university in 1970. we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter -- on twitter. "washington journal" is next. host: good morning. the numbers and the heartbreak continue. now more than 66,000 americans have died as a result of covid-19. in fact, in the month of april, coronavirus was the number one cause of death in the united states. it is sunday, may 3, and as this pandemic is a back drop for a presidential election the november election is six months away. so many uncertainties between now and then, but at this point we want to hear from you. who is your candidate? president trump, former vice president joe biden? 02 is the area code.

744-8000, for democrats. 202-748-8001 if you're a republican. if you are supporting a third-party candidate, 202-748-8002. social lso join us on media, or on facebook. you can text us your message at 202-748-8003. good sunday morning, thanks very much for being with us. we want to get to politics. this is the headline from politico.com. trump's unspoken factor on reopening the economy, politics.

ost: that's from politico.com. thank you for being with us. so how does the white house thread the needle? guest: well, they're trying to do that right now. you've seen about 12 or 15 states starting to reopen, but the president has said they don't want -- he doesn't want the states to open too fast. they'll allow some businesses to open, but not others. it's really a balancing act, as they are looking around at the country. in some states, as you just mentioned, they haven't even peaked yet. around the washington, d.c., area, we're talking about a peak right about now. so he really has to look at that and push states to open, and you're going see him doing that in the coming weeks. but, you know, not go fully there, not go there with every single business and every

single state. host: the back drop to all of this is the president spending a rare weekend at camp david. he's not there that often, hasn't been there over the last three years of his presidency. what's the significance of what he's doing there today and through the weekend? guest: i think one of the things is, as he said many times, he's ready to get out of the white house. he doesn't like being cooped up. if you remember before coronavirus, he would travel probably to his resort every weekend, almost every weekend. so one of those things is just getting out of the white house. but he also has this fox townhall tonight, where he's preparing with his aides on what he needs to say, and he also has a trip this coming week for the first time in almost two months, not quite two months, where he'll, you know, it's an official trip. he's going to arizona. but he wants to figure out what that message should be to america about how to open up, but open up responsibly. host: let me get your reaction to the story that's been

percolating over the last week, the former vice president appearing on msnbc on friday on "morning joe," categorically denying that he had any inappropriate relationship with a former aide back in the 1990's. how does the trump campaign deal with this? guest: well, the campaign is really pushing hard on this, because what they're saying is that joe biden is sort of saying two different things, that when this whole issue came up, similar issue, not quite the same, with brett kavanaugh, a justice now on the supreme court, joe biden said basically, not these exact words, but the presumption is someone comes forward, a woman comes forward in the glare of the spotlight, you have to start with the presumption that what she might be saying is true. obviously he's categorically denied what this woman is saying about him. so they're saying, why are you treating women differently? but you'll see the president went a little bit off message in the last couple of days when he was commenting about this,

he said, well, basically there's a lot of famous men that get accused of things that aren't true, so maybe it's not true. obviously this is coming from him. he's been accused of sexual assault by multiple women. 10 has a different perspective. so he's a little bit off message there. but i think that the trump campaign, the official statement are going to be really pushing hard on this. they think it's a real vulnerability for the former vice president. host: we are talking with anita kumar. stay with us, if you would, i want to share with our audience how the trump campaign is responding to the biden allegations in this newly released ad. >> a former u.s. senate employee has come forward alleging former vice president joe biden sexually assaulted her. >> his hands were on me,&underneath my clothes. >> you have a right to be believed. we're with you. >> do we value stpwhem do we believe women? >> women should be believed. >> we believe women. >> i'm very disappointed that there are those who continue to

not believe women who come forward. it is not easy. they should be believed. >> she is putting herself out there, knowing that they're going to try to excoriate her, and she has the courage to come forward. she has nothing to gain. what does she have to gain? >> i stand with survivors. >> the woman should be given the benefit of the doubt. >> these white men, old, by the way, are not protecting women. >> showed the kind of compassion and caring that we need from our president, and which joe biden has been exemplifying throughout his entire life. host: that from the trump campaign. anita kumar, not only going after the former vice president, but also democrats in this election year. guest: yeah, that's one of the reasons i think joe biden finally came out and had this interview a couple of days ago. his campaign had put out a statement a while back, because these allegations have been out there for about a month. but a lot of democrats, members

of congress, prominent democrats around the country, people who he might pick as vice president, were being asked about this, and it was really putting them in sort of a tough position. they hadn't really heard from him before. i think that's one of the reasons he finally decided to speak publicly about it. host: we'll follow your work at politico.com on this sunday morning. anita kumar, thank you for being with us. we appreciate it. guest: sure, thanks. host: from "usa today," a look at some of the latest polling, again, national polling. the electoral college elects the president, as we learned again in 2016, but neither the president or vice president biden seen as the majority of americans as a strong leader with 43% saying they describe trump and 52% saying they did not describe him as a strong leader. for biden, 43% saying he's a strong leader, 47% saying he is not. let's get to your phone calls, tell us what you think at this stage of the campaign. who is your candidate and why? new york, democrats line, good morning.

caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. the president i'm going to be voting for is biden. i trust him. the bottom line is i do not trust the president. and we've had almost four years of his being in office, plus when he ran, and he basically changes his viewpoint. he's erratic. i was struck by the fact that bush, president trump, put out a statement about the predicament that we're in, and it was so compassionate and so on target. and there is so many different examples of leadership and nonleader. i thought bush's comment was terrific. i think cuomo, i think the ohio governor, there's a lot of leaders, and they don't scare

me. continued leadership from trump scares me. so i hope biden wins, and no matter what, i'm voting for him. i'm going to do it absentee, because i'm 76. if anything, i don't want anything to happen to me, and i want to vote more than anything. so i'm going to be definitely doing absentee balloting for me. host: stay healthy. from new york, thanks for the call. we have the bush video. we'll show it to you in just a moment. but first, john is up on the republican line from new york. good morning, john. caller: yeah, i'm going to vote for trump. i trust trump. he's done good by this whole virus deal. he's done good the last four years. biden, he's been a sneaky, i don't know what you'd call it. you watch the little kid keep getting away from him farther and farther. host: thank you, joe. con knee florida, good morning. -- connie in florida, good

morning. caller: good morning. i want to say i'm not going to vote for either of them, but if joe biden puts a female that i like on ticket with him as the v.p., i will be essentially voting for that person. and i hope he picks elizabeth warren, who balances the ticket with her progressive ideas, and i wouldn't vote for trump or biden, either one. they're morally equivalent to me, and i can't stand either one. and i just want to say to all the african-american voters who put biden in this winning position, you basically threw anita hill under the bus, and i won't do that. i won't support somebody who chaired those hearings in the early 1990's that i remember and let all that attack go on that woman. i will not support somebody for president who did that. thank you. host: connie, thank you. joe from massachusetts, good morning. who is your candidate six months out? caller: good morning, comrade sit zefpblet i'm hoping the democratic convention by

acclimation will give the nomination to andrew cuomo. the only one to me so far has shown my leadership. host: thank you, joe. we'll go to another joe in pittsburgh. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm going to vote for donald trump and probably do it, he's done a good job, in spite of the democrats giving him a lot of grief. joe biden scares me as far as his faculties. i don't believe the man's up to it. and i think it's a no-brainer. i think we need trump for another four years. i think the economy is going to come back under his leadership, and i will be very proud to vote for him. host: thanks for joining in on the conversation. brenda in houston. good morning, brenda. caller: well, good morning, steven. it's been a very, very long time. i had to take a mental break, because you can only stay at the level of anger that i was for so long, you know, until the body and mind goes.

listen, i have so many things to say, but i'll try to do it in somewhat of a nut shell. i love that guy, the very guy that said, i think just before me, joe's not up to it. and trump is. and he suggested that we take cleansers and sunlight or ultraviolet lights, wow. well, let's see. america's been made great again. we're respected and loved all around the world. people have come to our rescue. so south korea has lost so few people, and boy, they've come to our rescue to give us suggestions. you know, steen, i was watching msnbc not too long ago. i watch it every day. and there was a guy from ireland or one of the european countries, and he was a writer of their paper, you know, the , and he said that

title of the article was we have felt many things for america, but never pity before. and he went on to express how overwhelmingly he felt so sorry for us americans that didn't vote for the clown in the office. i don't want to call names. so back to why i'm going to vote for the person i'm voting for, he's made america great again. we're loved around the world. we keep winning and we've got all these unemployed people. and oh, i know, the virus is not his fault. really? when he knew about it in november, because china, it was known that china had it there. and president obama, please find the information for me, steven, i heard a couple of people say that with the ebola, that when a breakout first

happened, they got a team together, a team they left in , and and he dismissed only two americans died from ebola. ok, you guys do the math. i'm tired. host: brenda from houston, thank you for the call. this is inside "the washington post," at the top of the program, the number one cause of death in the month of april was covid-19. number two was heart disease. it's followed by cancer, followed by chronic lower respiratory disease, accidents, strokes, brain aneurysms, and alzheimer's, leading off the list, but more than 58,000 people in the month of april succumbing to coronavirus, and now the death toll in excess of 66,000. some of your comments on our social media pages include twitter and text messages. this is from steve who simply says biden. here's this from katherine who says president trump with the american flag. and this from lisa saying i'll

be voting for president trump, states are opening, the economy will recover quickly, we will make america great again. it's time we brought honor, compassion and civility back to the white house, the stain that is the current resident has done nothing for the nation. his mindset is a personal gain in every policy decision. a real patriot needs to occupy this position. a blue wave is here. caroline is joining us from coronado, california, republican line. in this campaign, six months out, who's your candidate? caller: my candidate is donald trump, because he has an understanding of economic common sense. he has brought stability in the economy. and he has the respect of the world, because we no longer kowtow to the u.n. and the corruption of the u.n., the world health organization, and donald trump speaks the truth

for the average american citizen. host: thanks for the call. this is from bob in illinois, saying trump all the way. i'm glad he's our president during this period, perfect person to take on china. no one could be tougher. we need him for four more years. as one of our first callers, the bush office, george w. bush office, releasing a 2 1/2-minute video yesterday looking at this pandemic and what it means for americans. here it is in its entirety. president bush: this is a challenging and solemn time in the life of our nation and world. a remorseless, invisible enemy threatening the elderly and vulnerable among us, a disease that can quickly take over in life. medical professionals are risking their own health for the health of others, and we're deeply grateful. officials at every level are

setting out the requirements of public health that protect us all, and we all need to do our part. the disease also threatens broader damage, harm to our sense of safety, security, and community. the larger challenge we share is to confront an outbreak of fear and loneliness, and it is frustrating that many of the normal tools of compassion, a hug, a touch, can bring the opposite of the good we intend. in this case, we serve our neighbor by separating from them. we cannot allow physical separation to become emotional isolation. this requires us to be not only compassionate, but creative in our outreach, and people across the nation are using the tools of technology in the cause of solidarity. in this time of testing, we need to remember a few things. first let us remember we have faced times of testing before. following 9/11, i saw a great nation rise as one to honor the

brave, to grieve with the grieving, and to embrace unavoidable new duties. and i have no doubt, none at all, that this spirit of service and sacrifice is alive and well in america. second, let us remember that empathy and simple kindness are essential, powerful tools of national recovery. even at an appropriate social distance, we can find ways to be present in the lives of others, to ease their anxiety and share their burdens. third, let's remember that the suffering we experience as a nation does not fall evenly. in the days to come, it will be especially important to care in practical ways for the elderly, the ill, and the unemployed. finally let us remember how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat. in the final analysis, we are not partisan combatants. we are human beings, equally

vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of god. we rise our fall together, and we are determined to rise. host: that from the office of george w. bush. this headline at axios as the former president urging unity to overcome coronavirus. back to your phone calls. kenneth is joining us from west virginia. good morning, ken. caller: good morning. how are you? host: good. how are you, sir? caller: i'm wonderful. and be honest with you, the president i'm going to be voting for for the second time will be donald trump. host: thank you for the call. this is from joanne on our facebook page. no-brainer, our economy is awful right now. before the coronavirus, i had never seen it before in my lifetime. i don't know what's going to happen, but i sure don't trust biden to bring it back. tom is next from new york,

