a withdrawal agreement that we are seeking. to achieve a peace agreement, quite a number of regions has to be dealt with. we have tried to develop a long agenda of issues that must be
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addressed. initially, we have focused on two issues. one on the issue of otherrterrorism and the on the issue of the u.s. forced withdrawal. host: your reaction to chief negotiator khalizad. guest: first, i am a great fan of khalizad. beot of people say he should the president of afghanistan. he has made inroads here, but i have a principled disagreement with the way in which his progress is being interpreted. find words to carefully, not to disagree with him directly, but i am a little skeptical, because if you are focused on two big things -- long-term counterterrorism and u.s. withdrawal -- you are still leaving out the obvious big
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thing, the biggest of all, which is what is the future of the afghan, the government, especially in a situation where they are not talking to each other, because the taliban and will not talk to a constitutionally mandated and elected government of afghanistan. without that, i do not know how you are out of that. maybe you need to brief the secondary issues, which are important in their own right, but the central issue remains entirely unaddressed. at all forame zal trying to possibly describe what he is trying to do so far, but we and our founders need to be skeptical before we head for any kind of a near-term peace accord, and i think if we start facing u.s. policy on any kind such 80'sctation with accord, we are making a big mistake. one of the greatest ambassadors to the region,
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pakistan, iraq, he recently wrote a column but i recommend people google and peruse in which he made these points more profoundly than i ever could based on his sophisticated record. host: we welcome our viewers on the bbc parliament channel. we are on every sunday. we go to jack in new york city. good morning, jack. jack, hello? good morning. caller: thank you. the good job. i have a question and a comment. --question for the u.s. is i think comment, look,
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they actually do have a purpose. they keep peace. having the thousands andn the millions of lives, -- forthe last one, vengeance. thank you. host: thank you, jack. guest: jack, if i heard your question correctly, and i did hear your comments as well, i understand there in much the sentiment, and i believe there ,re very few americans including all away over toward afghanistan, however, i came back from my trip not seeing a better option, and i will remind
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people we have not had a major pack that originated in the water middle east, supply that standard, we are not failing. not beene have successful. the middle east has gotten worse since 9/11, and the soul all air -- the so-called arab largely failed. i am always open to a proper discussion about how we address the underlying problems here, lack of opportunity, lack of jobs, lack of understanding between sunni and shia. were are ways in which sometimes do inadvertently make the problems worse on various stages, i accept all of that, but i do not say this as a suggestion or a proof that we should somehow get out quickly. the middle east has proven can do just as badly on its own without american involvement at the can with american involvement, and i would point
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to the libyan, yemen, syrian civil wars, where we have had far less intervention in iraq or afghanistan, but those countries are not doing well, either. so there have been problems with a big american role. there have been problems without a big american role. wenthe whole reason we back to afghanistan after 9/11 as we had tried to ignore it all through the 1990's. we pulled out our support entirely for the afghans once they defeated the soviet union, on behalf of a largely, of us and in support of our goals in weakening soviet power. we were completely successful, we pulled the plug, we left, and look what happened -- the 9/11 plus were planned out of afghanistan. i do not think an american departure is the right answer in most of these cases, either. host: i want to go back to the interviews that you referenced, brian crawford, he said "it looks like the taliban will retake the country." he said, basically to reiterate
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your point, the afghan government has not been at the table. recognizen does not the government during if we withdrawal and we talk about an 18-month timeline, you will basically see the taliban move in and retake the country. guest: he wrote a column on as well. that was a very good interview, and i recommend it to people. ambassador crocker is applying some real analysis to this, which he is so good at doing a general. the problem here, obviously if the taliban thinks that they can have a peace deal with us and ignore the afghan government and that we will sign on to that, then we are all collectively essentially emasculating the afghan government and accepting that it no longer have any legitimacy. that is the taliban's position now. we seem to be implicitly going along with it by talking about progress in talks on that basic understanding, that the afghan
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government does not have a seat at the table. again zalmay khalilzad the process going, and i commend him for that, but i am extremely skeptical that there is any hope on this until power-sharing, even 50/50 power-sharing, is going to be pretty good outcome for the. host: how many people live in afghanistan? guest: about 30 million. maybe a little bit more at this point. host: good morning. caller: good morning. appreciate you taking my call. host: sure. 2001,: i remember in 2002, that timeframe, i am reading an article by the great keegan,historian sir who has written obviously dozens of books. he pleaded with the american government not to occupy afghanistan. it would be a disaster. it would not work. he said you have grievances.
