washington examiner joins us to discuss how conservatives view the trump presidency. ♪ .ost: good morning a number of cities and states across the country are putting regulations on plastic. we want your thoughts on that. if you support local bans on plastic, 202-748-8000 is your number. if you oppose, 202-748-8001. you can send us a text that 202-748-8003 with your first name, city, and state, or join the conversation on twitter at @cspanwj and facebook.com/cspan.

state support or oppose and local bands on plastic? take a look at some of the headlines, this from minnesota public radio where target is headquartered. the target head -- target customers call on the retailer --eliminate plastic bags and in stores. in new jersey, the state with the headline from the philadelphia inquirer, new jersey moves closer to banning plastic bags and paper enacted,they write if new jersey would be the ninth bags to ban plastic preserve the environment and reduce the impact of harmful chemicals. in oregon, the headline, oregon's single use plastic ban

in effect january 1. they note some 16 cities throughout oregon have a similar band. oregon will join california, new york, and hawaii banning single use plastic bags and there is denverite.ne from denver shoppers will stop paying bagslastic and pay for 2020. they quote scientists saying plastic bags for a 10 minute trip to the grocery store can be around for a 500 to 1000 years. the numbers put together by national geographic. half of all plastics manufactured have been made in the last 15 years. production increased from 2.3 million in the 1950's to 448 million tons by 2015.

production is expected to double are 8 millionere tons of plastic waste that escapes into the oceans and waterways and some newer plastics could take as long as 400 years to break down. we covered a recent hearing on capitol hill on this issue. ted danson appeared at the hearing calling on congress to act to reduce plastic pollution. [video clip] >> policies governing the use and production of single use plastic are effective and they are becoming more common around the world and across this country. the european union, peru, chile, and canada announced or are implement and policies to reduce plastic pollution. and cities, counties, states have taken the initiative, passing policies to reduce single use plastics. copperheads of u.s. federal action is needed. this committee should use its

authority to tackle the problem. i applaud you for stopping the use of plastic water bottles in committee hearings, the national parks service had a policy to encourage national parks to stop selling water in plastic bottles. unfortunately, the policy has been reversed. the committee should make our national parks, wildlife refuges, marine sanctuaries and other federal lands and waters into single use plastic free zones. i urge congress to pass federal legislation that stops plastic pollution at the source, significantly reduces the production of this everlasting pollutant and that holds corporations responsible for this global crisis and enables states and cities to continue to lead the way on solutions. don't fall for the false promise of recycling and please don't stoop to incineration. we must stop the runaway increase in plastic production

and reduce the amount of plastic companies are amazing and foisting on us because it will last for centuries. we have no more time to waste. host: ted danson at a hearing we covered on c-span saying do not stoop to recycling. only about 9% of the 8.3 million metric tons of plastic is actually getting recycled. in a recent poll by pew found they reduce food waste and limit use of plastics to help the environment. 72% of those surveyed say using fewer single use plastics will help the environment. we are wondering if you support or oppose state and local bands and what is recycling like where you live? can your city afford to recycle and what are you doing? if you support, 202-748-8000. if you oppose, 202-748-8001. hearing, the

plastic industries association had one of the top executives there and here is what he had to say. here is him arguing against these plastic bands. [video clip] >> study after study, including one by the california waterboard showed banning plastic products drives computers to other less sustainable materials. plastics are used in such a diverse array of applications because they are the best option when considerations are evaluated. consumers decide which -- in so many applications, the chief characteristics of plastics, their lower weight, durability, flexibility, and versatility constantly make them superior to other materials. plastic bags became popular due to concerns about how many trees were being cut down to make plastic bags. they are disposed of

properly, they have a smaller environmental footprint than identical products made of other materials. we need to head in the opposite direction and aim to preserve and enhance their value so they are worth too much to waste. this can happen by investing in recycling and waste management infrastructure. we continue to support legislation that would provide grants to state and local entities to provide -- improve infrastructure, which is what we need to close the loop on these issues. host: the plastic industries association represented there arguing against these bands on plastic. we turn to all of you to get your thoughts. paul in florida, you support these bands. tell us why. caller: i will tell you why. i am retired navy and i remember throwing plastic over the side of the ships when i was in the service over 25 years ago and every time i threw a plastic bag over the ship, it hurt my

feelings when i started seeing things about animals eating the plastic out there, killing the turtles and a lot of the other fish. things like that. that is one of the biggest things in our world, our oceans. got to have clean oceans and clean rivers. i definitely don't like plastic bags. i have no plastic bags in my house anymore. we use recyclable bags we buy at the store that you can carry over your shoulder and that is how we transport all of our materials when we go to the grocery store. host: how do you avoid plastic at the grocery store? third wrapped or produced and packaged in plastic? caller: i do a lot of shopping at flea markets and stuff like that and basically i bring my own bags and i say i will put this in my bags because i don't need your plastic bags.

in the grocery stores, i bring my own blagg's and it is hard to get the stuff already covered in plastic to say -- you go to the meat counter and say i don't want it in plastic, i want in paper. host: what are your city regulations like in st. petersburg? caller: they don't have regulations and that is one of the things i have been talking to the mayor about and talking to our county commissioners. let's do a ban on plastic. you did a ban on straws along the beaches and stuff and the ontaurants, let's do a ban plastic completely. host: and the reaction? liker: they look at you how are we supposed to do that? trust me, it will work. they did it in california. that is where i grew up.

things,e of those other they keep using other states for things like recycling. some of the programs they have in new york city for recycling is so great compared to what we have in florida. host: do you have to recycle in st. petersburg, florida? caller: they have recycling, but it is not very good. if they had recycling like in los angeles county, california, where the guy comes around and your recycle bin is 4 times larger than your waste bin, it would be a great thing in florida. host: paul supports a ban on plastics. let's go to bonnie in minnesota, you support it as well. what is it like where you live? that was onfella set everything i wanted to say. banning plastic bags is a start, but when you go into the grocery store and everything is covered in plastic that you need to buy,

what can people do? if you buy a product, you know -- for example, target, it is wrapped in plastic. you need a knife and scissors most of the time to get it open. and people, when you go to the grocery store, people are carrying out cases of bottled water constantly. what can a person do? host: do you support congress getting involved in having some sort of nationwide regulation on plastics to deal with not only single use, but what you are dealing with, packaging? would probablyat be years and years off. like itknow, it seems

is really an emergency, but it is everywhere. everywhere. how do you get rid of it all mind-boggling. host: the president -- president --mp in 2018 did pass foreign countries being a source of plastic pollution and there is a save our seas to point out legislation being proposed by three senators. sheldon whitehouse, dan sullivan, bob menendez, democrat of new jersey. this is from roll call about the legislation. bolster to- aims to combat marine debris, push international action and promote innovation. it makes progress toward the goals of reducing the creation of new plastic waste by dealing

with existing plastic waste to stop it from polluting the oceans. threeegislation pushed by senators. dan sullivan, republican of alaska and democrat of new jersey supporting that legislation. steven in massachusetts, you oppose these plastic bands, tell us why. toler: the better idea is penalize the bad and incentivize the good with materials that are recyclable. you have on one hand, a lot of chanting about straws and bags and on the other hand, what we could do would be to go to the larger, overarching system that would, at the point of manufacture, tax what is bad and subsidize or incentivize what is good and the example i like to use is the gallon of milk.

that is something good and a little plastic and a wax paper container of milk, that would be bad. taxing the bad, on recyclable materials and that same dollar would be used to subsidize the recycling end, that is my system. i called it the mega system food, soil, and recycle system. where you live, what are the recycling plastic, paper, etc.? caller: in my town, i spoke against it at the town meeting, but we went with a ban on straws . we came out and i think it is a bit hysterical because the answer really is a broader system of materials handling and

that can be done with sound economics. you find out what is bad and you tax it a little bit and turn the heat up and tax it more and more . people are disgusted by the packaging. that can be taxed and you start slow and increase it and the incentives that are good things about packaging, you incentivize that, give them a subsidy at the same point, the point of import or manufacture. host: stephen's thoughts in massachusetts. joe and in mississippi, you support. what is it like where you live? caller: much plastic all over the world. i don't understand why people don't see what happened to the south. it is the pine belt. byer bags were made here several paper mills which have all shut down thousands of people in the south from --

louisiana to the east coast lost their jobs. you had people here farming pine to be made into paper products and now you cannot get hardly anything for a pine tree. is a loss of revenue for all of the south and it has been for years. amazing how many people lost their jobs and the last man -- the man that called about -- when you read about what congress has -- wouldn't it be nice if they worked on something? host: you would support that? caller: they are wasting all of our time and ruining our country by not working on projects they were sent to congress for like this problem with plastic. host: for you and others, listen

to what the president had to say in 2018 at the signing of our first save our seas legislation. [video clip] >> this is something that has happened for years and decades. previous administrations did nothing to take on the foreign countries responsible. we have already notified most. the save our seas act will help address this problem by expanding the marine debris program for five years and we are strengthening that to improve waste management overseas and clean up our nation's water -- declare severe marine debris events, which happen all the time. .t is incredible people don't realize it, but all the time we are being inundated

with debris. this legislation will release funds to states for cleanup and response efforts and we will be responding very strongly. legislation encourages the executive branch to engage with those nations responsible for oceans.garbage into our my administration is doing that. the united states-mexico-canada agreement is the first trade agreement to include commitments to cooperate to address land nc population. sea pollution. we will be putting it into other agreements also. host: president trump on our save the seas act referring to dan sullivan, the senator from alaska, republican, and sheldon

whitehouse, democrat from rhode island who were standing behind him in the oval along with senator menendez when he signed that legislation. they are working on save our legislation. o we are asking what you think s on plasticban happening at the city and state level. here is some viewers texting us. fish are ingesting plastic particles and so are the humans who eat polluted fish. and environmental crisis. i have been using reusable bags as much as possible for years, people got by just fine without plastic for the linea. -- millennia.

carol says recycling is not difficult, but people are too lazy or don't care about the planet. we only have one planet, we must save it. mother nature has a way of taking us back in time. california, you oppose these bans. caller: high served on the waste management district in 1994 in california and we were told you better recycle, it is $10,000 a day if you don't. we built all these manufacturing plants where we can process it and they go hand-in-hand wearing special suits so they can increase the size of government, really. they were always opposed to building new landfills, of course. we were told all new studies and this money would go to everything to figure out how to deal with recycling and the

different products. we are here now and this last two years, the news media has been the one pushing this plastic. we are not the problem with the plastic. all you have to do is throw it in the garbage can. they can grind it down. can put it into other products. andhave to grind it up deposit in the landfill if you do not want to incinerate it. that is the way it will be with so many people. california is so ridiculous. do you know how much it costs? california is nothing but a cesspool. it is becoming a state no other state in the united states wants to come near. it is so mismanaged. they say we will not build any more landfills or be able to

recycle. what are you going to do? china does not need our recycling products anymore, they are producing enough of their own and recycling enough of their own. minutesthink 60 featured a recycling plant in california if i am not mistaken on this issue. caller: we have it, but it is stacked up beyond belief. they even had to come to our council to make excuses about the stacking up and asked for more money and people now to process the garbage itself and go through the garbage making special suits. host: what are the finds you can enter -- incur as a present -- as a resident? caller: they cannot get you hair

