wild. as always, we take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal"" is next. ♪ host: good morning. it is monday, august 19, 2019. we begin on the ongoing trade war with china. it has been 18 months since president trump imposed his first tariffs on chinese goods. this morning, we are asking our viewers whether you felt the impact of the u.s.-china trade dispute and do you think the u.s. is winning the trade war? phone lines if you think the u.s. is winning the trade war, 202-748-8000 is the number. if you think that u.s. is losing the trade war, 202-748-8001.

you can catch up with us on social media. on twitter it is @cspanwj. on facebook it is facebook.com/cspan. a very good monday morning to you. we can start calling in as show you president trump yesterday as he was leaving new jersey on his way back to the white house, he spoke about the impacts of tariffs and the status of the u.s.-china trade war. [video clip] nothingfs have caused or in my opinion, very little. we have important prices all the way through july and they are down 1.8% so the import prices have gone down. china is eating the tariffs because of monetary manipulation and they are pouring a lot of money into their country because they don't want to lose jobs. they are losing -- they lost over 2 million jobs in a short period of time and they want to

make a deal. we will see what happens, but they definitely want to make a deal. host: that was the president on the tarmac headed back to washington, d.c.. we will take a look at his twitter page today and let you know what he has to say. the president's critics have been quick to criticize the president on the issue of trade, including beto o'rourke. [video clip] >> this current trade war the -- do not want bailouts or payoffs, they want to make a profit in what they are growing and have those markets -- profits they have worked a lifetime to create. one of the greatest tax increases on the middle class in

the history of this country. yes, we need to hold china accountable. when have we ever gone into a war without allies or friends or partners? let's make sure we bring our friends in the european union, canada, mexico, and others and bring a united front against china to make sure they respect the rules of the road. respect our economy, our farmers and workers. that is the best possible way to conclusion that benefits our workers. i am afraid our president is throwing the global economy into a recession. "mett the o'rourke on press"- "meet the yesterday. as you are calling in, some more tweets from last week and from

members of congress on the issue of trade starting with tom carver, democrat from delaware in the wake of the president announcing the delay on some of the tariffs scheduled to go into effect september 1. how is any farmer expected feel relief from this announcement knowing their ability to sell goods has been lost because of the trade war? dateg the implementation -- left hanging in the balance. this from akeem jeffries, member of the house from new york, so-called president may trigger a devastating recession. gop tax cam and trump tariffs are a disaster for everybody -- every day americans. he fights for the privileged few . house democrats fight for the people. one more from josh harder.

this trade war is putting the squeeze on our farmers. we have to cut this out. one more tweet from one of the president supporters, republican scott desjarlais of tennessee. ammunist dictatorships is flagrant trade abuser, stealing u.s. technology and threaten our security. democrats want to raise your taxes. just some of the commentary playing out while members of congress are on recess talking about the trade war. we want to hear from you on phone lines for those who think we are winning the trade war. those who think we are losing it, 202-748-8001. you think we are winning the trade war, why? caller: yes, because i haven't saw any tariffs yet.

expensive to buy certain things like iphones. i think tariffs are good because china is communist, they support north korea. we need a trade war to avoid actual war and it works. putexico, trump is going to tariffs on an mexico beefed up security. china is not a favorable country towards america, so i would be in support of it. affected have not been by the first round of tariffs. avoida trade war to actual war, are you concerned about where this trade war should go if it keeps escalating? caller: for the past couple decades, war with china has been a problem.

it would be great to fight with our dollars then people. i don't think imminently, but it fear.ays a possible the u.s. needs a grand china strategy that doesn't deal --h war -- reducing the line for those who think the u.s. is winning the trade war, go ahead. are you with us? caller: yes, i think so. host: why do you think that? caller: china is a mess right now and the president has been doing a great job and i think he

will continue to do a great job. our last caller said he did not feel any effects of where he is. what about you? caller: we haven't felt anything of it. i think the majority of people where i live are for it. milwaukee out of thanks we are losing the trade war, why is that? caller: i feel eventually it is a globalhit and it is economy. as o'rourke mentioned, we should get our allies involved whenever we make a decision like that. i know it will affect the economy all over. host: has it affected the economy in milwaukee yet? caller: i noticed there is

prices at the grocery stores and it keeps going up and i am afraid as time goes , getting into the winter months, it is going to be even higher and income has not gone up for the middle class. i feel sorry for the younger people nowadays. host: the president announced he was going to delay the implementation of tariffs scheduled to go into effect september 1, tariffs on $300 billion worth of chinese goods. some portion of those tariffs related to consumer goods being delayed until mid-december. caller: i am glad he listens to someone. owneems like he makes his decision without getting anyone

else's input. at least with the delay, he is looking at a bigger -- change. host: cnn reporting about the delay. as president trump's trade advisors were searching for a theyegy to forestall, --uck upon a novel approach, cause prices to spike. the president's team came to him with a warning, applying tariffs on chinese imports could effectively ruin christmas according to people familiar with the matter. wouldannounced the tariff be delayed until september 15. that story today from cnn. ohio.t of

miles out of25 cleveland, i know what this manufacturing problem has done it is just what ross perot said. how many times that i have a job the last two years where they say we are relocating? it's like the politicians forgot about us in the middle of the country. i think we are winning and i like what trump is doing. it has to be done. just-- these people cannot keep stealing all our intellectual property, manipulating our money. over here, we have to have a lot more. host: what are some of the examples of winning you are seeing? you talk about the manufacturing leaving the ohio area.

has any of that come back? street,you go down the they are looking for machinists. and we have a lot of signs for doing machine work in general. i do see a lot more help-wanted signs even on the retail side of things. we are winning because somebody is finally standing up to these people. await to signnot where i am at, i do see improvements. it was probably even better years ago, but from the where it was before now i do see improvements just by watching the number of help-wanted signs.

host: how do you feel about free trade in general? is that a good thing? caller: free trade is good. sure we areake taking care of because of like the value of the dollar with other people's money. we need to have free-trade, especially with our allies. nbc news and the wall street journal out with a poll on the issue of free-trade asking a polling question amid the dispute with china finding nearly two thirds of american respondents say they support free trade with foreign countries. that represents a new high in the survey on that question and a seven point increase from the last time it was asked in 2017 if you want to see that story at

news.com.-- nbc erwin on the line for those who say we are not winning the trade war. why? caller: we are not winning the trade war, but we should have a trade war with china. they have been taking advantage of us for years. billions and billions of dollars, when do you stand up for your trade? job for doing a good the people of this country. he is a nationalist. where else can you find a patriotic president? ever since kennedy. he is the kennedy of our time. host: you say we are not winning. you you think we will eventually win? caller: we don't have to win, but we have to teach china how to play with the rules of this trade. host: do you think china is when

-- learning that lesson? caller: we should teach china. the trainingng all posts, taking islands. i am from the philippines and it has taken a lot of my islands in we should stand up for china. , you think wedoug are winning the trade war. caller: i don't think we are winning the trade war. people --st of these down to threeorn dollars or something or other. 2013 i did about $100,000 worth

of work. dos year i will be lucky to $20,000. securitygo on social this year, but if i did not, i would have to probably find another job because what i am doing now is not going to cut it. host: what do those farmers you work for say to you? do they bring up the trade were often when you have those conversations? caller: there will be more of them seeing trump is an idiot. i hate to say that, but he is. host: did you vote for president trump in 2016? caller: no, i won't. .et me say another thing a while back i had to buy a chain for my digger and two years ago i did it on another one and it cost $400.

this year, it is $800 and that was two years ago. .rump is lying about this there is nobody that said we are not paying for it other than trump. all the economists say -- see the difference. host: that chain you bought, is that an imported product? caller: it is american. host: thanks for the call from south dakota. the president's trade advisor was making the rounds on the sunday shows yesterday talking about trade and china. yesterdayter navarro speaking specifically about the impact on farmers. [video clip] >> president trump has the backs of farmers. he has demonstrated that with by setting up a

program where we use whatever revenues we collect from the tariffs and whatever else we need to make sure farmers are whole in america. the farmers know you are in the target of the bully china. we are not going to let that buckle the president's knees. he has the backing of the public. people like joe mansion and other democrats on capitol hill. aller: a lot of people -- >> lot of people don't like the tools like tariffs. how can you promise the american people they will not feel the impacts of these tariffs if the people who sell them goods like retailers convinced the president they would? >> we have had tariffs for over a year and we have not seen a thing in terms of inflation. >> economic indicators are backward looking versus the market, which is forward-looking. what we areward,

seeing is the fleeing of the supply chain. what is happening is retailers are finding other sources of supply and we are getting investment here in america. consumers spend $14 trillion a year. if we have 10% tariffs on $300 billion worth of goods, $30 billion. 1/5 of 1% on the consumer price index, it is nothing. yesterdaytor navarro on the sunday shows. the question, is the u.s. winning the trade war? 202-748-8000 if you say yes. 202-748-8001 if you say no. paul, appleton, wisconsin, is next. the line for those who say no. caller: i don't think we are winning the trade war. look what is happening to the farmers. i think this is an underhanded

plot by trump and putin to destroy our agricultural market. look who china is buying their stuff from now, russia. i think criminal trump, this is all an underhanded plot to destroy agriculture in our country and farmers are falling for it big time. host: do you know many farmers in appleton, wisconsin? caller: my father used to be a farmer. he got out of it a long time ago . i don't know, that whole deal with china seems weird because they hold all our debt. all they would have to do is sell treasuries and they would tank our economy. then trump says everybody is awash with money because of his tax cut. if you make $20,000 a year, your tax cut was $60,000 --

the guy is a crook running this country into the ground. host: kenneth in missouri saying yes, we are winning the trade war. why? trump: because president is a businessman and your last caller is one of these boo-hoo people that is a trump hater. we are not being affected in my part of the country. there are jobs all over the place, so anybody that wants a job in missouri where i live, you can find a job. if you don't want a job, that is your choice. we are not affected by the trade war. it has been 20 months since they first started it and we are still feeling no effect around here. host: what kind of work are you in? caller: i am retired. host: what did you do? caller: i drove a truck for a long time. host: do you still know many

truckers in the business? caller: yeah. sayinge calling me and it is the government regulation ever-changing in the business. host: does that continue under this administration? caller: yes, it did not change any. host: what in particular are they worried about? caller: they keep changing the hours of service and how long they can drive. of course, most of them now -- you have electronic device in your trucks that tells how many hours you have left to drive and when you have to stop and sleep. service isours of what they are complaining about because they changed it since i retired two or three times. host: i know we are talking

china-u.s. trade war, but how do you and your friends in the trucking business feel about the usmca? , they don't really distress that much about trade with china, but there is plenty of business out here. they are all hauling freight. host: thanks for the call this morning from missouri. a few tweets and facebook posts. steve writing how any more jobs in business sectors will be destroyed by trump to get even with the chinese? plenty more tweets and comments for you this morning. we will show you a few more as we go along, including this one with -- more health care for less. this loser republican tara for will make sure they stay there. david saying china devalued

their currency to mitigate the effects of our tariffs. yes, the trade war is being won. james saying that is the problem with the society we live in, your will to fight goes away. this is about your kids and grandkids. maryland.lendale, the line for those who say yes, we are winning. caller: we are winning because there are more jobs, more americans working. mcdonald's is hiring people for $11.50 an hour. they are hiring somebody at my gym for $12 an hour. average americans have more money in their pocket. i am in automobile salesman for 42 years and i see the industry here, the people making cars in canada and mexico

and abroad, japan and korea, they are coming here. there are more jobs and with the jobs, we are prospering. taking one for the team because it is good for our country. host: how are you taking one for the team? caller: my personal income has not been up. tom getting social security subsidize my income in a couple years. my personal income has been down under the trump administration. host: what is your line of work? caller: i sell cars. host: did you think car sales would be better under the trump administration then they are? caller: i thought they would be. i think american cars are coming back. they say there are 16 million new cars sold every year.

