this is not about legislation that makes people feel good. it is about legislation or executive action that makes people safer. >> does he need to cool down his rhetoric, yes or no? >> will he call back lawmakers? ♪ >> the house will be in order. announcer: for 40 years, c-span has provided america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events from washington and around the country, so you can make up your own mind. created by cable in 1979, c-span is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. ♪ from new joining us york is rachel questar, the producer of "the daily." thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me.

>> talk about the genesis of this podcast, why the new york times decided to go this route. daily" was born out of the question of trying to understand this moment. it launched in february of 2017 out of a feeling that maybe has journalists we had not understood the country, so to create a product that would explore the country and explore the expertise of our reporters, to really understand this moment. the show relies on new york times journalists to help us understand the news of the day, to go deep and understand the context behind the headlines. that is the genesis of it. hearing from voices across the country to really understand the news and the moment we are in. host: expand that idea of understanding the country, understanding the moment.

what are the questions that made you think we weren't understanding it enough? guest: i joined "the daily" two months and. i wasn't here for the very beginning of it. coming out of the election, maybe we didn't understand how the country was feeling, different perspectives. voices, hear from those not necessarily reading it and print, hearing from people on the ground and understanding the different perspectives that people had, the different issues and concerns, and bringing that to life in an audio form. understanding where the country is, understanding the news and how people are interpreting it, how they are reacting to it.

we really wanted to lean into the times journalism and expertise. leading into that to really get of new york and you see and hear from people in the country. new york and d see and hear from the people in the country and hearrk and d.c. from the people in the country. we feel an obligation to our listeners that if you are seeing news alerts, seeing things popping up, they want to understand what the big story of the day is. that's what really drives us. we have a mission to explain the big headlines and what's going on. what is the big talker? what can we contribute? what can we provide context to? that is leaning on the expertise of new york times journalists to

understand the news driving the day. host: how do you produce a podcast? podcast? is there a is it monday through friday, all week long? guest: it is monday through friday. we are up every morning by 6:00 a.m. it's about 20-30 minutes in length. host: rachel quester joining us as part of our podcasters series. it want to ask her a question about "the daily," give us a call. 02-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8002 for independents. taken uphis podcast the issue of the mass shootings -- what are you hearing?

guest: this is not the first mass shooting we've had to cover on the show. we've been trying to figure out what is the context, what is the information we can provide? for the particular shooting in el paso, we decided to take a look at the location of where this happened. onspoke with our reporters the ground in el paso trying to figure out the story there. we spoke to a reporter who was doing some -- was looking into why this shooter potentially chose this walmart, the specific location, the people who shop there. there's a lot of people coming across the border to shop there. they were doing back to school shopping. we thought it was important to understand that particular location and white was maybe chosen -- and why it was maybe

chosen. trying to put some context around this tragedy. reporterso one of our following beto o'rourke on the campaign trail. she had been with him in nevada. their trip was diverted to el paso. she noticed this couple that approached him, the husband was speaking with him -- she eventually turned to them both and it turned out that they were parents of a parkland shooting --tim, walking all of our joaquin oliver. that allowed us to encapsulate this unbelievable moment and coincidence where the family who had been affected by a mass shooting again found themselves forl paso for walking --

joaquin's 19th birthday. when moments like these have back andtake a step think ok, what is the greater here, here, what is happening that we can explain to our listeners this moment? our journalists are on the ground somewhere like el paso. they can encapsulate the feeling on the ground there, the response. what is the second day story we can tell? how can we continue to provide context and useful information? that happens to be one of our tech correspondence who spoke to correspondents who spoke n, the founder of 8cha understanding parts of the internet where this is fueled.

what is the first day story? understanding what happened. then taking a step back and looking at the larger institutions or structures in place that can potentially help us understand how something like this was fueled. we like to say that nothing happens in a vacuum. what are the larger structures and systems in play that can lead to something like this? host: how do you suspect your podcast will treat the politics of this situation as the discussions of gun control go forward? storytellers are journalists. how are they thinking about this, what are they hearing? country andow the our leaders are looking at this moment, how they are talking about it.

we like to step back and provide some historical context. is there a way to talk about this historically? what are the politics of it we can dive into? ouring on the expertise of reporters who are on the front lines of figuring this out. host: will your coverage of these recent incidences differ from previous shootings? guest: i think this one is different in that the specific location that was chosen, we can look to that to see, ok, what were the motivations here, what is the larger issue at play? every mass shooting, we are covering what happened and the victims. this one in particular, it was looking at what we could see as the shooter's potential motivations here. andave to take a step back look at the systems in place

that allow this to happen. when thee for the show las vegas shooting happened in october of 2017. after the initial coverage of that, we took a step back to look at the different playbooks of how various organizations respond to something like a mass shooting. we looked at the nra playbook to see how they respond. something we find useful, looking at that historical context, how people have talked about these things in the past, to provide a framework going forward to better understand what announcer: c-span has live coverage of the presidential candidates at the iowa state fair, starting thursday at 1:45 p.m. eastern with the montana governor, followed by former vice president joe biden. theriday, 10:00 a.m. with

former hud secretary julio castro, and former congressman beto o'rourke. on saturday, live at 10:00 with governor jay inslee. senator kamala harris, senator amy klobuchar, senator gillibrand, and it senator cory booker. watch of 2020 presidential candidates live at the iowa state fair, starting on thursday at c-span. watch anytime at c-span.org or listen from wherever you are on the go, using the free c-span radio app. earlier today, india's ambassador to the u.s. delivered remarks on the country's foreign policy agenda. from the heritage foundation, this is about one hour. about oneion this is hour. [applause]