joins us toia svart discuss how the debate over socialism is impacting legislation and the 2020 election. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ host: good morning. we will begin with your reaction to washington at work this week. of the senate approved $19 billion in disaster aid yesterday. the house is expected to approve it today and the president signed it into law. the president announced dickstein billion dollars in aid to u.s. farmers and ranchers. if you are waiting on expecting to get money from that disaster aid, your number is 202-748-8000 . if you are a farmer, producer, rancher in this country, we want to hear from you, 202-748-8001.

all others, your reaction to washington spending this money, 202-748-8002. you can also join us on twitter at @cspanwj for go to facebook.com/cspan. yesterday the senate minority leader chuck schumer went before the reporters right after the senate approved that disaster aid funding at $19 billion. this is what he had to say. [video clip] >> now we can all finally breathe a sigh of relief despite the president saying yesterday that he cannot work on bipartisan bills while democrats fulfill our constitutional responsibility to provide oversight. believe it or not, the senate passed a major bipartisan disaster package that will provide long overdue relief for americans in the midwest, south, west, and the territories including puerto rico. we expect the bill will pass the house and the president, despite

his prose debt -- protestations, will sign the bill. he will have not much choice. host: senator richard shelby of alabama tweeting out the senate has passed the disaster aid bill 85-8 providing relief to states devastated by recent national -- natural disasters. looking forward to its passage in the house and enactment by the president. richard shelby, the chair of the appropriations committee along with david perdue, a republican the president speaks too often who called him on the phone yesterday and convinced him he should sign this disaster aid bill even though it does not include money for a wall on the southern border. your reaction to that as well. here is what is in this legislation. passed 85-8.it

3 million -- $3 billion to rebuild military facilities. forlso includes 900 million recovery efforts in puerto rico. no money for border operations. in theay, the president afternoon along with ranchers and farmers by his side at the white house announced $16 billion for u.s. farmers that have been hit by the tariffs between china and the united states, but also the trade policies with other countries. the president announced a second package for u.s. farmers. last year he gave them 12. -- 12 billion. [video clip] >> the united states has been taken advantage of for many years like many countries -- by many countries, but nobody has done it like china. my administration took necessary

and lawful action to protect america's economy, security, and farms. we are taking swift action to remedy all the injustice that has been done over the years. in particular, you could say with our farmers, they are patriots. they stood up and they were with me. they did not say you should not do this because we will have a bad year. spiral downa steady . we will ensure our farmers get the relief they need and very quickly. it is a good time to be a farmer, we will make sure of that. i am announcing i have directed secretary perdue to provide $16 billion in assistance to america's farmers and ranchers, it all comes from china. it will be -- we will be taking in hundreds of billions of

dollars in tariffs and charges to china and our farmers will be greatly helped. we want to get them back to the point where they would have had a good year. host: the president talking about that $16 billion for farmers. $14.5 billion in direct payments -- a variety of other grains and farmers in order to get this aid must have an average income of less than $900,000. this is the second aid package to farmers last year. the president gave 12 billion in aid because of these tariff wars with other countries and trade policies. we have divided the lines. if you have been waiting on or your community has been waiting on disaster aid, your number is 202-748-8000. if you are a farmer or impacted

by the farm industry, 202-748-8001. call in, we wanted to get your reaction to congress working together to approve disaster aid and the president giving $16 billion to farmers. your number is 202-748-8002. the washington times has a quote from marcia fudge, an ohio democrat and chairwoman of in agriculture subcommittee on nutrition on oversight and she criticized the president saying a pattern of a president making impulsive decisions that damage as farm economy only to just impulsively direct the usa to spend billions on a temporary fix. that is as irresponsible as it is inapt and it takes money, time, and energy away from things usta should be doing like implementing the farm bill and feeding hungry americans. do you agree with marcia fudge?

do you agree with the president for farmers and republicans and democrats coming together on this disaster aid, $19 billion? the headline in the washington times on that, congress announces deal on disaster aid. no funds for the wall. $16 million earmarked for flood assistance in puerto rico. the house is expected to approve this by unanimous consent. there are some republicans who could hold up this procedure. then they would not be able to hold that unanimous consent vote, which does not require lawmakers to be in washington. they all left yesterday. house and senate republicans left washington to go back to their districts for the memorial day weekend. your reaction to washington at work this week. sean in michigan, good morning to you. what do you think? caller: good morning.

it appears the farmers, yes, they are being hurt. a lot of people are being hurt by tariffs. china is not actually paying the tariffs, they are being passed on to us. the president said they were making $8 billion in profits, maybe $10 billion. why are they the only ones getting bailout aid? becauseu think consumers are paying the price for these tariffs as well? caller: correct. host: what do you think should be done then? what should the president do? negotiations are not happening between china and the united states right now. caller: i understand that, but he started the trade war, correct? host: what do you think he should do caller: he should let the free market dictate. you cannot pick one group of consumers or producers and

everyone else pays, the american taxpayers pay. it is like we are double paying. host: we are paying for the farmers and then we are paying again for buying products that are now more expensive. caller: that is correct. host: the papers note this morning some farmers saying we don't want a bailout, we want our access to markets opened back up. what is your reaction to that? caller: absolutely. that is correct. the free market would be the way to go. but there isnate, a lot of rain in the great midwest, nebraska, iowa, there is a lot of flooding. some of them come -- some of them cannot even get crops in. host: that is reported today in papers as well. in farm belt, flood adds to crop woes. year isy season this

limiting the ability to start planting, they are already behind. on top of that, they have seen the prices of their crops go down. caller: that is correct. the prices of crops going down is a function of tariffs and the free market. with the soybeans, other people are stepping into the void and feeling the need for chinese buying our soybeans because the brazilian soybean tastes just like an american soybean, it is a soybean. host: sean is -- in michigan. nationwide farmers have planted 49% of intended core acres. just 19% of soybean acres have been planted compared with the 47% average. winston-salem, north carolina, good morning. you are a farmer? caller: i did not know if i was

supposed to listen or speak. host: please do, please tell your experience. caller: i think we need more land. i had almost 3.5 acres. and thee down the trees deer had nowhere to go. the barn built down because the -- burn down and the builders .ould stop i had bees, all kinds of herbs, lavender. i come from family of farmers. digging myways liked hands in the dirt and taking seeds and watching it grow. as a teacher and counselor, i am in a unique position because it brings the community together and i have done it in atlanta. the students love it.

even the boys. host: what do you think your father would say? actually, he was interviewed. -- this is the advice he gave to me and everyone else, you just keep working hard. you work hard, you do the right thing, and you build relationships because money is just a piece of paper. if you build relationships, communities help each other out, you can grow your own food. if something really did happen -- national farmers union tweeted out yesterday, this trade war has destroyed our reputation as a reliable supplier and left farmers with swelling grain stores and empty pockets. the usta's trade assistance

package is a short-term fix for a very long-term problem. let's go to david in michigan, we are talking about congress and the president yesterday, $19 billion in disaster aid. another $16 billion for farmers. what do you think? caller: the disaster aid will work. the reason i called is i turned you guys on an the first thing i hear is donald trump on tv lying saying the chinese will be paying for this stuff and they are not. prices are going to go up, we are paying for everything. this aid package, we are paying for this, not the chinese. other as what we do, the gentleman from michigan, yeah, we go back to free-trade. we go back to what it was and we negotiate with that. i talked to other people about

-- the fact of the matter is at least they were getting paid before. now they are getting nothing but welfare. the idea that we cannot go back to the way it was all the while trying to make it better, it is like the affordable care act. better, we can. this idea that we have to throw everything away and start over is not how it works. we are ruining our country and our reputation and donnie has got to go. host: i was looking for this quote in the new york times from a fourth-generation soybean farmer in delaware, it is just a band-aid, he said, about this aid package. he said he received $150,000 of bailout money last year, but estimated that his losses as a result of the trade war were almost $250,000.

kevin in alaska, good morning to you. caller: good morning. how are you? host: doing well. what do you think of washington at work? andbillion in disaster aid $16 billion to farmers. moving on, eugene. caller: i am so sick and tired of this bailing the farmers out. these are decisions they made to be farmers. i made a decision to get into the field i am in. i don't run to the government and have a bailout. the government trade policies are impacting how much you make? caller: they do. i am in the construction industry. when we import plywood or wo

prices go up. i made that decision to get into the construction business. have mantrasns about the choices they make. they always beat down the poor about choices they make. remember this, when you play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. host: the federal reserve said the tariff united dave put on china beginning may 10 from 10% to 25%, the estimated effect of these higher tariffs is to draw on the experience of the 2018 u.s. tariffs and they found the 2018 tariffs imposed an annual cost of $419 for the typical household and this compromises added taxents, the burden or a deadweight or efficiency loss.

some reports say the fed in new york puts the cost at over $800 now because of these new tariffs per year on u.s. consumers. in winston-salem, north carolina -- we will go to jeff in illinois. good morning to you. caller: good morning, greta. i was calling because i wanted to make a statement often times republicans go and vote for various candidates and make them leaders and these leaders often themmake decisions to put in bad positions and farmers, they voted in many of the areas for the current president and his policies and are affecting them in a negative way. oftentimes they also say others should not get welfare. what they are getting is equal to welfare and they should not

be getting the support. they should be suffering by his decisions and their support of him. they should not be bailed out. they should've made a calculated decision to vote for someone that was not going to put them in this position and we have got to stop bailing out people that make these bad decisions and putting bad leaders in positions and that is my comment and i hope they really wake up and calculate their future votes based on what could happen to them in terms of the position they can be in like they are in right now. i hope sometimes pain is the future medicine of helping people make better decisions in the future. i think we have got to stop bailing out these folks when they make bad decisions and putting bad leaders in place. host: what do you think about the disaster aid and the $19

billion for the different communities and states that have been hit by hurricanes and tornadoes and flooding and wildfires? caller: on that one, i think nature -- we cannot control in terms of nature in terms of weather homes, the caused disasters. farmers, that is a business. when a person like the president has created these tariffs and the tariffs caused the actual pricing structure to change in farming, they put president trump in place. they said they are going to stand by him in terms of his decisions. that is a business decision. we don't control the weather. people in iowa in terms of their homes being flooded, they don't control mother nature.