that is going to dial back to 15. there is a lot of pressure on the dealers, too many dealers and too much pressure from the manufacturer to move product. it is very competitive, which is good for the customer and americans will not be buying cars. do you think it is more of a problem -- more a problem of supply as opposed trade disputes that has impacted your business? as where ther parts are made and who makes the money off those, that is going to shift back to america, it will be america again and that is the bottom line, they are coming right now from korea. your knockoff parts for every kind of automobile is being made someplace like korea or japan or china or mexico, nobody is

making them in dearborn, michigan, and i think the president is shifting to make that happen back here. it would be really good if america would embrace him for a year and let's see what he can do. he has done the right thing, in my opinion. host: brian is next in kansas, the line for those who say we are not winning the trade war. why? caller: i don't believe we are winning the trade war and i think he is costing everybody in the united states and they don't realize it yet. arebillion in bailout we giving to the farmers and that is not the end of it. jobs.riffs, we are losing gm, harley davidson going overseas because they cannot compete. they just got a tax cut, they don't pay any taxes. which is it? then i hear everybody talk about

how -- nafta with bill clinton, he could not wait to sign it. who wrote it up? it was george bush. up befored to read they start -- they don't know what they are saying. ain'tocery stores, food going up. host: nearly two thirds of americans saying they support fromtrade, up seven points the last time that question was asked. what is your feeling about free-trade in general, is it a good thing? caller: i believe it is a good thing, but it will never happen. host: why is that? caller: it is a good thing, but .t will never happen

it hasn't so far, it is not .oing to happen host: the support for free trade, the blue line, those who see -- say free-trade is good for america and the black line, those who say it is bad for america. the polling from nbc news, wall street journal over the last four years. over the weekend on our newsmakers program, we were joined by david mcintosh, the head of the free market anti-tax group, the club for growth and we asked him specifically about this issue of whether the united states is winning the trade war with china and here is what he had to say.

[video clip] >> china is hurting worse than the united states. they are more patient and they can last through the election cycle, but it is possible they get to the point where they see to meet us part way. host: would you say the united states is winning the trade war? china needs to think about accepting fundamental property rights. they are saying no right now, but it is clearly on the table for something they will have to concede on. we are still in the middle of the back-and-forth on the negotiation, there is no clear winner one way or the other, but the possibility of getting a good trade agreement is still there. host: if you want to see that appearance on newsmakers, easy enough to find on our website. it is the search bar at the top of the page.

kansas is next on the line for those who say we are not winning the trade war. why is that, brian? caller: i just talked to you. host: thanks for sticking around. what did you think about david mcintosh? caller: i have a comment for the intellectual properties. you are in a foreign country -- you chose to go over there for low labor. if they still your secrets, oh well. our great american plants going over for cheap labor, giving up a lot of our smarts over china and that. host: thanks for the call from kansas. thanks for sticking around on

the phone line. jd out of alabama, the line for those who say we are winning the trade war. why is that? bear out,e statistics china's economy has faltered and slowed to the lowest level it has been in 30 years. if you take the time to read the english language papers out of thechina, you will hear in voices of the editorials and the commenters, china is facing a slowdown they are not accustomed to and this is a direct result of president trump's parties against red china. you always encourage recommendations for guests for your program. something that has been extraordinarily absent, derelict, there has been so few people about this, the weaker -- wieger people.

has had 2e government million people in concentration have -- i think you should uyghurs american association representative. have the roman catholic cardinal leading in china to comment on what really is going on. it is far more than a short-term deeper,r, this is a structural issue involving human rights, involving the future of the military versus china, involving the theft of land all

over territory all over the south china and west philippines esa --sea. this is a long battle. to your credit, you have had on dr. pills barry a few times. he is good, but very measured in his comments and also largely there ared i think some more impassioned representatives from the groups. host: i appreciate the recommendations and we always appreciate recommendations. the presidential candidates at one of the recent presidential debates were asked what is our greatest geopolitical threat right now. do you think it is china? caller: absolutely, unequivocally. i hope the word will get out that the clear and present -- williamittee bennett, someone from the clear

and present danger committee would be able to annunciate this in-depth with a whole lot more cogent, salient facts to show -- red how dangerous china is the new strategic enemy for the united states of america bar none, unequivocally. they follow the edict hide your strength and bite your time. host: do you think the trump administration recognizes the threat for what it is? caller: absolutely. it is, without a question, the single greatest thing that donald trump will do and i am praying he doesn't -- as margaret thatcher said, he does not go wobbly on us because there will be the temptation soon, he is scared he will not get reelected. he will be tempted to weaken a tough trade stance he has taken

with china and that is the concern. host: do you think he should tie that trade stance to the human rights issue? specifically because we saw the mass protests every weekend for recent reagan -- recent weekends, but the one point 7 million people estimated to have matched -- marched this past weekend in hong kong. caller: this weekend, i was on one ofim getting his helicopters with the buzz going on, he said that. hopefully he will follow through . he said "if china shows any kind tiananmen square massacre against the people of hong kong, they will have a tougher trade deal with trump." he directed human rights with the persecutions in hong kong.

you should have on a representative from the hong kong protest group, that is an excellent segway you brought in. host: i will give you another segway in 25 minutes, we will talk to marion smith, executive director director of the victims of calming them -- communism memorial -- you mentioned what president trump had to say about hong kong as he was living new jersey to come back to washington, d.c. here is a little bit of his comments. [video clip] >> i would like to see hong kong worked out in a humanitarian fashion. it.pe president xi can do he has the ability to do it if he wants to. i would like to see that worked out in a humanitarian fashion. it would be good for the trade war -- deal we are talking about. host: stick around for that discussion and if you have

questions about the situation in hong kong, it would be a good time to call in in our 8:00 hour. we continue discussing the trade war, is the united states winning? ben says no. why? caller: a couple of gentlemen who called earlier told us why. i want to thank you for taking my call. was a $12 2018, there billion subsidy provided to the that they experienced as a rolled salt -- result of the .ariffs last year $28 billion in two years and they get ready for another round for the next fiscal

year. subsidies, by the way, it's part of the activity we accused canada of, that they subsidized their producers. the president has told us unabashedly that tariffs are being paid for by china. to payill not have tariffs for things they deliver in the united states. tax.iff is a it has an effect some americans yet because some of the items have not been replaced yet. it will happen.

9.4 billion residents of china and many of them making good income. we would getwhy into a trade war with china with that many people to buy items. host: on the issue of farmers, pieceadline of today's from marketwatch. trump's tariffs and bad weather take a toll on farmers. that story talking about where to look for evidence on the impacts of farmers. the story noting that one only needs to look at the farm sector. cut its john deere

earnings guidance for a second straight quarter and announced a review of cost as u.s. farmers tradechina's reaction to policies and spring weather disruptions were unable to afford new tractors. green tractorsnd as the trade war stretches into its second year. china's exports of foreign products are much smaller than what it imports. of farm goodsorth in the first half of this year while it purchased $5.6 billion of u.s. agriculture items over the same period. china has other sources of supply for agricultural cops -- crops. leaving u.s. farmers with rising inventories and lower prices. .hat is marketwatch.com roger out of kansas, you are

next. the line for those who think we are winning the trade war. go ahead. caller: like i told the announcer, that i feel like i am not sure we are winning it, but i know it is something we have to do. i am a farmer from kansas. you last year i contracted soybeans for seven $7.30. and $.30 -- last week i contracted beans for $8.03. the prices have not been totally affected by the trade war as much as people think. the subsidies this year are going to be paid per acre. last year they were paid per bushel you produce. last year i do remember when would be paying

on bushels produced. i believed, and it did happen, the grain companies felt that was part of their money. they raised the basis, which means we get less money. they took part of that money last year. farming, i still believe our biggest problem we have is keep raisingt prices on us and the pioneer seed, which keep raising prices for seed and put these patents on that we cannot raise our own seed, we have to buy their seed. they pretty much have got the monopoly on us. sure you said you are not if we are winning the trade war, what does losing the trade war look like? caller: i don't believe we are losing it.

i believe things have changed. host: what would be a sign of losing? caller: we seem to be selling our grain. we are building up stockpiles. we have had stockpiles all my life. i started farming in the 1970's and we had stockpiles that were incredible. we had stockpiles larger than anyone ever dreamed. boughty said earlier he a chain that was quite a bit cheaper. two years ago. two years ago all chains were made in china. everything steel was made in china five years ago because they had totally taken our steel market away from us. want to keep building america with your own people or do you want to keep building america with other people? host: do you ever want to do

anything other than farming? and i amo, i don't, getting too old to do anything. i was telling people when i was old -- young growing up in the other kids were playing cowboys and indians, i was out playing farmer, seeing what i could raise and it is something i always wanted to be and i enjoy it. i am lucky enough that i farmed for different people and inherited enough land that i can get along no matter what happens the rest of my life. i may not live a great life, but i will be ok. my dad and everyone always told me there is no better place to get old in the united states. we have social security and programs in place that take care of our elderly. this is still the best country in the world. host: thanks for the call from

kansas. about 15 minutes left. if you want to join in, it is 202-748-8000 if you think the u.s. is winning the trade war. 202-748-8001 if you think the u.s. is losing the trade war with china. are in ohio thinks we losing. why is that? caller: i think we are losing because i looked at all the tools when i go to the store and most of them were made in china and they have a warning that says they cause reproductive harm or cancer. why are we allowing these products in from china? the closing, too. most of the clothing is made in china. in the early 1980's, they made us tear the tags out of the clothing because it said made in china. we need to start making more .hings in america

host: is that happening where you live? caller: i go to the store and i get tired of seeing these tools made in china and they cause reproductive harm or cancer. there is another thing with children that have all these allergies now. for a while, they had all these toys from china and harmful things like lead. they don't have the epa like we do here and i think that is why a lot of our children have these different outages. host: this is randy, chicago heights, illinois. thinks we are winning the trade war. why is that? caller: i said we are not winning the trade war. host: why not? caller: i am going to go back to the gentleman that called who was a car salesman and he did not mention insurance rates.