independent line. good morning. caller: hey, how's it going today? host: good, tom. how are you? caller: not too bad. i'm going to be voting for trump this year because, well, the democrats, the way i see it, the last of the new wave are just trying to change our whole way of living. they just want to take away some rights, you know, and stall others, which just doesn't make any sense to me, and as far as i'm concerned, trump doesn't want to change all that. he'd like to keep it the way it is and just make our economy better. host: tom, thank you. this is from "time" magazine, for some reluctant trump voters, coronavirus was the last straw. "time" magazine writing the llowing --

host: let's go back to phone calls. from minnesota, who is your candidate in this election? caller: good morning. i'm neither a democrat or a republican, but i'm voting for mr. biden. i believe that donald trump is not competent, and when he gets on stage with the two doctors who i think are doing an excellent job, his stupidity

really is glaring. so joe biden has my vote. host: paul, thank you. this is from a viewer. heavy lifting is the handle. thank god for the leadership of president trump. next up is tricia in washington. good morning. caller: good morning. onald trump is my candidate. he ran on certain things. he ran on border closing. he ran on bringing businesses back to america. and he's done that, and he would have been so much more if the democrats would have even played a little bit of ball with him. but the only thing he did wrong was he beat hillary clinton. and so for four years we've played games, and really, he couldn't do all that he wanted to do. and i want to say something about joe biden. i think he's probably a nice man. but i would like somebody to be in the white house that i know can put a full sentence together and understand what it

means. that's all. host: thank you. and this is from another viewer saying that there are farm animals i would support before casting a support for trump. biden is the only choice for restoring competence to the presidency. join us on social media, on twitter. we're @cspanwj. we're also on facebook or send us a text message to 202-748-8003. be sure to tell us your first name and where you're texting from. inside "the washington post," this is the headline, mcconnell and pelosi declining the president's offer of rapid testing. the senate is due back tomorrow. it remains unclear when the house of representatives will return. but in a rare moment of unity, a joint statement by the speaker and the republican senate leader, it reads in part

host: joseph in compton, california, good morning. caller: good morning, america. i'd like to say i'm going to cast my vote for biden. i consider myself a christian democrat. i like to express my feelings about, over these last 20 years, this nation has the freedom of opportunity of the internet. what we're finding ourselves experiencing, that we know misinformation is like a virus to the human body, and it attacks it like a virus attacks a computer. we can tell by now, when you listen to the people that's calling in and telling where

they're getting their misinformation from, and the president, donald trump is one of those. he is spewing misinformation to the american public that he's getting off the internet. it's like a virus, and it can cause death. and he doesn't realize it. host: joseph, thank you, from compton, california. this is on our text message, saying president trump is the hardest working potus this country has ever had. the dems are nothing but power hungry, and biden is a career politician who needs to answer a lot of questions concerning his ties with questionable son wake up trump is our only hope. that from robert in roanoke, virginia. it was quite a sight in washington, d.c., maryland, and virginia as the air force thunder birds and the navy blue angel jets flew over the mall in washington, d.c. this is from the metro section of today's "washington post." three different flyovers around the region in the d.m.v. area pay tribute to those on the front line, including

hospitals, nurks e.m.t. officials. the president yesterday with this tribute on his twitter page, saying beautiful thank you to our great blue angels and the air force thunder birds , that from the president yesterday. let's go back to your phone calls. ed in lawrenceville, georgia, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. yeah, i'd like to, first of all, before i say who i support, i'd like to say that all my life, i never made more than about $10.25 an hour. and i only bought a few stocks every year, because that's all i could afford. but when president trump got in there, i made over $200,000. and i've never had that kind of money before, and i still got it, because i got out of the stock market because i'm not a greedy person, so after i made $200,000, i got out. i'm voting for president trump because i never made that kind of money before. the stock market was going off the rails when trump went in. also, trump, he's not senile

like biden. biden cannot even form a whole sentence. i think what he's going to try to do is, if biden does win, he'll step down, and the vice president, who would be a woman, will take over. it's already in the plan. host: thank you for the call. front page of "the washington post," april was death and hope and cruel, and next to that, boom and burks the pandemic funding hurting preparedness. those two stories, front page of "the washington post." jay is joining us next from scottville, virginia. who's your candidate? caller: i'd rather not talk about politics, since i'm an independent. but anthropology and our converting the word "order," we used to define it as domestic tranquility when our rights came from providence. but since we now confer those

rights, those rights come from dominant, authoritarian males, and we're consumers, corporations are the real humans, we confer those rights in a law of the jungle environment, or a survival of the fittest environment. we confer those rights by serving a male, donald trump or joe biden. so i just want to remind everybody that the word "order" is now defined as the right of over t males to compete power. host: then what is it, jay? caller: what is what? noip it's not that, what is it? caller: what is what? the definition of -- host: the definition of order, you're putting on the table.

aller: the definition of order is the -- what the constitution is. host: ok, from scottville, virginia, thanks for the call. on friday, the former vice president appearing on msnbc's "morning joe." a lot of references to christine blase ford, who brought up allegations against brett kavanaugh when the two were in high school. that issue came up in this q&a. >> mr. vice president, as it pertained to dr. ford, everyone wanted -- high-level democrats said she should be believed, they believed it happened. you said, if someone like dr. ford were to come out, the essence of what she is saying has to be believed, has to be real. why? why is it real for dr. ford, but not for tara reade? >> because the facts are -- look, i'm not suggesting she had no right to come forward. and i never -- i'm not saying

any woman, they should come forward. they should be heard. and then it should be investigated. it should be investigated. and if there's anything that is consistent with what's being said and she makes the case or the case is made, then it should be believed. but ultimately the truth matters. the truth matters. period. i fought my entire life to change the whole notion of the law and cultural, the culture around sexual. and i saw the process for survivors. i believe we've come a long way, and we have a long way to go in this system before, in fact, are in a position that there's a fair and unbiased view. but at the end of the day, it has to be looked at. these claims are not true. there's no -- i mean, they're not true. >> mr. vice president -- i don't know what else i can keep saying to you. host: that from msnbc on

friday, and mika with former vice president joe biden. back to your phone calls. james in oceanside, california, six months before the election, who is your candidate at this stage? caller: i'm an independent. i had to switch over to democrat to vote for bernie here in california. i'm not too happy about that. but with all the accusations, accusations going around, what was it 12 with trump, one with biden, i hate to say it for your question here, but bernie is still my guy. the way things are going, i'm writing in bernie, because this country is going the wrong direction. trump is taking this way too far right. and i don't know. things are going stay the same with biden. you got a couple of callers coming on saying that he couldn't form a sentence. well, trump might be able to form a sentence, but he doesn't

even know what he's saying. i don't know. i'm still writing in bernie. host: thanks for the call. this is the headline from the "new york times." kim jong un resurfaces. state media says after weeks of health rumors, the north korean leader was said to be visiting a fact roy friday after a series of news reports suggesting that he was gravely ill. on twitter yesterday, the president said i for one am glad see that he is back and well. that from the president yesterday with news that kim jong un is alive based on the latest reports, this story from the "new york times." raymond from lexington, south carolina, good morning. caller: good morning, sir. of course, my candidate of choice is going to have to be donald trump, but the question is not going to be whether it's trump or biden, because the democratic party knows he is not going to be the one that trump is going to run against. they already know that. this guy, i don't want to say nothing bad about him, but he

doesn't know where he is half the time. personally i think he's senile. what we're looking at here is going to be donald trump against a female candidate, and i don't know who that's going to be. i know that that woman from -- ia has her aspirations and kirsten gillibrand is another one, and that crazy overnor from up in michigan. but biden is not going to be the one that's going to run against. donald trump, people say that he can't speak very well or anything like that. but the truth of the matter is, he's a bare-knuckle street fighter from new york, and he has proven that the deep state in this country exists, and in and out media is not showing it, except for maybe c-span, you guys are kind of fair, but they're not showing the fact that the deep state actually tried to have a coup against a

sitting president, and that's very serious. when you have your intelligence agencies conspiring to overthrow the president of the united states and the media is not covering that, that's a very, very serious thing. host: brandon, thank you, from south carolina. this is from our facebook page, it should have been bernie, but i'm voting for biden. trump is danger sandruss careless. at least biden would surround himself with a competent staff. for the first time in more than a year, a briefing in the white house, in the brady briefing room, was held, and one of the questions, the allegations that surfaced back in 2016 involving then-candidate donald trump. this is how she addressed those questions. >> the president has in the past denied any of the allegations from the many women who have accused him of sexual misconduct. but the allegations -- what happened you say credible than the ones against brett

kavanaugh? what about the allegations that were raised against him? why should the public, or what makes them any less credible than the allegations from tara reade? >> the president has swiftly denied all of these allegations that were raised four years ago. he has always told the truth on these issues. he's denied them immediately. and you're bringing up issues, like i said, from four years ago that were asked and answered and the american people had their say in the matter when they elected president trump as president of the united states. but the media, leave it to the media to really take an issue about the former vice president and turn it on the president and bring up accusations from four years ago that were asked and answered in the form of the vote of the american people. host: that from the white house on friday. the first briefing available on our website at c-span.org. liz from new jersey, democrats line. who's your candidate? caller: well, i lived my whole life in this state, and we are battling the covid virus here

big time. and we've got a fake government that seems to be trying to save lives, national government hasn't come through for new jersey at all. this president, before this, has proven that he can't really handle crisis. this is morn a crisis. we've got thousands of dead americans, thousands of dead americans, people, and you want to put a person in whose response was totally inaccurate , telling people to take a drug that he was championed for some heart which leads to arrhythmias in many people, who's talking about disinfectants and injecting them and drinking them. you've got to wake up. i don't care whether you consider yourself a republican,

an independent or a democrat. we need someone else in that office who can competent incidently handle crisis. because maybe you're sitting in a state with very little covid, but we have over 7,000 dead americans in this state alone, 7,000 dead americans, people, think about it. thank you. host: liz from new jersey. mike has the same sentiment on our social media page, this is a text messages. he lives in orlando, florida, i am voting for biden. we noticed a leader with honesty and integrity, unlike trump who lied and 66,000 people died. democratic pollster has this from the "new york times" in a piece that was published late last month, saying what we're seeing in the polls is that trump's personal ratings have gone down even more than his job approval ratings, and what that tells me is that trump's antics are taking a toll on his vote, because now, more than

ever, people see his lack of judgment and lack of temperament as being consequential. let's get back to your phone calls on the republican line, karen from alabama. good morning. caller: good morning. i am voting for president trump. i think he's done a really good job with the response to the coronavirus. and i would also like to point out people are saying that, he's responsible for all these deaths. well, the majority of the deaths occurred in new york, and i can remember in the beginning of april the new york politicians are saying, go on out, you don't have to worry about the virus, it's not going to affect us. maybe they're responsible for what's happened. but what the democrats don't get is the reason president trump was elected in the first place is because we were tired of the same old status quo politicians. so what do they do? they nominate a status quo politician. i don't get it, but my vote is for president trump.

host: thanks from alabama. politico has this headline, the president plotting an economic pivot at camp david. the story available at politico.com, and here's some of the excerpts from that porting --

host: that was from politico.com. the president is holding a town hall meeting. it is a fox news exclusive, taking place near washington along the mall, a virtual town hall meeting. we'll have excerpts of it tomorrow morning on the "washington journal." roger in bedford, ohio, thanks for waiting. good morning. who is your candidate? caller: joe biden. there is no way i would ever vote for trump. that's the first thing. because you people, i don't know what world y'all living in. y'all forget that washington is the one that got us into office. that's the first thifpblg since he's been in there, he did nothing. he reads from a script he can't stay on. you keep talking about he's rich. if he's so rich, why is all his properties falling apart? you know, just answer that for me. y'all claim he is so rich.

