about the museum's history, artifacts and issues of importance for native americans today. his next. -- is next. ♪ host: good morning. it is thursday, february 30. last night was a busy one. in las vegas, democratic candidates sparred three days ahead of the nevada caucuses and many of the toughest attacks were aimed at the newcomer, michael bloomberg. democrats were laying into each other and president trump took the stage for a rally in phoenix where he was not shy at taking jabs at his would-be opponent. we are getting your reaction to all of it. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000.

.ndependents, 202-748-8002 you can send us a text. that number, 202-748-8003. if you do, include your name or where you are from. on twitter it is @cspanwj. on facebook it is facebook.com/cspan. a very good there's day morning, you can start calling now as we show you a few of the headlines related to last night's debate. arrivals gang up against bloomberg from the washington to the washington post. one of the op-ed's, they came for a debate and a fight broke out. bloomberg all as joins the race. the attacks on mike bloomberg began in the very first minute of last night's debate. this was senator bernie sanders. [video clip] >> in order to beat donald

trump, we will need the largest voter turnout in the history of the united states. mr. bloomberg had policies in frisk.k city of stop and that is not a way you are going to grow voter turnout. what our movement is about is bringing working-class people andther, black and white latino, native american, asian an agenda thatd works for all of us and not just the billionaire class. host: senator bernie sanders. elizabeth warren was not far behind going after mike bloomberg. [video clip] >> i would like to talk about who we are running against. a billionaire who caused reporters fat broad -- women fat brides. michaelking about bloomberg.

if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, harassing women and .upporting racist policies i will support whoever the democratic nominee is, but understand this, democrats take a huge risk if we substitute one arrogant billionaire for another . this country has worked for the rich for a long time and left everyone else in the dirt. it is time to have a president who will be on the side of working families and willing to get out and fight. host: mike bloomberg responded to the early barrage of attacks last night. here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> i think we have two questions to face tonight, who can beat donald trump and who can do the job if they get into the white house. i would argue i am the candidate who can do it.

i am a new yorker. i know how to take on an arrogant conman like donald trump. i am am mayor -- i was a mayor. i know how to run a complicated city, the biggest, most diverse city in this country. i am amana, i knew what to do after 9/11 and brought the city back stronger than ever and i am a philanthropist who made his money and i am spending that money to get rid of donald trump, the worst president we get ever had and if i can that done, it will be a great contribution to america and my kids. host: mike bloomberg last night. the president took the stage at in keep america great rally phoenix arizona at the map -- at about the same time the candidates were introduced in las vegas and the president did not take long to go after democrats in the race. [video clip] >> we are winning.

we are winning like never before . washington democrats keep losing their minds. they hate the fact we are winning, we are winning big. that is why millions of registered democrat voters are leaving their party to join our .ovement they are joining our great republican party in droves. i speak -- spoke to some of your leaders. this is unbelievable, what is happening. there have never been rallies like that. sleepy joe biden the other day had 68 people.

new member ofa mike.ew, mini we call him no boxers and i hear he is getting pounded tonight. they are pounding him. spent $500 million so far and i think he has 15 points. fake news, how many points does he have right now? they won't tell you the truth. truth.n't tell you the msdnc is worse than cnn. they are owned by a company called comcast. you can have comcast. a bunch of phonies. they is worse than cnn and

are all pretty bad. they just came out with a pole. they just came out with a pole a little while ago. and crazy bernie $500 and mike spent million. take it awaying to from bernie again and that is ok because we don't care who it is, we are going to win. host: that was president trump in phoenix last night. we are talking about all of this on the washington journal, phone lines as usual. .emocrats, 202-748-8000 independents, 202-748-8002. out of garland, texas, line for democrats, what did you think? caller: good morning and thank

you for taking my call. i want to encourage all women in america to vote for a woman for president. elizabeth warren -- warren was a fighter last night that i have known her to be and she has always fought for us and the only reason i feel bloomberg is in the race is he does not want above $50 million in taxes and he is there to save rich people from paying the taxes elizabeth warren needs. i remember when rich people paid more taxes than they are paying today and another thing about bloomberg, he did not release his taxes, he is going to be another donald trump in a milder form. how much is mar-a-lago costing us and how much debt are we in when we get a republican? i want all the women to vote for

elizabeth warren as president. we need a woman president. independent. greg, what do you think? caller: i have been aware of over 40 years of how this country has been run by democrats as a whole and some republicans and i remember the waltern in 1984 with mondale and reagan. reagan won 49 states. predict democrats in november will probably have less than six states and the rest will go to president trump. he is very deserving and building america as it should be. states for is only 6 democrats, which states does donald trump lose/ caller:caller: washington state, oregon, vermont, and two up in

the air. i am not sure. i don't think they will get much more than that when they have crowds of less than 100 at their rallies. host: this is jennifer out of california, republican. good morning. caller: i just changed to the republican party so i can vote for mr. trump in our primary. otherwise, i could not because i was not a republican before. i have never seen such a miserable, nasty person such as bloomberg running for office. he has a personal grudge against mr. trump, calling him a conman, in a forumppropriate like this. that is all i have to say. host: is it appropriate anywhere? where would it be ok? caller: it is not appropriate to use insults like that. this is supposed to be helpful,

informative debate for the public. he comes across as a nasty, mean-spirited, bitter little man. host: what do you think about donald trump -- those who complain about donald trump's insults whether on twitter or at the rally last night? caller: you don't see him doing that in public. -- a lot ofames his humor.s is he is not mean and vindictive and vicious like this bloomberg comes across. host: out of rose hill, north carolina, good morning. good morning. thank you for taking my call. the lady who just called, i don't see that she cannot see

how mean trump is. president trump. he is still our president. i was very disappointed with the debate last night, the way they ganged up on mayor bloomberg. i don't think that was fair and we should be showing unity in the democrat party. they know better than that. bernie sanders and elizabeth warren always before were saying -- their progressive thing, they were always saying let's not do for the millionaires and billionaires, but now they just say billionaires if everyone noticed . bernie, but keen on if i have to, i will vote for him to get rid of trump. i think it was very unfair how they jumped on mayor bloomberg.

lived in newd i york before and the crime rate was very bad. stop and frisk might not have been the right way to go. there is good and bad in everything. they have to look at it that way. they went too far. thank you for taking my call. host: thanks for the call from north carolina. the new york times with a breakdown of the speaking time each of the democratic candidates received last night during the debate. elizabeth warren getting the most speaking time, but they were not that far apart. elizabeth warren with the most by amy5 followed klobuchar under 16 minutes. 15:30.sanders under

and bloomberg, 13 minutes two seconds, that is how it broke down last night. more from the back-and-forth last night between mike bloomberg and elizabeth warren over mike bloomberg's comments about women. [video clip] >> i have no tolerance for the kind of behavior the me too movement has exposed and anybody that does anything wrong in our company, we investigate and if it is appropriate, they are gone that day. let me tell you what i do at my company and foundation and city government when i was there. the person who runs my foundation is a woman. 77% of the people there are women. lots of women have big responsibilities and get paid cityame as men and in hall, the top person, my deputy mayor was a woman and 40% of our

commissioners were women. i am very proud of the fact about two weeks ago we were voted the best place to work, second-best place in america. if that does not say something about our employees and how happy they are, i don't know what does. >> you have been critical of mayor bloomberg on this issue. >> i have and i hope you heard what his defense was. i have been nice to some women. that doesn't cut it. the mayor has to stand on his record and what we need to know is what is working out there. he has gotten some number of women, dozens, who knows, to sign nondisclosure agreements for sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the workplace. allyou willing to release of those women from those nondisclosure agreement so we

can hear their side of the story? >> we have very few nondisclosure agreements. >> how many? >> none of them accused me of doing anything other than they did not like a joke i told. there are agreements between two parties that wanted to keep it quiet and that is up to them. they signed those agreements and we will live with them. >> i want to be clear. some is how many? and when you say they signed them and they wanted them, if they wish now to speak out and tell their side of the story about what they allege, that is ok with you? you are releasing them on television tonight? is that right? the company and somebody else

, man or woman or could be more than that, they decided when they made an agreement they wanted to keep it quiet for everybody's interest. they signed the agreements and that is what we are going to live with. the front pages from the tabloid newspapers in mike bloomberg's hometown. bloom goes the dynamite. warren leads democratic debate attack on mike and to the new york post, their headline from after last night's debate, black at bloom, implodes on stage democratic debate. phone lines are open as usual. republicans, democrats, and independents. individual lines for all. from listening to that last clip. by the way, i am in maryland .1 driving into

work. i am amazed she would even bring that up. everyone who knows what a nda is knowswhat an bloomberg cannot discuss anything about that. it is not just females that , i signed one. three or four months ago i was the first to call in in support of bloomberg even before he announced he was running because if you live in the baltimore area, you know bloomberg has done a lot for this region. he is not racist, he is not a sexist. he is the best candidate that is going to beat trump. sanders is not going to beat him. warren is not going to beat trump and biden, i am surprised he is still in the race. please, america, do not fall for the tricks. if you go up against trump, you

have to take your gloves off. that is run out of baltimore, maryland. in the d.c. area. sean is next in wisconsin, a republican. did you watch the debate at all? caller: i watched it, pretty much. good morning, everybody. i want to elaborate what i see and beingling in prejudiced, vote for women just because it is a woman. the democratic party -- all they do is fight every time they are televised. they bicker and fight. i don't see that out of republicans. i see republicans discussing issues to help america and i hope people see that. host: did you see that in 2016 during the republican debates? caller: i was hospitalized most noticed but i just

watching the ones previous before and i remember in the 1980's when democratic a brokens -- we were nation. i was out of work for three or four years and i changed to republican since then and since ,onald trump has been in office my company has prospered probably 1000%. host: what kind of work are you in? caller: i own a salvage yard. host: what has been the thing that has helped your salvage yard the most during the trump presidency? is there a specific policy or regulation? visit the stock market? caller: the regulations and the policy of fair trade. is holding of a dollar staying there. price gouging.e

it has been an even payout. been an average $120 a ton since he has been in office. before that, you could not make a dollar because you did not know where you were buying from and how much of a loss or a profit. the last numeral for years, it has been a steady profit. host: andrew's next out of oklahoma, city -- oklahoma city, oklahoma. caller: thank you for having me. if your last caller had watched the 2016 debates, it was constant trump name-calling. that is not policy. as for bloomberg, bloomberg bombed last night and i think everybody realizes his tv ads do not reflect the man, his record.

he has been a racist, sexist billionaire and he sold george w. bush for president in 2004. as for bernie sanders being attacked for being a millionaire, i want to remind 50rybody bernie has worked years making around $100,000 a year. his wife has worked. he sold two best-selling books and inherited some wealth from his wife's mom's estate and worked $1.2 million in one of the poorest people in the senate. as for warren's performance, i thought it was great, but i want everybody to know this fact. between 2014 and 2018, elizabeth warren took corporate america's money to super pac's the dnc gives out for people to be loyal . in 2019 she stopped and promised she would not take wall street

cost money during the primary. she broke that pledge on the very day she had her best debate performance. it came out in the news she is taking the dirty money. this is the same money anybody howis an obama fan, ask your life got better those eight years. bernie sanders, because he is 100% people funded, will keep to the promises immigrants, the black community, all of us, the working class. what he says on stage, he means it. arerest of them, they taking dirty money. host: on the issue of fundraising and last night's debate, a few tweets as the debate was going. this from one of the abc news correspondents. during the first hour of the debate, bernie sanders supporters made 15,218 donations