i bought a car a long time ago 1.9%16 and got the insurance rate. i just bought another 1, 2019, and i could not negotiate 4.9%.ng but a my credit record is great and my brother had the same experience i had. andas a great credit record he bought a jeep cherokee and he settled with a 5.9%. they are not offering low interest rates anymore. i asked my dealer, why are these cars so expensive? he said blame trump, they are the tariffs. the cars get expensive to make and everything like that. one other thing about that truck driver, he mentioned the truckers had no problem, in 2008 and 2009, they were complaining about the gas and everything, the delivery and it would get expensive, they put a surcharge

on our company for more money to deliver the product to us and everything. in theirthe surcharge trucks and everything, but when the economy got better and the gas went down, that surcharge never went away. they did not take the surcharge off from these companies -- to charge them a little less to deliver and you could notice it in the stores. had three orwe four dollar stores. i guess they are all equipped with china-made stuff, that is how they get away with it. we had our major food, grocery store. they just close down six months ago and now our little town is

getting hurt because we don't have any other place we need to -- we can travel to get food. host: thanks for the call from chicago height. about 10 minutes left and we want to get to as many calls as we can. dave from ohio is next. good morning. caller: top of the morning to you, sir. i would like to basically state how a trade discussion should be made. in japan and that you, you basically had a trade deal that went into effect february 1 of this year that knocked down tariffs duties or anything on 97-99% of the products traded between these two trading groups and in a trade war, there are no winners. in a trade war, everybody loses. i purchased commodities basically all of my working life

and i hate to say this for the farmers, but when you basically leave a market and drive a buyer to go out and find another source for your commodity, you are not going to get that commodity back when the war is over with, it is going to take a long time for you to do it. buyers basically like to stay with suppliers they can trust and basically what this war has done to the soybean industry, which i hate to say, you are going to be feeling this effect for many years after the trade war is over. host: do you think the trust has been broken here and who is responsible for that, if so? caller: basically any time you get into a trade war, we, the consumers, are going to be the ones who pay for it. basically trump has told you that already and he has come back and stated i am not going

to put the 10% tariff on the commodity goods we purchased for christmas, he will do it after christmas. that tells me he knows these tariffs are going to hit the consumer. host: that is dave talking about the consumer perspective. here is a story at the financial times looking at the perspective from u.s. companies and their investments. cutting back on their spending plans, the prospect of glowing -- slowing global growth weighing on confidence. expenditure set to grow at 3.5% this year compared with 4.2% anticipated four months ago. technology hardware companies appear particularly vulnerable to a slowing growth outlook. if you want to read more from that story, today's financial

times. jack is next out of michigan, thinks we are winning the trade war. you heard from two folks who think we are losing the trade war. what would your response be? i don't necessarily think we are losing, but thanks for taking my call. i had a couple comments i wanted to make. i am 85 years old and i am retired. one thing that -- took on, i remember his shoe off and was banging on the desk. how is he going to be in this country. i hate to be a bearer of bad news, but i hope i am wrong. i think it is already too late.

-- through the educational system and the drug society. the drug society is having a big bearing. as far as the trade war, i think it is probably right. china has been taking us down for a long time. i won't keep you any longer, that is the comments i wanted to make. host: we will hear from regina out of pennsylvania on the line for those who think we are winning the trade war and we as we showrom regina you this in the washington post -- mostly the graphic that goes along with it. the story about technology patents between the united states and china. there is an eagle battling a ms movinger some ato around as we hear from regina. -- passed under george

w. bush. that was when people knew people -- we would have intellectual property stolen from china and it was allowed to pass. now we have a mess and mr. trump is trying hard to clear up a mess. , farmero thank explaining very coherently the situation he is dealing with, thank you very much and the article in the tribune review from may 8, 2019, the steel moguls topped the tariffs. if you build anything, they break in your hand. we have devastated our steel companies and the chinese aren't that rich. if they were, they would not be making their own cars and sending them here. let's get the trade deal with mexico passed so we have

competition. host: chris on the line for those who think we are not winning the trade war. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am not sure if anybody knows if we are winning or losing, apparently the experts. i would like to make a couple comments with our trump supporters, if they would quit buying chinese goods and stick to american goods or at least west to somebody else besides china, that would be a great thing. also, many people talk about socialism in the united states. if there is not a bigger socialism program then american farmers, i would like to hear from somebody about that. how do farmers get away with getting all this socialist money or anybody else that has anything to do with a socialist prop -- program is look at as an evil doer? host: are you somebody that buys only made in america products?

caller: i am not, personally, but i am not a trump supporter. these people seem concerned about it. if we could get a third of the people that believe in trump to not buy chinese goods and buy them from somewhere else, we could alleviate this problem immediately. apparently they love to hang out at walmart and these other places that have many chinese goods over here. quit buying that stuff. maine on the line for those who think we are losing the trade war. caller: yeah, we are losing the trade war. my initial comment would be one of the reasons we are losing it his chiefump has economic advisor, larry kudlow, he does not have an economics degree, he is not a phd in

economics, he is a wall street scam guy who has been acting mitchellhine charlie in the crash of 1929, he went onto the floor of the exchange waving papers saying the syndicate is supporting the market. very much like the opening where broadcast on cnbc they say futures are going to be up and then something else happens. there is an attempt to markets and i don't call him president trump, i call him emperor trump. he is an insane emperor and we will have serious problems if he has a bunch of incompetent people, in terms of economics not even having economics degrees. one person with an economics degree who -- early in the drop in minute -- early in the

administration said this is economic pruding. the largest attacks on america is the corporate tax of dumping costs.e externality we have to cooperate in order to win anything. on a global basis, we have two choices, either global democracy or global empire. maine,hat is allen in our last caller in the segment on the "washington journal." up next, we will be joined by marion smith, the executive director of the -- joining us to discuss thelater, professor j. x halderman will be here to talk

about voting machine security. we will be right back. ♪ >> tonight on "the communicators," dale castro, vice president at the information technology and innovation foundation on data privacy and if enough is being done to protect americans from harm. >> one thing we could do is make it illegal to use social security numbers for identification and verification purposes outside of social security. this is something social security numbers were never intended to do. it was on the cards for a long time -- they stopped renting

that. but that could be a requirement. a bank, for example, could never open an account using a social security number. you have to prove your identification through other means. >> watch "the communicators" at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 2. >> the house will be in order. >> for 40 years, c-span has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events from washington, d.c. and around the country, so you can make up your own mind. greeted by cable in 1979, c-span is brought to you by your local -- cable or satellite provider. c-span -- your unfiltered view of government. >> "washington journal" continues. joins us now,mith executive director of the victims of communism memorial foundation, joining us for a

conversation about the hong kong protests. before we get to that, what is the victims of communism memorial foundation? guest: victims of communism was established as a result of a 1993 unanimous act of congress which called for an organization to be formed that would memorialize the victims of communist regimes around the world, which is some 100 million people who have been killed in some 40 communist regimes since 1917. but also to educate americans about the ideology, history, and legacy of communism globally, and to support the voices of dissidents today in the world's remaining five single party commented to ships, china, north korea, laos, vietnam, and cuba. host: how do you do that mission and where does your funding come from? guest: we are overwhelmingly supportive by private individuals, foundations.

nonprofit01(c)(3) organization. we have curriculum supplements we use in the classroom here we have a high school teach -- teachers seminar where we bring witnesses, meet with survivors of communist regimes, other teachers who use our materials in the classroom, and if there are any educators who want to be part of that, they can find out more at victimsofcommunism.org. host: a recent op-ed -- we are in a new cold war. hong kong, like berlin before it, is the first battle. why equate hong kong to berlin at the height of the cold war? guest: in the midst of these protests in hong kong, some people have made a comparison with tiananmen square. while there are certainly things to learn from that, most importantly the brutality of the chinese communist party and its absolute desire to maintain power at all cost --

geographically, in terms of geopolitics, the better comparison is west berlin, which, immediately following world war ii, its status was unclear. the soviet union had managed on its -- reneged on its promise. it did not allow free and open elections. thaty the time we realized , it was in berlin. administration decided to draw a line that it would not take what was at the time a free city. he had jfk, ronald reagan, go to that line and make it clear the united states would stand for that city, not just for west berlin but for what it meant in the cold war and the confrontation between two systems, communist totalitarianism and the free world. today in hong kong, we see a city that has never before been

ruled by a communist party. those young protesters, those students on the streets -- yesterday, 1.7 million people. i've never been ruled by a communist party. they have lived in a free city. their parents, grandparents lived in a free city. in 2014, you saw the first wave of protests, which really was a movement that began by the young high school students. as a result of a beijing directive forcing the hong kong high schools to change the history curriculum. they made it clear that they did not want anything to do with beijing's system. that protest movement has grown from the umbrella movement of 2014, which i had a privilege of being part of, meeting some of those leaders and students in the streets, to the massive protest movement that we have seen the last few weeks since june 4. people,y, 1.7 million

representing almost 25% of the hong kong population, in the streets. host: president trump was asked about the situation in hong kong. [video clip] >> i would like to see hong kong worked out in a very humanitarian fashion. i hope president xi can do it. he has the ability. he certainly has the ability to do it if you want -- he wants to. i would like to see that in workedarian fashion -- out in humanitarian fashion. i think it would help with the trade deal. host: what you make of that? guest: i think the word humanitarian there is key. this is where the comparison with the tiananmen square massacre is apropos. no other word would be the complete opposite of what happened in the tiananmen square massacre than the word humanitarian. i think the trump administration

is making it clear that a violent crackdown will be unacceptable to the united states, and i would be happy to hear more language making it clear that we stand with the free people of hong kong. host: you do not think they have made that point clear enough? guest: i think when you look at the language that, again, bipartisan consensus since harry truman. harry truman talked about the moral differences between the two systems, the soviet union and the free world. jfk went to berlin, with east berlin to his back, and made it clear that we stood with the free people of west berlin. ronald reagan, in 1987, went to berlin and said, mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. he did that within snipers' range of east berlin, knowing that when the wall came down, it was not going to be the spread of communism into west berlin. that wall coming down was a loss to the soviet union. we are so far from that moment

now that i think it calls into question our ability, as the united states, to lead a new, free world against a new menace. we have to be honest against it to the people's republic of china is the world's most powerful single party commonest dictatorship, perhaps the most powerful in world history. you can say that and draw a distinction between our way of life and there system of government without calling for war. i think we have a lot to learn from the cold war. we were able to draw moral distinctions while carrying on trade, dealing with other issues diplomatically. we have to be careful not to buy into this false dichotomy, that either we accept everything beijing ones from us and use their language to talk about our relationship or we are somehow warmongering. is thearion smith

executive director of the victims of communism memorial foundation, victimsofcommunism. org. if you want to join the conversation, if you have questions about what is happening in hong kong, now is a good time to call in. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8002 for independents. marion smith will be with us until about a data -- 8:45 eastern. ron in california, a republican. you are up first. caller: thank you. let me ask you some very important questions. in 1997, during the clinton years, right? hong kong was given back to china by the english after 156 years of british rule. you know what? what you have -- you have to think about this.

this is over 22 years since the takeover of hong kong by china. 22 years to figure out how to protest all of these things. good did a pretty darn job of integrating hong kong into the process of the whole chinese government, if you think about it. because they kind of let hong kong go on its own for a while. so the question i have is who are these protesters? why all of a sudden now is it coming in? iss thing with the tariffs just terrible. what we are doing to the world economy is terrible. far as i am concerned, these protests -- go there yourself, marion, interview the protesters, tell us what they have to say, and show them on tv to the american public. host: got your point. who are the protesters? guest: appreciate his question.

