world. president and cofounder david efforts to fostr understanding among people of differing political ideologies. ♪ host: president trump posted what was billed as a homecoming rally in sunrise, florida, where he spoke about his accomplishments, matters of impeachment, and how he thinks the impeachment process will eventually help with reelection next year. we will show you portions of the speech in the first hour and hear from republicans only. we are interested in finding about your support for the president. if it has increased, decreased, or stayed the same. if your support has increased, call us at 202-748-8000 and tell us why. if it has decreased, you can tell us why at 202-748-8001.

if it stayed the same, make your thoughts known at 202-748-8002. if you want to text us, 202-748-8003 is how you do that. you can post @cspanwj and you can post on our facebook page at facebook.com/cspan. a couple of pulls from earlier this month that talked from support -- polls earlier this month that talked about support for the president. an average of 86% of republicans approved of president trump during his time in office and his approval rating has not dropped below 79% in any individual poll. if you take a look at another poll looking at the president's approval amongst republicans, 62% of people who approved of the job donald is doing as president say they can't think

of anything he could do that would cause them to lose their support. that is according to a monmouth university poll. the sample size for the question, 401. under the why it matters section saying the figures come in the inquiry.an impeachment not a single house republicans voted in favor of a resolution formalizing impeachment procedures. pete wainer is a senior fellow of ethics and public policy in washington, d.c. and he held positions in the bush and reagan administrations and published a piece in the atlantic. the feeling is donald trump is willing to fight for them and destroy an enemy they hate and they believe hates them. they believe this is an existential, moral, and political movement. if the left wins, so much of what they care for will be destroyed.

they believe donald trump is what stands between them and darkness and therefore, they have to stand with him. it was published on the 14th of this month. in our first hour from republicans only, we are interested in hearing about your support for the president. interested in finding out if it has increased, decreased, or stayed the same. if you say increase, 202-748-8000 is the number to call. if you say decreased, 202-748-8001. if it stayed the same, 202-748-8002. you can text us at 202-748-8003 and all you have to do is put your name and city and state and then you can post on twitter at @cspanwj and our facebook page at facebook.com/cspan. the president was in florida before starting thanksgiving holiday activities, he spoke in sunrise, florida, at homecoming rally. it was during that speech the president spoke about his accomplishments. [video clip] >> our administration has done

things that people haven't seen .or a long time, maybe ever countryputting our second, third, 20th, 30th, we put america first now. steel tariff, steel mills are firing back up including a $240 million investment in pole county -- polk county. we are replacing the nafta catastrophe if nancy pelosi will ever sign it and send it. we are meeting -- waiting for months. usmca is an incredible agreement, everybody wants it/ . she doesn't want to give the people of our country a victory. all she has to do is move it forward and everyone will vote for it. it is one of the greatest deals

ever and at a certain point, canada and mexico, they have been waiting for many months. they are going to say let's forget about it. she has got to sign it, everybody wants it. she has to put our country first, put our country first because it is a tremendous win for florida farmers and all farmers, for growers and ranchers, all over our country. she and the democrats have done nothing, they are doing nothing. they are doing nothing. it is a terrible thing. it is a terrible thing. powell andan congresswoman showed layla -- i know her well, new york. they are here in florida.

put itswoman, get her to up. nancy is on track to go down as the single worst and least productive speaker of the house in the history of our country. rally you canl find at our website at c-span.org if you want to see the president's comments. republicans only. the lines on the screen and you can reach out in text and twitter and facebook. this is bob saying when it comes to his support saying it definitely increased. this president has withstood 24/7 attacks. 4 more years of this economy amazing. i voted for trump and immediately regretted it. he is reckless, impulsive, and a dangerous egomaniac. if your support has increased, decreased, or stayed the same.

we start with tom, trenton, new jersey, saying support increased. democrat was born a and my brother was born a democrat, the first president i ford for was john kennedy senator and then president in 1960 and we both went in the service and came out republican because we saw the government is pretty inefficient. i have never seen a president with so many problems. the institutional with country going in the wrong direction. rising,tuck with the -- the bad deal in iraq with bush, the redline in syria, ukraine trying to get nato to get more money -- i never saw presidents with that kind of problem and he

is trying to go through impeachment at the same time, it is amazing he keeps his sanity. eisenhower said you have to worry about the military-industrial complex and government gets bigger, they find more problems and they get institutionalized and you get more people to monitor the shipments to different countries. host: that is tom in new jersey. let's hear from lou saying support stayed the same from chicago heights, illinois. go ahead. caller: thank you. i am a nine year marine. i came out of my mother's womb a republican. i killed a lot of muslim terrorists and donald j. trump is the greatest american to ever step on american soil. he is an american -- an amazing president. he is sitting number 2 behind abraham lincoln. host: in the three years plus

the president has served in support for him, no increases and no decreases? caller: no. i was 100% for him as soon as he put his hat in the ring and anyone that is a democrat is a terrorist, no matter what color they are. host: we cannot drive that way, but as far as your support for the president is concerned, what number one reason would you say it stayed the same? caller: first of all, he is for the cops, for the american people, for the soldiers, --inst host: he hung up. let's go to troy, missouri, this is joe who says support for the president has increased. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call.

trump is the best president since mr. kennedy. he is a great man, trying to get andcountry back on track all the old folks around here are going to vote for him again and so am i. thank you and have a good day, sir. host: before you go, give me a reason why the support you show for him has increased? caller: because of our military. i thought in vietnam -- fought in vietnam. he is standing behind them and will protect to them. i will never forget what happened in benghazi and neither will a lot of people. thank you, sir, for your time. say the president supports the military, what do you mean by that? i am curious? caller: he is rebuilding it. he is making it strong again.

it is that simple, we need a strong military. host: next up, we will hear from dan who says support for the president has stayed the same. you are next up. caller: yes, hi. i am still for president trump, the greatest president i think this country will ever see and i just hope he makes the democrats pay back the money the last three plus years they have wasted on this stupid impeachment crap and they should have to pay that money back and put it in our treasury. that is really all i have to say. host: even during the impeachment process as far as support for the president, nothing changed for you? caller: it was proven on tv that nothing has changed. it is all a hoax, the whole mess. host: that is dan saying the

support for him stayed the same. you saw a bit of that rally yesterday and now the president's official state of residence, florida. robert acosta, philip rucker writing about the rally and why florida is so important to the president. florida is not only trump's home, but what republicans hope is an emerging gop bastion. his strategy reflects the broader push to galvanize core voters ahead of next year's election by unleashing an incendiary defense of his conduct on twitter, cable news, or in front of thousands by rallying a capacity crowd of the 20,000 seat bb&t center, the president try to demonstrate broad and determined opposition to his impeachment. he spoke about the congressional inquiry, delivering a theatrical play-by-play of the bombshell testimony, mocking former vice president joe biden and hunter.

see onll rally you can our website at c-span.org as well as the other rallies the participant -- the president has participated in. kansas, you are next, chris saying support has increased. caller: hello. host: you are on. caller: yes, i believe president trump has done more for the american people accidentally than democrats do on purpose. host: give me an example. caller: i will never vote democrat again and i am a vietnam vet. host: give me an example of that when you say the president has done more accidentally than democrats have done on purpose. caller: the marine corps and canada agreement. democrats did not even put it on the floor. host: do you mean the usmca?

caller: yes, sir. host: why do you think that is an important move? caller: it will help our farmers. twitter, that is one of the ways you can reach out to us saying i support broughtand he has record low unemployment, record high stock markets, raising wages, and a strong housing market. 4 more years of this would be fine with me. in fort lauderdale, florida, saying support for the president is decreased. caller: yes, thank you. host: you are on, go ahead. caller: my support for the president has never been there ever since mar-a-lago he had russian women coming into have babies. he is nothing but a puppet for

putin. you all don't want to open up eyes and let the people see what is going on. host: did you vote for the president initially? no, i would never vote for him. host: you classify yourself as a republican? caller: i classify myself as an independent. host: republicans only this morning, just so you know. increase of support for the president, decrease, or stay the same. 202-748-8000 if you say support has increased. decreased, 202-748-8001. notpendents -- i am sorry, independents, stayed the same, 202-748-8002. frank in california falls into that last group, stayed the same. caller: hello. frank garrett. host: you are on, go ahead.

your mama stupid -- host: we lost frank on that, i apologize. a previous caller talked about the usmca. the highlight -- the wall street journal highlights efforts saying china's commerce ministry said the two sides reached a consensus on properly resolving related issues. the message was notable because it followed a call between china's chief trade negotiator and robert lighthizer and treasury secretary steven mnuchin suggesting behind-the-scenes conversations have instilled confidence the two sides could overcome their differences. that is in the wall street journal this morning. steve in south carolina, you are next up. caller: i am glad you mentioned trade because i want to say something about that, you covered it.

that is one thing that may have hurt him next november if it lingers on. my respect for trump has increased. my feeling is almost a bad trump is better than a democrat these days and i go back to the article about peter you cited first. if there is a feeling he stands between good and evil and that may be a stretch, but this is a moment to explain. we believe -- the conservative people, that you do not killed on board babies. i wish they would take the term "mother" out of the law. he is giving corporations incentive to stay on american soil, giving people more spendable money, which stimulates the economy. our economy depends on people buying discretionary items as well as staples.

let me say something about what peter said. in the end, people will vote party allegiance. show?er the jim clyburn we are first in the south and they were talking about how to get lack democrats -- black democrats in south karen -- south carolina to view same-sex marriages and gays. i have been to black churches, they don't like it. in the end, they are still going to vote democrat, you see what i am saying? when it comes down to it next november, they will say we will take a democrat that believes in gay marriage over a republican any time. trump is trying to stand between us and an influx of people --ing in that also obama did

we know that is leaning toward socialism, everybody is scared of socialism. host: can i ask you a question? you talked about democratic support, so you think next year around this time or later on this year, the same support the president enjoyed in 2016 will be with him in 2020? caller: i do and you and i both know we could put up an electoral college map right now and get about 40 states right, it is about 10 states always out there, wisconsin, pennsylvania, michigan, florida. maybe north carolina and virginia. those states will be important. i know i did not have to vote for trump in north carolina, i voted independent. i knew he was going to win. most of the people listening know how this plays out. it is pretty well figured out but for about 10 states. media does- the left

by showing theor streets in l.a. and seattle because republican say you vote for a democrat, that is what you get on the east coast. it is kind of a strange situation. host: that is steve getting his thoughts on his support for the president and why it increased. republicans only, says support has decreased. caller: his support to me personally decreased for the you just haveat to believe lies this man tells for his support to increase. he doesn't tell anything that is true. when you have people call in and say it increase, you listen to every single thing they tell you based on the economy is

the greatest ever -- it is not the greatest. it is good, but we have to face reality. host: a couple questions, are you a republican? caller: yes, i am. a strong republican all my life. host: did you vote for the president in 2016? caller: no, i did not. i cannot vote for someone i feel i am smarter than. i am smarter than this president. he does ghost based on can -- goes based on conspiracy theory. host: says for -- support for the president stayed the same. caller: how are you doing? it has been a while since i have been able to talk with you. i have a brother-in-law and mother-in-law that both will not watch your station. -- theyl you are biased

don't want to hear both sides of the story. the reason why my support hasn't changed, they kind of put trump in there as the pitfall. fasts were changing too and all of a sudden it was like we are on apology tour and doing this and that and it was a bunch people.to a lot of people in the middle of the country -- i am in new jersey, the corner of new jersey. we are basically the only stateican part of this right now. it hasn't changed, it is not like i like them anymore. i did not like him in 1980, but he was the pitfall to put in against the democrats. host: is there anything he could

do that would increase or decrease support for him? , iler: i will tell you what would hope he could try to get some people over to his side. i doubt he will do that because this country is so divided. haveme, it is like i always only had my 22 rifle and stuff like that and i would never want to hurt anybody, but all of a sudden i started feeling like this country is going in a direction i cannot deal with. i am not saying that as a threat to anybody, i am just saying it is more of like in case of a problem, break the glass. james in south carolina, columbia, saying james --

support increased. caller: good morning. my support for donald trump has always been high, but it increased some after a couple years ago when he asked these companies to train people with new job training to improve their lives and job status and possibilities and stuff like that and it also increased when he took a stand against china and wanted them to provide us .ith better goods we have been providing them with a lot and they don't ever seem to be happy and i am glad he is taking a stand. host: when it came to china when the tariffs were put in place by the president and his team, what was your reaction specifically saying your support increased for him? caller: that was part of my

support, i am glad he did put the tariffs in to use that as a tool to get china to pay attention, we are not going to and evennd, we need deal, we don't need to be providing more for them than what they are doing for us, it needs to be more even than what it has been. when they put down those tariffs, that gave them a pay-up call to help them attention. .ome things are different now i think they are talking about it and i think there is a good chance even more employment will take place in the future. host: james in south carolina increased support for the president. matthew, decreased support for the president.