-- here as a resident, it is based on the quantity of the .ity if the city does not meet the mandate of 50%, it is $10,000 a day. i think we meet that mandate -- : it is a $75 fine on you because it breaks the machines, clogs it up, costs the city more money. caller: all we need is the news media to keep going with this plastic nonsense they are talking about? just throw it in the garbage. host: you don't see it as a problem? scientists, other people testifying about the plastic in our oceans and the problems it is causing? caller: i thought they were going to use all that money they were going to get from recycling and study it and come up with

great ideas in 1994. what is it now? later.s later, 27 years they are not organized. people are making a lot of money. i don't know of a single engineer and waste manager that does not make less than a triple figure. it is unheard of what the government is doing. host: i want you to hang on the line and listen to the university of georgia engineering professor who testified at a hearing and she talks about the scope of the plastic pollution and i want to get your response. [video clip] >> when i specify -- testified in 2016, i spoke on awareness. we have a major problem with plastic ending up in our environment and the ocean.

are --know we have since about 40% of this is used for packaging and --gle-use items, it means what have we done with that waste? how did we manage it? we've cycled about 9% of that cumulatively, those locally, but on average global we do 9%. another 12% had been incinerated and that means 79% ended up in a landfill or open environment. plastic in the environment does not biodegrade, it fragments into smaller and smaller pieces -- particlesnknown -- equal to a

dump truck of plastic every minute. although there has been action taken to stop the business as usual projection of doubling by 2025, plastic production use our driving factors that resulted in an increase in plastic use. we can all agree we want to keep plastic out of the ocean. there is a tremendous opportunity for support and on this issue. carl, your reaction to what you heard? caller: i am in california, so i have been hearing for two years and it has been a big media plastic.to stop i don't see a problem with the landfills.

plastic does biodegrade. theock crumbles to dust by weather, plastic, i am sure, disappears. it is an oil product, it just takes a long time to go back to where it was. that is the way it is. as long as you have more people coming into the country, what are you going to do. host: i want you and others to listen to the other side of this argument. here is one of the top executives defending the production of plastic. [video clip] industry employs 993,000 people in the united states. i can say with confidence none of them got into this business to pollute our oceans and waterways. i can say with confidence many of them enter the industry with our products end up

where they should not upsets me and i am sure everyone of those nearly one million people feel the same way. it is a fact. 8 million tons of plastic ends up in the ocean each year. remaining 10% comes from elsewhere around the world, that is a great deal of value wasted when products end up in lakes, .ivers, and oceans our industry agrees there is a plastic waste problem. more efficient to produce than other materials like metal, paper, and glass, and delivered numerous benefits to society as a whole. host: scott, you support plastic bands, good morning to you. my first comment, i

wanted to talk about that caller from california. i want to mention he is a fool. plasticsaid biodegrade, they don't. they last for centuries. they biodegrade into smaller and smaller and smaller particles and litter the environment. i want to start with that. let's get onto what my solutions .re for this problem 19, i needed -- in the 1970's, i needed perrier to wake up. it was beautiful. everything was great. everything was in glass.

my coca-cola, which i love so much, came in glass bottles. in glass bottles and then the changeover to plastics happen. this is the problem. bottles back to class for sodas, for water, for all of drinkable's people like so much. what i am alarmed about is when i go to the grocery store, i see people coming out with cart loads, sharpening carts -- shopping carts of plastic, bottled water. they drink this plastic, bottled water at home

and then they throw the plastic -- plasticmpster and biodegrade. host: the about to put forth one of those single-use plastic bands and you oppose it. caller: i do oppose it, i see it all the time with the annoying paper straws. i agree with plastic, but plastic is a victim of this greenhouse gas madness. if anyone looks at the true science, we cannot even predict the weather for a week and i ofnk we can pick what kind

age range, there are too many -- in order to stop greenhouse gas emissions, we have to stop eating meat. if people focused on practical solutions like the science that cleans plastic out of the oceans or carbon scrubbers, it would be . better use of time , no one knowst is if the globe is warming or not. . we have no idea, so that is the fact of the matter. . i think they should read it in the greenhouse gas.

call -- we cannot even stop people from killing china and .ong kong .t is time to get real host: take a look at this map, the states with enacted legislation, the blue states have defective statewide bands -- bans. purple states have a fee or taxes if you use plastic bag and red states are preemption. there is a lot of gray states with no legislation dealing with this at all. catherine, you support bans on plastic and what is it like where you live? host: we have had the ban on

single use plastic bags for a while now and it takes a while, as with everything to get used to something new. once you get used to it, you remember to bring your bags with you. to the- paying cashier -- unroll utensils. you can end up with a bag of useless plastic. .t just common sense thing i don't think people knew our recyclables were traveling far away from another country and not being made into park benches

. per tofu production, they are burning plastic and polluting their own atmosphere to the eggs containheir dioxin at unbelievable levels. just using it, getting it in our like it willmed never end, it is a never ending problem. host: you might be interested in this atlantic piece from may of 2019. is this the end of recycling? americans are consuming more and more stuff.

after decades of earnest public information campaigns, americans are recycling. airports, malls, office buildings have been for plastic be in some cities, you can fined. for decades, we were sending the bulk toour -- the china. last year, the country restricted imports of recyclables including mixed paper, -- waste management countries are telling cities, towns, and counties there is not a market for recycling. pay higher rates to get rid of it all away.throat -- throw it all away. the city could break even on

recycling by selling it for six dollars a ton. now the transfer station is charging the town $125 a ton to recycle or $68 a ton to incinerate. underr the residents live the poverty line. all those carefully sorted bottles and cans are being burned. william in alabama, you oppose --bans. caller: probably does is cost jobs -- all he does is cost job. years ago they had a problem with tires and they try to find a way to get rid of them. using asphalt and highways and they can do the same thing with plastic bags. host: good morning, dave. dave, good morning. caller: i am here.

i have an answer. said,less of what the guy it is -- supports 90,000 jobs, we have to stop making plastic period. completely stop making plastic. that is the only way you are going to resolve this properly. it has to be a nationwide condition that we stop making any type of plastic product. we can burn paper. host: what is it like in pittsburgh? are you required to recycle? caller: yeah, but i don't want to get into that discussion is sort of like a -- hearing. facebook, one of our

viewers says we don't need a ban on plastics, we need to recycle plastics. they make good material for shipping. the only thing i throw away is cellophane wrappers over meats and produce. arean lots of things that detrimental to our communities, so why not plastics. they are but a convenience turned detriment. robin says i do not need a father or mother to tell me what to use. my needs may be different than yours. don't like plastic, use paper. at this exchange between activist and actor ted on theand alan lowenthal impact plastics are having on marine life. [video clip] >> i want to raise questions the wastee know about of plastic sent -- plastics and

how much is going into the ocean, but the question is how does this impact species. theave just had -- we see report released earlier this year that included plastic pollution as a threat to marine biodiversity, it is seen as a threat. first question is do you know if plastic is affecting species that are in danger of extension? we are trying to understand not only how it gets into the ocean, but with the impacts are. impacts, turtles, every species of turtle is either on the endangered species list or close to. every species of turtle has ingested plastic. plastic does not go away completely, if rates down into smaller and smaller pieces.

a turtle or see mammal or ingest that may plastic. they think they are full because their stomach is full of plastic so they stopped eating and starve to death. albatross the up dipping into oft they think is some sort -- something they like to eat in the water, but it is plastic and they feed it to their child, their little bird and the bird dies, the same reason they starve to death. it is having an impact on whales and many species. host: do you support, oppose bans on plastic? carol in connecticut opposes. good morning. i am listening and i know someone said we should ban all plastics and that is impossible if you think of what plastics

are used for. what would we wrap our meat in in the store when you go in and want to buy meat or what would hospitals do if they have to use tubes and various things? we don't have anything to take its place right now. somebody said paper destroys trees and that was one of the reasons why plastic looked like such a wonderful idea in the beginning. --can do our parts, we can carry the bags into the store for produce, put all the water in bottles, i suppose. life is funny. we don't have any tin cans in our area, everybody comes on your doors and asks if you have tin cans and bring them to recycle and sell them. there is a lot of people that take their trucks and pick up metal. if we put it all out and -- i

know people would come and there is a lot of people who do that for a living. breaks down.ything everything eventually breaks down and we are so innovative. plasticuld be like the my kids toys were wrapped in this christmas. ofething in there, some type bacteria or something to break it down fast. just like paper bags. something, there is in it that bacteria finds. that is what i think we have to work on innovations. we can do it. as far as banning it all, it is ridiculous. host: there have been headlines about bacteria eating plastic. here is a headline from san francisco chronicle.

plastic munching mealworms may the problem. threatening wildlife on land and sea. mealwormsfound yellow not only break down plastic, but chemicals and nobody -- none of it bio accumulates up the food chain. richard in california supports a ban on plastic. i am a little bit older than some of the people calling, so where i see plastic is people being lazy. paper bags are too heavy to carry out loaded up. food stores want you to use plastic because they do not have to hire people to bag them up.

stick it in paper bags rotating on a wheel. i don't support a ban for all of it, i support a ban for some of it. scientist. i am a disabled veteran. i am not a scientist, but i think we are smart enough in this country that we can take -- at one time i saw them making -- out of plastic. i thought that was a great idea. notone talking about paper breaking down for it i can take paper bags in my garden and i .e them as mulch host: like plastic or not, it is a problem before we don't recycle. all plastic is made from oil and oil is not as cheap as it was when we got hooked on plastic being used everywhere.

james in san diego, you oppose these bands. good morning. -- these bans. good morning. caller: i don't think anybody is thinking this through. how much plastic is in your car? how many toys did you buy this year -- hello? host: we are listening, how many toys? caller: how many toys did you buy this year for christmas? how many other items that you have. why do you think we are drinking water out of plastic? we are afraid of the content of what we are getting in the water. forent from toilet to tap water. do you think i am going to drink water that comes out of the faucet? you talk about glass. it costs more money to make glass than it does to make plastic. if you want to think about it that way, talk about trees. the issue it began with was we

are going to do away with cutting down trees, so we are going to go to plastic. that was one of the issues and i sell trees pretty i will have more money neighed -- made because i sell trees. what do you want us to do away with? make up your mind. is it going to be something called plastic one time use bags or plastic that is in your car? host: michael in vermont, you support plastic bans. good morning to you. caller: i do not support plastic bags. i was involved in the logging industry for 45 years. when -- was destroyed because of trap -- plastic.

