to talk about his scripts report card on the state of education schools.n american as always, we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter as well. washington journal is next ♪ host: president trump heading on in filing day, 45,000 votes 2016. when congress comes back later this month, the senate resumes work on nominees and has picks up hills on climate change, prescription drugs, and other issues. this past week was another busy one capitol hill. on the house side, education we will watch portions

of that hearing sunday morning. how is betsy devos doing? what grade would you give to her on her job so far? here's how to take part in the conversation. if you are a parent, call this .umber, (202) 748-8000 teachers and administrators, (202) 748-8001. .veryone else, (202) 748-8002 you can weigh in on social media. in the detroit free press, "ridiculed but resilient, betsy devos is still standing. she has been a late-night punch line since the day she was nominated, for trading ignorance

over the department she oversees and rhetorical blunders that stick in the brain pan, like her memorable proposal to armed teachers against grizzly bears. two years after my sense cast the tie-breaking vote to secure her senate nomination, she is still standing, the longest-serving of the trump cabinet nominees after elaine chao. one of a dwindling original cast his members include rick perry, ben carson, and wilbur ross. survivedy devos, has two chiefs of staff, five communications directors, and recurring presidential panic attacks like the one that cost kiersten nielsen her job last week. trump may have vetoed her proposal i eliminating federal's of for the special olympics, but seems in no hurry to jettison

her herself. it seems she is the ideal aucation secretary for president who doesn't give a rodents hindquarters about education. brian dickinson wrote that piece . here's a little bit of sound from the hearing this week, it was the house education committee. it is ohio democrat marcia fudge questioning the education secretary over a proposed $5 billion program to offer tax credits for donations, private school tuition, and other programs. [video clip] >> i have never been aware of attacks credit that is a 100% credit. so now we have already decided that we are going to make rich people reach -- richer with the tax cuts, poor people about the same, middle-class we hurt with more taxes. now you got them running up to take advantage of these tax

credits. let me love you -- let you give money to schools to take a 100% tax credit, it's the most ridiculous thing i have ever heard. bye-bye any other name it's a voucher and something to benefit the rich. madam secretary, are you aware that alabama and florida have state tuition tax programs and shown at no improvement in ?cademic programs for students >> you are wrong. >> send me that data, please. >> i would be happy to. >> you say in your remarks, as well as in your written testimony that this proposal takes not one cent from local public school students or public school teachers. you did that in your own budget by cutting the education budget by 10%. that's something that you did. but let me also suggest to you that in fact it is hurting taxpayers. if you give a one-to-one tax credit it's going to create a $5

billion per year hold in the federal treasury. $5 billion a could be spent on education and other things, so it does indeed hurt students. just a portion of that hearing before the house education committee. if you want to see more, head to our website, type in betsy devos, that hearing and lots of other material from the education secretary will be right in front of you. phone numbers, how would you grade the education secretary so far? parents, call (202) 748-8000. teachers and administrators, (202) 748-8001. everyone else, (202) 748-8002 is the number for you to call. we will get your calls as soon as they start coming in. here is a brad palombo opinion piece. he is a student at the university of massachusetts at amherst. he writes about what he calls the baseless never-ending betsy devos hatred.

heartless woman who wants to shutdown the special olympics? that is the latest baseless attack on her. the recently released department of education budget would cut 18 million in federal funding for the special olympics. loves their she work and personally donate part of her salary to the cause. also really did was suggest that it's superfluous for federal funding to go to the organization. for this many prominent liberal politicians and pundits decided the secretary had to burn. blastedia ocasio-cortez the cut in funding that has since been reversed as just another part of her "anti-everybody platform." joe kennedy from massachusetts lambasted the position is cruel and outrageous. meanwhile, a cnn reporter badgered her relentlessly as she waited for an elevator and

anderson cooper mocked her on air. this wildly personal overreaction shouldn't surprise anyone. democrats love to hate trump administration officials, but she has done a lot for students so far." you can read this in "the washington examiner." washington, up first. janet, good morning. caller: good morning. thatnk as long as ,ecretary would lie for trump he has fired more people just because of the knowing too much about him. , mean, we don't hate anybody but we want to be treated fair and trump is not fair. thanks for calling.

cindy is on the line now from maryland. caller: yes hi, good morning. i agree with the previous caller. hopefully the rest of the callers behind me -- betsy devos, i was just shocked that when she was even up for nomination for this position -- he got through -- host: what shocked you about it? caller: it was her history. there were just numerous things about her history and her things thato saying just didn't seem to support the fundamental good of what the end -- education system is supposed to be. i'm a health care educator and i just -- i don't know, there is a certain coldness that runs in her veins. i personally see her as a parasite. parasite. she has figured out a way to hold onto her job, to suck the blood out of every last inch of it that she can get.

there are things she probably has a hard time sleeping with at night and rightfully so. grown, butdren are my grandchildren are not. you know, this country is full of our future. our future is dependent on good leaders and she is absolutely phenomenally not even remotely a good thinker. host: let me jump in -- did you say that you are a teacher? caller: i'm a health care teacher, i work in the health care industry and do many things. host: as a parent yourself, what's the biggest thing missing right now in the education system? know, there, you has been this long time sentiment in the republican party that you feed everything from the top down and it never gets to where it needs to go.

that's the problem. when you come up with these supposedly novel ideas that the previous caller even mentioned are pretty much more of vouchers . first off, if you get a tax credit for sending your child to school, the only people who can even approach trying to file for that text edit are the rich who can afford to send their children to school. the restoes this help of the 97% of people who cannot afford $50,000 per year to send their child to school? i sent my child to private school from first grade on. all the way up. straight, no financial assistance for college, but you know, i work with a higher there is not a lot of just in your average neighborhood, unless you live in certain posh neighborhoods, the

average person makes a below average income. you can't do that. for: cindy, thank you weighing in, i want to get some other voices in this hour. james, welcome to the program. how would you grade the education secretary so far? for taking myyou call, c-span. i think she deserves an f, just like the rest of the troubled administration. this woman don't have no [no audio] host: james? we can hear you. caller: she deserves an f. tell us why. are there particular issues you are concerned about? lady does not have no compassion for the poor. she's a billionaire. so if you don't want a private school for your child -- grandkids or not, she don't care. if you don't have it you don't have it. thank you.

thank you for calling. on twitter we have -- from theittle bit more brad palombo piece, a contributor to "the washington examiner," a student at the university of massachusetts at amherst, he goes on to write boasts a stellar record on school choice, the latest budget creating $5 billion per year in education and whencholarships the gop passed a landmark plan in 2017 she thought to include a provision that allows parents and families to use tax-exempt 529 savings plan education money previously only used for private k-12 education. the critic narrative, that she only cares about the rich white students just isn't true, she

has met with education leaders from historically black colleges and universities and preserved funding in the face of potential education department cuts across foughtrd and has also for anti-bullying protections for algae bt kids and the school choice program that she supports overwhelmingly helps disadvantaged students. even the most ardent democrat should support her, they are just too blinded bipartisanship to see it." dennis has been waiting on the line from st. louis, missouri. dennis? you are a teacher? yes, sir, i'm a teacher who works with other teachers and professional development. -- in professional development. schools,ith charter what concerns me about betsy devos is that she is not a spokesperson for most teachers

in this country. i never hear her, unless i have missed it, say a kind word about a traditional public school. her optics are just horrible. they demoralize the teaching profession. her concept seems to be that if we just have choice for everybody, magic will happen. we all know that that's a little simplistic. the research is mixed. i'm all for experimentation, but an illogical approach to all of this. but mostly she has demoralize most teachers in this country who, by the way, work in traditional public schools for local communities. i thank you for your call. host: thank you for calling. ebony, good morning. for taking myyou call. i'm a grandparent.

my grandson is an cleveland public schools. betsy devos is making it even worse. the public schools here are already in shambles. she is making it tougher for them to get an education because the schools are not equipped with what they need. she is trying to make the public schools -- send them to a charter school which is -- a lot of folks cannot afford a charter school, or they can't get the vouchers because a lot of people don't even a how to get the vouchers. they hear about them, but they don't have no way of getting them to send their kids to these or, you know,s charter schools or something. it's just tough out here and she is making it difficult for everyone else. host: if you could point to one

or two education items missing in the system, what would they be? she has taken the extracurriculars for kids, the afterschool programs, don't take those away. give them something to do. that is why they are out here running wild. while, school lunches, kids cannot even afford a school lunch. the kids can't even eat. and that's ridiculous. i'm wondering why? why can't these kids eat? because they can't afford the money? or they don't qualify for free lunch or something? it's just horrible. host: ebony, thank you for calling. linda is on the line. good morning. see anything't wrong with what she's proposing. a tax credit for sending your child to a private or parochial school and they are not all

$30,000 per year. there are some catholic schools and the like that are rated pretty well and have good sat scores that are much more affordable than that. our schools are terrible month nowadays -- terrible nowadays. we are like number 30 and we spend the most. something is very wrong and how long should we wait? that's my question. host: another headline here about betsy devos, the former national teacher of the year, she and betsy devos sparred over the use of federal money to arm teachers. quite an exchange there in that hearing. we will take a look at that dialogue now about the arming of teachers. [video clip] >> in august of 2018 it was wasrted that the department considering the use of federal funds to arm teachers. and all of your previous statements and even just now you have maintained that you lack the authority to approve or deny

the ability to purchase arms for tax -- with taxpayer money. mr. chair, in the documents i have just submitted there are emails from staff at your department that discuss a a.ision memo on four i will tell you what it says. on page four of the memo that came out of your department with the advice of your general counsel it says that the department's office of the general counsel has advised that the secretary has discretion to interpret the broad at language to itsstatute as permissiveness regarding the purchase of firearms and the training and use of firearms. it continues on page seven to say that it is therefore reasonable for the secretary to disallow this particular use of -- absent specific

congressional authorization and it is unlikely that this interpretation would be subject to a successful legal challenge. that is from your department based on your advice from your legal counsel. content -- the >> i have never advocated for or against -- >> you are absolutely right, but in light of these contents you have the ability to make the decision. your silence is a decision. you have the authority to say that we cannot use federal funds to arm teachers. you are in line for presidential succession. make a decision on this. you have the authority to do it. will you prohibit the use of federal funds to arm teachers, yes or no? yes or no? >> this is a matter for local communities. >> yes or no? host: we are taking your calls

on the betsy devos record so far as education secretary. noah is calling from buffalo grove, illinois. thank you for waiting, what would you like to say? caller: i would like to give her a b. i think she generally wants to improve schools and education, but it shows a lot that she's not very politically experienced. and she has struggled a lot with optics sometimes and getting her message out. the one thing that i'm happy with about what she's done it she has reformed some title ix provisions around sexual assaults, giving victims more rights. so that they have something more close to a trial better than just a single investigator. regarding school choice, i think that she -- she is a very strong supporter of school choice, but unfortunately there is no consensus across the country in favor of it, so it's kind of

hard to do a top-down school choice solution. even though i know she thinks it's a good thing, i don't know if it's so great doing it from the top down instead of school choice in local communities. b get to how does the an a in your view? get better needs to at avoiding these controversies where she gets attacked and ridiculous things. i think a lot of that is from her lack of political experience, where she gets nailed on these things like the special olympics, which are inconsequential to things in the long run, but it gets used against you as a political tool. noah, thank you for calling. talking about sexual assault, on college campuses, betsy devos wrote "it's time to balance the

scales of justice." she wrote that proposed rule changes to title ix would require schools to acquire basic -- forions for citizen students and the right to examine and challenge the evidence, including prohibiting the host: just part of what betsy devos has written about the proposed changes to title ix. education wise and in the othery schools, with very very's aspects, good morning, don. caller: good morning. how are you? host: doing ok, how about you, sir? caller: doing ok.