caller: with everything going on with this impeachment inquiry and even listening to his speech last night, it is always him and the republicans against these evil people. it is a fallacy, creating this fake idea of what is out there and we may be afraid of, but i don't think he is attacking or doing anything about. one of the biggest things my father taught me is you become who you surround yourself with. how many people has trump surrounded himself that are now in prison? there is no way to me someone who could surround himself with all these guilty people -- that is how i feel about it. i did vote for him, but almost regretted it instantly listening to his rhetoric and now he has gone on as president. host: do you talk to others about this decreased support and when you do, what is the

reaction? caller: being closer in the d.c. area, it is a little mixed. when i talk to other republicans, it is kind of the same. a lot of people, it is like your other callers, they have strong support, it doesn't matter what you say. for republicans, he is the only one for us to represent with. who else do you have to side with? it is the lesser of two evils and i think people stick stronger to trump because of that. host: because you mentioned impeachment, ultimately how does that gauge as far as support for the president amongst republicans? do you think those with him will stay with him or will it change minds? caller: it is the same, i really feel like he did something wrong. it is conduct unbecoming of a president and all the stuff coming out about devin nunes and his involvement, i feel like more people should testify.

i don't think it will change any minds, i really don't. i feel like a lot more people should be following that, but i think republicans will stick strongly to their base and say democrats are making stuff up and they will not listen to the truth. host: that is matthew talking about the decreased support for president trump. republicans only this first hour. we would like to hear from you as far as your support for the president, if it increased, decreased, or stayed the same. 202-748-8000 if you say it has increased. if you say it has decreased, 202-748-8001. if you say it stayed the same, 202-748-8002. you can text those thoughts that 202-748-8003. we will do this until 8:00 and it was last night in sunrise, florida, where the president spoke about matters of impeachment and also including

media coverage of it. [video clip] >> we had a great two weeks watching these crooked politicians not giving us due process, not giving us lawyers, not giving us the right to speak, and destroying their witnesses. it fell apart, those were their witnesses. we weren't allowed any rights. for the first time in the history of our country, we had no rights, no due process. despite that, we won. if you read the crooked new york times, the washington post, which is a horrible paper. we don't have it in d.c. anymore. we don't deliver it. we used to have it. i want them to have correct news, not fake news. what happens is we go out, we win for the people, we keep

winning, we won these last two weeks solidly. if you pick up the new york times or the crazy washington post, you would have no idea we won. you know who knew it? the people knew it and that is why they don't want to have this, they don't want to see this go on. a probably will because the people are nuts. i think probably it is a good thing for us as a party because i think it is going to walk us through that election, which is going to take place already in less than a year. host: there are several stories in the news related to impeachment. the washington times this morning talking about the latest surveys taking a look at polling saying the latest survey with good news for the president came tuesday with the quinnipiac university poll which found the tables have turned.

45% in favor and 48% opposed. quinnipiac found support among political independents dropped 4%. that is from the washington times. if you go to the new york times, a story only seen there about timing of when the president knew about the whistleblower complaint. the complaint, which would typically be submitted to lawmakers with oversight of the intelligence agencies, first came to light as a subject of the administration tug-of-war in late august. michael adkinson concluded the administration needed to send it to congress. they decided the administration could withhold from congress the whistleblower accusations. the office of legal counsel concluded the administration did not have to hand over the complaint and it is unclear how much detail the lawyers provided mr. trump about the complaint,

adding that the lawyers briefed mr. trump in late august about the complaint and had been following up on other complaints by admission officials about the ukraine matter. turning to the washington post as far as advice and counsel the president is getting on the the former strategist for president clinton during impeachment, was one of the people talking to the president saying he reassure the president he would not be removed from office according to people familiar with the meeting, encouraged him to travel the country as president clinton did when he was fighting impeachment over 20 years ago. you have got to govern. according to a person with knowledge of the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity, penn said the path -- had the task of measuring public support for clinton during the process and crafted the response to

allegations of president clinton's extramarital affair. wall street journal takes a look at some of the process that might play out if articles of impeachment are written and if a trial takes place in the senate. looking to a bit of history, back in 1999, all 100 senators voted to approve the procedure for the clinton impeachment trial. hours for each side to make presentations followed by 16 hours for senators to ask questions. there was less unanimity on witnesses. moreresident cannot afford than three gop defections on any impeachment related motions including dismissal, which was decided by a simple majority votes. a final vote to remove would require a two thirds vote. ron from virginia says support for the president has stayed the

same. good morning, go ahead. caller: good morning. i support president trump because i believe he is a patriot, loves the u.s., puts america first. the radical left, if a democratic candidate were to win , i believe it would be suicide for the u.s. you look at countries like venezuela. i lived for years in brazil and i saw the left ruin to a large extent brazil. they have 14% unemployment and a lot of corruption. in the u.s., we have improved economy and also, i support the wall. someone like nancy pelosi has a wall around her mansion in california. walls were supported by obama and even hillary when democrats

were in power. it is a common sense thing and i believe we are at a cop -- crossroads in this country. host: let's hear from george, south carolina, saying support has increased. hello, i am definitely ashamed of our democrats in washington with this witchhunt they are running our country down the drain. this is totally ridiculous for smart people to be acting like this. host: as far as support for the president, why has it increased? caller: because i live in a town where there is a big air force base, a big navy base and both of them are prospering. our economy has never been as good as it is right now.

i am retired and live on a fixed , but i know with what the market is doing, i will be solid for the rest of my life. >> when you say the bases where you live are prospering, what do you use to gauge that and why do you think president trump has influence that? caller: because he furnishes the money to keep them solid. nation is paid right and the navyeston money to pay all of their employees. we have a good air force base that is one of the bigger ones in the u.s., which supports all

the navy and troops all around the world with cargo. host: that is george in south carolina. let's hear from nathaniel in florida saying support for the president has decreased. caller: i am going to say a quick 5. when it comes to the v.a. hospital, i am a veteran, my primary care has over 900 people to take care of per month. that is a heck of a lot of people. he is not doing much for the v.a. although he is shining it and making it look like a shining little star, it is diminishing. the military establishment is being bombarded by his behavior. there is nobody that should be out of protocol. when a general tells another soldier they are wrong, that should not be superseded by the president's order.

the next thing is law enforcement as well, paramilitary, when he overrides what the people and court system has said to a sheriff and says i am going to pardon the sheriff anyway, that is ridiculous. what are we doing? and then to wrap himself inside the flag. the only time i want to be wrapped inside the flag is when i die. to use that as a weapon that you somehow or another are not a patriotic, loving, sincere, dedicated, honest american because he is the one who is the gatekeeper and he knows who is good and not and then when you hear about how he is being talking about his family is being damaged by all the things people are saying about him and yet he goes around calling people all kinds of horrible names. he goes around calling nancy pelosi -- he will call anybody anything he wants and he is applauded for it.

lastly, he calls people names. why am i calling him president trump -- chump? , bute the republican party i cannot stand his behavior. by tom howell junior that the president is donating his third-quarter salary of $100,000 to fight against the opioid crisis. mr. trump's pay will be sent to the office of the assistant secretary of health leading the --ht against the academic roughly 70,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2017, about two thirds of those deaths involved in opioid. for those who think support for the president stayed the same, one of those, gregory in

missouri. hello. hi.ory in missouri, caller: good morning. i am sorry, i dropped the phone. host: you are on, go ahead. stayed my support has the same since the day he came down the elevator in 2015. host: why is that? caller: the reason is he is pro-life and pro-second amendment and pro-america. host: keith is next from massachusetts saying his support has increased. caller: good morning. first, i would like to say i never voted in my life because i did not trust any of them. when they put hillary up there, that was the end of it. i registered, went for trump. my support has gone higher than 100% if that is possible.

i hear moral compass and this and that from the democrats all the time and they are the ones that go in restaurants and one example of many, harassing people and their families. they throw at him, i have not seen any conman, any crimes. this guy gets stronger and stronger every time you poke him. i just wish this election, if we can get the house and senators to a majority because he did have everybody before, but he missed a few crucial votes in the house. said let me ask you, you your support for the president increased more than 100%, is there a specific thing or 2 you look at for that increase? caller: yes. i would say every single day since this guy has been in

office, he has been attacked one way or the other. look what the heck he has gotten done having to put up with being attacked every single day of his presidency and he still gets more done than any of these other guys promised to get done ever. i wish some of the minorities he picks one -- everybody equally, he is an equal go after you kind of guy whether you are right or -- you are white or anything. talked about attacks against the president and you gh that into the conversation, there are other facts you may have. you can give us a call on the line, text us, and post on our social media sites.