he's this, he's that. what has he did for this country? host: thank you. david next in oklahoma. good morning, david. caller: good morning. i am a lifelong republican. i'll be supporting joe biden. and i honestly believe that i would cast a vote for charles mannson before i would cast a vote for donald trump. host: that's pretty strong. caller: yes, and my logic behind that statement is this. with a president manson, at least all of us, republicans and democrats alike, could recognize that our president is an egocentric maniac. host: thank you from oklahoma. by the way, the trump campaign with a new ad focused on biden and his connections or comments on china. let's watch. >> this is a crisis. >> this is no time for donald

trump's record of hysterical xenophobia. >> biden's son inked a billion dollar deal with a subsidiary of the bank of china. >> china is going to eat our lunch, come on, man. they're not bad folks, folks. >> since the outbreak, the communist party has been buying local supplies and sent them to china. >> it is in our self-interest that china continue to prosper. >> what a beautiful history we wrote together. >> the president is right. the travel restriction on china is every public official said bought the country time. >> that was a very smart move right there. >> hysterical xenophobia. >> i complimented him on dealing with china. > i'm not going nothing. host: that ad from the trump campaign, taking aim at former

vice president joe biden. and a look at the unemployment claims courtesy of cnbc. now more than 30 million americans out of work as a result of covid-19, as you see, the unemployment rate steady for the last decade, and then shooting up significantly just in the last two mo and a half to two months. michael from pennsylvania. good morning. thanks for waiting. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call, and thank you for c-span. i'm going to be voting for joe biden. obviously people thought that trump was a businessman. folks, look at atlantic city casinos. what casino do you know can go bankrupt? not once, but several casinos at the same time. ok, trump is the typical conman, all right? put my name on this. something goes wrong, i had nothing to do with it. trump college, did anybody remember this? trump air. it failed. folks, one failure after another.

oh, i got the bankruptcy rules down pat so i know thousand use them. is that a businessman? or is that a con artist? and for all these people that are trump supporters, he just told you to drink scombleach lysol. did anybody hear that? and they're trying say the politicians in new york didn't work fast enough. excuse me. we have a federal government for a reason. they're supposed to see this stuff. he fired the pandemic crew, the people who would warn you. what else do people need? do you need a sign from zpwhod i mean, this is ridiculous. host: michael, thank you. this is from liz in north carolina. a text message, i support biden because he did a great job as vice president. trump has done a poor job and he has no character. fivethirtyeight.com looking at this election, and the headline, how does biden stack up to the past democratic nominees? depending on who you listen to, you might hear one of two very

different narratives about former vice president joe biden. one says he is a strong candidate, he leads president trump in most early polls. his folksy demeanor will win back working-class white voters. he's moderate enough to attract ex-republicans in the suburbs. the other says he's a weak one, a gaffe-prone, his fundraiser has been anemia and i can he's been absent from the public eye during this coronavirus pandemic. fine biden starts the general election on the weaker side, there's plenty of time for that to change, and history will ultimately judge him for one thing, whether he's able to beat trump in november. let's go to tom in newark, ohio, good morning, republican line. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i want to urge all americans, never vote for bribable joe biden much his whole family owes china right now 1.5 billion favors. he will help china fulfill their mission statement of world domination. he's also in the early stages

of dementia right now. and apparently he takes messages on his record player. i'm voting for donald j. trump, thank you. host: john is next from virginia, independent line. good morning. caller: yes, hello. i will be voting for trump also, but what gets me, when listening to your callers, and i can understand the democrats not liking trump, for one reason or the other, i can even understand i've heard for a hyena before i vote for donald trump. but i'm kind after mazed at how they have to rationalize it and try to defend joe biden. joe biden has so many problems, let's talk about ukraine. that will come up in the election. forget the girl and all her claims, whether it's true or not. that obviously doesn't disqualify anybody. show the clip where biden was defending chain chine and how

they're no competition. so yes, i can understand you don't like trump. he does have problems, but he's still a good leader. but don't rationalize in your mind and try to defend biden. thank you. host: john, thank you. we'll go to tim next, joining us from california, republican line. good morning, tim. tim for president, k alem -- host: we'll go to mike in susquehanna, good morning. caller: good morning, and thank you for your show. there are many things to criticize with trump. but the main thing, the sticking point to me, and would disqualifies him on its face is when he made the statement that my button is bigger than yours in north korea. to joke about or jest or even

have that in part of your language, talking about nuclear weapons, and when i look at the opportunity wasted the last four years with deevk haitian, we don't even have -- it's outrageous. it's just, on its face, of all the fingers that he has failed at -- and look, i'm 70 years old. i know what a good economy is. i grew up in a good economy. this economy, fake. that's the biggest fake. but anyway, the nuclear weapons, the disarmament, what have we done to save -- to get serious about saving humanity? that's the thing that puts him disqualified on its face. my vote will go, reluctantly, to joe biden. host: this is from bill, saying

although not my first choice, i support joe biden over donald trump because of his handling of the coronavirus epidemic. it's shown us that trump is not ready or capable of making command decisions. n twitter, we're @cspanwj. send us a text message, or on facebook. ron from texas. good morning. caller: good morning. i will be voting for neither joe biden or donald trump. my support is for libertarian candidate justin amash. i know he's announced very recently his intent to seek an exploring committee for the president, and i really theep he gets the nomination when we have the convention, which is scheduled for july. but i really was not excited bout voting until he announced his candidacy with the white house last wednesday, i believe, and i really hope that more people will consider voting third party, because

candidates like joe biden and donald trump, they both have sexual assault allegations against them. they both have very inconsistent records. they both have done things in the past which is unconductive of a president holding the highest office in the land. i really just believe in this so much and so strongly that i really would like us to make an impact on this election, if anything else. host: ron, thanks for the call. the president weighing in this morning on that video that we showed you earlier from former president george w. bush, and he quotes pete on fox, by the way, i appreciate the message from former president bush, but where was he during impeachment, calling for putting partisanship aside. then the president saying he was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest hoax in american history. that response from president trump on the video that was released yesterday by president george w. bush. frank from utah, democrats line.

good morning. caller: good morning. i'm 73 years old democrat. i've been involved in politics since the 1960's. i have given senator sanders oney and worked to support him in the past election, and not still in this one, but continue to give him contributions. i am wondering what's happening with the d.n.c. i get a lot of political emails , and it's constantly, we've got to beat trump, we've got to beat trump, it's the most important thing in the world, and then all we can come up with is biden. i just do not understand what he d.n.c. is thinking. i don't know if i can vote for mr. biden. last time i voted at bernie, when it was between hillary and trump, i just don't know what

to do, you know? i don't really want trump, but i'm just horrified this being our only choice. once again, here we are, the american people, and these are the only two choices we have. host: frank, thank you, from utah. this is from they are any indiana. i'm voting for president trump. it's great dive leader in the white house who stands up for america and doesn't let other countries take advantage of us any longer. he isn't the best public speaker, but he has our best interests at heart. he's not afraid to think outside the box. rosa is next from san antonio. good morning. caller: good morning, thank you or taking my call. i was watching all the briefings in its sbirlte from the white house and i heard trump when he said to the scientist, can you inject u.v. light? not bleach, not lysol. and when i saw it in the local

news, i was flabbergasted to hear the representatives saying that he said to inject bleach. host: he did say that, too. caller: that's false. host: no, it's trufmente he said both. did he talk about disinfectant on the human body. caller: but not injecting them. u.v. lights. host: well, i'm not going to argue with you, but we just want to remind use of the facts. you can check on our website at c-span.org for the full transcript of the video, but he did say that. the white house says he was just throwing an idea out there, which the president does from time to time. but if you look at the video and see exactly what he said. kelly, tennessee, good morning, republican line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. host: good morning. caller: i am a lifelong republican until the election of 2016. i believe that donald trump is a real threat to our country. not only his character, his

lack of ability to govern. he doesn't represent all of the american people. in his whole time in office, he's been extremely device sism he's not pulled people together. he's not released anything like former president bush did yesterday in his statement about the coronavirus. he has lied. he has stalled congress. he has worked to divide our country instead of bringing it together. and i think this is a pivotal election in our history as we move forward as americans. he's handled this coronavirus badly. he's lied about it. he's obfuscated. he has abdicated all responsibility. here is a man who said i take no responsibility for it. did i a great job. and unlike your previous caller, i too saw what the man

said at every press conference he's given, and he did say that people could take disinfectants internally, which i can remember my mother telling me was a call to poison control if you did something like that. but his lack of care and empathy for anybody who has died during this pament has been tremendous. all he's talked about is me, me, me, me, donald trump, donald trump. he's not been kind-hearted or thoughtful or expressed empathy for americans who have lost their family members or lost their lives. he talks about the economy. he says he created the greatest economy in the world. it was absolutely an economy on false cards. it was already self-correcting because it was overheated before the pandemic even hit.

elected a ans have man who has no character, who grifter, whose children are sitting in the white house, his daughter and son-in-law, yet his daughter and his sons have taken up a guilty plea to taking money to go harity and had for government-sackeds counseling on how to act when you participate in a charity. joe biden is not perfect. not by any means. but i believe the man has what america sorely needs, character. host: kelly from tennessee, thanks for the call. republican strategist nick everhart had this in a piece that was published at politico.com last month on the election. historically it is important for the president to be competitive in battleground

states, not just for his own race, but to enable an environment that is strong enough for statewide and down ballot candidates to have the footing they need to run successful campaigns. back to your phone calls. darren in sioux city, iowa. good morning. caller: good morning. host: good morning. go ahead, please. caller: right now, sir, i'm kind of pushing for joe biden. right now, people are dying. it's just hard to -- i don't understand how people can call and here talk to you and say they want to vote for trump when people are dying. and we need somebody to run the country and help everybody, not just certain people. once again, joe is not perfect. i'm worried about his age. but i take him over trump and the stuff that he's doing. people are dying. we need to fix this. and he hasn't shown us anything to fix anything. so right now, i'm pushing for joe biden.

thank you. host: thanks. james next in akron, ohio. good morning, james. caller: yes, couple of things. first, there was a lady about seven or eight calls back, and voted in ame that in the paper, empathy united states, and now they pity united states because of donald trump. but my whole thing is this. i look at everything that donald trump has done, and i voted democrat and republican. i probably should be more of an independent, but i'm a democrat, i believe. because i lean that way. but i look at everything donald trump has done. i've never saw a president in y life, i'm 72 years old, that lie on everything. there have been lies that the president has told, but most of the time it was about things that they couldn't let out

because of information that couldn't get to other countries and stuff like that, and you could understand what the lie was about and why they wouldn't tell it. but now this guy lies about everything, and he's trying to stop any and everything that was for the poor people and for black people. he has made a gallant effort to do that, and he's not ashamed of it. you know, there's been recent people in the white house before, but they hid it, and they didn't even try. this guy bragg about being a racist. he bragg about doing things to women. he bragg about everything that he does when he gets caught. he says, well, i didn't do so i have to vote for biden. that would be my vote. and i hope that everybody looks at everything's he's done. don't decide because you're republican or because you're a democrat. look at the whole everything. look at all the issues.

host: thanks for the call. we want to mention that tomorrow historic first for this network and for the u.s. supreme court. a case involving the trademark of bookings.com is going to be front and center. more significantly the justices will be hearing oral arguments on the telephone. a chance to listen to it live. it gets under way at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow the first of ten cases at the supreme court will be undertaking a and the high court granting us permission to air it live. telephone only so no video but a chance to hear oral arguments as they happen before members of the supreme court and they will be asking questions in order of seniority. again that's tomorrow 10:00 a.m. eastern time here on this network. landen in richmond, virginia. good morning. caller: going. donald trump this is not about donald trump. i'm voting for joe biden because we want things back to

normal. things have happened and people are scared right now about this virus that got out because of incompetence of the federal government. not only am i voting for joe biden. i want the federal government back. we lost the federal government. w, people -- everybody's not doing bad during this thing but all of us who are working and trying to do things to -- i'm a contracter and what we're doing, we're trying to keep things together. but people are so scared now and sometimes you have to make a change in -- and get rid of the bad -- if you've got a problem you've got to get rid of it. i don't know what happened to the republican party. it started to fall apart around here in richmond when eric

kanter lost his election. i still -- still hasn't explained to me why he lost. he didn't come to meetings but he was a good republican. and the republicans are good people. but when you had this extremism nd people carrying guns to protests for nothing, and you've got -- it's dangerous, very extremely dangerous virus out there. i'm not a person that ever was worried about viruses and stuff like that. ut now it's unnoifing to people, unnoifing. it's not about what donald trump did. of course we know he was incompetent for president. but the thing is what we have to do as americans, as virginians, get rid of this mess we've got and get our federal government back.

get our government back. host: i'll leave it there. thanks from richmond, virginia. all of your calls, comments, text messages and social media comments including on twitter at c-span wj. we appreciate that. we will turn our attention to the latest on covid-19. joining us in just a moment is beth former senior director for global health security and biodefense for the white house's national security council. she will be here to discuss the u.s. response to this pandemic and what a long-term strategy should look like. later in cooperation with c-span 3's american history tv, the author of the book 67 shots, ten states, and the end of american innocence. been 50 years since the ohio national guard fired shots on the campus of kent state university as part of the anti-war protest taking place during the vietnam war. that's coming up at 9:00. 6:00 for those on the west coast.

you're watching and listening to c-span's "washington journal" on this sunday morning. we're back in a moment.