, nearly 40% of the .oney raised the abc correspondent tweeting the update to that, $2.7 million raised from 150 thousand donations total wednesday from the bernie sanders campaign. elizabeth warren's campaign putting out their own stats. they raised $425,000 in 30 minutes. team more and put out their statement before 1:00 a.m.. we had our best debate day sending$2.8 million and out a link for supporters. the reaction setting aside first half of the washington journal to hear from our viewers after a busy night on the campaign trail. greg in virginia, you are next. good morning. caller: i wanted to echo some of

the comments folks have made about the tenor of the debate. it seemed like a lot of piling .n it does seem desperate out of the candidates when they resort to personal attacks. like democrats generally are more angry and bitter in general and i don't an angryt voters want president. notwithstanding, which does bring up my last point, which is the kennett -- the comments jennifer made about angry -- bloomberg seeming angry and vindictive. i am astounded about that filter and blinders people have on about the way trump acts and

trump supporters seem to dismiss every nasty comment he makes and for some reason, they don't consider his twitter comments to be public comments. host: are you an independent who might be considering voting for a democrat this cycle? caller:caller: yes. i would vote for anyone to get out of office, frankly. host: a tense urgency as time begins to run out on some of the candidates in the race. do you think it is time for some of the candidates to drop out and if so, who? caller: i would not name names, but it seems like -- host: you are welcome to name names if you want. caller: if you are not in the top three, you would be doing

the party a favor by stepping down. as an independent, i don't need to filter anybody out. i am a big fan of buttigieg and i think his attacks on klobuchar, who i am not especially rooting for on her forgetting the mexican president's name seem to go beyond what they needed to. they made their point and then they just clung to it unnecessarily. host: you mentioned senator klobuchar forgetting the mexican president's name, she was asked about that moment in that interview she had in the past week. here is her response. [video clip] thatdon't think that momentary forgetfulness actually reflects what i know about mexico and how much i care about it. greetings toto say president lowe prez over door --

what i meant by the game of jeopardy is i think we could all come up with things. how many members are there in the israeli -- 120? her nethe president of -- honduras, hernando? for the u.s.-mexico-trade agreement. that will be number -- one of the number one duties. >> my colleague specifically asked you if you could name the president of mexico and you said no. >> that is right and i said i made an error. having a president that is humble and willing to admit that here or there would not be a bad thing. gov put out their top tweet did about moment. senator elizabeth warren jumped

into defendant senator klobuchar about forgetting the mexican's -- mexican president's name. [video clip] >> i understand she forgot a name, it happens. it happens to everybody on the stage. you want to ask about whether or not you understand trade policy with mexico, have at it and if you get it wrong, you ought to be held accountable. you want to ask about the economy and you get it g,you oud accountable. you want to ask about 1000 issues and get it wrong, you ought to be held accountable. missing a name all by itself does not indicate you do not understand what is going on. host: coming up on 7:30 on the east coast. getting your reaction after a busy night on the campaign trail. the debate in nevada, president trump's rally in arizona.

the phone lines are open for you to call about either. severn,, maryland -- maryland, republican. caller: i watched the debate last night. there is very little distinction between bloomberg and trump. i will not vote for trump. bloomberg stop and frisk policies, trump was in favor of stop and frisk policy. central park five, donald trump took out four or five page ads calling for the death penalty. the difference between bloomberg and trump is bloomberg apologized for stop and frisk and donald trump never apologizes. host: you say you are a republican who will not vote for

donald trump. what makes you a republican. what are your key republican platform and policies you stand behind? inler: i was independent and 2015, i was horrified at donald thep's possibly becoming president of the united states and i listened to karen hunter on siriusxm and she has this strategy called called party of lincoln so in the republican primary, you vote for a lesser evil. for much of republican policies as a strategy. that is why i am registered as a republican because in my state, it is a closed primary. you have to be registered as a democrat or republican. you cannot be independent.

independent an complaining about republicans planning to vote in the open south carolina primary a week from saturday saying it was not fair, that republicans should not be able to do that. what would you say to that complaint? caller: it is fair. it is called strategy and i think if more people implemented the strategy karen hunter talked about, we would not be in the mess we are in with president trump. maybe we would have had president kasich. you cannot get mad when people implement great strategy. just after 7:30 and about an hour left in this segment.

we have set aside the first half -- getting your reaction to the bait. day 4 into note it is our weeklong museum week series visiting d.c. area museums talking about the american story and culture. we are at the smithsonian national museum of american history and we will be joined at 9:00 a.m. eastern to talk about -- native american history stick around for that in about an hour and a half. this is rick in ashburn, virginia, independent. you are next. caller: thanks for taking my call. .1 as istening on 90 drive into washington, d.c.. jennifer is turning into mike

bloomberg today because it is amazing how brainwashed trump followers are. as for the last caller, go back and take a social studies class and find out what your vote -- i think the tenacious and this was a positive. who ever is going to go up and if theyld trump klobuchar saw they were gaining momentum. she looked like she was about to cry. dissolved anylly chance he had because he is not one to withstand democrats

stage, much less donald trump. i think bernie sanders will steer those individuals, those moderates towards trump because they are afraid of the socialism aspect of bernie sanders' movement. i think warren showed up really well to show she could put the glove on and i think pete -- igieg showed he could did vote for kasich. think he should be afraid because if they came to bloomberg -- if they go to trump the way they hit bloomberg, i will be a time it much different turn then what happened last year -- last election. host: thanks for the call, safe

drive. hope the traffic is not too bad. a few tweets as we have been having this conversation. bill in indiana. last night's debate showed there is no clear candidate to defeat trump. if they don't get together and show unity, we are headed toward another 4 years of lies, deceit, and polarization. why won't bloomberg release the women from their nondisclosure agreements? he says they were only complaining about jokes. what is he hiding? debate made me miss andrew yang, an issue focused campaign. bloomberg took cheap shots at the others. his words were petty and empty ended nothing to further any cause. this is christian out of north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning.

watching the debates last night were scary. thehis is the best lineup democrats are offering the democratic voters, they are waving the white flag already. down.will win hands i don't see how any of these will be a driving force to get the women vote out or vote out. evelyn out of pennsylvania. good morning. caller: hello? host: go ahead, evelyn. i cannot talk long. i have been waiting long on the way tobut i am on my work. i don't have much time to make a comment. i just want to say trim all the

way. all the way. the american people are going to surprised. host: did you have a chance to watch the debate last night or president trump's rally? caller: yes, i did. host: what did you think was the most interesting moment from the debate? bloomberg -- i feel like he was totally stunned. i honestly believe he wasn't prepared for how he was being attacked, which i believe he was

. i don't believe he really had a chance. host: we choke -- we showed you v last nightitter go . sending out the list of what people are talking about, this was the most tweeted about moment. [video clip] >> let's talk about democratic socialism. not communism. let's talk about countries like denmark. they have a much higher quality of life than what we are talking about. we are living in a socialist society. dr. martin luther king reminded us we have socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor. when donald trump gets $800 million in tax breaks and subsidies to build luxury, --

luxury condominiums, we have to subsidize walmart's workers for medicaid and food stamps because the wealthiest family in america paid wages. i believe democratic socialism has -- is for working people. not billionaires. health care for all. educational opportunities for all. wonderful country we have. the best-known socialist in the country as a millionaire with three houses. what am i missing? , live in in washington burlington and i have a southern camp. where is your home? which rich tax haven is your home? >> new york city and i pay all my taxes and i am happy to do it

because i get something for it. host: that was the most tweeted about moment. with a couple other stats, the most tweeted about candidate, it was elizabeth warren followed by mike bloomberg and pete buttigieg. on klobuchar coming in 6th the list. if you go with the most tweeted about politician and add donald trump, he becomes the most tweeted about u.s. politician despite the debate stage being most of the attention. president trump did hold that rally in phoenix, arizona. we showed it to you live on c-span. we are talking about that, the debates this morning and taking your phone calls. alexander out of burke, virginia. good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call and

providing the program through c-span. thatglad you all played clip of senator sanders dunking on mayor bloomberg. bloomberg is in for a rude awakening. he is one of the main reasons we the brett kavanaugh on supreme court. he has been a republican as recent as 2007 or 2008. feel free to correct me on that. i am an independent, a millennial. i plan on voting for bernie sanders and this message of unity from the dnc and these moderate candidates within the democratic party -- they are in for a rude awakening if they alonge they can string us

losesontested convention in terms of their percentage of delegates. if senator sanders goes into the convention with a plurality, i strongly suggest everybody that does not want donald trump as president to be casting their vote for bernie sanders because he has a message of unity for the working class and he has been consistent in that message for 30 years or so. he was arrested in civil rights demonstrations in the 1960's and 1970's. marched across the bridge in alabama with martin luther king jr. and to see people flocking to bloomberg because of these ads is ridiculous. i am glad elizabeth warren went after him and tore his face-off

in the debate last night. that was much needed. host: let me ask you about some conventional wisdom talked about when it comes to the democratic primary race. many of the pundits saying if the moderate candidates would get behind one single moderate candidate they would be able to beat bernie sanders, that the moderate support outweighs the support for the more liberal candidates. what do you say to that? caller: i have heard that .rgument and it is incorrect if you look at the breakdown of who people support as their second or third choice candidates, a lot of times it is supporters who would vote for bernie or elizabeth warrants the voters who would vote for bernie. elizabeth warren lost a lot of

progressive momentum when she backtracked on medicare for all and try to catch bernie sanders mic at theke -- hot end of the dnc debate. i think we should take a long, and look in the mirror at the kind of canada bernie sanders is. he is reminiscent of a modern-day fdr. drop see these moderates out of the race, sander supporters will remain behind competitionkly, the is not even there. bloomberg is second and he has not even been in debates besides last night. host: are you concerned at all health.ernie sanders'

he said he will not release additional medical records. does that concern you at all? i have heard this come from a lot of moderate and -- this democrats concern about his health. i would say a lot of people behind this movement in the progressive wing of the democratic party and the bernie sanders camp, we are not just voting for one person and his entire campaign slogan is not me, but us. he means the working class of this country and we are not just voting for one man. we are voting for his vision and his dream for all of us to live a much better life. the money is there, we help dayly it and work every toiling away in this dystopian capitalist society driven by consumerism.

we have this candidate we should not be taking for granted and we are voting for his vision and administration and i cannot wait to vote for him on super tuesday. i have a very strong feeling he will take this to the convention and i think he will have a i am veryrality and pleased at how this is going so far. int: that is alexander burke, virginia. virginia one of those states voting march 3. the c-span -- the nevada caucuses this saturday, the south carolina primary the following saturday and the tuesday. onto super murray, you are next. -- marie, you are next. caller: i watched the debate last night. we cannot lose focus. trump is our focus and i heard the younger man call and talk

for five minutes about the movement for bernie sanders. we are fighting a person who wants to be a dictator who is a of us and will not do any who call ourselves democrats or independents any good. i want to go down the list of what i saw for each one of the candidates. bernie and warren basically have the same scenario over and over again, but their solution to everything is to go to someone like bloomberg, get his money and pay for their movement or vision. the problem with that is it has to go through congress and congress has to approve what he is saying he wants done. the likelihood of what bernie is saying to get through congress is not very high. host: who is your candidate? caller: i have not made up my mind completely, but i am looking at bloomberg and biden.

i wanted to address something about biden if i could. i thought limburg came off kind of dry and i realized it was his first debate and i will give him a pass on that because i want him to have a chance to come back and show me what he is made of. this is one thing i know for sure. when it comes to bloomberg. if he says he can do it, he can do it. instead of me looking in the past, i am african-american, about what has not happened, i want to look forward and that is what i want to say about biden. what has he offered me to look forward to? i believe i can go to the bloomberg campaign and say these are the things that will help get me out of this turmoil forever. we may be able to come up with a way to make solutions. i am meeting with --

pete and klobuchar should get out. pete buttigieg has nothing to offer. host: speaking of joe biden, where he is falling -- standards -- sanders rockets the national league. regardless of who you may support, which candidate has the best chance to defeat donald trump? year, joe biden stood at 45%, the clear leader in that field. 38%.nuary, he was the latest polling has joe biden at 19%. 18%anuary, stood at democratic voters thought had

the best chance of defeating donald trump. -- 8% back to that question now, pete buttigieg, amy klobuchar and elizabeth warren in the low to mid single digits. jonathan, a republican. go ahead. caller: how is it going? thanks for having me this morning. host: go ahead. what is your comment? go to work every -- you, you understand cannot find people to work and if there are jobs out there, you are able to go to work. if you cannot find a job, you are making a mistake.