farmers made a decision. the president tariffs have nothing to do with mother nature. it is a human calculated decision and those farmers should stand behind the president's decision and they should have to suffer based on that decision and we should take that money and put it into our public education system versus bailing them out. host: wall street journal troublel board, trump's in the farm belt. the trade fight has cost u.s. farmers a bundle when they least can afford it. in 2017, u.s. farmers sent 25% of production abroad. more than 17% went to china, but then the u.s. imposed tariffs and beijing retaliated with sizable tariffs on 90% of u.s. farm exports. -- says in 2018, u.s. cultural exports to china

declined $10 billion, about a 50% loss. american soybean farmers sent 60% of exports to china in 2017, but there brazilian competitors pay a 3% tax while -- tariff while americans pay 28%. u.s. farmers had to cut prices to unload oversupply in other markets. the total value of soybean a 20%s fell $4.3 billion, decline. he goes on to say the american soybean association vice theident bill gordon told south china morning post the other day farmers don't want welfare. "here is a handout to make you happy." that doesn't make us happy, we want our markets back. mr. trump said he wanted a china trade deal, but he has been suggesting he would be as happy

running for reelection in 2020 as the trade hawk willing to take on china. we wonder how iowans will feel about that if farm incomes continue to decline for another 18 months. clara in missouri, a farmer. good morning. caller: greta. am i on? host: you are on, clara. thisr: greta, we have family farm. it has been in the family for over 119 years. we were flooded by the corps of -- it has been over a .onth ago we are not the only one that were flooded. it has devastated all of the midwest. they have two dams in nebraska and they broke and we have had a terrible time down here in missouri and iowa and i know

nebraska was also flooded and we are all being affected by these dams in nebraska. my father tried to fight them trying to not put this in, but he was like, we are overlooked because we are stupid farmers. i am getting tired of this and i think they should tear down the dams because all they have done is flood and done devastation to the midwest. host: what do you plant? what are your crops? caller: we plant soybeans, corn, and wheat. impacted by these increased tariffs? caller: the tariffs aren't so much a problem to us as we cannot even get anything planted. host: last year were they a problem, the tariffs? theyr: the problem was

kept the river high from letting out the water in nebraska. we were having a time -- we lost some crops, but we were still able to get some crops out. it was very hard because i have tried to talk to the corps of engineers and it is like talking to -- just ignoring us. we have asked for help along the missouri river for years. i have asked for four years, we cannot get any help along the river. they will not fix the dikes. i don't know where the money is going to. billion includes $3 billion for farmers who have been impacted by floods or disasters. will you get some of that money or is this not considered a disaster? caller: this is considered a disaster, but the only thing is we are totally ignored because i

think they should tear the dams down in nebraska because this is causing the devastation and there won't the any corn for most of the area. host: who do you sell to? it is a commodity. we do sell on the market. host: do you know where most of your corn goes to? -- ir: a lot of it is can't say after i sell it, where it goes to. a lot of it goes to -- china buys it. a lot of it is used for .ivestock feed right now, we are just devastated. , itcal town where i am from is getting up in their town.

host: how much is corn a bushel right now? 64ler: it is three dollars -- $3.64 the last i looked. host: how does that compare to previous years? caller: i have seen it higher. a lot of the corn they are bringing up from south america, so that affects our market. corn, how you sell much is actual profit at the end of the day? caller: we are losing money. host: you are losing money. caller: yes. host: how much? do you mind telling us? caller: you have to make $3.45 to clear all the cost it makes to put it in. host: $3.45 just to break even. caller: yes. is only reason we do well this is bottomland and it is

very, very fertile. we make up for yield. we make more than most of the other properties because we have such a fertile ground. host: so it is your quantity. caller: we make up in yield. host: clara in missouri, thanks for the call. senator dick durbin tweeting out about the disaster aid approved by the senate. the senateong, but finally passed a disaster relief package that includes funding to help our fellow americans in puerto rico and americans recovering from floods, hurricanes, and fires across the country. if you are in a community or expecting money from experiencing a disaster, your line is 202-748-8000. we want to hear from you. we are talking to farmers about the additional $16 billion the

president announced yesterday. ,his would come from the u.s.da the farm department, the agriculture department in washington. your number for farmers, 202-748-8001. all others, please call and give your thoughts as well, 202-748-8002. david in south carolina. what do you think of this? caller: ma'am? host: david, good morning. caller: good morning. host: what do you think of this money being spent by washington? caller: i think it is a great thing. i think president trump is doing a great job, everybody has to suffer a bit to have the right thing happen. i feel for this lady before me losing money, but dams are built to control flooding and president trump does not control the weather, god does. need fix the dams

to make them more strengthened, but if president trump did not have to fight these allegations by democrats that do not want to face facts that he is doing a great job and the only thing they have to run on is keeping occupied with trial after trial because they don't have anything to talk about issues and the guy before must be like alexandria ocasio-cortez, we don't need farms because i can go to walmart and the shelves are full . walmart don't create gardens. they don't have the market. it is crazy and the democratic way of thinking is if there is food in the grocery store, we don't need farmers. where do you think grocery stores get groceries from? that guy was talking, let the farmers suffer, they voted for him. that is a full talking -- fool talking and the democratic party is falling right into that.

another term unless they have impeachment process and that will not even go to the senate, it is just like a bill clinton thing, food does not come from walmart and the grocery store, it comes from farmers. use a little common sense. host: we will go to roger in kansas. what do you farm? caller: i farm wheat and soybeans and i have a few head of cattle. raise have wheat and i sorghum also. i feel like -- i think trump is trying to do the right thing by leveling the field as far as for our trade. ourimport costs is what is biggest problem we are having right now.

when i started farming in the 1970's to plant an acre of soybeans, it cost about $13 for the seed and your chemicals and different herbicides to support right in thatd be $20 to $30 an acre. at that time, the soybean price was around $13. host: say that again, how much for import costs an acre? caller: i am just talking about -- everybody had different ways they farm. a lot of people would till ground and farm tillage or go no till. i am starting as you plant the crop. your preparation decision is different for many different farmers. host: right, say that number

again. caller: this is in the 1970's i was telling. this was the seed number, the seed was around $15 an acre and the chemicals was around $20 an acre. let's go to today. your pioneerpaying seed companies, dupont companies , the same see it costs $75 an the chemicalsand probablyanywhere from for the150 an acre just chemicals, those are two costs you cannot hide from, you cannot change them. that is what has changed in our life a lot. in the 1970's, that being price was right around $10 to $12 an

acre and now the price is seven dollars to eight dollars an acre. that is one thing that has changed -- that has to change for us to make money or we have to outgrow it. the only way we can do that is by getting more for our commodity. this is the best way to attempt that. host: the president's trade policy is the best way to attempt that? caller: yes. also, i feel like our chemical companies. trump, in reality, is helping bail them out, too because the farmers will go broke if he does not get something changed, this cannot keep going on the way it was. host: how much money do you think you will lose this year, roger? caller: last year i felt like i lost right around -- i have a credit line that runs every year

and my credit line fell about $130,000 short. i went down that much last year. host: did you get any of that aid from the president last year? caller: yes. i got around $110,000. so you were at a net loss of $20,000? caller: yes. i have got to say, i am one of the more fortunate farmers. i farm good ground. most farmers own some ground, they rent ground from other people. everyone i rent ground from our tremendous people, they are very helpful anyway they can. i am more fortunate than other farmers in our area. i am aware of that. can you wait on

this trade war -- i don't know if people are calling it a war, trade back and forth? how long can you wait for the president? next year is going to be a hard year. life, i have inherited a little ground, i can keep selling things and keep going. if i had to, i could keep selling for the rest of my life and probably by the time i am done, i would have zero, but i would be ok. most people aren't that fortunate. i can sell my way out of it. keep sellingrmer his assets he worked all his life to help get it? that is what is bad right now. how then you tell folks

farming business works, you said you have a line of credit. caller: you go to your bank and he sees how many anchors -- acres you farm and then he has a yield that says a target and a target price and he puts it all together and says you should be able to sell half $1 million worth of commodities this year. he will give you a credit line of usually about a 50% of that so you can write checks up to help keep youro operation going. with that situation, that -- like righter about christmas, there was a orcount of 15% on been seed corn seed or sorghum seed, you

can take advantage of those situations because you know exactly how much money you have available to you. when your crops start coming in, you have to pay that credit line off. this year, when it came to pay the credit line off, i did not have enough to pay it off totally. everything went to the banker. he rearranged some notes, some of my short-term notes, which the credit line is a year to year note, he took some of that credit line money and put it on farm land i own, which stretched it out 20 years, so i am buying more time, is what i am doing. that is what most creditors will with a farmer if there combine payment comes due and he cannot make the payment, if they think he has a little bit of equity in that piece of equipment, he will extend it

another five years and try to help keep him going. all the bankers and everybody is trying to do right now is keep the farmer going. farmers know that is the situation they have and they hope better times are coming. illinois, robert is a farmer. good morning to you. caller: good morning. i am sitting on my back porch looking at mud in my field. i am glad that guy has a line of credit because he doesn't understand how many people don't have a line of credit. this trade war gets over tomorrow, it will take to -- two to three years for all vista settle down. china is not going to say we beans tomorrow.

nobody understands, you have places around here, nobody is buying equipment because they cannot pay. they have no money to buy it. is 20% higher because it was a steel tariff. does nobody understand that? it is therst part is communities around the farmers that suffer. if you don't have money to spend, what are you going to do? you cannot go by a truck. used equipment is down 18%, farmers are going bankrupt. they have a hotline for suicide prevention for farmers because it is so bad. you have wisconsin losing five dairy farms every three months. does not everybody understand that and if they think this president is doing great, ask him about the tax break he gave a year ago to the billionaires and the first band-aid that was supposed to help farmers, it

came out to be one sent on a on a bushel.t i wish people would investigate stuff and just blow off cream blow off steam saying you have to trust trump. i went to the other day with a line of credit. it is pathetic to set -- fertilizer is up because fertilizer is 10%. $7.89 was beans yesterday. it went up three cents they dropped over 30% in the last year. tell me any other company that could do that. i listen to these people talk and i wish what they wanted was a mouthful of food because we are the ones feeding you. it is pathetic that you cannot

sit there and keep your family farm because this idiot is sitting there, we are going to fight tariffs and all the farmers will be great. how did they get $62 million of this tax relief when they are in south america? it is pathetic. host: how much did you lose last year? caller: $46,000. host: you haven't planted yet because it is too wet to do so? caller: there is mode and they are talking rain saturday, sunday, monday. host: what are you predicting this year? caller: god forbid, i don't know. it will be another week or two weeks before any of us get in the field. it is too late for corn. everyone will have to put beans and because it is getting too late for corn unless you have bottom ground. host: if you have -- if it is

too late to corn and everybody -- beans in, what happens to the market? caller: look what happens now, it is not any different. we are in a lose lose situation with this man in the office. he has done nothing for the middle income, low income farmers. and the $16 billion he is going to give, this is pathetic and he talks about china is paying for it, china is not paying for it, the united states people are paying for this. when you go to the store and the prices are up on anything, you are paying extra and he turns around and that goes back to our government and they give us this band-aid. here is what is pathetic about the whole thing, nobody understands this. he keeps saying china is paying for it, china is not paying for it. this came out on three different

papers, even the wall street journal, the price per household this year is going to go up $831 because of these tariffs. host: what robert a's citing is move on.ork i want to thank you for your call and i want to show your viewers what david perdue has to say, the senator from georgia. good news for georgia's aggie industry, the last five presidents have ignored this imbalance. if china can ship right here, the u.s. should be able to ship right there. michael, good morning to you. after listening to the conversations from farmers, what do you think? michael? caller: have been listening to the farmers and i feel what they are feeling. i can tell you one thing, what is going on with trump and these

tariffs and why it has been going on so long, they are killing free trade, just killing it. it is a global economy, don't be full by any of this stuff that we can survive by ourselves, we cannot. it is a global economy. look at the money they gave tax break 1.5 years ago, $1.5 trillion. you know what they did with most of that money to drive the markets up? they rebought their own stocks and it drove the price up of what they rebought and they sell and make more money. it is the biggest scam that ever happened in this country and the farmers -- they are getting $16 billion, those people got $1.5 trillion. that is the corporate buyouts. all they are doing is feeding the people that feed them for when they run for office, so