>> joining us from her home here in washington, d.c. is beth with the nuclear threat initiative and served as senior director for global health security and biodefense national security council during the final year of the obama white house. let me begin with the path forward with covid-19. what's next for our country, for our citizens, and for our economy? >> thanks for having me on this morning. it's the best question exarktly hat should happen now.

and i've been thinking about this opening and closing as less of an open/closed society and more like we're a rubber band and we need to start stretching to put people back in contact but we have to do it carefully and with a planned strategy or we're going to end up where it's going to snap back on all of us and we're going to be back where we are now social distancing from one another in a more extreme way. i think what needs to happen over the next several weeks and months is that states should be opening slowly and considerably with very consistent metrics. i think that we have to have the kind of testing that everyone's thinking about and the ability to train and isolate those positive in all states before we begin opening up and certainly before we begin having any very large crowded events. so the thing that's really keeping me up right now is sort of the lack of a unified

strategy the way that's happening in a slightly more piecemeal way across the country. so i think first is that we need to have that unified plan for reopening with a little bit more specificity than with a we've seen coming out of the white house plan. and there are many states that are starting to put pen to paper on this in really positive ways. i'm sitting on an advisory task for with the mayor of seattle for example so i've got insight into what the government and governor's office in washington state has been doing and there they've been looking at very specific metrics for what kinds of testing should be in place, what kinds of contact tracing should be in place before putting more people in touch with one another. but i do -- in contact with one another. but i do think it's important to really tell americans and to be really clear about it that the summer is going to be very different than other summers if we want to avoid a spike or a second wave of this virus. and if we want to avoid ending up where we are now. and i think that means really

being honest with people that crowding at beaches, some of the larger events that we would like to be doing this summer, going to concerts, going to games, those things are going to be very different and may not be able to happen at all in order for us to come through this year and get into a position where we have a safe and effective vaccine ideally next year and can really restart those kinds of activities. so i guess i say that's the short term. over the long term it's clear that we need to treat pandemic preparedness the way that we treat our national defense and that means a much more significant investment. i heard bill gates on anderson cooper saying that are for 5% of the department's defense budget we could be in the $30 billion range i think by my last calculation, we would be in a much more significantly prepared position in the united states. and by the way it's not just us. we really need to invest in working with partners around

the world to get prepared. we know that there are huge preparedness gaps everywhere. so i do think that we need to put this issue of pandemic preparedness much more at the top of the leader's agenda. host: i'm sure you've seen the demonstrations in state capitals around the country these are just some of the photographs as the demonstrations took place in lansing, michigan. i mention this because people do have pent-up frustration and anger saying they want to get back to work, back to their lives. my question and we've heard this from the administration, how do you make certain that the cure is not worse than the disease? guest: it's an excellent question. i think first and foremost this is -- we're all feeling frustrated. it's normal to feel frustrated. i think some of the demonstrations have shutdown that. some i think have been a little more than that and have really used some hateful speech and have been an opportunity again uncovering some of the divides in our country and some of the

challenges that people have when they are feeling frustrated and looking to take that frustration out on segments of our society and unveil prejudices that exist. so i think we do need to address those underlying tensions in our country. but i do think that for all americans that are feeling frustrateded and the vast majority of which are absolutely paying attention to and adhering to social distancing, the fear should not be worse than the disease. instead what we should be doing is recognizing that public health and our economy right now are inextricably linked. so everything that we do for our public health ultimately is better for the economy. i think what's missing is how to make that real for individual people and individual families. i think some interesting research that i had the opportunity to look at last week european scientists are starting to look at different types of jobs and industry

sectors and think about what's the long-term plan for subsidies for making sure that businesses that cannot function without putting people back out into positions where they would be contacting a lot of people, that those are really the segments of the society targeted tw long-term financial subsidies and more funding, whereas others i think should really be subsidizing people to stay home. so there's a lot in our country in terms of our social safety net that i think is being uncovered here. and i know that's not a perfect answer but right now i guess what i would say is my number one answer to your question is that if we all go back into society the way that we were in march and february and interact in the same ways that we were then, we know from looking at the case counts that we will see a spike in the disease. and without the ability to test and isolate people, we're going to be right back where we are now. and to quote, from an interview

the other day, the only thing worse than a first wave is a second wave. so we really need to get ahead of it and hold on for a little bit longer to get those tests and contact out there. >> you literally wrote the playbook on the pandemic back in 2016. what did you write three or four years ago and how has that played out today? guest: the pandemic playbook first it was a huge team effort that was at the request of the national and homeland security advisers, and i had the honor of overseeing that effort. but it was a huge u.s. government effort. and the reason i mention that is because it's important for people to know that playbook was in no way a political piece of paper. it was the sum total of u.s. government expert knowledge, the vast majority of which and the people that put inputs were civil servants like myself who were trying to pass on the best

information that they had about how to deal with the pandemic. so what the playbook actually is is an informational decisionmaking ruberic. what i mean by that -- that's kind of wonky. what i mean by that is that we wanted to leave behind for the white house a decisionmaking tool that sort of said look if the situation looks like this, it's green. and if it looks like this it's yellow. and if it looks like this it's red. you really need to be thinking about putting additional measures in place. and so the playbook walks through many different scenarios in the lifespan of a disease threat. for example, looking at the covid-19, the coronavirus outbreak, what it would have done is would have identified human clusters of a disease that had the potential to be a pandemic. and then it would have -- so that would have started flashing maybe yellow. and then red certainly would have been when there were large clusters in china with the

potential to be sustainably transmitted between people and so on. and then it asks specific questions that the white house is supposed to be asking of its government experts across all departments and agencies. for example, what is the availability of diagnostic testing for this disease? when should we be thinking about deploying if it was a disease that had a large presence in a politically unstable place or a disaster area? when do we deploy a disaster assistance response team like we did during the ebola epidemic? when should we start looking at our strategic national stockpile? so spent a lot of time looking at the playbook and questions over the last several weeks and i think it does hold up. but it's important to know that it was supposed to be used to guide the questions that would be asked. the answers still have to come from the experts in the context of the disease threat that they're currently facing, and

it was meant to make sure that the white house was asking really hard questions as early as possible, because we learned in ebola that you need to anticipate and think about the thing that is will become your points of failure. and i think in this outbreak obviously the lack of our ability to field quickly a diagnostic test did become a single point of failure but we had a backup plan we might have been in better shape. >> beth cameron, earning her doctorate from johns hopkins university. how has all of this changed our nation? >> i think our nation really is going to be forever changed in many ways. and i hope that we're changed in how we prioritize this particular set of threats. threats caused by epidemics and pandemics. but i do think that the social fabric of our country will also change. tony fauci has been quoted saying the hand handshake might be a thing of the past and instead we might be using the

less intrusive nams stay that they use in india. i think those are small ways our society might change that might have good benefits for influenza season when we all don't like to get the flu and still costs thousands of lives here and around the world over year. but i also think it may have some significant changes in how we view international travel, ow we look at big mass gatherings. and also i hope how we treat one another. because one of the only silver linings in this terrible pandemic that we're undergoing is i think the incredible solidarity that we've had amongst people in communities. i hope that also translates to solidarity in how we work with our partners around the world, because this disease is going to be here for a really long period of time even after we have the vaccine it has to be equitabley distributed and people have to be vaccinated

all over the planet. and i think that's going to be something we need to spend a lot of time preparing for and really working with our partners in africa, asia, latin america, all over the world to do that now. host: a look at the numbers courtesy of johns hopkins university. 3.4 million confirmed cases, 3.2 million around the world have recovered. the death toll in 187 countries just over 244,000 with the u.s. leading the list of cases and the death toll. guest: how's it going? i love scientists. it's amazing, thee guys in there with guns and all this other stuff. you can't shoot a virus. one fire craker would have gone off and probably everybody would have gone shot. the reason they're out there is because of economics. you can send everybody in america, what 360 million people a million dollars and you would save $1 trillion and they could stay at home.

and then please every time you hear disinformation like the virus came out of here or there, whatever, you won't have chinese running from these other guys trying to blame them for doing this. somebody flew to europe landing i guess in kennedy and then there we go. ok. so scientists please stand up. when you hear stuff like chinese did this or that, say something. thank you. host: thank you. beth do you want to respond? guest: absolutely. i think one of the great things that you just highlighted is how interconnected our world is. and you're right, we do know that the cases on the east coast and in new york city came from europe and that the cases on the west coast by and large came from wuhan from china. i think what that shows us is when you have a deeze like this one that breaks out and becomes capable of infecting people and

sustainably transmitting between them you really don't have a lot of time to respond. and you do need to share information extremely quickly and you do need to anticipate that our interconnected flights are going to be moving everywhere. so the second you learn about a disease threat like this one you pretty much need to assume that it's going to be in your country and that you're going to have cases. and so that's definitely a lesson that many of us have been thinking about for a while, but certainly it's been demonstrated here. i think you're also getting tat question of blame, whether or not it's right or appropriate to place plame on particular countries. and what i would say to that is we all need to learn some lessons from this including the united states. and i think one of the lessons that's been levied at china is the need to share information as quickly as possible about the disease, and certainly there have been reports that that wasn't done in that case.

but, look, disease threats start anywhere and we know, for example, that the 1918 influenza -- or not actually sure exactly where it started we know it likely was not spain even though it's been called the spanish influenza. but the first case really identified there was here in the united states. obviously the h1n1 influenza pandemic started in mexico. so we need to be prepared that every country could be -- a virus is going to pop out anywhere and it doesn't respect borders, it doesn't carry a passport. so that means we need to come together with our partners including china, including is the who, including all of our partners to find better ways to prevent, detect, and respond to these threats as early as possible. so thanks for your question. host: during the transition between the obama and the trump white house, were you part of any table top discussions or war games -- when i say war games really just mapping out

different sken airs i don't see, in which this was discussed? >> i was part of the transition exercise that took place at tepid of the obama administration. and i was one of the people who worked with our homeland security adviser lisa monaco who really headed up that effort and our national security adviser susan ry. that was mandated by legislation so the bush administration did this between bush and obama, the obama administration did this between obama and trump. and what this is is an opportunity for the white house and for the cabinet officials from the administration that's leaving to pass on their concerns about some of the top threats that they either face to the homeland of the united states or top threats that they're worried that the next administration will certainly face and where they think there needs to be a lot of emphasis. so within that exercise that happened which brought together the cabinets from the obama administration and then the presumptive nominees from the

trump administration, there were several that actually a relatively small number -- i shouldn't say several, there are three specific areas that were emphasized and one of them was pandemics. in that scenario we actuary looked at a pandemic influence flunesa and had our experts really brief that group including the outgoing c.d.c. director, including the outgoing assistant secretary for preparedness and response. and they talked about the areas where they really felt that we needed to be prepared for a coming pandemic. one of the things that made that really poignant at that moment in time is that the h 7 n 9 influenza virus which occurred first in humans in 2013, there was a large number of cases in humans that year in 2017 as the administrations were transitioning. and so there was a concern a real live virus that people were track wrg it had a high

degree of mortality but has not and still has not yet gained the ability to transmit efficiently between people. so there was a concern and we wanted to pass that on. i've stayed into the new plrks and worked for the homeland security adviser that took over the helm from lisa. ost: back to your phone calls. san diego, good morning. caller: question and comment. question would be could you please ask her to explain to the audience who are listening the difference between mortality and the more bidty rate which i think -- moibmoishtty rate which i think the public doesn't understand. i'm an independent. however, it is very unfortunate that the protesters showing up that are being displayed up on the cnn, ms nbc showing up to