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oon. that some people think we collaborated primarily non- pashtun groups. this is the pakistani isi, and i think it is not true. i think our effort has been to bring afghans together, and we tun-leded two pash governments in the 18 years since 9/11, so you can always look great and debate, a little too much of this or that, but people who really get into the weeds on this stuff, right now, much of the trouble with afghanistan is between one type of pashtun and another type, comese president ghani from the eastern part of the pashtun.so-called gill--
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the other comes from the south. much of it is within the broader tun community. i would say it is not as simple as taking sides in this sectarian hubbub. we tried to minimize our role in afghanistan during the bush administration made a strategic judgment that afghanistan was really not worth a big investment. some people blame that on president bush's preoccupation missiraq, but i think we an opportunity to create a little bit of a core of an afghan state that would be strong enough and functional enough to actually withstand the taliban and when they tried to come back six or seven years later. last point, life got a lot better for most folks after 9/11, after the overthrow of the telegram. president bush credit
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for that. we cap improved social, female empowerment, any indexes you want to use, we have improved the quality like compared to what it was in the 1990's when afghanistan with a completely environment of virtually no health care or education to speak up for anybody. so let's not sell fluctuate too much here. conflict, aa tough tough mission, and i am frustrated, too, but we have contributed to that country in a lot of ways. two-hour radio audience, our conversation with michael o'hanlon. our next call is from washington, d.c.. good morning. caller: good morning. see what he, to mr. o'hanlon, thanks about the lessons of international conflicts, such as afghanistan and attempts to resolve such
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concepts, and how we can apply that to domestic u.s. policies, such as civil justice reform and chool-to-prison pipelines, specifically replacing out of school discipline with in-school activities and student support, as well as, more specifically, in addition, reforming our family courts, which have caused middle afghanistans all throughout the united states. host: just so we're clear in answering this, explain, from your standpoint,, the parallels between the two. well, we have a family court system that has caused conflict all throughout the united states and has harmed millions of children and destroyed the african-american family structure. do to enforce,
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and orders, administrative orders that would replace adversarial litigation with mediation. guest: i think most of your question gets to domestic policy. i do not really see lessons from the afghanistan mission to address those specifically, so i will not spend a lot of time with a detailed effort. i will just make a broader point, which builds upon what i just said a minute ago. i think when he to work harder to come together as democrats and a public is in this country on some practical issues. in afghanistan, i actually think a should, again, we have tendency to beat ourselves up about the mistakes that president bush made, mistakes president obama made, republicans tend to blame toocrats, democrats tend blame republicans, i think we have made over the years some pretty serious efforts, and they were really from the part of the world from which the united
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states were planned, and for a people that helped with the cold war, we struggled mightily, and to leave be nice soon, but i'm not see a way. instead of limiting one party or one president or another, i would take your question and creative spirit in looking for collaboration where we can. president trump and president obama, despite their multitude of issue differences issues up in ae, they in similar place on afghanistan today, and i hope that provides a bit of a bipartisan consensus, at least on that issue. host: let me give it to europe. vice president pence receiving what the "new york times" is calling a tepid response from the audience. he was followed by vice president joe biden. he said "this too shall pass" in regard to the america first
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policy. here is a portion of the speech we covered yesterday for the c-span network. [video clip] vp pence: i was at this conference two years ago. i remember 80 meeting i had with a leader of one of our nato allies. he was very candid with me during the told me he was worried that our new administration might represent a moment where america would pull back from our commitments. he said america is needed to be a leader in the free world and i told him i appreciated his opinion and his candor. whenhen i told him that you hear president trump ask our nato allies to live up to the commitments they made to our common defense, that is what we call being leader of the free world. is, many of our nato allies still need to do more, and the united states expects
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every nato member to put in place a credible plan to meet the 2% threshold, and by 2024, we expect all allies to invest 20% of defense spending on procurement. strength,renewed america and our allies have stood strong. we stood strong against efforts as well to divide our alliance, through political interference or the use of energy resources. and the united states commends all of our european partners who have taken a strong stand against nordstrom 2, and we commend others to do the same here we will not stand idly by while allies purchase weapons from our adversaries. we cannot ensure the defense of the west is our allies grow dependent on the east. host: to the vice president's point, michael o'hanlon. guest: well, he had a few