i wanted to give betsy an f. she's not speaking for herself. host: what do you mean by that? caller: i mean that she has adopted the exact same philosophy as her brother, hasn't she? where her brother wants to access tax dollars with his firm, black water, for taxrity, defense, draw the dollar and make a profit on it and sees using the exact same philosophy for education by backing charter schools and drawing away tax dollars from public schools. it's the same. he is still in place because there is something going on with her brother, freddie and what happens in those islands that is still so shady that no one else has explained. and mcconnell?

mcconnell goes for a lot of donald trump's programs because employed andtill hasn't been fired. host: ok. thoughts from don there, who gave betsy devos an f. a couple of tweets -- many charter schools recruit students with history of academic success, claiming that it gives the false impression that they will prepare any child for college." also on twitter this morning -- host: we have trista on the line. she is calling from cincinnati this morning. welcome to you. to you,yes, but come also. as auld give her a low c- grade. some of her original thoughts on private school are very good.

i'm a mother of three children. i have a child that is in college right now and i have done public and private school. my children attended the number one public school in the state of ohio and, because of autism and adhd, i was basically forced educationn a preview in a private school setting. my experience is actually doing both and with a special needs child. call anrom what i would education snob family. everything is about excellence in education and i have had the pleasure of looking in all areas and i have a first grader with autism. i can tell you that the public education system has changed a lot as it has pertained to the last 18 years. these are the things i have found. when you have a special-needs kid, which people never talk many kids much, but

have autism now, adhd. i can tell you that the public schools have more resources for these special needs kids. they did a wonderful job getting the kinks out to perform better. but the thing is that holistically as far as services, ot, pt, all of that, private schools can't afford that. would loveh her, i to have had a voucher to save me costs when i was navigating all of that, but this is the problem -- by doing so and it becomes "a business"? no one wants to have the business of educating a special-needs kid because it is so much more expensive. when you have this voucher system, the question is who's going to be left behind. i love the thought, right? everyone taking their money where they want. like i said, it highly benefited

me, but what business model wants to go after that? and now because of social media to think about these things, it's so important to have community and i can tell you that from a small town that has a great community, once my kids lostto private school they the community factor. you drive your kid somewhere else. you don't have the local factor that is so cure -- silky to their spiritual upbringing as well. the other thing i want to say about the things that are massive problems with the education system, by far i believe it's the fact -- i have talked to some of the top public school teachers, they all tell me this, too. they don't want their kids going into education. the system needs to be burnt down and started again. the main thing i think is because we are not actually educating kids on where jobs will be in the future. this is where she has some room. what i wish that she would do is actually incorporate some of the larger companies, like some of the dot-coms, the health-care

industry. all of these tech giants, these people try to do all of these things trying to come back into midwest america, right? they need to improve the education system, they know we are behind. so few schools have real stem programs that start in kindergarten. that said something were you catch up in high school or college. you should be starting from kindergarten. all of these kids speaking multiple languages because we are becoming a global society? that didn't happen. we don't have strong stem and if you're going to be a supporter of public schools, what happens is it's not fair that if you are in a community that is impoverished -- some of them have textbooks from 20 to 30 years ago. there are so many other needs, right? you might have food assistance that you need. you might need more afterschool activities to get better tutoring? jamesave that lebron school talking about how they did really well this last quarter and even what andre argosy was doing out there in

vegas with his trouble -- troubled school. host: you laid a lot on the table and we appreciate you taking your time to lay out those thoughts on those various issues. we want to get more of those calls in and look more at the hearing for the past week with betsy devos on wednesday. you can watch that hearing at c-span.org, just type in her name and you will see that hearing, it will be the last event that we cover with her. questioningcourtney about questionable student loan companies. [video clip] >> state law enforcement has had fantastic success in getting read it -- restitution from state that student borrowers who have had their funds misappropriated and shutting down these practices. the connecticut ag, the minnesota ag, they have been doing his work collaboratively with the federal government. what is the rationale for the

department to shut off that flow of information regarding student loan servicers that has been standard operating procedure for decades. >> congressman, first let me comment -- >> actually i asked you a question, so could you just -- we don't have much time, this is a decision that you made to shut off information to people in law enforcement investigating things like fraud. please explain that decision and the memo. >> i would be happy to, but i want to comment about the oig report, the findings of which we addressed. pre--- it they were was from a long time ago and they have been addressed. with regards to the loan servicers and the states , federal student aid is a federal program. state ine every single a separate oversight capacity

really preempts several -- >> preemption does exist, no doubt about it. , preemptings acts state regulation back in the 1970's through an act of congress, in terms of student loan servicing and enforcement, congress have never pre--- has never preempted that away from attorney general's just simply enforcing in many instances their own state consumer protection laws. host: and again, back to your phone calls. asking for a grade four betsy devos so far as education secretary. virginia, thank you for holding on. good morning. christine, are you there? got you, now. go ahead, please. an f.: i give her host: why? qualified for the

job. she is taking everything from public school teachers and every thing else from them and giving everything to the wealthy class, just like the trump administration and handling charter schools. i don't think she does anything for sexual activities and colleges for people who need help. in schools, active school programs that are not colleges,e of and helping wealthy people to get their kids and colleges, no one checks that. i think the whole administration is corrupt. along with her. i will give her an f. i was an english teacher for a number of years. thank you. host: back to twitter -- host: we have betty on the line from pennsylvania.

betty, what would you like to say? caller: i have nothing really to say against betsy. my comment is really that the schools have been failing long ago. over 40 years ago most of the people i know either sent their children to christian school or they homeschooled them. my daughter homeschooled her boys and they went on to college and they are just doing fine. as well as i had a next-door neighbor who had nine children, not wealthy, they worked hard and she homeschooled everyone of them. she is homeschooling the last one now. the other ones are married and are doing successfully in their jobs. so the schools have been failing for a long time. i never sent my daughter's to those school graduation parties where they go to the beach and things like that. now, i am 90 years old and i

have watched an awful lot. you look at the children today, you can't even talk to them, they have the little gadgets in their hands, hidden so that they are not even talking to you, they don't know how to carry on a conversation with somebody who asked them a question. you get a one word answer. have beenthat they failing for a long time and i thank you very much for allowing me to make my comment. host: all right, betty. thank you for your participation in the program. it's a little bit after 7:30 .ere in washington the president, as we said at the top of the program, is going to minnesota tomorrow to talk about the new tax laws. that's a state that he lost fairly narrowly in 2016. he will be making remarks there. congress is out on a two week break. lots of legislative items when they go back, including more on the president's nominees. the president making news they last night on twitter on the issue of illegal immigrants.

therote "just out, usa has absolute legal right to have apprehended legal immigrants transferred to sanctuary cities and we demand that they be taken care of at the highest level, especially by the state of california, well-known for its poor management and high taxes." a bit of back and forth between the president and mayor of oakland, california. they wrote that it's time to stop "fanning hate," and that all, noar "we welcome matter where they came from or how they got here or code this from "the hill," "-- here from where they came from or how they got here." ," "theym "the hill

wanted all of these illegal aliens in their communities," according to a quote from fox news programs." perhaps we will be watching some of that on this program tomorrow . "the washington post" lead , talking today specifically about what the president has been saying about the border and linking it to jobs. here's just a little bit --

host: back to your calls on betsy devos. charles, new jersey, good morning. caller: good morning, how are you? host: i'm well, how are you? caller: betsy, anyone else in the education system, if they cared about the people in the education system, every person who came out of high school should know a trade. they don't teach you in school. then they would be able to get a job. you took that out of the schools. this is why you got so many dropouts. i'm an 81-year-old black man living in america. i don't even take no medicine. i'm not out of my mind when i tell you this. i would like to say one thing to my people, to my people. your 400 years is up. do what god promised to you.

pray for it. pray justice to america. we want what's ours. have a nice day. laura, good morning. caller: good morning. i would give her an f. we had one year and a half ago one of our new speakers did an extensive survey on charter schools. they essentially have a failing grade. some of them were ok, but in comparison with a public school, they were on par. i think one of the great things about our country is that we ake available to children public education and when you start taking away from those, from those that need more help

and start diverging money to -- diverting tax money -- when you , tax moneyting money to private schools and different things that are not applicable to the public school, that is the downfall. betsy devos was selected by a as uneducated as she is. a person that is in charge of education for our country should not be putting her attention towards areas that are not applicable to public education. that is the majority of the populace in this country. that is where we have the shortcomings. i think that she was selected , of theof her brother

famous murdering and a rack and i have to people, tell you, it such a dem it -- a denigration of that word. making selections from people inkling of what's going on. i live in michigan. -- whathat betsy devos she has -- what her ideas of education and such are. she never went to a public school, as i recall. i think that it's a terrible thing in our country when the are so uninformed, number one, or so afraid of because of thebs erratic behavior of the president that we have. and in michigan, i think we have corrected the error of the last election. women. put in power all

with the exception of our lieutenant governor. i think that we have a big job if thisd i think that is the path that we follow, with concern for the least of us -- because the ones that have the money are well taken care of. we can see what happened with these people that bought their ways into the schools at a higher echelon. and lord knows how money other people participated in schemes like that that were not caught. lauren, thank you very much for your thoughts. sharon, what grade would you give betsy devos as education secretary so far? caller: first, i think that the great thing is kind of funny. i'm all for grading kids, but there are already many school districts throughout the country that want to give all the

children of blue-ribbon. i would give her a lot of credit, i think she's doing the best she can with what she has. -- i alsoe problem work in the school system but i have a child that i sent through a parochial school. i see in the here some of the horrible things that happen in public schools. it's very sad. host: what are some of the horrible things? education. family life programs. those kinds of things. i do know that it is the school's job to teach children that. we sent our child to a parochial school. my husband and i, we are not of wealthy means. we work three jobs to get us through. and i just don't think it's fair that people say that it's giving the rich people money back. no, it's not.