these rallies with weapons totally, totally disgusted at that. whether you're a trump supporter or not. that it really sends out a message of violence instead of having to figure this thing out of the virulence of this pandemic that's going on. what i've been hearing a lot from the bureaucrats is that we are looking into this and looking into that. what i'm afraid of and what i've been tracking is that the country itself is being taken over by the tech knocksy any more it's no longer a democracy. and as far as ms. cameron that just explained that we'll no longer be shaking hands and we're going to be going by the way of india and other countries, i think is absolutely appalling that someone should suggest that coming up on 68 years old and

i've fought in two wars and i'll be damned if i'll be changing my life of a virus that's going to have to be changing. people live and people die. and that's just the fact of life. and people will have to learn to accept that. unfortunately, america itself, the country that i fought for and grew up in was asleep at the -- host: we'll leave it there and get a response. guest: well, thanks first and foremost thanks for your service. i really appreciate that what you've done for our country. and i think you're certainly expressing frustration with this public health emergency that many people have. first i want to say to your question about morbidty and mortality your first question that yes mortality is the number of people or the case rate of people that die from the disease relative to those who are infected. a the infection rate is not

case rate so there are more infected than who will die. what more bidty means is the people who are affected not necessarily the number including the people who die but also the people who recover. so there are going to be way more people as steve mentioned with the statistics earlier about the numb of cases versus the number of deaths. i do think that the number of deaths from this disease is quite high and it would have been much, much higher in this country if we had not instituted the social distancing measures. and that's one of the big challenges in public health is that you have to really react and overreact, really, in order to be able to prevent the worst-scace scenario from happening. and then when it doesn't it looks like you did too much and i think that's what we just have to be prepared for with public health. i do think that we need to be looking at public health in an interconnected way working with

partners around the world, including india, including china, and including europe and including canada, all partners. these disease threats are not political and thai don't respect our socio economic and geopolitical boundries, and we know that a disease threat anywhere in the world is a threat here. and so i do think that we need to be working closely together with those partners. the last thing that i would say is that i think you're right that it is unfortunate certainly people have the right to protest in this country and that's one of the things that makes this country great. but i definitely am very concerned about the public health risks for the people who have to actually make sure that those protests are safe and making sure that they the police officials and first responders who have to be there are well protected from potential transmission of this

viret. and i really want to see people take more care to not bring weapons and turn these types of protests into political rallies or statements about that could turn into violence. i'm quite worried about that, and that really underscores the need for a unified federal response that explains clearly and crisply to everyone in america what the gates are for reopening the number of test that is we need to be able to get back to more people in contact with each other. and then finally just really clear communication that we are going to be essential services are already reopening, people are going to be teleworking, they need to continue to telework. and mass gatsdzergs really aren't going to be happening and shouldn't be happening, safely, for a long period of time, frankly potentially through the summer. i think if we were more clear about that and explained what people will and won't be able to do, it might be helpful with some of that frustration. host: we mentioned these numbers in the first hour but

covid-19 numbers from the labor department and the c.d.c. the number one killer in april with just over 58,000 deaths, followed by heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease, accidents, strokes and anyou'risms and alzheimer's'. the numbers from the c.d.c. official count published this morning in the "washington post." good morning from virginia. caller: good morning. hope you will help me with my dilemma. the amount of deaths in africa with the exception of south africa is very low compared to the rest of the world. the other day c-span guest stated that the reason behind that is because of the lack of testing. however, the death rates are very, very low in africa. so my question is what exactly

is going on? thank you. host: thank you, sir. guest: that is an excellent question. it's actually one i wish i had a perfect answer for you. i don't. i'm actually speaking next week with the head of africa c.d.c., an excellent colleague who is working on the continent on fighting covid-19 across all countries, and with the african union he's lo. in order to ask him some of these questions myself. so what i've learned so far is very similar to what you said, which is there's a couple of problems that are occurring. one -- and john just wrote a piece that i commend to you. i i think it was in nature but i can double check. that looked at the access of the african continent to tests. and it's really a huge challenge that they are not able to access test kits in a way consistent with being able

to test enough people. so there is definitely underreporting of covid-19. so that's first. second, it is possible that some of the underreporting for death rate is simply a function of lack of reporting capability in general and just not being able to know what people are dying of and there being so many confounding other factors and disease threats in many countries on the continent. and so the answer is it is one of the big con understood rums that the global health and global community are facing and i think the most important thing from a global health security professional perspective is that we get ahead of this as much as we can in africa that we shouldn't count on there not being as many cases in the future on that continue nenlt and that we shouldn't count on the fact that there aren't already a large number of undiagnosed cases now. so i would really like to see the united states partnering closely with our partners in africa and the african union to

get more diagnostic test kits not only here but there so that we have a better sense of what's going on. and then of course in order to save lives all around the world. so very important question. one that i wish there was a more clear answer to and one that i believe should be a huge focus for our own government to solve. host: paul lein, thank you for waiting. caller: first time i'm calling. good morning. i have a question about the malaria drug that donald trump pushed quite heavily to use. was there any success with that at all? i didn't really hear any. and another thing, was that made by a french company? and if so i also heard that donald trump had a financial interest in the company. host: thanks for the question. beth are you aware of any of these points? guest: the one thing that i would say is that there have been studies of hired clorne and my understanding and please

take this for what it's worth i have not heavily researched the clinical trials that have been ongoing with hired quinn the drug you're speaking about is that it has not shutdown substantial benefit. i'm not aware of the different companies that produce it nor of any interest financially that the president might have in those companies. and i would just say that it's really important to look at the science and also to understand that medication is used for a wide array of other things including malaria, including lupus. and so there were a lot of concerns about the run on that drug. but i am not aware of a financial interest this that company. host: what about remdesivir and what do you know about it? how significant is that as a treatment for covid-19? guest: the rem disvir studies do look promising. and you've seen probably the news and many of your callers have probably seen the news that it has been effective

enough that they have now given it to the people who are otherwise on the plass blow in those clinical trials. so that does look promising. there's still work to do before the -- we know how effective it is in all different types of patients. but i am encouraged by that. and i do think that therapeutics hopefully will become one way that we're able to help the most at-risk patients for covid-19 to be able to see a significant morbidty. their i have been reading through some of the o information last week there was a lack of clarity if i'm reading correctly that rem disvir is not -- they're not completely sure that it does cut down the whole number of deaths, but it does help people who have been infected with recovery and makes it rate more quick. but in terms of whether it will

ultimately cut down the number of ultimate deaths i think there's still some information that they need to gather on that. host: beth cameron, vice president for programs at the nuclear threat initiative, also served as part of the national security council during the final year of the obama white house and trump transition joining us via zoom. chris, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. just very quickly. he hughes of hydroxychloroquine -- the use might be why the low numbers. but my two points are that china silenced the doctors and failed to inform the world thing. ter the devoss my second point is this. and in march 25, pick a number out of the air, there were only

675 deaths now there's 67,000. march 25 mitt published an article that based on autopsies that showed people are dying because their capillaries are clogging up. you can see that in the covid toes looks almost like frostbite. so we've known since march 25 that the reason people are dying they're getting organ failure because wherever it's expressed you're getting coagulation. so it seems like -- i know in previous research tissue activated has been used to block clots, it's used in strokes and heart attacks but for some reason the protocols say you can only use it after you find a blood clot in the brain or an embolism stuff like that. it seems we could have saved many, many deaths if we had changed the protocols.

i know mt. sinai used hospital used tpa but found they had to use heparin to continue the blood thinning effects. host: i'll leave it there. but would that have made a difference? guest: it's a great question and here i'll self-disclose i'm not a medical doctor so i'm not comfortable providing information. i think we're learning a lot about this virus day by day. i think that the information that's been coming out about blood clotting is extremely interesting. i'm following it but i'm actually not sure. the only thing that i did want to respond to that i do have information about with respect to the caller's question is that we did have the sequence of the virus released by the chinese scientists in january. now, look, definitely there should have been information coming out as soon as these clusters occurred with the potentially pandemic novel coronavirus but i'm fairly certain that the sequence was released before the vavose

event and that allowed every country to look at making diagnostic tests. host: hampton, virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. i've got a couple of questions. so hold on a minute. i was just on this morning to get statistics before i called. the regular flu from c.d.c. says 62,000 deaths already this year. and we are at 58 thoirks i believe it is for the covid-19. am i right? host: it's actually 66,000 for covid-19. caller: ok we already have and we don't know actually if the 62,000 is correct because i have five family members that are in the medical field and yes they're from seattle to alabama to florida to virginia. doctors are, whether it's a heart attack or not, saying put

down covid if they are in the hospital. and that's not giving you a very good statistic on the actual death count for covid or for the flu. and i am 79 years old. i was around for the mcelhinney which was -- h1n1 which was horrendous but we didn't shut the country down. they closed some schools but they did not shut the country down. so to me in all reality this is not a covid-19. it's a political virus and it's going to continue to be that way until the election because the democrats are so desperate they will do anything use anything project anything to try and ruin the election. me that's what's really got upset more than anything. host: thanks for the call. we will get a response. beth cameron.

guest: so i think that it's unfortunate if social distancing is being perceived as a political move. there are a number of prominent republicans who worked in multiple administrations including significantly the george w. bush administration where there actually a lot of the work that was done to determine how social distancing could be put in place the way that we're doing it now was actually pioneers by experts in that administration. and has been absolutely supported by officials who served in that administration and also in the trump administration. so i don't think that this is political. i think instead this virus has some significant differences from h1n1 and from influenza in that each person can transmit it to more people. it has a higher mortality rate, the ability to cause death especially in people who are older or have underlying medical conditions. and so i think when we look at the numbers of zetsdzes, first

it's been the leading cause of death as steve said earlier for the last several days. it's been also i think one really important detail is that the number of deaths that we're seeing is what we're seeing with social distancing in place. if social distancing has not been put in place and that was really the concern was that the hospital system would become overwhelmed and we see more deaths not only from covid-19 but from everything else. i do though want to say that one issue that you raised on the call, which i think is really important for people to pay attention to, is that the number of deaths from any infectious disease threat, from flu, from covid-19, from anything that requires a large surge in cases or a large surge in hospital capacity, is that the death toll is not just the number of people that die from the disease. it's the number of people who die from everything else because they're not able to actually access medical care. and so there are a few

different ways that people actually die as a result of a pandemic threat. so the reason that we're undergoing social distancing is first to decrease the number of cases of covid-19, but most importantly the reason that we're doing it is to make sure our hospital system can stay open for everyone, for everyone that needs to be in the hospital for heart attacks for strokes and for covid-19. so i don't think that social distancing was a political move and i think that it's unfortunate if it's politicized in that way. host: and this map from the c.d.c. look at where the pandemic is, the so-called hot spots. hey include california, texas, illinois, michigan, florida, pennsylvania, new york, new jersey, and massachusetts. pat from nebraska. good morning. caller: hi, guys. i have a question about the numbers here. the united states has about 4.25% of the world's population

and -- this is what i need from the expert. shouldn't we have about 4 difficulty 25% of the deaths and the cases in the world? and yet we have 25% of the world's deaths in the world and to me that's a massive fail that nobody's talking about. am i right? am i wrong? i find that really disturbing. thank you for your expertise. i appreciate it. guest: thanks so much for your question. so i think you can look at the population rate and try to determine who might be most impacted. but with a disease threat what really matters is where the disease spreads, who has the first -- where the a first cases come from. so we see lots and lots of cases in wuhan and china. then we see cases all over the world connected by air to the first places where the first cases arrive. and so where the disease begins to spread is a function not only as a population and the

density in the country where it arrives but also how connect it had country is to the place where the disease started. more importantly, though, what the number of cases in the united states and the large number of case that is we're seeing i think is mostly a function is the fact that we had community transmission of this disease and we're unable to contain it early on. there are other countries that were able to contain it more quickly using rapid testing, contact tracing to find out everyone in contact with those people, and then to be able to quarantine those people, test them, and isolate those, and wash rinse and repeat that cycle until the virus was contained. so it's not a function of how many people are actually in the count rifment it's a function of how the virus is spreading, where it's spreading and how quickly and well you're actually able to contain it. so i think the reasons that we have the large numbers of cases here are because we had large scale spread and were unable to stop it early. host: and again this region by