i did have the opportunity to be there in 2014. in the middle of the night, i sat with the protesters occupying admiralty and talked with them for several days. these were ordinary, generally middle and upper-class people who were, again, living in a very prosperous, free city and who know that their parents and grandparents lived in a free city. the tension that has been building for more than 20 years with beijing has finally boiled over. the caller mentioned 1997, the handover. that was the result of a 1984 sino british joint declaration that set the framework for britain handing over hong kong to china. the legal basis of that was a long-term lease that the british qinge signed with the

dynasty. a is not clear that china was successor after that long term lease, but that was the decision made. i think the protesters in hong kong, more than 20% are on the streets, and many more hong kongers support this movement. ofis the result encouragements on the freedoms and rights of hong kong people freedoms and rights of hong kong people by beijing. you have disappearances of business leaders and journalists. you have bookshops being shut down because they are selling things deemed inappropriate by the censorship authorities in beijing. was aast week, there 7-eleven franchise in hong kong selling an anti-communist newspaper, "the epoque times" and they were pressured by beijing and made a "business

decision" to stop selling the "epoch times." host: to the caller's question, who are the leaders of this movement? one point 7 million people protesting yesterday -- who is organizing all of this? guest: one leader is joshua wong. schooln as a high student protesting the high school curriculum changes that would have made it a marxist, maoist interpretation of history. he started a movement called scholarism. it is overwhelmingly led by brilliant, heroic, courageous, young hong kongers. you have nathan law, an attorney, leading the legal side of this protest. you have doctors and hospital workers who have gone out on strikes. today, transport companies and the transport unions are on strike. so you have across all sectors

of hong kong's excited -- if you have come across all sectors of hong kong society, a protest against beijing's attempt to enslave them. host: if you want to join the conversation, (202) 748-8001 rep ublicans. (202) 748-8000, democrats. (202) 748-8002, independents. mike in north carolina is next. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: doing well. caller: great stuff. as i've understood it, while i am following this, the tipping point was this piece of legislation that was in whatever congress or legislative house that they have in hong kong that was going to allow mainland extraditee able to those charged with whatever

crumbs back to mainland china to be dealt with with their justice system there. that is the tipping point. but from what i am hearing, there is a lot of other stuff going on in terms of constant incursion by mainland china into what, for centuries now, going back to 1840, has been a traditionally capitalist and very free hong kong. that is my statement. my question is, to your knowledge, is the united states, in any way shape or form, fomenting or supporting this? not that i would be against it, because this happens. but to your knowledge, are we involved at all? obviously, the president has denied this. guest: it is a good point. obviously, the immediate catalyst for the protest movement has been this extradition bill introduced into the -- to the legislative council, legco, by carrie lam,

the chief executive, who is really an agent of beijing, here, and trying to solidify hong kong within the chinese communist system. from 1984declaration ingrained this idea of one country, two systems. it is very clear that beijing has violated that arrangement. they have not respected the autonomy of the hong kong people. they have not allowed the democratic election of the legislative council, which they promised to do. and they have been chipping away ofthe rights and freedoms the judicial system and the economic freedom that hong kongers have enjoyed. and i think that you do have a very organic and authentic movement here. so, no, far from the united

thiss fomenting or causing to occur, we have been largely absent. and frankly, we are somewhat unprepared for this scale of the movement we see in hong kong. this is the people of hong kong. this is their fight. frankly, we have a lot to learn from them. they are the front of civilization right now. one country, two systems, that relationship between china and hong kong. we want to show, the 20th anniversary of hong kong's return to china, chinese president xi jinping talking about this issue. [video clip] >> to summarize the experience, the lesson was learned and look forward to the future and to ensure that the one country, two to be practiced.

i look forward to experience in and thehe developments progress achieved in hong kong and the new changes made. i believe, over the events carried out in hong kong, we our definitely enhance belief in developing hong kong. host: marion smith, take us to xi jinping today, amid the continued protests and how he is leading reaction by the chinese government here. xi jinping has disillusioned us of any notion that the chinese communist party is going to self or form. there was an idea, under hu jintao, that our efforts to and wto,the p.r.c. in the

under international rules-based economic exchange would somehow lead to greater democratization in china. xi jinping has taken china in a more ideological totalitarian direction. you see this across china. we can go into some of those aspects, if you wish. but on the matter of hong kong, he is basically explicitly stated that he has rejected the one country, two systems model and that hong kong is completely an internal matter, and that basically it would be viewed as a threat to the integrity of the chinese face for anyone to even verbally support the people of hong kong. smith is the executive director of the victims of communism memorial foundation, joining us for about the next 25 minutes, taking your questions about the protest movement in hong kong. kyle is in new york city, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. it is such an honor to speak

with you today. thank you so much for taking my call. i have two questions, intricately linked, the first about the humanity of chinese students, and second about what america must do today. first, i regularly work with chinese students in education programs. they seem perfectly normal until urs andion of the uighe the protests in hong kong. they seem perfectly normal until they use the word terrorists, foreign subversives, to describe these moments for democracy and human rights. because their mindset is something credibly terrifying, close to that of nazi germany or communist cuba. changeus, in china, no can come. no changes possible. unless government fears the will of its people. but how will this change in hong kong occur in any view if the chinese combine all of their

people and are controlled by the government. instead of freedom fighters, the chinese people think of themselves and of the protests in hong kong as terrorists. host: we will take up that topic. brutalsince 1989 and the crackdown, the massacre of unarmed protesters in tiananmen square, the chinese state has been very good at preventing any sort of mass demonstrations. they do this through an immense bureaucracy dedicated to censorship and intimidation, coercion, and the elimination of political dissidents and anyone who could be a focal point for a movement, that could threaten the chinese communist party. what you have in hong kong is of a different situation. of course, it is out of hand. but the efforts to absorb hong kong totally into the chinese system is part of a larger narrative of the chinese communist party to make china the party and the party china.

so to see free chinese people in hong kong living prosperous late, to see even taiwan, -- living prosperously, to see even in taiwan, living without the benefit of the communist party, is viewed as a threat by beijing. i think the hong kong people recognize this as well. that is why they have called this an existential fight. they have run out of legitimate options to air their grievances. elections have been denied. this extradition bill essentially would eliminate the ,udicial system of hong kong potentially allowing anyone to be a political prisoner in hong kong and transferred into mainland china for prosecution, which would essentially be a black hole. for them, they have run out of

options. that is why you have seen they have escalated this to a degree where they have occupied the airport and have unprecedented numbers of -- in the streets. host: who is on the protesters' sides? guest: many american voices. senators have supported the protests. there is a bill introduced in congress which would revisit the 1992 act where we gave special treatment to hong kong in terms of trade and immigration, because we recognized it was a different kind of system, different kind of government then mainland china. if this tradition bill were to go through or if there were a crackdown on the student and unarmed protesters in hong kong, this bill would essentially recognize that there is no longer any special that anything special legally about hong kong, and we would have them like mainland china.

host: pennsylvania is next, cliff, independent. caller: good morning. great subject. i think anybody, not just in the united states, but anybody living within any one of the economic powers, whether europe, asia, india, the united states, better keep an eye on this. this is a major economic power, hong kong. very important. -- ientioned an analogy spent my 1960's and 1970's in europe. i saw it firsthand -- it was not pretty. i am curious -- we remember kennedy, who said we should be "ein berliner." i am wondering if there is a leader somewhere in the world who would do that with her language with hong kong? guest: i cannot point to a current leader of a country who has been that forceful in standing with and in solidarity

with the people of hong kong. it is very significant that lord patton, the last british governor of hong kong and participated in the handover ceremony, has been very outspoken in standing with the people of hong kong. because he did his level best to make sure that the promises made in that joint declaration were going to be upheld. and it is very clear that beijing has decided to simply ignore them. host: i wonder if you have read david ignatius' column from last friday in the "washington post." he said we need to be honest with ourselves and others. the united states will not go to war to save free speech in hong kong. the hong kong protests present -- event a problem that rose often during the cold war. freedom fighters rose in hungary and others, but u.s.

policymakers view that it was too dangerous to intervene. he wrote that america has a tendency to make promises they cannot keep. when protesters proclaim and wrestle rights, we stand with them intellectually, but sometimes we go further, implying we are with them on the barricades, but we are rarely with them, and for good reason -- it is too dangerous. guest: we do not have a legal obligation or legal duty to support, materially, the people of hong kong in their confrontation with beijing. but i believe we have a moral duty, to understand that we are still the best chance for leadership of the free world. there is still a civilization and a way of life to this end, and there is no greater threat, materially and morally, to that then the chinese communist party. you have them supporting and funding the regime in north korea, you have them allying with vladimir putin militarily

increasingly, it is clear they are the leader of a new authoritarian, totalitarian order that is against democracy. i just want to point out that the choices are not "war or no thing." and the importance of realizing where the nature of the soviet union was as they rolled over and occupied countries in central and eastern europe following world war ii is they erected a literal wall in berlin and put up the iron curtain to keep people in, demonstrating that people did not want to be part of that regime, like we see in hong kong. they do not want to be part of the communist regime represented in beijing. if we see those events clearly for what they are, we can do nothing less than what we did in the late 1940's and early 1950's. to recognize that we are confronting a threat, and we are not going to war immediately

over it, but we have to reposition ourselves and understand that this is just the opening confrontation. as af we lose hong kong free city, we have lost the first major showdown in this confrontation with the people's republic of china. host: about 15 minutes left if you have questions about the protest movement in hong kong. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents, (202) 748-8002. virginia, of democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question for you. being that you have the military, the chinese military, they are buffing up and doing their practice runs and everything else, what is not to make it another tiananmen square? have all the millions of -- what ifcoming up

one crackpot takes a shot at the military or anything like that? what is to stop it from becoming a massacre of them people? guest: i think it is significant that, given the levels of protesters we have seen in the streets, it is very significant that there has been so little violence. most of the violence, overwhelmingly, has been on the part of the police against the protesters. also againstgangs, the protesters. stoppinghe only thing the chinese military from rolling into hong kong -- of course, the pretext would be that the hong kong police can no longer manage the situation and order needs to be restored -- the only thing stopping them is international pressure, at this point. we have to be honest with ourselves and remember what happened in 1989 and realized that they massacred a still

indeterminate number of people. we still do not know how many people they killed. it is illegal to talk about those events in china today. most young people in the mainland of china do not know a massacre took place in tiananmen square. from the logic of the communist party, they think they could do something similar and not have the sort of repercussions internally, because they have a total censorship state. host: even in the age of social media? guest: it is remarkable, the extent to which the chinese state has been able to use to stupefy the process of censorship and surveillance -- simplify the process of censorship and surveillance. what took a published -- a b abushka on every corner and soviet union, china can do on demand, in censorship. on the tech side, it is a

problem when you will have companies like google, and their project dragonfly, using american technology and american engineers to build a search engine for china that would keep the parameters of the chinese censorship state. that would be an example of the fact that three -- we still do not understand that beijing and washington represent two different systems. there is a confrontation on, and it involves millions of people and it involves territory and it involves the future. host: to the buckeye state. caller: good morning. my question is a comment and a question. the stuff happening in hong kong , these people are fighting for democracy, or the best that they can get.

meanwhile, back here in the united states, we are allowing protesters with masks and everything else to burn our buildings, shoot our people, and take away our rights, and we are not doing anything, and we are up in arms about hong kong. what is going on? guest: the last few days, it was quite a contrast, in hong kong, protesters waving american flags and singing the u.s. national anthem, while in the streets of portland, oregon, you have hammer and sickle flags and nazi tikas being waived. i do not know what else to tell if america's younger generations, millennials like myself and others, understood history, recent history, if they understood the meaning of those flags and those symbols, the difference between totalitarianism and freedom is,

to put it simplistically, we would have a much greater appreciation of our own system of government. just what we are doing this morning -- this is illegal in china, to talk like this. host: how do you define socialism? guest: socialism is public ownership of the means of production. it is a system that, ideologically and historically, has been antidemocratic. and some of the most unequal regimes in history have been socialist regimes. wonism, leninism, sort of the socialism argument. vladimir lenin and the bolsheviks brought to life the first marxist regime. and every single regime since them -- they have called themselves socialism. the union of soviet socialist republics. lenin immediately realized that communism was too far off -- that was a sort of heaven, and

they were not there yet. there were socialists trying to arrive to communism. xi jinping calls what is going on in china socialism with chinese characteristics. host: what is your view of democratic socialism in the united states? guest: since socialism and democracy have proven to be incompatible ideas, i do not really know what is meant by that. i do not think democratic socialism is any clearer a term or any more desirable a term than democratic fascism. those espousing that ideologically -- ideology have a lot to answer for. i think it is significant that leading figures calling themselves democratic-socialist's, be it bernie sanders or aoc, do not condemn these democratic-socialist's like maduro. they do not condemn socialism with chinese characteristics and what they carry out.