it's having people being given a choice to send their school to maybe has the same thing, has believes that smaller -- the bathroom issue, that's ridiculous. boys and girls sharing the bathroom. locker rooms, that's ridiculous. i don't think that's fair, to , these people, that's it, that's what they can afford. host: encase you missed the house ways and means committee once the presidents tax return by april 23. here's a look at vox.com. "richard neal, democrat from massachusetts, chairman of ways and means gives a deadline for six years for the president's returns.ns will --

he originally asked for november 10 but the deadline was not met with secretary mnuchin citing concerns over the unprecedented nature of the request and in a letter he argues about the congressional investigative ,uthority log -- lacking merit citing laws from the 1920's that authorities that authorize the ways and means committee requested any taxpayer tax returns, so in this case they are looking for the tax ."turns of the president you can read that story on fox news this sunday morning and as we continue to take her question on the education secretary, we are going to look at another piece from that hearing of the education committee on the house side. this is tennessee republican representative demonstrated his desire to see technical schools get more attention. [video clip]

of the graduate 77% students on time. 19% of college students in four year schools graduate on time with this huge debt. so, 77% finish on time in what they started in. whether it is nursing assistant, welding or whatever. 97% in tennessee are placed in their career path, get a job. 100% graduate with zero debt. so, it is a huge advantage and i think we need to be in courage and students to look at these career paths, as mr. guthrie was talking about a minute ago. i would like to hear your comments on that. i couldn't agree more. this administration is very supportive of elevating and supporting a multitude of career paths to a great adult future and acknowledges that we have raise thetinue to

specter of these opportunities to give them equal credence the unspoken or often very tobally articulated pressure go to a four-year college or university. yet we have, as you have just noted, so many great opportunities for young people to consider and pursue. which is not to say that they can't return to an educational setting later on and do something different. they will have multiple careers and their adult lives. host: we have about 13 minutes left in this segment, taking your calls on how you would .rade betsy devos so far we have been looking at pieces of the hearing at the house education committee this week. name on c-span.org, here is more from twitter --

host: meantime, virginia foxx wrote in on twitter that betsy devos has worked to reduce the regulatory burden on state and local leaders and has helped to work to provide flexibility where she can help connect students with in demand jobs." that's the republican leader on education. iowa, on the line now. kim, good morning. caller: good morning.

i just doesn't get it. they are dumbing us down if they cut off the public education. rich doesn't the work on the hail mary, they get paid through. but the young who are, the young middle class is having a hard time getting into colleges because the rich is taking over. betsy devos never worked in education and decided to dumb it down, the education, building of charter schools, that reminds me of country schools. so i don't understand why with neverady, uneducated, worked in education, doesn't understand stock in charter schools. the lady from michigan was definitely right about her history. andf she's from michigan lives in michigan, she should know about this one and she was right.

i agree with the lady from michigan and you have a good day. host: thanks for calling. david is on that line from madison heights, michigan. good morning. caller: thank you very much for take my call. i am from michigan, i know betsy devos. and i will continue, the lady from michigan the that told it like it was, i wouldn't even give her an f, i would give her a negative number. she ruined public education in michigan. we are still trying to get through it. every charter school that she created that took money from public education in michigan has failed and failed miserably. she did not come from money, she married money, she married --tum boss -- deck devos dick devos. who owns amway. she is a crook, she is part of

the trump swamp. host: we have a writer and activist writing about betsy devos today, "482,000 children are dissipating in some sort of education choice program through vouchers, tax fellowship or education savings accounts, pretty miniscule given the 56 childrenillion attending k through 12 in public schools and we know from the marketplace that nothing produces excellence like competition, so why shouldn't we have it in something as vitally important as education." that's star parker. our white house coverage continues on this sunday with the mayor of south bend, indiana. pete buddha judge is going to make his formal presidential announcement today in his hometown, where he has been mayor for about 80 years, since 2011. we will have that live today at 2 p.m. eastern time and if you miss it, you can look at it on

c-span.org later in the day. just type his name in and we will show the event tonight in prime time. lots more political programming coming the rest of the week. names out there include cory swalwell, whoc will announce his bid tonight, the congressman from northern california. lots of coverage coming this week on "the road to the white house." market, from michigan. go ahead, please. caller: yes, sir, i'm from grand rapids. betsy i school with devos. i worked at amway part-time in high school. they in that family have never had any interest in the common workingman. rich and they made sure that you knew that. furthermore, i think that if the rich people paid their taxes, there wouldn't these such a deficit in this country. thank you.

we mentioned steven mnuchin, the treasury secretary, earlier today. this headline -- "trade talks are near the final round with ."ina saturday he said "the u.s. and china are continuing to make progress, including getting close to the final round of issues." he said "we will have two been telephone calls this week to work on narrowing a set of issues and that officials are discussing whether in person here in d.c. will havethe u.s. real enforcement of both sides, including a detailed enforcement office on both sides with .ignificant resources michael, hagerstown, hey.

hagerstown. hey, how you doing -- caller: hey, how you doing? she has given opportunities for students in failing schools. i always find it interesting when liberals want to spend more money. if you look at when the department of education was started, back in the 70's, i can't remember the exact date, but now we have spent well over $100 billion on education from the federal government and the results keep getting worse. so, when things fail for liberals, they want to spend more money. trickle-down government does not work. thank you. thank you for calling. ross is on the line now. from indiana. caller: thanks for taking my call. host: you bet. caller: i worked in the private sector for years, maintenance,

glorified janitor. anyway, one of our bosses, she was one of those that she was picked for large donations, not her ability. she's a collaborator rather than a coordinator. that's her job. a lot of the problem with schools nowadays is that we need to find the schools that really what they areout doing right. like maybe boston or someplace like that, where they have these terrific systems. go in there and just really analyze what's going on there. maybe we will get back on track. reading and writing. wrote. that's what they used it years ago. there is quite a few things that i had listed here about why these schools are so successful.

one reason is because they are private and they can afford to do these things. but actually, what they would do the last six months of the senior year, they would have their own project and they could go out and they could learn how to fly, they could go to their parents business and learn the business or whatever they wanted to do. they could write a paper on that. it ended up working out pretty good for the kids because they got to do something they really wanted to do and not some garbage or trash that was shoved down their throat, you know? there's quite a bit to private schools. trips. a lot of field it's pretty interesting how the kids develop. they really were very brilliant, you know? thanks for calling, ron.

down to our last couple of minutes here, this story from "the washington times," "nancy pelosi condensed trump over using 9/11 footage for ." "theing iran omar president should not use painful images of 9/11 for a medical attack and it is wrong for the president as commander in chief to fan the flames to make anyone less safe." her remarks were made in common to a video that he posted earlier with an out of context quote by miss omar, a former somali refugee and one of the first muslim women elected to .ongress

"every single muslim should be tired of being a second-class a --en she said at an of an event hosted last month. this is the latest on that back-and-forth story. to the line from waukegan, illinois. elizabeth calling. good morning. caller: yes, my name is elizabeth. we work with people who have student loan -- student loans who have defaulted and went betsy devos came in they arbitrarily canceled all the contracts for the companies that have been successful in getting people to get their student loans out of default. and then just, you know, it is really -- it has really hurt people who have ended up in default situations, to be able

to get the services that they to be able to come back of arepayment and get out defaulted situation. ialwas just an arbitrary decision to provide these to the student for many, many years and just say -- ok, you know, these were -- these contracts are gone. forof the biggest problems people that end up in default, i worked in student loans for over 20 years and it is one of the biggest issues, that people don't understand their student loans. they get themselves in trouble and then they don't have the people who reach out to them and can really help them. there are a lot of other

companies coming around, charging people to get them out of default who are basically hurting them. it's a really bad situation and decision on her part and the administration's part to cancel these contracts for the people that were helping students not to be in defaulted situations. thanks for calling. bill, last call here, from reading, pennsylvania. caller: how are you? host: doing fine, how are you? caller: you can listen to to this all day long and it's a joke. it's a joke all the way around. host: we are listening, keep going. it's a joke all the way around. 551 administrators in

pennsylvania making over $200,000 a year. i want to ask a question. what are they doing for you? nothing. let's not blame donald trump. let's blame the whole government. from washington to the states. it is corruption. as the people complain in michigan, maybe you should get a job because they don't have a job. just came back from europe. they are starving. social government did they don't have nothing to eat. they are taking $300 a month pension to why do you just talk about how the government is corrupt? 10% sales tax, property tax.

youyou know? i'm going to tell you something. if you are stupid enough to vote for me, what do i care? host: thank you for calling. thank you to everyone who called and tweeted and posted comments. it is about 8:00 on sunday. you are watching the "washington journal." book for ourt final hour, candace owens, conservative commentator and activist, director of indications for turning point usa. she was at a hearing this week on hate crimes. last activist, director of week we heard she has canceled her appearance on the program today. we will not have candace owens. in that final hour, we will take your calls on the presidential campaign of 2020. coming up next is the national urban league president and ceo aboutorial discussing

education equity in schools around america. today, we interviewed a senate moderate known as senator joe manchin of west virginia. potentialabout campaign support for another senator from another party. [video clip] >> you are friends with senator susan collins. she has been friends with you on the no labels group. in is out for reelection 2020. would you support her? >> i would campaign for her. if she wanted me to, i would campaign for her. in 2020. would you supportfor america toe susan collins, it is a shame. >> she might meet you. >> i would be glad to. you think my party would be happy? i think the world of chuck schumer. we understand each other. it, butble to get into

we will always walk away as friends. he knows how i feel about people. i vote the way i want to vote. around --e been the but around me long enough, it is do.right thing to susan collins is the right person. had republicans try to convert you? >> every time they meet me. >> has mitch mcconnell? >> every time. he throws the whole enchilada at me. i say there is no way. health care and the taxes, we are so far apart. blocks of human life. we are different on that. , and ithem i'm a proud ,ruly a proud, compassionate

conservative, but a compassionate political person. i look at the compassion in every decision. then capitalism. i'm a compassionate capitalist. you can see the entire interview with senator joe manchin today at 10:00 a.m. eastern on newsmakers. it will repeat that 6:00 p.m. today. you can watch it online at c-span.org. joining us now from new york city is mark morreale, president and ceo of the national urban league and former mayor of new orleans. good morning. guest: good morning. great to be with you. host: nice to have you on. talk about the notion of education equity. your organization has been doing studies aboutguest: education ie

u.s. how do you define education equity? guest: people get confused. equity speaks to reformation of goalm and methods with a of ensuring that children who have historically been disadvantaged, low income children, children of color, learningwho may be english as a second language have every single opportunity to achieve their full potential. it is really a concept that is about learning changing the waye educate children, changing the systems and methods through which we educate children, which are designed to ensure we get an outcome. what is that outcome? children who can read, count, think, analyze, and who can graduate from high school ready

for post secondary education. host: the urban league did a study. tell us what the project is all about and why it was put together. what was the goal? what did you find out? guest: i am glad to be here this morning. this is a cover of the report, which is available at natur banleague.org. me because it takes a little bit. this report is part of a multistep process we undertook several years ago, the national urban me league and others in te civil rights education equity community began working with members of congress to rewrite the no child left behind law. the result was the every student succeeds act, which had republican and democratic

support and was signed by president obama. localct pumps money into school districts across the state. andonditions that money focuses that money to assist school districts and schools to achieve greater educational films for historically this advantage children. -- this advantage children. disadvantaged children. our advocates across the country began working with states advocating for states, di pushig states to write quality plans that would in fact truly achieve equity, not just a piece of paper but a plan that would blueprint how that state would pursue equity in the years to come. after those plans were written, we decided we would evaluate

those plans, conduct an independent evaluation according to 12 equity factors. commitment to early childhood education, whether the state acknowledges resource inequities, and whether the state tries to eliminate u thos, whether the state steps away from harsh discipline, which is part of the old school to prison pipeline. those are a few things we evaluated. whether a state is committed to ensuring every school has a qualified teacher in every classroom, that the bad teacher is not teaching math. we evaluate whether these plans included those equity indicators states a grade.