one of the things that came out of the impeachment hearings, one of those areas of support was from the texas republican will hurd. looked at the impeachment hearings as they played out and spoke about the reasons he is opposing impeachment. [video clip] >> the past few weeks and today it has been reiterated, in 2017 the trump administration made the decision to bribe -- provide aid to ukraine and they are providing all security assistance, president zelinski has undertaken significant anticorruption efforts and you mentioned this today, under president zelensky's leadership, we have finally seen progress to ending the occupation of ukraine. where does this leave us? an impeachable offense should be compelling, overwhelmingly clear and unambiguous and it is not

something to be rushed or taken lightly. i have not heard evidence proving the president committed bribery or extortion. i also rejected the notion holding of few means supporting all the foreign policy choices we have been healing -- hearing about. to paraphrase tim morrison, every day the national conversation on ukraine is focused on impeachment, not the conflict or the illegal occupation or the need for is ams in the government day we are not focused on our shared national secured interest with kiev. i hope we will not let this very partisan process keep us from agreeing on how a free and prosperous ukraine is important to the ukrainian people, the united states of america, and the rest of the world. host: those impeachment hearings are all available when you go to our website. increasehe impeachment

action and it has all we have taken in regarding this process. you can find that at c-span.org. michael is next in san diego, california, says his support for the president has decreased. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i really appreciate cnn and you and all your colleagues that put out the truth. all my other republicans that believe donald -- host: just to stop you, we are c-span, not cnn. caller: i am sorry. listen to max boot, richard paneer, and george conaway, those three republicans that evil out how people -- this man is and i can't believe republicans will not open their eyes to see these are fascists. host: why personally has your

support decreased? caller: i registered republican to vote against him. justed for hilary and i registered republican to vote against him. i had not voted in a presidential election for many, many years and i registered republican to vote against him. host: that is michael in san diego. david says his support has stayed the same. in north carolina at the moment. i guess they have the phone registered. my support has stayed the same. i will make 4 click points -- quick points. i appreciate his effort to use twitter because he cuts through the filtered press and -- because that is important and has made a difference in his maintaining popularity with his base. my other point is really about the courts and about

appointments and i see this when i see congressmen seem to revel or have a joy when they see a victory for the pro-abortion side. it is hard to explain, but i think it is important he maintain his ability to appoint justices. a few quick reminders to people who may have happened -- forgotten, the civil rights began as a republican effort and lyndon johnson opposed it. all opposition to the subsequent civil rights act was from democrats. they need to look at the history of the civil rights act, it is hard to find it between 1967 and 1970. guest: host: kevin says -- host: kevin says support has stayed the same. caller: thank you for c-span and

happy thanksgiving to you and your family. besides the vote of going to war, impeachment is the most powerful vote congress can lay down. for me to be convinced impeachment is in order, the conversation between president trump and the ukrainian president needs to include the metric that was about the quid pro quo. he needs to say if you don't do this, i will hold back the aid. he did not say that. subjective interpretation of what the president may or may not meant is not enough evidence for me to turn around and say impeachment is in order. impeachment is -- welcomes disdain from the rest of the --ld and he did not come out when president nixon had the tapes, president clinton had dna, it needs to be a slamdunk for me to accept the impeachment and i don't think it was there. host: in the wall street journal this morning, more expected as

far as the reviews of the navy seals connected -- eddie gallagher saying the acting navy secretary is expected to determine whether the navy should reconvene a review board for the -- the navy halted the process which could have stripped chief gallagher and the other seals of their trident pins. three other seals had been deployed alongside chief gallagher in 2017. the navy charged chief gallagher urged other seals not to report what they called -- they saw. [video clip] up for week, i stuck three great warriors against the deep state. you know what i am talking about.

i had so many people say i don't think you should do that. people have to be able to fight, these are great warriors. they cannot think if i make a mistake -- they wanted to put them in jail for 25 years, one young man was in jail for seven years. and i 16 more years to go want to tell you, when you look at what they did to that man, you would have been very proud at what we ended up doing. he came out, he hugged his parents, it was a beautiful thing. it was a beautiful thing. because we a part are going to take care of our warriors. i will always stick up for our great fighters. people can sit there in air-conditioned offices and

complain, but it doesn't matter to me whatsoever. they are out on that field and doing a job for us like nobody else anywhere in the world can do. , america is is winning again and america is respected again. host: we are showing you video from sunrise, florida, from the rally. the sun sentinel shows you some of the fashion from last night's rally. there was a participant wearing socks with the face of donald trump complete with orange hair. another supporter with the matter.trump's tweets below that, a supporter having a bedazzled purse with the name trump on it. in light of thanksgiving, it shows a supporter from vero beach with a t-shirt that says make thanksgiving

great again. edward in cedar rapids, iowa, says his support has increased. caller: good morning, pedro, and happy thanksgiving to your family and you. host: thank you. caller: you are welcome. my support for donald trump has increased. it was the race between him and hillary clinton, i could not support her and i thought donald trump would be better for the economy than she ever could be. research off hillary clinton, i knew how corrupt she was. since then, my support has grown. i have seen the things he does. i don't mind that he tweets because he is talking to the american people each and every day. host: is the increased support

purely on matters of the economy or is there other things? caller: other things since then, it has grown. i have seen the things he has done. host: such as? caller: cracking down on human sex trafficking, child sex trafficking. look at the numbers that have gone down. how many people have gone down regarding that matter? .he military has been increased he has put america first. if that makes me a cult member according to nancy pelosi, i am proud of america cult first. host: massachusetts up next, tom says support has increased. when hei am just -- came out and said he was going to make america great again, he never said he was going to make america this great. unemployment is too low,

inflation is too low. we need higher inflation, too much. host: let's hear from another tom in missouri who says support has increased. you are on, go ahead. bernie in kentucky, support has stayed the same. caller: good morning. same.port has stayed the it started at zero and it is still at zero. the way he treats people, particularly on twitter -- he will attack a 16-year-old because she is concerned with climate change. he will attack a high school student who has had a friend shot in parkland, florida. there is no depth to this guy and it is scary. host: just to clarify, you are a republican? caller: i voted republican.

i voted republican because of john kasich, try to get support for him around where i live. but wenot quite make it, still support him and hope he gets back into the game. host: as far as the election last year, did you not vote, did you vote for hillary clinton or someone else give i may ask -- if i may ask? caller: i voted for hillary clinton. host: if you told other republicans about your decision, what was the reaction? 202-748-8002 it was mixed -- caller: it was mixed, but after i explained why i did what i did, people understood. it is going to be team politics regardless. team democrat, team republican, and the independents. you have to make your best judgment and i did not think donald trump was the person that should be in the white house. host: one more question only because other republicans have

mentioned the economy and support for the military, your lack of support, is it based on tone only or do you not see accomplishment's within this administration? caller: it is based upon tone and his behavior. host: that is bernie in kentucky saying about the support, it has stayed the same. three lines you can choose from if you want to participate. michelle is next, florida, says support has decreased. caller: he is not a man of his word. a lot of the things he said throughout his campaigning, when you check the boxes, they are very empty. his morals and values, they are not american, they are un-american. he is feeding people what they want to hear. he is a master manipulator. look at the policies and his

twitter, even, he is doing a sleight-of-hand, witchhunt, he is using key phrases, but when you start talking to people about an actual debate with people and say tell me some things you appreciate -- the democrats this or nancy pelosi that. what do you appreciate? he is building the wall. when you comment back and say who is paying for it? eventually -- it is all this manipulation. host: let me go back to your first point as far as checking the boxes and things promised and not accomplished, list those in your mind. caller: in my mind, he said he was going to release his taxes, didn't. nobody holds them accountable. when he talks to other people, it is this and that and when you look at the facts, no, he can release them anytime he wants to . he hasn't and nobody is holding him accountable.

they keep turning him away. that is against morals, not american. helping the middle-class family? -- you are going to do great, but if you are an average american, you are just getting by. host: the administration will point to the tax cuts as far as middle-class is concerned. you are saying that wasn't happening. caller: that is not happening. if i had a tax cut but my milk went up $.50 and the food is $1.45 for a can of green beans, i am not seeing the huge tax cut we are promised at all. host: we will hear from janice in california saying support has increased. caller: good morning. ms. imbecile in the last call, what would high

-- i say in favor of trump? what is there to say not in favor? democrats have thrown everything at that man except the kitchen sink and drop the house on him and he has still managed to accomplish more than barack obama did in 8 years and god knows where we would be if hillary was in office. host: what are those accomplishments in your mind? caller: i live in san diego and i love what he has been doing with the border. i love the tax cuts, the more money in my pocket. business is booming. i don't know what she is talking about or where she lives. i definitely love how donald trump stands up for our military because the way barack obama treated our military was a disgrace and she talks about morals. what morals do you see in that demonic democratic party? host:

host: ok. we'll go one more call. south carolina. his support has decreased. go ahead. caller: yeah. it's decreased but i'm going to still vote for president trump because of the military. host: tell us why. caller: well, even in ancient times, what they've done is to build their military to win. host: ok. lindy is the last call from charleston, south carolina. two guests joining us during the course of the program today. first up, you'll hear from the cost of wars project stephanie savell. she's going to discuss u.s. military deployments around the world, what they do and things related to that. we'll have that conversation next. later on in the program, you'll meet david blankenhorn. he's the president and

co-founder of an organization known as better angel and he'll discuss his group's efforts to foster understanding of people among different political ideologies and promote civility in politics. those conversations coming up on "washington journal." >> watch an extended weekend of book tv this holiday weekend. here are some of our features. starting thursday at 1:30 p.m. eastern, nicki haley recoublets her time as u.s. ambassador to the u.n. in the trump administration. >> i would always make a point to ask when we'd go to an area to sit in a room with a group of women. no offense to the fellas in the audience. but the women had a way of -- you could sit down with them, they could tell you what the problem was, how they got to hat point and how to fix it.

>> row unanimous pharaoh details the efforts made to stifle his reporting. >> this was not a journalistic decision that was happening. we were told to cancel interviews with rape victims. we were told to stand down and not take a single call on this subject. i was threatened that i was going to be exposed as having been terminated and let go from the company if i ever disclosed that nbc had anything to do with the story. >> saturday at 11:00 p.m. eastern in his new book, sam houston and the alamo avengers, fox news offers a history of america's war for texas. >> sam houston -- talk about courage. he felt he was impervious. he got shot three times and should have died. he learned that courage has to be calculated. when he goes to washington, burnt to the ground. what does he learn? this country is fragile and courage has to be calculated. >> sunday at noon eastern. in depth is live with manhattan

institute senior fellow and "wall street journal" columnist. >> the number of black elected officials in this country has grown from fewer than 1500 in 1970 to more than 10,000 today. i think that -- including, of course, it's a twice-elected black president. that is the voting rights act. >> and at 9:00 eastern on afterwords. university of virginia history professor explores the political history of tobacco in america in her book. she's interviewed by former f.d.a. commissioner. >> smoking at the turn of the 20th century, in the early 1900's, was considered something almost un-american. it was a vice of the foreign born. so the anti-smoking movement of the first two decades of the 20th century kind of rode a wave of nativism and thinking about what type of behavior is appropriate for native-born,

healthy americans. >> watch an extended version of book tv this holiday weekend and very weekend on c-span2. "washington journal" continues. host: this is stephanie savell joining us. she's with brown university. the co-director of something known as the cost of war project. here to talk about the role of troops around the world. thank you for joining us today. guest: thanks so much for having me. host: for those who aren't familiar, tell us about the project and the purpose of it. guest: the cost of war project is based at brown university's watson institute for international and public affairs . and the project was founded in 2011 to draw attention to the kind of unacknowledged cost and consequences of the u.s. war on terrorism specifically. to really get information about the post-9/11 wars into the public debate and get americans

talking about it, asking big questions, like, you know, are we meeting our goals, are we making americans safer, are we making citizens around the world safer? and that's the idea. just to get academic research into the public sphere. sphere. host: to help people understand then when it comes to first and foremost the military, how many troops does the united states support around the world? guest: so my project is focused specifically on the post-9/11 wars, the counterterror activities around the world. total -- i think the d.o.d. says there are about 1.3 million troops based around the world. the one specifically involved -- ones specifically involved in counterterror activities, it's around 87,000. host: when you tell that number to people, what's the typical reaction? guest: i think -- you know, i think people are often surprised

at the extent to which we are conducting counterterror activities. i think we think of the war on terror as taking place in afghanistan, maybe iraq, syria. but in actuality, and i'm happy to talk about this further, we have a map that i put together that shows that we are taking some sort of counterterror activity in about 80 chris in the world. so that's about 40% of countries in the world. so it's actually -- for most people, kinds of a very shocking expansive activity. host: for people who can't see the map and generally tell where those troops are generally based. guest: yeah. highlights ind of different types of intensities. so there are -- the kind of -- at the highest intensity there are seven countries where we are

actively connecting air and drone strikes against terrorist targets. those include iraq, afghanistan, syria -- i got my ear piece here. and then unexpected places like couple omalia and a others. and then we have -- sorry, just getting this connected here. then we have about 14 countries on the map and the map covers activity in 2017 and 2018. so we're doing an update now. but this is the version that came out in january, 2019. and it was actually published in the smithsonian magazine. it shows 14 different chris where u.s. troops are engaged in combat on the ground. those, again, include some unexpected places. like mali and tunishia and kenya