plastic -- the logging industry has been crippled over this plastic thing. iso believe when this straightened out and they finally do away with plastic bags, it is too late for me, i am retired, but the young guys sellg up will be able to again and it will be reopened. that is all i have got to say. host: travis in massachusetts on our line for those that oppose these bans. caller: good morning. i just have two comments. there is a ban going into effect on the town i am front on cape claude in september of next year bottles.f all plastic the plastic bags have already been banned.

done atbasically being the specific time of year on the leave.en the tourists that is a strategic move by the selectmen of the town. they know it will cause an uproar if they do it before. that is what i have to say about that. i want to remind the caller from mississippi that plastic breaks down in 450 years. glass breaks down in over one million years. we have far more glass probably then plastic that has been broken and left in our land over the years then plastic. plastic was invented for a reason to make our lives better. i don't necessarily agree with as much as we are using today, but it has made our lives better. thank you. host: maurice and washington, d.c. caller: traffic is so essential

in our life, hospitals and everything. you are not going to ban it. i am more so in favor of responsible recycling and disposal. that is the main thing you have to do because it doesn't make try to dispose orban -- or ban it all. you are dealing with convenience and profit. we have to be more responsible. if you make plastic, you have to be responsible for helping maintain or dispose of it. anybody that sells bottled water, plastic utensils, if it makes the cost go up, fine. eventually, we will pay for it anyway because it does harm our water. if you google plastic and water, it is amazing how much plastic

is in the water and we keep throwing stuff away. i have seen benches made out of plastic. there are different things you can do. we have to be more responsible. host: dave in omaha, nebraska, who opposes these bans. caller: i am hearing all of these people come on and talk about banning plastic. plastic is an item created for astronauts in space. that was a byproduct from nasa. it is a convenience for us to use. if you don't think bottled water weighs a lot in plastic, try 36 cases of blast -- water in glass. glass was a problem. these snowflakes that are so

much going from zero to 60. you cannot ban plastic. river,hrow it in the don't throw it in the ocean, take care of it responsibly. it is crazy. a bunch of snowflakes. get real. host: judy in oregon supporting bans on plastic. caller: it has already started to occur in oregon and it is a good thing. i am really pleased i live in oregon where they started the bottle ban and got deposits on all the recyclables. pepsi cans and pepsi that comes in plastic bottles, all of that is nickel deposit. people return them, people search for them on the beach. in the nice parties

summer. we clean up the mountain hiking trails and i think it is a good thing. i think there is use of plastic that is legitimate and some that isn't. host: in your state, banning single use plastic bags january 1. harrison in new york, opposing these bands. caller: good morning. i would like to bring attention to a television show on 60 minutes. on a man thatce celluloseo break down . normally, we cannot break down cellulose. he has a way of doing it. the show was on january 6 of 2019.

the cellulose is able to break down and can be used as fuel for vehicles, able to be drank and eaten, sugar does not affect people with diabetes and you are able to make plastic that will degrade much quicker. we can do ban because away with it and supplement what this man has done research on. since january, i have seen nothing. in indiana, supporting bans. good morning to you, ron. curious as to why we don't. europe they use nuts. people use -- carry their groceries -- they use to anyway, when i was a kid. as far as going to the butcher

shop, they used to wrap it in paper and you could probably bring your own. oregon has been like this for years, they have recycled and burned, everything else goes up they recyclelt and it into pellets for industry, that is how they paid for their stadium.ball that was just one project they paid for. moreare a little futuristic. they legalize marijuana and use hemp, things that are natural. use bigrough life, we oil, big pharma. we go to the cemetery and it is

all big. host: ron mentioned oregon and what they are doing. at the hearing we covered on pollution, there is a congressman from south carolina, joe cunningham and here is what he had to tell other members and witnesses in that hearing about the pollution in his state. [video clip] fromday, i came up here charleston with some of the plastic treasures recently found on our shoreline over the weekend from the goose creek reservoir, which is the source of the goose creek water supply. let's see what we have got here today and this was found this weekend. we have a used piece of bottle,m, plastic water

, single usetraw plastic bag. this looks like it has been shredded or nibbled on, more than likely ingested by some type of marine life, so this is what is left of it right now. another straw. we have all seen the pictures of sea turtles ingesting these and the damage that causes. and it looks like a potato chip bag, plastic. abnormal. this has become the norm of what washed up on our shorelines and enters our waterways every weekend and a lot of people are aware of it. host: if you missed the hearing and want to learn more, watch

what lawmakers discussed with ted danson and also representatives from the plastics industries association, go to our website, c-span.org. at the top, we have a search bar. if you put in plastic, you will be able to find this hearing. norman in massachusetts, go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call. the reason plastics are a problem and the reason they don't break down is because they are made from petroleum. plastics can also be made from biological materials, hemp being the most obvious. plastics, any bio plastics do break down in the environment. generating the problem can be fixing immediately, but cleaning up the

plastic already out there is an abysmal plan for you. host: we will leave the conversation they are for now. when we come back, our authors week continues with carol emerson -- anderson. she will join us to talk about her book "one person, no vote." and then hugo gurdon joins us to talk about the impeachment fight and the year in politics. we interviewed brandon jet, president of a border patrol union. we will air the interview this sunday. here is a clip of brandon judd commenting at crime cartels at the u.s.-mexico border. [video clip] >> how widespread are these cartels along the border? >> nothing crosses the border illegally. that does not matter if it is individuals coming across the border to claim asylum, narcotics, counterfeit goods --

nothing crosses the southwest without theally say-so of criminal cartels. they control every illegal crim. these criminal cartels operate in every single town on the southwest border, and they are very violent, dangerous, and all you have to do is look at the murder rate in mexico to understand just how bad it is. the united states' intelligence community has estimated that criminal cartels control somewhere around 80% of the country in mexico right now. that is on the high end. there are lower estimates, but even if you go lower, the fact that mono cartels are controlling any part of mexico should be concerning, and it makes things very, very dangerous. that is why border patrol agents politiciansed with

that say it is ok for people to cross the board or illegally. they are encouraging, politicians are encouraging a very vulnerable segment of a population in south america to put themselves in the hands of criminal cartels. these individuals at times are murderedlaved, or even by the cartels, all because we do not enforce our laws the way the laws are written, and we activity, andgal we vilify our border patrol agents, rather than propping up our border patrol agents and going after the cartels. >> "washington journal" continues. host: it is day six of our authors' week series where we feature authors from all sides of the political spectrum on key public policy issues. andersons is carol

with her book "one person, no vote." why did you write this book? guest: the book emerged out of two things, one was a 2016 election, and there is when i about,he pundits talking black people did not show up. blacky lost because people were not feeling hillary. i looked at that and it did not make sense because this was the first election in 50 years without the protection of the voting rights act. we had a series of laws coming through, targeting african-americans, so i wanted to lay out how voter suppression s.rks because host: what protections were under the voting rights act. passedin 1965, congress

the voting rights act. it began to deal with the massive disenfranchisement happening particularly in the south. where you had counties that had a majority black population, but zero african-americans were registered to vote. what the voting rights and did was have a provision called pre-clarence, meaning certain jurisdictions that had a documented history of discrimination against its citizens had to have all of their voting laws, or any changes they made, ok'd by the federal court or department of justice. preclearance worked. in mississippi, before the voting rights act in early 1960, only 5% of african-americans were registered to vote. two years after the voting

rights act was implemented, almost 60% of african-americans were registered to vote. by having preclearance stop discriminatory laws from being able to be active in doing this wicked dance on the american electorate and on our policies, in 2013, the u.s. supreme court gutted the preclearance provision of the voting rights act in a case. within two hours after the decision, texas implemented a racially discriminatory voter id law. north carolina was not far behind, nor was alabama. cds just went wild in figuring wild inities just went figuring out how to suppress their vote, particularly african americans and they went after

hispanics, asians, and the young and the poor. host: it wasn't just mississippi. in alabama, the figure rose from 24% to 57%, and one million new voters were registered within a few years after the bill became , bringing african-american registration to a record 62%. guest: part of what we see is in wisconsin. -- theresin, you had were 60,000 fewer votes cast in wisconsin in 2016 than there were in 2012. wisconsin had implemented a racially discriminatory voter id law, among other things.

80 targeted milwaukee were 70 80 -- itthis date's -- targeted milwaukee, where 70% up african-americans in the state live. lack voter turnout went down -- black voter turnout went down by 7%. when we look at early voting turnout like in north carolina, their state legislature targeted the days african-americans turned out early in droves to vote early, and removed those that so there is an email goes around republican circles, where they are celebrating in 2016 the 8% decrease in early voting turnout for african-americans. so, this is what we are seeing across-the-board. the house controlled by

democrats, as you know, has no voting rights advancement at that has been approved and is been sent over to the senate. i want you to respond to earlier this month, rodney davis, congressmen, talking about this voting right advancement. [video clip] >> the voting acts right is alive and well. this is not a reauthorization of this bipartisan legislation. discriminationd at the ballot box because it does not need reactors asian -- because it does not need the authorization. every eligible american, who wants to vote in our country's elections, should be able to cast their vote. this bill is only about preclearance and the democrat majority, the federal government

control over all election activity. jurisdictions under preclearance cannot move a polling location, expand vote by mail efforts are properly maintained their voting a member of the department of justice clearing everything. awayis about taking power from officials. host: the voting rights advancement act establishes new criteria for determining which states and political subdivisions busking the clearance -- subdivisions must again preclearance. what are your thoughts and how do you respond to that congressman? sectionne is that that provides for the kind of litigation that then eventually will catch up to a jurisdiction that is systematically discriminated against its electorate.

citizens.an 1957rls us back to the voting rights act where you had to have a violation, then somebody sued and then more litigation. years have gone by. you have elections going on based on the disenfranchisement of american citizens, politicians being elected on a team electoral basis. so they can continue to implement and tweak policies to continue to disenfranchise. it is not like the federal government had not tried over and over to allow these states to honor the u.s. constitution and the 15th amendment. the state systematically looked at the 15th amendment and said, how do we get around it? that is why you got the voting rights act. and what we saw with the gutting of section four of the gutting