host: new brunswick, next. caller: i just wanted to comment about the opening of this segment, where over 100 million people were killed by the communists. i do not think that germany was a communist, nor japan. they started some pretty big wars. and look what we did to north korea and vietnam, afghanistan, iraq, libya, and just about every country in south and central america. i do not see the chinese doing anything like that. guest: china has an internal empire. they have been committing cultural genocide against the tibetans in tibet. there is one millionto 3 million uighurs. and you have some 50 million chinese people killed under the

regime established by mao and the chinese communist party in 1949. that remains the single bloodiest record of any regime in human history. when it comes to the united states, we did not start world war ii. in fact, world war ii was started directly as a result of a nonaggression pact signed by hitler's a -- by hitler and stalin in 1939, where they decided they were going to divide europe and fight wars against democracy. invadeds later, hitler poland. a few days later, stalin invaded finland and the baltic states. the caller mentioned korea. the only difference today that toows 25 million koreans live as slaves in north korea and 50 million koreans to live

free in south korea is the dmz mandated by america. appreciate that and know that if that line was not manned by the u.s. military, there is nothing stopping north korea from rolling into south korea and forcibly reunify the peninsula. it is are markable today that vietnamese people, especially the young people of vietnam, are very pro-american and are frankly terrified of the regime in china. there is an opportunity there to bring vietnam closer to us, under certain conditions that would require democratic reforms but would offer them a way to secure themselves, to some extent, from the aggression of beijing. host: from wisconsin, patty, a democrat. caller: thank you. for this very informative topic. what should the protesters in

hong kong do? guest: well, the protesters have been very clear -- there is no individual leader or individual organization that can be deemed to speak for the entire movement, which make it all the more remarkable that they have been so organized and have a consensus about what they are asking for. they are asking for the resignation of the chief executive, carrie lam, who, in their view, does not have the best interests of the people of hong kong in mind. she has the interests of beijing in mind. they have called for the withdrawal, the formal withdrawal, of the extradition bill in legco. and they have called for the immediate release of all the protesters arrested or detained. understand they are political prisoners and should be released. if those conditions are met, i think we would see a de-escalation of the crisis. but i think anything less than that, they have made very clear

-- and the unprecedented number yesterday -- it was clear that, after many weeks of protests and ups and downs, the movement is actually growing and shows no sign of abating without some sort of accommodation from beijing. host: what have been the downs? guest: the violence. the protesters have been clear that they do not want this to be a violent movement. you can see it from the science they put up, how they tried to -- from the signs they put up, how they try to keep order. how they try to weed out suburban surf -- subversive elements. that, givenmarkable 25% of the population was out on the streets, you have so little violence. but you have excessive use of force by the police.

you have teargas and rubber bullets being fired at close range against protesters. the umbrella in 2014 became a symbol, because once the teargas canisters came out, they put up umbrellas to deck themselves. host: jane, a republican. caller: thank you for the very good comments. hypocrisyion, it is that we support the people of hong kong as they are fighting for democracy. and we see that we need to stop we helped saudi arabia to kill freedom fighters. so it shows a line about supported democracy -- we only care which country gives us enough money to close our eyes on their brutality. democracy dies when money is more important than people's

lives for our politicians. thank you for your comments. well, i do not quite understand the question. host: that is ok. we have plenty more callers. milton, new york. caller: good morning. i am not a communist. i supervised with you. i am also suspicious of the hedge amid stick -- hegemonistic type tendencies this chinese government has. but i am also a realist. i was hoping you could address a couple of points that people on the other side of this are making, which is that america to, for better or worse, try cia, state, with the -- we have tried to

organized coups and other countries over the decades. the chinese are very suspicious of this. they consider the west, especially the united states and england, to the imperial powers trying to promote these types of things as a way of trying to dominate the world, either directly or indirectly. could you address that viewpoint they present to the world? guest: sure. the united states, obviously, is not perfect. i think it is clear there is no moral equality between the united states and the soviet union, between the united states and the people's republic of china. we have made mistakes, but that does not mean we should not try to push things in a direction -- host: what was our biggest mistake? guest: it all depends, but i think it was a mistake to fight the vietnam war the way we thought it. -- fought it. again, a very similar set of

dynamics in korea, the korean peninsula. in both cases, those were proxy wars fought between moscow and beijing, trying to combat the spread of international communism during the cold war. athink south korea, an ally, prosperous country, a close friend of the united states -- that is only possible because we had the will to fight the korea war and save the freedom of 50 million koreans. i think we have to accept where we are now. in the case of vietnam, we theld take advantage of opportunity that vietnam feels threatened by china. i personally do not think the chinese communist party has any right to rule the people of hong kong. i do not think they have a right to rule the tibetan people or the uighurs, no more than i thought the soviet union had a right to rule estonia, lithuania, and latvia simply

because they occupied them militarily. from the day of the occupation until the soviet union collapsed, the united states never recognize the authority of the soviet union over the baltic states. we have rate examples in history to understand the differences we can make when we understand the moral and material threats against our way of life and against free people. we need a little bit of that clarity today. that is not to say we do not situations,stic like the fact that the people's republic of china is the world's second most powerful country. again, the options are not "nothing or war." we can learn that by looking at the successes and failures of leading the free world during the war. host: one or two more calls for you. charles, maryland. caller: i was curious about this democracy topic.

slavery contribute to or --mocracy of asia because millions of african americans were killed in the process and millions of native americans, almost to the point of extinction in the name of democracy. host: that is charles in maryland. guest: the only slavery that exists in the world today is to be found outside what we would call the west or the free world. there is still slavery today, and there is a lot of it in the people's republic of china. out of the 1.5 million to 2 million uighurs -- 3 million uighurs enforced labor camps, which is a system that has existed in china for a long time, set up as a similar model to the soviet gulags. whichve north korea,

could be considered one giant slave labor camp. there is still involuntary labor and places where people have absolutely no rights. and it is the united states trying to make sure that less of the world looks like that, not more of it. massachusetts, independent. caller: thank you. my point is everybody in this country has been missed educated. -- miseducated. apparently, when african-americans were here, why were they slaves? what we have here is an international government and corporate banking system who promotes communism, fascism, and zionism, through these banking systems. host: did you want to jump in on that at all? guest: i think we need to parse

through what the response billet is of the united states -- response ability it -- responsibility is of the united states in balancing all of this, but it is also incumbent on corporations to decide whether they will fundamentally be global corporations that do not feel a responsibility to hold up the values of freedom and human rights in their relationships with dictatorships like china. i am personally offended that a company like google would be cooperating with chinese state security to try to build a system to help the communist party better surveilled and censor theurveil and chinese people. as americans wake up to the of the situation within china, that will be less and less accessible -- acceptable. host: a question on twitter --

will the united states sell out hong kong for a small victory in trump's trade war? guest: i hope not. host: from lawton, republican. usler: i hope you would give a sense of the living conditions in china. on top of that, i have seen on an email the consequences that these protesters are facing when they get arrested. really looking forward to your answer. guest: in terms of some of the treatment of protesters who were arrested, we know that there have been some pretty severe beatings taking place. that would be extrajudicial and is frankly not very much in keeping with the reputation of the hong kong police force for many decades. i think it shows the increasing corruption, not only of the police force in hong kong but

all of the city's institutions. when it comes to living and labor conditions inside china, it is a massive topic. at the very bottom, you would have those political prisoners who are in forest labor camps -- prisonlabor camps or detention systems. and you have a system of involuntary organ harvesting, where we know that thousands of -- organs have been fromsted involuntarily political prisoners and made available to party members and kind of an international tourism industry. that would be one extreme. of course, a massive population of undocumented chinese people who do not have papers and sort of migrate around the country. these would be children born to families who had violated the

one child policy. many anomalies to the chinese system that americans do not understand, because we think they are a system pre-much like ours, and they are not. what you have in china, more than one billion people, many of them are losers of the system. but you have a very large chinese communist party. some 90 million members. lots of winners in the chinese system as well. those are the voices that get out, their voices the world sees. our organization, and lots of others, are trying to make sure, in our relationship with china, we at least understand exactly what is happening inside of china and make sure that system, which is inferior to ours, does not spread forcibly to unwilling populations. host: marion smith, executive director of the victims of communism memorial foundation. oris victimsofcommunism.org

twitter.im on up next, professor j. alex halderman talks about voting machine security. first, last week, a meeting was held on the issue of election security and voting system certification. that, eight connecticut -- [video clip] >> i am planning to have a committee put together to look at what we are calling the future of voting, because we do not know where that is going. that is always the case with any computerized system. my biggest ask of this organization is to hustle up with the certification and standards. because we are going to be in a situation where we will have to replace our current system

within the next few years. we have been very satisfied with the usage of these systems. we have gotten used to them. we have paper ballots, people mark them themselves, there is a great deal of trust in connecticut and our election process, because we use all best -- all the best practices. but there will be a big need for us to have a lot of information from a source that understands this and knows where the field is going. that would be my request. that $5 million has been invaluable in helping us maintain what we have and do better. and we will continue. we have a plan that will go on several years. a lot of it is about training, because we have lots of local officials. connecticut is also unique. we do not just have clerks or county clerks managing elections in each of the -- elections. 169 counties, we

have two registrars, one from each party, who manage voting. it is a very decentralized, we like to say, system. but there is lots of training involved. these are not folks familiar with technology, necessarily. i think our biggest challenge is training and making sure people change their passwords, know what a phishing email is. very basic, really. >> "washington journal" continues. host: j. alex halderman joins us from ann arbor, michigan, where he teaches engineering and computer science at the university of michigan. one of your research specialties is computers and election security. i wonder what you thought of this headline last week -- hackers can easily rate into voting machines used across the united states. hackers at a recent las vegas conference penetrated voting machines within minutes, turning

them into gaming consoles. guest: well, unfortunately, it is all too true. election infrastructure across the united states remains weakly againstd and vulnerable sophisticated foreign hackers. we have a lot of work to do as a country before 2020 and elections to come. that headline is talking about the defcon conference in las vegas, and the students who turned those voting machines into gaming consoles imported some of our resort students from here at michigan -- research students from here at michigan. voting machines are unfortunately a target ripe for the picking. host: you are someone who has personally hacked a voting machine yourself. why did you do that and what did you learn? guest: oh, yes. in security research, i and

other colleagues have brought many different kinds of voting machines and other election equipment into the laboratory to test them. we played the role of an thecker and see how easily real bad guys could make them misbehave. what we have found, with every single kind of voting machine that has been rigorously tested, unfortunately, his vulnerabilities where someone could hack in, but malicious software on the voting machine, cause it to be sabotaged or even silently steal votes. with electionork officials at the state or federal level to show them what you have learned about how easy it is to have these machine --hack these machines? guest: yes. i am currently cochairing, for the michigan secretary of state, a commission to advise the state on how to become a national leader in election security. i also spent frequent trips to

washington trying to educate lawmakers. what we need is more research for the states in terms of funding, in terms of standards, so that all states can get up to the forefront of election security. to have that, we will need a stronger national leadership on the election security question. that is at the root of the problem, why we have such a poor posture for securing elections in this country today. host: take us to the wolverine estate and the resources you get -- the wolverine state and the resources you get for this issue. guest: michigan is a good example. it already has a pretty strong posture when it comes to securing elections. that is because, in michigan, like in about half of states, every single vote is cast by voters on a piece of paper. paper might seem retrograde, but it is actually a pretty good defense against election