. and then the vast majority of the countries are kind of less intense, more expansive. they include military exercises with partner countries, they include training and assistance in counterterrorism. and also a bunch of bases that are involved in supporting counterterror activities. host: our guest with us to talk about the troops that are stationed particularly in the areas that she highlighted, the cost of that operation, you can ask her questions about it, there are several ways you can do that. 202-748-8920. democrats, ns, -- phone. r republicans, -- democrats, 202-748-8001.

include your name, city and state when you do that. for the numbers of troops that you highlight, because it's part of your project, what are the costs? guest: we just came out with a new report showing that since 2001, the post-9/11 wars have cost $6.4 trillion. we include in that estimate not only what the department of defense spends on what they call overseas contingency operations, this is the war fund, but we also include things like interest on the borrowing for that fund, much of that spending has been put on a credit card and so a lot of -- we are already paying a lot of interest on that and we will continue to , ana great deal of interest estimated $8 trillion by the 2050's. that's not included in that $6.4

trillion i just mentioned. again, we kind of say, you have to take a more comprehensive look at what we're spending on these wars. so veterans care, for example, we include in that estimate. the cost of veterans care over about 40 years, which is a reasonable and conservative estimate of the lifespan of a post-9/11 war vet. who comes home from the wars. we also include increases to the pentagon's base budget. so the waits in which the pentagon -- ways in which the pentagon's normal annual expenditures have gone up .ecause of the wars host: the same type of question, when you tell people about that cost, what's the reaction i guess -- what are the concerns that your organization has about that cost? guest: well, i mean, first of all, it's such an unfathomably large sum that it's hard to

understand. how do you even break that down? it rose between last year and this year, the estimate rose about $500 billion. and we calculated that that's $1,455, i think, it is, for every individual, you know, man, woman and child in the united states every single american. it rose by that much. so that gives you a kind of sense of -- this is just an astronomical sum. and the really concerning thing is, as i said, that we've been paying for these wars on a credit card. so this is something that we're going to be paying for for decades to come. before 9/11 the u.s. had a budget surplus. after 9/11 the u.s. has been having an ever-greater budget deficit. so this is really affecting the finances of this country for my children. i have young children. they're going to be feeling this into their adult lives.

and that really is -- it's quite frightening. host: i suppose that when you talk about these issues, people will turn around and say to you in defense, this is the cost and the man power that we need for security matters. how would you respond to that? guest: well, what the research shows actually is that when it comes to the counterterror wars, there are more terrorist groups and there are more recruits to those groups than there were on 9/11. so a lot of times what happens is american militarism abroad ends up fueling resentment of america and that just leads to more recruitment to these groups. so if the goal is to combat terrorism, we're definitely not meeting that goal. host: is there a happy medium as far as the way that troops are urrently restructured to

restructure not only for security matters but save on cost as well? guest: yeah. so there's a whole movement of people pushing for what they call the overseas base ac.lignment and closure, obre what that is trying to do is say, listen, we have all these bases. beyond the ones that i show on this map. there are about 800 military bases, u.s. military bases, abroad total. experts have estimated that those cost about $51 billion a year, if you add in personnel costs to that, that's up to $150 billion a year. and there are a lot of redundancies. there are a lot of places where those bases could be realigned, losed and still kind of meet the basic need of providing american security. very efficiently. host: i was looking at general numbers from the department of

defense when it comes to places like germany. 35,000 troops stationed there in a base there as well. is that something would you advocate for closing or realigning? guest: well, certainly there -- you know, i don't know about the german bases in particular. but certainly we have a lot of troops abroad that, especially if we were to end what people are calling now the endless wars, the forever wars, these -- this war on terrorism, there are certainly a lot of ways that we would be able to bring troops home. and i think no one would really argue against that. in germany in particular, i think that's the headquarters to u.s.-africa command. so the u.s. military headquarters of all the activities in africa. and africa is a growing front in the counterterror activities today. so that's one of the reasons why there are so many u.s. military personnel in germany. host: for the areas you would focus on, where would you start

with realignment? guest: i couldn't say in particular. i'm not the expert on the -- that particular initiative. host: joe is in ashe, north carolina. starts us off this morning. he's on our line for those active and retired military. stephanie savell is our guest of brown university. the cost of war project. you can find more of the research that she's talking about at costofwar.org. joe from north carolina. start us off. go ahead. caller: yes. you're talking about dollars and cents, madam. you have ever strapped a pair of boots on and be told to go through that village, go into the bush, and smell the death and have a bullet around your head flying? and watching the man next to you die? that's the true cost of war. we need to get out of all the places we don't need to be, but if we are attacked, we need to go ahead, do total and complete

war. they kill 100 of ours, we kill 10,000 of theirs. that's the cost of war. you're talking about dollars and cents. get off of it. host: ok. let's let our guest respond. guest: you know, i certainly respect your firsthand experience with these issues and i will say that we just had a report come out that shows that there have been -- what we do is try to calculate the number of deaths that this war has caused. 801,000 people is our latest estimate. that includes deaths in iraq, fghanistan, syria, pakistan, yemen, and a handful of other places. above all, i think your point is totally right in that this is costing massive amounts of human lives. and it's costing lives of

american soldiers, american contractors, it's also costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians abroad. and i think as americans, we do have a responsibility to think about those innocent civilian lives that have been lost in this fight. there are also, in addition to those 801,000 people i just mentioned, those are the people who have been directly killed by bombs and bullets. we say that you have to think about the indirect affects of war as well. things like people -- 21 million people by the latest estimates have been displaced from their homes. how are they securing their livelihoods? health care infrastructure in the war zones has crumbled. half of the medical personnel in iraq have fled since the beginning of the war. so there are a lot of ways that people are dying indirectly of

these wars and our estimate is several times as many more as that 800,000 that i mentioned. so we're up into the millions, which is really just an ncredibly high cost. host: bob. wakefield, rhode island. independent line. caller: good morning. i listen every morning, i can at least an hour or so and sometimes more, but i got stimulated to call this morning because often we hear this statement about interest payments. and this was an extremely large one. over the years you hear the statement, follow the money. what i'd be very curious about is, where -- who is -- who are the beneficiaries of these interest payments? because that's how many people support themselves. they support themselves through

their i.r.a.'s or all different things, their interest payments. war, i'm going stop in a second, i just want to -- i know that any kind of war we have, there are these people that benefit from the war. they make the clothes or they make the bullets or they make the tanks. i think we need to focus more on that and i'd appreciate hearing your comments on it. thank you. host: bob from rhode island. thanks. guest: yeah, thanks for your questions. so, again, just to reiterate what i said. even if we stopped paying for the war on terrorism today, we will owe over $8 trillion in interest alone by the 2050's. so it's just a huge amount of interest. and we have a paper that came out as part of our project that, and this is the cost of war project at brown, that shows

that the ways that we are paying for this war today are going to basically lead to rising levels of social inequality in the united states. it's a historian, she looks back at how the u.s. has paid for its wars throughout time. and what she basically identifies certain patterns and what she shows is that today's combination of credit card war financing and tax cuts are basically the prediction is that those will lead to even higher levels of social inequality in the united states. why is that? because in the past, when the to. was at war, we were able kind of involve the everyday average american in paying for that war by selling war bonds and things like that. at the end of the war, the government would pay back the person who had bought, you know,

spent whatever, $5, $50, $500, and contributed to the war effort. and would pay them back with interest. so that's a way that when the war debt gets repaid, that actually redistributes income and that helps with issues of social inequality. today most of the people who are holding this war debt, it's wealthy individuals and private companies and government institutions and then that's about 60% and then 40% are actually foreign lenders. so when the war debt gets repaid, all the money and the interest is going to go back to those corporations and those institutions and those foreign lenders and not to the everyday american. that's one of the difficult things about this war debt in particular.

the other thing i'll say is the caller mentioned, you know, who is benefiting from the money that's being spent on this war? we often hear something like, you know, war is good for the economy. well, two things i'll say about that. first is, a lot of the money that is going to the department of defense, about half of that is going to private contracting companies. these are weapons manufacturers, plane manufacturers, things like that. so of the $700-plus billion that goes to the pentagon a year, half of that goes to these corporations. and their c.e.o.'s are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year. the second thing that i'll say is that a lot of times we hear that spending money on the military creates a lot of jobs. well, we have a paper on our site that shows that per dollar spent, if you spent the same amount of money in health care

or education, you're going to create far more jobs than spending that money on the military. that's because those kinds of sectors are much more people-intensive than military money. host: republican line is next. this is chester calling from north carolina for our guest. you're on. go ahead. caller: yes. i'd like to ask a question about the war. if you would take -- i believe we take somewhere -- that money that we put in there to help some of these people that's been over there and been hurt and all that, i think the government should put more money and effort into helping these people. host: ok. chester, thanks. guest: yes. i believe you're referring to -- well, you could be referring to american soldiers, you could also be referring to civilians abroad. first, for the u.s. soldiers,

you know, i think that there are ways in which people are supported by the veterans affairs and things like, that but it's not enough. -- like that, but it's not enough. this is the sickest class of vets that have come home from any war. there are lots of ways in which people are suffering psychologically. there's a statistic that about -- there are 10 times more, i believe it is, active duty suicides than there are deaths of u.s. service members in the war zones. so people are really suffering when they get home from these wars. and that's something that we need to do a much better job addressing as a nation. and then as far as the civilians in the war zones, in afghanistan and iraq, we have caused a vast amount of suffering over there

we here are ways in which can invest in reconstruction and humanitarianism and development aftermath of he the war. but those things, you know, it gets very tricky, all of those things, to administer. and there's been a lot of ways in which reconstruction funds in afghanistan and iraq have been misspent and so anyway. it's very complex. host: this is stephanie savell with brown university. she's with the cost of war project. she's their co-director. if you want to call and ask her questions about the work, the research can be found at costofwar.org. if you want to see more. ms. savell, last year you wrote a piece for the nation, the american empire long reach. you said this. you wrote, in general the american public has largely

ignored these post-9/11 wars and their costs. can you expand on that? guest: yes. i have to say this comes from kind of my personal experience in telling people what i do for a living. i go to a gathering and meet some new people and i say, i'm working on the war on terror and you get kind of -- oh, blank stears. oh, that's nice. -- stares. oh, that's nice. there's a real sense in which this war has kind of fallen out of our -- off of our radar screen as americans. i give talks to college students and college freshmen were born the year this war began. so effectively their entire lives have been -- the u.s. has been at war. and this is the longest running war in u.s. history. as i said before, we're not feeling it in our pocketbooks

because it's getting paid for on a credit card. those of us who don't have service members amongst our family and friends, this doesn't affect our lives directly. i think you can really -- there's a real sense that people just don't think about it very often. that's part of what we're trying to do is really kind of ask people to think about it and ask people to do something about it. i think that is changing a little bit. i have to say that there is a lot more talk, talk of withdrawal from afghanistan and syria and within congress there is a lot more talk of ending the endless wars and we are hearing a little bit more about it. even from when i wrote that piece a little while ago. so i do hope that that's changing and that there's a little bit of momentum around ending these wars. host: 202-748-8000 for