-- of the voting rights act is that states went hog wild again. this is about honoring the constitution and the 15th amendment that says, the state shall not abridge the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous servitude. that is what we have not seen the state to do yet. host: i want to invite our viewers to join us. carol anderson, you write about the motivations that minority voters did not just refuse to show up. blockators and governors african-americans, hispanic, and asian americans from the polls in 2017, pushed by the

democrats' collapse of their party. the republicans opted to disenfranchise rather than reform. guest: yes. it is that. i mean, and so many ways, it explains where we are right now. where you have a party that is moved so far to the right that its policies just resonates. trumps why you have the point person in wisconsin -- in aabout, in an talking about, how to suppress the vote in that is how we win. democratic constituencies have a

key urge for the republicans to stay in power, but it is only by , not resonating with americans as we understand democracy and we understand the vote in the elections. but by keeping key constituencies in that electorate from voting. to keep them blocked from the ballot box. that is what policies have done. has been updated to talk about the 2018 elections. preview that. guest: this is where you saw this massive voter turnout. it was the highest murder -- it was the highest voter turnout in 2018. one of the things you hear is how can there be voter suppression when you have this massive voter turnout? of itit wasn't because

was in spite of, so you had this massive wave of civil organizations that were getting people id's, that were driving people to and from the polls because of the massive closures -- massive pull closures that were providing information, that were suing the states for closing down polls, for not having enough machines in throwingprecincts, for ofy absentee ballots because no signature match. democracy --estore we need to restore democracy. they were willing to stand in line for hours in order to be able to vote. that is what happened in 2018.

organizations working with an engaged electorate to make this democracy vibrant. host: mike in miami, florida, an independent. good morning. caller: i would like to know how requiring somebody to show an id is inhibiting them from voting? i don't understand that and never will. i mean, do you think that people -- do you think that people who are not citizens should be allowed to vote? hillary lost because she lost, ok. get over it. have a nice day. guest: what a wonderful independent talking there. let me walk you through how the iud piece works. the id piece, one of the reasons why work so well is because it's also normal. how hard can it be because everyone has one? that is not how the states have crafted this. they identified, by race,

certain types of id that whites have and that black people and latinos do not have and then made access to the ballot box based on the prevalence of those types of id's. alabama,nstance, in alabama said you have to have a government-issued photo id. so, your bank card is not going to work. government-issued id. then they decided what type of government-issued photo id. they decided that -- they decided that public housing id did not count as a government-issued id, but does it get more public -- but as give more government-issued then public housing? housingthose in public are african-americans, and for most of those, it is the only id

they have. this has, with for alabama to carve out that electorate. then what alabama did was they shut down the department of motor vehicles. for fiscal reasons to be physically-responsible, shut down the department of motor vehicles down in the black belt counties, requiring then people who don't have a drivers license and don't drive to go to the next county or 50 miles away, in order to get a drivers license. so that they could be able to vote. that is how it works. that is how it works in texas, in georgia, in north carolina, in alabama. so, the voter id sounds reasonable, except it is not. herehat is also happening is this mixture, this wild mixture of the systematic denial of rights -- systematic denial

of the right to vote for american citizens, being merged in with his harboring fear that all of these ends are going to be building. i mean, that this one of the asngs that kris kobach used he carved out over 30,000 voters from the kansas city voter roles. but when he had to go before a judge and demonstrate, prove that you had massive, massive numbers of immigrants on the voter roles, who were trying to vote, he could only point to one. and that was a man who was going through the naturalization process. he did not realize he could not vote before he officially became a u.s. citizen. so, the fear of immigrants voting in mass is just that. it is a fear that is being stoked by those who need these

measures in order to block american citizens from voting. john in newe out to york, democratic caller. the way i see it, it is about demographics. when president obama won the election, it shocked a lot of conservative white people and when he won a second term, it shocked them more. demographicrful of change. this reminds me of reconstruction, right after blacks started voting, they started finding ways for preventing them from voting. this happened 100 years ago and it is happening again. that is what i think. guest: mo, you know, it is interesting. know, it is interesting.

i like to what people through the history and that history deals with the mass of demographic change and deals with the state of mississippi that carved out what is called the mississippi plan. mississippi looked up and said, how can we stop black people from voting? saysut writing a law that "we don't want black people to vote." the 15th amendment says you cannot write an amendment saying you don't want black people to vote, so what mississippi did is use societally-impose conditions on african-americans and use that as the axis point to the ballot box. remember, this all sounds reasonable. mississippi says, you know, elections are expensive. and we believe that if you are really committed to democracy and to the integrity of our elections, you're willing to pay a small tax in order to be able to vote. a poll tax.

well, we have had century of slavery. that is unpaid labor, followed sharecropping. endemic in the african-american community. so endemic that the poll tax was going to require somewhere 6% of the annual farm income, family farm income, in mississippi. of the annual family farm income. that is no small fee. that is where you are making a choice about, can i vote or can i put food on the table? reasonable andso race-neutral. fast did -- as did another test that said, we believe we ought to have an engaged citizen rate that understands our foundational principles, so we don't think it is too much to

ask for them to be able to read and interpret a section of the constitution. well, when you systematically swathseducation to large of the population and then you put a legal document in front of them and tell them to read it and interpret it, it is designed again to say, we don't want black people to read, to vote, without saying, we don't want black people to vote. u.s. supreme court in fact, saw that the poll tax and literacy test were rates-neutral enough that they did not violate the 15th amendment. of thewo pillars mississippi plan of 1890 were so 3%erful that by 1940, only of african-american adults were registered to vote in the south. 3%. just as the state is getting ready to do right now. that tells you the power of this. now you move this to where we

are. so, you take things like, you have to have like a drivers license to vote, but we are not going to put driver's license bureaus anywhere near you live or anywhere near public transportation. same for polling stations. they a study out of the -- did a study here that found within number of polling stations that have been closed in georgia alone that have increased the distance from where black communities are to where there polling stations are, increased them so much, somewhere between 50 to 80 thousand votes were not cast -- between 50,000 to 80,000 votes were not cast. crow 2.0. host: let's go to cathay from los angeles, republican caller. caller: you are completing so

many issues, in my opinion. i'm a black american woman, and i can see there may be differences in the south and the needs urban cities,, but six decades of ideology has destroyed black america. in these urban cities. conceivably, maybe black americans did not vote for hillary clinton because of blades it because they know the data of how six decades in these urban cities has destroyed black america. homeless in los -- right after slavery, we owned one half of a percent of the wealth of america. today, we own one half of 1% of the wealth of america. we are not progressing moaning democrat, we are -- we are not

progressing voting democrat, we are regressing. the median income for black women in boston is eight dollars, so maybe -- i guess you are not on social media, but as in academia, you have to know the data. host: let's get a response. and i i know the data, know that we cannot begin this conversation with the rise of lyndon johnson. i know that we must begin this conversation with 1619. we have to look at centuries of policy, and understand that when i talk about voter suppression, i'm not talking about black people didn't vote for democrats. i'm talking about black people did not vote because republican governments have targeted ensure thaticans to they could not get full access

to the ballot box. i want people to vote. that is my concern here. people must vote. they must engage. and the parties must engage all of those constituents. when we have a party that decides he cannot engage in suppresses abode, that does the dance of joy in north carolina because it targeted the days that african-americans, from church -- come from church to vote at the polls. when you have in florida marking out the days of early voting one have looked at the chart and figured out when african-americans go vote, that is a problem. problemwe get to not a is that when we have laws on the , thenthat are enforced recognize the rights of all american citizens. i,t whichot about blex

is fake. this is about american citizen'' right to vote, period. states thatanderson far too many policymakers believe the right to vote is something to be earned after perhaps paying modern-day poll tax or walking miles to the nearest polling station to cast a ballot. a major legal and political paradigm shift is taking place. the responsibility for upholding the right to vote is moved and has play squarely on the backs of individual citizens. carol anderson, what are you saying here? guest: what i'm saying is you ofe a secretary of state out alabama saying that voting is a privilege, and so it needed to be earned, so that meant that

you had to stand in line for hours in black precincts, but you're able to get in and out quickly in white precincts. or what is happened in georgia, where you had four in five hour in the 2018 midterm elections. and people had to leave because they had to go to work. so they are making a choice because, i got to put food on the table. we understand the kind of economic deprivations that happen when you miss a day's work ok because you're trying to stand in line to vote. so, but what you hear is, if they really cared about democracy, they would stand in line. so, we are putting the onus on the individual to see this through, to jump through all of these obstacles, to jump through all of the hurdles in order to have their right to vote honored.

but we are not putting that same responsibility on the state to uphold the 15th amendment of the constitution. and that is just fundamentally wrong. host: on the supreme court what hasin 2013, happened now legally? is there a case that could go before the court to put back what was, as you say, as you argue, coming from the voting rights act? sost: not that i have seen far, but i cannot quite speak to that. i know that women, the court has had an opportunity, for instance in the extreme partisan gerrymandering case, and gerrymandering was also covered under the voting rights act. when the court has had the opportunity to do that work, the court has backed off and said for instance that that extreme

partisan gerrymandering, like in wisconsin, where the republicans sequester themselves in a hotel room for months, drafting a map with software, looking at who lives where, and they had two goals. one was to reduce overall voter turnout, and that is what a string gerrymandering does. by doing ital was by competitive districts. the other piece was that regardless of how many votes the republicans get, they would always have a majority power, the majority of seats in the legislature. think about that. regardless of the number of votes, always the most, and that is what happened in the initial

election were democrats received 52% of the vote and got 32% of the seats, and with each subsequent election, has gotten worse. the u.s. supreme court looked at that and said, that looks like a political issue, and there was nothing here that we can do about it, and just punted on that, so this work will have to do in the state courts. we saw that with pennsylvania, where the state court of pennsylvania hopped in and said, this map is gerrymandered to the extreme. re-draw it, so we have one person, one vote enough this beastf lopsided horrific that has been drawn here. host: let's go to marianna, georgia. an independent. good morning to you. ander: good morning, greta ms. carol. north of metro

atlanta. my personal feelings is when i first moved here from indiana, the first thing i did i found out what i needed to do to vote. when i moved to georgia, i had to have my birth certificate or passport, or some other information. voting is so important to me, so i'm going to make sure i have whatever is necessary. here in georgia, we can also go on a website and it will let you know if you are registered so you can keep up with it. it also gives you the opportunity to update your mail, and so, i do these things because voting is important to me and i understand the issues -- and i understand the history of how they try to keep us from voting. but i still think as

african-americans, we have, it is import for us to find out. thatg is not something doesn't just come up. you need to be proactive and find out what it takes to vote, and if there are some people who cannot afford it, there are organizations. you should have things in place to help them get there so there was no excuse. america ist being in not fair and it will never be fair. when we talk about gerrymandering, gerrymandering just don't happen and like in georgia. it happens in massachusetts, and places were democrats are gerrymandered. this goes on with both parties and it is not right, but this is what they do. but as far as african-americans, you need to take voting

important to have find out what is necessary so you can do that, so people cannot do this to you. host: ok, caller. carol anderson? guest: two things. one is that we have a kind of narrative. but the narrative we heard in 2018, that black people did not show up. that is not the case. black people were blocked from showing up. we have to be clear about that. and so, we also understand, from the data, that african-americans stand in line the longest amount racial group in america. so we have black people showing up, standing in line longer than anyone else to vote. this isn't about effort. power, about the kind of the state power that is being

used to dismantle the black vote, and we have to understand that. the second thing, absolutely with gerrymandering, and that it is, it is a bipartisan issue. see validy you initiatives, -- you see valid initiatives, like in michigan. they are doing the work of drawn the legislative boundaries after the 2010 -- after the 2020 senses. what you also don't have, in new jersey, in 2018, late in 2018, grube democrats in new jersey tried to draw an extreme partisan gerrymandered map. the constituencies within the democratic party rose up. look at those politicians who were trying to say, stop this.