host: this is mary out of new york, democrat, good morning. caller: i think the debate was a total disaster. when they changed the rules to in andultibillionaire can't even defend himself, it was totally wrong. they did not change the rules for kamala harris or cory booker. another thing i want to comment. at 7:30 there was a woman who called in and she was talking and said president trump called for the death penalty. it seems funny democrats opposed the death penalty for kelly's -- for killers, but they rally for the death penalty for innocent children who have done nothing wrong. host: you are calling on the line for democrats. what makes you a democrat? caller: i can be a freethinker in the democrat party. host: what are your key platforms? caller: i want to hear what

their policies are going to be about. policy,o hear foreign domestic policy. i do not to hear this crap you have a million dollars and three homes and you have this and i don't have that. that is wrong. host: we will be talking more about who has what when it comes to campaign finances. we will be talking with dave levinthal coming up in half an hour at 8:30 a.m. eastern taking a look at the campaign fundraising with a focus on the self funder mike bloomberg and where his money has gone. lackland is next out of las vegas where the debate was held. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. part, bernie had

the most original things to say and i thought everybody was average or topic hopping. regarding bloomberg, who led him in? that is sketchy. he had nothing worth of merit to say except i have a lot of money . regarding democratic socialism i think for a steppingstone, he would be the best for this country. isfor difficulty of jobs, it not as easy as republicans thought. , she is an interesting case. she had little to say because everybody else was talking over her. lifting had to say was -- listing her achievements and

accolades. regarding trump -- host: she had plenty of time to say it. according to the breakdown of time,t the most speaking amy klobuchar behind elizabeth warren by 40 seconds with 15 minutes 55 seconds of speaking time. a lisbeth warren at 16 minutes and 35 seconds of speaking time. that chart on your screen a second ago, it is a color-coded chart and what you are seeing in the colors is the topic each candidate was speaking on. it just to run through a few of them. the orange on the chart, the time the candidates spent talking about electability. the bluish color, health care. the yellow color, the issue of sexism. this all available on the new york times website.

they put together that handy chart if you want to take a look. vincent, you are next. on the debate last night, i watched it and not one of them said anything about .eterans or the benefits are they just too worried about the billion errors in the money and all of that? us veterans.ng for i would like to know why they will not say anything about that. host: did you have a chance to watch president trump's rally in arizona last night? caller: yes, sir. host: how did you think that compared? strong he is pretty about the jobs and bringing

industry back into the united states. it has been touch and go with me on different things. hopping mado to talkdemocrats want about money, money, money, all the time and not really think in the unitedle states fighting to keep their jobs trying to keep housing and everything. host: the washington times with their wrapup of president trump's rally noting the president tried to steal the spotlight from his democratic foes. they write the showman's display continued with mr. trump's tendency to dog democrats at every turn of their increasingly primary better -- increasingly bitter primary race. the handling of the iowa caucuses, talking about it three days before the nevada caucuses.

[video clip] >> how did they do with their vote count in iowa? don't want toi say it. i don't want to jinx them well.e i want them to do nobody is running against us in so many states. we can save the thunder. hearingn nevada, i am bad things about their vote count. i hear a lot of bad things are happening like they don't know what the hell they are doing. by the way, we set a record in the history of iowa, we had more votes than anybody has ever had as an incumbent president. same thing in new hampshire. that's a good sign. by a lot. by the way, by a lot. i hope this isn't the case. i like to find out who won. we don't know who won in iowa.

they are still working on the count. win.nk we did that is very good. i will have to think of that one. that is very good. we are winning big. host: that was president trump in phoenix last night. the president is rallying again tonight and he will be in colorado springs, colorado, and you can watch that on c-span 7:00 p.m. eastern time. you can listen to it on the radio app and his schedule continues on the campaign trail. he will be in las vegas on friday, the eve of the democratic caucuses. he will be at the bojangles coliseum in charlotte march the 22nd the night before super tuesday voting a north carolina and 13 other states and president trump said he will probably go to south carolina

before their february 29 primary though his team is working on the details of where exactly that rally would take place. back to your phone calls this morning. we're talking about the democratic debates last night in nevada and president trump holding that rally in phoenix, arizona. phone lirningse as usual, republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. another half-hour or so of your phone calls on this topic. silver spring, maryland, democrat, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i call about three years ago, and i stated that donald trump going to destroy this country. he's almost there. he's destroyed the justice department. he's destroyed the farmers. he's destroyed the senate. and pretty soon going to run this country to the ground when it come to foreign policy. if you want to vote for donald

trump and you see this country going to the ground, vote for donald trump. thank you very much. host: he's concerned about president trump's impact on the justice department, one of the lead stories in today's "washington post." it talks about president trump's tweets and retweets yesterday and the challenge that they represent to the attorney general, william barr. the president continuing to test his relationship with the attorney general yesterday by amplifying conservative allies, defending that he cleaned house , those allies demanding he clean house at the justice department and target those involved in the russia investigation that once threatened his presidency. "the washington post" noting that the grievances shared by president trump in a flurry of morning tweets yesterday is he claims of difference conspiracy against him and a criminal gang at the f.b.i. and justice department. that coming a day after it was revealed that the attorney general told people close to the president that he had

considered quitting out of concern about interference with the justice department. steve is in richfield, wisconsin, republican. steve, good morning. caller: good morning, and thank you for c-span. my wife and i have been conservative republicans for many years now, and we do always appreciate watching the other side. we watched the debates last night. and sadly, it makes us long for the days of john kerry. there's nobody on that stage who's electable, and we're still wondering if pete is the husband or the wife. take care, thanks. host: all right, move on to gregory in indiana, an independent, good morning. caller: yes, i want to remind voters that the president is just one man and vote for the senators to change congress and the rules of law. that's why you got to go, to your congress. thank you.

host: davenport, florida, democrat, you're next. caller: yes, i watched the debates last night, and i've been listening to some of the comments. and yes, a lot of them were true, but how about listening to somebody that will do something for us that everybody says moderate, but we'll bring some dignity back to our country, and the only one i saw up there and have seen all along is joe biden. granted, he's getting older. he's dealing with an adolescent that hasn't gotten paid past the age of 15 and blows up if he doesn't get his way. i think we need to get our country, not just the u.s., but the whole country back together, and trump is shurent

going to do it. the longer he's there, the worse it's going to get. and we can't afford that. we need our country back and be able to depend on people. host: joe biden supporter. joe biden also got in on the sparring with mike bloomberg. here's the two discussing the history of the issue of healthcare. >> i am a fan of obamacare. mr. vice president, i just checked the record because you said one time that i was not. in 2009, i testified and gave a speech before the mayors conference in washington advocating it and trying to get all the mayors to sign on, and i think at that time i wrote an article praising obamacare, it was either in "the new york post" or the "daily news." the facts are -- let me finish, thank you. i was in favor of it, i thought

it didn't go as far as we should. what trump has done to this is a disgrace. the first thing we've got to do is get the white house and bring back those things that are left and find a way to expand it. another public option, having some rules about capping charges. all of those things, we shouldn't just walk away and start something that is totally new, untried. >> the mayor said, when we passed it, the signature piece of this administration, it's a disgrace. those are the exact words. it was a disgray. look it up. check it out. it was a disgrace. in my plan, you do not have surprise billing. you bring down drug prices. people are not -- give people all the things we were just talking about, i guess you don't have time to do it, but i'll get a chance to talk. host: vice president mike bloomberg last night. here are a few comments from text messages.

from florida, the democrats are t focused, they collide with each other. this is from minnesota, social security and medicare are considered socialist programs and are wildly popular with seniors, trump's budget includes cuts to these important programs. from indiana, i watched the debate. i didn't like going at each other. i would have liked to have heard more about their policies. we all have said or did something that wasn't right. they are just opening the door for donald trump. we'll head to bernie sanders' home state, vermont, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i would like to understand, you know, i have two democrats that are basically my representatives, and then i have the socialist communist, bernie sanders.

and, you know, he's basically saying he's not a communist, it's like, oh, yeah, ok. i've been listening to the garbage that's basically been going for 40 years. it's like, i am a republican, i basically -- i voted for president trump, and i will vote for him again. it's like california has become a garbage country, i mean, a state. and they can't even clean up their own state. it's like, i don't understand how anybody would basically -- i watched some -- i just saw clips of some of the democrats last night, because it's like they have nothing. they call president trump a racist. they call him racist, because it's like revoted for him. but you know what? we are in better shape because of president trump.

and he will continue to do for us, because we are going to electricity him again. host: you mentioned your house delegation. you mentioned bernie sanders. you didn't mention patrick leahy. you talk about voting for 40 years. he's been your senator for over 40 years. >> and he's done nothing for us. we don't hear much from him, because it's like, you know, he basically, he has done some things for the state, and that's how he keeps getting elected. we basically have the whole -- we are a small state, and people keep moving in here from other states because they can't -- because they can't, you know, won't have the power to do what they want to do. host: in over 40 years, did you ever vote for him? caller: i never voted for him. i never voted for a democrat in all my years, and i've been voting for -- i've been voting since i was 18. host: this is jason, montgomery, alabama, independent. good morning.

you're next. caller: good morning. i'm association you caught me, i was trying to eat before i got me call in. host: eating's important, but go ahead with your call. caller: yeah, it is, i guess the debates really showed or continue to show that the only way the democrats are going to win is if enough people turn out to vote against president trump than for them. because i think when barack obama was in office, the democrats failed to prepare a crop of candidates. and so 2016 was supposed to be hillary's year. since she didn't take it, they were unprepared to actually put out candidates that had the charisma and really the youth and kind of some of the characteristics that would appeal to a broader base people , because if we're really going to be honest, nobody reads the policies on their web sites. you have to be able to sell it. and you may dislike trump,

because he's objectively a scumbag. the people that support him are willing to accept that. for what reason, i don't know. but they do. and a part of that, he's able to sell them on whatever he's doing. regardless how despicable it is, he's able to sell them, and they are firmly behind him. now, personally, i would vote for a chair leg before i vote for donald trump. so i don't care who his opponent is in november, i'm not voting for him. host: when was the last time that you were voting specifically for somebody as opposed to against the other option? caller: 2008, 2012, for barack obama. i felt like he was the man for the job. and in my local elections, it's more so for somebody than against somebody. but on the national stage, at this point, i think a new era

has been ushered in with trump. i just think there's a certain amount of just polarization that's happened. host: do you think we're going to be doing a lot more voting against the other in the years to come? caller: sure. i definitely think that. and i think it goes to what you mentioned earlier, when you showed the graphic of who was the most talked about politician yesterday, it wasn't the democrats. it was trump. and people -- you get such a mixed bag, but i think if the same number of people that voted for hillary turn out in 2016, and there's enough people that are just aggravated with trump just being himself, who he's an unapologetic scumbag, i think it will be fine. the democrats will win, whoever runs against him. but if the democrats can't muster enough charisma and enough kind of appeal to get people off the couch, trump is

going to win. host: that's jason in alabama this morning. the chart that jason was referencing, the most tweeted about politicians yesterday during the debates, even though it was a democratic debate, donald trump, the most tweeted about politician. he was holding that keep america great again rally in phoenix, arizona, which we covered here on c-span. it was elizabeth warren who was the second most tweeted about u.s. politician yesterday, followed by mike bloomberg and then bernie sanders. robert, north carolina, democrat. you're up next. caller: yes, i watched the debate last night. and i know that bloomberg, he can work between party lines, and that's what we need in washington, someone to work between party lines, work with the democrats and republicans, try to pull them together. i don't think that's happening right now. i think everything is just stagnated the way it was before. and they're not getting anything done. and i think bloomberg can get it done. he puts his money where his mouth is. he says he's going to get it done, and i believe he will.