democrats. republicans, phone 1. and independents, 202-748-8002. for active or retired military, 202-748-8003. james is next. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i wanted to make two points. first, your guest just made, which is the disproportionate burden that falls upon, i think it's less than 1% of our nation has actually engaged in any kind of support for the war. so 18 to 20 years beyond september 11 now, i'm not at all surprised that the majority of our population is losing touch with and disengaged from the wars that we have going on. but the main point i wanted to make is listening to your guest, it sounds like we have a con flation of -- conflation of what the national strategy is for national policy and domestic policy and wholeheartedly agree that we need to go back as a

nation and as a government and reprioritize where our funds go and maybe reassess what our policy is. i want to throw something out and get her take on it. the presence of u.s. troops overseas is really in support of, i think, what the current foreign policy is, and i think that encompasses maintaining a presence overseas. because we have to ensure that not only are allies -- our allies but our enemies understand that we are in their backyard to deter and repel, if there's any kind of an action, that we have to create space. and i'm talking about space in time and literal space between where that action may occur and the u.s. homeland. i'm talking about assuring allies that we're going to be there and i don't necessarily think that events of the past several months have assured our allies that we're going to live up to some of those commitments. and then as i noted before, making sure that we deter any kind of potential threat or anything that an enemy of ours

may be thinking about. i want to go back too to a point -- host: james. i apologize. for the points you brought up, we'll let our guest tackle those. ms. savell, go ahead. guest: thank you. yeah, no, you raise some excellent points. again, my work and my project is focused on the war on terror in particular. the military has talked -- we've heard about a kind of shift in priorities and a recalibration of efforts away from counterterrorism and towards, you know, a rivalry with russia and china, what they call great power competition. and certainly some of the things that you're talking about in erms of military exercises and deterring is important in those regards. and what we see, however, in this map that i'm putting together, is that when you look

at kind of the really granular level, country by country, at what the u.s. is doing in each place, you find that still the vast majority of the countries that we're engaged in, it's in the name of counterterrorism. so call it what you will, but there is some way in which this logic and the framework of counterterrorism is continuing beyond necessarily what people are admitting to or talking about as kind of a strategic objective and that is precisely the thing that we need to, as a nation, i think, re-evaluate and reassess. congress has basically passed a resolution called -- in 2001 and 2002, called the authorization for the use of military force, the aumf. and that's a resolution that essentially allows the president to continue a kind of prolonged

war without congressional approval in the name of counterterrorism. since that, the passing of that resolution, congress as a whole has not weighed in on these -- the counterterror efforts and kind of the grand plan, if you, will of what we're doing. and there is some momentum afoot for kind of repeal of the aumf, for congress to kind of reassert what they call their war power. and to really be able to weigh in and come up with a better grand plan for dealing with the problem of terrorism. host: a couple of questions about your organization. how do you compile the research or how many people are involved in the compiling of research? what kind of metrics do you use to come to your conclusions? and who pays for the cost of war project? guest: yeah. so we draw on a network of over 50 scholars, most of them in the

united states, some abroad. and they are -- all of them work for different institutions, most of them universities. we have some doctors and human rights experts and things like that, but most of them are academics. so they're putting out these papers on our site that are based on the extensive body of research that they're putting out for their research agenda at their universities. and so what we do is we really try to work with them to kind of distill the information and think about what's most relevant to the public debate in the u.s. and then we try to reach out around that research to the media, to civil society groups, to lawmakers, to really provide that kind of bridging role. and the funders of the project, most of the funders are the

universities that are funding this research, and we also have funding from a couple of foundations as well. but we've been able to do quite a lot with the resources that we have. host: from illinois on our independent line, martin is next. go ahead. caller: hello, c-span. hello, america. i want you to talk about how -- i hear a lot of people attribute obama's debt and say how much he accumulated. but they can't name where at least $5 trillion or $10 trillion came from that and that was taking that off of george w. bush's wars in iraq and afghanistan. but to the first caller who said, hey, get over it about paying for these things, he should get over it. as much money as we spend on wars, there shouldn't be one homeless veteran in this country. but we have tons of them. and we do nothing. as a country, we suck for it.

host: ok. martin. ms. savell, if you wanted to respond to that. guest: yeah, i mean, one issue that that brings up is the issue of bad paper discharges. a lot of times service members, if they do get dishonorably discharged from the military, then they don't have access to veterans affairs services, health care, any of the other social services that our vets are rightfully given access to. so the way that you get a bad paper discharge is -- it can be any number of things. but what our research shows is that a lot of times it might just be someone acting out, kind of as a response to the psychological injuries that he or she has suffered. so something as simple as going binge leave and having a

drinking night or something like that, and then one thing leads to another and they get discharged with these bad papers. and that really is very -- that leads to a lot of difficulty for these people who come back to the u.s. and don't have any of the social services that they really need to be able to kind of reintegrate into society and make ends meet. host: here is gary from new york. democrats line. caller: yes. i'd like to take my hat off to c-span this morning for having the courage to bring ms. savell on with her message. i have a hunch and maybe ms. savell would answer this, that with the mainstream media, the rest of the mainstream media, ms. savell would be a pariah. and i would suspect that she couldn't get in the front door

to get her message across, to be interviewed with the mainstream members r with all 535 of congress. i don't think would give ms. savell much time. which makes my point and i'd like to lay this on ms. savell's doorstep. don't we have a war government, war media, and a population that's kept largely in the dark? guest: so, um, you know, i think , at, first of all, we do have you know, it's a challenge, it's what we do every day. but more and more we are getting attention in the mainstream media and thanks to c-span for

inviting me here, there are people who are paying attention and our research is considered very credible and legitimate. our number, the $6.4 trillion figure, of course it doesn't even come close to, as the first caller said, to kind of talking about the whole cost of war, there are so many economic, political, social, human costs of war. but just the fact that that $6.4 trillion figure has gotten a little bit more uptake, it gets cited all the time in places like "the new york times" and the "wall street journal" and mainstream -- other mainstream sources. so there is a sense in which we are, i think, part of a shifting tide, a shifting momentum around this topic. and people on both sides, i should say, of the political spectrum are really grateful for

what we're doing. we present our work not as partisan at all, but it's all about the facts and we're just presenting the information that we have, that research shows. and there are people across the political spectrum that really appreciate that and we have just i should say now, libertarian groups as progressive groups that are drawing on our research. there are a lot of people, including veterans groups, who are advocating now for ending these wars. so we kind of build on and are part of that broader momentum. and that is exciting. host: there's an op-ed found on a website, what my personal war cost me. it cites the work of the cost of war, but it gives it from the perspective of being a military spouse. do you do any work in that space

or at least provide context there? guest: yes. the doctor was a co-founder of the project back in 2011. she and my co-director just came out with a book called "war and health" that features a bunch of different essays on the indirect deaths, the issue of all these people in the war zones. for example, the widows in afghanistan who are turning to heroin use and things like that to cope with the difficulties of what they're facing. so a whole different range of essays like that. the doctor is actually a military spouse herself so she writes about, a very personal reflection about the

difficulties of both being a military spouse and writing about the many costs of these wars and how that's very -- it's painful for her to kind of be in position where, you know, it sems like those two things are at odds but she's actually a counselor for vets, a trauma counselor as well. you see the social worker as well as an anthropologist. so she really sees her efforts actually as all part of the same thing, which are, you know, let's end this suffering. and i think that's really where we find a lot of common ground with people across the united states, as a lot of people are saying that right now. let's end this suffering and let's end these wars. host: there's a viewer off of

twitter who asks you if the department of defense is aware or acknowledges your research. guest: not necessarily the department of defense itself. although recently when we released our new figures on the cost of the war, the $6.4 trillion cost and the 081,000 lives -- 801,000 lives, those were released on a briefing on capitol hill and that briefing was hosted by senator jack reed. he's the ranking democrat on the senate armed services committee. and he's a senator from rhode island. so we have a good relationship with him and he invited us to do that briefing. it's the third time, the third year we've done that. and so that's an important venue for us because that really enables us to communicate our

work in a way that gives it a lot of credibility and legitimacy in congress, the senate armed services committee submits that as an official part of the congressional record. so, yes, there are definitely people at the highest levels of government who are aware of the work that we're doing. host: pittsburgh, pennsylvania, independent line. caller: hi. i just wanted to give a shoutout on the cost of war for children and communities here in america. that war and health study sounds interesting. there are so many kids here in america who live around ammunition plants. many of them in appalachia. and one of the plants was designated superfund in the 1990's, then it was overruled by the governor of virginia at the time. anyway, so when you talk about , money, b.a.e. systems they're by many accounts the

third largest recipient of u.s. war funds. and the chairman of the board of that company is michael cher staff. yes, that michael cher tauf. -- chore to have. b.a.e. systems opened in america in 2001 and since then they've taken over contracts to operate u.s. army bases where ammunition is produced. so they're literally profiting off of this war. these wars. and these war efforts. so b.a.e. systems operates a plant where ammunition is produced as a profit and sold to saudi arabia. against congress' wishes, but the president thinks he knows better. so i'd like to just put in a plug to the national priorities project, if you would consider including data outside of the university, academic papers, there's a whole series called bombs in our backyard, written by propublica, a nonprofit news source, and it digs into the cost of war here at home in america.

host: ok, thank you. thank you for that. as we finish up, when you look then to future analysis of these kind of costs, what other factors are you considering that we haven't discussed this morning? guest: we have a new series of papers that are going to come out on the 20th anniversary of the invasion of afghanistan so that will be october, 2021, and we're looking at the costs very comprehensively. for example, we are looking at costs to u.s. families and communities of caring for vets. we're looking at the costs in terms of u.s. civil liberties and rule of law. looking at things like increased surveillance and lack of data privacy, increased racial profiling by police and that kind of thing. so, what else, there's political

costs, like increased sectarianism in the middle east, greater corruption in the middle -- we ere are papers were soliciting a depre comprehensive look at migration and refugee flows from these wars. we're looking at the corporations who are profiting from these wars and the ways that they're able to do so across the world. so there are a whole slough of ways you can look at costs and there are just these dramatic human and economic costs, but then all these other ripple effects of war as well. host: all that research available to you at the website, costsofwar.org. stephanie savell, the co-director of this project. thank you for your time and happy thanksgiving. guest: you too. thanks so much for having me. host: coming up, we're going to meet david blankenhorn.