they can get there billions of dollars to run for offices and anybody that believes this president is doing you any good, you are on cloud nine somewhere because this guy is an idiot. he lies all the time. refrain from name-calling, we don't need to do that. tell us your opinion and your thoughts on $19 billion in disaster aid approved by the senate, the house expected to unanimous consent approve that and it will go to the president for his signature and the president announcing without -- does not need congressional approval, $16 billion for farmers because of the cost to them from this trade tariffs between the united states and china. in other news, you might have heard theresa may, the prime minister -- the u.k. prime minister announced earlier today that she would resign in light of her inability to get a brexit

vote approved through parliament. here is what she had to say. [video clip] >> in 2016, we gave the british people a choice. against productions, the british people voted to leave the european union. i feel as certain today as i did three years ago that in a democracy, if you give people a choice, you have a duty to implement what they decide. i have done my best to do that. i negotiated the terms of our exit and a new relationship with our closest neighbors to protect our security and our unions. i have done everything i can to deal.ce mps to back that sadly, i have not been able to do so. i tried three times. i believe it was right to persevere, even when the odds against us seemed high. it is clear to me it is in the

best interest of the country for a new prime minister to lead that effort. i am today announcing i will resign as leader of the conservative and unionist party on friday the seventh of june so a successor can be chosen. host: theresa may from earlier today announcing her resignation . gabby or with politico tweeting out may will spend her final days as prime minister hosting president trump for a state visit. you can read more if you go to politico.com. her full statement will be on our website later today. the washington times with his -- this headline in many papers, julian assange indicted on 18 charges per he worked with chelsea manning, accused of hacking. assangectment says mr. worked with chelsea manning to

hack government systems and collect hundreds of thousands of documents and publish them on wikileaks. u.s. plans more trips for the middle east. the trump administration is planning to send several thousand additional troops to the middle east and rushing toward a decision -- white house officials meeting thursday agreed to send up to 3000 additional troops. u.s. military officials overseeing operations in the middle east requested up to 13,000. the u.s. has more than 20,000 the terry personnel in iraq, afghanistan -- military personnel in iraq, afghanistan, and syria. papers,story and in the the white house is looking to approve a weapon sale to saudi arabia. members in congress, democrats

and republicans, are asking the white house to not do this without congressional consent. if you are interested, you can find more on that in the papers. what do you think about washington approving $19 billion in disaster aid and the --sident signing off good morning to you, mark. go ahead. go ahead, we are listening. you guys were talking about tariffs, this one deal in north platte, there was sheep that were bought out. they thought they could eat the excess growth around their place. like 6 of them died and the

government sent them a check for less1.5 or a little bit for each sheep. emmett, good morning to you. .aller: i wanted to comment i hear the different callers calling in and also done business since the early 70's. i ran debate with people in business and in town and they -- i think there -- one thingption people should understand is in it is theg business, -- when he goes to

sell his product, it is at or .elow wholesale prices a friend of mine had conversations -- and i had conversations years ago. it would not have been kotten if there had not been subsidies and stuff. farmers had choices in the spring weather to plant or not and most farmers had equipment payments and all of that. anis hard to even notice oversupply and hard not to plant because you are faced with other loans that you made. host: the bank is expecting it. caller: yes, ma'am. it is long-term loans and

equipment payments and the todayrs man -- men run are 2000 and $300,000 -- $200,000 and $300,000. when you purchase that, that is your obligation for that many years to pay and the only way you are going to make those cropnts is to reduce payment. if you go back to the 70's, -- they used to put acreage and try when it became oversupplied such as the soybean market. -- soybeans went -- started about nine dollars and .ver the summer

since then, the supply has built , youuilt until this year -- sitting with 500 this time last year, november $10.40, was trading at wererokers and everyone telling everyone if you needed thecause said they made -- price of soybeans were projected dollars, butnine with the trade talks and

stuff that they were trying to accomplish, then what occurred -- that declined the demand for soybeans in china, and they negated by not buying it. it drove soybeans down an additional close to a dollar a bushel. it is just like yesterday. when he announced -- they announced, day before yesterday

if you notice what itif you not, every day, it reacts to every little tweet or every little news cycle. host: that is emmett in south carolina. om has thisldagnews.c headline released to dairy farmers. dairy farmers will be able to

receive second market facilitation programs as part of the $16 billion aid package and it goes on to say the dairy farmers association estimates millions have lost $2.3 due to higher tariffs against u.s. dairy. bill in texas, a farmer. good morning. caller: yes, ma'am. can you hear me? host: we can. sayer: i would just like to donald trump, i have been a farmer all my life, i have lived am 64amily farm -- i years old and we owned this family farm since 1946 and we cattle,corn, raised sheep, cotton, and every other kind of crop and donald trump is the greatest president -- i wish

we had had him years ago. he is standing up for farmers. this country has been getting ripped off and the farmers have piddly prices and now we have a president trying to stand up and be a man. that i lovearmers because you are my blood because i have been a farmer all my life, you will need to stop whimpering -- calling in whimpering. a ditch and keep getting your guts ripped out by china and these other countries or start being a man. sometimes when you stand up to be a man and fight, you are going to get punched in the mouth. you are going up,

to stand up, but you are going to win the fight. this man will win the fight for you. joe in michigan, good morning to you. caller: good morning. i have been listening to -- unfortunately a lot of your callers and their opinions. i am going to go back even farther than the 70's. i helped farm 1600 acres and there was something called soil banking. they said one american farmer could feed 15 people and now one american farmer can feed 100 people. what do you do with that excess corn? it is called soil banking. the government would say don't -- we used to hunt rabbits and pheasants terry i loved it as a teenager, i did not have to farm that 200 acres and harvest.

that was good for me. i was about 14 years old. here is how the problem was partially sold. rather than tariffs and punish anybody, we were looking for markets. we could not wait for china to buy soybeans. i remember khrushchev paid a visit to this country and went back to russia and planted every acre in corn, where it would not grow. for these people who say trump is some kind of genius, yeah, right. businessman, failed at everything he ever did. the guy is a joke as far as i am concerned. what does he know about infrastructure. host: elise in stockbridge, georgia, your thoughts. caller: my thoughts as i feel for the farmers and i understand they want to be loyal to trump.

the issue is economic and never on the scale to see everyone, but this to be independent and patriotic. working with the other countries to put pressure on china is foolish. it is not -- it is not making us pay more. he is taking advantage of your loyalty. at some point it is stubborn is to work against your own interests. everyone put pressure on china. it is not going to help when you have people who every third row of soybean went to china. afford a third of their

income? no one. party. be loyal to your please be loyal to yourself, your income, your well-being, and the country as a whole. will leave it there. we will take a break. when we come back, we will hear two different perspectives on it. first, a critic of that political philosophy. the rise, fall and afterlife of socialism, and later on democratic-socialist's of america national director maria svart will be here. we will be right back.

host: watch book tv all day memorial day for featured authors. mike lee weighs in on government overreach. at noon, former obama advisor valerie jarrett on her path to the white house. at 8:30 p.m. eastern, aei president arthur brooks offers strategies on how to bridge our political divide. at 9:30, per professor kathleen hall jamieson. finally, at 11:30 p.m., robert caro discusses his writing process. watch memorial day on book tv c-span. q&a, yaleht on university historian joann , violence inr book congress and the road to civil war." >> in and of itself, it is

dramatic. -- what was really interesting to me was people at the time looked at it and what they saw was a group of northerners and a group of at eachers running other in the house of representatives, and several of them said this does not look like a normal congressional fight. this looks like north against south. this looks like a battle. that is really striking. and indeed, it certainly did look like a battle and it is not that long before the civil war. atouncer: sunday night 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. washington journal continues. at ouroshua muravchik is table this morn to talk about socialism. you wrote a book in 2002, "heaven on earth: the rise and fall of socialism." in 2019, you use the word

"afterlife" to the title. guest: when i originally wrote the book, i felt like socialism was a completed story. the book in a sense was a kind of epitaph with socialism, the idea had been around for 200 years. it had been put into effect all over the world in different ways . and they had not worked out well, and the world almost collectively had turned away. i thought the story was over, and i wanted to tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. we get to the 21st century, and quite to my amazement, it is all back. edition that i call the afterlife, the 21st century, bernie sanders, jeremy corbyn, venezuela, et cetera. host: a recent gallup poll found that 4 in 10 americans would have embraced some form of

socialism. things to saywo about that. endlessly,shows how alluring this idea is. how enchanting it is. i know that enchantment well because i was a socialist for many years. lived and died as socialists. their parents were socialists. but i also think that with these polls, it is not very clear what people understand by the term heard i have seen polls where there is tremendous response positive to socialism, negative to capitalism, but positive to free enterprise at the same time. i think there are some definitional issues when we look at these polls. let's give our viewers a definition of potion -- of socialism.

is there any application of administration of the means of production and distribution of goods? how would you define it? i think that is a fair definition. i am not sure where it comes from, but -- host: it is very western. guest: there is similar wording in what was the famous clause 4 of the british labour party charter. the group i belong to when i was socialists, people the leader of that group. ownership say social and democratic control of the means of production distribution -- it really means replacing the institution of private property with everything being shared in ownership and everything being distributed equally among people. merriam-webster defines

social democracy. let me read that for viewers. a political movement advocating a gradual and peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism by democratic means. a democratic welfare state that incorporates both capitalist and socialist practices. can you have both? can, and it isu funny that comes from merriam-webster. it is self-contradictory. it is self-contradictory for a good reason. originally the people who call themselves social democrats really believed in doing away with private property and having a full socialist economy. but distinguishing themselves from communists because they only wanted to achieve this number critically, peacefully, by persuading people and passing laws, not by violent revolution and dictatorship. that,appened was particularly we are talking the latter half of the 20th century,

after world war ii, various of the socialist democratic parties won elections, were able to form governments, sometimes without coalitions, and they started this step-by-step march to socialism and found they got there -- they got very poor results the economies started tanking as they nationalized industries. so they moderated very significantly to creating big welfare states with a lot of programs to ensure and benefit people. not nationalizing industry. leaving a private economy is the engine of growth and of wealth, but having high taxes, taking part of that away from the well searched -- from the welfare state. that is when social democracy became when the social democrats

learned to experience they could not implement socialism. host: we want our viewers to call in with questions and comments about socialism. we divided the lines democrats, republicans, and independents. we have another line for democratic-socialist spirit call 202-748-8003. when did you decide to become a socialist, and when did you decide you were no longer a socialist? guest: my parents were socialists, so i took it in as my mother's milk. my parents began taking me to civil rights demonstrations, and then i became in my own right and activist when i was a teenager. , was active in this group young people's socialist league and the socialist party.

of thatecame the leader group for about five years. it is a very beautiful idea. we can all be closer to each other, we could all be brothers and sisters. we could share everything and be equal. i wrestled, though, after a while with the question of why the actual socialism that we saw around the world were not beautiful at all. they were mostly terrible china,es in russia, cuba, et cetera. there was a tough question, why this beautiful idea is able to come to fruition only in the most ugly forms? why can't we get the beautiful socialism that i dreamed of? then it tookthen it took me -- w

thinker, but it took me many years, gradually coming to the conclusion that the idea is we havele and therefore to give up on the idea or shove it down people's throats at the point of a gun, which the communists did. host: why is it unworkable? guest: it is unworkable primarily because it treats goods, wealth, as something that sort of comes down on us as manna from heaven, and the thing we need to think about is how to divided up the most fair way. the reality is that most life for most people around the world and for all of history has been very poor, where people have barely had enough to eat or not enough to eat and very little else. we live in a much wealthier world, and the question is, how did we get wealthy? where do things come from?