if we want to go to sanders, sanders always talks about and talks against the big money, big donors. well, he'll probably stand in line and wait on bloomberg's money if it comes to that point. but i just feel that we need to pick someone that can fight power against trump. because if you don't have the money, don't have the means to fight against him, then he will win again. i just think we need to have him try bloomberg, let him run, and see what happens. host: robert in north carolina. you bring up bloomberg and sanders. it was mayor pete who went after both bernie sanders and mike bloomberg for being the most polarizing candidates in the field. here's what he had to say. >> we've got to wake up as a party. we could wake up two weeks from today, the day after super tuesday, and the only candidates left standing will be bernie sanders and mike bloomberg, the two most

polarizing figures on this stage. and most americans don't see where they fit if they've got to choose between a socialist who thinks that capitalism is the root of all evil and a billionaire who thinks that money ought to be the root of all power. let's put forward somebody who actually lives and works in a middle-class neighborhood, in an industrial midwestern city. let's put forward somebody who's actually a democrat. [applause] we shouldn't have to choose between one candidate who wants to burn this party down and another candidate who wants to buy this party out. host: 15 minutes left in this segment, "washington journal" this morning. keep calling in, phone lines, republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. this is michael out of titusville, pennsylvania,

republican, good morning. caller: good morning. yeah, i'm calling in regards to the debate last night and michael bloomberg. i must say that he is the one candidate who has both practical, for profit business experience. he's been enormously successful. i don't know how you can criticize an individual for having achieved the american dream. at the same time, he's got government experience having run the city of new york. and those two things are not the same thing. being successful in government and being successful in private business is a very rare event, and he's the one candidate that i think if you fast forward and looked at a presidency could actually get something done. i don't believe that a sanders presidency or elizabeth warren presidency is going to be able to achieve anything, especially if you still have mitch mcconnell in the senate. so in order to consolidate, to

get anything done, i think you need somebody like michael bloomberg, who has proven that he's successful in both disciplines and could actually achieve something once he's in the presidency. host: joe's next, massachusetts, independent, good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. yeah, i watched the debates last night. and i agree with put ajudge that bernie sanders and bloomberg kind of represent opposite polarization of the democratic party. bloomberg, do we really want another billionaire in the white house? i think a good businessman makes a good president is pretty questionable at this point. and bernie, i love everything bernie says. he's a great guy. i think he's a visionary. he talks a lot about the healthcare, and he brings up these facts that i know people are upset about. he talks about raising taxes 4% to cover the insurance, and a lot of people say 4% tax rate

is ridiculous. he also brings up the point that a lot of us who pay families -- and i know i paid the last eight or nine years, or y plan is about $1,000 $1,200 a year, so his facts work out. it would balance out. here's the problem with bernie. a lot of americans cannot buy the fact that if -- bernie is telling the truth. they can't buy the fact that they lose their insurance. they want to be able to choose their insurance. and bernie is going take that all away. even though they probably do better in the long run. so i think bernie, he's too far left. he scares people. so that's why i kind of lean to moderate. the other part of bernie's plan is that i think a woman from north carolina earlier brought it up that congress, especially if it's a senate, republican senate, they're not going to pass any radical insurance bills. so i'm leaning toward klobuchar, biden, buttigieg, who say, listen, we got to keep

part of the insurance the way it was, and then the rest of it we'll make some changes, see what we can pass through congress. host: of those three realists that you describe them, is it time for one or two to get out of the race and allow the supporters of realists to consolidate? caller: yeah, i think it might be at that time. host: who should get out? caller: i hate to say it, but i think buttigieg of the three. i think klobuchar has more of a moderate standpoint, and biden's got that history of experience. and, you know, there's something else that i heard, it was on one of the talk shows. the fact that buttigieg is gay, i mean, a lot of people i absolutely support a gay president. i have no problem with that. but i know most of my neighbors wouldn't support him. and as much as i do support gay people, i feel the exact same way, so do we really want to take a chance at this point in

american culture of putting a gay man against trump? you got a lot of closet homophobes saying i'm not going to put a gay man in the white house. that bothers me. i hope he continues to rise. he's still only 37 years old. he's got a long ways to go. but i would say biden, clobe what are, i would go with those two. i mean, wear rernings not so bad, but -- i mean, warren, not so bad, but i feel stronger about the other two. also, those debates were really -- it was a real debate. they were all passionate. they talked about the issues. and if you compare what they were talking about last night with trump's rallies, which was, you know, going on at the same time, i mean, all he talks about is disparaging every person who's ever disagreed with him, and he didn't talk anything about real issues. host: i don't think it was a coincidence that it was going on at the same time. caller: oh, absolutely right, good point. he planned it. he practically planned it to

take the credit, and i think i heard in your program earlier that he still got most of the news. a lot of people didn't want to look at the democrats. they're more interested, what's trump going to do next? host: that's joe in massachusetts. we'll talk to another joe out of michigan, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. if i were on that debate stage, i would have my domestic issues all neatly into place. then i would talk about foreign policy. i have not heard one word about how anybody running for president will deal with north korea. or china or putin. i want to hear some of that too. it's more than our insurance, yeah, it's more than just domestic issues. if i were on that stage, i would have my domestic issues all set in place, then i would tell people this is how i will handle kim jong un. host: who's the best on that stage on foreign policy? caller: i think joe biden, because he was there for eight years. he was sent on a lot of

important missions by obama. he helped negotiate the iran deal. so i think joe biden. host: is he doing enough to make that case? caller: not at all. if i were joe biden, i would have every picture of me and president obama that i could. in fact, i would take a cutout on the stage with me and look at it once in a while. host: that's joe in michigan. this is mary ann in new jersey, republican. good morning. caller: hi, good morning. thank you for taking my call. i did watch the debate, and the winner was actually donald trump. they were bickering among each other. it was really repulsive. the way that they pounced on mayor bloomberg i thought also was completely unfair. i think bloomberg -- if the viewers could get through the minutia of what they were piling on bloomberg, they would have heard that he worked with

donald trump for 30 years. he knows this guy. donald trump as a candidate, smoke mirrors. that's all does he. even his economy is incorrect. it makes me insane that my republican party believes that $2,000 a year makes them better off when in actuality it's $5 taxable a day, and he took away your income tax return. that's just a number of things. host: on bloomberg, do you think that his stop and terrific policy is a liability for him? caller: i think his stop and frisk policy is a liability or was a liability. i mean -- host: you think apologizing for it has done enough to asage voters who are concerned on that issue? caller: yeah, i think apologizing is enough. i'd like to see what he did as the stop and frisk policy did o down, as he wound down his

-- one of his three terms. look, everybody mix mistakes, and i am a solid christian. i think that if somebody apologizes for things that they did in the back, in the past, that in looking back they felt it was a mistake. that's a big deal for me. donald trump doesn't apologize for anything. host: mike bloomberg apologizing again last night for the stop and frisk policy. this is what he had to say. >> if i go back and look at my time in office, the one thing at i'm really worried about, embarrassed about, was how it turned out with stop and frisk. when i got into office, there was 650 murders a year in new york city. and i thought that my first responsibility was to give people the right to live. that's the basic right of everything. and we started -- we adopted a policy which had been in place,

the policy that all big police departments use of stop and frisk. what happened, however, was it got out of control. and when we discovered, i discovered that we were doing many, many, too many stop and frisks, we cut 95% of it out, and i sat down with a bunch of african-american clergey and business people to talk about this, to try to learn. i've talked to a number of kids who had been stopped. and i'm trying to -- was trying to understand how we change our policies so we can keep the city safe, because the crime rate did go from 650, 50% down to 300. and we have to keep a lid on crime, but we cannot go out and stop people indiscriminately. >> mayor, thank you. host: about five minutes left in this segment of the "washington journal." did want to say thank you to all those folks who are sending texts and tweets and posting on facebook. we can't read all of them, but

we try to read some of them. as many as we can. this is harry out of pennsylvania, hysteria and egoism were on display last night. missing in action, sustained moments of civility. how can this party coalesce around a nominee? on facebook, bloomberg's debate performance was no worse than some of the incoherent debate performances of then-candidate trump, and it didn't seem to affect him much. debates don't matter, otherwise there would have been a president hillary clinton or president kerry, so i don't put much stock in debates. and this from karen on facebook, couldn't care less about what trump says, always childish, name calling and boasting about his nonfacts. such a disgrace to this country. time for more calls. california, independent, good morning. caller: hello. host: go ahead. you're on the air. caller: hi. i'm from california. i'm an independent. voted for clinton, voted for obama and bush. and i just want to say the reason why trump's going to win again is because everybody is

so focused on winning trump and they're not sharing any great ideas. you want to solve the problem with the v.a.? make everybody in congress and all those families use it for their own medical health. you want to solve corruption? put term limits in for congress, and correct me if i'm wrong, but i think our founding fathers designed it that people in congress serve your country. they did eight years, they left, they didn't get benefits for life. it was a privilege. and then congress voted for themselves to be able to be life-timers. host: if you could put a term limit on somebody in congress, what should it be for members of the house and members of the senate? caller: eight years. and you're gone. host: so regardless of what you run for, one senate term and one house term, or four house terms is what you're saying?

caller: right. it's just not fair. that's how they get corrupted. and i'm sick of people like pete buttigieg bragging about how poor he is and how unaccomplished he is. i don't want somebody that isn't successful in their own life. host: that's ellen in california. diana from pennsylvania, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. well, i've been waiting, several people have made points that i have wanted to make, but , you s my main concern is ow, when hillary clinton won a majority of votes in the last election, and the electoral college made trump president, my concern is what's going on with the electoral college in this country.

i think we should return to one man, one vote. and with as many people running for president right now, i'm wondering how it's going to split the vote. regardless of who wins in the primaries. host: are you talking about splitting the vote and a contested democratic convention? caller: no, i'm just talking about so many people running for president right now, and someone is going to have to win the democratic primary to run against donald trump, and&i'm just wondering if there is a strong personality that can run against donald trump. the kind of organization he has. host: you didn't see it on the debate stage last night? caller: no, i saw a fight on the stage last night. i didn't see people just using their totality to bring forth

whatever policies that they are putting forward. i just saw a dog and cat fight on the stage last night. host: diana in pennsylvania. this is greg, huntsville, alabama, republican. good morning. caller: hey, i want to answer the nice lady's question from pennsylvania. no, there wasn't a candidate on the stage last night that can beat donald trump. that group can't run a campaign. that was the most -- i just want to see competition. i want to see the best person win. i hope there's somebody better than donald trump emerges. but that last night was nothing more than an argument pointing out their own flaws. they can't run a campaign, how can they possibly run the country? we've got elizabeth warren, which her message is all over the place. she can't afford what she wants to do. it's unattainable. bernie sanders last night, there's $25 trillion hole in his policy.

nobody really calls him out on it. it's absurd. joe biden just rambles. he doesn't make sense half the time. his time has passed. and with the -- can you imagine on a debate stage with zprump biden going at it? do you really think biden is going to be a strong candidate? i don't think so. host: you went through everyone else and we only have 30 seconds left. you didn't say bloomberg or buttigieg yet, and klobuchar as well. caller: i like klobuchar. i like her. she doesn't do a good job defending herself. she needs to be better on her feet. and bloomberg, no, he's not ready. he got killed on the debate stage last night. he's got too much luggage that just fell out of the closet on his head, and i think he's unelectable. i don't think they put a candidate up that's even going to come close. host: and buttigieg? caller: no, i just don't think -- i don't think that he's ready, and i don't think his message is going to resonate. but i'll tell you this. the democratic party doesn't

lose sight, trump owned them yesterday by the pardons. it took the complete media cycle. he's great at doing that. he continually pulls attention to himself. he has a rally every time they have a debate. it splits the audience. i mean, what do you do? he owns them. he's just so much ahead of them right now, they need some new management. host: greg in alabama. our last caller in this first segment of the "washington journal." but stick around, coming up next, we'll look at the money race in the campaign 2020 presidential race. we'll do that with dave levinthal. and later on, our week-long museum week series continues here on the "washington journal." we'll visit the smithsonian national museum of the american indian, director kevin gover will join us at the top of the hour to talk about native american history and culture. we'll be right back.