region map courtesy of johns hopkins university. the darker the coloring the greater density of covid-19 cases in those stoys or regions. gary from indiana. aller: good morning. i'm going to allude to a phrase from the 80s initially to start off on this. it ain't over until it's over. and a lot of people seem to be passing this off casually like it's just going to be a come and go thing, no big deal. like for one example the n.f.l., they're not doing any planning on postponing anything. it's going to be, the schedule is going to go on. let me tell you what there's numbers as far as the deaths and the cases are still on the rise, there's no vaccine, come on. this is more of a driving force than we -- some of us seem to

real combries. and everything -- realize. and everything that needs to be done to flatten the curve just needs to be done. plain and simple. you can have false hope never got anybody anywhere. plain bottom line fact. so we need to deal with this the right way. and if we don't have enough facts we need to get the facts down. that's all i'm going to say. host: thank you. beth cameron. guest: thanks. i really agree with you. i think that having the facts is absolutely the most important and being straight with the american people that right now we're not yet in a position to be able to contain the disease if we relax social distancing measures. and we know that we're not because when you look at that map and you look at other map that are on line and available that show where those particular places with hot spots are -- what you want to see is you want to see the case counts declining and you also

want to see the percent positive tests in a really low range. the who says 10%, my cletion at jorget say 3%. that a -- georgetown say 3%. that means all tested, all health care workers have access to test. essential service providers can be tested. hat and we want to see the results low. that tells you it's circulating but each person is not infecting one other person. you want each person to be infecting less than one other person and that's how the case count actually go down. so i think we're not there yet and i think we need to be honest with people about that and we're not going to be seeing -- we shouldn't be seeing people gathering on the beaches or in stadiums until each location is in the country is able to do that. also importantly we're connected by air, by interstate

transport, and so we really need to start dealing with how that is going to be managed as some states begin to relax those measures in different ways than other states. so i'm actually really nervous about that patchwork reopening that we're seeing right now. and to your point about what we're seeing with the virus already and what could have been, many experts who i trust around the world were predicting at the beginning of this without any measures in place that we could be seeing as many as 50 million people dead around the world. that's essentially the same number we saw with the 1918 influenza. if you do the straight math looking at this disease's infection the way that it's transmibble and its mortality rate as an average, you would get to those numbers. so the measures we're putting in place are having an impact for sure and the numbers being what they are are terrible in our country but they would be much, much higher if we weren't doing what we're doing now. and that's a hard thing to

explain to people when they're not seeing that impact because they are doing what they should be doing, which is staying home and not contacting others. host: before we get to our next call you are with the nuclear threat initiative. what is it? guest: an international security organization. we work to reduce biological and nuclear catastrophic risks working with partners around the world. host: joe eff in new york. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you. my question has to do with the transition from the obama administration to the trump administration, specifically michael lewis' book the fifth risk. were you involved in that transition? and what he said in that book is that accurately portrayed and is that what you experienced when you did transition? much. thanks very

so i was involved in the transition between the obama and the trump administration. rather than commenting on what the book said and how i experienced -- what the book -- sorry. rather than commenting on what the book said i'll tell you what i experienced because i think it's really important for callers and listeners to know exactly how a transition happens. and you can compare it to what's said in the book as well, which i've also seen. so i was a civil servant in the transition between administrations. and my emphasis was on making sure that our work, the u.s. government's work here not specific to any administration, on biological risks and threats was accurately transitioned from the obama administration to the trump administration. and so i briefed the incoming homeland security adviser, the incoming national security adviser, and then h.r. mcmaster

when he took over that role several weeks later. and i sent memos to them and those -- that information i believe was also likely relayed to the president although i did not preef him myself in person. my experience with the transition was that it was an extraordinary transition. i don't say that politically. the obama administration wanted to beat the mark that the bush administration left. the bush administration left a super high bar. they had a fantastic transition where they provided excellent information to the obama administration. that was widely reported in the obama white house. and we wanted to meet that mark or beat it and have a successful transition and this wasn't political and we're all pat rts. on our end we performed a very successful transition from my perspective. on the receiving end i had a lot of support for the issues that i worked on. in particular the homeland

security advisor who has been quite vocal, no longer in the trump administration, has been quite vocal about the preparedness of pandemic preparedness. he worked in the bush administration during sars and hile we were worried about h 5 n 1 so he did quite a lot of work on pandemic preparedness and was very interested in what i had to say and maintaining the office and direct rat that i ran. so from my perspective the transition was very smooth and i was in my op ed pretty surprised when our office was dissolved and changed approximately a year later. so my experience was good. i will say that there were a lot of questions about how the transition was going to run. for my issues it ran smoothly. i definitely did see from my colleagues' perspective some of the other challenges with that transition in terms of not having a lot of briefing time

with incoming officials. and that was also true for me. most of my briefing time happened after the officials took their roles. host: brian from washington state. caller: good morning. i'm so glad i got to talk to you. i called our state governor's office last week and i requested that they make public notice that if we go out in our shutdown mode and make a purchase in our grocery store or go to the pharmacy or whatever essential purchases we need to make, that we keep our receipt so that we have the time and date and the cash yirs identification number. so if i am testing positive later or i hear that the business i dealt with has a positive test, i can make a reference to the time and date and that person that checked me out in the store with their cash shirs number. and i made a request that we go

with the public notice that people have a zip lock bagie and they keep all their receipts while we're in hutdown mode if we have a test and we are positive and then we have to go back and trace our contacts, that receipt seems like it would be very vital for us people that don't rely on our phones, that don't have smartphones, that are snail mailers and landliners. host: thanks for the call. we'll get a response. guest: i think that's an excellent idea. and i think that what it does is it really highlights what people should be and can be empowered to do themselves. so people aren't power lines in this pandemic. -- powerless in this pandemic. we can trace our contacts to the best of our ability. what we're doing on social distancing is protecting each other, our health care workers and those that are at risk including the elderly, including people with medical

conditions that would be more likely to die if they contracted this disease. so your idea is an excellent one and it's one that i hadn't heard. it's simple, it's something that everybody can do. and i definitely commend it. in addition to those of us that are using smartphone technology to track our locations and to be able to know where we've been i think that's a simple wonderful suggestion that all americans could take to heart. with et me conclude where we begin. what the summer is going to look like. from your perspective how do you answer that? guest: first of all, we don't know exactly what's going to happen with the heat of the summer. there's been a lot of speculation about it and i think honestly i haven't seen in evidence to suggest that the disease is going to go away. if you think about it as thousands of tiny embers out there who still have the disease, if you look at the map

that you showed earlier. we know there's still a lot of embers, people infected with covid-19. so if we were to open up and to think about social distancing relaxing as an open/shut endeavor and we were to open quickly and all go to the beaches and go back to our concerts and ball games, those embers have an opportunity to spread and spread quickly and to turn into raging forest fires. and we know from watching what happens with this disease that's likely to happen. i don't think there's any evidence to suggest that won't happen just because it's summer and it's warmer in most parts of america. so i think what the summer is going to look like if we don't want that to happen, if we don't want it to end up in a situation with many more cases in august moving into september when we start to see increases in the flu what the summer should look like is that people who can telework should continue to telework. essential services providers

should all continue their work and be able to be tested. there will probably be some great experiments run by businesses around the country about how to safely reopen parts of their employees' -- of their businesses with social distancing measures in place. but i actually think that for a large number of americans if we want to avoid that inferno that we're all trying to keep from happening before a vaccine is available, the summer is going to look a lot like it looks now. and people are going to get more comfortable wearing masks when they go out in public, more comfortable with wiping things down when they're delivered at the door, and more comfortable socially distancing at every opportunity. so that's what i think. and i'm not -- host: i've got to jump in because we have to leave it at that but thank you for joining us from here in washington, d.c. a veteran of the national security council joining us via

zoom. guest: thank you. host: we want to take a look back 50 years ago today at the demonstrations that took place on the college campuses and the shooting that took place at kent state university. it was sparked in part because of a speech on april 30, 1970 by president nixon. here's a portion of the speech. we'll come back with a southight, americans and vietnamese units will attack the headquarters for the entire communist military operation in south vietnam. this key control center has been violation ofed in cambodia's neutrality. this is not an invasion of cambodia. the areas in which these attacks will be launched are completely occupied and controlled by north vietnamese sources. our purpose is not to occupied

areas. once enemy forces are driven out of these sanctuaries and one star military supplies are destroyed, we will withdraw. these actions are in no way directed to the security interests of any nation. antigovernment that chooses to use these actions as a pretext for harming relations with the united states will be doing so on its own responsibility and initiative and we will draw the appropriate conclusions. reasons foryou the my decision. a majority of the american people, a majority of you listening to me are for the withdrawal of our forces from vietnam. the action i have taken tonight is indispensable for the continuing success of that withdrawal program. a majority of the american people want to end this war

rather than have a drag on. the action i have taken tonight will serve that purpose. a majority of the american people want to keep the casualties of our brave men in vietnam at an absolute minimum. the action i take tonight is essential if we are to accomplish that goal. for thethis action not purpose of expanding the war into cambodia, but for the purpose of ending the war in vietnam and winning the just peace we all desire. my fellow americans, we live in an age of anarchy, both abroad and at home. we see mindless attacks on all the great institutions that have been created by free civilizations in the last 500 years. even here in the united states, great universities are being systematically destroyed. small nations all over the world

find themselves under attack from within and from without. if when the chips are down, the nation,most powerful the united states of america, acts like a pitiful, helpless child, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world. oft: that speech from april 1970 by president richard nixon that led to the escalation of conflict in cambodia and southeast asia, and also led to tensions on college campuses around the country, including kent state university. one of the students who witnessed what happened in 1970 was laura davis and she reflected on what she saw and what she heard. [video clip] >> all of the people i was friends with that year had been

at the demonstration. us hadly all of witnessed the shootings take place. campus was tothe be evacuated in three hours. i had a friend who had a car, which was unusual at that time, hardly anyone had cars. my friend did. we drove home. line ofer seeing a hundreds and hundreds of cars trying to get into kent. becauseo get into kent, they were filled with parents, and my mother was in one of those cars. the news was broadcast on the radio immediately. a lot of students were from out of state, but a lot of students were from the immediate area. my mother did not own a car, herself, but she was with her friend and they jumped in her car and she was trying to get

into kent to figure out what happened and to pick me up. they had blockaded the city at that point. at least coming into kent down route 43. beforehome, i was some my mother got back on, and around 6:00, my father walked in the back door and i was sitting at the kitchen table, and he saw me and the first words out of his mouth were, they should have shot all of them. i said to him, don't you know them? one of those people would have been me. he went into the other room. relate that part of my experience because it was representative of the times. his attitude was the attitude of many people, the attitude of some people even today. there was a shift in public opinion.