hacking, because it is something that cannot possibly be changed in a cyberattack. so what michigan still needs to do, as what many other states need to do, is make sure they are using that paper as a form of cyber defense. in order to do that, we have to check enough of the pieces of paper, the paper ballots, by having a person inspect them and make sure they agree with the computer systems that give us our election night totals. as long as the paper records and computer records agree about who won, we can have high confidence that the election result was not somehow tampered with. host: in the 2018 election, how many americans cast votes on machines that did not have that paper backup? guest: unfortunately, about 25% of americans in 2018. and there are still 14 states that, for at least some voters, do not have any kind of paper backup at all. that is a problem because it

means those states, for those voters, are relying entirely on the output of these compex voting machines that have been shown, numerous times, to have -- complex voting machines that have been shown, numerous times, to have weaknesses. they are much more centralized than they may seem. all of this leads to a situation where we have the potential for sophisticated foreign attackers to get in and sabotage the system. att: what is the argument, this point, for not having a paper backup for your voting machine as a state official? last week, there was a caller who called in specifically about this issue and was concerned about boxes of ballots being found for machines that use paper backups and whether those could be just as easily messed with as a hacker getting into a computer system. guest: we have had a long

history in this country of people tampering with paper ballots in order to interfere with elections. that is why a modern approach is not just to go back to paper and count it by hand. what i and other security experts, recommend is having that paper ballot box but also, right in front of the voter, scanning the ballot into a computer. that is one of the most common ating machines, where you get paper and electronic record that thatn check in and audit there is the same winner. that is or electronic records by themselves. you need both lots of people on the ground tampering with individual ballots, and sophisticated hackers getting into the computer system. inse who have to coordinate a way because the same tampering

in each kind of record, that would just be a remarkable kind of attack, well beyond anything that we've seen. today, i don't think that there are many serious people who would still argue that we don't need a paper trail with elections. that is pretty much done. it's just a question of resources. host: our guest from the university of michigan, he teaches and consults on the issue of election security. he's with us for the next 15 minutes to answer your questions about election security. less than 15 months until election day 2020. republicans can call in at (202) 748-8001. forgive me, (202) 748-8000. eastern or central time zones, we have split up originally. (202) 748-8001 in the mountain or pacific time zones. if i have not confused you enough, we will let you look at the numbers on the screen. frank in new york, good morning. caller: good morning. i was wondering how, they don't

withce more paper trail the very fine and -- to be verified and people can really check the real results. in the dominican republic and several countries where a lot of , and there is no way to go back and check those sources for the corruption that played out on voting day. well, i think you are getting at a very excellent point. what we need to secure elections and to give everyone confidence is to make sure that every voter has a piece of paper that they can see and verify is recording their votes that they intend. and that the process of counting and auditing those votes needs to be as transparent as possible. long, elections in america have been based on

eight, on people having faith that the operators of the system, the election officials are doing their jobs and taking every necessary precaution. it does not have to be that way. we need to engineer elections so that they are based on evidence. evidence that any skeptical voter can see and check to know that the election is free from any kind of interference. host: pennsylvania is next. angel, good morning. caller: good morning. usingd like to know about technology for security. guest: block chain. block chain is good for some things. you might know about bitcoin and other crypto currency, it is based on block chain technology that essentially gives you a way for everyone to agree about what transactions run through the system without having any central-bank or central

authority that is making those calls. , something like block chain could be part of a more secure solution, having a way to or thecords of votes records of voter registration that anyone can check. the problem is, it is not nearly a complete solution. to continue the example of bitcoin, with bitcoin, we still have problems of theft because people lose their passwords, installattackers malicious software on their computers, or because attackers break into bitcoin exchanges. just like there is still theft despite watching technology and bitcoin -- block chain technology and bitcoin, we still can have problems with election integrity even if we applied watching technology. it might be a step lower, but it

is away from the whole solution. host: dominic out of new york, you're next. , your: i live in new york given them your name, they give uniform. what about showing id to make sure the person who is getting that paper is really who they say they are? from what i've heard, a lot of dead people have been voting. i would like your opinion on that. so, voter identification is a complicated question. there is a kind of trade-off between two things we really, really want. we want to make sure everyone who is entitled to vote is able to, and we want to make sure that nobody who is not entitled to vote falsely does. when you have that kind of tension between two properties, it's always hard to balance them. states have taken different approaches to where they want to air on that, and it remains a

matter of policy. i would say there's not a lot of evidence of people falsely voting by impersonating other people. bet of that fraud tends to by a fraudulent voter registration and so forth. the reason for that is that there are severe penalties for casting a vote when you are impersonating someone else. you can go to jail for it. that's a lot of risk to take as a criminal for just one or a very small number of fraudulent votes. the caller asked for your opinion on voter id, the president offered his opinion when he was leaving new jersey yesterday and headed back to d.c. here is the president talking to reporters. trump: i think voter id laws are, if you look, voter identification. when people show up to vote, if you look, judicial watch made a settlement with california, i guess, or los angeles, where

they found over one million names that was very problematic, a problem. and you just take a look at that settlement. that's a lot of names. people well over 100 years old that were voting, what we know they are not around any longer. you have a lot of voter fraud. the easiest way is voter identification. we have to go and think about that. i hope republicans and democrats can vote, sit down and work something out with voter id. >> they didn't find any actual fraud. trump: the commission was having a tremendous problem, legally getting papers from various states like california. they were absolutely hard lighting. they did not want to give this commission. it was just a quick commission headed up by vice president pence to look at voter fraud. the problem the commission had,

we had to have a vast amount of lawyers which i did not want to bother with his california and other states were giving us no information whatsoever. and the reason they were giving us information is because they were guilty. they were guilty of it, and they know they are guilty of it. many, many people voted who should not have been voting. some people voted many times. what i'm saying is we need voter identification, we need voter id. host: your thoughts on the president's comments from yesterday? guest: well, i think the president has maybe some of this fax wrong about the number of voters who could possibly be voting fraudulently. whos not one million people are voting falsely in california. that may be the number of voter registration records that have needed to be checked, or there is something out of date about them.

one of the interesting things about voter registration is that, in many states, the voter registration list are a problem. anyone can go in and check the names on those with to see whether there are people who are dead were moved out of state, or just don't exist. so, that transparency does tovide a kind of protection help members of the public confirm for themselves whether the voter rolls seem to have integrity. northa little bit further , vancouver, canada. billy, go ahead. caller: good morning. no matter how much he repeats them, trumps lies about voter fraud are patently untrue. it's just an ever to restrict franchising to nonwhites. mitchndering why

mcconnell won't pass any election security bills in the senate. an argument against passing election security bills. so having russian interference somehow benefits democrats? it's ridiculous. that, canou answer you also give us the state of election security bills in congress might not -- in congress right now? ofthere have been a number very strong efforts on a bipartisan basis to a bipartisan basis to advance election security bills in congress. particularly in the senate. the last congress bill to secure elections gained significant bipartisan support. there are several good bills that have been introduced this term so far. but the caller is right. mitch mcconnell is the major roadblock to election security legislation in this country. he just has not been allowing anything to make it out of committee or reached the senate

floor. i don't want to speculate about his motivations for that. but i will say that many republicans and democrats already recognize that election security is a significant national security issue. , which isderal action never going to be able to move forward in a coordinated manner as a country, or give the states the resources they need in order to protect the public. host: corpus christi, texas. daniel, good morning. caller: i have an idea. why not use a dollar bill, since they have serial numbers, to memorialize the votes on. go do your place, they give you a special pen to mark your dollar bill, and some kind of camera takes a picture of your dollar bill. and you walk home and you've got your paper receipt and you've got your dollar bill and then you can spend it later and it becomes one of those bitcoin things.

incentive to go voting as well? that ishe problem with that your vote needs to remain as secret as possible. we want to have a secret ballot. that means we can't just give voters a receipt that memorializes how they voted. if we didn't do that, if you did get a receipt, someone could coerce you into voting a certain way, or make it much easier for people to buy or sell votes. for that reason, the secret ballot is one of the most important security protections we have an elections. we need to maintain ballot findingwhile also mechanisms that increase the integrity of the count. that's what makes this a difficult security problem. we want both of those things at the same time. host: you mentioned mitch mcconnell, his home state. crescent springs, good morning.

caller: yes, mitch mcconnell is running for reelection in 2020. we need to push this issue in kentucky because he is my senator. i think he would address this issue a little bit earlier. we have like 120 counties in kentucky and out of those 120, 38 of our counties had more voters registered than we did in the population. it could be various reasons to why this was happening. currently, now, we have what i would call the optical scan. we have a paper where i fill up my black box and then we scan it through. i hope that is more viable than any of the others. also, what i would really like to see, i would like to see more control of our voting by the county clerk in our counties, rather than giving it to the secretary of state, and she was

sued by judicial watch for not cleaning up the voter rolls and at this time, the voter rolls are still not cleaned. person runningw for secretary of state and every one of these candidates and the primary has basically supported cleaning up these the voter rolls. another issue i would like to address -- host: we are out of time, i want to give professor halderman a chance to respond to follow that. guest: i would say that the very positive thing that you just mentioned is the optical scan paper ballots in the polling place. that is the best technology we have currently for securely recording people's votes. what the state also needs to do is make sure that those paper ballots are being regularly audited to make sure that they match the statewide results. is not expensive, it is not

particularly time-consuming, but it is a step that most states just don't do yet. but they need an audit in order to get a strong assurance. i think another interesting point this raises is just how local election administration tends to be. about 8000 different jurisdictions across the country responsible for running elections on the local level. unfortunately, we just don't have good standards to provide a minimum floor for securing elections across those 8000 jurisdictions. i think that's where more federal resources and federal standards could play a huge role in making things better. we still have to allow autonomy for jurisdictions to accommodate local needs and go beyond those standards, but as it is, from county to county and state to state, we just have a highly varied patchwork of strongly protected and weakly

protected jurisdictions. host: outlook turkey new mexico, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. are in new mexico, we have really good election system, i believe. i am concerned about what happens if there is an election that is questioned, where the thelts come out so that election is actually in question, even in some local jurisdictions. i've thought about the question of what happens if there is a over anddoing election, which i think would be disastrous. has got the who leading edge on those kinds of things. do you just have to throw it to the courts and cross your fingers? good question, what happens if we find out that something is wrong? i think the answer to that is going to depend a lot on the

local rules in each state about whether there are things like recounts available under the law, whether there is a paper trail to go back to and check. the good thing when you have a paper trail, you can go back, audits, potentially recounts if the audit is showing something wrong. then gets much more evidence about what is happening. it's possible the paper has been tampered with and we need to investigate any kind of evidence for that, whether the paper or the computer record has more integrity in that case. but this is all about making sure elections are more resilient. we need players of protection including physical backups like the paper trail, including other cyber security advances to just make them as difficult to alter and as easy to go back and recheck as we can. new mexico, by the way, has a great history of strong election

administration, including that they are one of the states that does the most to check the paper trail after every election to make sure it is rigorously audited and confirming the computer results are right. professor halderman is a computer science and engineering professor at the university of michigan. i'm sure we will chat with you again before the election but we appreciate your time today. guest: thank you. host: up next, we will talk about the conservation movements around the globe and climate change with the host of the pbs which looks at mankind's relationship with the planet. before we have that conversation, here he is talking about what he has learned hosting that television series and a clip from pbs. >> when you understand how we fit in the picture, you can get an understanding of how the wild works.

lionsre's at least three out there. technology to live alongside us. these people have held onto their traditions which inspires them to love their livestock and love the land itself. but there's also a reason which they need the lions. they have had the courage to protect new ways to protect wildlife. i'm really on a little bit of a desperate search. to find whether there are places where people and nature can still coexist. and when i find a place like where we are right now, this is somehow a landscape that has moved the on conservation.