for the viewing audience, this is not a report card on educational performance. this is a report states a card e plans they promulgated pursuant to the every student succeeds act. we did not grade whether the state was performing well, educating all of its children well. that is not what this report is. certainly it is our expectation that as states implement these plans that they will take the further step to evaluate the progress they are making under that plan. a number of states were deemed excellent, some sufficient, some poor. we had three various grades states could earn. let me give you an example. states ratedne excellent, eight states rated

poor of the 37 we reviewed. the others got sufficient. at our website we will give you an idea of which states received which grades. this was not a political process. this was not a partisan process. a state like louisiana was deemed excellent, but california was deemed poor as we evaluated their plan. people to understand what this report is all about is about giving parents, students, teachers, citizens, education advocates, school board people d what this members tools they need to hold their schools accountable to do the right thing to ensure every child succeeds, every child has a chance. att: there is another look the screen on standards of , a lens onexcellence

essa plans. our guess is marc morial, president and ceo of national urban, a lens league, former maf new orleans and president of the conference of mayors for a time. him,u want to talk to democrats call (202) 748-8000. republicans (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002. we will get to your calls as soon as they start coming in. mr. mayor, one viewer onindepenr has this question, the quality or equity? can you explain the difference? guest: it is a top concept. tough concept -- concept.

the quality is whether there is equal -- ththe quality isequalis whether there is equal achievement. equity is the method to achieve equal achievement. equity is about changing the fact that allows quality qualitequality. could you achieve equality if you are driving a horse and i am porsche? i will never get to where you are, never run as fast as you are. uity would give everyone an

opportunity to have a porsche on a smooth road. that way we have auity would gin system where everyone has a chance. if you have equity, and one driver can drive faster and quicker because of their skills and another one cannot, but you have achieved equity towards the equality of everyone atishing the finished line about the same time. these concepts are difficult. we focus on equity because there is a clear understanding that you have got to make substantial structural changes to ensure every child can learn. let me give you another example. has 30 kids in the class. kids in a class.

school b has a teacher and a reading coach. a has one teacher. be betters going to positioned to educate us 22 that hasthan school a teacherren and only a in the classroom. this is the real meat of educational equity in america. has one teacher has30 students, school b the teacher and 22 students and a paraprofessional and a laptop for every kid in school, whereas school a has one or two desktop

computers that all the kids have to share. when we talk about structural change, resource equity, this is .hat we are talking about these are the things that make a difference in real outcomes at the class level. opportunitygets an for preschool education starting at four. b, theol district preschool program only has enough spots for 25% of the kids. the children in school district a are going to get a head start on literacy and numeracy. when they get to kindergarten, they are going to be better prepared than those students in school district b.

we have to think about these things when we think about the distinction between equity and equality. host: thank you for that background. we have plenty of calls coming in. let's get to them. morreale, president and ceo the national urban league. go ahead. you are on the air. caller: with the power of the nea and their ability to protect incompetent teachers, why aren't administrations allowed to remove them, 30 year teachers who sit on their butts, who have zero outcomes for their students? why aren't the public schools cleaning up their own house? no wonder people are fleeing to charter schools that have discipline and are accountable. host: it is an interesting -- guest: it is an interesting

comment on charter schools. comment on charter schools. if you look at the research, there are some great charter schools and some not so great charter schools. there are great public schools and not so great public schools. at the overall performance level of charter schools as a group are not much better than the overall outcomes of traditional public schools. what we like to talk about is the qualities that make a school great whether it is a charter school or public school, whether it has a collective bargaining agreement and union employees or it does not. sometimes we focus on the wrong things. what works? smaller class size, qualified classroom, every resource equity, a commitment to first class curricula, supplemental learning, coaches, tutors, afterschool programs.

what works? what helps our kids do better when it comes to reading, numeracy, perform better on tests, graduate and go to college? sometimes you have to peel back this political conversation, which takes place in america. people want to say it is the unions. it is not the unions. it is charters. no, we don't want charters. we want traditional public schools. let's look at what works best. i see fantastic charter schools in america. r know some examples of poo schools where the charter has been stripped away. in traditional public schools, when you look at traditional public schools in wealthy america, you get

america, you get incredible outcomes. the challenge for public education in america is why our schools working and not the same way for low income communities? we have to strip away. i'm not a beltway guy. i am not living in the world of clinical slogans and conversations. we need to get away from superficiality. i think superficiality in america sometimes distracts us to focus on things that sound good, but the real thing is what is happening in the classroom. how can we ensure that these schools work well no matter what are?of school they are? host: you are on the line with marc morial. things, the u.s.

spends more money on education than any other country in the world, and yet our outcomes are decreasing. i think the question regarding accountability of the people who are in the classrooms. the urban league will not even touch the question of tenure, and neither will mr. morial today. do you believe bill nation of tenure and allowing teachers -- elimination of tenure and allowing teachers to be evaluated based on performance is a good thing? support spending and spending and spending more money? host: thank you for calling. guest: it is a good question. perform who do not

should be up to be removed. perform should be up to be removed. tenure simply provides due process. it provides for a system and method by which teachers can be removed. i think sometimes there is a reluctance and hesitation by administrators to remove poor teachers, or teachers who are not performing. that is not a systematic thing. that is an issue of whether the leadership will is there. i think poor teachers could and should be removed. let's deal with this misperception that educational outcomes are declining. i checked the facts before i came on this morning. high school graduation rates are at their highest levels in american history. they are not where we want them to be, and they are not where they ought to be. that's what we have to

understand, but they are higher. there are more americans with high school diplomas today than there were 20 years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago. those are some basic facts that are irrefutable. it is not where it ought to be. what is the urban league's position? 100% high school graduation rate. we will continue to work towards that. i think we have to understand that whether you have tenure or an at will system, poor teachers can and should be removed. the leadership should have the will. tenure does not block it. it makes it more difficult. i let a city where we had a civil service system for most of the employees. we removed lots of police officers through the civil service system where those officers were corrupt,

ineffective, and we worked the process to remove them. i had the will. my police chief had the officer. even though they had due process protection. tenure does not for. thwart? . why do we have tenure? we once had machine politics and favoring in governmental hiring, ofitics in the removing teachers and police officers. systems change to create relative protection. i don't know if we want to go back to where hiring and firing is political, where it is not based on any standards. i believe it ought to not take take poorum to

teachers or public employees. we have to understand why these systems exist in america. they take poor are a response to a system of political corruption and favoritism that dominated the way local governments ran in america. fred from texas. caller: good morning. thank you so much for this activity. this gentleman wants equal outcome, not equal opportunity. that is sad. if you look at graduation rates is any system that inner-city minority controlled, it is abysmal. we have to have our family structure improved to fix our educational system. people areg black of of wedlock, no pop up.

guest: that is not true. that is not true. caller: you better read your statistics. i am 76 years old. i love our country. i believe in immersion in our country. i do not believe in prejudice. i do not believe in equal outcome. i believe in equal opportunity. you are a gentleman, and i know that. i ask you, please, one thing we have to identify is the real problems in our country. one is the failure of our families. untilot say it enough, the 1950's come along, our marriage rates for most races are similar. welfare, start of different segments of our society, the marriage rates dropped. i am from california.

if you had been in l.a. when if you had been in l.a. when that was happening in the 1960's, he would have been amazed. i did not see it coming because i was 20 years old. when i was in my 30's and 40's, i had a firm understanding of what was happening in my mind. i was in los angeles. host: thank you for your thoughts. let's get a response. guest: what is important to recognize is that marriage rates have gone down for all races in america. the family unit is not the traditional family unit it was in the 1950's and 1960's for everyone. people have choices. we have too many great americans who grew up with a single mom or a single dad. we have many americans who have achieved great success coming from a traditional family. we had americans who had a family and did not

succeed. it is important if we are going to discuss this issue to have that discussion that these rates . family and did not succeed. lumpn't think we can also show problems into that conversation. this is what i will say about equal outcomes. everyone says equal opportunity. how do we measure if opportunity is equal? we have to look at if you have equal outcomes. what is the goal of equal opportunity? the goal of equal opportunity is to have equal outcomes. there is no guarantee. are equal to say we opportunity. that is universal. that is what america is based on. the reality is we have not had equal opportunity, and we have been on a journey from the 1950's and 1960's to increase to opportunity when it comes

-- equal opportunity when it comes to housing, economics, jobs. i think it is important to recognize when we have this discussion that this legacy of exclusion, discrimination, it is not comfortable for people to have that kind of conversation, but we have to have it if we as a generation of americans are going to ensure that the next generation has it better off. host: back to the report we begin the program with, the report from the national urban league excellency project. what happens now that this report is out? what happens with the information? what is your message? our our message for those

states that have a good, we want them to move with speed to implement the recommendations in their plan. for those states that got sufficient and especially poor, we want them to revise those plans, update those plans, improve those plans. at the national level, we would like the house and senate to hold hearings on the every student succeeds act. we are a little bit past the halftime of the implementation of the bill. we think it is time congress take inventory, and that will create an opportunity for discussion and debate about whether this law, which replaced no child left behind has worked and whether we need to revise it or substantially reform. we want parents across the nation to press their principles,nts,

leaders of education, state directors, state secretaries, if they did principles, not get an excellent grade, press them to go back and revise their plans to include the equity indicators and those plans. this is a dynamic civic engagement process that creates the chance for students, teachers, parents, education advocates, citizen taxpayers to be involved with this discussion and about how we implement the every student succeeds act. it gave more power to the states, more flexibility to the states. , gave usave the states a responsibility to hold those states accountable. that is the department of education's responsibility. i think it is certainly part of our responsibility as advocates. host: 30 minutes left with our

guest. we have james from mississippi, independent color. good morning. i heard this gentleman previously talk about the path of education, about the parents, families, fathers and mothers. let's face the fact. if we go all the way back to slaves and all the way to segregation, if we look at the america lies with african-americans and school in urban, there was a strategic backm to hold black people from education, from housing. when i watch pbs, pbs is one of instructing instructing progras

you can look up about the history of this country. we want to come into the middle of everything with african-americans. if you go back to the foundation of the racism and the hate and discrimination and having police officers take young black people to the segregated schools, and when they came up, saying we are going to integrate, we are going to take all the money out of the urban communities, out of black communities, we are going to let you go on your own. the system is not set up for restitution. african-americans have been set behind for over 400 years, retribution for slavery. you know what these politicians are saying now, even the democrats, we are going to look at restitution, how we should form this money. it is about money.

it is about the african-american community. we have been so far behind not only just education, but economically, socially, and some of these democrats are talking about how i don't think we need to talk about money. restitution needs money. read what they say about african-americans. you name it. african-americans,, it is always we are going to do this. money, thiss to ,ountry owes african-americans slavery, discrimination. shame that you get this kind of attitude when you come to african-americans and paying restitution. i want you to talk about this. thank you for calling.

let's get a response. guest: james, i appreciate his comments. what thank you for calling. let's get a response. james has focused on is the legacy of slavery and discrimination, legal discrimination where it was the law in america for hundreds of years, not just a few years. so much of today we are dealing with that. out by one get wiped out by one long. those start the process to wipe out this legacy. james is right that that legacy of discrimination, we don't want the america of the 1950's. that was a segregated america. some gloryat may be time. for african-americans, it was not a time of glory.