what i mean is, it turns out that producing wealth is even a bigger question them disturbing wealth. to produce wealth, you need incentives for people. that is why the countries that basically capitalist economies are so infinitely countries that have labored away with socialist economies. tommy, jacksonville florida, a democrat. caller: i would like to say that i think we have a large sector of our population that believes socialism is the worst thing in the world. but i think overall anyone engaging in socialism just as a bailout with the farmers, that is given to a group of people that need help. to me, that is a type of socialism. looked to rethink what we at as socialism and not try to paint it in a bad picture. what we are living is more of a

,ocialist-capitalist society not a socialist peers society. that is my comment. guest: it is true that we do not live in a pure capitalist society, and their are not -- and i don't think there are any. if we look around the world at democratic countries, where decisions are made by popular legislatures and the people have a voice, what we find is they are all mixed economies. basically an underlying capitalist economy, which is where the wealth gets created, and then a public sector with a certain amount of taxation and government programs that go to helping people, particularly young people, old people, people who are ill, people who have -- or who face emergencies, people who have different kinds of needs. so you are right, there are no pure capitalist economies

anywhere in the world. it is always some kind of mixed economy. in a democracy. host: ginny in lancaster, ohio, a republican. have a you do have to certain amount of rich and a certain amount of port. i will tell you, everything was perfectly even. becoming a doctor or a nurse. you cannot make everything equal. it does not work. i tell you what people should start doing -- this is what i was doing for 2.5 years now. i love to read about other countries. if you start reading about other countries, you will see that things just -- they do not work, ok? just like you have a certain amount of criminals and a certain amount of people who abide by the rules -- i do not know why people think it is going to be perfectly even because it is perfectly there.

but i ama rich person, content with what i have, and i am on disability. i will tell you what, everything is provided for me, so, yeah, there is rich and poor, but a lot of these poor people -- you know what? we paid for their health insurance. we give them a place to live. we give them food stamps. what are they complaining about? if you want to do better in your life, you have every equal opportunity. i tell you something else, there are wealthy people that do give money away and do help charities. they just do not want everybody to know. host: ok. i want to show you and your viewers what bernie sanders had to say recently about how he defines democratic-socialist. >> what do i mean when i talk about democratic socialism? it certainly is not the authoritarian communism that existed in the soviet union and

in other communist countries. this is what it means. it means we cherish, among other things, our bill of rights. franklin delano roosevelt made this point. in 1944, in his state of the union address, it never got a whole lot of attention per this is what he said. it was a very profound speech at the end of world war ii p he said, we have a great constitution, the bill of rights protects freedom of religion, assembly, freedom of speech, all that stuff. you know what it doesn't protect? it does not guarantee you economic rights. so let me be very honest with you. i believe in a democratic, careized society, health is a human right. government should make that happen. [applause] every youngat person in this country, regardless of his or her income,

has the right to get all of the education they need. that is why i have fought hard with some success to move toward making public colleges and universities' tuition free and substantially reduce student debt. [applause] and i believe that there is something wrong in america today when you have millions of 50%, 60% ofing 40%, their limited income to put a roof over their heads, and that millions of working-class class families, young parents, cannot bring quality affordable childcare. i believe we have to address the issue of grotesque levels of income inequality. the rich getting much richer, middle-class struggling, 40 million people living in poverty. what democratic socialism means medicare, weand

rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. in other words, government serves the needs of all people rather than just wealthy campaign contributors. that is what that means to me. host: your response to that? guest: i would like to make two points. one is about what mr. sanders is saying. i think he speaks out of two sides of his mouth when he starts out by saying i am not talking about authoritarian socialism like in the soviet union. but in the 1980's, he praised the soviet union. he praised the communist regime of nicaragua to the skies. he praised cuba to the side. this week he gave an interview to "the new york times" where a reporter said, would you change anything you said back then about the soviet union or latin america? he answered definitively know. so i am not sure that he answered definitively no.

offar as now, a litany programs that he would like the government to pay for -- careng, education, medical -- we can have programs. the problem is, we as a people have been much more eager to have programs than to pay for them. right now we have a $1 trillion deficit. now if you add trillions of dollars of more programs, we are giving ourselves presence and sending the bill for those presence to our children and grandchildren. you cannot do that without accumulating debt endlessly. you can come up with a plan, but you would not be able to pay for

taxingns more just by the rich. we will not pay for it, they will pay for it. how it caneally possibly work, and what we would have to do is everyone would have to pay a lot more in taxes, and then we could have all these additional government programs that he is talking about. with joshua talking muravchik, the author of "heaven ofearth: the rise, fall democrats socialism in america." let's getrst of all, off of attacking bernie sanders and talk about the issue at hand. it seems to be the ideal is a mixed balance. we are not cuba, we are not venezuela, we are not the soviet union, which was a dictatorship

and preached a common ownership of everything. we do not do that here. nobody is talking about taking people's property rights away or not allowing them to start a business, that kind of thing, or controlling the means of production. i want to remind people that in this country, we have a number of programs that are considered socialism. medicare, social security, the v.a. system, the military. fire and police. and other programs. in session --ve -- weo have inventive have entrepreneurship era i truly believe in socialized medicine. i have a friend that has lived in france for 22 years. she is married to a french engineer, and she said i don't understand why we do not do this over here. she said she has -- she does not have to do anything. she presents a card.

when she had her children, there was a nurse who came in eight weeks to help out. it is automatic. i have two other friends who live in canada, and they love their system for it so this idea that painting everything as black and white -- capitalism is wonderful and socialism is horrible -- it is just not the way it is. and socialism, the way we define it now, i'm a credit socialism, has nothing to do with the soviet union -- democratic socialism, has nothing to do with the soviet union, cuba. nothing to do with it. my opinion is that we need to strike a balance between socialism and capitalism, and that is where the struggle is. but to attack and paint everything one way or the other as completely awful and black and horrible, and my gosh, you are going to use your home and somebody else is going to own it and they are going to buy your

company, that is just not true. these are nothing but scare tactics, things that would not come to fruition in the united states. guest: mostly i agree with you. , what we already have and will continue to have and what other democracies have our mixed economies, where wealth is generated in the private sector. but then some of that wealth is taken by the government for taxes. we provide different kinds of benefits for people. ,y concern is that historically because we are a democracy and because of human frailty, we like to vote for more benefits for ourselves than we like to pay for. we are already in trouble because of that. with the deficits that we are leaving to our children. if we are talking about bigger and more programs, we also have to be talking about how we are going to pay for them.

it cannot just be that someone else will pay for it, but not me. because that is never going to work. you say point is, when no one is talking about cuba and currenta, well, our group of politicians who call themselves democratic-socialist's are in fact. sio-cortez andoca belong to a group called democratic-socialist of america. the bull of arion revolution is a euphemism for the socialist government of venezuela. they are the ones embracing that, and i think it is fair game to criticize that because i agree with you that americans

will never want that. host: the democratic-socialist's of america say their priorities are medicare for all, electoral politics, labor rights, and protection. gary in bellflower -- gary in bellflower, california, a republican. caller: good morning, greta. i have a story from my high school days that your guest might find amusing. i was a jr. in high school in 1975, and i had a history teacher named miss his young, -- lovedmrs. young, and she winston churchill. we were studying socialism back then. i remember to this day, she said, "in your lifetime, you will hear there is nothing wrong with socialism. these countries just are not doing it right."

she said, "that is when you have got to be aware because in your lifetime you will hear this." and i always remember that. guest: two things with that. one is, this idea is a beautiful idea. that is why it is alluring to people. at least it was alluring to me and my family. and so when we got socialist government starting in russia and the soviet union, that people could see we were doing terrible things and not really there was that ideal, a great tendency to say, "yes, but that is not the socialism we are dreaming about, that is a bast or does asian -- that is a zation." none of them fulfill the dream. people kept saying that is not the socialism i am dreaming

about. forget that. and the problem is that the socialism that people like me were dreaming about turns out to be a dream. you can never get there. so then we talk about much more modest things like, could we have some more programs to help people in this way or that way. to me, that is completely fair game, but we also have to pay for those programs. ant: wisconsin, don, independent. your question or comment? withr: yes, i disagree this joshua, due to the fact without somee that socialism, you have nothing but chaos. clear back to the --ne man days, the tries had

the tribes had to be socialist to survive. and they worked for everybody. everything issing not the way it is made out to be. spain thattown in profits by -- what they do is, the highest man the factory or theever it is has six times does. that the lowest man this place is growing. the factory was growing.

i cannot remember the name of it. but everything is working. there is very little crime because of this. thee is not any part of aristocratic. host: don, i think we get the point. i will have our guest reply. guest: i don't know about that town in spain, don, but the point you are making that we have to help one another is certainly completely true. we just had a tremendous, horrible tornado terra jefferson city, missouri -- tear up jefferson city missouri, and i think all americans want to see some effort made to help those people who just lost everything, many of them, to get their lives back together.

and are happy to see some money from the government or from us as individuals go to help them. so if you are using socialism to mean that people need to empathize with each other and help each other, i could not agree with you more. the term is usually used to mean a much more radical sharing of property, and that is what i once believed in. but that is where it has failed often and everywhere. host: we will go to tony, burlison, texas, a democratic-socialist. good morning to you. caller: good morning. please allow me enough time to make my point. there is no reason why america could not be a democratic-socialist. the only problem is we have been taken over. we will never get the chance to be anything great again because we have been taken over by a group, partly with israel, that

is ruining our lives. nothing has been done good for the american people for the last 20 years. and nothing ever will. we are taken over. venezuela, are you kidding me? we are taking over governments. america is being disgraceful. i am so ashamed. host: i am going to move on. we will go to sean, unionville, connecticut, republican. morning, greta and josh, i think it is. the woman that just called a couple minutes ago and said this new american socialism government will not be taking our personal property. well, my financial wealth is my personal property. i am not rich, but i have been working for 45 years, saved up my retirement, and have an ok income, and if we go socialist

in this country, my cash rate will go up from 25% -- my tax rate will go up from 25% to 50% or 60%. and thank you for having the congressman on there the last couple of weeks. host: ok. mr. muravchik? caller: i think that is the central point. many people will disagree with you and maybe will want to pay higher taxes. but there has to be some balance between the programs that we want from government and what we are willing to pay ourselves in taxes to finance those programs. i think it is only demagoguery when some of our politicians say we want to give everybody lots of new programs and someone else will pay for it. the numbers do not add up to do it that way. "the new republic,"