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points. he has been in europe now for a few days and gave a speech that was extremely critical of britain, france, and germany on iran policy, which set the tone for these points. what we just heard him say, i tend to agree with, and issue of coming back to the goal of seeing nato countries spending more on the rotarians, and more on hardware. you heard him mention a 20% goal, 20% on weaponry. these are long-standing nato targets that are officially adopted that most nato countries fall short on. on that specific part of his message, i think he is on pretty solid foundation. that there is so much poison and the relationship otherwise, and some of it he contributed to with his earlier remarks when he talked about really shaming britain, france, and germany, to the fact that they continue to support a deal that president obama and the united states helped negotiate.
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expecting our main our allies to get involved in the united states about whether the iran deal is good or bad to me is unrealistic, and you cannot create a collaborative tone within nato if you push that hard on that issue. i understand what they are trying to do, but he has to be careful how he does it. i think right now, they are not getting the message and its own right now. hill this was in the newspaper, saying the vice president mentioned president trump, 10 seconds of silence. noah plus. guest: let's call a spade a spain. president trump is not popular among european allies. you can say his criticism of them is warranted, but tone is not good in the u.s.-europe relationship right now, and chancellor merkel of germany just gave a speech at the same conference where she was apparently quite critical of president trump. brookings said
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she seemed liberated. she spoke her mind. she usually has been the one to soothe the back or differences, but in this case, apparently as she nears the end of her time in office -- after a remarkable run -- she is directing her criticism much more severely and directly at president trump. but to present issue, on that point, president trump and vice president pence are right. the united states is doing far more than germany. more.y needs to do on issues like the iran sanctions debate, how to deal with russia, how to deal with vladimir putin, we have a more complex dialogue, and the europeans are getting frustrated by president trump's seeming self-righteousness and the harshness in which he criticizes his allies, much more harshness than he is against vladimir putin. host: the work of our guest available on the brookings website at brookings.edu.
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with the president tweeted with regard to afghanistan syria, "i inherited a total mess in syria and afghanistan, and endless war. warst strongly that these must finally end. we spent $50 billion a year in afghanistan and have hit them so hard that they are now talking peace. was loaded with isis until i came along. we will have destroyed 100% of the caliphate, but we will be watching them closely. it is now up to them to start coming home, and after years of spending our money wisely, certain people must get smart." that is from the president on february 1. let's get back to the phone calls. mark. caller: can you hear me? host: we sure can. caller: in the last two minutes, you have covered a lot of ground all over the over
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world, particularly europe. they are in a tough position, nato, a coldknow, war thing, and the cold war is kind of over and all that, but europe relies on a lot of energy from russia. us to sit back and say they should do this and that, and they should pay this and that, well, they are dependent upon. shippingwe start takers, maybe from venezuela when they liberate some of that fuel down there, but anyway, back to afghanistan and the middle east, i want to bring up the fact that i think a bright spot, a shining spot in the middle east or in the afghanistan relationship, 's recently new president, imran khan, i have not followed at that closely come about from what i understand is he is a pretty straightacter, he is a
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shooter, and hopefully he will bring a little piece. but as a whole, afghanistan is just, it reminds me of the civil liken the united states, 1816, southern rebels, where there is just no order, and the second we leave, like ambassador crocker said, the taliban are going to come back. one more quick point. i remember hearing literally 10 years ago a kurdish gentlemen telling me that as soon as the u.s. leaves iraq, they are going to take over. then we have the right devices. host: mark, thank you for the call. is that a fair comparison? a fair analogy? guest: there is a lot in those comments. president trump says we are spending $50 million a year on afghanistan. the is the number that pentagon uses. $45 billion, i think i must pacific way but this is a little bit of funny math the pentagon
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is using right now. we are spending more like $20 million now, but it is a lot less than advertised. we have these war funds come overseas contingency operation funds, a way to get away from the 2011 budget control act, so the pentagon, with everybody sort of looking away and accepting this on both sides of the aisle, has been putting money into the afghanistan war account that is not really for the afghanistan war. budgetws them to pad the of the budget control act were otherwise curtail. host: so where is it going? guest: it is going to good programs, but they are not afghanistan programs. regular weaponry, basic training at function of the u.s. military, salaries. words, they are using this vehicle to add $20 million a year to the pentagon-based budget. host: which is a heck of a lot of money. guest: yes.