this is not what we are and this is not what we do. we want free and fair elections. and gerrymandered maps don't do that. i have yet to see that constituency within the republican party. that is what we also have to take into account we are looking at this. from tuscaloosa, alabama. good morning. caller: greta, good morning. have not talked evening years. i have seen a lot. i'm an african descendent in the united states. i'm not an african-american. i am not a citizen of america. i am a citizen of the united states based on the data. so much hypocrisy is in this government. you know, the two things that this government, not all -- there are two groups, europeans and african-americans. europeans, many of them don't want african-americans to have two things, and that is the

right to vote in the right to a good education. this has been happening ever since his country was developed. descendents, i'm a citizen of the united states, i don't, so an american. i'm a citizen of the united intes because i cannot vote venezuela or canada. if the system wanted to allow african people to vote, it would registered as when i for the draft in the service in 1954 at 18 years old. all i had to do was have my name. so, if they want to african people to vote in this country as europeans do, they could make it everywhere you go to recruit, like in the schools. host: ok, robert. lf carol anderson japan. guest: in fact, you have some states that are really thinking

through and working toward, how do we open up this right to vote? oregon began with automatic voter registration so that whenever you went to the department of motor vehicles, you are automatically registered to vote. you had to say, i want to opt out. what happened in oregon was that their voter registration, they already had one of the highest voter turnout in the nation, but the number of voters increased, as well as the turnout increased in a diverse three of the electorate. in california, look at that. 42% voter had a turnout rate and say we got to do better. we must do better. and so, california implemented automatic voter registration as well, but then they went one better and said, we will pre-register our 16 and

17-year-old so that when they become 18, they will be automatically registered to vote. it is that process of opening voter registration, which is one of the key ellen to bring about a more robust electorate. host: caning in westport, massachusetts, republican. caller: how are you doing? host: good morning. caller: good morning. i don't understand really all of this voter stuck here because -- voter stuff here because i went downtown to register to vote. -- when i register to vote, everybody stand in line walking into the high schooler. you give them your name, they look it up, they give you your valid, you go into the box and you leave. i don't understand why people cannot vote.

go down a town to vote. host: carol anderson? guest: again, one of the reasons why this looks so easy is because it feels -- everybody can go, it is america, except that is not the way that it works. georgia,of, let's say georgia does have automatic voter registration. that is good. georgia also has a program called "exact match." wind exact match was being run -- when exact match was running, the courts found was a discriminatory because it privileged anglo names. the secretary of state at the time brian camp worked with legislators in the legislature to pass a law for exact match. how would works is you take your voter registration. if there is a discrepancy

anywhere between what is on your voter registration card and what is on the state's fivers license database or the social security database, your voter registration doesn't go through. it is put into an electoral limbo. you write your name, your last name garcia-marques. on your drivers license, the-is not there or there are two separate names without that. that can get you kicked out of your voter registration. if you have an accent on your name, like with renee, but it doesn't have the accent in the driver's license, then it is kicked out. what happened in the 2018 election here is that secretary of state -- the secretary of state removed 53,000 voter registration cards from the electorate because they did not match exactly.

70% of those that were removed were african-american. fewer than 10% were white. that is part of the process. it is this quiet, silent, bureaucratic violence that is being done to american citizens posturing to vote. host: waterford, maine, leonard is watching, an independent caller and you are next. caller: good morning, professor anderson, and a for writing this book and grateful this topic is finally being aired. two things i wanted to comment on. what has been driving me crazy since 2016's election is russia, russia, russian narrative. i think that has been championed by the democratic party leaders where there is little evidence

for russia meddling. there is overwhelming evidence of voter disenfranchisement of minorities. for example, rhett joe maddon liberalism has been pushed for several years now. i had to stop watching it because she will cover russia for much of her broadcast, but yet, ignores the 70,000 plus mostly minorities that once the polls in detroit only voted down ticket in the presidential election. the other item is the more systemic election fraud that has been going on that has been going on -- that has been going on. where anin ohio, author wrote a book where

ballots were tampered with in the wee hours of the morning and though sensitive servers in tennessee corrupted that election. machines, where the codes are private in the public doesn't have access to them. in theisenfranchisement context of those events in 2004 in my examples. thank you for covering this. guest: thank you. there is lots going on. we like to think that our voting system really works, and it gives the appearance of really working. we have debates. we have polls. we have so and so going up against this candidate and so and so. and we have elections and we

have accounts coming in, 70% of the voting is in, so it gives this veneer of a really thriving, functioning democracy. one of the things we saw in 2000 in that 2000 presidential election was that something was really off the rails. hangingda, we had chad's, police who were acting as the checkpoints into the precincts in the black neighborhoods in jacksonville. we had a massive voter role purge of 20,000 voters overwhelmingly african-american and hispanic. hadnsibly, because they felony charges, so they were just franchised in florida -- they were disenfranchised in florida, except the roles were

inaccurate and people were illegally purged and wrongly purged off the list. we had so much go wrong. people looked up, and then we had the recount where the supreme court weighed in and stopped the recount as the totals began to get closer and closer to george w. bush. we have had voting machines are hackable, easily hackable. here in georgia, the voting machines that we used in 2018 ran on windows 2000. they were proven to be easily hackable in a series of events. so, we got all of these things happening, and russia is real. weean, that is part of what have to understand. russia is real.

the attack on american democracy was real. -- when weust that are finding for democracy, when we are fighting for our voting rights, we are fighting a multi-front war. part of that war deals with getting voting machines, hand marked paper ballots that cannot be hacked, so we have to do a recount, we can do a real recount. --ted that is we have got part of that is we have to have the rules in place to honor and protect the voting rights of american citizens, so we don't have an exact match that is focusing in on your non-anglicized name that can remove you from being put onto the voter role. it means we have adequate numbers of machines, adequate numbers of polls so that people are not in line for five and six hours. it means we don't have these

voter id laws that were put in place based on the lie of massive, rapid voter fraud -- massive, rampant voter fraud with those heralding the lie cannot straight rapid voter support the lie cannot them rampant voter fraud. feed means we don't have what we had in ohio -- it means we don't have what we had in ohio, saying if you want to do an absentee ballot, it has to be on this kind of paper stock in this grade, but did not provide that kind of paper stock within the 80 counties in ohio. so, it made it really easy to then throughout the ones that you did not want. feed means that when we have early voting, we don't do what they do in any matt -- it means that when we have early voting,

we don't do what they do in indiana. earlyublicans realized voting was coming out of certain counties. where they canaw have only one early voting site. counties with less than 325,000 residents can have more? 2016, let mew in be clear, in indiana, only three counties have more than 325,000 residents. lake county, which is where is, wasdiana county accounting for 70% of the black population in indiana. countyoting in marion went down by about 26% or so.

because one early voting site. in hamilton county, because they had -- they were able to get more early voting sites. it went up by 62%. multiple,is a multi-front war on democracy that is happening here. and we need to become a sent of all of it. and fighting on each of these fronts, so we can get the democracy we deserve, not the one being forced upon us. host: let's go to michigan, i democratic carl or. -- democratic caller. caller: i have a huge disagreement with what this lady is saying. and i am a white person. line two to in three hours to vote. so, that is not a black thing.

i did not start screaming about being oppressed. is, the super drivers license that we have to have. and our secretary of state's office, which by the way, was consolidated in the area i live intond it was consolidated the minority area, so the minority you will could get there easier. waiting to beurs able to get my super drivers license. i brought all of my paperwork with me. it was not acceptable. this is the same paperwork that i had from the time i was 16 years old to get my original driver's license.

live anywhere near the county. i asked at the secretary of state's office how to get another copy of my birth certificate. -- to get online to order it through the state of $122, and i thought, this cannot be right. i did not start screaming oppression, racism, misogynistic, nothing. i called over to the county i was born, and they gave me the information to get online, and i ordered it through the county. it did read me $14 for the service -- you did run me $14

for the service online, even though the actual birth $3.25, and only cost because i'm a senior, it is $2.25. host: professor anderson, your response? when i talked about what is happening in our system, african-americans do spend more time in line. it doesn't say that whites don't. but african-americans do spend more time. i will step back a minute and talk about lee atwater and the southern strategy because i think it will clarify this. lee atwater was ronald reagan's strategist, political strategist, and he explained in an interview how the southern strategy works. he said, you know, in 1954, you

could say the letter in word, but by 1968, after the civil rights did so much work here, .ou cannot say the in world it hurts you and it backfires, so you have to start getting abstract and have to start talking about busing, taxes, economic things. but he said, the whole point is that blatz get hurt worse -- is that blacks get hurt worse than whites. here blackspeople get hurt, but worse than whites. when we have, for instance, this countiesn rural closing down the polling stations, whites live in those rural counties as well.

in randolph county in georgia, randolph county is 61% african-american. whites lived there as well. when they are closing seven of the nine polling stations, whites are going to feel that. so, it doesn't mean that whites don't get hurt. and so, whites need to be hollering. they need to start shouting because all of the rigmarole it put an extrahat id burden on you that wasn't because of thely lie of voter fraud. that is what we have to understand. is that the threshold that whites are willing to endure to have this democracy come under

siege has to be breached. we have to fight together to make sure that the 15th amendment is viable, that the parties are responsive to the needs of american citizens, and that is not what we have right now. a little hollering is a good thing because it makes it really clear that something unjust is happening in this system. we would not be as far along as we are if folks had not been hollering all along. host: we have a few minutes left with professor anderson. nelson in hollywood, florida, a republican. caller: good morning. very quickly, i just want to point out that i am hispanic and i am 70 years old and i have been voting since 1972.