one of the things i have been doing, because of the design work going on for the may 4 this inner center and the creation of the panel and other elements of the walking tour that will be unveiled and dedicated on may 3, i know specifically, the ways in which that change took place. one of the important ways that may 4 was the day the war came home was the congress really rallied and really came together and began withdrawing in very documentable, very real ways its support for nixon's war in southeast asia. withdrawn from cambodia within weeks after nixon's announcement on april 30, which is what set off the demonstrations at kent and other

universities around the country. it did take a while for congress to fully pass enough special provisions so that funding was eventually completely cut off before the war. that process began specifically in response to may 4. there was an unprecedented pushing through of a constitutional amendment that lowered the voting age to 18, which was a strong point of contention among college students and other youth, who -- oldnted the slogan enough to fight, old enough to vote. davis back inra 2010. if you are on the campus of kent state university, there is a museum dedicated to what happened 50 years ago on may 4, 1970. to give you a sense of what life

was like 50 years ago and what that campus went through. the book is titled "67 shots: kent state and the end of american innocence" and joining us from his home in virginia is the author of that book, howard means. thank you for being with us. guest: thank you for having me. host: what happened and why did for students die and nine others were injured? ultimate sense of this, the toxic orders of the 1960's sewed together at kent state university at the first weekend in may of 1970. it was an age of hate, and age of distrust, a generational divide. museum that laura davis was talking about does a wonderful job of capturing all of this. it has a wonderful walk you can -- and the more

immediate sense, -- excuse me. speech richard nixon's on intimidation, on that thursday in which he announced an extension of the war in cambodia after saying he was going to bring home 150,000 troops. that was a time bomb waiting to iraq and it did the next evening on the streets of kent. demonstration, there were some windows broken and some trash cans set on fire, but the real problem with that demonstration was it convinced the mayor of kent that outside agitators had taken over the campus. the whole thrust of the doghouse whistling from richard nixon and the governor's mansion was

outside agitators, outside agitators. there was a 1:30 call made to the governor's office saying that were outside agitators, asking for help, and that is how the guard ended up there and the guard change the whole equation. host: let me ask you about the governor. kill, issue a shoot to was that a directive from the state capital? where did that come from? guest: i don't think there was ever a directive. however, consisted of a bunch of untrained guys, many of them about the same age as the students and the people fighting in vietnam. 1s, which isrrying m a sniper rifle lethal to 1000 feet, to do crowd control. wounds -- anyone

who was hit the next day in a vulnerable spot was dead. there was no question when an m1 hit you. there were untrained guys carrying guns. campussident of the never asked -- nobody asked. there was never a shoot to kill order that i know of. there is a lot of debate about that, what happened in the heat of things before the shots were fired. -- thee governor did guard happened to be in akron, controlling things during a teamster strike. it was easy for them to get there but it meant they were tired. they had been in akron for for five days. -- for four or five days. the guard took over the campus

without really asking the administration if they could take over the campus. the administration never protected the campus as they should have, they never protected their students. a combination of volatile circumstances all happening at once. the students had no leadership. the university leadership went awol at the moment they were needed the most. the guard was terribly directed. office, while not having issued a shoot to kill order, was pressing very hard to make this a crackdown on outside agitators and crime because the governor was running for senate of the time. he had used up his terms as -- ther and he was in day after the shootings was the republican primary. with ain contention

longtime senator. the thursday before all this began, the day nixon made his poll had him winning in the primary. he needed southern ohio to come on strong from a more conservative part of the state. votes the day0 after the shooting. day, at the end of the four students died. tells about those students. book wasiting the heartbreaking for all kinds of reasons part none of it was more heartbreaking than the four who died. cross and jeffrey miller were active in the demonstrations. jeffrey miller was near to the

guard when this happened. you have to assume he was targeted specifically. allison had been prominent in the weekend demonstrations. she was a very attractive woman and she was beautiful. she was beautiful in the 1970's way. feel fairly certain she had not been targeted. oeder had just transferred. he was in the rotc. he was on the basketball team. arms ands books in his he stopped by because he was curious. he was not a demonstrator. m1 bullet in an the person next to him

remembered him being picked up off the ground. the most heartbreaking of all euer who was a speech therapy major. she was passing between classes. she was doing what students were supposed to do on a campus where classes should not have been open. she was standing next to a friend at first. the shooting starts. her friend says get down on the ground and he falls down with her. the shooting stops. holeoks over and she has a in her throat and he tries to stick his fist in the hole in her throat. it is a heartbreaking story. radical, hes not

just happened to be there. tocalled all his teachers let them know he would not be in class. spine and wasthe without use of his legs. host: we want to thank kent state university for providing us with many of the pictures for a look at what happened back 50 years ago. killed, nine were others were injured. howard means is joining us from his home in virginia. if you were in college in the late 1960's, or the early 1970's, please give us a call at (202) 748-8002. the other phone lines are divided regionally. another question is, why did they have live ammunition? guest: that is a really good question. terrible judgment. the mitigating fact for the

guard -- they get their armaments from the armories. they get their rifles from the armories. inrything else was used vietnam. all that was left were world war ii m1's. things would have been so much better if they had shotguns loaded with bird shot. had world war ii sniper rifles. tried to thing, they do crowd control with tear gas. they fired a lot of teargas, but they misjudged their stock of teargas. the monday after the demonstration moves on over this pursuing,he guard is firing off teargas, the guard

runs out of teargas. as they are coming back up the hill, just before they turned to do the shooting, they have no teargas left. they are getting hit with a certain amount of debris. wood,, pieces of initially the guard had pushed them down over the hill into a construction site. guard hadrry, the marched themselves down into a cul-de-sac next to a construction site. stuff theys found could pick up and throw, so there was a certain amount of injuredbut nobody was badly enough to justify this. it is interesting to look at the deposition of the guardsmen the next day, they answered exactly what the commanders told him to say. aroundre deposed again

1973. and again in 1975. as you read these depositions one after the other from the same guardsmen, you could see how they are rearranging events in their minds to justify their actions. these are the guardsmen who actually shot rifles, did not necessarily hit anyone, but they shot the rifles. the debris gets more and more lethal. insidee seeing this from a gas mask. when you are hot and tired and everything else. you have to have some sympathy for the guard because they were terribly led. ast: was anyone charged as result of these killings? guest: no. a number of students were charged. they had to appear in the local court. no guardsmen were charged. there was civil action taken

against the guards. the original ask was for something like $40 million. the settlement -- i don't have the exact figure -- was about $650,000. went to the most severely injured. distributed among the others. about $30,000to per person, all of that paid by the taxpayers of ohio. host: this is the headline in one of the iconic photographs from the cleveland plain dealer. how big of a story was this nationally in 1970? guest: it was absolutely huge. the story unfolded in such a complicated way because the first accounts had the guardsmen

being shot, not the students being shot. it was chaotic the way information flowed. there is a wonderful scene in my book where some people are sitting in the backyard and someone is working on the roof and he shouts down to them that he is listening to his radio and said, oh my god, they shot the guardsmen, they shot the guardsmen. guardsmen were more terrified initially than the parents of students. but once it became clear the students had been shot. of photo you are looking at mary ann vecchio is one of the iconic photos of the entire antiwar movement, of domestic american photos, it might be the most powerful. she was a 14-year-old runaway from florida who just happened to be there at that time,

standing next to jeffrey miller when he was hit. that photo always reminds me of a painting, the screen. that frozen moment. a woman happened to be next to her and she tells about this in she said sheory, tried to comfort her. she was like a block of ice, she was frozen and cold. it was an emotional book. host: the book by airgas, howard means, "67 shots: kent state and the end of american innocence". first up from orlando, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you so much for taking my call. i was a freshman at the university of missouri in columbia, missouri in the spring of 1970. i remember all of those

unfortunate days. what i wanted to ask your guest, my understanding of the time was the thinking that cooler heads did not prevail on either side. a couple items, would it have been possible if the students not continued with demonstrations, things might have been different? also, there was a story that there was a professor that helped to move students out of the line of fire. because of his efforts, many students did live. thank you so much and god bless you, sir. host: thank. guest: you are right on on all the subjects. cooler heads did not prevail. nobody had a plan b. they were all heading toward this disaster. the students did not have particularly good leadership -- this is ironic in a way -- the students for a democratic society, the most radical

element on campus, had been banned the previous year because of actions in 1969. they knew how to run demonstrations. a guy makes this point very powerfully, they knew how to run demonstrations. the students were in a sense lead her list and reacting -- in a sense leaderless. the university leadership did not do what they should have done. everybody knew there was going to be a demonstration at noon on monday -- there was no question about it. the administration said they were not sure about it so they sent the president and all of the top people were all starting derbye lunch at the brown restaurant while students and

the guard were there. that was a failure of leadership, a failure of cooler heads, no doubt about it. the guard had no alternative, and what they did from a strategic point of view was stupid, to march themselves over a hill and into a cul-de-sac. to your third point, the guy you are talking about is glenn frank, he is a geology professor, he was the hero of the story. after the shootings, the students go back to the other side of this hill. several thousand students were over there by then. the guard is back at the far end of the comments. they have regrouped, they have rearmed.

insane with are anger, testosterone. x onof them are painting their chest and talking about charging the guard. if they have charged, hundreds would have died, they would have been mowed down. three teachers, including glenn frank, try to talk them back. glenn frank becomes deeply emotional and his speech to the students -- glenn frank wasn't excimer. he has a flat top -- glenn frank was an ex marine. just pleads, he is crying, you are going to be slaughtered wholesale. the students finally back off.

that bursts the bubble. experience -- his son agreed it broke glenn frank. he was never the same again. a mystery whybeen there was no statue of glenn frank on the kent state campus. host: we have a photo of what looks like with the students fleeing the area where they were being shots fired. davis, who was a student at kent state as she reflected 10 years ago. [video clip] >> i looked out over this scene dozens what seemed like of clusters of people standing in groups, looking down at the

ground. seeing in what i was this huge scene was people standing over bodies on the ground. over tople did was go the slope and stage a sit-in. it was like being in a class. people were sitting in rows. what made it more like a class for me was my geology instructor, glenn frank, was pacing back and forth in front --the rows of people and he as he did on the stage in cartwright hall, when i was taking his geology class. but, the difference was this time he was crying, he was pleading with us to leave because he was convinced, and he convinced the students who were staging the sit-in that if we

did not leave, the guard would engage in further violence against the students, so we did what he asked us to do and we followed him to the other side of the commons. the people i was sitting with, we made a plan and we decided we would follow glenn frank across the commons, but when we got to the other side, we each chose a weection we would run in and figured that if we ran in different directions, that if the guard started shooting again, they would not be able to kill everybody and somebody would be alive to tell the story. host: laura davis was a freshman in 1970 and that oral history was put together by kent state university. nancy is on the phone from california. good morning. caller: good morning and thank you so much mr. means. i was 12.

my brother was in college at the university of texas. my parents were against the war. what laura davis said when her father walked in and saw her and said they should have killed , because i just gasped i thought she was going to say that her father would say, thank god you were all right. i feel so fortunate my parents were against the war. question to mr. means is, maybe you cover this already, did this turn the country against the war even more? host: thank you, nancy. guest: it is a very good question. i think laura davis made the point earlier that it had. there is another side to that. think the war was winding

down, and nixon would have liked to have brought the troop some, but he did not know how to do it. tet offensive, things started sliding backward. -- itinitely polarized further polarized a polarized nation. do, i think it had a lot to with 18-year-olds finally getting to vote. energized a fading movement in a way. radicalized the democratic party so much that in 1972, they nominated george mcgovern, who did not have a snowballs chance of winning, when they could have nominated someone who could have actually given nixon a run for

his money. in a way, they almost guaranteed a second term for nixon. of course, he blew the opportunity. it is a two-sided thing. time was a high school teacher in washington, d.c. students were juniors and seniors. one of the reasons it affected me so strongly then was it could have been my students. they were one year removed from the students i was teaching. i was not all that far removed. the story that laura told was repeated time and again. students going home from kent, being told someone wished they had shot them all. there, talked about a student coming back --

the campus was cleared. about two days later, this student shows up and sits down in his living room and he is crying. the teacher said what is wrong? this student had gone home as laura did, he knocked on the door and the front door was locked. he knocked harder and the mail slot pushes open and he hears his parents voices saying, we never want to hear you again. that broke my heart. stephanie is on the phone from long beach, california. thank you for waiting. good morning. caller: good morning. me ins very painful to many ways. so many disappointments. there was so much hope at the same time. the injustice of sending boys off to war who could not vote was something that was clearly

-- i was 20 years old back then. i was at school at nyu. authorities, the whoever they are, was willing to fortheir own children die protesting a war that in so many ways was unjust. this came after the assassinations. there was so much hope to change the world for the better and then all of these things just crushed that hope. lying and resigning before he could be impeached and then pardon, that was the end of hope in a way for so many of us. pigr that, i retreated to a farm and decided i would go back to nature because the politics i

was so active in were so crushing. it was so emotional at the time. emotions likehose a 20-year-old. it was just crushing. host: thank you. let me add to her point. parentsrations of the with world war ii and the korean conflict, the assassination of president kennedy and dr. martin luther king, how did all of this envelop into 1970? the mood of the country, students and parents? this toxice was all flow from out of the 1960's that happen to come together. in a way, it is important. kent state is part of the story here.