he's the president and co-founder of an organization known as better angels. he's going to discuss his group's efforts to foster understanding among people of different political ideologies and promote civility in politics. coming up on "washington journal." [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] >> our c-span campaign 2020 bus team is traveling across the country asking voters, what issues should presidential candidates address? >> i think one of the most unaddressed issues in this presidential campaign is reforming federal prisons, as the u.s. marshals, prisoners in federal prisons, along with i.c.e. detention facilities, have a staggering death rate of prisoners. i think it's an important issue to address that -- and the federal government has the power to do. so >> what i want the candidates to focus on is constituents who never get their voices heard and these constituents are nonhuman animals and as an investigator who has blown the whistle on multiple factory farms where

animals are being criminally abused, for doing that i'm facing felony charges and one of the things that i want the candidates to focus on is how the public has a right to know what's going on behind these closed doors, inside of pig farms and chicken farms and these places where animals are being criminally abused but also that ordinary individuals like you and me have the right to rescue these animals from that criminal abuse. >> i would love for the candidates on all sides to please start talking more about gun safety, gun issues, how we can in some ways take a lot of the gun, illegal guns and legal guns, for that matter, off of the streets and out of the hands of those who should not have them. more importantly, make our societies, our environments places of peace and common ground where you don't feel you need handguns and assault rifles. not in our public spaces. they should definitely be removed. think about that. >> i would like toe to see the candidates focusing on trying to reinstate the voting rights act

and bringing fairness back into elections. we need to not only control and make sure the elections are secure, but we need to make sure that everyone that is a citizen is able to vote without having onerous penalties and fines that they can never get out of. >> voices from the road on c-span. >> "washington journal" continues. host: this is david blankenhorn. he's the president and co-founder of an organization known as better angels and he's here to talk about the work and plus the larger issues of civility in politics. mr. blankenhorn, good morning. guest: good morning. good to be with you. host: thanks for joining us. the purpose of your effort is to bring people at least to a better understanding of where they are politically. can you talk about the details of your organization and what its purpose is? guest: we bring together republicans, democrats,

independents, all three of your phone lines, to try to learn to respect and care for one another as citizens, despite our differences. and when possible, find common ground. especially when it comes to ways to make a less divided and rank rouse society. we think it's important and necessary to save our country. we started a couple of years ago. we now have 8,500 members in all 50 states. we're very active across the country. and we're growing rapidly. host: how do you do that, specifically, how does this process work? guest: we bring together groups of citizens who disagree with one another strongly, politically, we call community meetings, community workshops and we get to know one another, ask each other questions and ultimately form local groups

called alliances that work together across the divides, at the local level. and we have these all over the country and then we have an annual convention that brings people together nationally where we try to come up with policy reforms that we feel would make a less divided country. so it's a grassroots effort, number one, to depot larize ourselves as citizens, citizen to citizen, and then also think of ways as we grow stronger to affect the larger society. host: when did you -- how did you come up with this concept? what led you to this? guest: right after the 2016 election, two friends of mine, david who lives in south lebanon, ohio, and bill, who lives in minneapolis, minnesota, we decided to bring together 20 people in south lebanon, ohio, 10 who had just proudly voted for donald trump, and 10 who had just proudly voted for hillary clinton. this is three weeks after the election. to spend some time trying to talk with one another rather

than about one another. it was a big success. the people really liked it. they felt better about each other and the country and so we knew we had something. so we've now had more than 400 of these gatherings across the country. we have about 15 to 20 of them every week now. all run by trained volunteers. so it's a spreading movement to bring together people, first at the local level, and then work ogether nationally, for a less rancorous discussion where we respect one another as citizens, where we can find some common ground. the most common thing people tell us after they begin to work together is, you know, we're less divided than we've been told. host: so walk us through, if someone were to just stand aside, watch this process play out, give us a sense of how this works. give us the mechanics. guest: the first thing we do

when we get together is a little initiative that we call beyond stereotypes. so we usually divide into what we call red and blue. so if you lean conservative, that's red. if you lean liberal, that's blue. then each side comes up with stereotypes that they think the other side has about it. so if you're red, what is the stereotype that liberals have about you? well, you know, you're racist, you don't like immigrants, you don't care about the poor. if you're liberal, what are the stereotypes that you think conservatives have about you? you want government to solve everybody's problems, you're soft-hearted, everybody should get free stuff. and you want open borders. then we discuss to what degree those stereotypes are false, because generally they're more false than true. and also, what elements of truth there might be in them. so we talk to one another and

kind of go beyond the idea of stereotypes and actually be -- communicate with one another. and there's -- these things last usually a day. we have them on saturdays. we also have a three-hour version that can happen in the evening. but the basic point of the thing is to have me as -- if i'm a conservative, have me express my views and also hear the other side's point of views in a good way. so that we can actually connect with one another as citizens rather than just finger point or exaggerate our differences. so the point of it is, you know, i can listen to the other side and the other side can listen to me, we can find respect. host: our guest is with us until 9:30. if you want to ask him questions about his organization, the effort, larger issue of civility and politics, you can call us, 202-748-8000 for democrats. republicans, 202-748-8001. and independent, 202-748-8002.

you can text us at 202-748-8003. david, when you have these conversations or the people who participate, are there ground rules and who sets up the, i guess, makes sure that people adhere to those rules? caller: there are -- guest: there are ground rules but they're very simple and people agree to them in advance. the most important ground rule is that we're here to listen and to be heard, but not to try to change anybody's mind. we're not trying to out-argue another side. we're trying to say what we think, but also listen. the rest of the ground rules are pretty simple. just be nice. and be respectful. so it's a pretty simple -- the ground rules are simple. but the process has been designed by professor daugherty at the university of minnesota and it's a pretty evidence-based

process. we do evaluations after each one of these things. and people leave these experiences less polarized than when they walked in the door. that's a consistent finding. so it really does help people to make connections with others that they thought they probably couldn't connect with. and to feel better about that and to feel better about the future of the country. host: we're coming at a time where tomorrow is thanksgiving. people will be sitting down of different political stripes. maybe they'll talk issues of politics. what are the questions they should be asking each other from what you learned and from this experience, how should they be engaging each other with sense of learning more about where the other stands? guest: thanksgiving is often a difficult time. lots of americans, it's a great holiday, but sometimes lately you feel like, oh, my gosh, what if these contentious political arguments happen around the thanksgiving table? a lot of people do worry about that. there's no magic formula here. one idea is to, as you

suggested, to ask questions rather than make speeches. it's also better to ask questions of clarification rather than gotcha questions. a question of clarification is, tell me more about why you believe that. a gotcha question is, how can you possibly believe this, given such and such, where you kind of smuggle an accusation into the question. ask questions, don't give speeches. and ask genuine questions of clarification rather than contentious kinds of accusation questions. host: at the end of the day, i suppose both sides are so adhered to the idea that they're right, that might make that difficult. guest: it does make it difficult. it makes it difficult for me and everybody. one interesting thing is they've done studies about this. if you just try to out-argue the other person, showing them fact us that don't think they're aware of, and you just keep arguing, the only result of that

is that both sides get more dug in. no one changes their minds as a result of that kind of arguing. so it's really pointless. so it's much better to try to get to know -- and also, if you can make it personal in the sense of, well, what maybe happened in your life to cause you to have this view? what experiences did you have? rather than sort of arguing information, if you try to find out where the other person's coming from, that is much better approach to trying to find something that you can really have a good discussion about. host: if you want more of those skills for thanksgiving, if you go to the better angels went site -- website, you can find a list of those skills at that website. since you list yourself as a nonprofit, where do you get your funding from and does it come from one political stripe or other? guest: no. we have something called the better angels rule and which is

that we are evenly divided. we use the term red and blue, but lean liberal, lean conservative. we are evenly divided in our funding sources, our board of directors, our staff, our leadership team. that's an absolute rule that we have. about 25% of our money currently comes from membership dues. it's 12ds a year to join better an-- $12 a year to join better angels. ing you can go to better--- you can go to better-angels.org to join. the rest comes from foundations, liberal leaning, right leaning and individuals -- individual members who are able to give more than the people can find that online as far as the funding and your transparency? online and can go get a list of who has contributed. our goal is to have the

proportion grow. we would like to have the majority of our funding come from membership dues. we are keeping them low, $12 a year, so that everybody can join. i encourage you, if you care about this effort, if you think it is necessary to save our country, go to better-angels.org. host: we will start with joe in jasper, florida, republican line. caller: thank you. call.you for taking my i want you to know that i'm so excited and thrilled to learn about your organization. i do plan on visiting the site .nd perhaps joining i rich just like to know if the topic -- i would just like to

know if the topic of brotherly love ever comes up? guest: thank you. that is a great question. if you know, caller, have seen, there is a book now out by arthur brooks called ."ove your enemy the true meaning of civility is the desire to do good for your opponent. it really does take us to concept of love. it really does. love,ns being able to want to do well to your opponent, it is a profound issue and goes to the heart of what we are doing. host: arthur brooks appearing on this network in several forms to talk about that book and what he found from that experience.

gulfport, mississippi, democrats line. caller: happy thanksgiving. i started watching your show since the impeachment hearings. i hadn't watched in years, and it is such a blessing to have your station have these scholarly, compassionate analysts who are doing good for our society, so thank you for that. i have to admit, i am at history a --n because we have to have a change in some of our southern states, so iso appreciate your -- i appreciate your approach. we haven't won in our races because of people indulged in

spewing of hatred, calling that campaigning for somebody. tactic, let alone social change message. thank you for putting this out. websites sharing those with every source i can across the country. guest: that is very kind. thank you. host: anything to add? guest: it is just that lots of people feel the way that my friend who just said. people who feel at the got level, what the country needs. we do not have to persuade people we have a problem on our hands. aty americans are heartsick how far we have descended into rancor and name-calling and mudslinging and acting like

children on television with one another, with our public officials. there is a feeling in the country among liberals, conservatives, and everybody in between that we need to do this better -- and that our country is at stake, our democracy is at stake. if we cannot trust one another and be decent to one another, our democracy will not work. there is a natural desire for people to do better, and all they need is an opportunity to put their values into action. we find that people are eager to do this. organization fostered a conversation between the offices of representative dean phillips, democrat from minnesota, and pete stauber, the republican. talk about that exchange. guest: it was terrific. those two representatives sent their staff together to one of

our better angels events, workshops. it was very productive. people,nd to be younger very politically aware, right in the thick of the partisan battles in washington, but they spent the day together talking about things they might have in to figure out how they might work together across the divide. don't we need more of this? it was a great experience and i am grateful to the representatives who did this. we hope this is the first of many such efforts, not just with us. there is a terrific group called national institute for civil discourse, and others, who are working on this problem. host: northeast texas, independent line, noelle. caller: happy thanksgiving.

great programs. i will check out your organization, and i love the comment about brotherly love. there is simply not enough about it -- of it, or civil discourse. one thing i would love to see our government to his get out of the business of everybody's religion. i don't even think it should be discussed at any level but in your private, personal life, and i'm all for that. happening inat is our government today, i don't know, has it always been like that? i grew up in the 1950's and i don't remember people trying to way into your business about what you believe, your spirituality.

it is concerning to me when people think that certain officials arected now suddenly ordained to be this or that, and how do we get over that? i hope in your groups that you have, maybe we could address that. if we could just go back to worshiping privately. host: got the point. we do it is a great quest talk about this issue in better angels -- question. we do talk about this in better angels and we have different opinions in our organization. it is a balance. generally speaking, many americans, their religious beliefs are very important to them so it is natural they would have an influence on their public life. on the other hand, as you were saying, if it becomes too much

about attacking people on the basis of religion, or just being very show-offy or phony about -- religious you are, that we have struggled with this since the beginning of the country. there have been eras where we have done better or worse. host: you are attributed to a ultimate"the ultimo -- antidote for political arrogance is political humility." what do you mean? guest: humility is just the belief that you do not know everything. we use to teach our children and it was a natural belief that we don't know everything. from others and benefit from talking to others who disagree, because they might know something i don't know. this is very simple stuff, but we have lost it in our public

discussion at the level love, you see people on television or of, you hearevel -- see people on television or you hear people, in general it is grandstanding, i know everything, you know nothing, you are an idiot. how can this be? how does anybody know anything -- everything? that is what humility means. you can benefit from talking to other people you don't agree with. host: can i ask about a personal experience that was highlighted of a profile? on same-sexsition marriage and changed that position, and it led to the influence of what you do today. can you account for that? guest: i was very active in the whole gay marriage debate in the early to thousands. i was in the public eye as an

opponent to gay marriage, and i testified in the prop 8 trial in california. i met a guy in the course of this debate, a guy on the others, jonathan rao's, in washington. he works at the brookings institute and wrote a book called "gay marriage: why it is good for gays, straights, and all americans." we have become good friends and he is on the board of directors and he is a strong advocate of gay rights. he is a gay man himself. i met him and his husband, michael. it really wasn't through arguing or learning new facts, but getting to know him and him introducing me to other people. my stereotypes began to weaken and that is the main reason i changed my mind on the issue.