>> campaign 2020 is in nevada friday. live at 3:00 p.m. eastern, as president trump speaks in las vegas ahead of the state's caucus. live coverage on c-span. watch on demand at c-span.org and listen on the go with the free c-span radio app. >> during this election season, the candidates beyond the talking points are only revealed only time. but since you can't be everywhere, there's c-span. our campaign 2020 programming differs from all other political coverage for oneun l every day since 1979, and this year we're bringing you an unfiltered view of the people seeking to steer the coverage this november. in other words, your future.

so this election season, go deep, direct, and unfiltered. see the biggest picture for yourself and make up your own mind. with c-span, campaign 2020 brought to you as a public service by your television rovider. >> students from across the country told us the most important issues for the presidential candidates to address. climate change, gun violence, teen vaping, college affordability, mental health, immigration, we're awarding $100,000 in total cash prizes. the winners for this year's student cam competition will be announced on march 11. "washington journal" continues. host: we're happy to welcome back to our desk, dave levinthal of the nonprofit news organization, the center for public integrity. his latest piece takes a look at michael bloomberg's campaign

spending. what do you mean when you call michael bloomberg a post-citizens united candidate and his own super p.a.c. in that piece? guest: michael bloomberg has done something that no other democratic presidential candidate has done, and in a way, no other republican candidate has done either, which is enter a primary late in the game and have quite literally unlimited resources to bring to bear for that election. we've seen that ever since michael bloomberg late in november. he's been spending an unprecedented amount of money for a presidential race in u.s. history. we talk about super p.a.c.'s, these super charged political action committees. they've been around 10 years. they're part of the legacy of the supreme court citizens united decision back in 2010, celebrating the 10th anniversary of that just a month ago. and michael bloomberg, he basically operates like a super p.a.c. does in the sense that he's the personification of that. he's an individual who can come and spend and raise as much money as he wants to, almost

instantaneously and put that directly into the political system. but ad a candidate. host: how much of his own money do we know he's put in? i know andan reports sort of lag behind a little bit on the information that you get. but how much so far, and put that in perspective of past self funders? guest: we know he's spent more than about $350 million on advertisements alone. in fact, today, later today, we're going to get an official report filed with federal regulators that are going to, to the penny, show how michael bloomberg and all the other candidates have raised and spent over the month of january. we expect for michael bloomberg that number to be extraordinary, but just from the spending report that we've seen for advertisements, $350 million far supersedes what all of the other democratic candidates put together or spent during the entire course of the 2020 election so. we're talking just an extreme

amount of money here. host: should invite viewers to join us in this segment. phone lines, republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. if you have a question about money and politics, dave levinthal is your guy to ask the question to. when it comes to unlimited resources, what does the spending that michael bloomberg is doing this cycle, what are some examples of what nearly unlimited resources allows a candidate to buy? guest: it means he can be on television. he can be on facebook, on twitter, on any social media platform, any media platform, period, be it traditional or new. and he can get the message out about himself, about donald trump for sure, and he can build a profile for himself that goes beyond what the other candidates are ever able to do, given the resources that they personally have through their campaigns, even somebody such as bernie sanders who has

raised a heck of a lot of money by democratic primary standards for a presidential campaign, but is being dwarfed financially speaking by michael bloomberg's financial largess. michael bloomberg isn't actually raising money. he's just simply taking money that he has in his own personal account and putting it directly into his campaign, which is perfectly legal for him to do. it's just not something that democrats have really ever done in a presidential context. host: so flush that he pays social media influencers $150 a pop just to help make bloomberg look cool. guest: he can spend his money on anything he wants to. he can try something. it can fail within a couple of days or a week. or he sees his money being spent in a better place in a better way to try to boost his profile. and i should mention his poll numbers, which have been rising steadily over the past couple of weeks, and if something's not working, he can try something else. when you have $64 billion to your name, this is something that you can afford to do.

it would be like if somebody has a savings account with $100,000 in it, like spending $1,000 or $2,000 to get your air conditioner and hvac unit replaced. it's going hurt a little bit, but really not a lot given the amount of money that you have. host: the story with michael bloomberg, democrats smash against their own anti-big money firewall, if up to the read the story. dave levinthal with us this morning. call and ask your questions. one quote from that story from yesterday, bloomberg has trampled most every democratic party platform plank designed to defend against the political influence of people like him. what were some of those defenses that had been set up? guest: in 2016, when the democratic national convention took place in philadelphia, the democrats were very clear about how they felt about billionaires who, in their estimation, were attempting to buy elections. they had some very strong words

that were put in the planks of that platform, talking specifically about billionaires who were doing just that. so when michael bloomberg comes in and basically is a billionaire who is buying his way to prominence, for better or for worse, and he makes a very strong case that, look, i'm somebody who can take donald trump on. i'm somebody who can spend and even outspend donald trump in a general election, unless a lot of democrats are shaking their heads saying, wait a minute, this is not what we stand for. this is not what the democratic party is all about. you hear that argument a lot from democrats, such as bernie sanders and elizabeth warren, who are saying, no, no, no, no, what michael bloomberg is doing, what he represents is against what the democratic party should represent and does represent in their estimation. host: one of the callers in our first segment was upset on the rules change that allowed mike bloomberg to get on the stage. explain that rules change, the fundraising aspect of that rules change. guest: we had something in the 020 debate cycle that really

wasn't there before, which is a small dollar donation threshold that candidates, both who were running months ago and have dropped out, and the candidates who still remain, have had to adhere to. there was a changing small dollar donor threshold, but it basically meant that you would have to raise individual donations from a variety of people, tens and tens and tens of thousands of people, and that was one of the criteria, along with polling, to get yourself into the debate. michael bloomberg comes along. he starts doing really well. he starts buying up advertisements all over the place, particularly in super tuesday states, which is coming up in less than two weeks, and doing really great in states like arkansas and north carolina and the democratic national committee basically said that they were going to do something that they had promised not to do before, which is get rid of small dollar donation threshold figures. so michael bloomberg, by virtue of that, was able to get himself into last night's debate. maybe he's wishing, given what

happened last night, that he wasn't in that debate, but that be as it may, michael bloomberg was on that stage because the democratic party decided that it was going to change the rules, and even though it didn't mention michael bloomberg by name, that decision accommodated him being there. host: this is carl from portland, oregon, a democrat. good morning. caller: hi. it's interesting that they're still not putting a limit on how much people can donate against -- that's one of the problems of being a politician. what's the solution? host: are there limits to what people can give to a candidate? guest: in fact, there are. very broadly speaking, let's just talk for a hot second about the campaign finance system. it's really not a system. it's basically a cobbling together of different laws, different court rulings that has gotten us to the point that

we're at today. for candidates, if somebody is running for office and i or any viewers, an individual wants to give a donation directly to a candidate's campaign, they can give $2,800 maximum to that candidate's campaign per election, once in the primary, once in the general election. however, if they, for example, wanted to give a million dollars to one of the super p.a.c.'s that we had just mentioned that might be supporting a particular candidate, and there are, in fact, super p.a.c.'s that support various presidential candidates, both the democratic side and the republican side, they would be well within their rights to do so because of a federal court decision that allows super p.a.c.'s to exist. michael bloomberg, we wrote yesterday that he is kind of his own super p.a.c. because he's operating under even an older rule that basically allows individual candidates to put their own personal money into their campaign, in unlimited amounts. they could also in turn spend

unlimited money as an individual to support a candidate, so you can see just from these couple of examples that it truly is a patchwork quilt, and what is true for a super p.a.c. in terms of limits might be different from a nonprofit or a candidate. and we haven't even gotten into what's true at the state level versus the federal level. it really is something that we deal with this every day, day in and day out, and we still have to refer back to notes of lawyers and whatnot to keep it straight. host: we could do a whole three-hour show on that, but about 15 minutes left with dave levinthal. 2020 fundraising and spending is our topic. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. ohio, republican, you're next. are you with us? caller: yeah, i'm with you, yeah. i u.s. just have one question. i don't know if you answered this. with all bloomberg's money that he's throwing at it, is this

tax deductible off his business or his own personal income tax? i'm just wondering if all the money he's thrown in, is it tax deductible for him? guest: really good question, and i've gotten this question before. the short answer is no, that it's not tax deductible. if you're making a political contribution, whether it's a donation that an individual is making to a political committee or a political campaign, or if it's michael bloomberg or, for that matter, tom steyer, another billionaire democrat who's running for president, not doing nearly as well as michael bloomberg in the polls, either of them, they're not going to deduct that money they're putting into their own campaigns from their taxes. it's money that's just going to go straight into their campaign and not going to be any i.r.s. considerations come april 15 for them, at least in terms of taking deductions. host: put these two tweets in perspective, after the debates. some of the campaigns send out their fundraising numbers, saying how much they raised.

this was reports from bernie sanders' campaign and elizabeth warren's campaign within minutes of each other. the report, abandoners campaign raised $2.7 million from 150,000 donations total on wednesday. warren putting out within a minute of that, we had our best day to date of the entire campaign, raising more than $2.8 million. guest: if we were having this conversation even 10 years ago, if we were having this conversation during the 2012 presidential election, those numbers would have been highly unlikely. and that really speaks to a massive change in the way that candidates raise money, if you subscribe, for example, to an email list, you're probably getting bombarded with solicitations, whether it's the democratic candidates, whether it's donald trump's presidential re election campaign. and that's because it's just easier than ever for people to quite literally click a button, have credit card information saved. if they want to make a snap decision to donate, dollar, $5,

$1,000, to any of these candidates because they liked what they saw, they liked what they heard, they're angry, worked up, it's sort of, you know, bingee donations, if you will, and we talk about people making snap decisions to buy a product. you can do the same thing with political donations. we've seen this for candidates, too, where you'll have a debate like this, and all the sudden $2 million in their pocket overnight. host: north carolina, a democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. citizens united was a terrible thing that happened. i have some suggestions, if you'd like to hear them. host: please, go ahead. caller: all right. anybody who contributes to a candidate ought to be able to vote for them. companies, p.a.c.'s, their contributions should be outlawed. i don't like outsiders influencing the elections in my state. i think that you should be

able, whatever the limit is, $2,800, you should be able to contribute that annually to any candidate that you can vote for. host: ted, can i come back to that point? are you saying you should only be able to vote for a candidate if you contribute? caller: no, i'm saying you should only be able to contribute if you can vote for the candidate. host: dave levinthal, take that up, who campaigns are allowed to take donations from. guest: sure, i think the caller hoits a number of sentiments that are out there for folks who want to change the campaign finance system. we've had a number of different novel proposals about how to do just that or how to comprehensively change the campaign finance system. again, we mentioned before, this is kind of a patchwork quilt of different decisions that have been made in the courts and different laws that have been passed over the many decades. but at the same time, too,

there's just not a whole lot of willingness from members of the democratic party and the republican party to coalesce round some way to change it. it would be like two competing football teams to agree on rules in the absence of referees. so as a result of that, don't expect that there are going to be major rule changes any time soon unless one party or the other controls the white house, and both houses of congress at the federal level. now, to the caller's point, there have been things done at the state level, state by state, even the municipal level, where for state races, local races, there are a whole variety of different rules about small dollar donations, about even public money that factor into those elections. but that's not talking about what's going on at the presidential level or the congressional level. host: this is new hampshire, independent, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing today? host: doing well. caller: the reason i'm calling is the money thing with the

campaigns. look at what the professionals ould only campaign sh be allowed to spend the same amount. then we would have a fair campaign. and i was a little upset with the moderator last night, they stuck with three guys, and the questions they were asking should be about trump, not them fighting against each other. terrible, terrible. they have to find better moderators. host: on the first part of what he was talking about, it sounds like a public financing system. guest: which we used to have. people may remember checking a box on their tax return for donating $3 to the presidential public financing pot of money that was available to candidates. but that system, although technically still in existence, is more or less obsolete. it became obsolete when in 2008 barack obama, during the

general election, decided that he was going to opt out of that system after saying at least at first that he was going to be opting into that system. john mccain was the last major party candidate during a general election to opt in, and there was an imbalance there. so the theory behind the public financing system is that there would be some degree of parity among the candidates, that the candidates wouldn't be spending all their time on a cash dash, trying to constantly raise money. what michael bloomberg is doing now wouldn't have been possible then. it was just that nobody was willing, say save ross perot or steve forbes to ultimately go ahead and spend a significant amount of their own money, but even what they spent then is almost peanuts compared to what michael bloomberg and even tom steyer are spending now. the game has changed. host: want to focus on the work at the center for public integrity. before i do, explain what exactly your group does. we mentioned nonprofit news