-- moved beyond conservation. >> meet the architects of the new world. forming partnerships with some of the most incredible wildlife on earth. announcer: washington journal continues. oft: we welcome the ceo you say you are an optimist when it comes to the future of conservation and climate. is it hard to be an optimist in today's world? guest: great to be here. it is sometimes hard to be an optimist, but a pessimist i don't think ever got anything done. you have to think that the world could be better tomorrow. i just had a baby girl, six weeks old. host: congratulations. myst: a little unexpected at age, but when you look at this kid, you really feel like you

can't help but feel a great sense of hope. host: you think most environmentalists are optimists right now? guest: no, i don't think so. i think today's current drive in environmentalism is really out of a sense of real despair. it, particularly young people, because those young people will have to deal with the worst. the opportunities for doing something about it are rapidly shrinking. folks from my generation still remember the natural world, still has the energy to go out and see things and enjoy things and that gives us some sense of courage when we come back and go into battle. host: in the washington post, a in hiscolumn, he said column that a series of recent polls have detected that many americans are declaring that they are facing co-anxiety --

eco-anxiety. farature is already too gone, why go through the trouble of trying to save it? he says we must not just fixate on the bad news. >> completely. try to think about the triumphs. and there are positive changes. apple, aths ago, company invests in forests in columbia as a way to mitigate some of the emissions from their company. you go into every big company, you will see quite arerly that those companies really, really keen about trying to make a difference when it comes to climate. if you look at legislation in this country and abroad, if you look at the news on any given day, there is stories about the environment. there is good news out there. the endangered species

act, i know that it is kind of on people's minds. the fact that we have bought eagles flying around the capital, that is kind of an amazing thing. we have made progress. these are bright spots and what we need to do is scale it. with us until the end of our program, talking about international conservation, climate change. you can join the conversation. phone lines, regional. (202) 748-8000 in the eastern or central time zones. if you live in the mountain or pacific time zones. a hostith your work as of that program, you are also ceo of conservation international. what is that? we are an organization builds on very simple premise that people need nature to survive. we try to protect nature for climate, massively increase ocean conservation and fish

management, and create models of sustainability that can be replicated around the world by working with communities, businesses, and governments. board, greatzing relationships were partners around the world from indigenous people to big companies. we try to build the divide. the main thing is that we really do work in some of the toughest places on the planet. liberia, columbia, indonesia, brazil. kenya. south africa. the work is challenging, the work is exhilarating. at the end of the day, we are always trying to make sure that people who live within the proximity of nature around them are protecting nature in their own enlightened forms. they have to do it because it makes their lives materially better. it helps create jobs, it makes them healthier. because i'm be

doing it. and hostween your work of the pbs series, a writer describing your job once as "skip around the globe and tell people bewitching tales about places in need of protection." would you say that is accurate? guest: part of it is accurate. host: how does that help? guest: you which means that people get transfixed. people need change because of stories. great stories are the ones that are able to determine the course of humanity. years, you250,000 would probably find a small groups of hunter gatherers standing around telling stories about what is over the hill. whether it is president trump over here or sanders on the other end of the spectrum, they are great storytellers. ability always had the

to stir people's imaginations and drive countries, nations forward. thornburg?s greta guest: a young woman who might quite literally change the world. certainly, when i look at my i think she's a 16-year-old girl. she's the one who basically said hey, what is the point of going to school and learning all of the science of all of the leaders and the politicians are basically not taking the science seriously? why am i sitting in school learning about stuff if my leaders are actually not using that stuff to change the world? so she started this process. one day a week she sat outside and said basically, i'm not going to go to school.

it has now caught the imagination of young people around the world, including in this country. today, we are seeing young teenagers, younger kids than that who are really engaged. they can see their future being thrown away by those of us in charge. and to be honest, that is the most exhilarating thing i've seen in a long, long time. that gives me a real sense of hope. host: does the conservation movement, the climate change movement, do they need better storytellers? guest: absolutely. they need better storytellers in two ways. the stories need to be better and they need -- and the ways of telling the stories themselves have to be more diverse. they have to represent the people whose stories they are trying to tell. one of the big challenges of climate change has in that in the past, the stories we were telling were mostly doom and gloom. the stories we were telling were

being told by basically those in power who had kind of seen the light. not seeinge african-americans, hispanics, asians. you were not seeing young people, you were not seeing conservatives. you were not seeing people from outside this country. turn on the television and look at any natural history show. ask yourself how many of those folks are people of color, of any color. how many of them are women? and you realize you are trying to do a show to convince the world about climate change and half the planet is basically asian, having an asian host might actually help that debate a little bit. host: what is your story? guest: in terms of my background? i was born in sri lanka, i grew up in africa, i came to the united states because i heard a bruce springsteen song. i came out here on a whim. i went to the university of oregon and then the university

of california, santa cruz. i got my phd in biology. i joined the nature conservatory and then three years ago became the ceo of conservation international. host: how did you get involved? guest: i have a drivers license, which is one of the coolest things out there because i have a wonderful place, and i think my years in montana really gave me an appreciation about the american dream in this country. host: how did you get involved in the pbs show? guest: i've done television shows further the bc and others and i think it happened because i met some folks, like always. i pitched this idea that we needed to do a show about wildlife where we were in with the action. and you look at these wildlife shows, they show you the serengeti, all this amazing wildlife, and you don't realize there are people right there. if you turn the camera around,

there's a whole village. to me, that is a more interesting story. when you live in montana, one of the things you really appreciate, you are living in a landscape with people that it lewis and clark were to come back today, they would see all of the plants and animals they saw on the original journey. imagine that. this place with people that has not had a single extinction that we know of. what is the magic? what is going on? that is the story worth telling. host: with us until the end of the program today, if you want to join the conversation, talking about the future of conservation and climate change. (202) 748-8000 is the number in the eastern or central time zones. (202) 748-8001 if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones. texas, good morning. caller: thank you very much. chemist atmosphere texas an end, worked at ucla and developed some of the controls

on your ignitions in cars. anyway, i worked with the professor that coined the term global warming. it's 36 seconds, i'm going to tweet it to you. i would like for you to discuss his idea of climate change. gone through the geological history over hundreds of millions of years. that man has any influence on this world? thank you. guest: that is a great question. theate has changed through course of the evolution of this planet, and quite dramatically so. veryne thing we know very, well, and we've known this for a long, long time, chemistry itself. exactly how the chemistry worked. we understand exactly have a physics affect the planet's of greenhouse gases.

we've known for a very, very long time. those are things that we understood. today, different virtually any scientist you speak to an virtually any politician you speak to is willing to at least concede that inans are playing a part changing the temperature of the planet today. what we can tell you very is that carbon dioxide is going up very quickly. i've been to the top where you are measuring carbon dioxide concentrations. years,span of over 50 and you can see every single year, it never goes down, he goes up. that, we know it's because we are burning fossil fuels. how much are we interpreting versus other things? that is the most important. here are the most important things. the only piece of this we can actually control is what we do.

way oft really have a controlling volcanoes, we don't really have a way of controlling other factors that might be adding methane or carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. we can control what we do. and here is what i will tell you. carbon dioxide levels today, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere levels today are higher than ever in human history. so, we are living on a planet partsell over or hundred per million in the atmosphere which has not evidence need as long as humans have been around. i don't need as long as america or civilization, i mean humans. this kind of atmospheric level existed, there were hippos in alaska and rhinoceroses in great britain. a very different environment. we are living in uncharted territories. we only have one planet. we know that humans are putting

up some portion of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. the only portion that we have a way of controlling or limiting. int: the u.n. climate week new york is coming up next month. if you could address the attendees, what would you tell them? to be there,ing and i will have some opportunity to speak to at least some of the leaders. say isgest thing i would that today, companies seem to be on board. we need government policies to move this thing forward. good's been some really spots. columbia, the country of columbia. has introduced a carbon tax that basically allows for some part of those emissions to be used to protect forests. what i would tell the delegates is it's a great thing that other countries can replicate. the second thing i would tell delegates is that it's incredibly important to protect forests. one piece of the climate is completely left out.

we are, right now, on a fast , a badr a speeding boat analogy to use in america, but a speeding boat in terms of dealing with technological transformation. solar, wind, other technology. lots of money. where we have hugely lag is in protecting forests. ,t turns out that deforestation cutting down trees, deforestation for burning of trees as a country, it would fall right behind china and the united states. it would be the third biggest danger on the planet. but 30% of the emissions going up in the atmosphere come from earth destroying intact forests. that is insane. in this day and age, we need to cut down. intact forests in order to grow food. protecting forests, particularly tropical forests and men groups

-- mangroves is hugely important. if you and i wanted to change the thermostat in our lifetime, this one i could ask you to do, support any effort to stop deforestation. it would actually change the thermostat during our lifetimes. host: portland, oregon is next. william, good morning. caller: good morning. your guest is pretty full of himself. baby.st he has a population control would be the thing. we just have too many people on the planet. host: too many people on the planet? guest: that's a really interesting or challenging proposition. what is the right number of people on the planet? a million, a billion, 7 billion? 10 billion? no good evidence to show that one number is actually

better than another. it's about how we live on the planet. billion, andut 7.5 we are heading towards somewhere 9 billion, maybe 10 billion or 11 billion. most countries have really leveled out population growth. the person who called from i went and talked to the guy who wrote the book, and back in the day, that was a very controversial book that he wrote. i asked him, if you wrote the book today, would you call it the population? and he said no, i would call it the consumption bomb. here is the thing about population. with enough education and opportunity, populations tend to level out. people do tend to have less kids. very quickly. bangladesh in the 1970's to 2.2y, seven kids per woman,

kids per woman, almost a replacement rate. that is remarkable, in my lifetime. what hasn't changed, consumption. consumption has gone like that. it doesn't really matter how much you talk about population if we don't deal with consumption. i think that consumption is a far bigger problem we don't seem to want to know, we just to one more than what we have. host: texas is next. caller: the man from portland actually stated what i wanted to talk about, and that is overpopulation. you may be right about consumerism, but the more people we have, the more things are going to be consumed. all of the deforestation is the so-calledn

third world countries where the populations are exploding so much. seem to the incorrect, because this overpopulation is really taking place in third world countries. on that and as you are answering, is that where most of it is taking place, third world countries? guest: they are typically developing countries. you can't say that deforestation, historically, hasn't taken place in developing countries. we have to have a little bit of humility to understand the impact that humans, a very small number of humans, had in the united states. i was very thoughtful when i criticized or laid blame in other countries, developing

countries, given how little they have and how much they have managed to protect. country, we have done a pretty good job of clearing a lot of land. you will see land below you that comes from a time of prairies. underf it is now gone very mechanized, very large-scale industrial agriculture. colombia, brazil, indonesia. deforestation is taking place around the world. some of the biggest challenges in the arctic, this is a global bangladesh or sri lanka population has started leveling off. planning is absolutely

necessary and our ability in this country to be able to make of everyone care here, but also people around the world, is a critical part of this. no one is saying the population is not important, but consumption and the rate of and people around the world want to live like we do, there's not going to be enough resources. caller: good morning, i want to thank the speaker for his optimism. it's refreshing to hear that because it is such a depressing topic. my question was about the overlap between human beings and animals and how much he is trying to tap into the survival of the other species, and i will leave it there. guest: great question.