"the allure of socialism, , for atic socialism generation understandably worried that they will never find dignified and fairly renew braided work, let alone muster the savings to own a home or retire, who watch the principal balloon despite payments, who have seen extreme weather events and temperature records broken every year of their lives, the status quo seems untenable. by contrast, the horror of a defunct soviet bloc seems a far more distant threat than a dystopia of billionaires seeking to found private space colonies where most human lives live in squalor. they do have a sense of what socialism would feel like. socialism would feel like having a future." guest: well, i think this is

pure demagoguery, that we in america live in squalor. demagogys not gamach that is reserved for the less. i heard -- for the left. i remember hearing similar rhetoric in president trump's inaugural address, talking about how we are living in squalor or ruin here in america today. it is outrageous. it is an outrageous way to talk. devoid of ately sense of gratitude that decent human beings ought to have. we live longer and wealthier, more comfortable lives than % of human beings have ever lived before. not to say we do not have problems and that we have things that need to be fixed or

improved. that is well and good. host: can you improve them with socialist type programs? guest: well, it depends what the things are. sweepingsuch a broad, execration of everything around us. i don't know what programs would fix that. and that author did not know either. he just said we will have hope. but we have seen -- this is how we got communism, it is how we got nazi-ism and fascism. there were movements saying your life is terrible. follow us. you follow us -- follow us can lead to something better or to something worse. so if you are saying to me are there any problems that exist could be there solutions for in terms of government programs, i am sure

there are. but we also have to be prepared to pay for them. pat in pennsylvania, a democrat. he is talking about failures of socialist states. the united states, a capitalist country, had sanctions on cuba for years and sent in the cia to overthrow them. then they did the same thing to venezuela. to foment hatred and put sanctions on the country to starve the people, and they wonder why there is revolution down there when the united states is putting sanctions on them. if he does not think people leave in squalor in this country, maybe he ought to leave washington, d.c., once in a while, and travel to west virginia and the poorer places in this country and see how people actually live. thank you. , there are people in this country who live in poverty, undoubtedly.

the quote i was responding to suggested that we all live in squalor, that young people coming out of college now are living in squalor. describe some dormitories, but it is simply a tremendous distortion of the mainstream of american life today. aboutat you have to say cuba and venezuela is wildly off base. venezuelan economy was put on a socialist asis by that on a socialist basis -- was put on a socialist basis in the 1990's, and increasing in the first decade of the 21st century. the seconde richest, richest country in latin america, and it has been

completely destroyed. economists say they have never seen, except in world war ii or something like that, an economy so completely destroyed so fast, and the united states had nothing to do with that. it was all a matter of policies of the socialist government of venezuela. host: we will go to jesse in new york, who defines himself as a democratic-socialist. go ahead. caller: thank you. i wanted to pick up on the previous caller, who made one of my points, similar. ravchik, talking about the soviet union -- russia, cuba, china were very poor, underdeveloped countries when they had those revolutions. the powerful, most richest capitalist countries in the world opposed them, try to overthrow them, and destroyed them. so to say that their economies did not work, well, you know, it

remains to be seen how their economies would have worked had they not faced the opposition they did face. if you take the soviet union, for example, they survived stalin, they'd who tallied terry and government. ab that would not have happened -- they survived stalin, the totalitarian government. maybe that would not have the united states had not destroyed the soviet union. the other thing i would like to point out, if you could name a wealthy, powerful, capitalist country that is not based on militarism, imperialism, and war -- what is the military budget of the united states per year? can you tell me the last time the united states of america was not involved in a war? i will leave it at that. whole bunch ofa the -- the united

states economy is not based on war or on the military budget. the military budget is about 3% of our gdp. spend, nothing we something that makes us rich. it is something that for reasons of international security we spend, we take away from our money on spend this defense and other international programs. marxist slogann that our economy depends on making more, but no one can is,ain what that dependency how that works. as far as your sympathy for the soviet union, china, cuba, and it is all our fault whatever

happened to them, it is just -- you do not give them any credit. these were revolutions made by people who had very strong ideology and put in place their ideology. we did not control, in any sense, what happened there economy. it is really interesting to look at -- look at china. china was taken over by the communists in 1949. for the next 30 years, they practiced communist economics. poor.ey were dirt starting in 1970 eight, the communist party changed 1978,ion -- starting in the communist party changed direction. instead of trying to impose a communist or socialist economy, they said we are going to allow private economic activity, and whenstarted small in 1978

deng xiaoping took over as the rentable leader of china. and they expanded it to more free economic activity, private economic activity. the result has been china has had the fastest rate of growth of any country in the world in these four decades since then, so that we are now talking about -- will itnomy surpass that of the united states as the largest in the world in the coming decades? my point is that china's change in economic policy, and with the result, they went from dirt poor to increasingly quite wealthy, was all a matter of their own policies. we did not control them then or now.

and to turn around and blame the united states for every bad thing that has happened to every me,r country, it seems to is kind of a mad egocentrism. virginia, danville, republican. good morning, greta, and thank you for taking my call. i take offense to people saying and socialre security are socialism. me and my wife paid in all our lives to both of those things, and we still pay somewhere yearen $6,000 and $7,000 a for medicare and supplemental. we are paying our way, and it is not socialism. it might be if you consider but medicarealism,

is not socialism, as far as i am concerned. and i take offense at people always saying that. host: we will get in philip, from minnesota, an independent. caller: good morning. i am retired, 68 years old. i come from a very humble background. i made a good living, raised a family, and sent them to college. i enjoy a lot of the extras may be a lot of other people have, but that has been my life. as your guest recognizes economic inequality in this righty -- in china, -- now, i see this country sliding more and more into that situation. are you have people who down enough, they will rebel. manner, a, in a

violent manner. host: i will leave it there. final thoughts here. 's question, iip do not disagree with you. riod have been through a pe of decades when the distribution of income has grown more and more unequal. i do not think economists understand well why that has happened, but it is not a healthy thing. i do not know if it is going to lead people to rebel, but it is certainly something to worry about and consider what whatnment can do -- or policies can be put into place that will enable people who are at the lower rungs of the economic ladder to gain ground faster. "heaven onook, andh: the rise, fall,

aftermath of socialism." thank you. we will continue to talk about socialism coming up next, we will hear from the other side of this debate, democratic-socialists of svart will be here. >> the house will be in order. >> for 40 years, c-span has been providing unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy d.c.s from washington, , and the economy. c-span is brought to you by the your local cable or satellite provider. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. day,ncer: monday, memorial american history and tv and

"washington journal" are marking the 75th anniversary of d-day, starting at 8:00 a.m. eastern with a call-in program with alex author of "the first wave coed mary louise roberts, author of "d-day through franchise: normandie 1944." we will take your calls, tweets, and facebook comments. monday, morrill day, starting at 8:00 a.m. eastern. washington journal mugs are available at c-span's new online store. check out the "washington journal" mugs and see all of the c-span products. announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: joining us from new york is maria svart, the director of the democratic-socialists of

america. explain what your mission is. the healthelieve in -- in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, we should have a voice in how it is distributive. we should all have a healthy quality of life for ourselves and our children, so our mission is to help though they movement -- two's to help build a movement -- to help build a movement. host: what are you seeing with his movement right now? is participation rising, and why? guest: absolutely. dsa has grown significantly in the last couple of years. it started probably because bernie sanders ran for president. but the reason we grew and the reason he was so successful running for president was inause he spoke to people real need. we have had decades of people in this country, very wealthy, a

few greedy people rigging the economy. all of us have seen buttock to either the all of us have seen productivity increase. we have seen wages go down. he spoke to the family that we all want a life of dignity, and that really helped us grow there and we have gone from an organization of 6000 members and have ballooned in the last few years to an organization of almost 60,000 members. we have about 300 chapters across the country of people building with their neighbors and their coworkers and their getunities, people who can involved in politics, in workplace struggles, so that we can get a fair share of what we create with our labor and get involved in their communities. host: what is the appeal of socialism to young people and others? what are you advocating for? guest: we believe that we can run society, and we think we can

run it better than the capitalist class. this is a tiny elite who make choices which affect our everyday lives, from the water we drink to what our workplaces are like there they are doing it for their own benefit. we believe that if we control our workplaces, if we have an actually democratic political system, that we can create a society where we do not have one in four children living in poverty. it isl not be -- working-class and poor folks who die here and abroad, for the benefit of a wealthy few. we believe that we have the power because we produce the wealth, and we need folks to understand that they have that power. host: your priorities are medicare for all, electoral politics, labor rights and protection there and what are the details of those, and how are they paid for? guest: right. is a keyral politics

place where we get involved because the decisions of politicians have a huge impact or the protections we fought for over the last hundred years in this country have come from politicians enacting laws, so we want to get folks elected at the local level all the way to the federal level, like alexandria ofsio-cortez, and members the tsa. we want to build a pipeline of elected officials who make an impact on lives. we want to strengthen workplace organizing, because even though we have folks in the political system, the power comes from our ability to stop working. so when people are organized in their workplaces, like what happened in west virginia, california, what is happening in all these states across the country, when teachers realize that if they stop working they can win for themselves and their students, m and straight that getting involved in workplaces, in the economic -- demonstrate that getting involved in workplaces, in the economic

realm, it is another way we can demonstrate our power as they working-class. the third leading area for us is medicare for all. in the wealthiest country in the world, we have people dying from lack of health care. a huge proportion of gofundme accounts are people that are facing major health crises that they cannot afford because the private insurance industry is making money off of their back. so we know that people really care about this issue. we know people are dying and suffering. it is popular across political lines, and we are fighting for medicare for all where all of us have health care. the way it is going to be paid for is the wealthy and the corporations are going to pay their fair share. host: how do you respond to say, socialism does not work because there are no incentives for people to accumulate wealth or to get

wealth, and therefore share it? do you think you have to eliminate capitalism altogether? guest: so there are a couple of premises to what you just said that i think we need to look at. first of all, few people who accumulate wealth want to share their wealth. studies have shown that is not the case. we have a tiny wealthy elite which is accumulating more and more wealth off the backs of the people that work for them. they are not reinvesting that. they are not creating jobs. what they are doing instead is buying a new yacht or a private island. actually want to share their wealth. if you look at charitable giving, poor and working-class people give more than the very wealthy. we have very little to give, but we take care of each other. we give at a higher rate than the very wealthy. that leads me to my second point, which is that people in this system that we live in now,

the capitalist system, are forced to compete with each other to survive because if we do not we will be in the streets. homelessness is on the rise. as i said before, we have far too many hungry children and hungry elderly in this country. people are forced in the capitalist system to work or survive. but in a democrat socialist society, people would be motivated because they are both producing things and using their creativity and their brain. they have access to education and to trying new things instead of having to go to some office drone job or going to work in a factory and have a form and tell us what to do all day every day. people actually will be motivated to work. people have many ideas which are suppressed in the capitalist lotomy, which will be a when we have a democratic-socialist society. host: from tennessee, a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning.

i just wanted to make a comment, greta. thanks for taking my call. the guest you had on your show a few minutes ago -- cannot think of his name -- but anyway, he was implying that the reason we have a deficit now and it is so large is because of socialism. and he failed to say anything about the tax breaks for the wealthy. and i just wanted to say to republicans -- i wanted to say, the republicans are always commenting on people that are socialists and this and that. they say they do not want big government, but they do. they really want big government as long as it works for them. as long as they get the advantage of it. that is about all i wanted to say. host: ok, evelyn. anything could not say better. it is absolutely what it is. people that claim they do not

believe in big government, what they are actually saying is that they want big government and the military and for the police and to enforce the laws that benefit the wealthy. they do not want any kind of government that benefits the rest of us. if you look at the tax cuts that the president pushed through, with the help of republicans, they were very short-term tax cuts for some working people -- and i am defining working people as everyone who does not own factories or companies. for middle-class and working-class people, there were some tax cuts. the vast majority went to corporations and the very wealthy. the ones that were for working-class and middle-class and poor people, those tax cuts were very short-term, and then are going tothose the wealthy and the corporations, they are permanent. we have been cutting social programs and expanding programs that benefit the very wealthy.