organization. how are you able to do some of the deep dive reports that you do? where does the money come from? guest: we are a nonprofit news investigation organization. we get our money from foundations that support various causes that are nonprofits, such as us and other nonprofit news organizations, pro publica, texas tribune among them. and also, too, from individuals who just support the work that we do, want to support independent investigative nonprofit journalism that is fundamentally different from commercial journalism that's out there. host: one of your recent reports from earlier this month took a look at 12.9 million democratic party donations to take a look at the demographics of where those dollars are coming from, who's giving that money. what did you find out? guest: we found out although democrats like to talk about how they've expanded the pool significantly during 2020, that they're reaching out to more people who have never given

money before, definitely people who are, you know, citizens of color, people who are younger, all different sorts of demographics that may not have been involved in the system, which was one of the driving points, mind you, for having those small dollar debate thresholds. we found ultimately that the big money is still coming from people who tend to live in big cities, on the coast, those donors tend to be whiter. they tend to be older. and as a result, it cuts against the narrative that some of the candidates would like to have you believe. that being said, candidates such as elizabeth warren, she's notable because she gets both the overall pool of dollars and also the actual number of donors tilted toward women as opposed to men. bernie sanders is notable in that he's been able to raise an incredible amount of money from donations that have gone to basically fund at a very small dollar level his operation. he's proven, in a way, the

theory that this is possible after many, many candidates all along for many years have said, you can't run a grass roots, small dollar presidential campaign that's going to be successful and give you enough resources to hire staff and do advertisements and get yourself traveling all across the country, truly all 50 states. bernie sanders, whether you love him or want to leave him, has done something that is quite notable in that regard. host: a lot in that february from february 3. we'll let viewers check out this one map from that report showing the counties where those nearly 13 million democratic donations came from. obviously the larger the sir kerbling the more volume of doe -- the larger the circle, the more volume of donations, showing where the democratic money is coming from. we'll hear from james. baltimore, maryland, democrat. good morning. caller: hello. thank you for taking my call. democrats should just be happy. with all bloomberg --

the in-fighting, thank god bloomberg -- he can go toe-to-toe with donald trump. e got more verifiable money. trump cannot accuse him of anything, all this back and forth they fight about, sexual accusations, whatever, trump has got more. host: can i ask, what is it about both elizabeth warren and mike bloomberg, where's the crossover there that appeals to you? you started with warren, then went to bloomberg. aller: well, warren, i've been following her career ever since she edit the c.b.b. or something, so i know she's genuine. she has always been interested in public debt. she wants to get banks off the backs of the poor folks, all those little crazy loan stuff.

i've been following her career. but right now we want to win. and republicans, you can challenge from republican callers and from fox news and fox news network, that's all they -- they bring out all the negatives from bloomberg. they root for sanders because they know they're going to defeat sanders easily host: james with his assessment. just about five minutes left. a lot of calls for you. maxine in kansas, also a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question. does donald trump reimburse the cities in which he has his rallies? thank you. guest: the answer is no. back in june, the caller is i think troferinge a story that we published in june of 2019 which we basically went to every municipality, every city in the country that had hosted

one of donald trump's campaign rallies. we asked the question, did you bill donald trump's campaign for police and public safety costs? donald trump loves to talk about how he is a great supporter of police. he says that a lot. he has definitely highlighted the work of police and law enforcement through the country. but the answer that we got from 10 municipalities at that time, and the number has grown since, is that, yes, they did send him a bill, because it's very expensive for them to protect a presidential event in that donald trump did not pay those bills. this is a complex issue where some candidates pay bills, others don't. the secret service, which is responsible for donald trump's safety, will almost invariably go to municipalities to ask for resources, but they don't have the money appropriated from congress to reimburse those municipalities for providing those police resources. so, in a way, it's kind of on the honor system for donald trump or any other candidate to pay bills that oftentimes very

cash-strapped municipalities are going to be sending candidates because they don't want to eat $100,000 or $50,000 or even up to $500,000 for some of the bills that candidates have gotten. i should note that, you know, donald trump has been running for reelection, as we look out the window here, he took his oath of inauguration, oath of office on the steps of the capitol, he also did something on that day back in january of 2017, which was file paperwork to raise money to run for will he election. donald trump financially, this is not a problem for him. if he wanted to pay these bills, he had the money to do it. he has the money to do it. but his campaign basically says it's not his responsibility, which stands in contrast to what some republicans in the past have done and what democrats now are doing. host: from june 13, 2019, the story, why the trump campaign won't pay police bills. the author of that story, dave levin. that all available at publicintegrity.org. time for one or two more phone

calls. ernie in florida, republican. good morning. caller: yes, i agree with one of the previous callers. they should set a limit for each one, no matter if it's a billionaire or a pauper. because big donors cause obligations, and that's what's wrong with this country. got a lot of money, you give it to a guy up there, and he votes like you want to, like he wants, not the good of the country. and that's what's happened. thank you. host: dave, any thoughts? guest: that's one of the primary reason, especially if you ask many democrats, as to why they support campaign finance reform. mind you, there have been a number of different bills, pieces of legislation that have been offered up, many driven by democrats, a few that have had a republican cosponsor or two.

but it does go back to that fundamental issue that there's just no sense of collective will on the behalf of democrats and republicans to change the system. what's curious is that the federal election commission, i should note, is right now, it's been effectively shut down since september 1 of 2019. we're going on almost six months now that the federal election commission has not had enough commissioners to even enforce the laws that are on the books. and if you're looking for sort of a microcosm of how split democrats and republicans are, donald trump and the u.s. senate, which have to work together in order to nominate new commissioners, haven't been able to do so. here we are in the teeth of election 2020, without the federal election commission, which was set up in 1975 in the aftermath of watergate, able to be a cop on the beat. if somebody is breaking the law in a civil sense, we're not talking criminal, but a civil sense, nobody is there to call

balls and strikes. they simply can't do it because they don't have a quorum of commissioners in order to go forward with any type of investigation like that. of -- . integrity.org. thank you, john. up next, part of our weeklong series on "the washington journal. continues at the smithsonian national museum of the american indian. it is direct and kevin gover who will join us to talk about negative american history and culture. but first, here is part of what the museum separate former director, richard west, said during the opening ceremony of the museum in 2004. these lands,ved in in these sacred places for thousands of years. we are thus the original part of the cultural heritage of every person hearing these words today , whether you are a native or

not native. we have felt the cruel and destructive edge of colonialism and lasteded contact for hundreds of years. but in our minds, in our history, we are not its victims. as the mohawk have counseled us, it is hard to see the future with tears in your eyes. and triumpheded against great odds we are right culturalt now, distinct communities. we will insist that we remain a part of the last -- of the cultural future of the americas. in the different journey through

history together, the eloquence of chief joseph and the national museum of the american indian, so powerfully demands, i offer in conclusion. and with this hope, these words in cheyenne -- cheyenne dialect] in english, the great mystery walks beside you and walks beside your work and touches all the good that you attempt. thank you. more than 15 years since that opening day of september, 2004. we are live from the national

museum of the american indian, joined by museum director kevin gover. explain first the exhibit you are sitting in now and the story it tells about how native american imagery is represented and portrayed in popular culture. good: thank you and morning and welcome to the national museum of the american indian. i have -- i am in a gallery for the exhibition we call americans. this is an exhibition, as you would expect, in part native americans, but also about americans generally and american culture. we have become intrigued about how native american imagery is used broadly in the american culture. and so on the walls in this gallery, you will see many americans of native people, native american designs, and we literally use it as wallpaper to make the point that

at the same time indians are everywhere in the popular remain unknown to most people here in the united states. host: do you think the average american has a sense of how often we see these images in our everyday lives and the products that are purchased at the store, companies that are out there? dost: i don't think they because it is wallpaper, it is background. if you are native, you do notice it. you see it everywhere. we know it is real as a phenomenon, but we also know that most people do not experience it that way. oft: what are the images native americans generally meant to portray and show when they are in these products and companies advertising their services? guest: yeah, that is a good question. obviously if someone is trying to sell their product and they

use an image of a native person or some native design, they think of it as a positive thing to be associated with native americans. it is different things for different kinds of undertakings, but most of them actually are quite weird. for example, you would see a citrus company, very fond of using native imagery and native names to sell products. one thing we do know is that at least in north america, native americans did not grow such products. same with apples, same with baking soda. we have all seen the calumet cans. they associateat it with something positive because they are trying to sell us their products, so we are kind of intrigued by that. host: so specifically on the headdress, the native american headdress that is so often seen,

whether it is in products are used often. americanpecific to the plains indians, correct? why has that become such a symbol for all native americans? was mostly it confined, at least the feather headdress that we most often think about when we see native imagery, was confined to the plains tribes, and confined to a relatively short period in history. there were a few tens of thousands of plains indians, and there were many millions of other kinds of indians that inhabited all of the americas for thousands of years, and yet that is the image that we chose, that is the image that continues to be used, that for some reason we seem to like very much. one of the things we explore in this exhibit is the battle of

little big horn, and we pose the question, why does the country really hang onto this story and keep telling the story and apparently like the story so much, when it was a crushing defeat of american arms? exploree the visitor to how that battle has been interpreted and how the indians who fought that battle sort of became national symbols of courage and defiance, bravery over time so that that is the dominant image of native americans, even though, again, it was only a very small percentage of the native population at any given time. guest,evin gover is our the director of the national museum of the american indian. phone lines are open for you to join the conversation. if you have questions about the museum, if you want to talk about native american culture. --is

we certainly invite you to join the conversation. kevin gover, joining the millions of native americans throughout americas the centuries -- how many tribes are we talking about, and how many tribes in history do you stage youlore on the have there at the national mall? believe there are something around 2000 separate inive cultural communities the western hemisphere there are 573 indian tribes recognized by the united states as eligible for a government to government relationship with the united states. there are several hundred in

canada and in central and south america, the descendents of many of the great civilizations that we all know about still exist and still live in some ways, in very much the same way they were living at the time of contact. how many are representative in a given moment? a handful. a limitedy present number in the space we have and with the resources we have, so i think it is fair to say we will never be finished in presenting the variety of native american peoples that exist in the western hemisphere. host: what is your guiding principle in how you tell that story? is it a story that may never be finished with so many different stories to tell? guest: i think the guiding principle that set this museum apart is that we rely on people themselves for information on

who they are, what they are, what their history is, and what their culture is today. for a very long time, that privilege was reserved to the so-called experts who worked in museums, who were not themselves native american, and they took it upon themselves to go out and study native people and then come back and speak to the public in their museums as though they were the leading thinker about these cultures. , butems obvious now obviously the leading thinkers on american history and culture are the native american people who inherited it and who practice that culture today. host: how often are those people on the ground there at the museum on the national mall doing that on a daily basis at the museum? guest: we receive a lot of native visitors, and a lot of

native people have business in washington. we like the idea that when they come to washington they come over here to spend some time and maybe to have lunch. the real research work takes place at our cultural resources center in suitland, maryland, the home of our collections. we have something north of 800,000 items in our collection, groups whoive tribal come in to look at what we have that originated in their community, and it is a wonderful exchange because we can show them what we have, and they can tell us what it is because all too often, when the experts were out there collecting from native communities, they were not sure what it was they got, and so we have many of our collections to mislabelede still because the original collector did not really know what it was. and so they will come to us and

tell us, no, this is what that is and this is how it was used. so it enriches our knowledge of the collections. and in return, we have a project of sending as much of our collections b can buy lending to their tribal museums and by working with their tribal museum staff on the interpretation of their cultural objects. so it is a rich, two-way experience. host: we will be exploring throughout this hour just a faction of those collections and try to show them as much as we can to our viewers, as we are joined by kevin gover, the director of the museum. before we get too far into the segment, is there a preference between native american and american indian? that: we get asked to question more often than you could possibly imagine. i think perhaps every native

person has their preference as to what they wish to be called. or which of those terms they prefer. to us they are interchangeable. as a good friend of mine, one of the founders of the museum said, once told me, they are equally inaccurate, so you could use them interchangeably. what he meant by that, is that native people do not identify first and foremost as being native, native american, indigenous. we identify first as citizens of our tribal nation, and so if you ask me what i am, depending on the context, i probably would not say i am native american, i would probably say i am p awnee. but they're sort of needed to be a term to be used to refer to us, all these different tribes collectively, so american indians was first, then native americans.