if these events had happened at berkeley or at columbia, at the university of wisconsin, where there was entrenched student leadership, and where the university had some experience with serious protest, i think the result would have been different. a 21,000 person -- i don't mean this as an insult -- the students were naive, a lot of them. a lot of them were studying to be high school teachers, that is originally why kent state came to exist. as a 25-year-old teacher then myself, i had a sense of how naive teachers were. believedhe students that the guardsmen, at least initially, the guardsmen were there to help them, protect them. they could not imagine for the

life of them that the guard would actually shoot them. i think students at a place like 1970, wouldmay 4, not have that naivety. that plays into this. the combination of diameter, horrible forces -- the toxication of naivety, forces, there was a time bomb that was going to explode somewhere and it exploded, unfortunately, at kent and killed four students that should never have been killed. host: jerry lewis was a member of the faculty and he reflected what he saw. [video clip] >> we were worried about the bayonets on the rifles. we had no inclination the guns were loaded, which of course they were. as we were beginning to walk down the hill from taylor hall

to where the activists were, the national guard started coming across the comments and began to tear gas the demonstrators, the observers. hall, up past taylor turned left and went into the parking lot. as i got to the parking lot, i saw a student some distance off laying on the ground. it turned out to be a blind student who had been teargas. i gave him some first aid. i was standing there. -- theame up the hill guardsmen fired. i had been in the army so i knew those were real bullets. sound,ravels faster than so i dove for cover behind a bush and was on the ground quick enough and the guard finish their firing and 13 seconds. i stood up and remembered saying

to myself, what should i do? blankent said, those are s, were they? was one of the four students that were killed. here are their photographs. michigan, good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. i was a 20-year-old soldier in vietnam when kent state happen. i was an antiwar activist -- i joined the military to work against the war in vietnam. when that happened, i was receiving antiwar literature. vietnam up and i joined veterans against the war. a short time later, after the airbase,e incident on there was an incident -- i can't say if it was revenge or had any incident to the kent state massacre.

from my talking to the soldiers at that time -- that is what i would do, talk to soldiers and get their opinions of what is going on, and most of them did not care or they were kind of glad it happened. 25 years later, vietnam veterans against the war did go to kent state to participate in a memorial service. you had a question earlier, professor, in which someone asked if there were any other incidents like this, in my recollection, in south carolina, 10 black students were massacred for protesting the war on their campus. can you give me more information on that, sir? host: howard means, how you answer that? guest: three things. number one, jerry lewis just jerryy, i remember asking about, you have any sense this

was live ammunition? he told me he had been a guard at fort knox when he was in the army, protecting the nation's gold supply, carried a rifle and it never had live ammunition in it. open my book with americanss of the 24 who died in vietnam on may 4, 1970. half of them were 20 years or younger. you have to keep that in perspective. four dead there, 24 dead there. third, the event you were talking about was jackson state university in mississippi. later, the 10 days 14th of may. two killed, 10 wounded. the students had started a protest because there was a

rumor that someone had been murdered. troopersssippi state showed up and sprayed the dormitory with gunfire. 150 rounds fired in 28 seconds. that story just disappeared. it disappeared in the scranton commission report. book, kentn the bites dog story. civilians being killed by american soldiers. unfortunately, jack's estate was a dog bites man story. blacktroopers firing on students in 1970 in mississippi was not unheard of. host: pennsylvania, you are next. caller: thank you. junior atventh term

penn state university when we situation. the what made me more unique was the fact i was a vietnam veteran, i was a medic. i spent most of my time at the dispensary. have widespread writing on the campus. there were a number -- we had widespread rioting on the campus, there were fires that were set. even though there were no national guard troops on the campus, we had a large detachment of pennsylvania state troopers. this is the thing i will always remember. as i was walking up rutledge road, i noticed there was a state trooper who was injured by

flying debris. my instinct, having been a medic, was to run over to him and render assistance, but i had long hair. if i had moved toward the comrades, his other there were three or four other state troopers that came to his aid, probably would have clubbed me, so i kept on moving. i really wanted to render aid to the state trooper. advice thatme good i was given while i was in vietnam. he said keep your head down and be good. of few i added, be a man words. thank you for your book. i am going to read it, because that is an important part of my life and history. host: thank you for the call from pennsylvania. report by thethe

former governor of pennsylvania. this is what the cover looks like from the 1970's. your response to that caller? guest: that is a sad story when you can't render help and you have to fight your instincts. it just goes to show you how the nation was. an absence of trust. the next weekend, there is a huge demonstration in washington the next weekend. i remember walking down to that. wisconsin andr of massachusetts avenue nw, you had to go through two circles to get to the mall. a jeep with four soldiers -- i think they were army -- all of them was semi automatics just staring at you

through their sunglasses. it was scary. at the white house that we can, they had done what they do other buses andhey took surrounded the white house to make a wall. they brought the 82nd airborne thend they were staying at executive office building. the white house was an armed encampment at that point. that was the famous moment when richard nixon at 3:30 in the theing to show his valet washington monument. they get up, they get dressed and go down to the mall with secret service people with them. there are tens of thousands of people sleeping in the mall and nixon starts waking them up so he can talk to them. there is a famous photo of nixon, he is neatly dressed.

people aree looking looking at him. just a very, very strange moment. point, in a way, nixon's chief of staff argued afterward that in a way, kent state broke nixon. it was the end of his presidency in this regard -- he had charged j edgar hoover with finding him proof that kent state was started by outside agitators. it was not caused by outside agitators, it was students at the school. hoover could not -- when was unable to produce this evidence, nixon lost his faith in the fbi informed his own

unit. they broke into the democratic national headquarters and watergate followed. i think it is a legitimate point. host: if you travel to the campus of kent state university, there is a memorial that reflects on exactly what happened on may 4, 1970, 50 years ago. we will listen to gary here in washington, d.c. good morning. gary, are you with us? caller: yes i am. good morning and thank you, mr. means. this is wonderful. mr. nixon's speech was incendiary to those of us on the left in those years and at that moment. it was complaining about students destroying

civilization, the universities. people on the left -- i was on the left -- did not believe him. i was teaching at western michigan university at the time and we knew kent state very well. kent state could have happened anywhere because these demonstrations across the country were spontaneous. young men did not want to fight in this war and that probably was a very critical factor. i agree with the caller from penn state, you could tell in those years which side you were on by how you dressed. this is the question i want to ask -- is the country more divided today or then? my own view is it is more divided today because you can't tell who people are by the way they dress. the absence of a credible news media. people retreat into their own holes, they go to the left or the right, and i think the

division is deeper. what do you think? host: let me add the fact we had a draft in the 1970's. question i is a spent a lot of time thinking about lately, especially with the anniversary. i don't know the answer. dividedin 1970, it was more by age. in our own time, it is divided horizontally. obviously, on the republican side, it is an older and whiter audience. don't have at we credible news media, i do think we have a credible news media, but you can hibernate with any news view you want. kent state was reported by three

networks and a handful of magazines that you trusted -- time, newsweek, life. cronkite and one other person -- huntley brinkley. you could not cocoon in your own news world. you can cocoon in your own news world now, which gives you a support system for whatever you want to believe. it was much harder to do that in 1970. a good point that there was a draft in 1970. obviously, the vietnam war was the end of the draft. we can argue if national service should be reinstated. history, thisoral one from 2013 from a student

from kent state, what he saw, heard and remembered. [video clip] >> why are they firing? we were not posing a threat. and that i thought to myself, i am sure they are not firing live ammunition, they are firing blanks as a way to try to disperse the crowd. after four or five seconds of firing, i realized, even if they are firing blanks, i am close enough i could be injured. it was at that point i dove to the ground and they continue to fire another seven or eight seconds. firing is whened i stood up, looked around, and saw clearly the hidden firing live ammunition because there were students injured around me. base of that sculpture. cleary was the first person

i saw who was not getting up when the rest of us were. shirt and saw he had a bullet wound in his chest. host: reflecting on what happened 50 years ago. let's get back to your phone calls. waynesboro, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. in 1970, i was 19 years old. i was a student at the university of maryland in college park. i wanted to read a paragraph i wrote about the kent state killings. i wrote this several years ago. background, in 1969, 1970, 1971, they were huge demonstrations against the vietnam war in washington, d.c. one of the demonstrations, the washington post estimated there were more than one million people there.

were justnstrations getting larger and larger. maryland,versity of and many other colleges, there were demonstrations across the country. at the university of maryland, the national guard was called in and i was covering some of those demonstrations for the student newspaper, as was the entire staff of the newspaper at that time. so that is just some background. here is what i wrote about kent state. students 1970, four were shot dead by ohio national guard's men at ohio's kent state university. i remember that day vividly. prior to that day, it was a heavy time for young people and students. it seemed like older people and some politicians were paying attention to the protests and

their messages. but when i heard about the four students who were killed, it was chilling. i was stunned. it stopped me cold. i remember thinking, this is a war and the guns are aimed at us. host: thank you for the call from pennsylvania. i am going to add to that because we have another student on the phone. betty is joining us from austin, texas. what do you remember? lunch, i was having was at lake hall, it had a view of the hillside. i saw the puff of smoke after the shots were not. something may be go to the doors of the hall and opened the doors and it was a good thing, because there were stampeding students who were trying to get away from the shots and the danger. t is nice to see mr. means'

research of what he has done. it is accurate. there were so many things that were so inaccurate for so many years. robert mitchum wrote a bestseller that was totally inaccurate, saying he was there. he totally was not there. his descriptions were 180 degrees different from what actually transpired. i happen to have known about 9/10 of the people he interviewed for the book and they gave different recollections from which they were quoted. mr. means being accurate, it changed many people's lives, including my own. i moved to texas. mom and dad were not paying for school anymore after that. go, asefore we let you that day unfolded and you had a chance to reflect on what you saw, having been on campus at kent state university, can you

recall what you were thinking later in the day and into the evening? caller: we all had hair standing up on the back of our next. we were horrified and had adrenaline more than ever before. more than we had ever experienced in our young lives. we did not know how to take anything. vieward all the points of and they were all consistent and accurate. meansnice to hear mr. saying accurate things about what went on. afterwards, the whole point of view was inaccurate. i did something -- something very bizarre, i went to the site where the killings took place and i picked up some of the bullet shows. i don't know why i did, but i just did. the bullet shells were still hot, they burned my hands and i

dropped them. there was a controversy about who it was doing the shooting -- was it the students or the guardsmen? i wanted to get the word out. kent paper, i called the kent police, i called the fbi, i called the cleveland police, i called the cleveland dealer, i called to let people know that i could describe the shells and nobody ever took my statement. youth against the establishment. that was our point of view at the time. call,thank you for the now living in austin, texas. in 1970. at kent state

your thoughts? guest: they are wonderful stories. it just reminded me, when i started this book, i did not know there were 125 oral histories sitting in the library at kent state university. i dove into those and read every one of them. everyone one of them tells a story and half of them are heartbreaking stories. cache ofamazing documentation. the university is to be congratulated of the care they have taken. initially, they wanted to obliterate the memory of what happened, but laura davis and some other people, jerry lewis, have convinced them to do this the right way. histories are a treasure and a heartbreak.

it is emotional to read them. host: the book is titled "67 shots: kent state and the end of american innocence". how did itestion -- end our innocence? sense,the most immediate it ended our innocence in thinking the guard would always protect us, that the military would not fire on american citizens. i think it had a profound effect on antiwar movement, generally. the innocence of the 1960's, you could smoke all of the pot you wanted what you were protesting. grown-ups were afraid of you. i think this is reasserting the is reassuring authority over citizens in an unattractive way. host: howard means joining us from his home in virginia. we thank you for being with us on the 50th anniversary of the

shootings on the campus of kent state university. a reminder, the speech that sparked many of those protests in early may of 1970, it was made from the white house from president richard nixon. specifically in cambodia and southeast asia. , here is that speech ingc-span3 its entirety from april 30, 1970. a reminder we are back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern, a historic moment for c-span and the supreme court. live oral arguments you can here on c-span radio and c-span television from the supreme court as justices hear oral arguments on a copyright issue via telephone. morningtalk tomorrow with jeffrey rosen of the constitution center about the significance of this development. we are back tomorrow evening at 8:00 p.m. eastern with a

primetime addition of "the washington journal." enjoy the rest of your weekend, stay safe, keep healthy, have a great weekend. ♪ ♪ a, how at on q and south sudanese video game developer is bringing peace and conflict resolution through the refugee experience to a wider audience. >> my country is a country where 73% of the population is in poverty. they were raised up in war. so when i was playing grand what ifto, i thought

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