this showed me something, that people tend to change their minds on the basis of relationships that they have and what is important to them in their life rather than political argument. the other thing i learned from that experience is that if you do change your mind about something in public, you will be heavily criticized. we don't like people changing their minds on things and it seems to me, normal that you would change your mind. it seems that changing your mind can be a healthy thing. in general, in today's highly intolerant world, if you change your mind that is bad. those factors, that experience i had of sort of being on both sides of a very contentious having some experiences that caused me to think about how we might get along better in the country, and jonathan rauch,

he is now a colleague of mine. that was one of the bases of forming better angels. host: better-angels.org. if you want to go to the website to find out more about the organization. peter in new york, republican line. caller: good morning. i think that what you and your organization are doing is great, but i believe the problem is more in washington than it is among the public. issues,f the politicians basically agree. they are just running the government and it is that very small, what you have named, issues, that divide people. republicans or democrats, it seems to be the temp -- tactic they are using, to demonize the

other side in order to stay in power, and using those divisive issues two separate people and not bring people together. there used to be compromise. another big factor is the media itself. the mainstream media seems to be more interested in giving opinion then giving the public the news. that is very divisive also. i think that is a larger problem , because i have always believed in dialogue, and if you could convince me that what you are saying is valid, i am willing to listen. it seems to me that particularly the mainstream media is more concerned about molding opinions then giving the public the news, what is right and wrong. guest: thank you. those are strong points. i could not personally agree more with you. look, we are less divided than

we have been told. grounds a lot of common among the citizens of the country. most people realize that when they begin to talk to one another, and you are right. for someion can work politicians. they can use it to help get elected and stay in office. it works in some media environments, not on a show like this, but on most shows, sensationalism and yelling can be beneficial to that particular program. you are absolutely right, and it is time for we the people, we the people to take more control of this. we don't have to put up with this, and what better angels is about is kind of an uprising against this environment that is so toxic and destructive.

we don't have to put up with this. we want to be a major force in this country for the kind of compromise,cency, looking for ways to work together, respect across the divide, not so much rancor and animosity, and this is possible. it is possible if we the people demand it. host: do you get a sense that there is an inside the beltway approach to how you view each other's politics versus an outside the beltway approach? guest: i do. are not trying to -- there plenty of wonderful people in washington, d.c., so i don't want to make that blanket yes, in the area of national politics, there tends to be a lot of today, grandstanding. legislators spend less and less

time legislating and more time fundraising and looking for publicity. if you go to the local level, there is a lot more -- people know each other more. there is a bit more person-to-person connection, so i'm not trying to demonize -- there are wonderful people in government at all levels, as well as people who are fanning the flames of animosity. yes, there is a difference between what happens in washington on this set of issues and what happens in the rest of the country. host: the line for democrats, deborah. good morning. caller: it is so good to hear you speaking this morning. i just have three small things i would like to say. i wish that we as a country could come together, no more about democrats and republicans but about what is right and what is wrong. guest: amen.

caller: i am sure the people that follow our president, they know exactly who he is. they don't have a problem with it. i do. number three is i am well aware of the fact that people believe what they want to believe. the truth is what you believe, and that is where we are right now. truth is not being told. we need to start back with telling the truth. thank you very much and have a good day. guest: thank you. i think perhaps, caller, you -- people inthings public saying things that aren't true, that can be one way to interpret what you are saying. i believe there is more of that then we have had in many years, and it is a real tragedy. another thing is perhaps what

you are also referring to, we have more and more difficulty today even agreeing on what the truth is, what the facts are because we have alternative interpretations of what the facts are. it can be very disorienting and confusing to try and -- there is less and less shared understanding of what the basic ands are in one situation, it makes it much more difficult for us to have a good conversation with one another. i don't know the solution to that. it is something we talk a lot about in better angels, and there may be ways people in public life and in the media can work on this, but it is very important. host: when you host these forums across the united states, how long before the walls of defense, so to speak, as far as political positions go down, and a real conversation happens?

last sevenworkshops hours, usually over the course of a saturday. at the end of the seven hours, we are seeing dramatic -- we measure this with survey questions before and after. it is a big change. we also have a three hour evening thing where we see similar levels of change, not changing your views on issues, but changing your views on the other signed. for example, we have a college program called better angels debates where college students talk to each other about very controversial issues. do you believe that people on the others are generally good people? you would get an answer, some proportion, not a very high answer. people generally don't believe that people on the others are good people. after this experience, it really goes up.

there is a jump in the number of people who will say, i do not agree but i think they are generally good people. when that happens, when we can rediscover the notion of civic friendship, what your other caller called brotherly love, when we can find that again, despite our differences, we are on the way to healing our country, on the way to being the united states of america again, versus this really dangerous, divisiveness we have today. was in the house where representative johnny isakson announced he was leaving office and had an exchange with the democratic congressman from georgia, john lewis, politically different, but here is part of the exchange. >> you have been very good to the people of the state of georgia and i'm lucky enough and just blessed really to call you

a friend and a brother. .hank you so much madam speaker, it is almost difficult to yield back the time when i speak with this good and great leader from the state of georgia. thank you, brother, for your service. i will come over to meet you, brother.

--t: representative lewis representative isaacson and long hug. give some input. guest: that is beautiful. what we just saw is what abraham lincoln called the battle ain't -- better angels of our nature. the name of our organization comes from that phrase, within abraham lincoln's first and now euro address in 1861 on the eve --eight inaugural address inaugural address in 1861 on the eve of the civil war. what john lewis did was to say and act out more beautifully than i could, what lincoln called the better ain't yours -- better angels of our nation, that we are friends, not enemies. simple, profound thing we saw.

very moving. very moving to see. there are plenty of good people in politics who want to be that way, who want to be the way those two guys were on that clip , and it is ashamed shame that we don't have a system that allows and encourages that more. host: i will clarify, it was johnny isakson as part of that exchange. let's go to brad in london, kentucky, independent line. morning.ood earlierpedro mentioned about how it seemed the division , it was certainly a washington thing and the people out in the nation, we do have more in common. i felt like if a persian reaches a better -- person reaches a

better political point with a person, you would almost have to have been aiming for that. there is so much more to our life and shared american experience. one thing i wanted to say was somethingn all agree happened in 2016. engage insh to political descriptions or personalities because i'm trying to make a larger point, but whatever this divisive spirit that has taken hold of our shared american brotherhood that is evident to all, it exponentially grew in 2016 and has been since. past,eing said, in the there had always been a communication and back and forth between our former presidents

and the current president. there always had been. you can go back to the founders who were possibly more bitterly politically divided then we are now, and still they were men of theyrs and they shared -- got down to the business in the heart of america. they did not allow themselves to be divided. case -- wehave the have a current president, no matter what you think of him, he is the current president, and we have former presidents. there is a communication breakdown there, and that is hurtful and that has to be a pain to the nation whether we recognize it or not. the man new to the job, there should be a communication. there, can't have it that comes from the top down.

, cannotlike to challenge you, but hope maybe you could consider making a platform of your organization that lobbies to make a conversation happened between our living former presidents, god bless them all, and our current president. host: thank you. guest: thank you. brother, you need to join better angels. we need you. that was a very eloquent statement, very strong point, and i'm going to remember that. i hadn't thought about it, but you are absolutely right on the communication between former presidents and the current president being part of our democratic tradition. it does go back to the founding. totry, in better angels, come up with ideas like this, so it is not just a grassroots

group. we try to change the behavior of our leaders to recover that sense of what you are talking about. you are making an excellent point. -- i will that in claim credit for having the idea and if it doesn't work i will say, a guy called and mentioned it. this guys should join, come join better angels. host: go ahead. caller: thank you for the work you are doing. before trump even took office, the democrats in the house were talking about impeaching him. here is a guy coming in who is not a politician. they could have looked at a number of things that they could have worked with him on. talked aboutt away impeaching the guy right off the bat even before he took his oath

of office. washington,n in there is so many things they could have worked with this guy on, every one of them, and every were for all the issues that trump mentioned until he mentioned and then they were against them. guest: you are making a strong point. a lot of people in better angels make that point. a lot of people on the others of the aisle make the point that something very similar happened when barack obama was elected. our agenda for the next four years is to make sure this guy does not get reelected. they would say that kind of behavior demonstrated against president obama in the same way it is demonstrated against

president trump. what we learned is there is plenty of blame to go around. there is no point in arguing over who is more to blame. alwaysse you, each side believes the other side is more to blame. the question is, what can we do together now to put an end to what this caller described? this guy says this was a bad thing to have everything completely polarized from day one. could not agree more. what can we do together to make sure this does not continue host:? from our -- this does not continue? host: from our independent line, david. caller: i don't want to be too pessimistic.

he and his group are standing at the base of mount everest and they need to scale that. i think that every day, that monster -- every day that monster is in the white house, he takes a flamethrower to it. that is what he does. he loves it. a large part of the population, 30% to 40% absolutely love it. they love all the divisiveness and vile that trump floats out every darn day. i am supporting you 100%. it is great what you are doing, but it is such an uphill battle since he is in the white house and after. he has planted poisonous seeds that will be there for years to come. he is the antithesis of civility. how can we overcome that? workinge overcome it by

doether as citizens to everything we can to scale mount everest. i agree that the forces of division are riding high now, i agree, and i agree that the task before us is a big one. but i also would say that america, there are a lot of good people in this country who want something better, and we are a free society and we don't have to put up with this. we can come together and do something better. there are lots of people who don't like president trump and there are lots of people who do. what we are going to have to do, despite everybody's strong disagreements about this, we are going to have to find ways to come together as a country. voting for who we think is

important, standing for her we we believe in,ho in the partisan arena, but trying to make a less divided country, a more united country where we can see one another's humanity and work together on areas that we share. is it a tall order? yes. is it definite that we can succeed? is it a tall order? no, it is not definite. but, caller, what is our alternative? our country is at stake. our democratic form of government is at stake if we cannot climb this everest. you should join better angels and help us do that. host: does your organization track for those who participate in your forums, if they have seeged to take that step, others where they stand

politically, do they hold those positions over time or do they go back to certain thoughts and impressions of people's politics? guest: that is an excellent question and the truth is, we are not sure. we know it has a short-term effect. we have not had the researchers come in to measure the long-term effect. maybe it fades out. lots of people who have this experience join the organization and become active in an ongoing way can one of our local alliances or at the national level. they become leaders. we have people on our board of directors who began by coming to one of these events. at the level of our grassroots leadership, we know that the effect is long-lasting. but for all the thousands of attended, we don't

know yet the long-term, whether it fades out, how it fades out. if we had the money to get the research done, we would find a better answer. host: from illinois, democrats line, kathryn. caller: i just wanted to echo my support for this better angel concept. every morning i do a mile walk a neighbor also around 4:30 in the morning. she is walking her dog. we stopped for a moment and talked about the impeachment thing and we both said to ourselves, we can't talk about the negative side here. we need to build this president up. trump-er.i am a never trump-er.ever

protestant andd i'm white and catholic. god give moment that this man everything he needs. needse to get down on our -- down on our knees sometimes and put our differences aside and pray for somebody who is desperately in need of prayer. that is all i wanted to say. thank you. guest: thank you for those comments, sister. that is beautiful. i am moved by what you said, and i'm grateful to you. the definition of civility is not just being nice, not just being polite. the true definition of civility is due in your heart, want to do