now we use native and indigenous , and we use them interchangeably. host: we will let you chat with a few colors. clifton is waiting out of harrington, delaware. caller: good morning. my question is that my family can go all the way back to the dough chi indians. name whod the english took us in under the king and queen of england. been disenfranchised from the native americans, and now they are telling us that we do not exist, and we do exist here. on the eastern shore. that is not uncommon. i am not familiar with the particular culture that you are know, afterbut, you contact and after the

confrontation quite often with the colonies or with the states, native communities scattered and went underground. and so there are a great many out there even to this day who are saying we are native, we are a tribe, and are petitioning the united states to be -- and we are petitioning the united states to be acknowledged as such. host: good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. [speaking it of language] the daughter of the choctaw are here. i would like to say a few words if i may. host: go ahead, mary. lot to do witha the way we teach an native american history. i was an educator at historical sites in ohio, dating back

15,000 years. our history is gone, but current memory is short. we need more native american people teaching native american history because we understand the culture so much better. for one thing, when you talk about the long feathered headdress, the beautiful headdress of the plains indians, and then people take that as a symbol for all native americans. i am from the woodland people, thick, deep forests. you try wearing one of those headdresses in the forest, you are going to be caught up with almost nothing to eat. some of these things are just very practical that we are not expressing, and some of these things are much deeper in terms of identification. book, "therote a ones who got away: the tall tray

of tears," describing how some people were not involved in the registration rolls that oklahoma -- oklahoma, by the way, is a choctaw word. people, homa means red. symbol of honesty. we need to give them lessons to learn, and i appreciate that we now have a smithsonian museum that is dedicated to doing that, and i thank you very, very much. host: thank you. mr. gover? guest: yes, i agree with all of that. you know, americans get their information about native people from only two primary sources. one is the formal education system, and the other is the popular culture.

and we show in this gallery that i am sitting in that the popular culture creates a lot of wildly misleading and, frankly, very the nativeas, about americans of the past and the present. but the one that is even more is thattic in some ways the information being passed on in our tools is at best incomplete, and all too often simply inaccurate. so children are learning a version of history that actually more reflects the stereotypes we see in popular culture then reflect reality. one of the things our museum is trying to do about that is a project we call native knowledge 360, and we are creating materials for use by teachers in the classroom. it is available online and it is

free. because teachers are out there and are quite often required by the school district or their state to teach native american history and culture. but they don't have any background in it. so they are left to rely either on terribly outdated textbooks or to sort of search broadly on the internet, and the internet is just another version of the popular culture where you will find a great, great many things that are untrue. reforming -- really not so much reforming, but helping teachers by putting good information in their hands is a primary need, in my opinion, and one that the museum, over many years, is going to try to fill. host: more of the items that you have in that gallery you are sitting in is a tomahawk cruise missile. i want to talk about the use of

native american imagery, the relationship between the u.s. military and native americans, not only the tomahawk cruise missile, the apache helicopter, the black hawk helicopter. can you talk about why it is so prevalent in military terms? it is a little mysterious, right, because the apaches and black hawk and the various other tribes for whom different weapons systems have been named fault the united states army. it is obviously quite unusual that you would name a modern weapons system for an old enemy, and yet that is what they do. i should add very quickly that the tribes really like that. you will see in the case of these helicopters that the army will hold a special ceremony

with the leadership of that present many and miniature models and plaques acknowledging that the army is borrowing their tribal name for a particular weapons system. the patcheslook at of many units in the military, they will select native american imagery as their insignia. obviously they are thinking in terms of indians have a reputation for being gallant, for beingbrave, ferocious in many cases. ,ut ultimately for strength that the military would adopt these images and these names is a show of respect that i think to beative americans find

respectful, if perhaps just a understand in the first instance. , is: brooklyn, maryland next. this is kat. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. i love your museum. i have been there many, many, many times. kiowa descendent of the in oklahoma. i kind of wonder -- we do not hear too much about too many tribes anymore, and i was wondering how they fared in this modern age still, in the oak llama territory there. host: mr. gover? guest: as it happens, i am from oklahoma. i grew up around many kiowa people, actually. i have comanche relatives. to see what has happened in the

in the 45klahoma years since i lived there is really quite remarkable. so when i was there, i was fully aware that there were a lot of native american people there, and that there were a lot of tribes, and i learned how they all came to be in oklahoma from the various parts of the country. lifeut in the political and civic life in the economic life of the state, indians were invisible. that is not the case anymore. now we see many of the tribes are thriving economically. they are among the largest employers in the state of oklahoma, and many of them are the largest service providers to all people, not just indians. in their respective jurisdictions, with education projects, health projects, roads, all sorts of different

things. so they are no longer invisible, and they are very much in the economic mainstream of the state of oklahoma, and it makes me feel really good to see how well they are doing. portland, is in oregon. good morning, you are next. good morning. this is bill ray. i have been to both newseum's in new york -- both museums in new york, ndc, and you talked about sharing resources with classrooms and online. about the museum with a veteran population, both natives and others? iny play an active part making society today, and historically. host: mr. gover? guest: yeah, i'm glad you asked me that. so it would surprise most people to know in the first instance

that native americans have served in the american armed forces in every conflict since the revolution, that they are currently serving in all branches of the american military. and it is an article of faith, even though it is hard to prove from dod records, it is an article of faith in most native american communities that natives serve at a higher rate per capita than any other group of people in the united states. we have done the occasional program on veterans. we have a couple of exhibitions going around, one on the code talkers and one that we call patriot nations, which sort of recites this history. but the really good news is that in 2013, congress passed legislation that allows us to build a national native american

veterans memorial on our grounds here in washington. and -- host: we are showing our viewers what that memorial looks like. guest: and i am happy to say that it is underway, construction is actually happening on our grounds as we speak. result -- it is the result of an international design competition, which, as it happens, produced a winning design by a cheyenne piece chief. harvey pratt. marine, ahimself a vietnam veteran, and has a career in law enforcement. he is a working artist, sort of our version of a renaissance man. and he just came out with this incredible -- this incredibly beautiful and moving design that is intended to honor not just all native american veterans,

but all veterans. as you know, in tribal communities, veterans hold a special place. the honor that we offer to veterans is not confined to native veterans. all veterans hold a special place and status in native american p immunities. so it is our honor to have the opportunity to honor their service through making this memorial available to the people who visit washington. host: and when is it expected to be finished? guest: we will open the memorial on veterans day 2020, so the november -- so november 11 of this year, we will be dedicating the memorial. we are hoping that we will have several thousand native americans, native american veterans attend the opening, but we invite all veterans to come here and allow us to celebrate and honor their service.

host: we have about a half-hour left in this segment. part of our weeklong museum week series on "the washington journal," joining with her on american history tv, ofhave director kevin gover, the national museum of the american indian. we have a special line set aside for native americans. jackie's next out of verona beach, new york. good morning. [speaking native language] first i would like to express gratitude to you, kevin, and all the others who have been stewarding and promoting this remarkable legacy for native americans. but i am wondering if you can speak about the relationship of the national museum of the american indian narrative for nonindigenous people compared to that for native americans.

guest: well, thank you, first of all. that is a complicated question, of course. many in theose native american community who should take a very historyw of american and make the museum almost into a native american holocaust museum, where we recite all of the different tragedies that communitiesn native in the 500-some years since contact. that has ared that place in our museum. but, as you heard in the opening, where richard west was talking about this, we refuse to accept the narrative that native americans are victims.

because we are not. because we persist. because, in a very real sense, we prevailed against astronomical odds. in the year 1900 or so, there were only 250,000 native americans in the united states. their population had been reduced from who knows how many -- the historians guess anywhere 5 million to 15 million to 20 million people who once resided in what is now with the united states. so the continued existence of native america was very much in doubt. add to that that the policy of the united states quite oferally was the eradication tribal existence, that the only way for indians to remain in the modern world was to abandon their tribal ways and give up

their identity as the people of their particular tribe. that is a lot of force being brought to bear against only a very few people, and yet look at us now. and look at how our communities are recovering, how our communities are beginning to economic and political power. most importantly, how our communities are expressing their culture and their right to be different in certain respects, and to believe in the old things and the old ways. still bearing important lessons for how we are going to live in the world today. when it comes to communication, that is a pretty complicated set of thoughts to get across to an audience in a museum. we have data that says that the

typical museum visitor spends an hour, may an hour and a half in the typical museum. they might spend 20 minutes in one of our expert -- in one of our exhibitions. so we have to find a way to connect with them very quickly, communicate with them, and give them something that they latch onto and hopefully give them something that they lead with that we never thought about -- that they never thought about before. so the matter of tone is paramount. we could sit there and shake a finger at everybody and say look what your country did to us, but nobody wants to hear that. so instead, we are trying to say, look, this history that we share belongs to all of us. we are going to be truthful with ,ou about what that history is try to giveoing to

you a new way to think about this history, but without being accusatory and without trying to on contemporary americans. they did not do any of these things to our people in the past, and i think it is a terrible mistake to lecture them as though they are somehow responsible for what happened. i would rather that they choose to be responsible for what happens next, and that is where i think we can be effective in saying these things that happened in the past, yeah, they were bad, but there are contemporary conflicts that you should know about and that you have the opportunity to have an impact on. if we can do that, then we feel pretty good about how americans are going to deal with those issues. representsisual that what you were talking about, , showing the slate

extent of indian homelands in blue, and reservations in red, and how that changed just over the course of the 100 years between 1800 and 1900. you can see the shrinking blue on that map and the shrinking red as well. are about 200 50,000 native americans in the united states in 1900. where does the population stand today? somewhere between 3 million and 5 million, and it depends on how you count them. if you choose only those of us who are citizens, one of the state or federal recognized tribes in the united states, then the numbers are north of 3 million. if you add to that all of the people who identify themselves as native or part native, the number goes up, according to the last census, over 5 million.

however you count it, there are a lot more of us than there were in 1900. host: to high rock, north carolina, this is flyer on the line for native americans. good morning. are you with us? flora in seattle, washington. good morning. caller: this is flora. host: go ahead, flora. you are on with kevin gover. the tribes, we have in seattle that landed here -- i call it our plymouth rock as opposed to the east coast. they were supposedly recognized by clinton. unrecognizednd he -- how can you unrecognize a tribe? please enlighten me. thank you. i am: well, i should say not a neutral on this question.

in a prior life, i was the assistant secretary for indian affairs at the department of the interior. and one of the matters that came ofore me was the petition the dual amish for federal recognition. through a variety of circumstances, it was only in the closing days of the clinton administration that both the chinook tribe and the other tribe finally were granted federal recognition through the administrative process. appealed,sions were and while george w. bush was president. thehe course of the appeal, administrative law judges determined that we should not have granted recognition to chinook.

so that is the process. it is not an easy one. i think in many respects it is a tremendously unfair process. but that is what happened to them. host: who did not want that to happen? who led the appeal? guest: you know, i don't recall. don't recall who did the appeal. host: up next on the line for native americans, sterling, virginia. philip, good morning. youer: i was wondering if could speak to the cherokee indians, namely their roots in islam. hasword cherokee actually those roots, meaning that who face to the east. i believe they were called cherokee indians because they faced east toward mecca. i was wondering if that is in your knowledge or if you could

speak to that at all. thank you. guest: i cannot speak to that specifically. that is the first i have heard of that. i can relate to a couple of things you said. remember that the word cherokee is not what they call themselves. that is what europeans came to call that group of people. themselvesnot call -- they did not, at least, in the first instance, refer to themselves as cherokee. is one facing the east of the most common things in all native american cultures, virtually all of them. if you look at traditional native american homes, you would see that their front door always faces the east. tribes, there is ritual associated each day with greeting the rising sun.