it was a time of pain, emmett till the ku klux klan. the country is trying to move away, and unfortunately some of those attitudes are being resurrected in america today and creeping into our policy discussions. when we talk about equity, we are talking about reversing produce thes that inequities we face today. i appreciate james' comments. we have to work to overcome racial discrimination in 21st century america. host: what do you make of the secretary of education's tenure so far, betsy devos? i think she was never the

best candidate. in the past we have had professional educators. lamar alexander, now a member of the u.s. i think she was never e best candidate. senate, secretary of education good under president obama, arne duncan, school superintendent in chicago. john king had been a school superintendent for the state of new york who served as secretary of education. in the clinton years, he had ledrnor riley, who had education transformation in south carolina. i don't think betsy devos was well-equipped to do this job. i am led disappointed that her approach has been to cut back thediminish and deemphasize responsibility she has to enforce civil rights laws across the board. one example is rescinding the obama era guidance on school discipline.

she has retrenched when it comes to sexual assault on campus. there seems to be an intentionality to moveshe backws on important issues. it is not a comment on who she is as a person. i am not going to personally vilify her, but if i comment on these policies, what i would like to see betsy devos do with go to the states we have deemed go to the states we have deemed poor and instruct them, direct them, hold them accountable to revise their plans so they will meet equity indicators. that is what we would like to see this department of education do and what we would like to see congress hold the department accountable to. reportou can read this on equity and excellence in education. a little more about betsy devos. hearing of the

house education committee this week. hearing of the house education committee this week. she was asked about school diversity. i want to show you an exchange. [video clip] >> we know racial isolated schools tend to have fewer resources. the administration rescinded voluntary federal guidance on school diversity put in place by the obama administration. part of that nonbinding guidance helped school districts understand how to develop and implement voluntary integration efforts. you are familiar with the k12 diversity documents? >>implement congressman, we cono be most concerned -- i like >> are you familiar with that document? >> i am not familiar with that kick a document. thatmiliar with particular document. >> federal law and supreme court precedent still stands on the

use of race in school assignment. this understanding, are you familiar of the case parents seattle school district one, specifically justice kennedy's concurrence? >> i am not familiar with that particular case. host: your response? guest: it is stunning that the secretary would not be familiar thatthe repeal of guidance in all likelihood bares her signature. this is what i talked about earlier. this job of being secretary of education is a job for someone with the experience of the knowledgethe no and know-how, and it does not seem the secretary has that.

this haste to rescind these important steps that were taken in the obama years and replace it with nothing and try to do it quietly as though no one would catch it, these are not positive steps. they are very disappointing. this is why we have to oppose those things that would damage our children. host: we move on to north carolina, democratic line. elsie. caller: the problem with our our kids would have been

educated. we lost all our good teachers. 50 years later, you are still running around begging for education. i dropped out. i went back and took a test one just on at my ged test i did not have to go to school because i was prepared. served for eight years. the only thing i could not do was sign the deed. these served for eight years. kids when they drop out in 11th grade, they cannot find their way across the street. the biggest mistake the supreme court ever made was brown v. board of education. we give up our teachers at our schools for integration. you can sit there and smile all you want to. that is a proven fact. had more blacke have

men in college than females. now we have more black men in prison. that is a fact. i know we had good teachers. we don't have that now. our kids now can't hardly write their names. ii just graduated from high school. host: thank you for the call. guest: i have to say i'm extremely disappointed that he criticized the brown v. board of education decision, one of the high points in american history, which begin the process of dismantling segregation. my parents were the products of segregated schools. no, we were not better off during the days of segregation. we were not. that kind of romanticized point

of view, did we have strong teachers and strong schools? there is no doubt that against that adversity we had black teachers and black principles, my relatives, on said uncle's -- andsend opals -- aunts uncles were committed to teaching. as a society, where we better off with segregation? absolutely not. the schools today are as racially anduncles were committo teaching. economically segregated in 2018 as they were in the 1950's and 60's. that is why the obama administration promulgated guidance suggesting to school districts that they pursue voluntary desegregation.

this administration has certainly undercut that. we cannot romanticize the past. 1950's, the number of african-americans finishing high school was probably the third of what it is today. a third of what it is today. while there was great success adversity, and we honor and respect those that fall through -- f adversity, and weoh that generation, we cannot say we were better off. we are better off today even with the challenges we face. i have to say i am disappointed with the characterization and mischaracterization. respect his perspective, but disagree with it because it is absolutely inaccurate. host: let's go to larry from

alabama. about 15 minutes left. republican, good morning. caller: how are you doing? guest: good morning. caller: i have to agree with you on a lot of things, especially what you said on the gentleman that call from north carolina and said something about joe biden was for segregation, which i don't even believe that. back in the days, we had the best teachers, but we had the poor equipment. some of the books, the pages were torn out. were on the back of the book that i had to use, but we had some of the best teachers. on the other side of the river, they had better equipment, pool tables, basketball courts and different things. you are right. the gentleman from texas who families and said

the black houses are the problem today. that is not true. it doesn't matter whether they ,as raised from a wolf or bear the white, the black, the poor, rich, that school has to educate. that is what they are there for. if they have poor teachers, get them out. get someone who can educate. i also heard rich, that school o educate. someone ask you where they arere cutting into giving $5 billion to the charter schools while they are cutting other programs and not replacing them. i agree with you just like the health care. they're coming to health care, but they don't have any replacement. i agree with you wholeheartedly on a lot of things you said except for tenure. tenure on teachers should also

involve performance. that is all i have to say. host: thank you for calling. mr. mayor. guest: thank you, larry. sean is in california. let's get to another call. credit color. -- democratic caller. caller: there is one thing i have to say, if you say equity one more time, i am going to scream. why why? caller: you don't know what it means. the green new deal, that will thing. i live here. i live in california. a 4.0 gpa, and his english teacher would only speak spanish in the class. there are a lot of wonderful things that happen here in this state for blacks, whites, mexicans. it doesn't really matter.

, because ofyou this the obama thing there has been more than one student that has stomped the head of his teacher and was not even expelled for it. do you find that there? i find it portal. host: anything you want to respond to? guest: if a student is stomping the head of a teacher, they should be arrested. i am not familiar with the particular situation. guest:if a student hits a teach, that student should be arrested because i do not believe there should be any violence in the classroom. it is a matter for law enforcement to deal with if you have physical violence against a teacher. i wanted to get your

response from a tweet that came in on the process of education. guest: i wanted to get childreno audio] -- connection thee internet is out there, why aren't kids smarter? guest: they may be smarter. what is the standard by which we by?judging our children some of this is a negative haul on our kids. we are striving for a better education system, an education system that educates every child. i don't buy into i have got a 13-year-old and 17-year-old. doubt if any adult can do their english or math. curriculums are tougher now.

the standards are higher now than they have ever been. our expectations of our students are more, necessarily so because of the complexity of the workforce they are going to enter. dumpnk it is inaccurate to on how kids and say they are not as smart because none of that is borne out by the facts. none of that is bornenone of the numbers. we have challenges, of course we have challenges. one thing we have not talked about is the plethora of school shootings, which is made the risk of violence so much greater in schools. todays a problem we have that we did not have 20 or 30 or 40 years ago to the extent we have today. up the fact that

we are going to be in may, and there are going to be tens of 17,sands, millions of young 18, and 19-year-olds who are going to be walking across the graduatinggh school, and going on to great success. two-year college, college, trade schools, in some cases directly into the workforce. that is success. those valedictorians, salutatorian's, honor students, i intend thosethat is success. -- attend those graduations. i want to put in a word for those students that are succeeding, being educated, the teachers that are doing a good job. let us not be dragged down into a conversation of negativity that the schools are going to in a in a handbasket, that all

teachers are poor, that we have lost ground in education in america because it is not the case. where we are losing ground in some states, we have lost ground when it comes to funding levels in a number of states. the funding that the federal government provides the elementary and secondary pace withhas not kept inflation. those dollars are not increasing up at the local school district level. most of the money, most of the resources that are devoted to public education today are from local and state sources. your state government, local tax base. the federal government's role compared to the state's role and local government is very small whole, but the

federal government's role in education is to tell states to better educate the kids who have been locked out and left whole,e federal out because of race, income, or because they may be learning english as a second language. i want to put that into perspective because there is so much success. there are so many students learning, so many students going college, so many hard-working teachers and administrators. lots of challenges, and we point out those college, so challenger report. look at the states that were island,xcellent, rhode illinois, kentucky, oklahoma, new jersey, new york, colorado all got excellent. yes, there are the states that were poor like georgia, california, kansas, michigan,

arizona, florida. most states got sufficient, too many for me to call out. that is why i want you to read our report. arizona, florida. host: not to is calling from emerson, new jersey, independent caller. caller: good morning. thank you. i did teach in the public schools in the inner-city and in the suburbs. reason, a major reason that parents, many parents are opting out of the failed public schools to choose charter schools, catholic schools, home schools, christian ,chools, i'm sorry homeschooling. it is not just the money. it is not just the money. caller brought up earlier,

our country spends much more money than most countries in the world on public education, and the results, the sad results speak for themselves. callers werewo correct when they said incompetent tenured teachers should not be protected by the teachers union because it harms the children. addressed theer fact as to why they do protect them. for the sake of the children. by the way, betsy devos is trying to addressed the fact as to correct -- she is not perfect -- but she is trying to correct the disaster of the public schools in many inner cities, which the previous caused, theion appointee from the previous administration was responsible for. you. thank

let's get a response. guest: i don't know how to respond to matthew. he is extremely partisan. he is a strong supporter of like devos and does not teachers unions. expert on teacher's unions. i am one who does not believe in teachers or teacher's teachers or teacher's unions or lawyers or democrats or republicans. demonizing is just not something i embrace. criticism and debate is something i embrace, but the demonization of teachers -- my mother was a teacher. she was a member of the union, helped to integrate the union in talkrleans in the 1960's,

second-grade talk second-grade -- taught second-grade in the inner-city. demonization of teachers is not going to do anything. poor teachers should be removed. poor secretaries of education should be removed. poor principles should be removed. members shouldrd be removed, not just for teachers. if we are going to remove those that are not living up to the standards, then remove all. for politicians should be removed. every other like profession, lawyers, doctors, nurses, journalists, farmers. there are great teachers, and there are some poor teachers. great lawyers and poor lawyers. great doctors and poor doctors.