it is just going to make it andicult when we beat trump have a democratic president. it will be that much more difficult to actually invest in programs that help the rest of us. it is a structural strategy of destroying the government for individualsof a few and corporations. host: jacob in cappuccino, california -- in cup chino, california. o, california. caller: i think democratic socialism is impossible in the united states. we are a country of 400 million people. ,overnment without free-market health care, medicare, housing, daycare, and retirement and everything else, just the scale

of management required makes this whole thing impossible. forget about -- it is just people do not understand the soviet union fell just because they tried to manage too many things. if you say just make it clear, maybe. but -- if you just say medicare, maybe. but if you say medicare, education, then you have to manage without free-market, surgical company, medical treatment company. develop free-market, how much you will pay doctors, nurses, hospital. decisions, the federal government would have to make, it would just be impossible. host: let's get a reaction. guest: sure. so the first thing i want to say is that, yes, we can take

medicare as an example, and that is a federal program that people love because it is the benefits that improves their lives. when you look at scale, i want to take the example of the pharmaceutical industry. we can manage it better than big pharma. big pharma is charging people thousands of times what people in other countries pay for the same drugs. people are dying because they do not have their medication. it is absolutely possible for the federal government to manage that much, much better than private industry because these corporations that are trying to make money off of our backs -- the government is something that is a public good and we can control it. louisiana,in independent. caller: thank you for taking my call.

i think what we are caught up in is two things. clash between the the extreme left in the extreme right. we have caricatures of socialism and caricatures of capitalism. toward whateaded , a communists made caricature of capitalism, and when they came to capitalism they tried to mimic that aricature and established system with oligarchs and vladimir putin at the head, very much like what they had in socialism. socialism isall not well defined. socialism, i consider, when the

government controls the means of production. insurance --l medicare, medicaid, social , and another form of social insurance, we have the government stepped in when we have major catastrophes and try to take care of people that have been hurt by acts of nature. believe,eally need, i is to have a regulated floor ofm with a protection, and the floor of protection is social insurance like social security and and the problem is that to get there from here, we

have to not fight the extreme left against the extreme right. we have to get into the middle. i think we cannot get to the svart isocialism ms. talking about because of the clash between the extreme right in the extreme left. host: let's take that. guest: that was a lot to unpack. i want to respond to a few things. first, the model of authoritarian communism under the soviet union is absolutely not the democratic socialism that is our vision. we are certainly looking for public control over certain goods and services which are necessary for human survival, such as clean water, such as health care, such as education.

an educated population is a stronger population and we can create more, create new medications, all of that. people can think critically. we do believe there should be some things that are social insurance in public programs run by the government. we do not think that the fossil fuel industry should be in private hands. the reason is if you look at what is happening in our economy now on this planet, we are going over a climate clip. that is the -- a climate cliff. that is because the polluting industry wants to make money. they are not taking into account the future of humanity. we do not have much time left. that is why young people are rising up in the streets. they are furious and know that time is running out. we believe certain things require democratic oversight and need to be under the control of

the government. we also believe as democratic-socialist that working people need to be running our workplaces. that is the means of production we need to be controlling. , forould be able to example, if we work in a bakery, not just get however much the owner wants to pay us. obviously their incentive is to pay us the least possible and pocket the rest, we want to be able to keep all of the fruits of our labor and run it cooperatively. our vision is an economy that is mixed in that way. i wanted to set the record straight on that. i forgot the second half of the question. that is our vision. host: barbara in youngstown, ohio. caller: thank you. i consider the smartest person who ever lived to be albert einstein and he was a socialist.

i learned this in college. check it out. thanks. guest: albert einstein was a socialist, helen keller was a socialist, martin luther king was a democratic-socialist. these are the people that the people in control of the education system and the mass media have erased their legacy and their ideas from history. host: joe in pennsylvania, a democrat. good morning. europe i travel a lot in . germany and scandinavia. people should have the opportunity to visit. this is their government. this is the way they work. their education is taken care of. their medicine is taking care of. capitalists, the only thing isy have a claim to fame for

-- take for example the bank , which happens8 about every 10 to 15 years. it is a huge transfer of wealth. all of the poor people lose everything. they are in the 401(k)s and the iras and everything goes down the tank and we start again at the bottom and all the money goes to the rich. when the banks fell apart, the world economy on wound. it fell apart. they made all the money on capitalism. everything was fine. broken.ng now is they espoused socialism. they love capitalism when the money was born in. now they socialize all of their losses. we pay for it about every 10 years. from 1929 on.

ok.: maria svart? guest: absolutely. the way the capitalist system works is an inherent boom and bust cycle. the thing i want folks to remember is this idea that the profits are privatized. we'll work hard and get a tiny wage back and then the owners get to keep almost everything. the profits are privatized and the shareholders get the profits but the people that actually produce the goods and services get very little. the least possible. yet the loss and the rest is socialized. that is exactly what happened with the financial crash. taxpayers had to bail out these banks and they were never nationalized to be under democratic public control. that is the nature of the system. investing in police, investigate

the military, investing in wall street but not investing in real people. host: matt is next in new york. a republican. welcome to the conversation. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. socialism is a terrible idea that will not go away. you try to put new names on it to make it sound different. your guest mentioned problems about the elite in capitalistic societies running things. in socialism, the government runs things. notice, members of congress have all gotten very wealthy. government can take everything corporations can take and they can do it with guns. you mentioned foreign wars. we were dragged and world war ii and world war i by europe. socialists. by it was our means of production that won the war. the scandinavian socialist

countries that deny that they are socialists and the europeans that have lived under socialism for decades did so by the fact that they did not need to defend themselves and we paid their defense for a long time. socialism is a dangerously naive left-wing college campus indoctrination idea that does not work anywhere in the world. if you try to do it here, you will kill the american spirit and i do not want to be around for a country that lives on its knees like that. guest: that is a lot to respond to. i may forget some of your points. the first thing i want to say is fighting fascism in world war ii was necessary and important for the united states to do. we should have entered the war earlier than we did because millions of people were killed by the fascists. that is important. i would say that u.s. wars since

then have been problematic. we have been lied to by politicians in every war. you look at vietnam, we were lied to, and frankly, john bolton is trying to get us to go to war with iran overlies. we were lied to about the iraq war. we do have to question politicians. the main thing i want to respond to is the idea that it is politicians that are the problem. absolutely, they are problem, but there are problem because somebody is buying and paying for them. that is the wealthy. the capitalist class has a revolving door between private industry and washington. politicians know they can get campaign contributions and will have a cushy job when they leave. if they deliver while in office, they will be set for life. that is a system that is discussing and why people do not want to vote for democrats, white voter participation is so

low, because people feel the political system is broken. that is why we fight not just within the political system, knowing support for candidates at the local level, but why we support folks forming unions in their workplaces and going out collectively to fight for their rights and their labors through mass stripes. --mass stripes and neighbor mass strikes in a variety of industries. the question we need to ask is who is benefiting, in this case the politicians make the laws but they are bought and paid for . host: ed, your question or comment about socialism? caller: first of all, socialism is dependent on a large number of dependent people. i am a nonunion schoolteacher. i am by no means wealthy. i am 61 years old.

i keep hearing this term, unequal distribution of wealth. since johnson's great society i have watched this country become overpopulated with nonproductive people who cannot keep up with the technology and be productive. the welfare, medicare, food stamps, housing, all of those programs have created this culture of we can have as many kids as we want and the productive people will pay for them. it is a culture of others will support me and my kids. to be honest, i think productive people are time for paying -- are tired of paying for irresponsible people who have kids they cannot support. if people would stop having those type of kids and develop their own base of support before they have so many kids, we would not have the poverty that has led to this unequal distribution of wealth.

svart?aria guest: the first thing i would say is you need a union. everyone needs to have a union. you play one of the most important roles in our society, which is educating the next generation. you, especially, should have good working conditions. the reality is if you look at what has happened to public programs to support the people that have been blocked from the formal economy, which is a lot of poor people in this country, it is because the capitalist class needs a lot of people to not have work because they can turn to us that do have jobs and say you better work for less or i will hire someone else. the fact that there is a large full of people that do not have worked is a feature of the capitalist economy and benefits the wealthy. that is my first point. my second point is if you look

at what we spend on social programs like welfare, which was gutted by the democrats, it is very little. it is very little compared to the kind of things we waste money on like foreign wars and the military in general and contractors, military contractors. if we look at how we actually spend money, it is not to support a mother that needs to feed her kids that has been blocked out of the formal economy. it is going to feed a defense contractor. that is a critical thing to understand because people that like the system the way it is are constantly trying to spin these stories and point to the person you can see in your community and pretend they represent the biggest investment of resources, when the reality is the very wealthy have been cutting how much they spend an corporations have been cutting how much they give to the

government and it has been redirected to these other sources. the politico magazine has a piece about bernie sanders with the headline reading "the secret of bernie's millions: how did he asked a net worth approaching $2 million? the surprisingly middle-class scouting of a socialist." what is your response to bernie sanders having this amount of charge of ae democratic-socialist running for president who owns three homes. i will say that i do not know the details of bernie sanders accumulating three homes, but i do know a bit part of his wealth comes from his book, and the reason that was so successful is that he speaks to millions of people and the realities we face. if you look at the policies he has fought for since he got

involved in public office, they have been policies that would benefit all poor and working-class people. i look at the policies of what he is fighting for and the benefit that would come if they pass when i'm deciding what politician to support. the same way i look at what kind of policies they are supporting, not just the rhetoric. it is all about the policy. democratic-socialist about policy and that is what we focus on. host: tom in new jersey. democratic-socialist. caller: thanks for having me. host: good morning. caller: i wanted to commend ms. svart because i have been fighting forever with this, and people do not seem to understand our view of socialism, democratic socialism or libertarian socialism. we can still have things the way they are, just have it as collective. it does not mean we have to get rid of money.