first of all, regarding gerrymandering, be careful what you wish for. during mentoring has helped -- gerrymandering has helped minority committees have representation. second of all, here in south lorna, we have had voter fraud, we have had individuals who not american citizens attempt to vote, and we have had individuals trying to vote in the wrong districts, and in some cases, even trying to vote more than once. having an identification card to prove that you live in our voting in the community you live you are where you are supposed to be in regards to voting and only voting once is a reasonable request on the part of responsible government. i cannot talk about what is states, in the other 49

but that is reasonable here in florida. in the year 2000, i would like to point out that the recount in the state of florida took place three times, three times the republicans won, and the supreme court finally stepped in and put a stop to it when there was an attempt on the democrats do have yet a fourth count, clearly they were clearly trying to take the election inappropriately. so, -- host: we will have the professor respond. is not ther fraud massive, rampant beast that has been conjured up to be. it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. it means that we already have the laws in place in order to catch it. love professor out of california found -- a law professor out of

california found that out of one billion votes cast in the united states, there were 31 cases of voter identification fraud. 31 out of one billion. that is one thing. the second thing is we have to be really cognizant about is with gerrymandering, be careful what you ask for, that is called packing and cracking. packing is where they draw the district so all the minorities are in this one district, or in two districts. orn the other 11, 8, 9 or so districts that are predominantly white and conservative. so, it looks like be careful what you ask for, but you are political their the voice. there is a way to deal with gerrymandering.

and that is the non-partisan redistricting commission. we have got to figure out how to make this democracy work for everybody. host: carol anderson and the book is "one person, no vote." thank you very much for the conversation. guest: thank you. host: we are going to take a break, but when we come back, hugo gurdon on from the "washington examiner" will be joining >> this holiday week, book tv is on c-span2 every day with primetime features every night.

tonight at in p.m. eastern, ronan farrow and his book. documented is much -- ronan: what is a documented is much bigger than anyone network. it is about patterns of coverups in corporate america and the way in which people get hurt if problems are swept under the rug with payouts and nondisclosure agreements that are not addressed. andatch this on book tv every weekend on c-span two. the university of washington history professor margaret o'mara discusses her book. margaret: you have the biggest of big government programs. you have what eisenhower labels the military industrial complex. it becomes the foundation of

this entrepreneurial flywheel of creation and innovation and private wealth creation. it is an industry that considers itself and built itself on its own and government has become almost invisible to many of the people who are in silicon valley who are the creators of these technologies. that is part of the magic, actually, that it is with government out of sight. >> sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. "washington journal" continues. ,ost: here is hugo gurdon editor in chief of the washington examiner and we will start with where we end up in 20 and that is impeachment. senator from the alaska lisa murkowski say she is disturbed the majority leader

mitch mcconnell allowing for total coordination, that is", with the white house. do you agree or assessment of that? guest: i don't find it surprising she would say what she said. she has always been one of those centrists whose votes are sometimes in doubt when it comes to whether the senate is going to vote with that party or against the party. unsurprising that mitch mcconnell would coordinate with the white house. he intends to defend the president and make sure if or when there actually is a trial in the senate that the president is acquitted. it is premature you would expect. there is a false notion, which was flattened down during the chief justice during the clinton impeachment, that somehow or other the senators are supposed to simply be jurors. by awas objected to

democratic senator who said we are senators and the senate decides how the trials should be run. endorsed thatice idea and told everybody at the trial not to refer to the senators as jurors. the constitution gives the senate the absolute right to run the trial. leader ofnnell is the the majority and the majority decides and if that is what the majority decides it fits the constitution. host: do you think there should be witnesses guest: is very -- witnesses? guest: it is very interesting that it comes after they have denied themselves the opportunity witnesses that they now say are imperative. to hear from people like john bolton. well, they subpoenaed john andon and some witnesses,

the white house decided against testify tose people the house hearing. it was entirely open to the democrats to go to court and challenge this obstruction and get a ruling. ist they said was -- this such an urgent matter that we absolutely have to move ahead. so they didn't get the witnesses to do the testimony before they decided to impeach. now they want to do -- now they want those witnesses. they denied the republicans the ability to call witnesses they wanted. there is quite a lot of chutzpah in the democratic demand for witnesses. host: i want to get your reaction to some conservatives who have called for the impeachment of president trump. you had the editor-in-chief of christianity today, a national reviews writing "the constitution provides for impeachment and removal to officials, including

the president, who are unwilling or unable to distinguish between the common good the government is supposed to serve in their own interest. though he has done some good things in office, they should act accordingly are you accordingly that -- ." are you surprised by that? guest: he has indeed crossed the line. his phone call with president zelensky of ukraine saying it was perfect is a laughable. no one believes that and i don't think he believes it. he gives his critics, of who there are legions, plenty to go after him. ande are plenty who believe

the christian magazine is another that you mentioned, who believes what he has done is sufficient that he should be removed. there are many others who say it, and i think i call myself amongst these, that the president often wonders on heat deedful to norms -- un the norms of policy. the muslim been, as it was -- ban, as it was then called, was rolled out without proper care. and then it was held back. what happened with the ukraine call is rather the same. he blundered in and essentially ask for dirt on some of the was likely to be a political rival, thate made -- suggested she seemed to predicate the giving of aid to ukraine on the doing of this favor. eventually, of course, the

request for the favor was withdrawn and the aide was paid on time anyway. you could say this is impeachable and the house decided it was. others are saying that there are many worse faxes -- worse offenses that have been created by previous -- committed by previous administrations that this is what the democrats bet they would do it for two and a half years with russia and now that fell flat and now they are doing it with ukraine. host: a washington post columnist writes it isn't the logical matter that evangelical christians and served by media and white identity politics have become the most hostile to refugee settlement and the supporters of family separation at the border. it isn't a theological matter that trump is making an older generation of evangelical christians look like crude hypocrites in the eyes of their own children who are fleeing the tradition in droves.

that suchk, i think views are justifiable. i think that they are -- one can also disagree with them. entirely clear that evangelical should denounce trump. hand, if you want the appointment of judges who will stick to the constitution and if you want to protect freedom of religion and freedom i think a lotch of religious people want to do, then you are probably more likely to get those things with president trump or one of his democratic opponents. host: does the party risk not being reelected in 2020 when he

is appealing to and has the support of what it looks like in polls, just the base of the party right now? guest: there is always that risk , which is why elections are exciting. one never knows who is going to win or how things will play out. host: when you look at 2018 and who turned out and who voted for democrats, for women etc.. guest: doesn't concern me. vote and it isn't a matter of concern to me which way people decide to vote. what i tend to try to do is look at the way that things will play out and what is likely politically. nancy pelosi, the speaker of the house, has been concerned to judge whether or not impeachment will help or harm the democrats in the next election.

i think the impeachment process has been nakedly political. it was amusing to watch when the house took its vote, a number of democrats in the house after he was declared to have been impeached, a number of democrats in the house started to applaud. nancy pelosi glared at them and cut them off with a hand gesture, because the whole pretense over this period of weeks and months has been the out ofts are doing this a solemn duty to the constitution, rather than gleefully and for political purposes. i don't think for most people that passes the laugh test and she has been calculating and is still calculating as she holds the articles of impeachment from the scented -- senate will be in the best interest of her party. germantown,go to

for an independent color. caller: -- caller:. caller: let's say they hold the articles until the end of the election and let say the worst , the senate and can they remove the president by then? allt: no, because legislation, including the impeachment would fall by the wayside, so he would have to be impeached again if the next congress were dominated by the democrats and they decided they would have to impeach him again, and some are already talking about impeaching him again. the idea you raised about the articles not being submitted to the senate throughout this coming year is a very the democratse

have been talking about impeachment, the base of the democratic party has been talking about it before he was a non-curated. there was -- before he was inaugurated. there was one that came out 90 minutes after he took the oath of office. they have shown that they can base and fore three years, there is absolutely no reason why they would not be able to they chose to come to perpetuate it for the next year and beyond. to idea of his -- of it is make him less electable and less attractive to voters. they could do it. once again, one has to remember that what nancy pelosi is doing is very carefully looking at the political impact of this and if she were to see that the public

or turning against the withholding of the articles of impeachment and the prevention of the trial and they were turning against that and recognizing this as political chicanery, she would forced to do it. from democratic caller ohio. caller: because trump came on the scene owing russia banks noty because he's trustworthy here in america that the banks will give him loans wives ifask his three he is trustworthy. does he always tell the truth. ask the people who have sued him if he is a good man, an honest man, not a deceiver, has never lied.

ask the banks that won't loan to him if they think he is a good businessman. host: what is your point? caller: this is why, from the beginning, democrats were on him. he came half the seeking paying off poor and women and a holy here prussian bank money. owing a russian bank money. host: your thoughts? guest: i don't how to respond to that. at some of it may well be true and some certainly is true. i am not certain whether it is true. it is thoughts of that sort that make people think that president trump is clearly the wrong person for the job and that they have always opposed his being the president. i don't know what to say other

than that. host: providence, rhode island, republican. caller: good morning. guest: good morning. caller: trump will be reelected if the economy stays good. this is a bunch of baloney. we still have a lot of time to go and no one knows what is going to happen. secondly, a key issue is the upcoming supreme court case, where they are going to hear arguments on his tax returns and financial records. from what i understand, they will make a ruling on that in june or july. if they rule against him, that could create a crisis and ultimately could bring him down, which i do not want to see. i am a liver -- libertarian and i like his court appointments. if he gets over that hump in the economy stays good, he gets reelected, because on the side of the democrats, to be

perfectly fair, joe biden is corrupt and has been there for 50 years. basically, them are except for buttigieg, are marxist. host: all right. callerthe economy, the raises what his trump card is that the economy is strong and has been strong and growth accelerated after he came to the oval office and economic indicators continue to be strong. there are certainly economic and election models that show that incumbents are very likely to be reelected if the economy is growing at a certain level. hasddition, this economy reduced minority unemployment to its lowest levels on record, and there is some evidence that president trump might peel away some minority voters away from the democrats which would be a

disaster for the democrats. but you are right, there are pitfalls on the way to the election. one is the decision about whether or not president trump has to turn over his tax returns. -- i think to do so his original was for not handing over was that he was being audited and he would do it after that. certainlydone so, and , we at the washington examiner has said he should do so. we think it is proper that presidential candidates should reveal their taxes. host: take a look at the headlines that it stacks up on their website this morning. stockmarkets gain 17 trillion in value in 2019, more records developing. up 24%.tock apple on a high. jump out past presidents. world's richest earned $1.2

trillion. recessions, robots, rockets, another roaring 20's? guest: i don't know that the 20's is 20's -- roaring a past people would feel comfortable about because of what followed. it ended with the depression. certainly, there are all sorts of excellent indicators of the stock market generally regarded as a six-month leading indicator and is now at record levels. that takes us through until june 2020, and obviously everybody will be watching the markets. if they are still strong by may and june, then the probability is that other indicators is that will economic indicators remain strong through the election. that is an enormous problem for the democrats. people devote because of their