let's not demonize the teaching profession in america as though they are completely responsible, or you have a range of incompetence. defend yourchers call him, profession. we don't have to defend incompetent teachers, but we should defend those teachers that are working and sweating and caring every single day. let me say this, most of our children in america, i think 56 million, attend public schools. i think less than one million attend nontraditional public schools in america today. million, attend public schools. public schools, getting it right for public education, whether you support alternatives to public education, i am not talking about catholic or jewish or lutheran or religious schools, i'm talking nontraditional public schools is so important because it is educating over 90% of our

students. wishing and dreaming that all these schools are going to be converted to another model is simply not realistic. i have never been opposed to charter schools were other models or those parents that want to homeschool. charter schools have to be held to the same standard as public schools, and they have to be held to the standards to educate our kids like every other school. same thing with home schools. if it works for your child and is good for your child, that is what your child should participate in. host: our guest has been marc mo rial, president and ceo of the national urban league, former mayor of new orleans, former president of the conference of mayors. thank you for your insights this morning. is the placeul.org to go to read this report on how

the states are doing on education. they are self reporting their ideas. thank you very much. guest: thank you for having me. host: one hour left in this sunday edition of the "washington journal." when we come back, we will talk politics, campaign 2020, the people, politics, anything you would like to talk about with the campaign. republicans, call (202) 748-8001 . democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. willa ford to talking more with you coming up in a moment -- we look forward to talking more with you coming up in a moment. susan: barbara bush finally had enough. they were out of the white house. she did not need to bite her tongue anymore. she said that she took offense at it. reporters were at her door asking questions about it, which was not true.

that was just designed to give nancy reagan a little heartburn. "d she said to nancy reagan, and don't you ever call me again." and she hung up. >> this week on "q&a," "usa today" washington bureau chief susan page on her biography of barbara bush, "the matriarch." susan: at the very beginning, she said "you will never see my diaries." up the bushare kept library, but they are not available for public view until 35 years after her death. and i understood that, and i thought she was unlikely to let me see her diaries. and at the end of the fifth interview, she said "and you can see my diaries." was an incredible gift. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." the c-span bus is stopping at

middle and high schools across the country to present the prices and awards to the winners of our studentcam video competition. throughout this month, you can see the top 21 winning entries every morning before "washington journal," and watch every winning studentcam documentary along with those honorably mentioned and the behind-the-scenes winners online at studentcam.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: and again, we will spend this last 55 minutes or so talking about campaign 2020. we will hear from some of the candidates and get some of your home calls -- phone calls. a reminder, republicans can call (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. an independents, (202) 748-8002. we will continue to take your tweets this morning as well. one of the newsmakers this we cannot campaign 2020 was cory booker, the democratic senator from new jersey. here is a headline in the "new york times," kicking off his

campaign and home turf, they are talking about newark, new jersey, here. wait, writing on scenes from dr. king's letter from a birmingham jail. booker declaring we are here today to say we cannot wait, a debate on the vision for addressing social and economic ills of the country. here is more of what the senator had to stay in new york. [video clip] sen. booker: we are here today to say "we can't wait." [cheers and applause] >> we can't wait. we can't wait. we can't wait. [cheers] wait whenr: we can't powerful forces are turning their prejudice into politics

and rolling back the rights of generations of americans file for antiheroes died for. we can't wait when this administration is putting children into cages, banning from entering the nation founded on religiou liberty, and preventing brain transgender americans from serving the country they love. and we can't wait, because many of our most serious challenges as a nation were with us long before donald trump entered the white house. [cheers and applause] sen. booker: we can't wait, because we have a criminal justice system that in the words of my friend ryan stevenson "treats you better if you are written guilty than if you are poor and innocent," a system so deeply base with bias, that it ruthlessly discriminates against black people and brown

people and low income people with mental illnesses, folks with addiction. we can't wait when we have an economy where people who work two or three jobs pick up extra shifts, where they can and still can't pay the bills. prices are soaring while wages for most americans have barely judged. are killingtries off competition, driving out in , squeezing out small businesses, and , ourcan family farmers first entrepreneurs, are being squeezed out. we have an unjust policy that destroyed our economy and extracting money from our commonwealth and plowed into tax cuts for the wealthy and wars overseas we did not have to fight. instead of investing in the

things we all know grow our economy and create more opportunity for all, like education and infrastructure. host: cory booker, the senator from new jersey, democrat, opening his campaign and his hometown where he was the former mayor for a while. om as this headline, "cory booker held a rally in new jersey, and thousands showed up. will the love continue when he hits the road?" he is hitting the road this week. he will be in iowa this week. we will have more of senator booker at his town hall. we will get you some specific program information later. we have a live event today to tell you about at 2:00 p.m. eastern time, the official announcement of mayor who beat a judge -- mayor pete buttigieg. his announcement today, and we will carry that live at 2:00 p.m. eastern time

today. jeff harris with the south bend tribune is an investigative reporter, and he has been covering pete buttigieg. this announcement, what are you expecting? well, thank you for having us on curator if what the campaign is saying is correct, maybe 10,000 people in downtown south bend for this event. originally it was going to be , thede in the intersection campaign offices, but they have moved indoors because of the forecasted campaign weather. maybe even some snow today. relocated the event to the studebaker automobile factory building. it is still in the midst of renovation.

how many people would fit into the building. this is on a first-come, first-served basis. host: remind us who this man is, this mayor, pete buttigieg. he has been getting a good amount of traction in the news lately. give us a quick profile. is 37 years pete old. he was a harvard graduate and a rhodes scholar. he ran for state treasurer in 2010. he was excited to come back to south bend, where he is from. he lost that race rather decisively. he was very young, 29 years old. the following year, though, he ran for mayor of south bend and won and was reelected to a second term after coming out as gay in 2015. he was reelected with 80% of the

vote. and take us further into his campaign, because, as i mentioned, there is a good amount of traction. we have been reading about a lot of media attention. he has been raising money. will that translate? will that continue to build momentum for him following his announcement today as he moves around the country? guest: well, yeah. he raised -- he surprised a lot of people when he raised more than $7 million in the first quarter, so that is kind of the question that a lot of people are having around south bend, is whether he can sustain that momentum and sort of turned that moment into an actual campaign. that former instance of success and all of the positive attention he has received from the national media

perhaps caught him and his campaign a bit off guard -- in a good way. but they have been sort of challenged now with trying to staff, not only here locally but also setting up offices in the early primary states of new hampshire and iowa, which is what they are trying to do now with all the new campaign money. they started with a staff of about 20, but now are trying to ramp up to around 50. i believe they are somewhere in the 40's now with their staff. they just opened up a new headquarters here in downtown south bend, about five times as large as the office that they started with. so now they are trying to, as i said, keep up with the momentum and try to ramp up their campaign infrastructure to go along with the enthusiasm that they are seeing around the country from supporters. host: what is his message, the mayor of south bend, as a

presidential candidate, and how will he separate himself from this very large field? guest: well, he is playing very strongly on his youth. he says it is time for a new generation of leadership. he is the youngest person in the campaign so far, and he would be, obviously, the youngest president ever elected at 37. he says it is time. he repeatedly says on the campaign stump that his generation is the first to have experienced mass school shootings. he also notes that he was a senior in high school when the first one hit, columbine, colorado. he says that his generation provided the most military members in the wars in afghanistan and iraq, and he fundamentalat if changes are not made to the economy, his generation will be the first that eanrns less than their parents. he also says his generation

will be on the business end of climate change, and that when he is the current president's age in 2054, his generation will have the most at stake, so it is only appropriate that they are inuming leadership politics and in washington. parrott, one question to those opponents of pete buttigieg in the primary field, what will the lines of attacks look like toward the mayor as they are trying to separate themselves? guest: well, there seems to be a growing focus on his record as mayor here in south bend. a lot of people are trying to take a hard critical look at one issues, forture instance, what he called 1000 1000 days.

when he was elected, he made a ,ledge to address urban blight and a lot of homes in older, and impoverished neighborhoods that were vacant ad abandoned, and reinforcement effort, demolished about 60% of those homes and repaired the other 40%, but there are some critics, especially in the african-american community, who say that those efforts were not fair to the poor and to many african-americans and sort of pushed them out of their neighborhoods. however, the administration says that that is not true at all, and that these homes had been vacant for 90 days and that most were owned by limited liability corporations and out-of-town investors.

so there will be more attention paid to that. that is just an example of one of the things on his record here in south bend that is going to be more scrutinized in the coming months. host: jeff parrott is with the "south bend tribune." he is city government and investigative reporter, preview of that pete buttigieg announcement today. appreciate your time and insight this morning. guest: thank you very much for having us. host: sure thing. we will have that live event at 2:00 p.m. eastern time of that mayor of south bend makes his formal announcement to run for president. it tonightlay in prime time as well. from ohio, url first. -- you are up first. go ahead. [no audio] thank you for c-span. i am talking about tim ryan. himle are not talking about yet, but they will be soon.

i think he is the kind of guy that will appeal to, well, the same people that joe biden appeals to. tim ryan will appeal to the same people without the baggage. host: is he your congressman? no, he is not. sadly, i have bob gibbs. host: what do you like about tim ryan, what particular message or issue? caller: well, you know, i think he is trying to work toward the middle, and that is where we really need to be. we cannot take these partisan , we cannot go too far right or too far left. the ideas are simply untenable. , he is going him to appeal to the working class that we apparently, as democrats, lost out on in the

last election. he is going to appeal to a lot of people, a lot of votes that we lost the last time around, and that might just be the difference, enough of a difference, to truly remove donald trump from office. host: all right, from ohio, talking about congressman tim ryan, the democrat from ohio who announced this past week. we are taking your calls on campaign 2020. we will continue to put the phone numbers on the bottom of the screen and hear from some more of the candidates. sophia, you are up now on the republican line. what would you like to say? thought steve -- hello? host: you are on the air, sophia, go ahead. caller: i thought steve was going to be there. you are the good spot when steve is not there. you give them a good chance without cutting them off. the next one, but i have to say, our president now, he has made

me laugh, he has made me cry, but he has never made me angry. the only ones who have made me angry have been those who are around him. when a person says "i hope you l," sean hannity and rush limbaugh make this president fail. he could not get health care, he did not do immigration, so they need to watch their mouth. but my president right now, he does not make me angry. he still make me cry, he still make me laugh, so i hope things -- don't sayo that our president has to fail. host: sophia, let me just jump in so i am clear, you voted for the president? caller: i sure did. deplorable, illed

have been called trump supporter, i have been called -- all my friends became against me, but i could not vote for the 2016 was horrible. poll,ave a negative shows so much. host: sophia, let me ask you another question. what is the best thing that president trump has done and perhaps the worst thing since he has been president? caller: don't ask me the worst thing. the only good that he has done, i am not going to lie to you, a lot of people say a thousand times he lie. there are certain things he does not lie. like after 100 days, he's a "i can't believe i am pre sident." but i wish him the best for the next two years coming.

destruction that has been pushed, like steve miller, those people around him, they are not making him feel better or making us feel better. host: all right, sophia, thank you for calling. hoboken,r from john in independent caller. caller: hi. what is interesting to me is the democrats lost in a large part press turnout and not getting supported in the u.s. -- midwest. poker seems like he will be able to reinvigorate the african-american vote to get turnout up, and everyone else seems to try to reinvigorate it through getting a huge turnout from the left of the party, but they are not appealing to the industrial midwest at all. only a couple of candidates can speak to it, and one is

buttigieg, but that is only as he is from there, not because of policy. the only other person i can think of is gillibrand, only because she is from upstate new york. what i would like to hear the guest talk about is why they are ignoring the industrial midwestern issues that were such a key part of the issue. host: well, john, we do not have now, it is open phones, but why don't you answer your question? caller: oh, i thought your guest was still there. i am so sorry. host: no, no. caller: i will give you the bad explanation and a good one. good one, which is not so good, which is they made a calculation that the strategy works, and i do not think that is a good decision, and the bad explanation is that trump and then would say that they do not care about the midwest. for instance, when mr. booker

speaks about infrastructure, that is a euphemism for urban development, because the type of the if the structure they are talking about is not occur in the heartlands. because it doe is not set up that way. you do not have bridges, subways. it is my humble opinion that they are doing it at their peril, because that was trump's opening when he became president . host: all right, thank you so much for calling, john. taking your calls for the next 30 minutes or so on campaign 2020. republicans, (202) 748-8001 is your number, democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. here is the story about senator kamala harris, releasing 15 years of her tax returns. cnn reporting she is throwing down the tax return gauntlet. senator kamala harris released