we can have property. at the same time, they like to point at us as radicals that want to take away your cheese blah, blah,blah, i just want to say thank you. it is greatly appreciated. i appreciate you saying that and i agree. there are myths disseminated through the mainstream media and everyone repeats them that this is some sort of vision of trying to control everyone. the reality is democratic socialism is promoting freedom. it is promoting all of us being able to develop, instead of being born into conditions we cannot control where we have to toil our entire lives, go without health care, maybe go hungry, maybe go without housing , or maybe we are comfortable enough to have housing and

health care but we are working 60 hours a week or 80 hours a week and cannot enjoy our families. we are trying to expand freedom and redirecting the debate and debunking the myths is very important. we go to turners falls, massachusetts. a democrat. hi, archie. good morning. caller: longtime fan of the show and i appreciate you taking my call. i grew up in a small town. i am a child of the 1980's. i grew up in a society where no one cared if you were offended. the only save space you had was a janitor's closet provided it was not locked. i understand you want to get a lot of people on your side with this dsa thing. my concern is how you wind up in -- yoution where

obviously want to be helping everyone, but a lot of people on the other side will think if the walking dead happened are we told to be tolerant of their dietary preferences? my question is how do you keep it from going so far off the rails. guest: as a child of the 1980's as well, thank you for your question. the reality is all people have a few basic needs. we want to be in community, we want to feel we can be ourselves , we want to be able to have time to spend on leisure and time with our families or to do our hobbies that we enjoy, the things that make us human. intellectual pursuits, whatever. that is what we do. we focus on those things. the reality is we have a country that was founded on stolen land, founded on slavery, and we have to recognize that. if you look at these most recent restrictions on abortion, there are things happening in this

country and dynamics in this country that are fundamental to the way our society is structured. we cannot ignore them because they impact working-class people of all races and genders. until we can address these problems, we are not going to address the problems for all working-class people. the way we find that balance is we say we need to recognize what is happening and be proactive about addressing problems, and at the same time we need to realize the system is set up to benefit a tiny elite. they are pitting us against each other. they are using these ideas of division to keep us attacking each other instead of realizing they are the real source of the problem. we way we address this is say the institutions of this country are racist and the results are racist. the fact that there is a ban on abortion is an economic issue

and it has to be addressed. at the same time, we say we have more in common with each other than with the capitalist class. when i say capitalist class, i mean this tiny elite that controls the wealth that owns all of our workplaces. you and i have more in common with each other than with them. it does not matter if you're a man or you are a different color than i am really a rural place, we are still being screwed by the same people and we need to recognize each other's humanity, recognize different conditions and realize that fundamentally, we are in a similar condition when it gets down to it. that is why farmers are committing suicide and sewer taxi drivers in new york city. we are all being screwed. kathy in- guest: michigan -- host: kathy in michigan, republican. caller: i think we have been

asleep at the wheel for years and that is how this democratic socialism's darted. when you talk about the -- this democratic socialism started. when you talk about the elite, you have to remember we have to have the elite to provide jobs for us. they started these companies. these people started with their own -- and they acquired the money to get these companies so we have the jobs. the youngnderstand people today. they want everything right away. they do not want to work to acquire these things that people years ago took years and years and families, generation after generation. -- you areophy

, but no, book learned common sense. there has to be common sense in this thing. host: ok, catherine. maria svart. guest: i am educated and book learned and i am happy about that but i think i have common sense. you just need to look at what ford motors and gm are doing with their laying off of thousands of people to realize that this is common sense, too. the economy is structured in such a way that the people who own these corporations and their makeholders get to decisions that impact thousands and millions of people and we have no voice. i grew up -- both my grandparents were union folks. my dad was the union person. my grandma went on strikes during the great depression. i grew up going to the firefighter union with other kids in the neighborhood and i grew up realizing that if

working people do not work together, we will get screwed. that is what is at the root of the democratic-socialist idea. we produce the wealth of society and we should control it. .t is just common sense the other thing i want to talk about is millennials. i am part of the older millennial generation. most people have this vision of folks that are right out of college. i am a millennial myself. young people today have grown up in a society, after the postwar period of relative prosperity where you had strong union and laws people had fought for through collective action, all of that period of increasing prosperity came to an end when the ruling class decided in the late 1970's when it was time to put a lid on it, they started unionbusting and cutting social programs and privatizing public

programs. part of that was higher education. we have productivity increasing but wages stagnating. we do not get the full benefit of what we produce as workers. when our kids go to college, if they can afford it, they have to take on tremendous personal debt rather than having the wealthy pay taxes to fund education because they think it is something that benefits all of society. individual students take on tremendous debt. you have young people graduating , maybe they cannot even graduate because they are working three jobs in trying to get through school. they graduate with tremendous debt in doing economy -- into an economy with jobs that are terrible. they graduate and they have these debts for the rest of their life and it weighs down on their ability to be members of society and spend money to stimulate the economy. young people have found higher

education to be more expensive than ever and there are no jobs for them. they been told all their life they can be whatever they want and suddenly they realize they cannot and it is a competitive world where you have to compete or die. that is the reality with young people. on top of that, they see the climate cliff looming. democratic socialism is not just about young people. we have a lot of people that are elderly that are still working even though they should be able to rest. they work their entire lives and they will be on the street if they do not work. that is unconscionable. there is a huge crisis in pensions and cuts to social security that politicians in both parties are trying to push through. we live in a society where the very wealthy are literally hurting women and people of color and the elderly and millennials and children and rural folk and urban folk. we are all being screwed and we

have to come together across our differences because we are the ones to make the society run and i think that is common sense. host: kenneth in owings mills, maryland. a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing. host: go ahead. caller: you make a good point and i'm with you 100%. i want to speak you about branding. how you put the message out. this is a detriment to your point with democratic socialism. the republicans do it all the time. freedom caucus. brenda -- branding means a lot. capitalism still has a vital part in our society but major changes need to be done. you said something earlier -- you want to bring about freedom. lot -- freedoma democrats. something different. socialism has a negative

connotation. unfortunately, that is america. you are smart enough, and there are a lot of people on your side smart enough to do that. it has been done before, mainly in barack obama's run. -- hit with the numbers out there, the actual numbers of how much that mother on welfare debt versus how much the bailout of the banks got. show that disparity in the numbers. people get the numbers. unfortunately with branding in the name change, they get that. and what you are for. freedom for democrats. guest: i agree with you about the numbers. the numbers do not lie. they are on our side. i want to talk about branding. i and the folks in my organization and many other people in this country have

known there something wrong with capitalism for a long time. happens, 10 years ago, when someone tried to make arguments and collect progressive or liberal, they were called socialist. we do not take back his word, then the right-wing will continue calling us socialist and say we are tried to hide something. we are not trying to hide. there is a long history of socialism in the united states , and back to eugene debbs he was very much a bottom-up socialist. it has a long history in the united states. i encourage you to read the book -word" which talks about the history of socialism in the united states. while branding is important, i think we need to explain what socialism is. while i understand donald trump

is attacking socialism, it is the same thing with him attacking journalists and the free press. we cannot pretend that is not happening. we have to call it out for what it is. an attack on democracy. we have to defend and explain the word socialism and we have to do like bernie sanders does -- defend the ideas. the ideas and the values are things that resonate with people in the united states and we cannot let the other side take away -- we cannot let them define who they are. we should talk about freedom and democracy, but we have to talk about it in the context of democratic socialism. org.: the website is dsausa. maria svart, thank you much for your time this morning. guest: thank you. host: next, we will get your thoughts on this week in washington.

you know the senate yesterday passed $19 billion in disaster aid. the house expected to approve it today and the president signed it into law. the house announced yesterday $16 billion in farm aid. the president yesterday gave the attorney general the power to declassify the origins of the 2016 surveillance investigation. speaker pelosi and president trump continue with their feud. we want to get your thoughts on any and all of those things that happened this week in washington. before we do that, this week on withakers, we are talking gop presidential candidate william weld, the former massachusetts governor. here is what he had to say. >> in the aftermath of robert mueller's report, different people have parsed it different ways, but what the report concluded was the president cannot conspire with the russians in the 2016 election

and he did not make a finding on obstruction of justice, which would have been a major development that could have impacted his presidency. what i'm trying to get at is that without the robert mueller report severely damaging the presidents standing beyond where it is already is, what is your opening? >> it did make a finding on obstruction of justice. if you lead -- if you read volume two of the mullah report, it set out -- of the robert mueller report it set up a to 10 examples of the president obstructing justice. --t attorney general barr 750 former federal prosecutors, republicans and democrats, signed a statement, myself ,ncluded, about 10 days ago saying what is set out in the robert mueller report is a clear and convincing case that the president obstructed justice. the fact that william barr does

not want to say so does not mean it is not true. 750 prosecutors say this is clearly the case. hard for me to believe people will think they are wrong. host: william weld our guest on newsmakers this week. you can watch it sunday at 10:00 a.m. eastern time or 6:00 p.m. eastern time on c-span and c-span.org. you can listen along on the free c-span radio app. your calls for the next 30 minutes on this week in washington. here are some of the things that happened. $19 billion disaster aid approved. the president expected to sign it. he also won $16 billion for farmers and ranchers to help with the impact of tariffs against china, and the president yesterday announced he is giving the attorney general the authority to declassify the origins of the 2016 presidential investigation.

then the speaker and the president going back and forth. getting personal. president trump at the white house yesterday with those farmers and ranchers. started off talking about the importance of trade and congress passing his agreement with canada and mexico. then went on to talk about that infrastructure meeting that happened earlier in the week and the speaker of the house nancy pelosi. [video clip] >> i do not know what she will do with usmca. it will be one of the trade deals -- the great trade deals. if we do not have tariffs, we would not have a deal like this. when can in mexico said we would not agree, i just said we would care -- we would tariff you. it is a great deal. your friends on the underside side of the border started striking in ticketing -- striking and picketing.

whether nancy pelosi understands it, i do not think she is capable of understanding it. she has a lot of problems. i walked into the room and said it is not right what you did, calling a meeting like this was not right. i said i'm going to postpone it or call it off. you can focus on one thing. you should not go down two tracks. they cannot. the democrat party is very messed up. they have never recovered from the great election of 2060, and election i think you -- of 2016, and election i think you folks like very much. nancy pelosi was not happy about it. she is a mess. host: that was the president in the white house yesterday. in that event the said he was a stable genius, that got a reaction from the speaker of the house, who tweeted out, when the extremely stable genius starts acting more presidential, i will be happy to work with him on

infrastructure and trade and other issues. senator chuck schumer, after hearing the president characterize the infrastructure and callhe way he did up staff to talk about it, the minority leader responded. [video clip] >> i was in the room yesterday. the president was not loud but he was agitated. his asking all the members in the room was he calm or not was not the point. he walked out after three minutes and would not discuss infrastructure. i would describe him as clearly agitated. >> pelosi said this morning there should be an intervention. do you think he has issues? >> i think his activities are hurting the country in every way. in so many ways. to walk out on an infrastructure proposal where we clearly need one and it will employ millions of people is not doing his job

as president. residents do not walk out. they tried to sit down and persuade and negotiate. this week in washington, your thoughts on all this. politico describes it. a week of trump fueled disruption leaves congress gasping. infrastructure meeting imploded, budget talks stalled, and the disaster a deal barely survived. tony in santa fe, new mexico. independent. caller: good morning, greta. how are you doing? the dysfunction started way back when but has been going on for a long time, probably because of the two-party system. john adams disagreed with the two-party system. how about going back to the declaration of independence? thatof the decisions congress and the republican and democrats are doing are not only

anti-constitutional, they are anti-declaration of independence. work.pitalism does not if it worked, why are we to chile and dollars or 23 -- why debt? $23 trillion in john adams says there are two ways to enslave a country, one is to the sword, the other is debt. [inaudible] economy, whiche is the most stupid thing on the planet. without the environment we will not be able to have a war with iran or china because there will not be anything left of the planet have a war over. host: new york, democrat. caller: hello.