so i think in those cases, it is not so much they are looking east to face mecca, but rather to greet the rising sun. are cherokee days ?ere in washington, d.c. guest: thank you for mentioning that. the eastern band of american indians in north carolina and another band of cherokee indians come to our museum in april and they have a cultural festival where they will have demonstrations and arts and tofts and songs and dancing greet our visitors and invite our visitors to come in and explore cherokee history and culture. so they will be here again this year, look at our website and the date in april, and as always we are anxious to greet the cherokees and turn our museum over to them. int: your museum opened

2004. from california, bringing up a question on twitter about how the smithsonian institution has dealt with native americans over its long lifetime. they asked, do you remember where the smithsonian had eskimo skeletons we high in glass until somebody wanted the bones returned to their ancestors? i recallcannot say that specifically, but i do that theom my youth national museum of natural history had a series of dioramas with manikins of indians doing different kinds of things, usually rather dramatic things, usually dressed in different materials, from the collections of the national museum of natural history. that was the state of native american musicology at the 10 -- museum ologies at the time.

it is part of the reason congress chose to establish a national museum of the american indian, to give a much stronger voice to not only native american experts themselves and native american political and also to leaders, but have a museum whose first interest wasn't having native american people themselves tell their story -- was in having native american people themselves tell their story. theould hasten to add, by way, that the national museum of natural history would not put on such an exhibition today, and that the entirety of the museum field has made a dramatic move forward in dealing with native american material, and so we are all struggling with sort of how to take these different narratives that native people have or african-american people

have more white people have come a white people from a certain region, from a certain country, and figure out how do we weave all these things together? because they are really not separate? from the point of contact, they are not separate at all. and to put all those strands together and turn it into a cohesive story about all of us is really very difficult to do with the limited space that we have in any of these museums. so i think what you will see going forward, though, is all of the smithsonian museums certainly, but all museums across the country, try to figure out how do we do this, how do we be broad and inclusive in our storytelling? because there really is no story in american history that could not be told through native eyes. there are those stories in need of history that cannot be told through african or african-american eyes.

natives and african-american perspectives have largely been erased in history, history text, the textbooks, and popular culture. and we are working to put them back in, but not to erase anybody else's story. going tothat that is make for a much richer story. you know, there are stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, in the united states and in every other culture. in those stories, the americans tend to be the heroes. sometimes to get to that version of the story, you have to leave and a lot of things out, a lot a very terrible things. and we are saying, as great and as terrible as american history can be, it all belongs to all of

us, and so learning how to tell those stories, these complex stories, in a way that is really accessible for our visitors, is one of the great challenges all museums face in this century. host: i should note we will be at the national museum of african-american history and culture tomorrow, and what will be our last stop on this weeklong series focusing on d.c. area museums, looking at the american story. that is tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. eastern. about 15 minutes left in the segment with kevin gover at the national museum of the american indian. knoxville,in tennessee come on the line for america -- for native americans. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm cherokee. we had our dna checked into thousand five, and it shows that we are -- checked in 2005. inshows that we are 45%

iceland and norway, 6% in panama,and mexico, 91%, 83 to 98%. greenland, 80%. host: that is a lot of percentage. that is a lot of percentages there. caller: yes, and it makes sense because we did not come to this the 16til, i don't know, o's or 1700s. the design of the museum is beautiful. do you have a history? i went with a group of people so i did not get to see everything. do you have a basic history of the doctrine of discovery and all that inu have your museum? guest: no, we do not.

in to someging pretty complicated and sophisticated territory there. discovery was a european invention that rationalized that the indigenous people, not just of native america but throughout the world , did not actually own the land that they lived on and occupied for many, many generations. and that therefore any christian country was free to come in and take it. because they did not own it. concept attartling any stage in history, but it was particularly startling then. on theh of american law right that native american nations and their people have

are rooted in that doctrine of discovery, which itself was rules in a series of that the spanish discoverers and explorers enforced throughout the world. jenny is calling from honolulu this morning. good morning. good morning, john and kevin. i was teaching at a college in st. louis, a proprietary school. july, i askedof my class if they could name tribes of native americans. and it was pathetic. in a room full of adults, young adults, that they could not come up with more than a few names of tribes. i do not know how many nations there are, but i have a particularly strong desire to learn about hopi, because my

father took me to see hopi as a child. the hawaii culture, you can see many things that remind you of native american experience. but they don't have the writers yet here that i have found. such brilliant writers among native americans on the mainland . i hope it comes here. strength ins have their renaissance by the 1970's, which i think was strengthened by the peace movement of the 1960's, and i think that is true of native americans on the mainland. thank you for this program. i have been very excited to see what you have shown. host: thank you for watching mr. gover? guest: one thing you should know is that as part of our responsibilities at the national museum of the american indian, congress told us that we were to present material about native hawaiian history and culture as well.

so we have had a couple of exhibitions about native annualns, and we have an iawaiian festival at the nma each may. look at our website, and you will find the date for our hawaiian festal, which will come out -- our hawaiian festival, which will come out in may. i'm glad you mentioned the is just aecause there flowering now of native american literature. there are so many brilliant writers doing remarkable work. i should certainly note that the poet laureate of the united states is a citizen of the muskogee nation in oklahoma. there are other writers, sherman , axi, louise urge ridge young man named tommy orange, who just wrote a brilliant book scott mamare there

day -- there there." their contribution to the arts of the united states is quite remarkable. that's one of the things we tried to get across at this museum with her and without programming. at once know, they are distinctly native, but at the same time they are very american, and that is the point, that native americans are americans, and that americans cannot escape the indigenous contributions to this country. are from ohio brings up a topic that is very much in the cultural discussion. from clark county, ohio, saying the mascot at school here are ridiculously in error -- a chief in full headrest is called a warrior. represented as red,

white, and blue figures. it is a flagrant disregard of cultural differences. there are four schools in this county with the same clipart images as warrior, chief, and braves. the education regarding these figures is absent from curriculum. insult to injury. what would you say? guest: i totally agree with all of that. it is insulting, it is quite often racist. concluded that non-natives cannot be trusted with native american imagery. the football fans in this city tell us we are honoring native americans, and then they dress up with feathers and behave like fools and tell us that they are honoring us. well, they are not. they are engaging in racist conduct. we are offended, we are insulted, and we ask you to stop that. host: next out of oregon, good

morning. caller: good morning. i am comanche and my husband is northern cheyenne. i would like you to speak to the sterilization that has happened to a lot of the northern cheyenne. my husband is a direct descendent of little wolf. host: go ahead. know a lot about the specific situation at northern cheyenne, but what i can say is that in the 1970's, it was revealed that the indian health service upon which many, most reservation indians relied was engaged in a program of , orluntary sterilization uninformed sterilization, and that happened to a great many women and families, probably

over the course of some decades. well in somes african-american communities, where people thought rather than be poor and have a tough life, it was better to see that these children were not born at all. grotesque, and it is genocidal. not enough is known about it. it should be a story that is more commonly known to all americans because i am certain that they would not approve. host: stephen is in gaithersburg, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. nativeed a lot about americans in the iwo jima segment, too, so thank you. i was hoping you could expand a little bit more on your mention centralenous people in and south america. foractice immigration law

about 15 years, and i met a lot of indigenous folks who did not even speak spanish and such. a lot of them are able to claim asylum because they have been persecuted on account of that. what the immigration bars are not looking into at all is, is there a connection between some recognized tribes and indigenous folks? can they be subject to immigration laws? can we seek to remove them if they are being welcomed into a trouble connection? host: thanks, david. are almoste certainly connections going way back. we know that there was a lot of trade between north and south. there is no other way to account for, for example, parrot feathers in native american design than that they were

trading far south, and we find material from the north that is in wide use in the central and south american region. i am a lawyer, by the way, by training. i think it would be pretty tough to maintain that because these people are indigenous and have whatever ancestral connections to contemporary north american tribes that that would excuse them from the immigration laws. but there are a couple of exceptions. one is that all along the southern border, maybe not all along, but certainly in new mexico, arizona, and california, there are tribal communities that were split by the border itself. for many, many years, they did not know that there was a border and they did not acknowledge border because they were one community or one set of

communities, and that is still the case. in many cases, as i understand, the authorities, the american immigration authorities have found accommodations that allow the free movement of those tribal people back and forth across the border, but there is no doubt that it becomes more complicated as the enforcement of immigration laws becomes more aggressive. many of the that people coming to our southern borders and seeking asylum or seeking to emigrate our indigenous. -- are indigenous. they are direct descendents of the indigenous people of the past, and many of them do not speak spanish, they only speak a native language. complicates any efforts to try to ensure that their rights are respected under american immigration laws.

host: time for maybe one more call this money. edwardsville, illinois. you are next. caller: what i want to ask about is my understanding is that our system of government is based on american system -- that it has legislative, executive, and judicial basically. i wanted you to talk about that and talk about the museum and how it addresses that. host: thank you, sally. guest: i don't know that we have anything on display at the moment that makes that connection. but certainly there is a well-established theory that the wrote thethe men who united states constitution and -- whought the idea fought the idea of independence relied very much on the ideas of native american governance.

in particular, that of the iroquois people. really a firm separation of power system, where authority, governmental authority was distributed over several different bodies and in several different ways. americans, when the early americans were trying to develop a form of government, that they borrowed this idea of the separation of powers from what they observed. i think also it would be hard to escape the conclusion that the very idea of freedom, to be truly free and to not have government telling you what to do and limiting government, government authority over you, must have been something that the early colonists observed in native american communities, which were, if nothing else, very free societies. -- andy egal a terrien

-- very gala terrien egalitarian. mr. gover, a final question for you from one of those folks who treated in their question. steve in nebraska -- "what one thing would be the most beneficial action taken to advance native americans? guest: well -- genuine range of possibilities, i would say that encouraging, if not requiring all americans to learn more about the history of native people and their engagement with the colonists and with americans would go far because one of the

things people have a hard time understanding it these indians get to live by their own laws on the reservations? why do they have reservations anyway? why do they get to have casino? all of those are fair questions to ask, but those answers are not being taught in our schools right now. peoplebenefit native enormously if people just knew more about basic history and civics. of native america in the united states itself. gover, thank you for joining us this morning. guest: thank you for having me. caller: if you missed any heart of this program, see it tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3's american history tv.

we continue losing we tomorrow from the smithsonian national museum of african-american history and culture. associate curator across the will join us in sold or role in world war i, and their experiences within the civil rights movement, tomorrow 9:00 p.m. eastern -- tomorrow at 9:00 eastern on "washington journal." >> c-span, your unfiltered view of government. rated by cable in 1979, and brought you today by your cable provider. coming up shortly on c-span, look back at the recent impeachment process. live at noon and strewn, -- live at noon eastern, talking about artificial technology. later, the national press foundation recognizes the work of a number of journalists. this evening, president trump

holds a campaign rally in colorado springs, live starting at 7:00 eastern. you can also follow our coverage on c-span.org, or listen with the free c-span radio app. >> one of our neighbors was a priest. we used to -- he used to come by for to week just my father products for his congregants who could not afford it. my father never refused a request. one day in november, in 1942, the same priest showed up, but this time, he showed up with an armed police officer, and two armed soldiers. he did not know why that happened this time, so we went out to find out what was going on. when we came close to the priest , he is looking at the officer, pointing at us, and saying,

these are jews. we were turned into the authorities by a priest. >> you can watch this entire hearing on combating hate crime for night at 9:00 p.m. eastern, here on c-span. heldcommittee hearing was to mark 75 years since liberation of the auschwitz concentration camp. congressman jamie raskin, who serves on the house judiciary committee, and and former committee chair michael steele took part in a discussion on the recent impeachment process. this event was held at the institute of policy, politics -- policy, politics, and history in the district of columbia. ms. pratt: i'm sharon pratt. i will ask the cam