15 years of her tax returns, the most of any 2020 candidate. taxes from 2004 to 2018, making her "the most transparent canada in the field when it comes to information about personal finances," said a campaign aide. one report suggested that she and her attorney has been, $200as, earned just under -- $2 millionear last year. here is bernie sanders talking about his plan called medicare for all. [video clip] this is not going to be an easy fight, and this is not another easy visa legislation that will ask. that is not the way it happens. health care and medical are for all in exactly the same way that i look at the ofor movement, when millions workers stood up and fought back and said they were sick and tired of the and exploited.

for all inedicare the same way as i look at the civil rights movement, where african-americans and their white allies said together "we are going to in vain racism and segregation and jim crow in america." and i look at health care it as a human right at the same way as i look at the women's movement, where women stood up and fought back and said "we will not be second-class citizens." and i look at medicare for all in the same way, as i look at the struggles of the gay movement, when the gay community said "we are sick and tired of being discriminated against, and we will love whoever, regardless of their gender." my point is that we fight for medicare for all, the fight for health care is a human right.

it is a struggle that has got to take place at the grassroots level, because when millions of people stand up and say, you know what? i am entitled to health care. my kids are entitled to health care. my disabled friends are entitled to health care, and every american is entitled to health care. when millions of people stand up, believe me, the united states congress will hear them. host: bernie sanders in wisconsin on friday. by the way, there is a feast in the hill about news that cannot yesterday, sanders on his millionaire status, he says "i did not know it was a crime to write a good book." so he pushed back against criticism. "i do not apologize for writing a book that was on the "new york times" bestsellers list," he said, but reiterated that the wealthiest people in the country

finally start paying their fair share of taxes. we have seen pieces of a few different speeches here this morning. go to.org is the place to watch these full events, if you go into the search bar and type in the candidate of your choice. recent events will pop up, the one that you want to watch some of these soundbites and the full-length events. we have ryan on the line from marlborough, massachusetts on the democrats line. an. ry caller: yeah, so they are talking about in the news cycle about bernie sanders being a millionaire. what he wants this country be like is like denmark and norway and sweden, those democratic countries who have millionaires, so i do not see how people are calling him a hypocrite over that. host: anything else to say, ryan?

from selma, alabama, independent caller named francis. caller: yes, good morning. thank you for the diversity of america. in thew, i grew up here 1960's, and my family was very in the progression of the civil rights movement, the voters rights in particular. and i am just disappointed that all of the things that we fought for have gone farther behind. i also was very active when i lived in milwaukee, wisconsin. we were involved in the school system, senate lutherans, and i had a lot of discrimination directed toward me and my family while living in a neighborhood that had been, i guess, in years previously

predominantly white. we did have a few black people who moved in, including my family. but i was not the kind of person who went there with any pre notions. i tried to accept and treat people the way i wanted to be treated, but i was treated pretty badly, and this is something that america is going to have to truly wake up to, how you treat us in your thehborhood, remove progression, like anyone else, selma,n i returned to and i cannot give the full detail about the situation, but cited simply because i did not want to continue to be used as as if i were a subservient person. they told me i had to babysit them, and i was a professional person.

it was strange to me, although that with some of my down time at home, i did not intend to be the person that they had always thought black people from the alabama or the black people to be toward them. so i went through a lot of problems. and we need to revisit those kinds of cases in order to -- we always talk about statute of limitations, but there is no statute of limitation on the hardship that people develop. host: francis, thank you for calling. janice calling on the republican line. jan, what would you like to say about campaign 2020? sir, i really hope that all of our republicans and moderate democrats and independents come out for this president. he has more than proven himself that he loves this country, and yes, people want to save the remarks that he makes, but they do not see what is important,

and what is important is that we get this country back on its feet, that we become the country p everyone, but we can't be stupid as far as overrunning our country, putting ourselves in so much debt, which we are already in. it just continues each and every day. so i am going to work very hard for this president, and i hope and pray that all of our conservatives get out there and work very hard, because the democratic party, i have no idea who they are. host: jan, let me jump in and ask you a question. do you see any primary challenger coming along on the republican side of the president, and was at the a good or healthy thing for the party in the process? caller: absolutely not. they need to just support this president. everyone banks that "i want to come in and be the superhero," will let me tell you, this man

is a superhero, because he is not like any other candidate that ran it or any candidate that has ran before, and he is not afraid to stand up to everyone, you know. all the political correctness, we are tired of it. host: ok. we go to joan in rochester, minnesota on the line for democrats. hello, joan. caller: hi, i just wanted to make a comment for the way that i think trump runs his program. he sits there and have a lot of people working for him, and he , "you know what i want you to do, don't tell me who, what, where, why, and when, just do it, so i can claim, 'ge e, i did not know anything about this at all.' 'gee, this is new to me.'" so it is just a game to him. everybody that works to him gets

punished somehow. this is not a man. a real man would not do those things. thank you. host: thanks for calling. we are with you for another 30 minutes, taking your calls on campaign 2020. has strong enthusiasm and strongholds pose controversy, the headline of this piece. "a growing enthusiasms o despite the controversy of women accusing him of inappropriate touching." biden is likely to see a swell of support in the race. "i think he sees where he is in the poll, and they think he can get the job done." that is then the hill this morning. the "new york times" have this as well.

a chance to run for president, even if the chances are miniscule. currente several an and former candidates. including eric swalwell, the democrat from california, and mike huckabee, the ex governor ofm arkansas, who had feet residential bids in 2012 and 2016, and reverend al sharpton who sought the democratic nomination in 2004. that is the "new york times." forhe many reasons to run president, even if the chances is noim, they write there mass groundswell for an eric swalwell campaign feared he is a 38-year-old congressman was little distinction. he what appeared to have little running room and a distinguished democratic field. baseball starting lineups with another contender or two left to heckle from the dugout.

when asked about it, "why not," he said. the morning when he announced his candidacy on "the ight with stephen colbert." things."oing big that remains to be seen. but at the very least, if recent history is a guy, a run is likely to yield better things, perpetuating the victory and defeat incentive structure intimate to modern races. they also have books to sell, tv contracts to sign, paid speeches to paid speak. any setback is temporary, any embarrassment surmountable. that is the "new york times" this morning.

rick, independent caller. caller: i would like to say ditto to the lady who called from minnesota, and others, but primarily, i would like to be to the independents. i wasted my vote in the last election voting for dr. stein, who got my vote, because i think the environment is critical to what we face nowadays. goes, asr as biden long as he did not grab anybody by their private parts, i did not see what he is accused of to disqualify. all you independents, let's get together, i do not care if it is a dogcatcher. i like amy klobuchar. what we need to get the liar in chief out of office. thank you. from palm springs, california on the republican line. brian, what would you like to say about campaign 2020? honest, if any

rumors how 2016 went, trump is just going to feast on every democratic contender there is, and i have not really heard any real policy discussions with any substance that any major contenders have. it is all how much they did not like trump. theally hope after he wins second time, everyone will get over their whole trump derangement syndrome and accept him as their president and be proud that we have an american president that cares about the american people, so much so that he funded his own campaign the first time, and when he makes decisions, you can for by his press is truly the american people are not, no lobbyists. democrats,cans and they get paid for the same corporations. pay of therporations

both sides, so a mutual consensus, and nothing ever gets done. and thanks to donald trump, who can't be bought, now, all of a sudden, the government works a lot quicker. there are still certain areas where democrats, they lost a lot of funding, because now the companies know what they want to get done cannot get done, so they stopped donating to, you know, whoever congressman or whatever. it is just really good for the american people, and i think a lot more people will realize how good it really is in the future. host: all right, thanks for calling, ryan. we will point out again at president trump is headed to minnesota tomorrow. people talk about the 2017 tax to receive the benefits of the law. the president did win in minnesota and 2016.

continuing coverage for the open press coming out of minnesota. we will look to show some of that to you. we mentioned cory booker earlier, going to iowa. he will do a town hall thursday evening, and we will have coverage at 8:45 p.m. eastern time from iowa on tuesday. we have santa maria, california on the line now, jerome. back to the independent line. hey, jerome. caller: first time i have gotten through. host: glad to have you. caller: i would like to -- i am a bit of a c-span junkie on all platforms. i think every presidential candidate and president, no matter which party, should come on your show and answer questions from the american people on all sides of issues. problems with president trump is not so much his policies, and i cannot understand why people still defend this man, is

the fact that he really never has had a well thought out ideas grandioserows out the ideas with no real plan for how to execute them realistically. 2020 election, i have not seen anybody come as far as the democratic party, i have not seen anybody who really impresses me. an eye of course, but they also have been throwing but you have to look realistically, and i would like to see more details on all of the policy positions and how they plan to get these things accomplished in such a divided country. once again, i want to thank you guys for having this show and giving me a chance to call in. i hope to do it more often, and

the way you handled the callers of all positions is really impressive. keep up the good work. host: thank you for calling, jerome, and thanks for watching the network. manyll continue to track of the candidates, to see how they are presenting themselves, to get the best sense of how you might be voting when next year comes around. here is beto o'rourke now. he is a democratic presidential candidate. the davidinterview on axelrod show and talked a little bit about immigration. take a look. [video clip] mr. o'rourke: donald trump is the arsonist who gets the credit for putting out the fire. he is going to cause the worst byigration asylum seeking cutting off all usa, and he

wants to the credit for stopping it. what we want is someone who does not play lives with the security of this country but will invest in the smart decisions and policies, like investing in central america to stop the outflow before it even began. we need to try to address these problems that the u.s. mexico border with open arms, or we can address them in the countries of origin before they even become a problem. that is what i want to do. host: that was battle or -- beto o'rourke there. we have friday. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to apologize, first of all, for some of these calls coming from minnesota. we are not all like that. i am telling you, this campaign, we are going to get trump -- minnesota is going to go for trump, guaranteed. fred, let me jump in first. that point you made was intriguing. how does president trump go from

losing by maybe 44,000 points to winning? what will make the difference, in your view? caller: well, i tell you, i talked to a lot of people, and the tide is turning. people will feel what is going on. i mean, the economy in minnesota is getting a lot better. people are making more money. and, you know, the guy is not perfect. i tell you what, i predicted him being our president three years before he announced his candidacy, and i stuck with him. day he announced his get is i sent him $100. i am a disabled vet. three times now i have given all i can to the campaign, and all i can say is the guy is getting it done. i mean, give him some credit. host: anything else you want to out there, fred? caller: minnesota is going to turn the tide and go for trump. i guarantee it. host: we're going to move on to lewis now in salisbury, south

carolina, on the line for democrats. caller: good morning. , c-span. good morning, america, and happy palm sunday. i am a democrat, and i have been a democrat all my life, and i love it, because the democratic candidate feel the same way i do . all of their speeches are right at the money for all americans, and you know, that is so refreshing, not just hearing on e, but all americans. and once the republicans see what republicans are trying to do, they are trying to take away your health care. they are trying to take away your social security, your disability, and thee all i am saying is if you cannot see it, you should not even speak about it. but the candidates now that we have, they are articulating what they want, they are completing

their sentence. they are not talking about no one, they are not bringing anyone down with rhetoric. projecting to the people that this is a america needs, someone who can rules and regulations country should go forward from there. we do not get that from this president. andushes it off to america, america will never be grateful for the president today. he is always down on america, he is down on cia, down on fbi, downed the iran deal, every deal he downed that was good for america no longer exists under this president. host: wanda is calling from chattanooga, tennessee, independent caller. wanda, we're taking calls on campaign 2020. what would you like to say? caller: first, i would like to say that i am a bernie sanders

supporter, and i did not vote in the last election, because i just figured if she did not take bernie sanders with her, she did not want to win, therefore i democratst the the that is running in numbers should get behind bernie sanders, so bernie sanders implement because bernie sanders, the last time, is the only one i saw that could beat him. we are all gathered together and with these great last, bernie had the election, move forward. our health care will be better off, if only people could just need anxiety removal. there is a lot of anxiety in america.