pocketbooks -- do vote because of their pocketbooks. if they are feeling better off, if they have more disposable do as aas 90% of them result of the tax cuts, then they are much more likely to forgive some of the extraordinary behavior they have witnessed from president trump in office and reelect him. if they are feeling hard up and andmy about prospects, those things become less forgivable. host: will they be forgiving for the amount of spending that is happening, both under democrats and republicans and also it one point for trillion dollars spending bill? -- $1.4 trillion spending bill? guest: sadly, they will. it is perfectly legitimate for

the country -- for example, in the second world war there was an enormous deficit build up, and we are now spinning $1 trillion-- spending $1 during an economic boom. there is no recession. we are conducting military operations overseas, but not in a massive way. the excess spending now has nothing to do with any emergency circumstances, but it is what this country does. it should be unsustainable. unfortunately, politicians are not generally punished when they spend now and say they will pay tomorrow. at some point, have to pay for it. in -- rights,ican a trillion dollars spending bill and he writes about the process

saying, debate and discussion were limited to 90 minutes the morning before the vote. it was scheduled before the funding would expire. vote on the spending bill was one of 16 votes that day and had to be taken before congress left for the christmas rake. the message was obvious, vote for the bill or be blamed for shutting down the government just before the holidays. threatening a shutdown left them no recourse but to approve the bill. guest: noted he was able to read it was 2000 pages or more. , many ofad shutdowns them, in recent years. they are unpopular. no one wants to be blamed for them. ratherians would much just sweep this away and get it off of the table and go back to -- and the thing is, the sums accumulate because people will

withhold the vote unless they get certain spending. so spending is driven up in order to get the votes. you do not have to bring it down to get it passed, you have to bring it up. host: mitch mcconnell went back after the vote to the state of kentucky and he touts to his a pencil -- his potential opponent, look what i have delivered, almost $1 million to the kentucky voters. guest: he has been doing that for years, as has every politician who has been able to get spending into the bills. spending is not something that makes them feel ashamed, but they boast, they bring home the bacon. it is the way the system unfortunately works. host: we will go to renate in mississippi, independent. caller: good morning. guest: good morning. caller: i have a question -- is

the guest aware of any polling options or pew or gallup or university poll asking black christians why they continue to vote for democrats. the democrat party seems to have a policy of opposing everything that supposedly black christians believe. but christians are overwhelmingly antiabortion. the democrat party is pro-choice. the black christians are overwhelmingly anti-gay rights. the democrat party is pro-gay rights. iso, the democrat party pro-trans rights, where black women, they do not approve of anything of that nature. i was wondering, have you ever heard of any pull being in the blackpoll christian community about these issues? guest: i am not aware of poles significantly focused -- polls

on those specific groups, of all they undoubtedly exist. it is sometimes, if not baffling, nevertheless a little confusing about why people choose to vote the way they do. you will remember that there was a lot of confusing -- confusion about whitethe bush weres city's -- kansans voting. whenever know why they are voting. but the great thing about a democracy is the ballot is secret. you can keep secret the way you vote. you do not have an obligation to explain to people why you vote the way you do. you can vote for somebody because you think they are good looking or for a very narrow issue. also, ethnic groups, racial

groups, will often vote dominantly in one way or another. i think democrats generally expect to get about nine out of 10 black clouds. -- black votes. it is about sticking together and not about a particular issue. it is almost a tribal thing with voters. they have always been democrat. the recent example in britain of the election there -- one of the things that absolutely shocked people is that traditional left-wing, switched. they did not like the left-wing and alsobour party supported brexit. when communities for generations have voted one way switch, that comes as an enormous shop, even

though people have been saying, well, their interest would suggest they vote this way rather than that, but they continue to vote the way they traditionally have. host: linda, missouri, democratic caller. caller: good morning. guest: good morning. caller: i just wanted to put this out there. every time our president does something wrong, just as this guy said, i guess he comes across differently and maybe he meant this or whatever. but in the real world, i'm a black female, if i came across the way this man does, i would be in big trouble. if i had a blackmail for ukraine the way he did, i would be in big trouble. if a normal citizen had blackmailed someone, they would be in trouble. but because it is donald trump and doesn't know the right way to say something and knows everything, he deserves to say

what he wants. he deserves to be impeached and their need to be people there because they know first hand. they didn't want to be witnesses in the beginning and they don't want to be now what i think they should be made to be. gurden?. guest: it is to the president says things in the substance and tone that are very startling. i think most people, even his supporters, would think that is true. the "washington examiner" had a octoberce in georgia in where most of the attendees were conservatives and republicans. most of them wanted to see president trump elected. 80% of them put their hands up and we asked, ok, which of you

would like to see the president tone things down, for example, on twitter? support, most people decide support for one party or another or one candidate or another on an enormous range of issues. sometimes they are issues and sometimes there are personalities. it is difficult to identify a single reason why one would support someone. a lot of people would get in trouble for saying the kinds of things president trump, and frankly, the president gets in trouble for saying those things. host: john in tampa, republican. caller: it is important to understand the context over a broad time over what is in the best interest of the individual. you basically have two parties in america. you have the resident who does good things and bad things, but has a degree of movement to undo -- you have a president who does

good things and bad things but has a degree of movement to undo those things. both parties acting in the interest of very powerful individuals. the trouble is that most of the news in this country that the public sees, because they are busy with lives and they have to depend on the news industry to be honest, the news is owned and operated pretty much by the same wealthy people that support democrats and pre-trump republicans who spent a billion dollars to try to get hillary elected and they basically did a big campaign in 2016 get him badmouthed people -- so people would have so much unawareness of what is happening and hate the president. he is the only individual who is not a politician depending on big money and doesn't depend on big money like a puppet to say

what he wants. he is a wealthy person who decided, probably for patriotic reasons, to not work and make money and to support the country , a calling like a soldier would have a calling. gurden?, mr. guest: there have been a lot of enormous failures and or work and a lot were issuing -- itching for the russian narrative to be true. that whole issue with the steele dossier and investigations by robert mueller and his team were all almost panting for an impeachment and to find that president trump was colluding with russia in the election.

flat, and,ll obviously, the day after robert mueller's testimony, which it felt leftist, the ukraine phone call took place. sayhe democratic side, they , just after he'd been -- after it was shown what he could get away with with russia, and the robert mueller report exonerated him on that, he goes and does something really egregious with ukraine. the the republicans say is course of action or excuse you have been leaning on for impeachment falls to pieces, you immediately follow -- find another one with ukraine phone call. there have been a number of media failures over the past three years relating to president trump and the caller

is right. host: independent. caller: good morning. you are a conservative, right? guest: yes. caller: i often wondered what conservatives are trying to conserve. look at one thing they are not conserving. they are not conservative but they steal. it was a lady just before you that talked about voting rights and the republicans and mostly conservatives, as far as i can see, are stealing the right to vote from people that look like them. then, lying. conservativess if are genetically inclined to lie. they never stop lying. let me give an example. well, i just gave you an example. they claim the constitution allows them to take people's supremed the white

court said it was ok. they don't understand that they will turn it back to the states and the white state representatives are the ones doing the stealing? and murder. host: ok, hold on. why don't we have you tell the viewers why you are a conservative. well, i am a conservative in the way that it was originally defined back in the 18th century, which is to say -- he pointed out there is a misconception that conservatives don't want any change. they simply want stasis. that is not true at all. system,tism is a belief at least in my mind, it is a belief system which respects and honors the past while evolving

and not standing in the way of the future. was --the inns that i one of the things i was thinking tradebefore the show was policy. conservative have been free traders and protectionists. hadies have in the past fiscal hawks and free spenders. the president is a free spender. there are a wide range of identifiedt can be or could be held by people on either side of the spectrum. confineshe things that -- defines conservative is the respect for the wisdom of the politicalgnizing that authorities that start from year zero, whether the french revolution or cambodia or or

whatever, are extremely dangerous. you start from where you are. you accept the people in the past that were just as wise and humane as you but you also know that society must change. gradualtism is about rather than revolutionary change. jerri,o new jersey, democratic color. .- caller caller: i would like to call attention that in new jersey, we to giving drivers licenses illegal immigrants. that is all about voting. just keep and i out. you talk about the election and what is going to come out in the next year? wait to see with the democrats have done to president trump.

i am a registered democrat. i want people to pay attention to this because you want to talk about illegal? what they didn't do to this president with spying on his election, and you are talking about hillary clinton and her people. and then the news media covering it up. if you think we are not conscious about what is going on and how it is going to come out, and you want to talk about how people are going to rally to trump when you see he has been right all along about the spying , how the news media cover that up and made fun of him. you look at what is going to come out. it is a disgrace. byst: i think the caller raising the figure points to something which is important and is coming down the track. attorney general barr initiated an investigation into the origins of the rush investigation. part of that is now a criminal

investigation. that,t want to prejudge but i do suspect there was all sorts of nefarious things going on. it is rare, i think, that high-profile prosecutor investigates and investigate and doesn't come up with prosecutions. i think we can expect people in the intelligence community and perhaps in the fbi to be prosecuted at some point during this coming year. ler pointsat the cal to something, and we talked 'decision.scotus the attorney general investigation into the origins of the russia collusion hoax and the criminal investigation are very clear pitfalls for the democrats.

it depends what is revealed for what kind of pollution there was against president trump -- what kind of collusion there was against president trump to try to prevent him from becoming president and to implicate him in nonexistent collusion with russia. there is a lot coming down the road between now and the election. host: how do you respond to democratic candidates like saying thearren president needs to be impeached is the right thing to do. here is her argument. >> i see this as a constitutional moment that last night the president was impeached. everyone in the senate who has taken a constitutional oath to uphold our constitution, and that does not be loyalty to an individual or a political party, a means loyalty to our country. that vote will play out over the next several weeks.

the way i see this is, we have now seen the impact of corruption and that is what is clearly on the stage in 2020. it is how we are going to run against the most corrupt president in living history. this president has made corruption originally his argument that he would drain the strop -- swamp. he broke that promise and has done everything for the wealthy and well-connected, from tax breaks ambassador -- tax to ambassadorships. we have to have a candidate for president who can trawl -- you can draw a sharp distinction between the corruption of the trump administration and a democrat who is willing to get else.d fight for everyone that is why i am in this race. gurden?.

guest: it is interesting that she cited ambassadorships and tax cuts for the wealthy, neither of which are persuasive. ambassadorships are often give to presidential friends and donors. it is what past presidents have done. it is not remotely unusual. 90% of taxpayers have had their tax burden reduced by this. the middle class has benefited in terms of the money staying in their pockets from the tax cuts, whether are not these are good -- ints in the launching the long term is for economists to decide but they were not just for the rich. host: austin, texas, ethan, republican. caller: at a restaurant served