good to the people you disagree what you were doing with your neighbor, that was what you were doing, the better angels of our nature. host: one more call from brian in michigan, republican line. -- civility morning is what i would like to speak about. criticizing barack obama, c-span blocked my phone number. what is so civil about that? i am using my grandson's phone. host: we will just leave it at that. where do we go from here? need a strong and growing citizens movement to overcome the divisiveness now that is tearing us apart, and we

need to be strong enough as a social movement to begin to change the way people let the top behave. that is the purpose of this better angels movement. it will begin only when we the people begin to come together and make these changes, like the lady who met her friend and prayed together. that is it. if you believe our country needs this and you want to be a part of something that can change the country and save our country, i invite you to join us. better-angels.org, see if you like what we are doing. we would love to have every american be a part of this our republican democratic form of government

depends on us making this change. blankenhorn, president and cofounder of better angels. thank you for your time and happy thanksgiving. guest: happy thanksgiving. thank you. host: for the remainder of our program, we will turn to issues of politics, particularly public policy. public policy issues you find are important, maybe they are focused on and maybe not. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. .ndependents, (202) 748-8002 we will take your calls. ♪ you, i hangto tell my head in shame at the industry is very i would say unfair personalized reporting of

these fellas. i think that you ought to know that opinion because you were going to be disappointed in me down the road if i didn't tell you that. i am just telling you frankly that i think your industry is wrecking all of us. >> well, that is pretty heavy-handed, and you can imagine what it was like for the journalist the next day. country, very disturbing. we are hearing that today that the presses the enemy of the american people, according to president trump. the press is not the ma -- enemy of the american people. &a, talking about the tension between the american presidents and the press. >> the impeachment inquiry

hearings continue next week when house judiciary committee chairman jerrold nadler holds the first impeachment inquiry into president trump, focusing on the constitution and the history of impeachment. watch our live coverage wednesday, december 4 at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span3. chairman nadler extended an invitation for the president and his counsel to appear before the committee. website,letter on our c-span.org/impeachment, and follow the impeachment on listen, c-span.org, or on the free c-span radio app. >> "washington journal" continues. top: you can discuss your public policy issues on the line. isyou want to text us, it (202) 748-8003.

can post on twitter or facebook. >> today, we also come together to honor the beautiful feathered friend, the noble turkey. that is a beauty. the firstncoln was president to spare a thanksgiving turkey at the request of his son. truman accepted the first ever national thanksgiving turkey. in the decades that followed, presidents from kennedy to reagan would show mercy -- see? [laughter] that is a strong bird. to their birds. --rge h w bartsch first george h w bush first officially

answered a pardon. butterissue a pardon to and his partner, brad. -- bread. their names were chosen by the students at herald christian academy in north carolina, great state. raised bybutter were farmer wiley jackson who is here family. with his they did a great job. thank you very much. applause] thankfully, bread-and-butter have been raised to remain calm under any situation, and they have just received subpoenas to appear in adam schiff's

investigation. phases of the impeachment by the house judiciary hearing planned. constitutional grounds are present to chill -- presidential impeachment. jerrold nadler wrote to the president requesting his participation and that of the white house counsel as part of ensuring a "fair and informative "i hope you and your counsel will opt to participate or cut -- participate the president has a choice to make. he can be represented or stop complaining. when it comes to issues of public policy, what is your top one? vineyard haven, this is eric on the democrats line. caller: i am calling about the

of what was going on -- fcccebook and twitter because of what was going on with facebook and twitter. it is weakening these departments to protect the public. they need strengthening. that is what i really called about. host: georgia is next, dave, independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i want to talk about my main issue in our country, saving our country. what your guest now talking about brotherly love, i want to quickly, if you will let me talk about reparations. the reparations have not been in the news. when i walked down the street

and when i come upon and and passing a man -- i think most people in america will agree that our black brethren have gotten a pretty bad deal out of this country for a number of hundred years. reparations, myeye. what about when you pass a man on the street who does not look like you, reach out and say hello? maybe he has not had a white man say hello ever before in his life. how do you expect these people -- you complain about the people that won't even speak english. would you bring yourself to say hello to someone who does not look like you? maybe to send to speak english if you lay a hello on your brother. host: deberry, texas, republican line, chris. caller: good morning.

i am supportive of the wall and i just wanted to say that the division in the country, in my socialists the trying to take us into socialism , taxing us, shutting down our businesses, destroying everything we have built, taking stuff i have earned by my own hand and giving it to somebody else, is the problem. we are going to stop that and that is what this is all about. it is a movement to get our country back, our freedom back, because we know you will take us to china or venezuela or russia and we are not going. host: betty, gaithersburg, maryland, democrat. caller: my concern is mitch mcconnell holding up bills in the house. he should allow a vote for a discussion. it is a big problem. state" newspaper

reporting that nine familiar faces in south carolina will help with the president's reelection. governor henry mcmaster and former governor and ambassador to the united nations nikki haley will help coal lead the south carolina team ahead of the general election. also joining our lindsey graham and tim scott, william timmons and joe wilson. york, republican line, we will hear from ray. caller: my number one issue is to drain the swamp and it encompasses those issues like the wall and the globalists. that is the only issues that matters -- issue that matters because if that doesn't happen, nothing else will happen either. host: what exactly do you mean by drain the swamp? caller: the people that are controlling our government, and

internationally they are controlling most of the west, are terribly corrupt and are basically blackmailed into doing the bidding of the globalists. allowinghy we saw the all the refugees into europe. that is what they want to do here. , not people ins the united states you want that. host: specifically, who are these people? he hung up. rick in boston, massachusetts, democrats line. is the worldncern when donald trump wins election. we got this guy putting walls where nobody is there. he claims people should be -- they should be scared. there is nothing to be scared of.

host: immigration is your top public policy issue? caller: that too. this guy stands and tells people in ourtin interfered election and 10 seconds later said he didn't. handcuffshave been in , claiming the guy didn't do nothing. they should have put his behind in jail as soon se came offstage. -- as soon he came offstage. alaska, republican line. caller: can you hear me? host: you are on. caller: how are you this morning? host: fine, thanks. caller: let's talk a little bit about term limits. we pontificate all the time about what can we do?

what we can do is finally, someday, hopefully soon get term limits. without it, i don't know how you drain the swamp. host: when it comes to term limits, what is the ideal term? opinion, tworsonal four senator, three for congressman -- two for senator, three for senator. terms. host: why do you think that is a sweet spot when it comes to the length of service? caller: we were supposed to be citizen representatives. any younger than that, we know what k street, we know what lobbying, we know what being indebted to the money that got you in the position, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy that

-- you going to be stuck know what i'm talking about. host: that is dan in alaska. gus, austin, texas, independent line. caller: i just want to talk about the judges being appointed. if you were going to appoint judges, you should have at least 60 or 70 of the people vote not justvote for them, a little over half. how many countries are free countries with a wall? a wall is the complete opposite of freedom, and america is all about freedom, and america is worldwide. people all over the world believe in america and freedom and justice for all, not dividing people with a wall and keeping these people out. how much does it cost to go from

texas to new mexico? taxpayerss it costing to go from texas to louisiana? we are free to go across borders. why are we putting a wall up? what will that do for us? it will just cost the taxpayers and create more crime. it is not helping anybody. -- when itf twitter comes to term limits, term limits is an issue everyone can get behind except congress. missouri, democrats line, richard. seeing the president with the turkeys reminded me that benjamin franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird. candidates, they remind me of my favorite movie, world.", bad, bad

they all struggled to get ahead. hill" reporting the bureau of land management website intended to answer a question about the relocation out west, staffers should expect a drop in their overall pay. withmation was included information about plans to move -- grand junction, colorado. the leaders lay out their rationale, touting one of the moves as cost savings. in most cases, decreasing travel costs. the agency will decrease pay as maintainoyees will not -- their respective locality pay

will vary based on the location. to find more, go to "the hill." from silver spring, maryland, the republican line. caller: good morning, how are you? "can't wew who said, all just get along?" do you remember who said that? host: i believe it was rodney king. caller: amen, brother. i just don't get it. it is so sad, listening to america, because on my side i and oney are attacking the other side eight years ago, i hear they are attacking. it is just like, i don't know what happened in the last 12

to no, no, no, no, with obama from boehner and mcconnell and now it is no, no, no, no. it is like america doesn't remember nothing that was beyond 24 hours ago. there is no concept of -- after a man got pummeled to death, policeto death by four officers, he walks up to the mic and gives us practically a jesus moment, can't we all just get along? what the f happened? kansas.ian, topeka, caller: i want to make a comment on the border wall.

take moneynts to away from the military to build a border wall. , you had sixs poultry plants rated in mississippi, 600 people arrested. how many management arrested? zero. it is a joke. as long as you have greedy owners willing to pay slave wages, they will bring them up. they need to go with the law and start convicting these people. you need to convict them, because that is why they are coming up for jobs. if these guys are scared to hire them, they will not come up. a republican called in earlier about civility and you want to call democrats terrorists, and you want to talk about civility? there is no civility in this at all. host: judy in miami, florida,

independent line. caller: good morning and happy holidays. i have concerns, some people have mentioned term limits, regarding the military-industrial complex. i call it the medical military-industrial complex. ande employees are career this is felt to be a huge problem because they are actually running the country because it is their agenda and if they do not like a congressperson nor the president, they just ignore them. in kennedy's case, it was worse than that. that is a huge problem we have to try to figure out what we can do to make things more balanced in that regard. worried about the rise of the military-industrial decades ago. ohio, republican line. caller: how are you, sir?

host: fine, thanks. caller: happy thanksgiving. i wanted to see if i could possibly make a couple of comments. it is amazing to me, like when reference aabout or wall, whether or not it should be there or not, they have been building walls since well before i was born. i am 53 years old, but it seems like everything that falls under this president is immoral. act997, they did the floras and they have been putting detentioncages, not at the processing centers. this has been going on since the clinton administration and the floras act. this continued this policy under the bush administration and continued under the obama administration and then bang,

enter donald trump, and everything goes haywire. the democrats flip their policy from the obama administration, who deported over 3 million illegal immigrants, but now everything is immoral. , ohio, democrats line. caller: i want to talk about term limits, i agree with other dollars, but there should be no lifetime appointment for judges. lifetime appointments are totally ridiculous. they should retire at a certain age, just like the rest of the country retires at a certain age. i also believe that age is going to affect the presidential election because if we are looking at somebody running who is already in their late 70's years, the eight

vice president will become very important. oregon wille from finish off the program. tomorrow is thanksgiving and we will bring you another edition of "washingtontomorrow is thanky though we will bring you another addition of washington journal tomorrow morning at 7:00. see you then. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] tomorrow on c-span, a recap of what been happening on the campaign trail. first to new hampshire were democratic presidential candidate cory booker spoke to voters at a brewery and a coffee shop. then senator kamala harris meets with voters in iowa.

after that, a campaign rally with president trump in sunrise, florida. go shopping and see what is now available at the c-span online store, including our all new campaign 2020 t-shirts, sweatshirts, and hats. .org and browsere all of our products. >> the impeachment inquiry hearings continue next week when house judiciary committee jerrold nadler holds the committee's first impeachment inquiry into president trump focusing on the constitution and the history of impeachment. watch live coverage wednesday, december 4, at 10:00 eastern on c-span three. chairman nadler extended an invitation for the president and his counsel to appear before the committee. read the letter on our website, achment,rg/impe