the only way that we can get healed is that they have insurance or treatment, because they are medicating themselves. that is what i needed to say. host: wanda, let me bring up the age of bernie sanders, also the president;s age. it has been talked about joe biden's age. they are all the years old. does it matter at all? -- they are all over 70 years old. does it matter at all? will bebernie sanders the fresh voice that america needs right now. there are plenty of supporters behind him back and help him out with whatever he needs. they are all saying the same thing. host: thanks for calling, wanda. looking at the "washington post" outlook section, there is a piece by robert kaiser called "how old is too old to be president." co-author of many

books. read a little about what he had to say about candidates, especially beyond the age of 70. he says the research shows that the elderly struggle with new tax, says robert kaiser. that is bad for several 2020 candidates, for people in their mid-70's, he writes, like myself, the 2020 campaign is an oddly personal experience. among the front runners are two men our age, joe biden, 76, and bernie sanders, 77, and another just behind, donald trump, 72. the other candidates who lost, hillary clinton at 69, would have been the second oldest president ever elected. is this ok? age beiticians our own president? question that

provokes strong, often pain reactions from my contemporaries. any one person's answer reflects their sense of what it takes to be president and what it means to be in your 70th. in my own case -- healthy, active, marbles still present but unmistakably 76 -- this does not seem like a good stage of life to take on such a huge challenge. i have less energy and less stamina than i did 25 years ago. i find concentration more difficult and naps more necessary. laura and asked of you look, ohio. go ahead. of my things, i am glad you put that up, because that is what i am talking about. i think there should be some kind of psychological tests that should be given for congressman, president, mayors, judges, anyone with serious responsibility, to see if they are on the verge or starting with dementia, with alzheimer's

, with mental deficiencies, to a certain degree, where it is the pleading. the pleading. also, i believe every solicitor official, starting at the city level, should be required to give their tax returns for the last five years before they can even run. that ought to be mandated. that is a good way to stop corruption at the root, at the beginning of it, it's that of instead ofil -- waiting until they get up to the presidency. all of the people making our rules and hour laws, we ought to make sure they are completely cohesive, make sure they are completely above board and not corrupt, and the only way to do implement a medical, mental evaluation, and mandatory taxes for the last five years. thank you. host: all right. esperanto has been waiting in miami beach in florida, democratic caller. you are on the air.

caller: yes, good morning. i think the most important thing issee in our presidency patriotism, how much love for the country, because most of the country -- for the first time, we have a president that is not even taking the salary, so i think it is very proof, i did not care about the age, but president trump loves the country enough to work for free, but also to protect the country, closing the border. anybody who wants open border, i do not care which party, is not patriotic and don't care about the protecting of our country and therefore the people. and we need people at the

primary who really, if they love democratic, they should be truly democratic. if they are republican, they should be truly conservative, because that is the sign of the republican. host: you are calling in on the democratic line. which a democrat -- caller: let me finish! many democrats in the register, they say they are republican just to win elections, but at the time to vote, they vote with the left. republicans who brought them against protecting our country, building a wall, they are not republican, but they say they are republican just to win in red districts. registers blue or red should be truly blue or red. host: all right, thanks for calling, esperanza. i want to get a few more calls.

in wisconsin, what would you like to say about campaign 2020? caller: good morning, paul. i would like to say that i would like to have people in the united states start voting for more people in the middle. if we are voting for more people in the middle, we have both sides, the independent thinkers and the republican thinkers, and we had the democrat thinkers. that is the thing, our country has more smarts and more brains when we bring all intelligence together. paul, i would really like to say that i would like to have a suggestion for you to have someone from the united states poison data system. i have been doing research on who and what we die from in the united states. that we cannot find a single person who has ever died from pot, and yet here we are, we have got 30,000 people in one year that died from search and seizure in pot.

we are killing people from something they do not die from. can you bring someone on from the united states poison system that can come and explain that you do not die from hot? -- pot? we have children who die from eating toothpaste, people who die from eating a peanut. host: randy, what makes you study that? certified -- i am a truck driver, and i got dragged out of my house over a woman fighting over custody of her child that i did not even know. i got my rights taken away to hunt my land, i got my rates truck, iy to drive my got my rights taken away to work for the government. i used to build for several different countries. centers, ir research worked for west virginia tech research, i worked for fargo, north dakota. why is people like me not able to work over such a farce? host: we get the point from

randy there. is hanging on in eastchester, new york now, on the republican line. hi, liz. liz, are you with us? caller: oh, yes, hi. i just want to give a comment about the 2020 candidates running? host: sure. caller: that they are really a bunch of disgusting, un-american, unethical people. host: all of them? caller: yes. there is not one that i would give five cents for. 20 of them together would not have one quarter of the patriotism and intelligence and love for this country that donald trump has, and i am sure that none of them will get anywhere, because the american people will see everything about them. look at the new congressmen coming to this congress since january, that ihman and talib and even waters. any congressperson that you can take, democrats, every time they have these hearings and the west indies republicans, it is not a

hearing -- and they questioned these republicans, it is not a hearing, it is a persecution of your they are so nasty and so rude, you do not have to be republican to see it. thanks all right, liz, for the call this morning. dan balls in the "new york post" writes "immigration is a proxy for many issues, national security, domestic security, cultural change, nationalism, even nostalgic. the president's rhetoric inflames the left as much as it energizes his loyalists, which is exactly the purpose. democrats call foul when he tries to blame them. only doesg midterms he his party lose the majority in the house. yet for all the way see has manipulated the issue, it is a policy conundrum, one that whoever is president 2021 will

face. it is a political matter. both sides seem willing to have the fight. meanwhile, democrats are struggling to articulate policies that would solve the immediate problem at the border, and insulate themselves from trump's thoughts on illegal immigration." you can read more from "the washington post." democratic call, good morning. caller: hi, good morning. turn the soundou down on the set? we will hear you much better. caller: i'm sorry. i have been watching the "washington journal." host: let me jump in. what is your name? caller: my name is anina. host: keep going. we will tell russell to hang on. go ahead, please. caller: i am calling from houston.

i am calling because of most of the policies that you have about immigrants. host: tell us what your thoughts are. what are you hearing that you are concerned about? the things that we see on the news that is going because of the democrats, i'd really like the sign of the republicans, but if you have an issue that is good for the nation, i think everyone is supporting, whether you are republican, democratic, or independent. i mean, the issue of allowing a hold of immigrants into the , and it is solely ised on the taxpayer's money, think it is for the democrats to be wanting all of these people to come here. and at the same time, fight for rights. host: thank you for calling. i think we do have russell now

from asheville. russell, are you with us? caller: yes, good morning. host: sorry to make you wait. caller: good morning. i far as the immigration, have a few things to talk about, immigration, for one. i have a question for those who are opposed for other humans moving about on the lannett, as we are free. are you from the place you are born right now where you live? now, you figure that out. you talk about immigration there. don't be on your high horse. agesr as the presidential for the candidates, that is not -- that is irrational, not logical, because the policies that they create today will not serve the future at all, because we have been using the same people, doing the same thing for 40, 50 years, and nothing has changed. and third, the electoral college, and no lines have been changed on the electoral lines s, soere in any state

until we can become human again, there will be nothing that will change. we have the same administration with fighting and nothing getting done for the american people. host: thank you for calling, russell. kelly from garden grove, california, independent caller. good morning. caller: good morning. i just wanted to reflect back on laura from ohio and thank her for bringing up the releasing of taxes and mental health of our elected officials. i think it is really important, and i appreciate the north carolina caller who just called and saying that we are so polarized in this country that nothing is getting done, and everyone is from another country, except for the native americans, so, you know, let's work together to make this a better planet and a better place. hinsley.e

[laughs] host: all right, talking about jay inslee. raymond, i think you are the last call, republican line. caller: hi. the democrats have gone so far less that they will be wiped out in the 2020 election, and the republicans are going to be so dominant, and that scares me, because i think we are going to a one-party system. i mean, nobody is bad, nobody is that far left on the street level. the democrats are throwing all that out there, and the country is not ready for that. so they are either going to stay on or there will vote for donald trump. it just scares me that we will not have a two-party system anymore. host: all right, thoughts of raymond, the final call. thanks for everyone who called on this edition, sunday edition of the "washington journal." we will be back monday. we are back every day at 7:00 eastern time.

tomorrow is tax filing day, so we will devote our entire program to that issue, the vast majority of the issue, to tax filing date. tax law fromat the 2017 to see how that it's working, and we will talk about ways to improve the u.s. tax system. guests include pays set of the national taxpayers union, and also josh bivens, who is from the economic policy institute. we will also talk with jason fichtner of the bipartisan policy center. so pretty much a full program tomorrow on tax a on the impacts of the tax law and in general how you are doing with ilan your taxes this year and what can be done to improve the system. [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] host: ♪

>> next on newsmakers, senator joe mansion of west virginia discusses attorney general william barr's testimony to a senate subcommittee this week on the mila report. afterwards, we will hear william barr talk about the robert mueller report and the budget request for the popping of justice. later, watch the agricultural secretary sonny perdue breakdown 2020 budget for the department of agriculture. is alivernoon, c-span in south bend, indiana for a presidential announcement. had finally had enough. they were out of the white house and she did not need to bite her tongue anymore. that she took offense,

that reporters were at her door asking questions about it, that was not true. that was intended to give nancy reagan heartburn. she said to nancy reagan, and don't you ever call me again. and she hung up. todays week on q&a, usa washington bureau chief susan page on her biography of barbara bush. >> she said you will never see my diaries. her diaries are capped at the bush library. they are not available for public view until 35 years after her death. i understood that and i thought it was unlikely she would let me see the diaries. at the end of the fifth interview, she said you could see my diaries. was an incredible gift. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a.

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