important a hugely force. toreally allows humans cooperate in a way that you rarely have seen in other species. our ability to support ourselves -- to put ourselves in someone else's shoes has done a tremendous amount of good for the planet. our empathy for other life on earth is really important and certainly, how we think about other life forms that have spent millions of years evolving with us, is really important. that said, i love nature. it's why i still have a place in montana, i like going to a landscape where i know there is something bigger that could potentially kill me. that's just me. this proposition that saves nature, save the forest, it might come back to bite you, it's not a great proposition for most people around the planet. for me, i'd use the language of love.

i love nature, i love wildlife. i love seeing elephants and grizzly bears. for most folks i know around the world including in this country, the language is one of value. i value forests because they prevent erosion. i value the groundwater because it allows me to water my crops. i value clean air because it allows me to breathe easier and avoid diseases. that is where i think it is great to think about empathy and think about love, but you really do also have to think about the language of value. been lost in as lot of the environmental by log today. host: interesting you use the term, you are bitten by a python in australia? guest: i have been bitten by a lot of things. things. a dozen i have never sat down and counted, i might. host: what was the worst? guest: i have been bitten by a python twice and they are quite

bad because they are not poisonous but in australia, i did not know what it was that got me in the water. snakes,e very poisonous but they can did very badly infected. the python byte was on my hand and took a long time to heal. it was quite bad. host: why do you love being in a place where there is something that can kill you? guest: i think it cap's into some primordial part of our brain. you walk into a place where you ago,like 100,000 years humans were putting their footprints there. your relationship with nature changes. you are not the master of everything you can see. there is some sense of humility. when you are out in nature, you are close to god. that is how i really feel. that there are greater forces at work and greater powers at work that actually make me smarter, better, more empathetic. host: this series, earth: a new

while. our guest for about 15 more minutes, if you have questions you can join us on the regional line. eastern and central time zones, (202) 748-8000. mountain and pacific, (202) 748-8001. pasadena, california, you are next. problem is about the population, we are at 7.5 billion right now. we are going to be at 10 billion in the future. planetsthree earth-like just for resources to survive. the other problem is the methane being produced. the last eight years in the siberian arctic, the methane has been leaking at an undeniable rate. the other second producer of the methane is the cattle on the planet. man needs to change their diet, get off the mea and start eating at -- get off the meat and start

eating a vegan diet. if you are an environmentalist and you are not a vegan and you are flying around the planet, you are part of the problem. point -- there first it is a fair point that we are all part of the problem and that is the one thing that is unique about climate change. we are all part of the problem. today, but i here certainly took a vehicle to get here today. so, we are all part of the problem, but we can also all the part of the solution. this cannot be that these are bad guys, and these are good guys, and that's the way it is. we are all part of the problem but we are all part of the solution as well. i'm sailing on a sailboat and that's great, but i get it.

it's not like everyone can just hop on a sailboat in sale across the atlantic. changing our diet is really important. thinking about how we do large-scale industrial agriculture, particularly cattle. addition toolute methane levels in the atmosphere. so, this is going to require engineering at a scale that we have not ever contemplated. it's not like going to the moon. it's not like going to the moon. a lot of people say climate change is like our moonshot. it isn't at all. it is going to benefit the people who need it most. it's going to require all of us and at the end of the day, it will transform the economy into a world-class, future thinking, forward-looking economy rather than one that is stuck trying to protect the past. host: the caller brings up your

pbs show, you were in a village in africa. somebody said to you, i'm worried about the rhinos. story,in this particular we are trying to convince these villagers to care about endangered rhinos. which are being poached in the nearby national park. of us try to convince them that they are the last on the planet and they are really worthwhile. and they said, we get it, but at the end of the day, we are cattle people. you don'tur cows and care one bit about it. we can't even sell this meat, we can't even sell our beef because they won't buy it from us. and unless you change that system and give us an economic incentive to protecting the rhinos, why should we? very simply, he said, i will start caring about rhinos and you start caring about my cows, and we have done that. gone back and created a system people, this is

practiced in some part of africa that actually can add carbon into the soil. they can now sell their beef in a limited fashion. host: who is "we?" guest: conservation international, working with partners, how to create a system by which some of the sales could happen, which immediately give in themmunity a stake well-being of that national park. guestsurists come, more ,. his income is going to go up. unless you give people this notion. saving nature cannot be a hobby. it has to be something we do because it is in our own self-interest. unless people start believing that, it is not going to ever scale, and we needed to scale fast.

this is ohio, good morning. caller: good morning, thanks for taking my call. a quick inquiry, a little background. classgraduate top of my and defensive information school for the united states coast guard. got a couple of awards. i understand journalism, i did a great deal of research into alternative energy and technology, that type of stuff. interviewed several industry , and i wound of retireesting with some . host: what is the future of energy? caller: here's my question. i would like to be able to pass along some information because i

think there's a really great solution right here. a lot of it is politics and industry. society, weof, as a are looking at the global concerns of the environment. you are going in and out, what is the solution before really zero? -- before we lose you? caller: how would i go about passing in my research so that he could take advantage from it? website,rough our through our webpage, you can send messages on their. i will say one thing about technology and a couple things that the caller brought up. first, interestingly, the defense department is probably one of the most enlightened departments in the u.s., consistently so, that really understands the threat of climate change.

taken veryvy seriously, the military taken very seriously. and they really do rent climate change as a global threat. very high-level global threat. need toitary bases prepare for it, need to make -- theyt they are not are prepared for the unrest that is coming with climate change. thankfully, we find a lot of allies within the u.s. military who fully understand this threat because the one thing that the u.s. department of defense is really good on is looking at data. and following the signs. the second thing i would say, there are a lot of tech solutions out there, very few of them can really scale up fast enough right now, no matter what we do. except for one, and that is protecting the forest. if you plant trees, you protect that is theest,

ready-made, fastest solution to mitigating climate emissions. california is about to do something really remarkable. if we are lucky, and if people push it in the right way, ,alifornia is going to pass their resources board is basically going to ask for a reduction in emissions with a toll part of that reduction the protection of tropical forest. they will be the single largest investment in tropical forests that i can think of. host: virginia, marianne, good morning. caller: hello? i just wanted to talk about the plastic scourge. i think it is one of the worst things that is happening. 90% ofread online that the sea-birds are now infested

with plastic. whale with agnant stomach full of plastic died. turtles. they all in just the plastic. they think it is food and then they starve to death. this is something that has been simmering for a very long time, and the last couple of years has really come to a boil. you cannot escape this notion of single use plastic, plastics that are very difficult to recycle. he is what you need to know. very glad for national geographic and others putting the plastic issue front and center for most of us who knew about it, but really had no way to articulate it to that scale. it is a big problem. the challenge, we really don't know how big a problem it is. it is pervasive in some oceans, it is pervasive in the food chain. it is pervasive and they --

virtually any fish you eat. it probably does have a long-term impact on us. most of the plastic that ends up in the ocean comes from rivers, and most of those rivers are in asia. a couple of them are in africa but most oferica, the challenges come from indonesia, australia, the philippines, where else? mexico. host: china is not on that list? guest: china, china is probably on that list but actually does not mostly come out of china. indonesia will rank higher than china on that list. because,n for this is most of the countries don't have great systems to collect the waste and put it into recycling in a useful way. we need to tackle plastics. to have new

infrastructure that can actually collected, recycling, and put it back into use over long periods of time. probably the best way to do it, ultimately, is to have some kind e or tax, because you are going to have to pay for this and without having some kind of way in which we can create income streams for people to recycle it, it is not economically viable. it is easier to buy new plastic bags than it is to recycle them. of copies are getting involved in every single company i've talked to in the last will --months, from walmart to are focused on this issue. i really would not be surprised in the next year or two if we see major movement from companies and amongst governments like indonesia, where plastic is being tackled at the scale it requires.

host: less than five minutes left, the last color for you. darrell, washington, d.c.. stick by your phone. john in cleveland, ohio. caller: good morning. i speak your language. americans used to worship mother nature. i don't want to use that word on tv. in sanskrit, they worshiped it. first of all, labeling is the main thing in america. the label is more important than the content. don't use the word global warming, but climate change may be better. course, andjob, of

montana is a big sky country. want,n do whatever you it's not going to hell for the next generation. host: on labeling? i think words matter, and what we call these things does matter. i always felt that global warming, you hear that word, it feels quite cozy. it is really climate catastrophe, that is what we are facing. , evenou deal with cities in this city, dealing with the heat has been unbelievable. if the hottest month ever in human history. ever in human history. this july. we lived through it. a lot of people are not living through it. labels do matter. we have to use words. i think it needs to be called a

catastrophe because that's what it is. i don't think it is just warming, i think it's going to be the impact on humans is very big. host: and yet you are still optimistic. i think humans have this incredible ability to have .mpathy, create, think about things we have dramatically changed. walk around washington, d.c. when you see that, you realize the history of the country and was all gone. today, agriculture is an important part. there is no way agriculture defines was all gone. everything. things change rapidly. i'm optimistic because of human ingenuity, young people marching in the streets.

i see our ability to imagine a better future and at the end of the day, i know we are on the right side of history. climate change provides a great challenge and great opportunity for humans as well, great opportunity for this country. host: the host of pbs: earth: a new wild and ceo of conservation international. hope you join us again down the road. that is going to do it for our program today. we will be back here tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. eastern, 4 a.m. pacific. in the meantime, have a great monday. ♪

1979 a small network rolled out a big idea, let viewers make up their own minds. unfiltered content from congress and beyond, a lot has changed, but today that big idea is more relevant than ever. on television and online, c-span, you're on filtered view of government. write to you as a public service your cable provider. >> one of the headlines from the hill today, losey has warned the secretary of treasury to stop illegal cuts to foreign aid. the house speaker says cuts to funds already appropriate to buy --gress could put any budget

committee and was first elected to congress in 1988. this representative will face a 32-year-old lawyer and you can find more details at roll call.com. >> tonight on the communicators, on data privacy and if enough is being done to protect americans. >> on thing we could do is make it so that is illegal to use social security numbers for identification purposes outside of the so social security. this is something that the numbers were never intended to do, and for a long time, ed even said on the card this is not for identification purposes. that is something that could be

done. you have to prove your identity through other means. 8:00tch this tonight at eastern time on c-span2. rashida tlaib said she would not go to israel after it said it would fan boycotts during her visit. this is hosted by fundraisers in the detroit area in highland park. >> this is a serious question that we have to address. we have panelists today that will talk about this specific issue. the question of what do we do for folks that need long-term care? what do we do about our seniors that want to live at home but they need a little bit of help making sure their ducks are in a row.

these are the things we are trying to talk about today when we talk about things like long-term care and family care. and the other point, when someone in your family get sick you shouldn't have to worry about will i get paid today? we need serious paid family medical leave that if your child gets sick, you can take some time off to make sure they are ok emotionally, physically, and mentally. you shouldn't have to lose your pay or your job to do these simple acts. that's what we want to do when we talk about paid family leave. all of these things are encompassed in what we like to call the caring economy. the caring economy guarantees every single person in this country is respect no matter what. we don't talk about the folks that are getting those services. we are also talking about the

folks that are providing those services. you cannot automate the human touch. you cannot automate the care a senior needs, that just will not happen. the question we have to ask ourselves is if we respect our seniors and elders and kids, will we treat the folks providing that care with dignity and respect? are we making sure they will not get sick? that they don't lose their job because their daughter, son, mother, sister get sick. we take care of them also, if they need time off, we will give them time off. if they need to collectively bargain for higher wages, they can do that. that there is a minimum wage so they are not take care of someone or nine dollars an hour. -- taking care of someone for nine dollars an hour.