i was calling regarding the $16 billion given to the farmers. in one way it might make sense, but to me it is still a form of welfare. people are selective as to what they consider welfare and not welfare. in reality, when you are giving people our tax money, even when we give a house to the president and give him food and shelter and everything that goes along with it and a salary, including governors, mayors, chancellors, give them a house to stay in with maids and cooks and everything else, the working class, even if you work for the government, we do not get that. they do not call that welfare. the only time they call it minoritieswhen it is

, they call that welfare. there is welfare at the top and let's start saying that. host: the new york times -- trump gives attorney general sweeping power. in a review of 2016 campaign inquiry. if you go to the website lawfair blog.com you can find the memorandum put out yesterday. the memorandum says the attorney general is currently conducting a review of intelligence activities related to the campaigns in the 2016 presidential election. elements of the intelligence community and heads of the department of agents these shall promptly -- shall promptly provide assistance and information as the attorney general may request in connection with that review. it also gives the attorney general the authority to declassified or downgrade information or intelligence that relates to the attorney general's review of this investigation. before exercising this

authority, the attorney general should consult with the head of the originating intelligent community element or department. you can read more of that at lawfairblog.com. illinois.dbridge, republican. caller: i think i should say this. the president does get a house to live in, but yes to pay for all of his food and himself and everything that does not have to do with the government, yes to pay out of his own money. the salary, he is donating every penny he is making along with his daughter, his son-in-law, the secretary of education, and a few more of his cabinet members. they are not taking a salary. on the relief money, i think that is fine, but i think he should send a group of people to manage the money for puerto rico.

they were bankrupt before this happened and they do not know how to do it right. attorney general, i think that when he brings the truth out and the people being held accountable behind bars, that is when the rule of law will kick in. and the socialist? if the woman did have common sense and she wanted a socialist country, why doesn't she just moved to a socialist country? that is common sense. host: jerry in midway, utah. independent. caller: i wanted to say something about the legal situation. taxes -- my own taxes when up 84% in one year. chargeto the people in -- i said you're kidding me.

they don't own property allowing the illegals, they are not paying the school taxes, i am. the american people have to wake up. we are paying for medical, we are paying for schools, we are paying for all of these things. i'm a senior. i am on a fixed income. they are going to force me out of my home. a couple of years ago there were 400 seniors in utah that lost their homes because of taxes being raised. that is one issue. another i wanted to mention, being a veteran. if you want socialism, go to the v.a. system. it is terrible. i have sleep apnea. they put a machine on my face. i cannot get used to it. a lot of people cannot. host: let me go back to the disaster aid.

senators, mike lee and mitt romney did not vote for this disaster aid. it was approved 85-8. there were also six senators who did not vote. your senators do not approve it. what do you think? caller: i think they better take care of us first in utah. my taxes went up 84% in one year. romney is not a republican. he is a rino, he is a fake. i hope people get disaster relief, but after a certain time we have to secure the border. we are being invaded. if these were russians coming over the border, the democrats would stop at. -- would stop it. host: should the president

signed this into law when it was to not -- when it does not include money for border security? caller: we have to give disaster relief. the democrats are playing a game. i do not like republicans or the democrats. they have both taken us down the drain. i was the vice president of the young democrats at byu. i was very involved in the democratic party. they say that a baby is not a baby, you can abort a baby. these are human beings. what is wrong with people? this is how the disaster aid bill is playing out across the country. from the orange county register in california, "senate passes disaster aid bill." it is also the headline in the miami herald. it is the headline in south carolina from the state, "congress break stalemate, set

to send billions of dollars to help south carolina." the house is expected to pass it by unanimous consent and then the president signed it into law. democratsthink the are harassing our president and they need to do their job. i would like to see all of the democrats' taxes and their bank statement. if we go down that road, let's see their stuff. i am disabled. . cannot even get food stamps i only get 920 a month. can somebody survive on that? no. you cannot pay rent. you cannot even find rent for $900 a month. the border, there needs to be something done.

we will bring all of the illegals here and they get housing and food stamps and medical. , we are true americans and we have paid our taxes and we cannot get nothing. it is very irritating and i think the democrats are acting like children. they are not doing their job. i do not want to pay them. why are they getting paid and living in nice homes when i have paid my taxes and a lot of taxes and i cannot get anywhere? , another storyline the papers today is about videos that have been sent out, including by the president that have been doctored. the speaker of the house, some of you may have seen these, the daughteris pelosi's rips the state videos, the speaker does not -- rips the

fake videos. madam speaker does not even drink alcohol. the videos, one of them was her news conference. the president tweeted out edited video of her. the second was her remarks she gave at the center for american progress ideas conference in the -- in washington, d.c. this video being slowed down. we want to show you a little bit of what she had to say and encourage you to go to c-span.org because we cover these events in their entirety and you can watch these events in their entirety. if you search at the top of the video library box and put in the word nancy pelosi, these videos will come up. here's a little bit for the center of american progress where the speaker of the house was addressing the crowd. [video clip] >> we want to give this president the opportunity to do something historic for our country.

while there are those in our family who think why would you work with him? basically saying back to me why would i work with you if you are investigating me? the fact is something happened there. host: let's go to matt in texas, democratic caller. we are about this week in washington. good morning. caller: good morning. i thank you for taking my call. we do not have a commander-in-chief, we have a crisis in chief in the white house. i thought speaker pelosi and majority leader chuck schumer going to the white house to talk about infrastructure is something the president or anybody would want to talk about. unfortunately, the numbers do not work because the president gave away the money we would need in max's -- in massive tax cuts in 2017. instead of honestly sitting down and talking about infrastructure

, which helps his voters because it would deal with expanding our interstate highway system, it would expand our ports of entry and security, he campaigned for it. right now, we just go from crisis to crisis with this president and nothing gets done. if trump wants to keep you willing pelosi -- if trump wants pelosi, youttling can do that, but nothing is getting done because of this sideshow. host: richard in massachusetts, independent. what do you think? caller: pelosi did not even start talking about infrastructure. she was talking about something totally different. she is definitely on some kind of medication. she is on alzheimer's. she definitely has it.

she is always jumping around. that woman has a problem. she is too old. she should be out right now. thank you for listening to me. host: ian in oceanside, new york. republican. caller: i wanted to wish at c-span a happy memorial day and to all the families of our fallen that they have a blessed weekend. i want to thank c-span specifically. , it is visual,et people can call on subjects that matter to them. you are all fair, whether it is wish all ofi just you at c-span a happy memorial day. called basically wired his to thank you and wish everybody a happy memorial day. host: ok. pond,er news across the prime minister theresa may announced her departure.

your is what she had to say outside 10 downing street. -- here is what she had to say outside 10 downing street. [video clip] >> against all predictions the british people voted to leave the european union. i feel today as i did three in a democracy, if you give people a choice you have a duty to implement what they decide. i have done my best to do that. i negotiated the terms of our exit and a new relationship with our closest neighbors that protects jobs, our security, and our union. i have done everything i can to assist -- to convince mps to back that deal. sadly, i've not been able to do so. i tried three times. i believe that was right to persevere, even when the odds against success seemed high. it is now clear to me that it is in the best interest of the country for a new prime minister

to lead that effort. i am today announcing that i will resign as leader of the conservative and unionist party on friday, june 7, so his successor can be chosen. host: a politico reporter with the washington post notes after this announcement that theresa may will spend her final days as prime minister posting president trump for a state visit. if you want to watch the entire statement by the prime minister, you can go to our website, c-span.org. let's go to pollock in texas. in -- let's go to paula texas. democratic caller. person i want to say one who called a few calls back. every president we have had has .hown taxes if was us we would be in jail.

wake up republicans, this man is a dryer -- is a liar. [indiscernible] check your president before you try to check everybody else. thank you. you have a blessed weekend. virginia.nt, hamilton independent. caller: thanks for taking my call. i love c-span. i have heard speaker pelosi prior to this week's stutter, stammer, mince pronounce words -- mispronounce words. i think president trump's response and his videos he put , hisr., his -- doctored actions are reprehensible. he acts like a third grader. the man needs to grow up and act like the president of the most powerful country on the planet. i do not get mighty acts the way he does.

host: another article to share from politico. judges fasttrack court fight over trump financial records. president trump's fight to stop the release of his financial record is on the fast track for a key court decision after a three-judge appellate panel agreed thursday to hear oral arguments later this summer. the d.c. circuit court of appeals scheduled oral arguments for july 12 in the case that pits the president's attorneys against house democrats who issued a subpoena to the accounting firm for the eight years of trump's financial records. the court date will come several years after a lower court rejected the president's attempt to block the subpoena. trump's lawyers immediately appealed the ruling and the president hauled the opinion ridiculous and long -- and wrong . in the next round of legal sparring, trump will go before a panel of judges that includes other obama appointees, as well

as bill clinton appointees, and naomi rowe who joined the port as a trump appointee. the first round of legal briefs spelling out the argument is due june 10. democrats have said they will suspend the deadlines for the production of documents while the president's appeal works its way through the port. house oversight share elijah partngs set the appeal as of the panels investigation into whether trump committed financial crimes before he became president. aj in buffalo, new york. a republican. caller: i want to talk a little bit about this article. in regards to the judiciary committee and the house trying to subpoena trumps tax returns, it is nowhere in the constitution that allows them to turn these over. i do not understand why this is happening. i just wanted to say a couple of things about the comments people are making about the president. i believe we can all agree trump

is not a politically correct president. maybe some of his stances and the ways he rallies his people are your -- are obscure. labeling the administration as a crisis and nothing getting done is absurd. we have seen record low unemployment in minority communities. the economy has had a much sharper increase since the obama administration and we are creating trade deals with different countries. things are happening at a great rate. i think it is a mischaracterization to say that nothing is getting done. host: david in albuquerque, new mexico. independent. caller: are you there? hello? host: we are listening. caller: i wanted to say something about that. the structures they are talking about are fine.

saying is that everybody is looking on the democratic side for the taxes on trump. what about the taxes on nancy? what about the taxes on all of those other ones. you have big millionaires being senators. when you have a normal rate of pay they get. i also want to say we should be the number one, the americans should be number one in this country because we are the ones that are out here suffering for what the democrats are causing for these illegal immigrants to come in with our money. all of our money matters. i think they should be penalized for using our money, taxpayer , for putting these false allegations on the president of the united states instead of defending him so we could be one.

they want to choose to go ahead and use our taxpayer money to take them to court. nobody looks at them to penalize them. i think we should penalize those democrats, nancy and everything in their taxes in their accounts to pay all of us back for what they are doing in this little circus case they've been doing all this time. host: susan in florida. democratic color. -- democratic caller. caller: good morning. i want to thank you for taking my call. we watched c-span all of the time. my comment is i do not understand why people still believe in donald trump. the man is to range and he is putting our country in grave danger. my mother, who lived through world war ii, said trump is another hitler's. -- another hitler. host: why do you say that? what do you point to that makes

you say that? was very think hitler deranged and a demagogue. i think donald trump is very deranged and a demagogue. host: why? what do you point to? give us an example. caller: i was in the medical profession for many years. i worked psychiatry for many years. i have seen many people like donald trump be admitted to the psychiatric units of the hospital. host: host: ok. sheila, florida, republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. i was under the impression with the house of congress, they write the bills, and they send them to the senate, and they are ratified in the house cometh and they are sent to the president or disapproval. having the conversation about infrastructure is fine, but the