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of ombt a huge fan to hisr mulvaney, but credit, he is trying to clear this up. we have two more years of the budget control act. he used war funds which are not count as a way to cushion or pad the cuts, so we're spending $20 billion a year on afghanistan, not $45 billion, and not 50 billion dollars. that may be a secondary point thinkme people, but i that is important to get it straight. president talked about -- the caller talked about pakistan, the kurds, yes, th pakistan has a new leader. he is not big on the united states. i am not sure we can expect a lot of friendship from him in the short-term, but i do think he brings a fresh energy to
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pakistan. there is power in a country that has often suffered coups as a way of changing government. unfortunately, this new prime minister khan has not found a way to wrestle control of the country from the military. the military still controls policy toward india and afghanistan. so far, he has not been able to change their support for the afghan taliban and come up a crucial part of this entire problem. if that changes at a future date, then yes, pakistan have the potential to be more part of the solution, but right now, they may be more of a part of the problem. host: when it comes to foreign policy, we turn to our guest, michael o'hanlon, who covers all of it for brookings, brookings.edu. good morning. caller: good morning. mr. o'hanlon, can you tell me if
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afghanistan is in the best case governable and its current state? guest: that is a great question. thank you for your conciseness. not in the remote part of the country. i think the remote parts of the country are just too far removed from the government's control. there are some schools in remote areas, so that is progress from where they were in the 1980's or 1990's, but it is not what you are thinking, i don't believe, when you ask that weston in that way. the question in that way. the city sort of function. countryrelatively poor with a relatively weak history of becoming a cohesive state, but you see traffic moving, you see stores open, schools open, police manning traffic lights, and the government has some influence at least in the cities and the major towns, so i see progress. unfortunately, if i were going to chart the progress over time,
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there was a lot of movement in a good direction after 9/11, in that first decade, where we sort of plateaued, and the violence has not gotten better. it may have even gotten worse in the last decade. most of the measures of health, education, the economy has sort of plateaued as well. so the governance is better than it was, but it is certainly one of the weaker and more corrupt and more difficult places to live on earth. as a country, if the governable long-term? i don't know for a fact, but i do know most afghans that i have come in contact in my life consider themselves afghan at least as they consider themselves from any ethnic group or any tribe. of historically what it means to be an afghan, and that gives me some hope that over time the country can really congeal as a true nationstate. but i take your concern that it is not there yet, and i think it is not realistically going to be
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there in the short term. host: quickly, former vice president joe biden said afghanistan is six separate countries and he viewed it as ungovernable. is that a fair assessment? guest: if that is what he said, i am not with him on that. i do not think we should view it as six different countries. host: he said the tribalism and the country. guest: i think that is wrong. some of these divisor within the communities or other communities. maybe that is why he had six instead of four. i think the struggle is often between those who want to build a new state for all afghans and those that feel their interest is more in an insurgency, whether a nationwide insurgency or a more local insurgency, depending on their interests and their motives. but six places? no. historically, it has had four great places.