-- as a registered gay voter, i vote with my pocketbook. they have used the gay community for many years and have done nothing for us. there has been legislation here and there and have done good things, but as a republican voter, they don't use it. they use -- they tell the truth and do what is good for the economy. the economy is booming and president trump is going to get reelected. with the economy the way it is going, trump is going to get reelected. i am so proud to support a president, and more gay people are stepping up and voting with their pocketbook and voting for the economy. i think we will see more gays voting in 2024 president trump. r who is aast calle democrat and saying she is paying attention, i think more people are standing up on both sides and saying this is a great

president and a guy who stands for the people. i think the whole impeachment thing really hurt them and people are seeing that. issue ofthink the parties and politicians taking some voters for granted is one which president trump has played on really quite successfully. obviously, his election victory in 2016 had a lot to do with going to traditional democratic strongholds in the industrial midwest and making people there believe that he was on their site at -- on their side. they were taking -- being taken for granted and hillary clinton did not go there at all, assuming that state would vote for her and it didn't. trump is also talking

up his support amongst black voters, who traditionally have voted enormous majorities for democrats. we obviously look at the voting after it comes out in november of next year, we will find out whether he has managed to peel away minority voters. 2016 toinly managed in take a lot of blue-collar voters away from the democrats and that was key to his victory. host: douglas, minneapolis, independent. caller: yes, i wanted to say first of all, the nomenclatures of centrists and moderates and conservatives -- they are so ambiguous. they almost mean nothing. indefensiblect is on so many levels. ajust wanted to start with few to say that he could not be

the paragon that he is being held up as for rooting out corruption. swindled man who charities, 12 of them, to be exact, and was fined $2 million for that. then, the university, a bogus university that he established and was found -- find $20 million on that. d to hunt -- $20 million on that. on assaultingd women. i don't know how you can defend him. if he is doing that kind of thing, criminal conduct, how is it that he wouldn't be somebody who would do the quid pro quo?

when you look at how he conducted himself with debbie dingell, that was some quid pro quote for sure -- quid pro quo for sure. one thatat mr. -- any had mr. dingell do what he did, would have the flags lowered as patriot. it is incredulous that we can have the gentleman on the program that is talking and the people coming on now defending trump. lastly, when hitler's came to power, germany's economy was , and trumpwretched did not inherit a wretched economy. certainly some aspects of it have grown, but it was in that direction under obama. the point is, just because the

economy is great does not absolve him of his criminal conduct. host: ok, douglas. caller hits on any central point every time we come on an election and that is -- do the things the presidents have done that are popular and successful outweigh those for which he is criticized question mark i would agree with the ca -- criticize? i would agree with the caller that the president has not been successful in calling out corruption. it has been written that he should divest himself of his businesses so that he had no financial interest remaining. he didn't do that and there are examples that people cite of his businesses benefiting from the

fact that he is president. i certainly wouldn't hold him up as the example of someone who would root out corruption, and clear conflict. -- conflict of interest. whereas the color would say, my goodness, just because the economy is this strong doesn't outweigh the fact that i think president trump is a terrible man. others would say, he is not admirable in all sorts of way, but i am doing a whole lot better in the country is doing a whole lot better and that is why we have democracy. people can decide what they think on those issues, and we will find out in november. host: to houston, texas, i amratic caller. caller:

glad you took my call. trump, with the economy, they are always talking about that. trump did not do that. president obama did that and it was very high. with women, i be heard him on tv saying that with the russians. saying investigating biden. all this things -- all these things are coming up and he is with them. just -- i supposed to am a democrat. president, -- if obama was doing wrong, i would say that. -- republicans are sending

mitch mcconnell, they need to get rid of him. all things prove he is dictating to our country. this is not right. see moreld you like to republican senators be critical of a president trump? republican lawmakers? guest: frankly, i think they should say what they think. if they believe that he is doing well, they should say so. i think there have been many who have done so over the course of the past three years. in partingnterest people to say things. i am much more interested that they should speak their minds. there is nothing wrong with party loyalty. parties operate together and because there are so many issues that people vote on and because everything that the government

does is something on which each party has its policies. you can become a single issue voter and you can say the phone call was corrupt and in abuse of power and therefore irrespective of a lot of things and trump should be gone. but you can also say, i think and call was inappropriate the president was ill advised to make those suggestions and ask for that favor. but there are all of these other things. he has reformed taxes, remade one third of the federal judiciary with people who follow ,he constitution and the law and rather not a camouflage. decisions andese

that includes republican lawmakers. they want to win and what reelection and they see that he has more than 90% support amongst republicans. they are very unlikely to buck that. host: federal reserve chair before the house budget committee talked about the implications of sustainability of the debt period want to show you and our viewers the conversation he had ohio republican bill johnson. [video clip] >> i would find sustainable that the debt is not growing faster than the economy. our debt is growing faster than our economy by a margin. by definition, that makes it unsustainable. >> can the debt continued to indefinitely grow as a percentage of gdp? when do we reach the tipping point where we are unrecoverable? >> that is not a question to where there is really an answer, the specific tipping point. there are examples who have much

higher levels. what you do know is come over time come as debt builds up, our children and grandchildren will be spending more of their tax dollars to pay for interest on the borrowing that we've done as opposed to the things they need, education, health care, security. for thisthis concern president and republicans? guest: it should be, i don't know that it is. it is an enormous importance. the company has been spending like a drunken sailor for years, decades. i remember reporting this stuff in the 1980's. it isn't sustainable because as the fed chairman said in that clip that you displayed, as the debt increases, more and more of the tax revenues will be used to finance the debt. we will be just on interest

payments. at squeeze is out the ability of the government and the people and the voters to choose what they wish to spend on because they have to spend on interest and otherwise they are defaulting on debts and that would be a calamity for the united states to fault on its debts. -- to default on its debt. revenues have risen since the tax cuts were introduced. that is usually what happens when taxes are cut, you get higher revenues. what we have is a spending problem. congress and the current president and the previous president and several presidents before that were just spending too much on what the country could not afford and should not be spending on. host: jackson oh, florida, kendrick, republican, good morning. caller: i am a subscriber to

your washington examiner. guest: i hope you are enjoying it. caller: i love it, mostly. i'm not a huge fan of philip klein and i think they are kind fake.nk -- kind of they are kind of like mitt romney conservatives. but i have a couple of questions for you. are you familiar with the magazine called "chronicles," and if so, what do you think about it. is, doesn't the constitution say the senate must have a trial after the president is impeached? guest: i am aware of the existence of "chronicles." i do not have an opinion on it because i have never read it. as for the impeachment and the what nancyn't think pelosi is doing is unconstitutional. it would take perhaps a

constitutional scholar rather than me to be definitive about that. i think that there is nothing in the constitution which says when the articles have to be sent over. on the other hand, given that the trial itself is entirely up to the senate, it is not absolutely clear the senate could not hold the trial after receiving the articles. everyone has read the articles of impeachment and know what he has been impeached for. it is possible, if mitch mcconnell wants to do this and his majority backs him, that they could hold the trial and hear what evidence they want to hear on or just dismiss the case. i don't think it is unconstitutional. i think it is another piece of political strategy by nancy pelosi. iether it works are not, would judge probably not.

it is probably working for her for a while in the polls are not showing any rapid slide away from support for impeachment and removal, i think if it goes on for a long time, public support will wayne and people will say ne and she said it that it was desperate and they had to remove them -- it was an emergency and they had to remove him and it no longer is. host: mike, an independent. caller: it is not a requirement for the president to turn over his tax returns or anything like that. i thought there were two requirements, 35 years old and a citizen born in this country. the other thing is, you could get rid of a lot of these problems if you just did what

the ninth president or something like that did after the articles , georgederation washington said, let's not have any political parties. get rid of them. host: ok, mike, we will take your ideas. guest: it is impossible to avoid political parties. people will disagree and try to find like-minded people with whom they can accumulate support. so there is a natural tendency towards a party system. and there is a natural tendency towards to parties rather than more. if political parties are efficient, and i think they are in political terms, and they see some idea that's raised by a third party, they move pretty wiggly to try and take that idea into their own party to prevent the possibility of a third party rising. there is ahink

natural tendency in a democracy where people can choose to disagree with each other and find people who they agreement -- whom they agree with and that forms the parties. host: robertson, ohio, democratic caller. questionanted to ask a . i can't remember which program i did see it on. i like to watch different programs and re-different newspapers, correct me if i'm wrong, in the constitution, does it state that the white house has to comply with all subpoenas during an impeachment inquiry? people say we must go to court, but it excludes going to court just for an impeachment inquiry. the constitution is silent on that particular matter. the executive branch has executive privilege.

it's executive privilege which is being invoked by the white house and by the president to prevent certain officials from testifying. obviously, the house also has power of oversight and power of impeachment. there are two rights here that are in conflict. the house says, we want you to testify. it is our right to have you testified because we have the power of oversight over the executive. the executive is saying there are some things, and we include these, as being protected by executive privilege and, -- privilege, without it being made public by the congress. the third branch of the government, the judicial branch on the limit gets to decide who is right on this. so the reason it should have gone is not because the constitution lays out in any detail the executive branch's

, but to refuse subpoenas it has to adjudicate which of the two branches -- which of the branches is correct in a particular place. happy new year.: tomorrowwill be back at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. a happy new year to you as well. ♪ [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]

>> university of washington professor ms. o'mara discusses hurt book. -- her book. >> yet biggest government programs, the space race. that becomes a foundation of this flywheel of incredible creation and innovation and private wealth creation. that industry considered built itself on its own and that government has become almost invisible to many of the people who are in silicon valley, the creators of these companies and technologies. magics part of the actually that it is government out of sight. >> sunday night at 8:00 p.m. ""q&a --n c-span

"q&a." book tvweekend, features three new nonfiction books. saturday at 6 p.m. eastern, doug talks about his latest book "inside trump's white house." have run inans have for president and have elected him. they are russian spies. think about that. that is like landing a man on the moon, like christopher columbus, one of the greatest events of world history, that they were able to actually achieve that. andt 8:20 p.m. eastern, their latest book, science professors discuss algorithm design. >> philosophers have been privacy about fairness, and the like. they have never had to think about these things in such a

precise way you can write them into a computer program and more into an algorithm. >> sunday night at 9:00 p.m. eastern on "afterwards," and author -- an author -- experience was more socially and economically-diverse and i had ever known. i decided to read all of these other writers seriously. friendsto wonder why my and i had such a narrow perception of this really rich cultural tradition and why i thought my father was outside of this cultural tradition, when in many ways, he was exemplifying it. >> watch book tv this week and every week and on c-span two. up, the house oversight committee hearing on climat