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it has had those five cities. ,ut historically, going back about as far as our country, more than 200 years, there has been an afghan state that has have the borders of the current country, and people of kabul have tried to view themselves as governing that afghan state. there has been no secessionist effort to break up the country into pieces, like you see in the balkan states and elsewhere. i do not share the view that this is six separate ungovernable places that are somehow going to break apart over time. host: we will go to david irvine, california. good morning. thank you for waiting. caller: good morning. first of all, we should not be in any of those countries, not. , he keeps bringing of 9/11. it was the saudis who did 9/11. if you would not have let them come here, it would have never happened. spending all this money, it is wasteful.
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this guy wants to stay there forever. let him go there in fight the war an himself. we are wasting billions of dollars and lives. we should not be in any of those countries. guest: i understand where you're coming from, but i cannot thank you prevent another 9/11 by just wishing it away and saying it was just the saudis who did it, and we keep them out, next time, we will be ok. there is a broader range of extremists, some of them targeting the west, as we have seen in europe with some isis elements coming in and attacking and creating huge refugee flows. we canre not problems wish away or turn our eyes to just because we are tired of having a presence in afghanistan. i take your point. servicet the greatly and a sacrifice of our men and women in uniform, the diplomatic service in the development agencies who continue to risk their lives
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in afghanistan. i wish i can think of a strategy did not require that kind of risk or sacrifice, but again, we tried that previous strategy in the 1990's. we got completely out of afghanistan, and look what happened. you are right, other things contributed to 9/11 as well, but we tried neglect, and it did not work, either. host: we will go to tom and cranbury township, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. yes, i think the whole approach to the negotiations at the table of the afghan government should be like a -- here is the big picture. you do not want to join the modern world. you are actually willing to not fight people whose only recruitment rule is to say if you don't join us, we will kill you. guest: yes, i think that is a good way to keep in mind the enemy. the enemy is not the afghan people. the oneshem are
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suffering directly from this extremist movement, this taliban movement. most of them do not want to go along with the kind of ideology you just expressed. i think we have to bear in mind this is not afghanistan as a coherent, single group of people. they are afghans trying to build a nationstate, and many of them have the same kind of goals for their country that we americans tend to have for our communities country. and then there is an extremist element that is trying to prevent them from doing so. it is not quite that simple, but a lot ofad, people, the corrupt warlords trying to milk the system for all it is worth, and to the extent that they have ties to the government, they delegitimize the government and create resentment, which then the taliban can take advantage of with a recruit. -- when they recruit. i am not trying to suggest it is simple, all good and bad guys, but let's bear in mind the telegram have an extremely hostile, aggressive, and violent
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agenda, and the war in afghanistan continues because they choose to continue it. we need to bear in mind who the enemy is and what we are leaving the afghan people with if we pull out and let them contend with the talibans on their own. we will conclude on that note. michael o'hanlon, we appreciate your time, expertise, and insight, thank you. president trump is spending his sunday at merrill also, the golf course, trump international. the golf-a-lago, course, trump international. suchys "our country has fantastic potential for future anwth and greatness and on even higher level. we go from that to "saturday night, aleclast baldwin performing as donald j trump. [video clip]
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god, jim, those numbers are terrible, look, folks, do you know that right now, we have something called "chain migration." any bad person, wise and high market just come in this country with 23, 40 7 -- give me a number -- >> 91. told as many as 91 of their family members. unless you give me wall. crapat is not scare the out of all of you white people, i do not know what will. this is an emergency, a five alarm blaze. i am going to mar-a-lago, and i will play some golf, and live from new york, it is saturday night. host: from last night, courtesy of nbc. we are back tomorrow with c-span's "washington journal."
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weg wrigley's back as examine the relationship between the president and congress. also, ivan eland is back discussing his book. that is tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. newsmakers is up next. thanks for joining us on this sunday. enjoy the long presidents' day weekend. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] c-span's look at today's schedule. newsmakers is next with american federation of teachers president randi weingarten. after that, president trump's announcement that he is declaring a national emergency. then, reaction from stacey abrams, who nearly lost her election
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